Emulators vs real hardware. What do you guys think?

[Keade]

My view is that working emulators (I.e. Finished and not WIP) when set up correctly (with CRT EMU), outputting native res and refresh, using decent lag free joysticks and output onto the correct display type (I.e. Crt), are indistinguishable from playing on real hardware.

You should realize that is a bold claim.
There is no standard definition for a "finished" emulator. A few emulators can be considered to be "100%" accurate (Bsnes/Higan ?). Most are not, even emulators that are mostly working and stopped getting updates. Most people consider Zsnes or Snes9X as working emulators (if SMW runs and there is no glaring issue then it's working, right ?), yet they are far behind Bsnes/Higan.

[StrzxgvNuvWvfld]

I used emulators for many years, but more recently I've started to build up a collection of consoles and games and I'm finding owning real hardware far more fun!

I know that in the majority of cases emulators do a pretty faithful job, but I like knowing the hardware I'm using is the same hardware the games were designed for, and the same hardware we were using all those years ago.

With emulators I was guilty of flicking through a front end populated with thousands of games, and never playing anything for more than 10 minutes. Now I buy games that I want to play, and therefore, I often play them properly,

Overall though, I just enjoy the experience of using real hardware. I'm not alone either, when friends come round they often suggest we play some SNES/NES games. No one ever asked me to boot up an emulator!

[cyborc]

I use both. I emulate arcade and 8 and 16 bit games on a CRT. I'm somewhat sensitive to input lag and although I can notice a small difference between a real SNES and retroarch running on a CRT it's not enough to bother me. As far as real hardware goes, I still prefer using an actual Saturn, Dreamcast, PSX and PS2.

[James-F]

With emulators I was guilty of flicking through a front end populated with thousands of games, and never playing anything for more than 10 minutes. Now I buy games that I want to play, and therefore, I often play them properly,
Overall though, I just enjoy the experience of using real hardware. I'm not alone either, when friends come round they often suggest we play some SNES/NES games. No one ever asked me to boot up an emulator!

This is really interesting, as I experience the same.
I assume the psychology behind this is the same as having a physical item/game that has more perceived value than a 100% digital copy.
Same thing with Vinyl/CD and music, for some reason it is a more enjoyable experience than completely digital experience.

I have tried to 'regenerate' this experience with a personal rule of "one console one week", this way for some reason I enjoy and appreciate the console and what it has to offer much more than having all consoles and flashcards at my disposal at any moment, and of course more than emulation.
Even stricter, try to play one console with one or two games per week, that way is similar to what we did back then in the 80s and 90s.

[bigbadboaz]

I fall into the same rut, though if I consciously decide to choose a game and PLAY it, I'm able to do so just as if it was on an old console.

Are you guys truly unable to break out of this cycle if you're on a Pi or some such machine?

[Kyle]

If you want off the analysis paralysis train the way to go is sorting your games by genre. I used do the same where you pull up a complete listing of a system and just go 'meh.' It's much easier to browse the shmups directory and pick a random title from that. I have an arcade stick at my desk with a Pi inside and never have a problem finding something to play. I just normally stick to the shmup/beatemup/fighting folders and I'm good.

Here's an archive I made a few years back that will sort a Nointro NES/SNES/N64/MD/PCE set into respective subdirectories. The flat (f.bat) are simplified and keep it to one directory deep. For MAME I use the cat file to parse these out.

http://costlyclick.com/files/genre.zip

[thebigcheese]

I generally use original hardware. This mostly started because I still had my childhood NES and SNES and probably 30 games for each system, so I already had most of what I'd want to play anyway. Then I bought a Genesis because it was pretty cheap, then a Dreamcast for similar reasons, then things just kinda snowballed from there. I will say that I have nostalgia for having the physical things, so that is certainly part of it, but as emulation becomes better and better, the thing that keeps me on original hardware (aside from already having it) is that it's just easier to use. Yes, I spent some time setting up an OSSC and finding the right low-lag TV to use (and a PVM that is primarily for light gun games and 240p/480i switching games) but, now that's all done, I know that 100% of the games I buy will run with 100% accuracy.

The longer I've been at this, though, the less I care about being 100% accurate. Original hardware is very important in competitive contexts (like speedrunning) because it provides a uniform basis for everyone, but I find that I'd actually be perfectly happy to not have slowdown in SotN or sprite flicker on NES games. Running 240p/480i switching games in an emulator would probably eliminate issues with the resolution switches. At this point, I am mostly hoping for more official remasters, but even then the input lag on Mega Man X Legacy Collection is really disheartening. Perhaps one day things will be different.