The State of Emulation topic

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
fandangos
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by fandangos »

ZellSF wrote:
fandangos wrote: Ok, this I'm not following.
Games have inner lag, a lag caused by the code of the game, this means a real snes hooked into a crt would have this lag.
Let's say this is a 2 frame lag.
Now this game is hooked into a LCD panel that adds another 2 frames of lag.

Now if you turn run ahead on, set it to 2 frames you would be covering the game internal lag, caused by the code, like in the SmokeMonster's video you see that MK Snes has more lag compared to Genesis version.
But you would still have the 2 frames of lag on your display.
They're just different sources of lag, where your lag comes from doesn't really matter as long as your end result is 2 frames of lag (as the hypothetical game here is designed for).
fandangos wrote:Also if I understand it correctly, when you boot the game, the way it works you would not see the initial 2 frames so it can catch up with what it should be on a CRT. I mean, this would also mean if you have a fast speed camera and have a counter rolling on the CRT and LCD both would be exactly on the same frame?
If you delay the startup of the CRT to match the LCD then they would match up, yes. If they you don't, they won't. It's not actually real time travel.

I'm really confused as why you keep talking about this, what scenario do you have that requires syncing up a CRT and LCD exactly to within a few frames?
I think I give up on understanding it all :(

What I'm trying to do is compare emulation with run-ahead vs real hardware on a CRT.

The conclusion I'm getting from all this is:
Situation A: if a game has 2 frames of inner lag caused by the code and you use run ahead on your display with 2 frames of lag your experience would be exactly the same as the crt with real hardware, because the real hardware you would be always locked to the mentioned 2 frames of lag.

Situation B: if a game has zero frames of lag, there's nothing run ahead can do. Because there's no inner lag to that software and you are still facing your display, controller, OS lag. In this situation playing on real hardware is faster.

Run Ahead doesn't mean zero lag. It means fixing one end to compensate for the other.
ZellSF
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by ZellSF »

That's pretty much it, yes.
fandangos
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by fandangos »

ZellSF wrote:That's pretty much it, yes.
Fuck me, finally!

Thank you for your patience explaining this to me and sorry for the mess in the thread but it was much appreciated to understand how it works.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

The obscure Game Boy Pocket Sonar has finally been emulated by GBE+.
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casualcoder
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by casualcoder »

What's the gist on finding a "lagless" emulation setup on modern systems & monitors?

I've been using Shmupmame for a while but it doesn't support every game (including non-shmups).

Retroarch seems like it might be on the verge of supplanting it if what I'm hearing is true.


I just don't have the time to test out Retroarch against Shmupmame and would like a handy synopsis for where people are at rn on this subject.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

GroovyMAME, hands down. Xyga's been saying it for (literally) years.

EDIT: Ideally, it should be the latest version, too. Although the last few releases have resulted in Qsound temporarily being broken, if I remember correctly.

You may also want to use higan for the Super Famicom, one of the systems MAME doesn't handle all that well.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
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casualcoder
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by casualcoder »

I appreciate the recommendation, but I went ahead and tested out Retroarch with its supposedly lagless implementation and... honestly the result was the most phenomenal thing I've seen in emulation since it first was made available. I posted about it here.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

It isn't usable yet, but I thought I might spread the word that there's a new PS2 emulator in town:

https://github.com/PSI-Rockin/DobieStation

It is currently limited to booting a small number of commercial titles (including Final Fantasy X, Shadow of the Colossus, and the two Kingdom Hearts games), but the author's been making steady progress.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
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Stevens
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Stevens »

Not sure if this belongs here but Emuparadise is changing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/co ... mupardise/

Get it while it's hot.
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soprano1
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

Stevens wrote:Not sure if this belongs here but Emuparadise is changing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/co ... mupardise/

Get it while it's hot.
Huh. Things seem hotter than I thought.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

Release notes for the latest MAME mention a "major performance optimisation for bgfx video output", from which at least one individual reported better framerates in 3D titles. Has anyone cared to test this out?

It seems MAME's Saturn emulation has also improved. (EDIT: Audio in Raystorm is also vastly more accurate.)

And apparently it's just my machine that won't accept decent N64 emulation... I've tried m64p.github.io, Bizhawk, and even Project64 with GlideN64 and Azimer's audio plugin. The first two of these refuse to display Pokemon Stadium and Mario Kart 64 properly, and the third just crashes on me. Sure wish I knew what I was doing wrong...
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
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tnc
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by tnc »

Do you guys use Xebra or Mednafen for PS1 emulation?
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tomwhite2004
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by tomwhite2004 »

tnc wrote:Do you guys use Xebra or Mednafen for PS1 emulation?
mednafen
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tnc
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by tnc »

tomwhite2004 wrote:mednafen
Thanks. Retroarch seems to be using it as well.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

melonDS 0.7.3 was released just yesterday. These days it's actually faster than DeSmuME in some cases.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

mGBA (PC) has a disable screensaver option that doesn't seem to work when playing with a controller. Anyone experiencing the same? Using the latest version, controller is a SF30 from 8bitdo.
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soprano1
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

edited.
Last edited by soprano1 on Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

While I use that site all the time, I wouldn't link to it if I were you. There are a few links on it that go against this site's guidelines.

EDIT: Hmm, it looks like they've expanded their sections for home computers since I last checked. That's nice.
Last edited by WelshMegalodon on Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
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soprano1
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by soprano1 »

WelshMegalodon wrote:While I use that site all the time, I wouldn't link to it if I were you. There are a few links on it that go against this site's guidelines.
Thanks for the heads up, edited.
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Ed Oscuro »

10,000 discs dumped by Redump last year, yay!

Also, here's a new kid on the block - TeknoParrot, which focuses on emulating PC-based arcade platforms. HotD 4 with sound effects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVeQI6BASFY
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

TeknoParrot's been around since at least 2017, and it's more of a launcher than an emulator proper. Closed-source, too, and highly lacking in proper documentation last time I checked. I hear it's also quite broken with some games. There has been an open-source project derived from it, OpenParrot, but I can't vouch for its quality.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
Finite Continues? Ain't that some shit.
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by evil_ash_xero »

I was curious if there's any good XBox or XBox 360 emulators on PC? I remember the last time I tried to emulate something with polygons, it was PSX, and I got quite a few bugs. But that was years ago.
Is the Dolphin good for Wii games? Or do these emulators have lag problems? I've seen footage of Sin and Punishement 2 in Dolphin, and it looks amazing.

Just curious.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

Emulation of the original Xbox has been famously slow due to relative lack of interest and the complexity of the hardware. Cxbx-Reloaded and XQEMU are the two big Xbox projects, but both are still fairly early in development. XQEMU, the more accurate of the two, doesn't even have working audio yet.

The only Xbox 360 emulator I'm aware of is Xenia. Videos on YouTube suggest that it is... functional... but I really haven't seen or heard much about it.


Dolphin isn't known for having more or less lag than any other emulator. Then again, it is pretty much your only choice for Wii emulation.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Ed Oscuro »

This may be common knowledge 'round these parts, but I recently discovered a post on PSX-Scene by gingerbeardman claiming that the BIOS used by the PSP for PlayStation emulation is unique to the machine - and performs better than the BIOSes used in emulation all these years.

I have a PSP (naturally) so I investigated the rumor. So far, I have not noticed any stability improvements in RetroArch. There may be some framerate improvements when using a higher internal resolution multiplier than default, but I can't confirm anything. The most obvious difference, and one that will save a few seconds of your life with every boot if you want it, is that the first part of the PS boot sequence is gone. The BIOS is also reportedly region free, although I have followed the standard RetroArch instructions and copied it three times, renaming it once for each directory.

Currently I am messing around with Syphon Filter clone (using the SF code?) C-12: The Final Something, and I just finished up Expert, a Japanese exclusive from Nichibutsu. Neither seems to have a framerate improvement under the new firmware, BUT Expert can be "fixed" with other setting in RetroArch. More interestingly, I believe I found that C-12's framerate stayed stable when overclocking the main CPU via RetroArch on the newest PS BIOS from the PSP. On the old scph-5501 BIOS, overclocking within RetroArch would cause the framerate to creep up beyond 29.97fps, the game's normal internal framerate. I am qualifying these findings with a caveat, though - it is possible I twiddled more settings without realizing it.

On that note, RetroArch 1.7.7 is out and in my experience it is a dog. It appears that the latency menu has been tweaked a bit, and it now also appears to support hot-plugging controllers (nice!), but performance on PSX is abysmal for some reason, at least with the recent nVidia drivers (using the second-newest drivers, which have just been replaced on May 9th by bugfixed ones). The headline feature is "widgets," like having an on-screen image of a screenshot flash by - which causes my system to stutter hard, and is something I don't want (Steam similarly previews screenshots by default, and I've also disabled it there). There doesn't appear to be a way to effectively disable these new enhancements, though.
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

Just thought I'd let anyone interested know that PCem's new recompiler is here! Early Pentium software is reported to be much faster, which is great news for anyone wanting to run Windows 95 and 98 games without a virtual machine.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
Finite Continues? Ain't that some shit.
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
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WelshMegalodon
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by WelshMegalodon »

melonDS finally has an OpenGL-based renderer. Again, it's supposedly faster than DeSmuME if your graphics card is up to the task.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
Finite Continues? Ain't that some shit.
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
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Badaud
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Badaud »

This is not a technical feedback, only visual. Maybe this is why I have two bad thumbs on this vid... :wink:

Redream free vs premium

Internal resolution 2560x1920 , 1920X1080 output. (i5 3.00 ghz, 1050 ti)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LGQ_BRXmI0
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BryanM
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by BryanM »

Yuzu's progress has been monumental. Not unthinkable they'll have pretty good compatibility coverage in a year or two.

Things move so fast these days, it doesn't feel as big of a deal as UltraHLE or Bleem did back in the day. Though in retrospect they were little more than interesting footnotes in history.
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third_strike
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by third_strike »

One question:
Can I use this to groovymame?
https://www.evga.com/articles/00429/
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Xyga
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Re: The State of Emulation topic

Post by Xyga »

Depends what you expect from GroovyMAME, if it's for a CRT setup, then nVidia is a bad pick because they're not compatible with CRT_Emudriver, and the latter is only for AMD cards.

With nVidia cards you can use Groovy but not at any refresh rate you'd wish, you'll be limited to a small number fixed custom modes, something like 10 modes, on which all games will lock on to, producing an approximately 99% refresh speed accuracy.
(assuming your version of the nVidia drivers let you create custom resolutions)
Moreover that will be at a fixed native resolution for either a LCD (if that lcd supports non-60Hz refresh rates) or a simple PC CRT.
You could eventually get 15Khz output the old way using Soft15Khz, but it's a really obsolete method I don't recommend.

Much simpler is to get an AMD card with an analogue VGA or DVI-I output (the 'I' is crucial), there are many from the old Radeaon HD series to the later 'R' series that feature those.
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