The State of Emulation topic

[Lemnear]

Increasing your emulator's CPU overclock and / or disc read speed might improve it. Some emulators also have a 'disc image mode' setting that can load the whole thing into RAM at startup, which speeds up reads even more.

Probably this will solve all my problems (1GB ram is enough for stuff between 1973 and 2003 right?)

That's an occupational hazard of emulation if the original hardware couldn't hit 60, neither will an accurate emulator - hence why we have CPU / GTE / Disc speed settings that can be used to create an artificial 'PS1 Pro' that can.

Original hardware can. The PSC can too, if it was sold with 20 pre-load games, it can run the rest at least (almost all), and every previous consoles too! (portables comprehended)

But hey, i want to play them "as intended in origin", so no fps speed up, only the original one for their respective region.


Fun Fact:
A lot of games runs at very weird Frame Rate (both in original hardware and PSC):

- Need For Speed: Road Challenger 35fps (PAL) (weird since is: 30fps NTSC = 25fps PAL and 60fps NTSC = 50fps PAL), same for Driver.
- 60fps for ALL the fighting games (All Regions)
- Strategy games are FPS Free , from 12 to 50 (PAL).
- All the Final Fantasy runs at 30 (All Regions), 15fps during the fights, but menus are rendered at 60.
- Crash Bandicoot runs at 30fps (All Regions).

[Lander]

Probably this will solve all my problems (1GB ram is enough for stuff between 1973 and 2003 right?)

For regular use it should be fine, though might be a bit tight for preloading entire ISOs depending on how much RAM the OS and emulator take.
You'll probably know if it runs out, since out-of-memory errors either hard crash, or slow down massively as the OS starts shuttling data between disk and RAM.

Original hardware can. The PSC can too, if it was sold with 20 pre-load games, it can run the rest at least (almost all), and every previous consoles too! (portables comprehended)

But hey, i want to play them "as intended in origin", so no fps speed up, only the original one for their respective region.

Hmm, are you trying to run built-in PS Classic games on a jailbroken PS Classic or something?
If behaviour is different across official and third-party emulators, then the official one probably has some config / tweaks / fixes baked in to make sure it works right.
Might be worth trying different emulators (or cores, if you're on Retroarch or such) to see if anything changes.

Fun Fact:
A lot of games runs at very weird Frame Rate (both in original hardware and PSC):

- Need For Speed: Road Challenger 35fps (PAL) (weird since is: 30fps NTSC = 25fps PAL and 60fps NTSC = 50fps PAL), same for Driver.
- 60fps for ALL the fighting games (All Regions)
- Strategy games are FPS Free , from 12 to 50 (PAL).
- All the Final Fantasy runs at 30 (All Regions), 15fps during the fights, but menus are rendered at 60.
- Crash Bandicoot runs at 30fps (All Regions).

Ugh, the Final Fantasy gameplay / menu split! Makes emulation the only really good way to play, since all the modern ports use the battle FPS for menus and end up feeling awful.

[Lemnear]

Probably this will solve all my problems (1GB ram is enough for stuff between 1973 and 2003 right?)

For regular use it should be fine, though might be a bit tight for preloading entire ISOs depending on how much RAM the OS and emulator take.
You'll probably know if it runs out, since out-of-memory errors either hard crash, or slow down massively as the OS starts shuttling data between disk and RAM.

Original hardware can. The PSC can too, if it was sold with 20 pre-load games, it can run the rest at least (almost all), and every previous consoles too! (portables comprehended)

But hey, i want to play them "as intended in origin", so no fps speed up, only the original one for their respective region.

Hmm, are you trying to run built-in PS Classic games on a jailbroken PS Classic or something?
If behaviour is different across official and third-party emulators, then the official one probably has some config / tweaks / fixes baked in to make sure it works right.
Might be worth trying different emulators (or cores, if you're on Retroarch or such) to see if anything changes.

Fun Fact:
A lot of games runs at very weird Frame Rate (both in original hardware and PSC):

- Need For Speed: Road Challenger 35fps (PAL) (weird since is: 30fps NTSC = 25fps PAL and 60fps NTSC = 50fps PAL), same for Driver.
- 60fps for ALL the fighting games (All Regions)
- Strategy games are FPS Free , from 12 to 50 (PAL).
- All the Final Fantasy runs at 30 (All Regions), 15fps during the fights, but menus are rendered at 60.
- Crash Bandicoot runs at 30fps (All Regions).

Ugh, the Final Fantasy gameplay / menu split! Makes emulation the only really good way to play, since all the modern ports use the battle FPS for menus and end up feeling awful.

The original Core inside is PCSX ReARMed modified by Sony, the others added (RetroArch) are PCSX UNAI, PCSX NEOS, PCSX PEOPS (an open source project improved by Sony).
EDIT: all the Core works, some better on some games and viceversa, only 2 games crashed actually...and one is blocked at the loading screen...probably they use some kind of internal resource that was present in the original hardware.

Ugh, the Final Fantasy gameplay / menu split! Makes emulation the only really good way to play, since all the modern ports use the battle FPS for menus and end up feeling awful.

Really? All those collections and remasters???
Now i find ridiculous a lot of those ports...
If a publisher/developer still have the original data of the game, they SHOULD make a better job than simply add some nice HD filters..excactly 20$+ of filters...this laziness is UNACCEPTABLE!!!

Fun that under the period of the first Playstation, and the PSP, Sony itself promoted secretly modding and piracy to spread the hardware.
Source: my father is a shop owner and at the time was a Regional Sony Agent during 1994-2009...and yes, i was the young demo-player to show the console to the public for the first 3 playstation...

[BryanM]

I haven't played very many of them, but there was definitely a time when they were completely incompetent when it came to dropped button inputs. Final Fantasy 4 GBA especially, and I've heard PSP Tactics was bad. Fans had to fix their games for them, of course.

Well, I don't know if that's any better or worse than the technical incompetence of Pokemon games lately. At least the rubbish there is fun and interesting to watch from afar. Not the grim grueling depression when your fingers aren't allowed to work.

[BryanM]

Whelp, Yuzu and Citra are dead.

Working up some good vibes while going into the Switch 2 I guess. Yaaaay nintendo.......



Citra's ability to update its version from within the software itself was always one of those modern features that made me feel like I was living in the future.

[XoPachi]

They shouldn't have been paywalling patches and prelaunch updates.
I heard they gave Nintendo the data on everyone who used the emulator to play Tears early?

[BryanM]

It wouldn't have made any difference. I'm not even entirely convinced the leak was the primary reason.

One speculation that's pretty likely is that the Switch 2 is going to be similar to the Switch fundamentally. So another Gamecube <-> Wii situation is very possible. Maybe the intimidation will lower the quality of the guys who decide to pick up the fork, but it's probably inevitable their new console is going to have an emulator very early in its lifecycle.

It's all kind of a weird time, with the AI stuff finally coming into its own. This might be the final decade that owning IP even means much at all...

[Udderdude]

I'm willing to bet the Switch 2 will be hacked wide open within weeks or months. Nintendo can't into security. Never have been able to, either. And since it's so similar to the Switch, similar to the GameCube and Wii, they will both be able to run in the same emulator.

[Osirus]

And now the conspiracy theories come out.

[Lander]

Severe news. And Citra still doesn't run Star Fox 64 3D properly, pah!

I'd speculate this is a knock-on from recent-ish shifts in the wider PC piracy scene; Denuvo has gained significant extra traction in recent years, locking out all but the most obsessed crackers from putting out major releases.

As a result, the repackers that bottom-feed that ecosystem started packaging up ROMs and emulators with autorun batch files instead - a "poor man's PC version" courtesy of Nintendo, if you will. Not that it makes a difference to most would-be corsairs.

So on top of the Yuzu plays it better on day one sect drawing attention to exclusives like Zelda and Metroid, you also had a more general Yuzu steals it better on day one effect for the broader Switch library.

Add to that the explosive popularity of the Steam Deck, and it's no great surprise that the bubble would eventually become noticeable enough to burst.

[BryanM]

I'm always impressed by how much better the 3d games on the DS and 3DS look with higher internal resolutions. It's like chonky and smooth peanut butter. It also really illustrates how low poly PSX1 and N64 style art can look really good, if the lines aren't jaggy and the textures aren't 2 pixels of smeared grease like a Pokemon tree.

Hearing stuff like how the latest Pokemon games could be played in real time instead of Matrix time... Eh, this kind of thing is reminiscent of the UltraHLE days, for sure...

[Marc]

Picked up a decent controller, and I'm amazed at just how much of an emulation beast my S23 Ultra is. Damn. F-Zero GX at full HD resolution and NO slowing?

[XoPachi]

I dont know where else to put this, but since it's an adjacent topic, I'll put it here.

Reminder that all 3DS/Wii U online functionality ends on the 8th of this month. If you want to play online, trade Pokemon, earn any new badges, download themes, etc, this is the final week for all of it.

[KAI]

New flycast build came out a few days ago, and its the first naomi emulator in history to have saturation options for analog control.
Now the first 3 Initial D games are finally playable without using a steering wheel.


Always loved how Citra's devs broke a fixed the same games with each new version they released. I stopped updating the emulator at some point during last year when I noticed they kept disabing and enabling the car reflection effect on Ridge Racer 3D nonstop.
And then it stopped working on win7... same with duckstation, pcsx2 and dolphin.
I can imagine almost all emulators not working on anything that isnt bloatware 10 or 11 in the near future.

[BryanM]

And then it stopped working on win7... same with duckstation, pcsx2 and dolphin.
I can imagine almost all emulators not working on anything that isnt bloatware 10 or 11 in the near future.

It's a non-starter for me as well. But I guess all these huge collaborative community projects have to go with the flow, since most people use their computers as nothing more than toys I guess...

It's gonna be hella shit when the OS's with serious integrated AI start coming out. If you feel like you don't own your own computer in the age of always-online OS DRM, auto-updates, always running in the background "virus protection" (I've literally seen Windows 10 slapped on refurbished PC's, and render them completely inoperable thanks to this. Yeah yeah, use 1.0+ ghz and 800+ MB of ram, on something with only two processors and a couple Ghz/GB. Yeah. Very cool. Very helpful. Yes.).... it's only gonna get more cyberpunk. Get sent to gulag for playing 2600 Combat, etc.

.... "cyberpunk" isn't really the right name for this real life stuff. Lots of cyber, very little punk. It's more like "cyberchump"....

[Sima Tuna]

And then it stopped working on win7... same with duckstation, pcsx2 and dolphin.
I can imagine almost all emulators not working on anything that isnt bloatware 10 or 11 in the near future.

It's a non-starter for me as well. But I guess all these huge collaborative community projects have to go with the flow, since most people use their computers as nothing more than toys I guess...

It's gonna be hella shit when the OS's with serious integrated AI start coming out. If you feel like you don't own your own computer in the age of always-online OS DRM, auto-updates, always running in the background "virus protection" (I've literally seen Windows 10 slapped on refurbished PC's, and render them completely inoperable thanks to this. Yeah yeah, use 1.0 ghz and 800 GB of ram, on something with only two processors and a couple Ghz/GB. Yeah. Very cool. Very helpful. Yes.).... it's only gonna get more cyberpunk. Get sent to gulag for playing 2600 Combat, etc.

.... "cyberpunk" isn't really the right name for this real life stuff. Lots of cyber, very little punk. It's more like "cyberchump"....

Cyberwagecuck

[Bassa-Bassa]

Always loved how Citra's devs broke a fixed the same games with each new version they released. I stopped updating the emulator at some point during last year when I noticed they kept disabing and enabling the car reflection effect on Ridge Racer 3D nonstop.
And then it stopped working on win7... same with duckstation, pcsx2 and dolphin.
I can imagine almost all emulators not working on anything that isnt bloatware 10 or 11 in the near future.

That sucks. So what would be the last Dolphin and Ducktation versions with Windows 7 compatibilty?

[KAI]

According to this post, from build 5.0-16393 onward Dolphin dropped the win7 support, so any intermediate version before that should still work on 7.

In Duckstation's case, this seems to be the last version working on 7, but the drop wasnt fully documented by the devs so im not 100% sure about it.

The thing is, since they impelemted new features not compatible with older operating systems all of a sudden, some of these "last working" builds could have issues that were in the middle of being fixed or some shit like that.
Just to give you an idea, the latest version of Citra that supported 7 doesnt have the car textures on RR3D I mentioned before.

Kinda sad to know most devs merged everything for the last time without even checking if the emulators were at least in a stable state.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Thanks for the links, Kai.

[KAI]

Lmao, taito is finally suing the emulator thingy that ask for money to play the the newest and best games.

[Lander]

Always loved how Citra's devs broke a fixed the same games with each new version they released. I stopped updating the emulator at some point during last year when I noticed they kept disabing and enabling the car reflection effect on Ridge Racer 3D nonstop.
And then it stopped working on win7... same with duckstation, pcsx2 and dolphin.
I can imagine almost all emulators not working on anything that isnt bloatware 10 or 11 in the near future.

The march of time is a bastard for software. I have like... 80-some old projects in my code archive, and only about a quarter of them are feasible to build and run without sinking tons of time into getting all the dependencies updated, dealing with API breakage that may or may not be well-documented, et cetera et cetera.

Dual-booting a tiny LTS Linux specifically for emulation might be worth a dabble if this stuff is a concern in the long-term; bit of a faff to acclimate, but you get leagues more control over running old versions than aggressive Windows Update will allow.
Makes me wonder if Windows' suckage will eventually give rise to a SteamOS successor that you boot into specifically for playing games without the mountain of bloat.

[sunnshiner]

Always loved how Citra's devs broke a fixed the same games with each new version they released. I stopped updating the emulator at some point during last year when I noticed they kept disabing and enabling the car reflection effect on Ridge Racer 3D nonstop.
And then it stopped working on win7... same with duckstation, pcsx2 and dolphin.
I can imagine almost all emulators not working on anything that isnt bloatware 10 or 11 in the near future.

The march of time is a bastard for software. I have like... 80-some old projects in my code archive, and only about a quarter of them are feasible to build and run without sinking tons of time into getting all the dependencies updated, dealing with API breakage that may or may not be well-documented, et cetera et cetera.

Dual-booting a tiny LTS Linux specifically for emulation might be worth a dabble if this stuff is a concern in the long-term; bit of a faff to acclimate, but you get leagues more control over running old versions than aggressive Windows Update will allow.
Makes me wonder if Windows' suckage will eventually give rise to a SteamOS successor that you boot into specifically for playing games without the mountain of bloat.

Windows is starting to suck balls even more than it did with all its AI Bing bollocks.