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Is the Nintendo 64 the hardest retro console to emulate?
- Thread starter VARIA
- Start date
Yup. N64 is almost the same age now as the Atari 2600 was when the N64 launched. People definitely considered that retro by the mid-90s.
Aquamarine
Member
Xbox isn't the answer. Its mythical emulation status has been overblown.
Sure, it's difficult, but it's nowhere near impossible to achieve.
Hell, blueshogun96 made it 20% of the way there all on his own with Cxbx. He even got a few games to run before he got busy with other stuff and stopped working on it.
Cxbx compatibility list:
Total Games: 61
Playable: 5
Ingame: 11
Menus: 11
Intros: 29
Nothing (doesn't crash): 5
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
You must have one hell of a graphics card then. From what I remember those are like...the bare requirements for decent Saturn emu on a PC. Or you went hard on tweaking some settings.
Was it a Core Duo Quad or just a regular Core Duo?
I think someone had that post on a thread here last year. Didn't also mention a big problem being OG Xbox's BIOS is kinda funky? Something about where the BIOS is located and how it loads, can't exactly recall. They also said the graphics card is completely custom and never got a PC release.
Souldriver
Member
Unless there was a certain threshold and once you reach it, n64 development becomes clear and easy, I'd assume both statements are correct. If even experienced developers are burdened with a learning curve, there's less time for everything else that makes a game good.
Either way, it seems like a really stupid decision from Nintendo.
I have been playing emulated N64 games rendered at resolutions like 1600x1200 for a decade or so. Can you actually render 3D Saturn games at higher than the default 320x240 (or rarely 640x480)? Back before I modded my Saturn and actually tried emulators, I swear you could only upscale. If that is still the case, I don't see the OP's reasoning. If N64 is "harder" than Saturn, why can I render Conker's Bad Fur day at 1600x1200 but not Panzer Dragoon (or lovely Bulk Slash)? Someone enlighten me if I'm wrong, I've love to play some HD Saturn just for kicks.
Age alone isn't really a good indicator of what's retro.
If someone were to make a "retro" game inspired by xbox 1 graphics, how would that even work? The top xbox games are still pretty much comparable to some of the less impressive modern games, except in SD and a bit lower fidelity overall.
VARIA
Member
Bare bones core duo with whatever terrible integrated graphics chip comes stock with those machines. Still surprises me how smooth and efficiently it runs SSF.
terrisus
Member
Here's a set of counter-examples:
Something is extremely easy to program for, but doesn't let you do very much
This is great for the inexperienced programmer, as they can put something together and feel successful
This is frustrating for the experienced programmer, since they can't do what they want with it
Something is very difficult to program for, but allows full access to the system's features
This is bad for the inexperienced programmer, since they can't do anything useful with it
This is great for the experienced programmer, since, once they've learned how to use the language, they can do whatever they want with it
Think a very basic WYSIWYG GUI program maker versus C++ for a more concrete example.
A good judgement. Especially games like Chaos Theory, Ninja Gaiden, and 720p 60fps Soul Calibur 2. If you released games with these same graphics (mostly 480 resolution included) in a Indie PC game, you'd just get complaints that the "lazy devs" didn't include a 1080p option. No one would see it as retro.
Dreamcast is the last retro console. Let it be so.
That right there is why SSF sucks. Daemon tools comes with OpenCandy in it's installer which can install malware on your machine if you're unlucky (apparently even if you uncheck all offers). Other virtual drive software doesn't work very well with SSF either. That's one reason I stick with Yabause, even though it's not as compatible yet.
I had a specific config for this game set once, but it broke somewhere along the way as RetroArch updated. Dash forward and back on the shoulders and dash up and down on Y and B on my Wii U Pro (I like A and X as my primary jump and attack buttons on that controller for most games). Then moved dialog proceed to a trigger I think. I should try getting that to work again.
Edit: Got the control config working in the 1.0.0.3 beta. Easier than I thought, though mainly because I have a pretty good handle on RetroArch's layered input system at this point. That setup makes the game much more enjoyable.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I mean, if we're going to wall off "retro" as a style of game, I'd say 16-bit is the last group of "retro" systems, and Gen 5 and Gen 6 are "post-retro". Dramatically different styles of gameplay between those groups of games and modern gaming.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Damn for real? Lol I would have never guessed; it'd probably run it even better now w/ the latest developments.
I don't think rendering has anything to do with one being "harder" to make games for vs. the other.
Wouldn't think so, anyway.
Really? For example, Nintendo DS has been emulated for years. However, it used to only be able to render 256x192, the native resolution. Only in this year, 2014, and after continued development, can we now render games in 1024x768. That seems proof to me that it is harder to render above native in emulators.
To my knowledge, we can still only render Saturn games in native resolution. Maybe it's the quads? That has to mean it's "harder" at least in some way than N64 emulators which easily renders 1600x1200 and other high resolutions.
Jawmuncher
Member
OG Xbox has no fully functional emulator.
It wins by defaul.
It wins by defaul.
Yabause has supported hi res rendering in GL for awhile now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNm5X8GfOxU
Based on my experience, Sega Saturn emulation is atrocious. Far worse than N64. Both in terms of the emulators themselves being shitty in several ways with bad U.I, lack of stability, crashes, bad options and lack of options and in bad performance. When we could competently emulate most popular N64 games for a long time.
If that's thee cut off then Sega Saturn takes the prize for this thread.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
I was only going off a hunch, but since you do bring up quads, that could very well have something to do with it. N64's difficulty probably isn't as well known as Saturn's; personally I only know of that from the fact it has no audio DSP (an incredibly stupid decision) and the microcode fiascos.
But yeah, there were never scenarios (to our knowledge, anyway) of devs going as far as using the sound processor for graphics output, like with Saturn. So Saturn is probably still the harder of the two architectures (makes sense b/c at some point N64's design could've been Saturn's!)
Are there any known issues with rendering PS1 games beyond their native resolutions?
Daemon Tools isn't needed, SSF can use your CD-ROM drive. You can play your original copy just fine. What it lacks is a virtual drive for the iso you got off the net, but you can use any drive virtualiser just fine. You can mount .iso as virtual drive natively on Windows 8.1, or use external tools like Alcohol 120%. Or just burn your iso on a disc.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Me to exactly, I had a Vista system with an Intel IGP and a low-end C2D and run SSF very well. To answer you earlier question though, someone has continually worked on it so emulation is now in a good state. Look at PCSX2 for example, as someone said in this thread the software emulation is pretty much perfect.
This is something I've always wondered, why is it that people from the console makers or even game developers give a helping hand. The emulator authors have to break their backs trying to understand the intricacies of the system, is it that rare that someone gives them a few nudges-and-winks in the right direction?
I was under the impressions that N64 emulation was more far along than Saturn emulation was.
Don't know if I'd call Xbox retro. And the main reason Xbox doesn't have good emulation is simply a lack of interest. There are other factors sure, but if it had anywhere near the number of good exclusives that PS2 and GCN had, more people would have bothered to find a good way to emulate it by now.
Don't know if I'd call Xbox retro. And the main reason Xbox doesn't have good emulation is simply a lack of interest. There are other factors sure, but if it had anywhere near the number of good exclusives that PS2 and GCN had, more people would have bothered to find a good way to emulate it by now.
What? N64 emulation is fantastic.
It took YEARS for Sega Saturn emulation to get near to where the state of N64 emulation is today.
And XBOX emulation is DEAD.
btw, PS2 emulation is pretty piss-poor in my opinion, with glitches and bugs in nearly everything. The 32/64bit gen really is where "console-experience" emulation stops.
If they do, it's usually kept on the down-low.
Well, except in one particular case: Sega hired Steve Snake, the author of KGEN, to create a Genesis emulator for Dreamcast. Apparently, they gave him access to documentation that wasn't available any other way, and he eventually used that knowledge to create Kega, which is definitely the most accurate Genesis emulator available, and has been ever since.
Who wants to put a disc in a drive every time when it's super easy to rip your own games to your hard drive and load them directly in Yabause? Every other disc based system's most compatible emulator has direct ISO loading; SSF has always been an annoying exception (there was Magic Engine too, but that was surpassed by Mednafen). From what I can find, Win8 can only mount .iso files; bin/cue is the preferred format for Saturn ISOs. You might be able to convert a bin/cue to .iso format, but it would probably mess up the redbook audio.
Genesis Plus GX is on par or has even surpassed it in everything except 32x emulation, which it just doesn't support. For example; no messing around with a perfect sync option to get Popful Mail working like Kega; it just works.
Never knew that, really interesting.
Can you explain how the open-source and daily build thing works. Isn't software constantly tested after the smallest of changes, how is it that they add stuff so regularly then? Also don't additions take time to write, how can one person do one thing while another does another on the same emulator.
These projects use version control systems which lets developers "commit" changes to a repository, which will merge their changes with what's current, and also create a snapshot at that point in the source so that version of the source (the entire thing, including their changes) can be checked out on its own, or even reverted to if their changes break anything. On top of that, developers work on things locally and test them before committing them in the first place.
dreampeppers99
Member
I think that the fair and accurate answer is almost impossible. There are some fallacies that we need to address though:
First of all, there is no pure emulation, it's always a mix of techniques such as emulation/simulation/guessation (mainly cause lack of docs). And I believe that even one of the most perfect emulators have yet simulations.
The software complexity can be measure by n ways (code size, number of components...), I think we can mix some of these measures to come to a conclusion.
Although PCSX2 is out and running almost any game of PS2 in full HD, I believe that PS2 is the most hard hardware to emulate. My reasons are: pretty complex parts: dma, mmu, floating point unit, security, vu...
One thing really hard to do is to write a dynarec. (simplifying this at maximum, the assembler for CPU x translated to CPU y) And pcsx2 guys did and amazing work writing one.
I think the next big revelation we're gonna have at emulation scene it'll be around PS3 and 3DS emulators (both already booted a real game)
- console x is not emulated cause it is hard
- if console y have an pretty good emulator then it was easy
First of all, there is no pure emulation, it's always a mix of techniques such as emulation/simulation/guessation (mainly cause lack of docs). And I believe that even one of the most perfect emulators have yet simulations.
The software complexity can be measure by n ways (code size, number of components...), I think we can mix some of these measures to come to a conclusion.
Although PCSX2 is out and running almost any game of PS2 in full HD, I believe that PS2 is the most hard hardware to emulate. My reasons are: pretty complex parts: dma, mmu, floating point unit, security, vu...
One thing really hard to do is to write a dynarec. (simplifying this at maximum, the assembler for CPU x translated to CPU y) And pcsx2 guys did and amazing work writing one.
I think the next big revelation we're gonna have at emulation scene it'll be around PS3 and 3DS emulators (both already booted a real game)
revolverjgw
Member
Been a while since I tried, but I remember some 3DO games ran poorly on a PC I had that otherwise could handle PS2 and Gamecube games easily.
Nah, any game that uses the thumbstick a lot can leave many a blister on poor kids thumbs.
Omnii-chan
Member
I think the hardest are PS2 and Xbox because of their sound chips or something.
lmao no it's not. Kega uses numerous game-specific timing hacks to get it going. It's roughly comparable to SNES9x. Exodus is the only cycle-accurate genesis emulator.
nkarafo
Member
Seems everyone forgets the Atari Jaguar.
There are only a few emulators for it and the two best ones don't play more than 50-60% of games properly. Waiting for a good emulator since 1999. N64 emulation is better. There are only a handful of games that don't work properly.
Even if someone wanted to help emulator programmers, sometimes it's not their property to give away if another company wrote a component or just licensed it.
Yeah xbox wins easily
With my experience is probably to save lots of people of the Toe Jam & earl 3 experience
When the Wii was released it had SNES virtual console.
Now that the WiiU is released the Snes is to the Wii what the N64 is to the WiiU
With my experience is probably to save lots of people of the Toe Jam & earl 3 experience
When the Wii was released it had SNES virtual console.
Now that the WiiU is released the Snes is to the Wii what the N64 is to the WiiU
nkarafo
Member
I never had issues with this game, except some slowdowns that got fixed on my new hardware.
baphomet
Member
How long has it been since you've played an Xbox? You are grossly overestimating the graphics it had.
nkarafo
Member
Well, anyway, to answer to the OP about N64 emulation.
PJ64 2.1 with a couple of sound and gfx plugins that you save for each game separately, plays about the 95% of N64 games near perfectly. The problem is the default settings of the emulator itself. Each game needs to have different options to work properly but the default ones are terrible. In fact, there is a certain option that needs to be unchecked for every single game, meaning that no game works as it should with the default options.
PJ64 2.1 with a couple of sound and gfx plugins that you save for each game separately, plays about the 95% of N64 games near perfectly. The problem is the default settings of the emulator itself. Each game needs to have different options to work properly but the default ones are terrible. In fact, there is a certain option that needs to be unchecked for every single game, meaning that no game works as it should with the default options.
terrisus
Member
Certain Dolphin builds can recognize Wii U software. Not to a playable state, but the very early process of being able to read and acknowledge the games is there, even if it can't be booted.
All you need then is a way to sync the Gamepad to a PC, which I believe can already be done.
charlequin
Banned
If we're going by actual results, SSF and Yabause have come to be noticeably better than the best N64 emulators at this point. People who are saying Saturn are operating on old information; it's progressed a ton in the last five years, while N64 emulation has been stagnant for a decade.
These days the big systems (that are old enough to consider, anyway) with poor emulation support are Xbox, then Dreamcast, then N64, I would say.
As of a month ago users are now allowed to register for NeoGAF who weren't born yet when the Xbox was first released.
Has the sound emulation improved? For a very long time nothing else even got close to Kega on accurate sound output.
Well, my first thought is that it would look basically like Five Nights at Freddy's.
I was 6 and in the 1st grade when the xbox came out , now im 19n my 2nd year college. If that not retro noting is.
Spyder_Monkey
Banned
Can someone explain to me how the Playstation 3, a console with architecture that's allegedly hard to code for is able to boot up a game, but an emulator doesn't exist with the OG Xbox which is basically a PC circa 2001.
Way more interest in the PS3.
Plus the fact that most if not all the top selling Xbox games also had PC ports. What's the point of emulation when Halo 1 and 2 both have versions with more features and a higher framerate?
charlequin
Banned
Yes, your premises are wrong. Cxbx can boot several games. Being able to boot a couple games to a title screen is not the lion's share of the work involved in creating a functional emulator.