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[japtor]

Highly doubtful.

640x480? Yes.

60 fps? Probably not. Today's emulators are more than capable of running N64 games at 200+ FPS, but if you set them beyond anything than their intended speed then they are unplayable. Others can probably explain it better than I can, but to emulate properly you have to accurately emulate the CPU, which means setting your virtual CPU to the same speed as the N64's. It's an issue with how the games are coded.....similarly, you could overclock the Xbox CPU and get better framerates, but the speed and timing of of the games would be totally fucked up.

the only n64 game i ever really tried emulating was mario 64, and iirc it ran fine at higher fps. im not sure if other n64 games had any issues. it all just depends on how a game is coded.

if you change cpu speeds on games in mame, you can see how different games react. some speed up along with the cpu speed, while others are fine. only example i have off the top of my head are the cave shooters. when overclocked, they run the same, except when it would normally slow down (crapload of bullets on screen), the overclocked one maintains full speed. a console example is with wipeout on psp, it has better fps when overclocked, but the game speed itself isnt messed up afaik. theres also the many pc games that run smoother on higher end hardware but dont mess with the speed (...outside of the old ass games that need to run in dosbox or something to be playable).

im not sure about games within the last decade or so, but i think its mainly just an issue with older games.

...back to the actual topic, how much lag is there, is this even playable?

 

[Tain]

Wow! That is...


...totally fucking illegal and contemptuous.

How is this illegal?

 

[Pikelet]

How is this illegal?

not this shit again. obviously the only thing you would want a nes emulator for is to play nes roms and downloading and playing nes roms is illegal, geddit?

 

[123rl]

Considering sound doesn't work on it yet, still a long ways off..

lol is that true? :lol

I was going to say that it's pointless anyway but ffs if they don't even have sound then it's a total waste of time!

[sarcasm]Let's emulate games that cost almost nothing to buy 2nd hand. For a machine that you can pick up in any car boot sale for the cost of an average lunch...and let's emulate them over a laggy-as-hell connection with altered controls and no sound! That sounds like a damn good idea! [/sarcasm] :lol

If you want to play games like this, buy the originals. Simple as that, IMO. They aren't hard to find, and they cost very little. I just don't see the appeal of playing games in a butchered form. Someone I know from work showed me their emulators on their PSP. It (King of Fighters 2000 iirc) looked nice and ran fairly smoothly. When I said could he turn the sound up, he said it was up but he had to take the music off to keep it running smoothly! :lol Great...

I don't want to take this OT but it's going that way anyway - I'm willing to bet that the Virtual Console is far from 100% smooth. The games will not run as well as they did originally

 

[jerrymaguire]

is it like saying iTunes will never work cos people will just download songs illegally anyway for free!

 

[Tain]

not this shit again. obviously the only thing you would want a nes emulator for is to play nes roms and downloading and playing nes roms is illegal, geddit?

Sorry, but no, not obviously. The software's legal. The methods used to run it are legal, as far as I can tell. If you're anal enough to call out something for being technically illegal, you might as well be anal enough to note when something is technically legal.

And, of course, there are plenty of reasons behind the existence of emulators that don't involve piracy, but too many people seem content to jump to the conclusion that everybody who uses them just wants free games.

I don't want to take this OT but it's going that way anyway - I'm willing to bet that the Virtual Console is far from 100% smooth. The games will not run as well as they did originally

You seriously think so? You're talking about Nintendo's Virtual Console? There's one hell of a difference between running massive KoF 2000 on a PSP and running an N64 game on a next-gen console. The Gamecube ran an emulated version of Ocarina of Time, after all.

 

[123rl]

It also ran Majora's Mask and look what happened there Sound pops and glitches every few minutes.

I know there's a difference and I'm just speculating tbh. Xbox360 emulates XBox games and that's been absolutely dreadful so far, IMO. I'd even go as far as saying that it makes a lot of games unplayable because it's that bad! Obviously I'd like to see it happen perfectly (I want to play Sin And Punishment, dammit!) but I'm keeping my expectations low

 

[elmalloc]

The original XBOX has been hacked for years to do this. You can play NES, SNES, MAME, etc on it. Let me tell you, NES in 1080i hi-def never looked better. There are no jagged edges or anything, every game almost feels like new.

-ELmO

 

[Furoba]

Getting a Media Center or buying the games, in the end you still have to pay.

 

[Snow]

It also ran Majora's Mask and look what happened there Sound pops and glitches every few minutes.

I know there's a difference and I'm just speculating tbh. Xbox360 emulates XBox games and that's been absolutely dreadful so far, IMO. I'd even go as far as saying that it makes a lot of games unplayable because it's that bad! Obviously I'd like to see it happen perfectly (I want to play Sin And Punishment, dammit!) but I'm keeping my expectations low

That was mostly an issue with the hardware, and lack of RAM to store the big Majora's Mask rom in, though, from what I understood. I'm pretty confident that Nintendo can make a N64 emulator work on the Rev. They indeed got pretty close on the GCN (albeit for just 2 games), and with better hardware and more time to develop, I see no reason to assume that N64 emulation will be as glitchy as the N64 emulators floating arround on the net, or as problematic as the xbox emulation on the 360.

 

[border]

the only n64 game i ever really tried emulating was mario 64, and iirc it ran fine at higher fps. im not sure if other n64 games had any issues. it all just depends on how a game is coded.

The frame counter will read 60 in some emus, but it's not actually 60.....play a game like Conker and it will have all the original's chugging. I think you can get Goldeneye and Perfect Dark to 60fps with some heavy tweaking, but most games won't allow you to force a higher framerate.

 

[black_13]

eh what even the point of that when practically except for N64/Dreamcast you can play any old game on the PSP through homebrew and on the go.

Even with that, I'm getting a REV.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

you guys are ALL idiots! Why buy an Xbox360/PS3/Rev when you can just break into a Best Buy wherehouse and steal one AMIRITE?!

 

[Tain]

eh what even the point of that when practically except for N64/Dreamcast you can play any old game on the PSP through homebrew and on the go.

Nah, Mame's nowhere near that point on the PSP.

 

[LM4sure]

xbox 360 hacked? don't think so

 

[Pikelet]

And, of course, there are plenty of reasons behind the existence of emulators that don't involve piracy.

could you please elaborate on this

Sorry, but no, not obviously. The software's legal. The methods used to run it are legal, as far as I can tell.

i only ever said downloading and playing nes roms is illegal which it is. From official nintendo site: http://www.nintendo.com/corp/faqs/legal.html#what%20are%20ROMs

What is a Nintendo Video Game Emulator?

A Nintendo emulator is a software program that is designed to allow game play on a platform that it was not created for. A Nintendo emulator software allows for Nintendo console based or arcade games to be played on personal computers. The video games are obtained by downloading illegally copied software, i.e. Nintendo ROMs, from Internet distributors. Nintendo ROMs then work with the Nintendo emulator to enable game play on the computer.

Can I Download a Nintendo ROM from the Internet if I Already Own the Authentic Game?

There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a "second copy" rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.

sorry for the semi-dodgy source but im in kind of a hurry.

 

[scarybore]

could you please elaborate on this

Creating and testing homebrew games is one I imagine. The main one for me is that your gaming hardware will give up the good fight eventually and die on you, especially in the optical media era. At least then you can pop a legit game into your PC and play it when you can no longer find the hardware anymore in a good condition. Keeping the past alive I guess would be another, in a industry that would rather forget.

i only ever said downloading and playing nes roms is illegal which it is. From official nintendo site: http://www.nintendo.com/corp/faqs/legal.html#what%20are%20ROMs

sorry for the semi-dodgy source but im in kind of a hurry.

I think the problem there providing you are allowed to make backups in your country for fair use or whatever, is that when you are downloading a rom from the Net it is not your backup, it is someone elses.

Sadly not everyone is capable of making their own backups of console games, and I will easily admit that 99% of people using emulators do it for piracy.

 

[Pikelet]

and I will easily admit that 99% of people using emulators do it for piracy.

And that is what it boils down to, people are deluding themselves when they say blanket statements such as "emulation is legal" (not saying anyone in this thread is doing that). This is certainly not helped by the widespread misinformation about copyright laws.

 

[The Faceless Master]

And that is what it boils down to, people are deluding themselves when they say blanket statements such as "emulation is legal" (not saying anyone in this thread is doing that). This is certainly not helped by the widespread misinformation about copyright laws.

emulation IS legal... there is nothing inherently illegal about emulation... it's like how driving a car is legal... but if you stole the car... well then... you get the idea?

 

[Tain]

And that is what it boils down to, people are deluding themselves when they say blanket statements such as "emulation is legal" (not saying anyone in this thread is doing that). This is certainly not helped by the widespread misinformation about copyright laws.

The point I'm trying to make is that the technology is legal. Of course most use it for piracy. And yeah, unless you're ripping the roms yourself, chances are that the ways you obtain your roms are technically illegal. But "emulation is legal" when talking about the technology itself (which is how I tend to think of it) isn't a blanket statement at all. Emulators are completely legal, unless they're bundled with the target platform's copyright-protected BIOS or something.

Creating and testing homebrew games is one I imagine. The main one for me is that your gaming hardware will give up the good fight eventually and die on you, especially in the optical media era. At least then you can pop a legit game into your PC and play it when you can no longer find the hardware anymore in a good condition. Keeping the past alive I guess would be another, in a industry that would rather forget.

The latter one is a big deal for me. I'm sitting here in a cramped up dorm room with a shitton of Genesis and SNES games back at home. Nevermind that the Genesis can barely play half of them every attempt anymore, but there's also the space factor to deal with. Emulation makes all of this a nonissue.

Also, of course, there's homebrew development, and the value of that depends on the system. I'm not too excited about Genesis homebrew or anything, but if I had a GBA flashcart, I'd definitely be playing stuff like roguelikes and Elite: The New Kind on it.

And, finally, there are translations and rom hacking. People can play the original Clock Tower in English. People can actually play the largely unfinished Star Fox 2 SNES in a much better state than it was in thanks to some dedicated fans. People can poke around games and find hidden resources, people can make level editors (and there are some excellent ones out there for some excellent games), and so on.