Nick Fernandez writes, "After decades of questionable practices around emulation, a chance conversation with a retro game store owner changed my views forever."
The team behind EmuDeck is launching their first hardware product in the form of small retro emulation mini PCs.
...hmm, pretty much anyone can make their own out of a raspberry pi. I use it on my steam deck and soon my ps vita.
If you are a serious gamer and want the best outside of OG hardware then I'd strongly suggest a Mister FPGA. Hardware emulation is the way forward.
I like it. I don’t have the time to figure out DuckStation. This is great. I like that it’s an emulated Dreamcast design
Due to the Cell processor that powered the system, PlayStation 3 emulation on the PlayStation 5 could be held back by important technical limitations
All that processor ever really served was to make game development harder for most people. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
Your right, well up. Till the point they realised how to program it and then it became a monster, they way it off loads tasks to spus and they way it manages this is astounding, I wish they had just upgraded it for ps4 gave it more ram to its disposal as it would truely have been a monster, instead we got an under powered AMD chip and some of the guys here we very disappointed indeed. For a cost point of view it made PS4 more affordable but from a development point of view, we already had the development tools and software
I remember most 3rd party titles being the runt of the litter when it came to ports that generation.
EA made a few bad ports in the opening months of the release. compare 1st party titles. go ahead. do it. oh you cant. not even the same league.
Ignore because they’re arguably widely recognised as one of, if not the best source in the industry… great logic. Well done.
They offer surface level analysis, its like that Tv overlay that displays the framerate, they absolutely have 0 clue with anything development related, or anything behind the scenes, and more often than not, they’re a propaganda machine.
The irony being they clearly do know and they continuously prove that they know.. Relentlessly. If these comments aren’t sarcasm then they’re a sure fire way to make yourself look a bit stupid.
I think they're among the best in the business when it comes to frame by frame analysis, but they often speak on topics where they're not more informed than any other interested and passionate amateur. Quite often it's painful watching their show when they state things like facts when they're in fact wrong, and knowing that most of their viewers will assume they're 100% correct about everything they say. I still enjoy them though, especially the retro stuff.
For those who say DF doesn't know what they are doing...Gotta give us a hard example not a generalized statement.
Sony beggers raging at DF because Sony can't feed them enough remakes and old generation content to keep them happy. Yikes!
DF... the same people convinced PS5 and Xbox Series consoles couldn't do raytracing? The same people who didn't consider PS4 Pro was running AC7 better than Xbox One X due to PS4 Pro's CPU rapid packed math feature while I was telling them to look into it? The same people that are still confused about the PS5's capabilities against XSX's despite all the information being handed to them on a silver platter by Mark Cerny which some smarter gamers with some programming experience have been telling them since the road to PS5 talk was done? Those people?
Yeah, I think I'll continue to pass on any superficial opinion-based observations they make about game developement, too.
I’d like to see someone explain why you’re getting downvotes. You’re correct. If software is running on native (original) hardware, then it’s not being emulated. If it is being emulated, then it’s not running on native hardware. “Native emulation” seems to be a bit of an oxymoron.
DF doesn't know what "native support" means... it doesn't seem like you know either. Native support can mean emulation, but meaning the original hardware is not required, but it also means no downloads. "Native support" means that nothing additional is required to run the software as intended. You can certainly call a software emulation layer on PS3 for PS1 games native support because it ran software from the disc needing absolutely nothing else to work properly. The PS1 hardware was not on PS3, but the games were still natively supported.
Xbox backward compatibility support is not native, no games run from discs without downloading a repackaged app to run. That is not native support and we all agree DF is blatently lying by suggesting it is.
All consoles run repackaged legacy games this gen, which is exactly why the PS3 is still the gold standard for backward compatibility on consoles to this very day. You would simply pop in any PS1/2 disc and they'd just run without needing anything else from anywhere. Apparently, the newer PS3's (no Emotion Engine) still ran the majority of PS2 games.
@VariantAEC
First off, you’re using a different term than me. I was talking about the use of the term “native emulation.” But you’re using the term “native support.” Maybe that’s the same thing. I’m not sure.
So from what I gather, “native emulation” means emulation that doesn’t require a download. In computer terminology, I’ve always thought of “native” as implying original hardware, or at least original components.
I never understood the love for resistance... I found it the be mid at best. Infamous 2 was good. Would be great to play killzone again
It's only a matter of time before Xbox has PS3 emulation before Playstation because of them dragging their feet.
Be nice if they did. Be nice to have a reason to get an Xbox again after all this time .
OP's sarcasm comes from Xbox's superior emulation department ... likely the only efficient department at Xbox
I mean... it's really not that far-fetched. Emulation on the Xbox consoles is miles ahead of the PlayStation consoles. The Switch gets close if you jailbreak it, but it lacks power and the cool part about emulation on Xbox is that you just need a $20 dev account to use those features.
And if anything, the Xbox just doesn't have a PS3, Wii U, and Switch emulator yet because it lacks native support for Vulkan/OpenGL 4.3. The moment someone makes a new wrapper or it gets that compatibility, it will be a matter of weeks for those consoles to be playable on it as well.
rpcs3 already perfectly emulates tons of PS3 games on PC. The Xbox already emulates the PS2 far better than Sony. As for the PS3 emulator, the only thing needed is for someone to create a uwp version of RPCS3 and you'll be good to go. There's already a 360 uwp emulator. I suspect RPCS3 will be ported over before the year is out.
Nintendo has once again flexed its legal muscle against emulation, this time swiping at Dolphin. Where do we go from here?
Uuuhhhmmm. Emulation is literally software that imitates hardware to run code on nonsanctioned, no licensed hardware. That code and the architecture it runs on are intellectual property of Nintendo. So you are in fact running software that they own that you got someplace else on hardware that was not licensed nor sanctioned - this is essentially copying and stealing. It’s literally the epitome of what licensing agreements were created for. In that license agreement you agree to running a copy of their game on their hardware under their rules. Even if you can run the actual Nintendo software you purchased from Nintendo, you are still running it on separate hardware which is a violation. Those are the stipulations. That is how bad emulation is.
No, stop, just stop. I get it, you're a Nintendo fanboy, but stop it. Really, stop. Nintendo or any medium that targets pirating sites and sues for money, were doing it just for that reason, MONEY. People who tend to pirate for nefarious reasons, weren't going to buy those products to begin with, so Nintendo wasn't going to make a single dime from them. If it was just about protecting IP, they would sue to take down the site, but having some schmuck pay millions? Nintendo would have you pay millions even if you owned a legit copy but also an emulated version. That's how BAD Nintendo is. I mean, they're argument is always "lost of revenue."
"you are still running it on separate hardware which is a violation."
Okay, so who does this hurt? If I have purchased a Gamecube. And have purchased a copy of Luigi's Mansion. But want to play it on my PC because my Gamecube is in storage (for example.) How does this hurt Nintendo? Serious question here.
Getting so many disagrees for asking an honest question? Kinda weird, but okay, you guys could at least let me know why you disagree. I was just curious.
@Tapani - I can understand that to an extent, especially the part about putting up videos where games are running better than the original hardware. Thanks for at least giving your input! I don't really mess with emulation these days, but it's an interesting topic to discuss.
I fully agree. I don't have anything against the homebrew communities and creations, and I get the "freedom to do what I want with what I buy" argument, but I feel for the people who create art and it's taken from their hands exactly as is, and then put into a container in which it was never meant to be. It's like watching a 16:9 24p movie at 48fps at 4:3 and auto HDR on, and having some image and performance quality problems while at it. That's not how the creator wanted it to be watched, and would not give the cinemas a permission to run it like that.
I feel for Nintendo, they are heart-warming people creating products that are interesting and fun, and then other people take their thunder away and flood youtube full of videos of 8K version of their game, which can at points look better, but may also have bugs that cannot be squashed due to lack of controlled QA environment. Also, Nintendo creates products for a particular screen, with particular hardware and controls.
I get it from both sides, but I would have to take the side of creators on this one. I honestly feel like it is stealing and morphing their products into something they were never meant to be in the first place. I would simply not want someone to do that to something I would create, and would feel personally very bad about that, and like someone stole from me.
Emulation is not bad at all. People who use it for bad intentions, weren't going to buy your game to begin with. This is just Nintendo trying to profit by getting money they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Second, privacy can be good, as sometimes people who originally pirated a movie, or game, ended up buying it because they enjoyed it and wanted to show support. Third, some people use emulation to make their own games, look at the Sega Dreamcast. Fourth, some people own legit copies, but also an emulated version to take it on the go.
Only nintendo could get away with trash polices like this. I'm glad they're not in the dedicated home console race anymore. I never supported them, and ill never spend a cent on Nintendo products.
This is a great article and it's what many in the retro community feel.
I still play on original hardware if I have nostalgia for those systems I have my nes, mega drive, PS1, n64, PS2 connected through a retrotink 2x to a OLED Bravia and I'm happy with the image. Sometimes it's not even the games but the sound of a PS1 laser firing that makes the experience the changing cart or disc it's cathartic
If I don't have nostalgia for the system like SNES, Saturn, Dreamcast I'll emulate and maybe use a Bluetooth knock off controller or NSO controller to feel sort of genuine like the SNES NSO gamepad is awesome.
I also use ever drives for the cart based systems I own a few classics I love like super Mario Bros games, sonics etc but retro gaming is expensive so everdrive gives me that full library like emulation but I have the right gamepad in my hand because some systems just don't feel right unless you have the right controller mainly the N64.
But I'm under no illusion I'll have my retro systems forever all the console will inevitably die and that where emulation becomes vital. Its great for preservation and it helps make these old games accessible to younger generations who may wonder where their favourite franchises started and expose them to new things like games from the 8 and 16 bit era which still hold up really well.
I enjoy articles like this. It's actual game journalism. I would love to read more about the context of the store and the owner one day.
I started out completely against downloading emulators and roms. I considered it stealing.
However, recently, with companies like Ubisoft and others, telling me I don’t own my digital only game, and even the physical games that I do own are incomplete on physical media, some with nothing more than an executable file, on disc so that I have to download the entire game anyway. I have since changed my opinion on the subject. If game publishers don’t care about me, trying to do the right thing, then I’m not going to care about them. The industry brought this upon themselves.
At this time, emulation is the number one way to ensure game preservation. Even Sony and Nintendo is using this method officially to make older games playable on their consoles.
If my emulation were to go away then there is a chance the retro gaming market is likely fall into an even smaller niche since the newer generation of gamers will not even know those games existed.