Starker on 14/12/2015 at 16:06
I use Higan for NES/SNES stuff. I actually own the consoles, but I prefer to play with my Xbox or F510 controller. The NES controllers are just too small and uncomfortable for me at this point. I played a few old favourites like Super Robin Hood and Super Spy Hunter last month and it was a ton of fun. I was pretty surprised that I still have the muscle memory after all these years. Quite a few games from that era hold up surprisingly well -- especially the 16 bit stuff.
icemann on 14/12/2015 at 17:22
Quote Posted by Manwe
fan translation
This is another BIG positive on emulation. These make games otherwise unplayable to non Japanese speaking people, playable.
Playing a fan translated game as I type this post (Shin Megami Tensei for the SNES).
Policenauts and Seiken Densetsu 3 (aka Secret of Mana 2) are probably the two biggest profile fan translations so far.
EvaUnit02 on 14/12/2015 at 18:54
oXbox emulation has been making REALLY slow progress. For the last several years there's literally been only ONE GUY working on it. Seems not enough people care about MS' first console.
(
http://shogun3d-cxbx.blogspot.com/)
What a shame. It's probably my fave console of all time.
ZylonBane on 15/12/2015 at 02:52
Quote Posted by Sulphur
But no scanlines. Gosh. That's like buying an Ultra HD monitor and smearing it with vaseline so you could return to the Good Ol' Days.
You are full of wrong and fail. The artwork for old non-interlaced games was designed around the every-other-scanline presentation, thus simulating it is an important aspect of presenting these games as they originally appeared. Forgoing scanline simulation is essentially the same as applying scanline doubling, which causes the pixels to look even blockier than they did originally.
Yakoob on 15/12/2015 at 03:55
I haven't owned any consoles besides the NES and GameBoys, so emus have proved useful on catching up on many classics, particularly SNES jRPGs and N64. Played a bunch of N64 and PSX games flawlessly as well, and recently dabbled into PS2 emu too. Thank GOD for save states :p
My friend owns a bunch of consoles and when I sent her a screenshot of hi-res FF10 she was like "wtf this looks so much better than I remember!" Kinda got her intrigued into emulating even tho she owns a PS2 heh.
Sulphur on 15/12/2015 at 04:17
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
You are full of wrong and fail. The artwork for old non-interlaced games was designed around the every-other-scanline presentation, thus simulating it is an important aspect of presenting these games as they originally appeared. Forgoing scanline simulation is essentially the same as applying scanline doubling, which causes the pixels to look even blockier than they did originally.
If the endgoal is verisimilitude, sure, you need scanlines. However, considering we're talking about pixel art that was created to display at low resolutions, and with emulation they're now being blown up to more than 4 times the original resolution, scanlines aren't going to end up making them magically look better. Throwing in scanlines on an LCD screen just makes everything look worse, as far as I'm concerned. Pixel doubling and a sufficiently non-shitty interpolation filter can make a purely 2D presentation look bearable, even if it is, in fact, not presenting it faithfully.
Thirith on 15/12/2015 at 07:51
Sulphur: In my very limited experience, I've found that interpolation filters work for certain graphic styles (the more cartoony, the better) and make other styles and techniques look pretty bad. I agree that scanlines are somewhat akin to throwing vaseline on the screen, but the graphics were designed with displays in mind that were very fuzzy compared to modern displays. With some games at least, I prefer the softening effect of scanlines and related filters (such as snes9x's TV filter) to hit-and-miss interpolation methods, and definitely to simple pixel doubling/tripling/quadrupling.
Sulphur on 15/12/2015 at 08:01
Fully agreed, the effect does look better on certain games. Contra et al. definitely benefit from scanlines more than detail-crushing interpolation filters. Games like Yoshi's Island look fine with or without either.
But again, I guess I should be clear: I was talking about scanlines with respect to all games prior to the HD generation. You wouldn't need scanlines for games that were designed to be fully 3D from the PSX/N64/PS2/Gamecube generation; at least, I would hope not.
demagogue on 15/12/2015 at 08:36
There are a few games I play ritually on emulators, these days mostly on my train commute. Atari 2600 (Adventure), C64 (Shogun, Rags to Riches). And on my PC every so often N64 (1080), Genesis (Gargoyles or Road Rage 3), and Mode2 (Virtua Fighter 2).
The most interesting part is thinking about making my own little Atari or C64 game, if only to fulfill a childhood dream. I might get around to it some day. I do like playing other people's games, originals or demakes of contemporary games. Atari versions of modern AAA games always make smile.
icemann on 15/12/2015 at 09:10
How is Gargoyles on the Genesis? Tried playing that like 10 years ago on emulators and it ran pretty bad. Always wondered what that game was like, as I'm a huge fan of the cartoon series.
