Emulators - experiences, tips, thoughts

Zerker on 18/1/2017 at 21:48

For some reason, RetroArch really irks me. I could never get the aspect ratio just right for SNES or NES, and I wasn't fond of it forcing the exact same control mappings across all systems (e.g. I wanted NES controllers to use 'B' and 'Y' if we're going by SNES conventions).

So I'm mostly using Mednafen now, with Mame for the various Neo Geo games I got in that Humble Bundle a while ago. I'm using EmulationStation as the frontend for the pair of them. All three tools rely on editing CFG files by hand, but I'm quite happy doing that to get things the way I want them.

Plus mednafen has the simplest no-nonsense PS1 emulation I've seen, which is a big plus in my books.

icemann on 19/1/2017 at 12:22

I recently gave Gamecube emulation a try with the emulator "Dolphin". Took a bit of mucking around with to get working right (about 20 minutes) then be fine mostly since. Some occasional crashes, but beyond that been fine.

I'm not a fan of multi-system emulators personally. You tend to get far more options (eg higher resolutions, speed hacks etc etc) with more single system based emulators.

Thirith on 19/1/2017 at 12:32

With multi-system emulators, are you referring to Dolphin (which does Gamecube and Wii), RetroArch (which AFAIK isn't a multi-system emulator so much as a frontend for various emulator cores) or something else?

demagogue on 19/1/2017 at 14:58

My main emulator experience recently is on my phone. I have a long train commute, so play then. I tend to stick to Atari2600 and C64 games because there's just the one joystick and button. Multiple buttons gets dodgy on a touch screen. But sometimes some NES and PS1 games. I like that you can make a save state so you can just continue where you left off between commutes.

icemann on 19/1/2017 at 17:02

Quote Posted by Thirith

Yes I was going to mention it's cross platform-ness over the other emulators for other systems I tend to use. Take tonight for example, I've been playing through Metal Gear Solid - Peacewalker on the PSP via the emulator PPSSPP. There were other emulators for the PSP around prior, but this one BY FAR outshines the rest. Whoever programmed that one is very good at it, as within a short time frame he got it playing most games, and by present day I don't think I've played a game that ran bad in it. Before sure, but now no. Not to say that that it might not run others bad, but of the ones I've tested they've all ran great.

To compare, I've been heavily following the PS2 emulation side of things (with the emulator PCSX2) since the early 2000s and that moved at a slow pace for a VERY long time. Nowadays it's good for most games, though not perfect for all of them.

Back to the PSP: Since the 90s I had been devoting my time here and there to going through all the good games (primarily JRPGs) on the SNES, but as I've now played through most of the good ones, the PSP seemed like the next good place to play some. Absolute gold mine on there for JRPGs. And yes I know Peacewalker isn't a JRPG :p.

As to multi-system emulators I wasn't referring to any emulator in particular. I've tested a few over the years and preferred the single platform ones as they tended to have more features and had a more professional look to them. That said I've not actively gone out of my way to try one out (besides Dolphin) in quite some time. There used to be good news sites for emulators, but the best one VG Network stopped doing daily news updates back in 2009, so I've not been as up to date on what's out there since then. Besides what I've read on forums from time to time.

Matthew on 20/1/2017 at 11:22

I dabble with (https://www.amigaforever.com/) Amiga Forever and (https://www.c64forever.com/) C64 Forever from time to time; they're straightforward to set up (given that they're commercial products, they should be) and the level of emulation seems highly satisfactory.