derFunkenstein Posted July 10, 2018 Share Posted July 10, 2018 (edited) I'm thinking about being an emulation convert in total, and I already am in part. I've recently replaced my SNES and NES with hacked versions of their mini counterparts. Sold the SD2SNES, Everdrive N8, and systems. I have basically no "real" games in the first place. My real hardware is all systems and flash carts. I'm using all HDTV and PC monitor displays. But for some reason I've sunk a decent amount of money into not just the systems mentioned above, but a VA4 Genesis 2, a modded Japanese Saturn, soft-modded Xbox, SATA-equipped PS2, USB-GDROM Dreamcast, and soft-modded Wii. I would probably not ever replace the Xbox, which doesn't have much for emulation of the original console's games, but I could easily get rid of the rest and just emulate them. In fact, I could just emulate the Genesis on the Xbox, for example, and consolidate that way. Edited July 10, 2018 by derFunkenstein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 Well it's gone from "thinking about" converting to "definitely need to convert". My wife and I have talked about life goals, the space in our house, and how to get there. We're both looking at ways we can pare down our "stuff". If I can still play old games on my PC, it makes sense to do that for me. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 12, 2018 Author Share Posted July 12, 2018 For the goddamned fucking win! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 For the goddamned fucking win! Do you get paid for people who switch to emulation? Stop pushing your religion on us man! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 So those of us who fully embrace emulation in all its forms but still have and play physical collections.. (i.e. 'enjoying it all'), are we considered scabs? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 12, 2018 Author Share Posted July 12, 2018 No and no. Well it's gone from "thinking about" converting to "definitely need to convert". My wife and I have talked about life goals, the space in our house, and how to get there. We're both looking at ways we can pare down our "stuff". If I can still play old games on my PC, it makes sense to do that for me. I'm almost at that stage with all the excess pc hardware. It's become an aesthetic mess. Just so much of it. For example I doubt I'll ever have use for (or nostalgic yearnings) for a K6-2 AMD processor and board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 No and no. I'm almost at that stage with all the excess pc hardware. It's become an aesthetic mess. Just so much of it. For example I doubt I'll ever have use for (or nostalgic yearnings) for a K6-2 AMD processor and board. I don't think anybody's got it as bad as this guy. And I'm not saying it to shame anybody; I just don't think it's possible to rival his collection of junk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 12, 2018 Author Share Posted July 12, 2018 Dead CMOS batteries.. That's great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 Dead CMOS batteries.. That's great! It's a real thing to deal with in old computers. There are similar aging issues in consoles, too, and I'm just not prepared to deal with them. No way could I recap a system, for example. I just don't have the training, skills, or most importantly, the desire. I'm keeping a couple systems. There is no suitable emulator for the Xbox, for example, and I'll use it to emulate older systems. I could get a Dolphinbar for the Wii, but I couldn't sell it without Wiimotes so why bother. I'm back-and-forth on my modded Japanese Saturn. It has the box, which is nice, so it might sell decently, but I have to experiment with YABAUSE before I make that decision. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 No and no. I'm almost at that stage with all the excess pc hardware. It's become an aesthetic mess. Just so much of it. For example I doubt I'll ever have use for (or nostalgic yearnings) for a K6-2 AMD processor and board. I definitely feel that way about computers ...it would be nice to just have one kickass, do-it-all box with VMs for odd functions. My thing now is that I'm hung up on cheap laptops, and as a result have "dedicated" devices running different OSes. It's not so different from loading up the WHOLE romset from consoles where I really only like a few dozen games. I do it because I CAN, not because I should or really want to, which is not a good reason for doing something. Which probably comes back to 1984-crash-era grabbing everything because it was CHEAP, which is justified only because of primitive hoarder instincts. "Because it's on sale" is rarely a good reason to pick up yet another game. To say nothing of the COLLECTOR mindset that wants to complete everything -- or at least try to. So much mental illness in retro gaming! Excuse me, I need to redeem my free games for July on Twitch. It doesn't matter if I play them, not when the real game is getting a boatload of games for free. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 (edited) It's a real thing to deal with in old computers. There are similar aging issues in consoles, too, and I'm just not prepared to deal with them. No way could I recap a system, for example. I just don't have the training, skills, or most importantly, the desire. I'm keeping a couple systems. There is no suitable emulator for the Xbox, for example, and I'll use it to emulate older systems. I could get a Dolphinbar for the Wii, but I couldn't sell it without Wiimotes so why bother. I'm back-and-forth on my modded Japanese Saturn. It has the box, which is nice, so it might sell decently, but I have to experiment with YABAUSE before I make that decision. XBox emulator development is seeing a bit of a resurgence lately, lots of improvements but still not there yet but improving. As for Saturn emulation if you have a decent PC (modern CPU, Intel @3.4 GHz or AMD @4 GHz, approx numbers) Mednafen is much better than Yabause. Yabause still has a lot of games that don't work or have pretty glaring bugs while Mednafen runs pretty much everything bug free. I am sure there is probably some edge case games where there are some issues but everything I have thrown at it works and plays great. Edited July 13, 2018 by Lordmonkus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 13, 2018 Author Share Posted July 13, 2018 So much mental illness in retro gaming! ..or so many mentally ill into retrogaming. ..or so much mental illness caused by retrogaming. I definitely feel that way about computers ...it would be nice to just have one kickass, do-it-all box with VMs for odd functions. My thing now is that I'm hung up on cheap laptops, and as a result have "dedicated" devices running different OSes. I'm currently debating whether (and how) to reduce my legacy computer pile to just one system. The old 486 or the old Pentium III. Think that got me into doing this was the 486 is rather clunky and might have an in intermittent trace inside the PCB. Something I don't want to spend time on tracking down right now. AND the "discovery" that the PIII's BIOS supports CHS for older hard disks. This means I could run Dos 6.22 straight away on an approrpriately-sized HDD, switched in/out via an A/B style switch. The PIII is currently built around an ABIT BX6R2 board which has legacy ports and legacy slots and a legacy "Super I/O" chip. So I'm thinking it could fulfill all my legacy DOS era computing needs. Then there is the new Coffee Lake architecture from Intel. It's fast enough to run all sorts of VMs with power to spare. But these newfangled intel systems are disposable to us. No sentimental value whatsoever. The only thing sentimental and nostalgic is the software. So the more VMs the better. If it's one thing I don't like it's multiple machines for multiple OS'es. I'll double up and dual boot as much as needed. And I don't have nostalgia for anything past W98 or XP. Never really got into 7, 8, 8.1, or even 10 other than strictly for business. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 I'm currently debating whether (and how) to reduce my legacy computer pile to just one system. The old 486 or the old Pentium III. Think that got me into doing this was the 486 is rather clunky and might have an in intermittent trace inside the PCB. Something I don't want to spend time on tracking down right now. AND the "discovery" that the PIII's BIOS supports CHS for older hard disks. This means I could run Dos 6.22 straight away on an approrpriately-sized HDD, switched in/out via an A/B style switch. The PIII is currently built around an ABIT BX6R2 board which has legacy ports and legacy slots and a legacy "Super I/O" chip. So I'm thinking it could fulfill all my legacy DOS era computing needs. 386/486 DOS era stuff is pretty easy to do with DOSBox on modern hardware but Windows 95/98 Pentium 1-3 era gets a lot tougher. You can do Win 95 and 98 with PCem but that will only do up to Pentium 233 MMX but that requires a really beefy system to do that on. My AMD 8350 @ 4GHz has troubles doing anything above a 133 MHz Pentium. DOSBox is so nice and easy to manage with files where PCem is much more annoying to deal with unfortunately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 13, 2018 Author Share Posted July 13, 2018 I'm not sure emulation of PC on the PC itself has been developing the right way. Or is the right way to even go. I mean, I think that PC emulators should make more use of the host CPU's instruction set verbatim. In other words more virtualization than emulation if you get my drift. I've held off getting into PCEM just yet. I want to see a few more revisions. I have many of my old games from bitd running quite nicely in DOSBox. I would even venture to say even better than what I experienced back then. When it comes to file management with DB you can bring the entire weight of Windows Explorer and all it's add-on tools to bear. It really works well for managing levels and putting games right where you want them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 Yeah, PCem is definitely not what I would call user friendly, easy to use or something for general use at all. DOSBox though is great, especially if you get into the unofficial user builds with built in Midi and CRT shader support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 (edited) XBox emulator development is seeing a bit of a resurgence lately, lots of improvements but still not there yet but improving. As for Saturn emulation if you have a decent PC (modern CPU, Intel @3.4 GHz or AMD @4 GHz, approx numbers) Mednafen is much better than Yabause. Yabause still has a lot of games that don't work or have pretty glaring bugs while Mednafen runs pretty much everything bug free. I am sure there is probably some edge case games where there are some issues but everything I have thrown at it works and plays great. I didn't realize Mednafen had leapfrogged Yabause. I'll definitely try it out. What do you all do about controllers? USB adapters for the originals? Xbox 360 controllers? I think I'd like to hang onto my Saturn 3D controller even if I sell the rest of the system. The feel is just so right and it would be great for emulating all Sega systems. Maybe a Dual Shock 3 for the rest. Edited July 13, 2018 by derFunkenstein 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 For all non analog stick systems I use a Hori Fight Commander 4 USB controller. It's meant for a PS3/PS4 but it works perfectly on the PC with emulators. It has 6 face buttons and 4 should er buttons plus the share and options buttons and the "guide" button so it has everything needed for all the consoles plus Mame. On top of that it has an amazing d-pad. Here is the specific one I have which is the older model now, they have a newer one which is symmetrical. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41QgErK%2B8NL.jpg For analog systems I use a USB XBox 360 controller for the PC which works very well except for its crap d-pad. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 (edited) I totally forgot that I have the Xbox 360 version of that Hori controller! It looked familiar in the image and I dug through a box and found it. Mine is the more symmetrical design, but it does a good job. So that's pretty great. That should do everything up to the Saturn and PS1 with ease, unless it's an analog game. I bought it to use with Killer Instinct on Win10, and it's got X-input built right in (since it's a 360 controller). Edited July 13, 2018 by derFunkenstein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 Oh nice, yeah there's the 360 version as well so that should be perfect for you. I love my Hori FC, the best or pretty close to it for non analog stick controls, great buttons, has the 6 face button layout plus shoulders and the d-pad is on par with or better than Nintendos SNES controller d-pad. The d-pad is probably only 2nd best to Segas Saturn or Genesis 6 button d-pad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Emulation has come a long way since I started in 96. It used to be that there was a real benefit in playing the games on real hardware as emulation was just not up to snuff. But 20 some odd years later and it now matches and even surpasses the original experience. Emulators are now used by the original hardware manufacturers. Items like the nes and snes classic are great as the emulation is (to me) spot on and you get to use new original controllers. And it looks better than ever through hdmi on modern displays. For me emulation is the preferred way to play these games. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 20, 2018 Author Share Posted July 20, 2018 My hero! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80s_Atari_Guy Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Real Thing Emulation Real Thing Emulation Real Thing Emulation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 sometimes a person remembers things a certain way the same thing doesn't always hold up many years later especially if you look old and new things side by side so emulation lets you sand off some of the rough edges, look at them in the best light, and high resolution, the way you remember them, which sometimes is better than it actually was while others might have a different way of looking at things it's nice that we have choices and that people can choose what they like with judgment for none 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 20, 2018 Author Share Posted July 20, 2018 (edited) Emulation lets me play the stuff like I aways wanted to when I was a kid. Edited July 20, 2018 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80s_Atari_Guy Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.