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How many of you are emulation converts?


Keatah

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...Qbert sound emulation is imperfect...

 

The above unfortunately is a *really* bad issue, due to the following...MAME 0.181 marked the debut of Votrax SC-01 emulation, which evidently still requires a lot of work. Q*bert, Wizard of Wor, and Gorf were impacted quite harshly. Stick with version 0.180 (which still supports sound samples) for those games.

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The thing is, prior to that, I didn't even have the sound sample files. I played qbert back in 1982 but after 20 years, I wouldn't have remembered a lot of it. I didn't know what I was missing. So now with the votrax emulation, to me it sounds great but I wouldn't know. And I'd rather have all the other improvements the guys have been working on as well.

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The thing is, prior to that, I didn't even have the sound sample files...

 

That can be fixed. ;)

 

...I played qbert back in 1982 but after 20 years, I wouldn't have remembered a lot of it. I didn't know what I was missing. So now with the votrax emulation, to me it sounds great but I wouldn't know...

 

As they say, ignorance is bliss. :P

 

It is bad enough, that even a MAMEDev provided a separate build enabling Votrax sound sample files again - Nine versions later (0.189). The change is known to be one of the most hated of all-time. However, as the aforementioned link also points out, it is indeed progress. Though, it would be nice to have the option to enable samples and disable simulation, until the emulation matured.

 

...And I'd rather have all the other improvements the guys have been working on as well...

 

So, it's not an 'either or' situation here. A person can have their cake and eat it too by maintaining the latest version ("to have all the other improvements"), along with a separate folder containing MAME 0.180 for the aforementioned games, providing euphonious Votrax support. :)

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So, it's not an 'either or' situation here. A person can have their cake and eat it too by maintaining the latest version ("to have all the other improvements"), along with a separate folder containing MAME 0.180 for the aforementioned games, providing euphonious Votrax support. :)

 

As many versions of MAME can be installed as needed. With a program as complex and supporting as many games as MAME does, there's bound to be some regressions.

 

Personally I'd like to see them stop chasing after, what, APPLIANCES and MICROCONTRLLERS ?!?! of all things.. And focus on polishing up what's already there. But unfortunately the credo is more bloat and more bugs.

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For better or worse I have to limit my real vintage hardware to a couple of PCs and Apple II.

 

---

 

Partly prompted by a recent post in this thread and a post here

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/283794-collectorvision-phoenix-kickstarter-is-now-live/page-9?do=findComment&comment=4138081

 

..it seems that FPGA can do no wrong. But when Software Emulation experiences a glitch it's all crappy and no good. Same thing illustrated via a youtube video. Someone set up a MAME vector game and complained how it "sucked out of the box". They didn't even try the most basic tweak or adjustment & customization.

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Wish I could be on board with real hardware, but I have given it many chances over the years and have had numerous problems, including short life spans of components, and terrible smells from used Ebay finds. It's just not worth the headache to me, so I have stuck with emulation. Which brings its own challenges...

 

- What used to work on my old XP machine, no longer works in W7/8/10. Incompatibilities with emulators, roms, etc. With every OS or emulator version change, something seems to break.

- I have now gotten irreversibly used to what purists would call "bad" emulation: a sharp picture with no scanlines or dithering. The trend now is to enable these annoyances - uh, I mean features - by default for accuracy's sake, which I personally do not like at all. There's at least one emulator (Applewin) where there is no longer any option to disable such "accuracy." (Technically you can disable it in an older version, but full screen for that version does not work on my machine.)

Edited by butterburp
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Seems that developers in all fields are becoming more shortsighted. Yes, too many things break with updates - whatever it is you're updating, utilities, games, tools, a/v players, OSes, email, and ESPECIALLY web browsing. And unfortunately emulators too. In talking to the devs directly I usually get the same old excuse across the board, that time moves on and things evolve.

 

I'll never understand this incessant need to keep changing things till they break. And all the excuse-making to go with it. But then again I'm just some dumb-ass user.

Edited by Keatah
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A lot of old emulators took shortcuts at the expense of accuracy. Reasons could include performance of the host system, difficulty and time to do it correctly, knowledge of the old hardware being emulated. So the old emulation may seem fine but the programmers know it's not accurate and work to fix it. Graphic effects and compatibility with new operating systems are different.

 

I think with some projects/products, a new project manager/programmer comes in and decides to scrap the old and start over whether it's justified or not, sometimes it is justified. The trend, and it's been like this for a while, is the users are doing most of the testing. Some projects never come out of beta staying below v1.0 eternally.

 

Within mame there's a lot of different emulator projects and people managing them. They generally have zero impact on each other, unless the emulated systems share hardware. Of course UI changes affect everything, but adding new emulators generally don't impact old ones.

Edited by mr_me
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  • 1 month later...

It can take years, decades even.

 

I started "turning around" when it became impossible to get to the other side of a 20x20 bedroom. I had to "fly" a facetime phone on a long ass stick to see the other side of the mound. Either that, or spend half hour moving stuff around, and then fussing because it never got put back as efficiently as when it was first packed. I even got a drone later on to spy on it all. Sometimes it was more efficient to get the ladder and enter the other side through the window.

 

---

 

I also chose to do emulation exclusively to fulfill the childhood dream of having ONE machine play ALL my videogames. There's something ineffably cool about a machine that can adopt many different flavors and personalities and become any classic console.

Things haven't got that out of hand thankfully but I am sitting here after dragging out three old PC's I've scavanged parts from over the years and wondering why I still have them. That's after watching Marie Kondo's new show on Netflix and being inspired to have another round of decluttering which tends to happen when I watch those kind of shows.

 

I do like that PCem has finally reached the point where 3D accelerated games are playable. I've been waiting years for that and I was quite impressed to see G-Police runnning well on it the other day.

 

Life would be a lot simpler if I could transition to emulation only but I just enjoy playing games on real hardware too much for it to ever happen.

Edited by Cepp
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