State of Emulators Discussion

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17 hours ago, stirrell said:

I guess the only thing that might be interesting to me about that would be that it implies adding 2600 games to the dashboard. Though I suppose it would be trivial if they already have MAME on the system. But hopefully this is a preview of more Atari systems getting standalone game releases.

Is Mame Atari 2600 emulation good these days?   Last I tried it paled in comparison to Stella and z26

[Keatah]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

Is Mame Atari 2600 emulation good these days?   Last I tried it paled in comparison to Stella and z26

I hadn't heard of any groundbreaking features in MAME that'd warrant its use over Stella. I think it's safe to say Stella remains the de'facto standard in 2600 emulation. It has relevant features and is continually refined. And I think you'll find that a dedicated emu always trumps MAME in most side-by-side comparos.

 

And Stella 6.6 was just announced yesterday.

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50 minutes ago, Keatah said:

I hadn't heard of any groundbreaking features in MAME that'd warrant its use over Stella. I think it's safe to say Stella remains the de'facto standard in 2600 emulation. It has relevant features and is continually refined. And I think you'll find that a dedicated emu always trumps MAME in most side-by-side comparos.

 

And Stella 6.6 was just announced yesterday.

For the most part I agree,   Most MAME/MESS console/computer emulators are not feature complete and there is usually a better emulator somewhere.   There are a few exceptions though.   The Mame 7800 emu is one of the best, The Mame Jaguar emulator can run some things that the virtualjaguar emulator can't.  I also use the MAME Coleco emu.

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

For the most part I agree,   Most MAME/MESS console/computer emulators are not feature complete and there is usually a better emulator somewhere.   There are a few exceptions though.   The Mame 7800 emu is one of the best, The Mame Jaguar emulator can run some things that the virtualjaguar emulator can't.  I also use the MAME Coleco emu.

I'm aware of the 7800 in MAME. Not too familiar with the Jag however. I'm also at a crossroads between MAME vs ColEmWin.

 

I wish there'd be more work on the Astrocade side of things. MAME is all we got ATM.

 

Other dedicated emus I prefer:

Altirra

Classic99

WinUAE

trs80gp

AppleWin

DosBox-X

Vice

ePSXe

Edited November 17, 2021 by Keatah

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Just now, Keatah said:

I'm aware of the 7800 in MAME. Not too familiar with the Jag however. I'm also at a crossroads between MAME vs ColEmWin.

 

The Mame Jag emulator isn't great,  it can run some things virtual jaguar can't and virtual jaguar can run other things that Mame can't.  There's no perfect Jag emulator.   I use them in conjunction with each other

[Keatah]

10 minutes ago, zzip said:

I use them in conjunction with each other

That's generally what happens when too much HLE is involved. Too many assumptions and workarounds are made on a game-by-game basis.

 

That remains a problem with 3D0. And it used to be a problem with SNES/NES/SMS and most things "Genesis".

 

I've noted 2 things in emulator development philosophy. Emus that start out with game-specific patches & workarounds tend to remain that way for their entire development cycle.

 

The same holds true for the opposite side, an emu can start out not being highly compatible. Refinement and achieving cycle-exact, and all that, tend to fix many non-working titles per bugfix. Compatibility increases as the emulator becomes more accurate. And a pile of kludges is is averted. I suppose in other words the emulator becomes more accurate and closer to the target machine.

 

I definitely prefer the latter method. Per'game fixes begone!

Edited November 17, 2021 by Keatah