dont emulate

[dbg2950]

OR GOD WILL KILL KITTENS!!!

[NightSprinter]

Wow, that has to be the biggest trolling I've seen on these forums to date. Hasn't it occurred to you that "compilation" packages such as "Sonic Mega Gems Collection", "Taito Legends", the "Midway Arcade Treasures" series, 'Atari: 80 Classic Games in One!", and so many others use emulation? Not to mention there are a LOT of programs (not just games) that would be lost for GOOD if they weren't preserved through emulation. You really should look at the broad scope of things before you decide to post such meaningless drivel.

[4ever2600]

Yeah, if it we're up to me, there'd be one less species on the planet!

[TheRedEye]

Hey guys, remember when that picture was funny, like three years ago?

 

Well now it's back, and with more JPG compression!

[MCHufnagel]

You also should mention that XBox Live Arcade, Virtual Console and many compilations wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for interest shown in emulation in the first place.

[NightSprinter]

You also should mention that XBox Live Arcade, Virtual Console and many compilations wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for interest shown in emulation in the first place.

 

Thank you. Someone else who also gets it.

[AussieAtari]

Not to forget things such as Vectrex emulators where the games have been released into the public domain and the actual units are getting so expensive that emulation may be the only way some can still experience/enjoy that system. The same goes for many homebrew games where the code is realeased for free or for sale to be used in emulators as the developers cannot afford to offer carts.

[Gregory DG]

Not to mention all the screenshots we have of games now because of it. I wouldn't know what to do for screenshots for TAT if it weren't for emulation!

[Paranoid]

Hell... I was killing a cat a day under the previous banner for this JPEG... add this into the mix, and it is a wholesale kitty massacre.

[madhatter667]

I respect emulation for what it is. I don't view it as a replacement, but as a preservation tool, which may, or may not become the most viable way to enjoy older systems. I do feel that emulation doesn't hold the same appeal as the classic systems, and that the game play is not as nice, and that there can be audio/visual glitches in the emulation process (hey, it's hard to get everything to be 100% compatible, just look at the NEX). I do run a lot of emulation software, MAME being my favorite, but I use them, in circumstances where I cannot have a console, and a TV set up (like work! No, seriously). I don't brag about emulation (as I have heard "retro kids" do, because there's nothing really special about something that anyone can obtain...although being available is a major + for emulation software/tech). This could go on and on... there are many pros and cons, for each application and standpoint. Emulation exists, it has it's benefits and it's drawbacks, and it isn't going to go away any time soon.

[Paranoid]

With the right hardware accessories, emulation may be *superior* to the original experience.

 

I'm telling you... until you've played 8-bit Demon Attack on a sharp, widescreen, 17" LCD with a nice retro USB joystick (via Stelladaptor or the Speeedlink Competition Pro)... you haven't lived. It is like having an instant upgrade of an old classic.

 

I mean... it becomes kind of subjective at a certain point. It is like how some people still prefer records BECAUSE of the pop and the hiss of the analog reproduction of sound. Some people might PREFER the fuzzy, washed out graphics through RF to an old television set as opposed to the super crisp definition you're going to get with emulation. And honestly, for a LOT of games... I feel EXACTLY this way. Donkey Kong 8 bit... I like it best through RF on my 800xl. On emulation it isn't quite right, and on my 5200 with RCA jacks, it is too crisp too.

 

But, Demon Attack, I *really* dig it via emulation.

 

*shrug*

[madhatter667]

Hmm... I haven't run any of the 8 bit computer emulation prgrams. It has also been a million years since I last fired up the 800XL... I have a lack of software for it, and do not remember how to prompt it to load games... the last time I actively played it, I was like 7. I still have it, being the only person in the family who cares about such things. I think it is still at my parents' place, in the container I bought for it. I'll have to inquire on that. If I can find enough people on here who have discs for sale... that would definitely warrant me pulling it out instead of keeping it as a novelty. I also have a later model Atari computer. I think it was a 1300. They are in the same box... I do still ratain the manuals, disc drive, printer, and all the cables for the 800.

I know this bit was a little off topic. Sorry about that.

 

Back to emulation. I use the Stella emulator, and there are some ROMs that seem a little buggy, or they don't load right. I could very well just be my ROMs, and I know that screen flicker wasn't all too unusual on the 2600 depending on what you were playing... some people just wrote code better. I have not played any emulation using a joystick... just the keypad. I am sure that a game pad would greatly increase the fun factor. In fact I still need to get something like that for my MAME32 set up (one emulation program I absolutely love). Sure, not all the ROMs for MAME work with the verison I have, but then again, pretty much everything I care about does, so I haven't bothered to update or patch anything. What I have isn't broken, so I don't want to fix it until it is. I also have the Mekaw SMS emulator, and a full pack of ROMs... this setup works well, but game quality there is seriosuly lacking...Nintendo had many of the good publishers on exclusive contract by the time the SMS launched. There are some really good ones, and a lot of chaff in my opinion. I also run Nesticle (still) for NES ROMs, but I don't have that huge of a ROM collection on my laptop, since I put all that to DVD, and my laptop is old. I may unpack it though, just for the convenience factor of being able to play the titles at my second job.

 

I am not against emulation: I just see both sides of the fence.

I am sure there are some games that do appreciate via emulation and modern hardware, I just haven't really noticed, since I emulate the cheapskate way at the moment. I still drool over the X-Aracade joystick.

[LocalH]

Am I the only one that thinks the original post was just a pisstake?

[madhatter667]

Nah, but it has spurred an intriguing conversation.

[Tempest]

I generally detest emulation just because no matter what they say, it never feels the same. The only time I use emulation is for very rare systems that I can't possibly find (such as the SG-1000) and for arcade games.

 

What I have been doing alot lately is doing a hybrid emulation of sorts. I've been using my PC to emulate a disk drive and loading games onto my real systems. I find this works really well as you don't need to break the bank on 100's of really expensive games and (of course) still plays like the real thing.

 

Tempest

[AussieAtari]

What I have been doing alot lately is doing a hybrid emulation of sorts. I've been using my PC to emulate a disk drive and loading games onto my real systems. I find this works really well as you don't need to break the bank on 100's of really expensive games and (of course) still plays like the real thing.

 

Tempest

 

That is exactly what my "gaming" hobby has been turning into of late, I'm really enjoying getting old hardware connected to my PC's and basically using the PCs as file servers. For consoles and computers that cannot be directly connected I'm buying flash carts and the like. MAME is the only emulator I've run in quite a while, and MESS for TI99/4A emulation, but only because I cannot locate a flash drive and as far as I know you cannot load cartridge images into the machine through the cassette interface.

 

Gaming and playing with hardware = true geek happiness (according to my wife anyway)

[LocalH]

Emulation, for me, serves as a compliment to hardware. Sure, it's nice to be able to run things on hardware, but emulation can be a valuable tool for development (either testing or debugging). When possible, I do use hardware, though. I specifically bought a Super Magic Drive so that I could run code I write on a Genesis instead of being limited to running it on emulation.

Edited October 10, 2006 by LocalH

[Paranoid]

Emulation, with the proper effort, can be every bit as rewarding, if not more so, than the original hardware.

 

In a small amount of time here, I've built up a pretty complete Retro collection. More or less since last Christmas, I've got

 

A 7800 with CC2

A 5200 with Atarimax 128-in-1 USB Multicart

An Intv

A Colecovision

A Vectrex

NES

SNES

Genny 1

 

800XL with MyIDE

 

So, there really isn't any retro console of any real significance I don't have, especially among the Atari line.

 

But I find that now that I have a proper USB joystick, emulation is a far more viable and enjoyable option that makes me OFTEN question my investment in the REAL hardware. In particular, Atari 800 emulation for the typical game is at LEAST equal to playing on the real thing, in MOST cases. 5200 and 2600 titles are a close second... and, really, I haven't even BOTHERED trying 7800 emulation.

 

But, the fact that I use Multicarts anyhow, means that I have all the ROM images, in centralized locations, ready to go, well organized.

 

That makes a BIG difference in how enjoyable emulation is. And, I *do* use Emulation in part to test images before I load them up on a multicart for the real hardware.

 

What I find is that when I'm entertaining, either a social party or just playing with geeks, the real hardware is easier to deal with. When I'm playing by myself, emulation is fine (thus, maybe the "Play with yourself and God kills a kitten" post is more relevent than we originally gave it credit for).

 

A800 emulation is closer to the actual hardware than MAME, for example. I'd say 5200 and 2600 emulation also are generally closer to the real hardware than MAME. I'm just starting to play with INTV and Amiga emulation... but they seem pretty impressive too. I don't have an INTV multicart, and emulation may prevent me from ever getting one unless I find it reasonably priced.

 

Not all emulation is created equal, either. Coleco emulation seems stunted and not very active. Atari emulation seems to be very active and dynamic. But... that is the thing, I guess. For Atari, I think there are some EXCELLENT emulation options that are virtually indistinguishible from the real hardware. I actually just recently had this argument in another thread...

 

All other things being equal, I bet 99% of the users, even the die-hard users, of AtariAge, would not be able to pick emulation from the real thing just by playing...

 

So... for example, you've got two displays that are exactly the same... two joysticks that are exactly the same... a set of control switches that are exactly the same... in a cabinet... and INSIDE that cabinet, on one system is a 2600 running Adventure... and the other is Stella running Adventure... most of us couldn't tell the difference. It would be like having someone try to pick the Stoli from the Grey Goose, blind. (studies pretty much indicate, people *can't* do this, although they think they can). Or you know... have a 5200 in one, and Kat 5200 in the other... or an 800xl, and Atari800win PLus. It doesn't really matter which... the point is, if you made the PHYSICAL little things *not* an issue, you couldn't tell by gameplay, timing, graphics, colors, etc... alone. Maybe not across the board, but in a LOT of cases. I'm almost willing to bet, people would get it backwards frequently...

 

"The color on this one is wrong... this is emulation!"...

 

"Sorry, you picked the real Atari. The OTHER one has the colors that is off, and that is running Stella..."

 

Would be an interesting experiment to set up at the next convention.

[madhatter667]

Indeed, that would be an interesting experiement.

[AussieAtari]

So, instead of "blind tastings" you would have "blind playing" as it were.... nice concept.

 

The INTV Cuttle Cart project is still simmering away and expressions of interest are welcomed on the home site to encourage completion.

 

For me, with my love of tinkering, I enjoy the hardware almost as much as the gaming side and can often be found just standing in my "cave" (as my wife calls it) looking at my collection, sort of like a Scrooge McDuck wallowing in money thing - maybe I need help?!?

[madhatter667]

No you don't, I do the same thing sometimes.

[Paranoid]

Me as well. I like to go in and just LOOK at the collection I have amassed from time to time... especially with all those "someday to be quite rare and in demand" multicarts I've got.

 

If Chad comes out with an INTV multicart, it'll definetely be on my WTB list... but, it looks to be about as expensive as the CC2, and I'm just not sure the INTV library and my desire justify that much... and least, in the great priority of things. I think an AtariMax Coleco 128-in-1 cart would be first, and probably a Redemption Adaptor and Stelladaptor also, before I'd want to drop more than $100 for an INTV cart.

 

I also wanted to say, I just played a bunch of Demon Attack via emulation.. that was really why I came to this thread. I played first on Atari800Win PLus, and the emulation was basically flawless. Feels exactly like the real hardware (other than the pointer occasionally flickering onscreen during play). Now granted, the LCD makes the graphics look different (and I think superior), but... I think if the output was to a regular television, I'd be really hard pressed to tell the emulation from the real hardware (again, granting that you could hide the other tell tale signs, like the mouse pointer appearing and disappearing).

 

Stella, on the other hand, was disappointing. Somewhere else I mentioned that Demon Attack 2600 seemed far slower than the 8 bit version, in emulation. I confirmed that this isn't the case on the real hardware. The 2600 version (via Multicart, via 7800) is basically as speedy as the 8 bit version (via Multicart, via 800xl). Going BACK to emulation, it was CLEAR that Stella runs a LOT slower in full screen, running Demon Attack, than the actual hardware. I confirmed this across several versions of Stella and StellaX. Sound was also off. When playing on the real hardware, both versions sound very similar. I had a friend playing the 8 bit version while I played the 2600 version, and he commented on how similar the sounds were. On emulation, the 8 bit version again, is very good, but in Stella, things are off.

 

Demon Attack may just be a bad example for Stella. There may be a lot of titles where Stella does spot-on emulation. And, even if it isn't ideal, it is pretty close for something you can download free off the Internet and start enjoying classic games immediately. I just wanted to back off a bit on my earlier claims. I think that emulation, with the right USB joystick, has come a long way, and is VIRTUALLY indistinguishible in MANY cases from the real thing... but this is going to vary by title, by platform, by emulation application, and by the machine you are running emulation on. I think it is too much to ask to expect emulation to be flawless in all cases. I think emulation deserves credit, though, for how far it has come, and what a good job it does across a variety of platforms.

Edited October 6, 2006 by Paranoid

[AussieAtari]

Me as well. I like to go in and just LOOK at the collection I have amassed from time to time... especially with all those "someday to be quite rare and in demand" multicarts I've got.

 

I think an AtariMax Coleco 128-in-1 cart would be first

 

I think emulation deserves credit, though, for how far it has come, and what a good job it does across a variety of platforms.

 

The AtariMax Coleco 128-in-1 is an excellent unit and a perfect first choice for you, in my humble opinion.

 

I agree with what you say about emulation being given credit, as if it were not at the state it is today, I would not be able to experience some of the rarer/NTSC only/too bloody expensive units that I can through the likes of MESS etc.

[Paranoid]

Interestingly enough, I've been playing with WinUAE.... finally hunted down the C=64 ports of Popeye, Donkey Kong, and Zaxxon. One guy did all of them... and it looks like he planned on doing a bunch of others, too... Or maybe it was one GROUP of hackers/crackers. Anyhow...

 

This might be one thing I dislike about the 16 bit era. The ST and the Amiga *both* were powerful enough that they could have really realized EXCELLENT home versions of the classics for a generation that I think would have still appreciated having those classics at home... especially as arcade-perfect ports. Yet, on both platforms, everything that had come before was basically cast out, for a glut of titles, many of which had very poor gameplay covered by gee-whiz graphics. They're are literally tons and tons of titles out there for either the ST or Amiga... and MOST of them are competely unfamiliar. There is a small handful of titles that were original 16 bit titles or 8 bit conversions (like Archon, for example) that are worth having for the Amiga or ST... and then a literal avalanche of CRAP.

 

Not to mention how ironic it is that I've got my Win32 box emulating an Amiga and almost immediately I start encountering Guru Meditations.

 

It has also made me acknowledge, that even with emulation, there are just some platforms, some titles, that you've GOT to write off. You can't maintain and organize and remember how to operate a dozen different emulators with thousands of different files that might each require certain tweaks in order to operate correctly. The Amiga is probably one of the worst, this way... where a file may require say, a 68020 running at A500 68000 speed with 512k of chip rom and 512k of Fast ram and a 1.3 kickstart in order to load correctly. I've been successful in getting everything I wanted to run to run, but I can see that I'm going to have to pick my poison and be a little bit picky about my trips down memory lane.

[Paranoid]

Oh... and... the 5200/8 Bit version of Donkey Kong still reigns supreme. I like it way better than the Amiga/C=64 version.

 

Question. Does anyone else have trouble with WinUAE crashing when they try to go full-screen with it? I can only get it to run in a window.

 

Oh... and one last thing...

 

I'm really disappointed with the state of emulation on the Macintosh. I just downloaded the lastest version of Atari800MacX and Atari800Win PLus is hands down a better emulator. Montezuma's Revenge was my test image today... The Win version is almost flawless, graphics and colors and sound and input are all very good. The Mac version is just frustrating. Input via the Competition Pro USB was really bad. I suppose it could be that I'm using a 3rd party USB hub (Macally ihub7)... but I don't think this is the case. Sound was good, but graphics were wrong too. The flames weren't animated, colors were way off, and certain animations (like the disappearing platforms) weren't right either.

 

The Mac version has some real nifty features and a far more flashy interface than the Win version... but it just doesn't work that good. And this isn't the only case. I've been disappointed with MacMAME as well. I suppose it really comes down to the same reason why there are so many viri floating around for the Win32 platform... more people putting more time and effort into it. But it is too bad. I feel sorry for those who *only* have a Mac and want to play around with emulation... because if my experience is typical, they're missing out on a lot.

Edited October 8, 2006 by Paranoid