Emulation central - recommendations in 1st post

[deuxhero]

Why are you even mentioning Mednafen when I already pointed out its PS1 emulation is poor and far from complete?

As for PCSX-R - not even worth discussing. It's always been a piece of shit and if it were updated daily for the next decade, it'd still be a piece of shit.

Exactly my point. Aside from those two, your only options for emulating the PS1 are Xebra (dead, and was never programed for xinput), and even deader emulators with even worse compatibility and accuracy than PCSX-R. PS1 Emulation is pretty awful.

Honestly don't use the latest RetroArch. The new built-in GUI does indeed blow and seems aimed at mobile users. Stick with the previous build that used the Phoenix GUI. If anyone needs it, I can stick it on my Dropbox. The only reason to grab a new build is to snatch the latest libretro cores or if you really need gpu hard sync.

Oh that GUI has been there as an option (honestly seems more like something from a dos program than a phone.) and Phoenix has most of the stupidity intact (no default directories, looks only for ones a very spefific PS1 model's bios per region even the other 8 or so will work if you rename them ect ect)

 

[Malpercio]

Retroarch for everything.

 

[A user named cat]

Retroarch for everything.

Nah, not for everything. Plenty of reasons why too.

Systems you don't want to use RetroArch for from my testing:
1. NES - major overscan issues with every core, they've been working on fixing it but still no luck. Either you crop the playing window or you get edge garbage. I also don't believe it supports color palettes which I find a must. I set up a custom accurate one in Nestopia to use in Mednafen.
2. PS1 - reasons already discussed, nothing more to add.
3. Atari (Stella) - lack of controller inputs, standalone emu has better support.
4. TurboGrafx systems - has some compatbility issues with certain games, I recall a few that displayed blank screens or crashed. Use Medna standalone.
5. Arcade (Final Burn Alpha) - only useful for a few games that don't play nice with MAME.
6. N64 - they've recently begun work on porting Mupen over, so it's still very buggy and hardly worthwhile.

Systems I'd recommend using it for:
1. SNES & Super Famicom - as also already mentioned, bsnes cores for pure accuracy and snes9x next for some translated roms.
2. GBA - VBA Next works perfect for every game I've thrown at it.
3. Sega systems (Genesis, Master System and Sega CD) - Gen Plus GX is top notch, accurate and compatible with every single game I've played. Plays some Gen games that won't even run in Fusion.

 

[deuxhero]

Updated from some SVN after 9.1


Let's check up on the problems I had in that version.

Well, it's a step up from "crashes the emulator" I guess.

The other graphical problem (with the same series. Likely due to how obscure it is.) I noticed seems to have been fixed.

... And a new one has poped up in its place (in older versions, the graphics for the beams were broken, now the background is broken instead).

I dislike how screenshots now go on the virtual memory card instead of a dedicated screenshot folder. Will make updating to new versions more of a hassel.

 

[A user named cat]

I dislike how screenshots now go on the virtual memory card instead of a dedicated screenshot folder. Will make updating to new versions more of a hassel.

Why not use a third party program like Mirillis Action, MSI Afterburner or Fraps?

 

[deuxhero]

Because aside from some directory shenanigans, there is no reason to?

 

[A user named cat]

Fullscreen shots? Having all your game pics in a dedicated folder? Having the option to properly record and encode gameplay footage? Having a global hotkey so you don't have to set one per emulator, some of which don't allow rebinding? Hopefully I don't have to further explain the benefits of dedicated software versus shitty built-in functions.

 

[SCO]

herp

 

[deuxhero]

Fullscreen shots?

Spoiler

PPSSPP does support that, I just turned the resolution down to native because 1: filesize 2: I can't exactly complain about accuracy when using enhancement hacks.

I noticed they changed how text entry from XMB is handled. It lets you change to Japanese characters, even if such a game doesn't allow it (even some NTSC-J ones don't, and I can't think of a single NTSC-U game that allows them), which can produce errors (I'll have to test farther, but so far I've just got a "?" whenever such would show up)

 

[A user named cat]

I wasn't talking about just for PPSSPP. Some emulators won't take fullscreen pics either, I don't think even DOSBox will. Simply easier having a global hotkey and folder for all gaming caps, that's all.

Has it been mentioned how much incline the latest Dolphin is? Got around to trying out a few games earlier that used to have unfixable sound stuttering and choppy framerates, no more hiccups now. They seem to have made a ton of changes with the 4.0 update. Wonder how many more games are fixed now.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Is there any chance of original XBox emulation to happen? Haven't heard anything new since running Halo's first level(s) and Turok Evolution without sound (but they have PC ports so it doesn't matter anyway).

 

[spekkio]

Nothing new AFAIK: nobody cares / too scared of M$ / not enough exlusives / etc.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

not enough exlusives / etc.

This. There's basically Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black. Maybe Metal Wolf Chaos or perhaps Steel Battalion if you happen to have the 200-clam control setup and can interface it with your PC. And if you're feeling charitable you can include the few remakes that for some reason only showed up on Xbox (Onimusha, MGS2, etc).

So basically it would be easier to join forces with Itagaki, wrench the license from Tecmo, and release NGO/NGB as freeware in order to market for a real Ninja Gaiden sequel. No Hayashi shit.

 

[Hellraiser]

I decided to satiate my need for arcade-ish dogfighting with some old Ace Combat. Through my research on wikipedia I have found out how Namco gutted the US/EU versions of Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere compared to the original japanese version. In particular they not just got rid of all the animu cutscenes, but also changed the branching storyline with multiple endings into a linear campaign and cut a lot of missions. No translated isos exist, just cubersome html files with the text translated. Namco never made a proper translated re-release. I wept as I found all of that out bros, I fucking wept.



Oh well, I guess I'll just read the translated text outside of the game.

Also playing some Gran Turismo, jesus christ were the A-license tests fucking hard. But at the same time all that shit was useful, as it covered the most ridiculous corners and hairpin turns in the cups that A-license enables. So without passing those tests you wouldn't be able to finish first regardless of the money grinding and tuned car you may get through that. In hindsight appreciate Japanese the automotive game design pedantry/assperger's.

Does anyone have any obscure Playstation games to recommend? I am familiar with most of the classics and have a few in my backlog but I am open to suggestions.

 

[ghostdog]

Does anyone have any obscure Playstation games to recommend? I am familiar with most of the classics and have a few in my backlog but I am open to suggestions.

What comes to mind is :

In Cold Blood : Cool Adventure with action/spy elements by Revolution (BASS, Broken Sword)
Policenauts : You probably know this, cult classic and stuff, but whatever. Kojima's loose sequel to Snatcher. Sniff the panchu.
Koudelka : Interesting prequel to PS2's Shadow Hearts.
Hell Night : Obscure survival horror with some cool ideas.
Wizardry - Llylgamyn Saga and New age of Llylgamyn : Japanese remakes of wizardry 1-5 with an option to turn most text into english.
Clock Tower 2 : It's borderline shovelware but has its moments.

 

[Xi]

Using Dolphin with Wind Waker at the moment. AA and AF do wonders for that game. Might give Final Fantasy 12 a shot afterwards. Again, the addition of AA/AF make it so much more appealing. ;P

 

[dnf]

not enough exlusives / etc.

And if you're feeling charitable you can include the few remakes that for some reason only showed up on Xbox (Onimusha, MGS2, etc).

There is PC ports of Onimusha and MGS2

 

[MrRichard999]

Anybody got an old Xbox in their closet or a friend with one? How about one on Craigslist for $20?

 

[A user named cat]

Anybody got an old Xbox in their closet or a friend with one? How about one on Craigslist for $20?

[VID]

That's pretty cool, probably the best use of a shitty Xbox. I have one sitting in my closet that hasn't been touched in ages. I've read about soft modding before and checked out his tutorial, seem like a pain in the ass. Requires an Action Replay Kit or some sort of USB contraption and also a specific game to load a hacked save. I'd rather not sink a dime into it (got it for free in the first place). Better off using PC frontends for obvious reasons and hooking up to tv with HDMI.

 

[MrRichard999]

Want to sell it :D. If you can get a memory card with the save exploit and that game its matched to, it is real easy. If you know how to take apart a desktop, you can do the rest no problem with putting in a larger hard drive.

 

[AngryEddy]

Anybody try MAME and have a good list of virus free MAME roms? Last time I checked, every master list of 5000 + games always had people complaining about worms and spyware.

 

[spekkio]

The fuck are you talking about?
Mame roms are in zip format (with .rom or .bin files inside), so simply grab the batch and scan all files with any antivirus, in case somebody actually put some shit into these zips.
If there are any .exe files in the torrent, don't download them.
Every fucking torrent description on open trackers is full of "OMG I got virus warning guyse!!1!!" comments.



Or grab individual roms from any decent rom site.

 

[MrRichard999]

Spekkio hit it right on the head with where you gotta go. Should be safe on those links. No torrent nonsense on there. May need to get WINRAR as the files may be in sections due to how big the set is. Expect it to be about 6-8 GIGS for a proper set.

 

[SCO]

The 'problem' (ie: not a real problem) with mame roms is that mame is ongoing project focused on a hardware accuracy and that large parts of the software arcade cabinets run is actually inbuilt on the hardware. This means, that very often, discoveries are made on how a piece of hardware should function, which means new pieces of rom code have to be dumped, or that some roms were unproperly dumped, which means large sections your romset just got invalidated doozd and are probably blacklisted on recent mame.

Just as a absurd example of this hardware/software confusion, some early arcades used cassette tapes as game 'music/sound-effects', operated by the hardware;

 

[Gragt]

Or grab individual roms from any decent rom site.

Ahem.