Emulation Kicks Ass

[Lordmonkus]

Really cool discussion about emulation.

[Zombeaver]

I appreciate anything that spreads goodwill for emulation which has been horribly misconstrued, misunderstood, and maligned over the years. I'm really really happy to see more and more mainstream proponents of emulation in recent years.

For me it primarily comes down to the basic principle that this stuff needs to be preserved for the future and emulation is the only viable and reliable way to ensure that. I don't care how immaculately you maintain your hardware and games - they will all break down someday regardless (and this is coming from someone who's an avid retro collector). Chances are it'll happen outside our lifetimes but it will happen. And then what? It's just lost forever because emulation is so eeeeeeeevillll? Seriously?

90% of American films made prior to 1930 are lost forever - with no known remaining copies in existence. NINETY freaking percent. 75% of all silent films are lost. That's an absolute tragedy. Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928) is one of my favorite films of all time, but I'll never be able to compare it to London After Midnight (another Lon Chaney silent film) because it's lost forever. I'd love to hear someone justify how the world is better off for that loss, just because people didn't have the foresight (or, in the case of emulation, were actively told not to) make backups of this stuff.

I know I rehash this same rant every time this comes up, and I realize it's probably just preaching to the choir given the focus of these forums, but people really need to understand how important emulation is; it's not just a neat facilitator to play SNES games on your phone - it's a way to ensure that those same games can be appreciated and examined by generations to come.

[Lordmonkus]

I just get aggravated when douchebag hardware purists shit all over emulation as being inferior and unplayable when they clearly haven't touched an emulator since the days of Nesticle and ZSnes.

[Zombeaver]

There's definitely some amount of that, yeah. I honestly think in most cases that sort of response is just an excuse though - Mike even basically admits as much in the video when he talks about his own thoughts on it prior to his "enlightenment". I mean look, I get it - I love collecting too, but emulation doesn't devalue that collection at all. In fact, it's precisely because of emulation that some games are worth as much as they are; because without it many of the better obscure titles would have remained just that - obscure - and nobody would care about them. I drove to another state to pick up a physical copy of Suikoden II, but I only did that after I played through it on an emulator.

But for the people that actually do feel really strongly about it in earnest (that a lack of accuracy has been the deciding factor) yeah, you're absolutely right - it's come a LONG way. I can't shit on ZSNES too much because that's kinda where I got my start with emulation so long ago, and I still remember it fondly, but I'm not deluded - obviously we have much better options today; options that frankly are so close to the real thing that anyone bemoaning them is really just looking for something to complain about. When you get into the nitty-gritty details of things like input lag, something that's long been bemoaned by purists, in a lot of cases you're looking at something like 5-6 frames of delay with the proper equipment and settings in RA. People that would complain about something like that just want something to complain about. I could beat Contra III just fine long before the arrival of Retroarch.

Most people that have super negative things to say about emulation don't really know much of anything about it, in reality; in my estimation anyway. A lot of it I really think comes simply from the negative stigma and connotations that have long been associated with emulation because it's too often discussed without the proper context.

[Lordmonkus]

It made me happy to hear him say he has changed his mind on emulation.

Most of the bigger retro gaming youtubers are fairly open minded about emulation but there is at least 1 or 2 out there that still shit all over like they have some sort of superiority complex because they play on real hardware. They even go so far as to say shit like "if i have a physical copy of the game I bought and paid for I am more likely to play it and appreciate it more". That isn't an emulation problem, that's a personal problem. I have no problems appreciating and enjoying the games I emulate.

I also don't shit on ZSnes and Nesticle, they served their purpose in a time when emulation was new and got people into it but they have certainly not aged well and are bad examples nowadays of what emulation can do.

As far as input lag goes, with a good low lag gaming display and using the 240p test suites manual lag test I consistently get less than one frame of input lag. Also keep in mind that just because some of these "hardware purists" say there is 0 input lag on real hardware and a CRT that doesn't mean it is 0. There is some but no one seems to care to measure it or maybe it isn't possible to measure. I sure as hell remember playing shitty games back in the day with "laggy" controls. It's in the games coding often.

[DOS76]

Dirty Console Peasants.

[Zombeaver]

13 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

They even go so far as to say shit like "if i have a physical copy of the game I bought and paid for I am more likely to play it and appreciate it more". That isn't an emulation problem, that's a personal problem. I have no problems appreciating and enjoying the games I emulate.

Yep, exactly. There are many games that I love immensely and my first encounter with them was within the context of emulation. Like they said in the video, it allows everyone to be exposed to a huge range of games that they may have never known about or even heard of outside of the advent of emulation. I understand the desire to have a physical copy of some games, but that doesn't have any impact on my appreciation of the game itself - regardless of the method I use to play it.

6 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

As far as input lag goes, with a good low lag gaming display and using the 240p test suites manual lag test I consistently get less than one frame of input lag. Also keep in mind that just because some of these "hardware purists" say there is 0 input lag on real hardware and a CRT that doesn't mean it is 0. There is some but no one seems to care to measure it or maybe it isn't possible to measure. I sure as hell remember playing shitty games back in the day with "laggy" controls. It's in the games coding often.

Yep, definitely. I think the vast majority of such complaints (if made more recently anyway) have much more to do with people using high-latency LCDs than anything to do with emulation. If you were to hook up real hardware to that same crappy LCD you'd have input lag on it too. And yeah, some games just have it innately - some by design (such as animation-heavy games like Flashback, Out of this World, etc.) and some that are just...well...poorly made.

I'm gonna give G-Sync another year or two to come down a bit before I pick one up; I've done fine for years without one but it'd still be nice.

9 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

Dirty Console Peasants.

Haha, yep. DCP™

[Lordmonkus]

G-Sync is awesome but obviously isn't necessary for low input lag. G-Sync and FreeSync monitors being higher end just have lower input latency by their nature. They also allow you to turn off V-Sync (which adds to lag a bit) to remove the tearing.

Nice low input lag BenQ monitors can be gotten for very reasonable prices and don't lock you into a specific video card brand.

I would not give up my G-Sync monitor for anything though, it is so nice to play on one. It is especially awesome for Mame with all those funky refresh rate games.

[Lordmonkus]

18 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

Dirty Console Peasants.

LOL.

[Zombeaver]

20 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

G-Sync is awesome but obviously isn't necessary for low input lag. G-Sync and FreeSync monitors being higher end just have lower input latency by their nature. They also allow you to turn off V-Sync (which adds to lag a bit) to remove the tearing.

True, but I always have Vsync turned on so it'd theoretically yield an improvement for that reason (though potentially negligible, I don't know). This is what I have currently. It's not amazing but it's okay as long as it's set to low latency (gaming) mode.

I'm actually really interested in trying out a G-Sync monitor with C64 emulation because it ran at an unusual 50.125hz. Emulators do their best to compensate for this and sync to standard modern rates, and they do a pretty good job of it, but it's not perfect and can occasionally cause a few hiccups.

[Lordmonkus]

Seems like a good TV.

Yeah most emulators with v-sync on tend to speed the game up to 60 Hz which can either have an extremely minor and insignificant effect on a game to possibly weird effects on games especially if AI and physics are tied to the games speed.