So....how do you feel about ROMS and emulators?

[Pumpkin]

I would do it mostly for older games or games I already own but want to take screenshots of.

[Ayen]

I'm poor and it's the only way I can play a lot of old games from my childhood and what I missed out on growing up without spending any money. Emulating newer games is kind of a moot point for me as my computer has a hard enough time running a GameCube emulator let alone any of the new trout.

[Rin Heartilly]

How do you define "legal ROMs"? ROMs you've extracted from your own cartridges for personal use?

Emulation is in most countries not illegal, so if you have the game you're not breaking any laws by inserting it into a system where you run it through an emulator.

Any ROM you download, no matter how old, is causing copyright infringement in some way or another, even if you own the game yourself. By downloading a ROM, you are instructing a remote computer to make an unauthorized copy of the file. Even if you own a game, that doesn't mean this remote computer has the necessary rights to make a copy of its version.

It's not legal just because it's an old game.
It's not legal just because it isn't released in your country or region.
It's not legal if it's a fan translation of a game you would otherwise not be able to understand.
It's not legal to download a ROM of a game for one platform just because you own the game for a different platform. Owning FF7 on PC does not make it legal to emulate the PS1 version of FF7.

If you insert a PS1 game disc into your PC and run it through a PS1 emulator that doesn't contain copyrighted code (such as an official BIOS, unless you dumped this BIOS from your own PS1), this is legal in most areas.
If you make a copy of a PS1 game disc for personal use, such as running it with a legal emulator, this is legal in some countries (norway, for example). This is equivalent to making a MP3 rip of a CD you own in order to use it with your portable MP3 player.

The DMCA in the US forbids you from circumventing anti-piracy technology, no matter for what purpose, which means it is probably illegal to emulate most new consoles there, and also forbidden to modify a console to run game backups, even if you actually are only using it for game backups, not pirated copies.


Now I don't really care about any of this, but just don't try to pretend like what you're doing isn't illegal

In short: Downloading ROMs is almost always illegal. Running emulators is in most cases legal.

I'm aware it's illegal but I feel like it's one of those things that are so common (like downloading movies and mp3s) that it's not really enforced (unless it's a new game that you're ripping and charging people for it). But yea I probably worded myself badly xD

Oh, I agree with this! I actually can't remember the last time I pirated something. But yeah, Europe often got the short end of the stick.. I heard Australia got it pretty bad too. That right, Rin?

Yeap Our release dates on games are usually the same or a little after Europe's, meaning we always get games 6 months+ after the US, although in the 90's to mid 2000's we often didn't get 1/2 of what the US got anyway so we missed out on a lot of good titles :/ It's better now though, thankfully!

[Mirage]

Largely, the existence of official Virtual Consoles has made these irrelevant. The only time I emulate these days is for games that are not legally accessible where I live (release your games worldwide, and I'll stop emulating them!). These days, I can find almost everything on a Virtual Console, PS store, etcetera. So it's not really worth it any more.

What do you mean by worth it? You can't play PS2 games on neither PS3 (save for a very limited number of PS2 classics) or PS4 (although they are working on it now only because MS caught them off guard with xb360 compatibility). You also can't play your existing game library by inserting PS2 games into your PS3 or PS4, while you can do this with an emulator. This is of course assuming that you actually have a PS3. In the case of nintendo games, it assumes that you have a Wii or WiiU. If you don't, I would most certainly say installing a program and spending maybe half an hour configuring it is worth it. "It" being several hundred dollars in this case.

It might not be worth it for you personally, though, that's true. If you have enough money to keep buying games you've already paid for, then it's probably not worth it .

By the way, There is a working xb360 emulator and you can get playable framerates with a high end computer today. It'll probably be usable on the normal computers of 5 years into the future. A PS3 emulator isn't really anywhere close to working, however.

[Slothy]

By the way, There is a working xb360 emulator and you can get playable framerates with a high end computer today. It'll probably be usable on the normal computers of 5 years into the future. A PS3 emulator isn't really anywhere close to working, however.

I wasn't aware of that but it makes sense given the relatively straight forward architecture in the 360. Considering how long it's taken to get PS2 emulation to the state it's in now, I would be surprised if I see a playable PS3 emulator before I'm 50.

[Sephex]

By the way, There is a working xb360 emulator and you can get playable framerates with a high end computer today. It'll probably be usable on the normal computers of 5 years into the future. A PS3 emulator isn't really anywhere close to working, however.

I wasn't aware of that but it makes sense given the relatively straight forward architecture in the 360. Considering how long it's taken to get PS2 emulation to the state it's in now, I would be surprised if I see a playable PS3 emulator before I'm 50.

PS3 emulator 2045 HYPE!!!!!

[Mirage]

By the way, There is a working xb360 emulator and you can get playable framerates with a high end computer today. It'll probably be usable on the normal computers of 5 years into the future. A PS3 emulator isn't really anywhere close to working, however.

I wasn't aware of that but it makes sense given the relatively straight forward architecture in the 360. Considering how long it's taken to get PS2 emulation to the state it's in now, I would be surprised if I see a playable PS3 emulator before I'm 50.

Yes. Xb360 uses a 3-core PowerPC processor, which isn't extremely weird I guess. I can imagine it shares a lot of similarities between other common IBM PPC chips, which lots of people probably understand pretty well. PS3's Cell is a 3GHz PPC at the core, but the SPUs complicate things. The currently best emulator can get in-game in less than 5 demos, and fps is in the single digits even on 8-core i7 systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5FKb2j2Yx8 That's on an i5 2500k at 4.8 GHz. Might sound like a lot, but in 4 years, this sort of CPU performance will be commonplace. Take into consideration that this computer is emulating a console with a 3GHz CPU in it. In PCSX2, you need nearly 3 GHz to emulate the 300MHz EE found in the PS2 at full speed.

[Rez09]

I have no issues with emulation; there is simply no feasible way for me to experience many of these titles otherwise.

[Freya]

I only use it for older titles I have no access too. Many games for the longest time you couldn't even get on a virtual console basis. I would try to see if I could buy them through ebay or wahtever but if an old game is selling for $100 merely cause it's older, like 20 + years, yeah nope. I'm emulating that trout.

[Mirage]

It's not like the copyright holders earn anything from second hand sales anyway

[NeoCracker]

Not only is it fantastic for games you can't get otherwise, but for Rom Hacks as well. There are some absolutely fantastic fan projects out there.

So I own Breath of Fire 2 on my WiiU. I never play it, because I play the Fan-Tranlsation of it (Only fan translation of an official release I recommend over the official), but yeah. I own it. So smurf it, the legality of it is pretty superfluous to me. Nothing wrong with it I say.

Also, Johnbound is a pretty bitchin' Earthbound hack.

Emulation allows for a lot of fantastic fan projects for older games that would be impossible without it.

[Slothy]

PS3 emulator 2045 HYPE!!!!!

I better not be waiting until I'm 60 for one.

[Raistlin]

I give no trouts about copyright law; if it's a game I want to support, I'll buy it. Otherwise, I will emulate for many different reasons: an older game I don't want to bother looking for, an older game I already own but don't want to play on the console, or even a game I own that I simply want to take screenshots of. I don't pirate many games anymore, but I would have no moral qualms. Copyright laws are not based on any rational view of morality.

My general principle of internet piracy: if, absent the internet, I would still not have paid the manufacturer any money (whether because I already own it, it's too old, or any other reason), then I don't care. If I would have, then I generally just buy it.

[Madame Adequate]

Roms are 100% great and often the only realistic way to actually play a lot of older games. That's becoming less of an issue now that re-releases have become a lot more common, and I tend to get a legal copy when that is an option, but it's not like pirating 30 year old games is some kind of huge issue that is killing the industry.

[Sephex]

Wait, what about ROMulans?