thoughts on emulation

[Sephex]

I'll usually buy a game I like through a virtual store out of convenience. But I also like to emulate for customizable options that official emulation doesn't offer, not to mention for games that won't be released officially.

[DMKA]

I used to emulate a lot, and I very much enjoyed it. Emulation is wonderful up until the PS2 era, and I would emulate a lot of old games still if my other half wasn't particularly shallow about how the games I play look. Before the PS2 stage, things are flawless, and you can actually play games with them looking better than they ever did on the consoles they were originally made for. But then once you hit PS2 things just get really broken and hard to replicate. Some games people have managed to emulate flawlessly, looking amazingly better than they ever could on the original hardware (I played the entirety of Final Fantasy XII via emulation at 1080p and it was a phenomenal experience) while others are just never quite right.

I see nothing wrong with emulating if that's what you want to do, but I'd prefer to play an officially released updated version (i.e., HD remasters, new ports, etc) over emulating. Not because I care about giving a company money for a decade+ old game, but because I just like when everything works as intended with nothing having to be unofficially rigged or worked around.

[Slothy]

Another thing I want to say about emulation that I know I've mentioned before but forgot to be: it's essentially the only viable method we have to preserve older titles.

Major companies simply don't have enough interest in properly preserving their games for the future (see every HD release of relatively recent games where they didn't have final source code to work from, documentation was trout, backups had to be found that were half ruined, etc. for examples of what I mean and keep in mind those are largely PS2 games made in the last 15 years), no physical media will last forever. Some, even more recent CD based games, are at our past the end of their expected lives. If it weren't for peoples efforts in emulation I have no doubt we wouldn't have nearly as many games available in ROM or iso form and even fewer ways to play them.

Almost breaks my heart to think of how many games we might still have already lost.

[Jessweeee♪]

Have you bought a Sega Genesis recently? Most of them have aged to where AC adapters have to be in juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust the right spot or it doesn't retain power.

[FFNut]

I always buy the new titles so to support the developer. However if it is a game I own, or if I can't get it new I will emulate. But If it is a new title I will never just steal it as if they don't get the sales they will stop making great games for us. It's simple business.

[DMKA]

Another thing I want to say about emulation that I know I've mentioned before but forgot to be: it's essentially the only viable method we have to preserve older titles.

Major companies simply don't have enough interest in properly preserving their games for the future (see every HD release of relatively recent games where they didn't have final source code to work from, documentation was trout, backups had to be found that were half ruined, etc. for examples of what I mean and keep in mind those are largely PS2 games made in the last 15 years), no physical media will last forever. Some, even more recent CD based games, are at our past the end of their expected lives. If it weren't for peoples efforts in emulation I have no doubt we wouldn't have nearly as many games available in ROM or iso form and even fewer ways to play them.

You know I've never really thought about that but it's a good point. There would probably be several games at this point that no one could play at all if not for emulation.

[Sephex]

Another thing I want to say about emulation that I know I've mentioned before but forgot to be: it's essentially the only viable method we have to preserve older titles.

Major companies simply don't have enough interest in properly preserving their games for the future (see every HD release of relatively recent games where they didn't have final source code to work from, documentation was trout, backups had to be found that were half ruined, etc. for examples of what I mean and keep in mind those are largely PS2 games made in the last 15 years), no physical media will last forever. Some, even more recent CD based games, are at our past the end of their expected lives. If it weren't for peoples efforts in emulation I have no doubt we wouldn't have nearly as many games available in ROM or iso form and even fewer ways to play them.

You know I've never really thought about that but it's a good point. There would probably be several games at this point that no one could play at all if not for emulation.

To sort of add to this, I sometimes emulate simply because it is easier. Hey, I'm running my personal laptop through my HDTV most of the time. I can click a couple of times and have a game running no problem with controller support. It's a lot quicker than digging out my NES. And even if I did, I don't trust game with battery back up for saves at this point. Yes, I know you can change the battery, but really, I'm not going to do that.

[Skyblade]

Another thing I want to say about emulation that I know I've mentioned before but forgot to be: it's essentially the only viable method we have to preserve older titles.

Major companies simply don't have enough interest in properly preserving their games for the future (see every HD release of relatively recent games where they didn't have final source code to work from, documentation was trout, backups had to be found that were half ruined, etc. for examples of what I mean and keep in mind those are largely PS2 games made in the last 15 years), no physical media will last forever. Some, even more recent CD based games, are at our past the end of their expected lives. If it weren't for peoples efforts in emulation I have no doubt we wouldn't have nearly as many games available in ROM or iso form and even fewer ways to play them.

Almost breaks my heart to think of how many games we might still have already lost.

I've found that Virtual Consoles and digital distribution have done a lot to nullify this trend, fortunately. It's getting harder and harder to find games that don't have some form of official distribution (or are older PC games that are officially abandonware and available on plenty of sites for free).

[Vyk]

Nowadays, I really prefer to buy my games if only to show support to the company. That said, emulating something you own on your computer is A-OK, especially if you like modding or want to use some filters or other things you can't do on a console.

I'm going to take this a step farther and say that I personally believe emulation is totally fine as well if there is no option to buy older games new. Buying them used doesn't benefit the developer and if there's no way to buy it new them said developer clearly isn't interested in making money from it anyway.

And if we're being honest, most of the people who made classic games probably aren't benefiting from many classic sales now anyway since a lot of them have likely moved to other companies, left the industry, or their companies or games were bought by other publishers, etc. I'm honestly in favour of an overhaul of IP law anyway since much of it is just absurd in the modern day, but basically, I'm not going to give anyone a hard time for emulating anything.

I would take this one step farther myself and make an argument about companies not making a good enough effort to make things conveniently available. Virtual Console is about the best argument one could make, and even that is locked to a couple of Nintendo products. The best anyone could hope for is that everyone puts all their stuff onto Steam; since most people have a computer. Not everyone has a Wii(U), and not every game is available on Virtual Console

If nobody is making a good effort to make their ancient game available and convenient then they just don't want that money. I don't even emulate much these days. I'm one of those that's come into an expendable income so it's become less of an issue, but I still find nothing wrong with it when other convenient alternatives are a rarity, and like most people have said, the developers themselves aren't getting compensation, and aren't getting stolen from

[Fox]

I already own pretty much everything I've ever emulated. CASE IN POINT: Xenoblade Chronicles. I bought a Wii specifically for that game. I get it home and find out my Wii can't play dual layer DVDs.

So yeah, I'm not going to feel guilty about that one.

[Slothy]

Another thing I want to say about emulation that I know I've mentioned before but forgot to be: it's essentially the only viable method we have to preserve older titles.

Major companies simply don't have enough interest in properly preserving their games for the future (see every HD release of relatively recent games where they didn't have final source code to work from, documentation was trout, backups had to be found that were half ruined, etc. for examples of what I mean and keep in mind those are largely PS2 games made in the last 15 years), no physical media will last forever. Some, even more recent CD based games, are at our past the end of their expected lives. If it weren't for peoples efforts in emulation I have no doubt we wouldn't have nearly as many games available in ROM or iso form and even fewer ways to play them.

Almost breaks my heart to think of how many games we might still have already lost.

I've found that Virtual Consoles and digital distribution have done a lot to nullify this trend, fortunately. It's getting harder and harder to find games that don't have some form of official distribution (or are older PC games that are officially abandonware and available on plenty of sites for free).

More well known games is agree with you. But there are entire consoles and large chunks of popular console libraries that aren't available as digital downloads and I'd washer most of them never will be. And I doubt it'll stop being an issue in the future. The majority of PSX and PS2 games really aren't available and probably never will be due to lack of interest and the difficulty that still exists in tailoring am emulator to every single PS2 digital rerelease.

And I'm the mean time, like I said, companies are just losing the means to port these games left and right. The HD silent Hill collection didn't have the compete source code backed up and had to try to finish it before porting (hence why it still doesn't work properly) when they did the HD release for the original Killzone I believe they stumbled on a backup of the code at someone's house if I'm not mistaken. And then they still had to spend a bunch of time figuring out how that original code worked because the documentation was so bad no one knew what a bunch of the object classes even related to anymore.

Game archival is a complete crap shoot outside of the emulation scene. At least they've got some consistency within a platform.

[Mirage]

It's an absolute necessity to keep gaming history alive. The companies themselves don't seem to be interested in this in the slightest, so it's up to the users to make sure there's always a way to play a game.

TBH sony should just make sure the PS5 is strong enough to run PCSX2 and license that that to supply BC for every PS2 game, but they're not gonna do that because there's not enough money in it.

[Loony BoB]

It's very rare I touch emulators these days. The exception is generally for old FFs if I replay them (I have paid for them on PSN but I prefer having the fast forward button at times), or for games like Pokémon which I like to have ROM hacks for so I can catch all Pokémon in one game.

[Wolf Kanno]

For the most part, I only emulate under three conditions:

1. It's a game I already own but I want to try out fan mods.
2. A game I own, but it's the original version and the parent company has no intention of ever releasing anything but the remake versions. (Like FFII and III)
3. Some obscure game that has a snowball's chance in hell of ever being released outside of it's home country. (Sailor Moon RPG and Rudra no Hiou)

[Peter1986]

I really cannot agree with the statement that "emulators don't feel he same as the cartridges", I think they feel pretty much exactly the same as long as I am using a real controller and ignore any emulator features (State-saves, cheat codes etc).

Also, I have yet to notice any big differences between the ROM versions and the cartridge versions.
I can even play in sync with YouTube videos of cartridge versions (yes, I have tried that), and I can keep the exactly same pace and they seem to have the exactly same colour palettes etc etc etc (I even experience the same random glitches, like for example the disappearing boss on the stage "Rat Race" in BattleToads).
There are certainly no obvious differences, let's just put it that way - I highly doubt that annyone would be able to tell the difference between a cartridge version and its respective ROM version if they didn't get any obvious clues.