I understand, some tiles do look worse, but other tiles look a lot better in my opinion. The hearts, the ground tiles and Link's sprite all look nicer to me, the colours are rich and there are more natural curves where the curves need to be. The money counters on the other hand do look noticeably distorted. I guess smoothing is the polar opposite of pixelation, you have good points and bad points about each. With pixels you have jagged edges and some things look unnatural, with smoothing you have curved edges and some things look unnatural, it's all kind of the same it just depends on what your eye focuses on.
Even though I owned a Retron 3 Clone system (Hardware emulation better than Software emulation Retron 5), I would say, the games are best played with the CONTROLLERS that comes with the system. I would find it weird to play mega drive/ genesis games using the Xbox 360/PS3 controller. Software emulators often suffers from slowdowns and glitches and incompatibility.
Are people forgetting about the whole experience? It's all about going into the storage room/cupboard, rummaging around and deciding spur of the moment on a console, then looking for the power adapter and controllers for it, coming out covered in spider webs, plugging in the cables, deciding on a game, and firing it up. There is still something magical about a console sitting awkwardly beside the TV with controllers wires dangling from it, firing up and coming to life, just as it did 20 years ago when you first unboxed it on that cold Christmas morning. You can't emulate that sort of awesomeness. It's the difference between having the album or being at the actual concert, there is just no comparison.
Whenever I can I prefer to play on real hardware, but if I emulate I prefer to do so on a console with real controllers. The only time where I absolutely must emulate on a PC is for N64 hacks, especially Super Mario 64 hacks, since they won't run on real hardware and most are too big to be made into Wii WADs.
Real Hardware with proper software everytime - but I do like the whole emulation thing as a possible second option...
Dude, take better care of your consoles. Though, I swear if the dog gingerly walks over my controller cable one more time...
Dude, that's not an enhanced graphics, it's destroyed graphics - scale2x, super eagle, HQxx, BRwhatever destroy small picture details. It's ok for Atari 2600, but anything above - no way. Of course it's just my opinion. For me enhanced graphics is picture that definitely better than original without any buts Something like this:
I prefer emulation because there really isn't any space taken up by old consoles and games, nor do I own a tv anyways.
3D systems that had a proper Z-buffer actually do look better in a higher resolution. Arcade systems like the Model 2, Model 3, and consoles like the N64, DC, PS2, GC, etc. look better at a higher resolution. But I think the PS1 actually looks worse at a higher resolution because the polygon bending is more noticeable than at its native 240p resolution. As far as 2D games, I prefer bilinear filtering and/or scanlines. It doesn't fully replicate the look of a CRT, though; which is one reason I prefer real hardware.
Haha, I take care of my consoles, they have their own dedicated little storage room with shelves and draws away from the light and humidity...... but sometimes the spiders have a bit too much fun in there.
Prefer real hardware. The experience itself is amazing. Keep in mind no emulator can capture how systems output video to a tv especially with the use of s-video or rgb. Get a good CRT and it is absolute heaven. If your using emus due to costs there's pretty much a everdrive for every retro system and only one that has major issues due to chips is snes but even then it's getting there. Plus the controlls themselves, there made to be played on that not a pc through a USB plug.
There isn't much of difference between the two to me, I mean while the model details are at a higher resolution you still have jaggies on the portrait bars. So while you've enhanced one aspect of the picture you've lost quality on another and the image is still off balance. But don't take the picture I posted as a prime example of why emulators can be good for some games, the same is true regardless of whatever method you use, be it a smoothing/texture filter or rendering the graphics in a higher resolution, and your picture shows that as well. They all help alleviate pixelation yet come with some negative draw backs. Still regardless of all that playing on real hardware is a completely different experience and something to be enjoyed for completely different reasons, it's all down to your mood and whatever you feel like enjoying at the time (at least for me). Haha. Smoothing filters aren't a botched restoration though, at least with an emulator you have the choice of going back to the original artwork at any time you choose. This painting however is sadly lost forever...
Kind of silly topic... Physical consoles are fast becoming historical artifacts. I'm no stranger to the quaint appeal of playing Rockman 2 over RF, or to fetishizing original plastic work and chip layouts as much as the next man. So while an emulator can't illicit an emotional response like a real console for this nostalgist (/fetishist), I must say I fully embrace all types of emulation for the other 80% of my video game needs... Emulators are far, far more useful than the real thing, and I feel bad for those of you who don't see it because you probably don't see games as they exist below their standard presentation, or all the potential emulation has to offer going into the future. Emulation isn't a "lifestyle choice" for many people as much as it's a technical necessity. There are so so many things you can't do with real hardware--copiers/flash carts/modchips/soft mods or even original development hardware can never take full control of the entire machine's state. Whether you're into game development, game archeology, hacking, cheating, tool assisted runs, etc software emulators specifically are the most direct path to accomplishing a creative task. Also just because emulators don't pass your Turing test today doesn't mean they won't tomorrow. Recent PC performance is allowing older systems to being emulated with high accuracy along side fine-pitch CRT filters. Don't like the high level emulation common with PS and N64? That's not an emulation fault, it's an emulator fault. It's very possible to create emulators more accurate than the original hardware. Physical chips aren't perfect and their immutable physicality along with analog interconnections are disadvantages in the digital age. Besides, every minute analog characteristic of the original hardware can be emulated with noise-free digital precision, it's just a matter of an author's knowledge, resources and dedication. Even latency is only an implementation issue. ----- Something else to point out is that today's games are completely software driven, as opposed to the olden days where software conformed to hardware constraints. Every game system from the last 15 years has been built around modern PC paradigms (more or less standard graphics pipelines + frame buffer + optional abstract audio DSP + audio buffer). If your system has generic architecture (leading game engines to be governed by hardware performance rather than hardware features), and games themselves are programmed on top of an API that further abstracts the hardware..... What the hell difference does it make what the game runs on, as long as it runs as well as the real thing? In a way modern consoles are already an illusion, today's games run on top of proprietary APIs, not hardware. Should emulators become sufficiently compatible for many of the more recent consoles, I don't even see a point in keeping their genuine hardware except as a reference to further emulation. Authentic hardware doesn't even really exist anymore since hardware implementations can change significantly from revision to revision without consequence, making arguments for the real thing even less momentous. Emulation is here to stay. Emulation is your friend. Let Emulation love you.
Holy shit! Calpis has a way with words! That was very well stated, & is how I tend to feel on the subject. I still find it weird that I seem to be one of the few "old-timers" that tends to like emulation more than the real thing, just due to all of the various options, no setup, no hassle. The only thing that I need more of is controller converters to USB, as playing with the respected controller is usually desired. Plus, if your a fan of hacking games, being able to play it right after editing it is wonderful. One of my SNES died this past month, & I spent half an hour trying to get my Game Genie to work with Zombies Ate My Neighbors before remembering that the Genie doesn't function on the SNES Jr. Ended up saying fuck it, jumped on my computer & got it all setup in 2 minutes. & for me, it was just as fun as playing the real thing, if not more.
Not really. You're certainly right to say that emulators have all sorts of advantages over a physical console/computer, and that even if emulation of a given machine is less than 100% accurate now it will nonetheless become perfect in time. But even so, some people prefer to use the physical machines, which is their right, regardless of their reasons for doing so. I personally don't see why anyone would refuse to use an emulator (I like both emulation and the original machines), but then I don't see why anyone would climb a mountain, watch wrestling (or any other sport), or have a scorpion as a pet, but some people do, and that's up to them. There are some third party multi-consoles available, where one machine can play different console games (and support those consoles' joypads) such as the NES, SNES and Megadrive (Genesis). I know that some of them are less than 100% compatible, and some use emulation rather than chips that are (presumably) taken from old NES/SNES/Megadrives (or are bought new from the same places that Nintendo and Sega bought them from), and if I wanted to use those consoles then I'd be happy to use an all-in-one, provided, of course, that the gameplay/graphics/sound was as good as with the original machines. Lot of people presumably wouldn't, which is their choice, though I don't personally understand why not. In fact, I'd *love* an all in one that ran games for my current consoles, so I could have less clutter (one console connected to the TV would be *much* more convenient than the current six!), and of course if the all-in-one console was emulation based then I'd presumably get some of the emulation based advantages too, but sadly the emulators for my consoles are all at a less than ideal stage (N64, PS2), or so primitive as to be unusable (original XBox, PS3). But in time hopefully emulation will be perfected (and with CEN64 and MESS, N64 emulation might soon be as accurate as with the SNES!), and I can clear some space around my TV.
Are there any emulators that emulate the system 100% though? Even good ones like ePSXe have some problems.
There aren't any perfect emulators. Most emulators today, even ones boastful of accuracy, are actually quite inaccurate from a behavioral standpoint. Few games are the wiser though, much less the player. In upcoming years you'll see most new emulators dubbed "cycle-accurate", which simply means different components of the system are supposedly carrying out their functions at the correct point in time. Truthfully this is rarely the case since it's unknown how most chips actually operate internally. Most of the better emulators today are at this level and the authors simply guessed at hardware behavior until the bugs were gone, sometimes with some hardware measurements to guide them. After that you'll probably see cycle-accurate emulators that are actually informed by chip level reverse engineering (this has started to happen in the last couple years), which will theoretically bring about full compatibility since the hardware's exact function can be understood. (Many chips are too difficult to analyze by humans though, more advanced tools will have to be developed. Some chips will probably never be understood if their complexity exceeds their function.) After that the next level is really some sort of netlist emulation (simulating the integrated circuits at whatever abstraction level is necessary to get the correct operation). This is the ultimate in accuracy, but slowwwww and very complex to work on for a developer, much less optimize.
