Probably none considering it was more or less a Mega Drive with a laserdisc player, and a pretty shitty LD player at that.
Ya. It did have like 5 Mega-LD games. Required both the LaserActive and the Sega Pac. Would be neat for digital preservation/archiving
No reason why it wouldnt be possible. Would act the same as other laserdisc games, using rips of the disks
Wouldn't the discs need to be converted into a video format then reprogrammed? I'm not sure how LD game emulation works.
I think there was some discussion about this on SonicRetro: https://forums.sonicretro.org/?showtopic=32596
that Nemesis guy is pretty weak.... http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1647 "One thing to note about this dumping effort: Several Japanese LaserActive games are pornographic in nature. I will not dumping these games. I don't want to see them, I don't want them in my house, and I don't want them around my kids. If I get sent any packages containing any of these games, I'll send the entire package straight back to the sender." P.S. He wasn't legit.
Wasn't legit? Pretty sure he is legit, writing an emulator already. Just because he's not done it yet, doesn't mean it's not legit. How about you do it?
Its difficult to write an emulator for the LaserActive because of its dual nature being both analog and digital. Without the original dev hardware, each individual disk is/has a different encoding because each part of the digital/analog nature is unique to the disk. Also, parts of the 'digital is not universal either... take Triad Stone for instance, the data is divided up by 2nd soundtrack (one soundtrack is analog, the 2nd soundtrack/language is digital) and is mixed in with running game code. A game like Pyramid Patrol is pure analog is audio/video with just the data for game code. Then some games are stereo, and some mono using each individual track for different audio as well. In my opinion, each game has to be done invididual. Just dumping the video, and then the digital data and combining them will not work, even if you could run the dumped code. Then, if you know the nature of the LaserActive, most games, (even pyramid patrol does this) had a brand new analog video codex that encodes 2 different videos ontop of each other using alternate fields of the same frame, so a pure video dump wont even work without blurred vision. So, you would have to digitize 2 video streams separating out the video (its doable, just a lot of work). What does this mean, it pretty much means that an individual emulator has to be written for each game. Theres more to the story, but this is the simplest way I can express it. Can we dump the video streams, yes. Can we dump the digital data, yes. Putting it all together in the correct order, not without the original source and dev hardware, it cant truly be done without a lot of effort for each disc. The only way to do it, and not properly either would be to record the data into video clips and run them back to back, and rewrite the code for the sprites to emulate the way it looks/feels.... and that is a huge undertaking. Nemisis can dump the video and the audio and the digital data, but he cant put the stuff all together.... (LaserActiveGuy on youtube). Oh, I think the official number is 33 unique games.... but only 17 (including the myst prototype) can be considered 'real games not edutainment or adult in nature. (My personal opinion, only 11 out of those are 'any' fun).
Merged your posts @tommyptr. Please use the edit button rather than posting again a few minutes later - thanks! Paragraphs wouldn't go amiss to make that easier to read, too!
Yeah, combining the two emulators (LA and Sega CD) was the thought a couple of years ago, but at least from my understanding, each game pretty much has to be 'fake emulated' or compiled individually. I have honestly been thinking about doing 2 or 3 of these myself, Pyramid Patrol, Rocket Coaster and Don Quxiote, I have the footage and could do it, but with my busy schedule and a hefty Apple II programming backlog of ideas, each one would take apx a year... would anybody be interested in one of the above?
I would like to see LA emulator. Simply ripping is not enough because unlike CD games that streams audio while game play, LA can stream video as background while the game plays. I've only seen youtube video, and those few games can't be run on non LA even if you ripped the game code to make it work in emulator. No way am I spending over $500 for a rare working module and system and more for each games just to play with it.
I had an argument with the guy, about the fact his own tastes didn't have to decide what to rip and not to rip. So, in the end, I ever helped him although I have all the stuff to properly digitalize LDs. Remembering that makes me sad.
So you basically told someone he should do something he doesnt agree with, with his own free time (which he is doingfor FREE)? Because you said so? How did that work out? I assume he just laughed at you? If hes the one doing the work, he can certainly decide not to do parts he doesnt agree with. If someone started an argument with me over it, I would just stop working on it completely.
You know what the funny part is... the adult titles would be the easiest ones to do...lol. How something like Rocket Coaster could be done, is each track would be (something like) 1 minute video of the background. Tie that into a sprite (your car) with a few more sprites (time based upon the video) of the SLOWDOWN and SPEEDUP skidsteers... and then have the 'emulator' slow down or speed up the video based upon the counter (how far/long) the accelerator button was pressed. If one ever looked at the menus/ect they are either videos or single frames. This one wouldn't be hard to do at all! The tracks are interweaved video though, and I don't have the equipment, but if I could get ahold of the 2 individual streams I could start working on it. I think the 'reproduced version' could easily be passed off as the real thing.
He was pissed, because he knew I was right. It seems you don't understand what all of this is about : preservation. As such, it isn't because "I said so", it is because "it must be done". This isn't a personal goal, this is a society goal, something which is above him and me. And I might add: "properly" ('it must be properly done"), which includes doing work on stuff you don't like. As for the work part, as I said, I offered to take the job on from the start, even before begginng the argument. And for your information, I don't give a fuck about Laseractive and porn (games or not), but I saw I could do a proper job preserving the system (part of my job is doing digital preservation, paid by my government, by the way) so I volunteered, asking nothing but not to exclude titles because of personal taste. (And, once again, if it was only for personal taste, I wouldn't even remember that the Laseractive ever existed.)
