4 ms·

I know there are many people who find this appalling and wish that companies did more to re-release their older titles, but I've frankly just accepted that emul

by aquova 3y ago

I know there are many people who find this appalling and wish that companies did more to re-release their older titles, but I've frankly just accepted that emulation will be the best and perhaps only way to play a majority of these titles. Unlike movies, where you simply need a method to playback a video and audio stream, getting interactive media to continue working isn't trivial, especially since it needs to run exactly as it did before (otherwise what's the point). I wish rather than taking the effort to port the game themselves, they'd be more receptive to fan preservation efforts, although some companies are more friendly towards this than others. It's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. The more people ask for older titles to be re-released, the more developers realize there's a market for it, so rather than release the source or future-compatible files, they instead will port the game to their latest system once a decade to resell it.

spondylosaurus 3y ago
> Unlike movies, where you simply need a method to playback a video and audio stream, getting interactive media to continue working isn't trivial, especially since it needs to run exactly as it did before (otherwise what's the point). Even getting a 20-year-old console (which in the retro gaming world isn't that old) to work with a modern HDMI TV is a headache! Despite owning the hardware and plenty of games, I had to drop a couple hundred bucks on a RetroTINK scaler to make my PS2 playable again. Which is no hate to the RetroTINK, because it's an amazing little gadget (and its output looks great), just kind of sad that it takes so much money and effort to keep playing a console I've owned since I was a kid.
- cubefox 3y ago
  There are probably cheaper HDMI adapters, though probably with a weaker picture quality. (And latency will probably always be higher than analog, no matter what.)
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Yep, spot on. The rabbit hole I fell down that eventually led me to the RetroTINK started with those cheap $30 HDMI upscaling devices, but they do weird stuff to your picture and add wicked amounts of lag. People who know more than I do have assured me that the RetroTINK in particular minimizes lag compared to other analog-to-digital converters, although I'm sure it's not quite as good as a setup without a converter at all. I can confirm that the picture quality is phenomenal though. You can tweak about a million different settings and even add fake scanlines!
  - stevenwoo 3y ago
    My somewhat old Sony AV receiver has one RGB input and HDMI output and my PS/2 works fine with a LCD screen.
- luxuryballs 3y ago
  I’ve been snagging the smaller/nicer CRT TVs from the dump here and there, there’s now a market for them… besides the problem you’ve highlighted, some old games with screen aiming devices only work on these older tech TVs, and Goodwill no longer accepts them!
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Ooh, in my hunt for a good scaler I did see some people working on light gun compatibility gadgets for modern TVs! No idea how well they work now, but hopefully they'll be perfected by the time the last CRT gives out.
    - kipchak 3y ago
      The two big ones are the Sinden Lightgun and Gun4ir, the Sinden uses a white box at the corners of the screen and a camera in the lightgun while the Gun4ir is similar to the Wii's sensor bar. No first hand experience but the Gun4IRs seem to be pretty popular and can be DIY-ed with a guncon shell. https://rpegelectronics.com/products/gun4ir-diy-mod-kit https://rpegelectronics.com/products/gun4ir-diy-mod-kit
- rootsudo 3y ago
  Ps2 works fine, gamecube works fine, xbox works fine - what 20yr old console is having issues with an HDMI tv? Every TV I've seen in the past 2 decades includes RCA and RGB connectors. S-video is gone, and RF is gone. Coax is still there though, so RF modulators should still work too.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Our relatively new Sony TV doesn't have component or composite input, hence the need for a converter. But you want to use a scaler versus a straight signal converter because HDTVs don't always support 480i input (meaning that you wouldn't get a picture at all), and even fewer support 240p, which is necessary for some PS2 and most PS1 games. A scaler like the RetroTINK can add visual enhancements, but more crucially it ensures that your TV receives the signal in the first place.
  - philistine 3y ago
    Those inputs are at the bottom of the pile for QA. So they usually have dreadful amounts of lag. It makes a surprising amount of games unplayable.
- kingrazor 3y ago
  I got lucky and snagged a 32 inch 720p TV that still had composite video connectors a few years ago. Works great with all of my consoles, as far back as my N64.
- PostOnce 3y ago
  I tried to plug in a wii the other day only to realize the TV had no RCA inputs, so I hooked the wiimotes up to the laptop for the kids and fired up the emulator...
weare138 3y ago
but I've frankly just accepted that emulation will be the best and perhaps only way to play a majority of these titles The problem is the roms can't be 'legally' redistributed and there's no viable way to even legally purchase a significant portion of them anymore.
- amadvance 3y ago
  The Internet Archive has all the ROMs you may ever need.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    Until Nintendo sues them...
    - lotsoweiners 3y ago
      True but they won’t be removed from torrent sites. You can download every NES, SNES, Genesis etc game ever created in like 5 minutes.
    - scheeseman486 3y ago
      They haven't, though. In spite of them distributing this stuff for about a decade with Nintendo's full knowledge. Not to say it couldn't happen, but IA seem to have wrapped themselves up in enough legal tape to discourage Nintendo from taking action so far.
- CobrastanJorji 3y ago
  Exactly. Relying on emulation is totally fine. The problem is that it's also illegal. If classic media goes "out of print," there needs to be a practical way to access it that isn't a crime. Old books have libraries and used book stores, but old games that only work with emulators have no legal avenues at all.
kobalsky 3y ago
It's cool that we have emulation to quench that "thirst" I personally prefer when companies do not to elect to squeeze their IPs dry and have a semblance of pride on their work, as much as a for-profit company can have of course, instead of blindly chasing profits. The other side of the coin is Ubisoft having 11 Assassin's Creed titles in development: https://www.gamingbible.com/news/11-new-assassins-creed-games-currently-in-development-says-insider-227750-20230704 https://www.gamingbible.com/news/11-new-assassins-creed-game...
danbolt 3y ago
I sometimes wonder if this environment were easier if the emulators involved were very easy to legally integrate onto modern game consoles. For example, Sony's PlayStation Classic used a GPL-licensed emulator [1] to get something out the door. It'd be more challenging to rerelease a GameCube game on PlayStation 5 though, as you'd either need to do a bunch of expensive work either porting or developing your own emulator. Dolphin's GPL license isn't set to work with a proprietary SDK. It'd be an incredible challenge, but I wonder if the community behind emulators like Dolphin could provide a paid version of the codebase that can be licensed under the MPL. This might help keep older games legally in circulation. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/sony-using-open-source-emulator-for-playstation-classic-plug-and-play/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/sony-using-open-sourc...
- account42 3y ago
  > Dolphin's GPL license isn't set to work with a proprietary SDK. Sony could always stop being overly protective and make the SDK publicly available under a suitable license.

by aquova 3y ago

spondylosaurus 3y ago

> Unlike movies, where you simply need a method to playback a video and audio stream, getting interactive media to continue working isn't trivial, especially since it needs to run exactly as it did before (otherwise what's the point). Even getting a 20-year-old console (which in the retro gaming world isn't that old) to work with a modern HDMI TV is a headache! Despite owning the hardware and plenty of games, I had to drop a couple hundred bucks on a RetroTINK scaler to make my PS2 playable again. Which is no hate to the RetroTINK, because it's an amazing little gadget (and its output looks great), just kind of sad that it takes so much money and effort to keep playing a console I've owned since I was a kid.

cubefox 3y ago
There are probably cheaper HDMI adapters, though probably with a weaker picture quality. (And latency will probably always be higher than analog, no matter what.)
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Yep, spot on. The rabbit hole I fell down that eventually led me to the RetroTINK started with those cheap $30 HDMI upscaling devices, but they do weird stuff to your picture and add wicked amounts of lag. People who know more than I do have assured me that the RetroTINK in particular minimizes lag compared to other analog-to-digital converters, although I'm sure it's not quite as good as a setup without a converter at all. I can confirm that the picture quality is phenomenal though. You can tweak about a million different settings and even add fake scanlines!
- stevenwoo 3y ago
  My somewhat old Sony AV receiver has one RGB input and HDMI output and my PS/2 works fine with a LCD screen.
luxuryballs 3y ago
I’ve been snagging the smaller/nicer CRT TVs from the dump here and there, there’s now a market for them… besides the problem you’ve highlighted, some old games with screen aiming devices only work on these older tech TVs, and Goodwill no longer accepts them!
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Ooh, in my hunt for a good scaler I did see some people working on light gun compatibility gadgets for modern TVs! No idea how well they work now, but hopefully they'll be perfected by the time the last CRT gives out.
  - kipchak 3y ago
    The two big ones are the Sinden Lightgun and Gun4ir, the Sinden uses a white box at the corners of the screen and a camera in the lightgun while the Gun4ir is similar to the Wii's sensor bar. No first hand experience but the Gun4IRs seem to be pretty popular and can be DIY-ed with a guncon shell. https://rpegelectronics.com/products/gun4ir-diy-mod-kit https://rpegelectronics.com/products/gun4ir-diy-mod-kit
rootsudo 3y ago
Ps2 works fine, gamecube works fine, xbox works fine - what 20yr old console is having issues with an HDMI tv? Every TV I've seen in the past 2 decades includes RCA and RGB connectors. S-video is gone, and RF is gone. Coax is still there though, so RF modulators should still work too.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Our relatively new Sony TV doesn't have component or composite input, hence the need for a converter. But you want to use a scaler versus a straight signal converter because HDTVs don't always support 480i input (meaning that you wouldn't get a picture at all), and even fewer support 240p, which is necessary for some PS2 and most PS1 games. A scaler like the RetroTINK can add visual enhancements, but more crucially it ensures that your TV receives the signal in the first place.
- philistine 3y ago
  Those inputs are at the bottom of the pile for QA. So they usually have dreadful amounts of lag. It makes a surprising amount of games unplayable.
kingrazor 3y ago
I got lucky and snagged a 32 inch 720p TV that still had composite video connectors a few years ago. Works great with all of my consoles, as far back as my N64.
PostOnce 3y ago
I tried to plug in a wii the other day only to realize the TV had no RCA inputs, so I hooked the wiimotes up to the laptop for the kids and fired up the emulator...

weare138 3y ago

but I've frankly just accepted that emulation will be the best and perhaps only way to play a majority of these titles The problem is the roms can't be 'legally' redistributed and there's no viable way to even legally purchase a significant portion of them anymore.

amadvance 3y ago
The Internet Archive has all the ROMs you may ever need.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Until Nintendo sues them...
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    True but they won’t be removed from torrent sites. You can download every NES, SNES, Genesis etc game ever created in like 5 minutes.
  - scheeseman486 3y ago
    They haven't, though. In spite of them distributing this stuff for about a decade with Nintendo's full knowledge. Not to say it couldn't happen, but IA seem to have wrapped themselves up in enough legal tape to discourage Nintendo from taking action so far.
CobrastanJorji 3y ago
Exactly. Relying on emulation is totally fine. The problem is that it's also illegal. If classic media goes "out of print," there needs to be a practical way to access it that isn't a crime. Old books have libraries and used book stores, but old games that only work with emulators have no legal avenues at all.

kobalsky 3y ago

It's cool that we have emulation to quench that "thirst" I personally prefer when companies do not to elect to squeeze their IPs dry and have a semblance of pride on their work, as much as a for-profit company can have of course, instead of blindly chasing profits. The other side of the coin is Ubisoft having 11 Assassin's Creed titles in development: https://www.gamingbible.com/news/11-new-assassins-creed-games-currently-in-development-says-insider-227750-20230704 https://www.gamingbible.com/news/11-new-assassins-creed-game...

danbolt 3y ago

I sometimes wonder if this environment were easier if the emulators involved were very easy to legally integrate onto modern game consoles. For example, Sony's PlayStation Classic used a GPL-licensed emulator [1] to get something out the door. It'd be more challenging to rerelease a GameCube game on PlayStation 5 though, as you'd either need to do a bunch of expensive work either porting or developing your own emulator. Dolphin's GPL license isn't set to work with a proprietary SDK. It'd be an incredible challenge, but I wonder if the community behind emulators like Dolphin could provide a paid version of the codebase that can be licensed under the MPL. This might help keep older games legally in circulation. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/sony-using-open-source-emulator-for-playstation-classic-plug-and-play/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/sony-using-open-sourc...

account42 3y ago
> Dolphin's GPL license isn't set to work with a proprietary SDK. Sony could always stop being overly protective and make the SDK publicly available under a suitable license.