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You never know when a different game will be found to also rely on the same behaviour

Timon3 3y ago
You never know when a different game will be found to be broken by the changed behavior. At this point it's safe to say that pretty much all Wii games have been tested with Dolphin.
- circuit10 3y ago
  If changing the behaviour to make it more accurate breaks games then it was either implemented wrong or it exposed an existing bug. Either way, it’s a good test to find problems and make it even more accurate
  - Timon3 3y ago
    It seems like you have this strange understanding that a perfect emulator works 100% like the original hardware (cycle accurate emulation). As I've already stated, you're not going to get a performant emulator by being 100% accurate, and making some games more accurate in a non-cycle-accurate way can result in bugs in other games. In a perfect world with unlimited hardware resources you'd be right. But we don't live in that world and instead have to build non-cycle-accurate emulators, so you aren't.
    - circuit10 3y ago
      Dolphin doesn’t aim for cycle accuracy, but it does aim to be as accurate as possible without making performance extremely bad. This philosophy has brought the emulator very far, as relying on game specific hacks means it will be forever limited to a small subset of the game library. The Dolphin devs always try to hardware-verify behaviours when possible. This extends to removing hacks that previously made games playable because it’s much better for code and emulation quality in the long term. If you disagree then you can make your own emulator I guess but it won’t get far
      - Timon3 3y ago
        I don't know what you're trying to get at. For the original comment to make sense you'll have to show that: - the "Disney Trio of Destruction" relies on behavior that isn't accurately emulated which can be emulated accurately without a big performance penalty - the "Disney Trio of Destruction" is slow due to an inaccuracy which affects other games as well - the "Disney Trio of Destruction" correct behavior doesn't negatively affect other game performance Until you've shown this, you're essentially arguing for arguings sake - because I never said anything about "making my own emulator", I'm talking about the way Dolphin works. But let's keep this spinning, and you build your own cycle-accurate version of Dolphin. Let's see how well that performs.
        circuit10 3y ago
        The “make your own emulator” was a somewhat snarky way to say that what you’re saying isn’t the same approach that the Dolphin devs take, and that their approach has taken them very far. Yes, the things you said might not be met, which is why it isn’t already fixed. But you seem to be advocating for leaving things unfixed just because it’s unlikely that other games use them. My point is that attempting to fix inaccuracies even if they seem unimportant can often lead to other games being fixed and there have been many examples of this. If the bugs can only be fixed with cycle accurate emulation, then sure, you might have to leave them, but the attitude of “most games probably don’t rely on this so let’s not fix it” will only get you so far and to get the compatibility they have Dolphin had to take a more accurate approach. Of course, it makes sense to fix the things that more games use first
        Timon3 3y ago
        > The “make your own emulator” was a somewhat snarky way to say that what you’re saying isn’t the same approach that the Dolphin devs take, and that their approach has taken them very far. You still seem to be under the impression that I'm somehow arguing for Dolphin to change their development model, or something like that. Why do you think so? > Yes, the things you said might not be met, which is why it isn’t already fixed. But you seem to be advocating for leaving things unfixed just because it’s unlikely that other games use them. I have not once done so. Literally, all I've argued for is "fixing the problems these games will have will not necessarily make the emulator better". You seem to acknowledge this given that you agree the three points I've mentioned aren't shown. So what exactly are you trying to argue about? Why are you trying to paint me like I'm telling anyone to change their development model? You're jumping between acknowledging that Dolphin isn't cycle-accurate and not everything will be 100% accurate, and "But if they fix this it will improve other games!". No, it might, but it might also not. You have to show that it does if you want to argue against my point, because it literally is: it's not guaranteed to improve things beyond these three games".

You never know when a different game will be found to be broken by the changed behavior. At this point it's safe to say that pretty much all Wii games have been tested with Dolphin.

circuit10 3y ago
If changing the behaviour to make it more accurate breaks games then it was either implemented wrong or it exposed an existing bug. Either way, it’s a good test to find problems and make it even more accurate
- Timon3 3y ago
  It seems like you have this strange understanding that a perfect emulator works 100% like the original hardware (cycle accurate emulation). As I've already stated, you're not going to get a performant emulator by being 100% accurate, and making some games more accurate in a non-cycle-accurate way can result in bugs in other games. In a perfect world with unlimited hardware resources you'd be right. But we don't live in that world and instead have to build non-cycle-accurate emulators, so you aren't.
  - circuit10 3y ago
    Dolphin doesn’t aim for cycle accuracy, but it does aim to be as accurate as possible without making performance extremely bad. This philosophy has brought the emulator very far, as relying on game specific hacks means it will be forever limited to a small subset of the game library. The Dolphin devs always try to hardware-verify behaviours when possible. This extends to removing hacks that previously made games playable because it’s much better for code and emulation quality in the long term. If you disagree then you can make your own emulator I guess but it won’t get far
    - Timon3 3y ago
      I don't know what you're trying to get at. For the original comment to make sense you'll have to show that: - the "Disney Trio of Destruction" relies on behavior that isn't accurately emulated which can be emulated accurately without a big performance penalty - the "Disney Trio of Destruction" is slow due to an inaccuracy which affects other games as well - the "Disney Trio of Destruction" correct behavior doesn't negatively affect other game performance Until you've shown this, you're essentially arguing for arguings sake - because I never said anything about "making my own emulator", I'm talking about the way Dolphin works. But let's keep this spinning, and you build your own cycle-accurate version of Dolphin. Let's see how well that performs.
      - circuit10 3y ago
        The “make your own emulator” was a somewhat snarky way to say that what you’re saying isn’t the same approach that the Dolphin devs take, and that their approach has taken them very far. Yes, the things you said might not be met, which is why it isn’t already fixed. But you seem to be advocating for leaving things unfixed just because it’s unlikely that other games use them. My point is that attempting to fix inaccuracies even if they seem unimportant can often lead to other games being fixed and there have been many examples of this. If the bugs can only be fixed with cycle accurate emulation, then sure, you might have to leave them, but the attitude of “most games probably don’t rely on this so let’s not fix it” will only get you so far and to get the compatibility they have Dolphin had to take a more accurate approach. Of course, it makes sense to fix the things that more games use first
        Timon3 3y ago
        > The “make your own emulator” was a somewhat snarky way to say that what you’re saying isn’t the same approach that the Dolphin devs take, and that their approach has taken them very far. You still seem to be under the impression that I'm somehow arguing for Dolphin to change their development model, or something like that. Why do you think so? > Yes, the things you said might not be met, which is why it isn’t already fixed. But you seem to be advocating for leaving things unfixed just because it’s unlikely that other games use them. I have not once done so. Literally, all I've argued for is "fixing the problems these games will have will not necessarily make the emulator better". You seem to acknowledge this given that you agree the three points I've mentioned aren't shown. So what exactly are you trying to argue about? Why are you trying to paint me like I'm telling anyone to change their development model? You're jumping between acknowledging that Dolphin isn't cycle-accurate and not everything will be 100% accurate, and "But if they fix this it will improve other games!". No, it might, but it might also not. You have to show that it does if you want to argue against my point, because it literally is: it's not guaranteed to improve things beyond these three games".