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Just over a year ago, PS2 emulator AetherSX2 made a splash when it hit the Play Store as a surprisingly capable ARM-based PS2 emulator that could get solid performance Android devices, even some mid-range phones (depending on the game). The project left early access in July 2022, and development has continued steadily since then. However, today, the emulator's website was taken down and replaced with a post from the project's sole developer, Tahlreth, explaining that development has been "indefinitely suspended," blaming this decision on "neverending impersonating, complaints, demands, and now death threats."

"AetherSX2 was always meant to be a fun hobby for me, not profit driven," writes Tahlreth. "It doesn't make sense to continue working on a hobby which isn't fun anymore." They also warn of a number of "scammers" and imposters on social media who claim to represent AetherSX2, but do not.

The AetherSX2 Discord is also currently locked and not accepting new members, though it's unclear if this is a temporary measure.

It appears as though these frustrations with community complaints have been building for some time. In a developer update blog posted in July, Tahlreth discusses some new "micro-optimizations," before addressing complaints that the emulator cannot run on certain underpowered devices, explaining that these small optimization measures emphasize how little there is to do in terms of improving performance. They goes on to write, "Sorry, but your little Cortex-A53 is never going to cut it, so please stop saying 'AetherSX2 is unoptimized, give them time/devs need to work harder', there's never going to be a 5-10x improvement in performance in these scenarios, which is what you'd need. Instead, we'd like to point out the competition, and let you draw your own conclusions as to which implementations are 'optimized' and not."

Downloads are still available at https://www.aethersx2.com/archive/ and the Google Play Store, but no more builds will be developed in the foreseeable future, if ever.

Source

 

[Blue-dev93]

Sad to see that this project ended. Partly I don't blame the people for not knowing how their hardware works but I do blame the people who are demanding things, shit talk the project, impersonate and throw death threats at developers. I know the feeling of developing and enjoying a hobby project and these kind of stuff would stop me also from working on my project too. I hope he will resume it in the future and that people will pay more respect to him.

 

[ganons]

good riddance imo, talreths dancing around licensing has always rubbed me the wrong way.

You're saying this on a forum that consists of over probably 95% pirates.

 

[_v3]

Siding with the developer on this on, good for him. I can tolerate a lot of bullshit but when death threats come in you can go suck a melon and F-off.

 

[gamer765]

Tahlreth is a liar, no one sent him death threats. I've been a silent lurker for a long time on his channels. What happened is he kept getting called out for his shitty scummy practices and he ignored it for the most part. Someone "doxxed" him and threatened to serve him papers and he went apesh*t.

 

[Kioku]

Tahlreth is a liar, no one sent him death threats. I've been a silent lurker for a long time on his channels. What happened is he kept getting called out for his shitty scummy practices and he ignored it for the most part. Someone "doxxed" him and threatened to serve him papers and he went apesh*t.

Source: Trust me bro

Some evidence would be nice.

 

[TheStonedModder]

The epitome of personal problem, yeah?

All I have to say is that this is sad. The best PS2 emulator we'll see on Android is now no longer seeing active development. However, I do believe that this project is too huge to just up and walk away from because of issues involving strangers online. I wouldn't be surprised if they were still working on it on the side and pushing out silent updates periodically.


Including iOS devices, which they apparently received a lot of complaints about from what I've read...

The iOS “communities” are notoriously toxic

There’s a reason jailbreaks are so rarely released now(besides apples better sercurity) because everyone (both users and developers) harass each other and everyone for any minor thing they don’t 100% agree with

 

[Archolm]

It's nice getting some honest discussion going, they are falling over themselves on /r/ to suck the guy's ****.

 

[Ducolamia]

On one hand, I'm definitely upset this project is suspended indefinitely as I just got my Ayn Odin Pro and the emulator runs PS2 games like a dream on the right settings. I also think that as a creator, when you get popular enough, you have to eventually find a way to filter out the crazies because they WILL come when a project starts to gain traction. In this case, In think Tahl should've gotten more mods or a social media manager for outside stuff so they can direct their focus away from online trolls. It's very clear from how they spoke regarding the project that the trolling they received definitely took a toll on them. Adding onto the fact that emulation itself can always carry some risk, and the pressure to upkeep the project, it makes sense to quit while you still can....or at the very least take a break.

On the other hand, people can genuinely suck. With the rise of IOS emulators and everyone having a phone, you're essentially opening yourself up to a group of people who have unreasonable expectations. Mainly because everything is made to be plug and play. You don't really have to think with your set up of a modern phone but you do with an emulator. All emulators require some tinkering to get the best results. However, most people are still completely out of the loop in terms of what emulation CAN or CAN NOT DO.

I could only imagine how tiring it was to hear the same complaint of "why doesn't this work on my potato of a phone/tablet" after the hundredth time. And sure, I absolutely agree with others in that they shouldn't have bothered arguing back with others and stoking the flames of the fire, but not everyone knows how to deal with online spaces. It's a learning experience. Hopefully if Tahl comes back to this project they learn that they need to step back, and curate feedback. Have mods who can work with the Discord server and stay away unless it's a major update.

 

[ZeroFX]

based emulator, but for such basedness level your skin have to be rather thick I fail to understand why everything has to have open communication channels or dIsCOrDs, just put a third party to manage an email and foward you only useful things, preserve your sanity from the low beings of the internet.

 

[halfashark]

how is cyberbullying real? like, just close your eyes

memeing aside it appears he did just that; thus the halted development. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

tbh it really sucks when you release anything especially for free. everyone just expects you to slave away to help their oddly specific scenario, circumstance or desire for free and for however long it would take. they treat you like hot garbage and lash out at you even if you do end up helping them.

it sucks because it essentially means you can never take proper credit for your work. ever. people who haven't experienced a situation like this have no idea what it's like not being able to just look at your phone or computer without being overwhelmed by inconsiderate shitters. it sucks you dry and not in the fun way.

 

[ganons]

Tahlreth is a liar, no one sent him death threats. I've been a silent lurker for a long time on his channels. What happened is he kept getting called out for his shitty scummy practices and he ignored it for the most part. Someone "doxxed" him and threatened to serve him papers and he went apesh*t.

I suppose you have access to his DMs on discord and Reddit as well his email account.

 

[Andy2001]

Death threats over a ps2 emulator? People got way too much time
on their hands!

 

[AceLighting]

I bet this is DamonPS2's doing.

Honestly I wouldn't even be surprised.

 

[KeeperCP1]

Everybody thinks Damon and Aether are the only ps2 emulators on Android
hop on play

 

[Kioku]

I suppose you have access to his DMs on discord and Reddit as well his email account.

Well, clearly.. Otherwise it would be a lie... and nobody lies on the internet, right?

 

[alhrad]

Tahlreth is a liar, no one sent him death threats. I've been a silent lurker for a long time on his channels. What happened is he kept getting called out for his shitty scummy practices and he ignored it for the most part. Someone "doxxed" him and threatened to serve him papers and he went apesh*t.

I'm sure your mails technically weren't death threats. Don't take it personally, he might be referring to someone else

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2023

In this case, the fact that the code was released in blobs, you had to contact the author, and they still provided outdated code, is just not cool. If you're going to do something, do it right, or don't do it at all. I'll never understand why people can't respect the license.

PCSX2 is released under the LGPL, which does allow you to use it without distributing sources for the software that links to it--you just need to provide sources for any changes you made to the PCSX2 source that you compile and distribute together with your software. Distributing it as a library together with "blobs" of your own code is how you're meant to do it, it's entirely allowed

Allowing this usage scenario is pretty much the reason for releasing anything under the LGPL instead of a Non-L GPL license, and the PCSX2 team are fine with how he's using their code: https://pcsx2.net/blog/2021/aethersx2-brings-pcsx2-to-mobile/

 

[Dragon91Nippon]

Yeah it be cool if other devs could pick up the torch and continue.

From the way he talks I feel like he wouldn't open source it unless he was held up at gunpoint.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2023

good riddance imo, talreths dancing around licensing has always rubbed me the wrong way.

I agree, he's what I would call an uptight prick.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2023

Source: Trust me bro

Some evidence would be nice.

Just remember Tahlreth didn't give any proof either. Obviously no one expects him to but it's not inconceivable for someone to stretch the truth to make their point appear more valid to others (he succeeded since everyone's basically bending over backwards now to kiss his ass) and it's essentially unprovable so no one can really prove if he did or didn't short of hacking his emails or extorting the answers out of him.

 

[Snintendog]

Not sure if this is sarcasm. It already works if you have decent hardware. Shield TV is 7 years old and the CPU is extremely slow by today's standards. Even my now aging Galaxy S10 with a Snapdragon 855 (which itself has been far surpassed in the past couple of years) is far and away more powerful than the Shield.

Both Dolphin and AetherSX2 work quite well on high end ARM chips from the past couple of years. The emulators are/were also still being improved to this day, with Dolphin recently receiving a substantial boost to performance in certain demanding games such as Mario Galaxy.

Sorry but there are now current Androids that CAN'T run Either well the Mythical ARM chip you want still isn't out the strongest ARMs still cant get PS1 working well be it Phone, Tablet, or TV box. ARM likely wont ever get their with how bloated the architecture is getting we are about to see a new Chip get made abandoning ARM. Such is the nature of RISK once its bloated its worthless.

 

[Guacaholey]

Sad to see that this project ended. Partly I don't blame the people for not knowing how their hardware works but I do blame the people who are demanding things, shit talk the project, impersonate and throw death threats at developers. I know the feeling of developing and enjoying a hobby project and these kind of stuff would stop me also from working on my project too. I hope he will resume it in the future and that people will pay more respect to him.

It sucks but there likely are tweaks that could help performance on them too. Not that the developer should focus on it, but something like Dolphin Ishiiruka that gives up accuracy for performance could be useful for weaker hardware, or even just as an option for people who want better performance and don't care about everything (including bugs) being 100% accurate.

 

[The Catboy]

Tahlreth is a liar, no one sent him death threats. I've been a silent lurker for a long time on his channels. What happened is he kept getting called out for his shitty scummy practices and he ignored it for the most part. Someone "doxxed" him and threatened to serve him papers and he went apesh*t.

This definitely needs a source. The internet is a wild place, so I am not saying this isn’t true, partly true, or whatever but a source should really be provided. I am not gonna lie, I do tend to believe someone when they claim to get at least one death threat. I’ve gotten death threats for all kinds of shit, people are unhinged.