Emulators VS actual hardware

[Foxi4]

Not in emulation. Higan is the most accurate software *approximation* of snes hardware we have but it is still not 100% and never can be. Yes I'm being literal and a little pedantic but I hate people using absolutes like always, never, perfect and 100%

By that logic, nothing is ever perfect. Even two IC's that came off the same assembly line are not 100% identical.

You can make a 100% accurate 1:1 representation of a physical circuit in software, down to the level of individual logic gates, there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't do it, the only question is how much resources would it require to support 100% accurate emulation.

 

[FAST6191]

Circuits in software? Already done

 

[Foxi4]

Circuits in software? Already done

Informative as always.

 

[trumpet-205]

Not in emulation. Higan is the most accurate software *approximation* of snes hardware we have but it is still not 100% and never can be. Yes I'm being literal and a little pedantic but I hate people using absolutes like always, never, perfect and 100%

In information technology 100% does exist. Hell one time pad is the only 100% secure encryption scheme. Is it practical in the real world? No. But it has been proven that it is 100% secure.

Now for argument sake you could say that the only way to achieve 100% accuracy in emulation is to do circuit emulation. Is it practical? No. While higan doesn't do circuit emulation, its behavior and operation are no different than a real SNES. Calling it 100% accurate is good enough to me and to many people.

100% perfect DOES exist in real world. Don't get too hung up on it.

 

[duffmmann]

Actual hardware will always be the best way to play the games from that system. Having said that, I love emulation of the old systems on the Wii, they are effective and get the job done, and I frankly don't mind the small issues that I may notice (often I wont even notice them because I'm just not looking for them), so in the end I'm left with the same exact level of a fun experience I probably would have had on the real hardware. So its hard for me to really assert the need for certain older systems. But in the end, it all comes down to personal preference, if you hate emulators and must play on the real hardware, who am I to say that you're an idiot for not seeing how they often are almost the exact same experience? To each their own.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

In information technology 100% does exist. Hell one time pad is the only 100% secure encryption scheme. Is it practical in the real world? No. But it has been proven that it is 100% secure.

Now for argument sake you could say that the only way to achieve 100% accuracy in emulation is to do circuit emulation. Is it practical? No. While higan doesn't do circuit emulation, its behavior and operation are no different than a real SNES. Calling it 100% accurate is good enough to me and to many people.

100% perfect DOES exist in real world. Don't get too hung up on it.

Circuit level emulation is approaching 100% but is still not there. Why is this so hard to grasp? Is it because what I'm saying has a philosophical slant to it?

And "100% perfect" is the antithesis to what is found in the real world. It's completely unobtainable in any meaningful sense.

And I don't care about things that are theoretically 100% secure. Real world implementations never are.

 

[Foxi4]

I'd like to remind you that what you call the "real world" representation is based on a 100% digital blueprint punched into a robot which assembles the IC. You can go philosophical all you want - you can make a digital representation of any circuit, regardless of its complexity. In fact, many legacy CPU components are completely virtualized these days because putting them physically on the die as ALU's is not space-efficient - x86 is a prime example of that.

 

[SoupaFace]

My mentality is that I don't just want to play good games from the past that I missed the first time, I want the best experience I can get playing those good games through emulation while still using the controller that game was designed to use.

The Emulation scene on PC *surprise surprise* is fucking incredible in all the options people like myself have available to us in terms of console / game support and peripheral support etc.

Sadly I'm one of those people that can easily tell the difference between a 3D game being displayed at 720p (1080i) or 1080p on a TV that's 6-8 feet away from me and while thats not necessarily a bad thing, I tend to make it a bad thing.

So if I have the option of playing LoZ: Skyward Sword at native resolution (even with an s-video signal) on my CRT tv or 1080p on my LED tv that has low input/display lag for a modern-day HDTV, you'd better believe I'm playing that game on the LED tv.

Sure, I'm spoiled, but I'm also employed and live at home, both of those things have allowed me to afford a $750 Emulation PC rig and throw $100+ toward game controller adapters for the PC so that I can be in video game (pre-2012) bliss.

Seriously though, Super Mario Sunshine / Xenoblade Chronicles in 1080p or seeing Shadow of the Collosus actually run at 60fps on a big screen is what made aaaaaall that money I spent worth it for me.

 

[the_randomizer]

I just use Dolphin for Wii and Gamecube for 1080p goodness, Snes9x for Snes, still very accurate but not as CPU intensive as Higan, Xbox 360 controller since emulators and keyboards give me hand cramps

 

[SoupaFace]

This is only even an issue once I've completed every game in a given video game series: It is a little difficult to choose what game to play when I'm staring at a list of 20+ games from 7 different consoles (technically only 8 dreamcast games and 4 sega saturn games), all of those games having received critical praise or just happen to be in a series of games that one title of which in that series had received praise.

Looking through a physical stack of games, each with enticing cover art, for some reason makes me feel less overwhelmed than a digital list consisting of just video game titles.

It's the lack of effort that partially drew me to PC emulation yet that same lack of effort is also a little less motiving at the same time; as in I feel less like playing Dino Crisis just viewing it as an iso file that I simply have to click to begin playing versus taking a disk of Dino Crisis of the shelf and making the effort to put the disk in my PC in order to start killing shit. This however is the only flaw in PC emulation I've found that has any real significance to me personally.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I just use Dolphin for Wii and Gamecube for 1080p goodness, Snes9x for Snes, still very accurate but not as CPU intensive as Higan, Xbox 360 controller since emulators and keyboards give me hand cramps

This is by far the best snes controller I have used and is extremely close to the original...
http://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Classic-USB-Gamepad-PC/dp/B002B9XB0E

Their attention to detail is fantastic and it's a very high quality product.

 

[the_randomizer]

This is by far the best snes controller I have used and is extremely close to the original...
http://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Classic-USB-Gamepad-PC/dp/B002B9XB0E

Their attention to detail is fantastic and it's a very high quality product.

Never heard of that, actually, pretty dang cool!