Is emulation good enough to compete with real hardware?

[Ketchup]

Ignoring FPGA stuff, can emulation be just as good as the real hardware?

 

Now before you answer, yes! I want to get into the details. Sure emulation can do 4k up res or better frame rates but has emulation got to the point where there are no issues?

 

It’s been a long time since I really

played with emulators, Snes era and earlier has  seemed perfect for a long time. But anything that has 3D graphics there always seems to be tiny glitches here and there.

 

Recently adding emulators to my Steam deck I tried the Dreamcast emulator. Put on Sonic Adventure for a quick test and everything looked great, except Sonics eyes. Polygons were clipping oddly.

 

I tried sone other emulators and either there was the odd stutter every so often or other minor graphical glitches.

 

So I guess what I’m asking is, is any emulator ever 100% perfect or do they all have these little imperfections people just live with?

[Anne Summers]

Hmm, can't speak for any emulator as I haven't used them all. 

 

But ...

A year or two back I would have said yes right away. Or at least, I would have said that the minor niggles that are still present in emulation today are so heavily outweighed by the convenience and simplicity of (most) emulation that the experience of emulation is just better. 

 

Over the last two years or so, though, I have really got back into playing on original hardware for the first time in 20 or so years. I've bought Spectrums, C64s, Mega Drives and PS1s etc and spent time building systems that let me play games as close as possible to the way I used to play them back in the day, down to using the same model of CRT TV I had in my bedroom as a teenager. Dunno why I did this really as I'm not a nostalgia junky, but I think it was something to do with lockdown. 

 

I would say, with 8-bit stuff (consoles and computers) and 16-bit consoles the issues are non-existent and unless (like me) you really enjoy the "feel" of the hardware you may as well stick to emulation for all of this. 

 

With 16-bit computers and any consoles more advanced that 16-bit, there's still issues with just about every emulation I've used. I've done a fair bit of PS1 and N64 emulation and polygon flicker/clipping issues are fairly common with everything I've tried. A lot of games just don't seem to work properly, or don't load at all, give me a black screen, etc. 

 

Probably the most pertinent example of what I'm talking about, though is Amiga stuff. I've just become an owner (thanks @new666uk) of a real-life Amiga, and played Amiga games on real hardware, for the first time since the 1990s. I've played a lot of Amiga stuff emulated since then, having been a winUAE user since its first release. In fact, for three or four years, I was lucky enough to have a full-time job that partly involved setting up and running games, including Amiga games, in emulators. The truth is, from what I can tell, emulation still isn't there when it comes to providing a perfect recreation of the real thing. 

 

The first thing I did when I got the Amiga was play Shadow of the Beast and I was amazed to find that I could get a good way into the game without dying - not far from the end in fact. I haven't been able to do that since I played it on a real Amiga. On emulation, the timing just isn't quite right, and there's undeniably an element of input lag. I hadn't even really clocked it - I think I just assumed I'd got shit at games as I got older. This includes the (emulated I presume) version of original SOTB that's included with the recent-ish remake on PS4. 

 

So to answer the OP question - I guess I'm a recent convert to the church of original hardware, for two reasons - it's a more authentic experience, and it just works better, in my experience. 

 

 

 

[dumpster]

Depends what level of emulation you're talking about.  In my experience the newer the system you're emulating the less accuracy you'll see.  But some of the stuff people are creating is mind blowing.  Even the most basic of emulators seem to allow upscaling to HD and tweaks to make the emulated game better than on original hardware.  There are Switch emulators that run improved versions of BOTW etc.  You can't, for example get a PS3 emulator to play every game 100% perfectly, but you can get one to play Metal Gear 4 in 4K, 60Fps and looking like it's a genuine commercial remaster.  

 

Anne Summers example of loving the Amiga above raises a question. It's great to have an Amiga at home running games perfectly and a hard drive setup using WHLoad is great. But it's expensive to buy the hardware, which may also be unreliable after all these years. WinUAE may not feel 100% perfect but you can download it, right now, free, and run it on your average PC. You can choose to emulate an A500, A600, A1200, with 1mb, 2mb, 8mb of ram or even add an accelerator card. So at what point does the flexibility and convenience of an emulator outweigh the benefits of using real hardware? For me, I can't be arsed sourcing a Relokick disk to play a game that's not normally compatible with my A1200, I'd much rather choose which model Amiga I'm using from a drop-down menu. And the emulation is 99.5% perfect.

 

So taken in the round, emulators can be better than real hardware. Emulators came in 3 phases.  Phase 1 was "Emulator and Full ROM Set" and that worked right up to the SNES era, you can play all the games perfectly.  Then you get phase 2 ; Xbox, PS2, GameCube, where the emulation is still very impressive and almost all the games work with no issues, and some play with great enhancements. You probably won't bother with a complete romset, these games can be 4Gb each. Then phase 3 (PS3, Xbox 360) where the games may work or may not. Many appear nowhere  near playable.  But those that do work can be upscaled to look phenomenal. 

 

 

 

Most more modern emulators have compatiblity issues.  But then again, Dolphin boasts 100% compatibility with Gamecube, and there are many tweaks to make improvements over the original hardware.  It's an incredible achievement. PS2 is very well catered for, and Gradius 5 looks beautiful on my Xbox Series X. For sheer convenience the Xbox with all these older consoles on a a joy. 

 

So emulation has come a long way.   Check out the PSP emulator for the Quest 2 VR Headset and stick Ridge Racer on in real VR 3D.  It's fucking incredible to play the game in this way that it was never programmed to be. The emulators can be incredible with the right game and the best settings and hardware.  

 

But then I find the issue stops being the accuracy of the emulation of later generation consoles.  The problem becomes the logistics of emulation.  For example, you can stick every SNES, Megadrive, Master System, NES, PC Engine, (etcetera etcetera) on a single 32Gb Memory card and still have a load of room left over. You can emulate these formats practically perfectly on a Wii.  Emulating, say, PS3 can involve games of 30Gb  each,being installed on a virtual PS3's hard drive, requiring a monster PC to run. And these emulators run many games, but every PS3 game has its own issues list, some are perfect, most have problems of various degrees.

 

In summary, I think emulation is is a brilliant thing, and emulators have replaced all my hardware right up to, but not including the Xbox360 and PS3.  It's just so much more convenient to have all your games on a single console.  No faffing with wires.  Just a small box with everything on it.  Also your old consoles probably have leaky capacitors, have gone bright yellow and the rubber coatings have gone all sticky, and they've been in the garage so long mice have had a shit on them. 

 

But I find it equally convenient to have a Xbox 360 and PS3 in the garage with the games installed on the hard drives, and the perfect performance of the real hardware. I don't have a gaming PC with shedloads of storage and it's no hassle to keep these console with the handful of games I want to play, and some cheese to distract the mice. If you do have a high end gaming PC emulation is well worth a look. You might not be able to play the game you want, or you may find you can and it's also transformed, running better than it ever did on real hardware. 

 

For the PS4 gen I don't think emulation will be worth bothering with at all.  Games are just so huge, they're often live services with dlc, updates, online servers.  Maybe when a game gets older some preservation group could make an ultimate edition that becomes the one everyone keeps but I dunno.  

 

[Anne Summers]

10 minutes ago, dumpster said:

Depends what level of emulation you're talking about.  In my experience the newer the system you're emulating the less accuracy you'll see.  But some of the stuff people are creating is mind blowing.  Even the most basic of emulators seem to allow upscaling to HD and tweaks to make the emulated game better than on original hardware.  The Switch emulators that run improved versions of BOTW etc. 

 

But then I find the issue stops being the accuracy of the emulation of later generation consoles.  The problem becomes the logistics of emulation.  For example, you can stick every SNES, Megadrive, Master System, NES, PC Engine, (etcetera etcetera) on a single 32Gb Memory card and still have a load of room left over. You can emulate these formats practically perfectly on a Wii.  Emulating, say, PS3 can involve games of 30Gb each being installed on a virtual PS3's hard drive, requiring a monster PC to run. 

 

But then again, check out the PSP emulator for the Quest 2 VR Headset and stick Ridge Racer on in real VR 3D.  It's fucking incredible to play the game in this way that it was never programmed to be. Or see Metal Gear 4 for the PS3, on a PC emulator at 60fps in 4K.  The emulators can be incredible with the right game and the best settings and hardware.

 

In summary, I think emulation is is a brilliant thing, and emulators have replaced all my hardware right up to, but not including the Xbox360 and PS3.  It's just so much more convenient to have all your games on a single console.  No faffing with wires.  Just a small box with everything on it.  Also your old consoles probably have leaky capacitors, have gone bright yellow and the rubber coatings have gone all sticky, and they've been in the garage so long mice have had a shit on them. 

 

But I find it equally convenient to have a Xbox 360 and PS3 in the garage with the games installed on the hard drives, and the perfect performance of the real hardware. I don't have a gaming PC with shedloads of storage and it's no hassle to keep these console with the handful of games I want to play, and some cheese to distract the mice. 

 

For the PS4 gen I don't think emulation will be worth bothering with at all.  Games are just so huge, they're often live services with dlc, updates, online servers.  Maybe when a game gets older some preservation group could make an ultimate edition that becomes the one everyone keeps but I dunno.  

 

In 20 years we will have quantum or biological computers that store data in DNA or liquid mass storage that can store the entire PS4 library on a device the size of a grain of rice, and emulate 20 PS4 instances at once. Although they will be a bit jittery and the sound will lag. 

[dumpster]

5 minutes ago, Anne Summers said:

In 20 years we will have quantum or biological computers that store data in DNA or liquid mass storage that can store the entire PS4 library on a device the size of a grain of rice, and emulate 20 PS4 instances at once. Although they will be a bit jittery and the sound will lag. 

Aaah, but will the games even work when the servers have been switched off and PSN no longer exists? 

[Anne Summers]

Just now, dumpster said:

Aaah, but will the games even work when the servers have been switched off and PSN no longer exists? 

People have done some quite cool stuff with starting up fan servers for defunct RPGs and the like haven't they? I seem to remember messing around with some Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies fan-hosted games over the years. Perhaps the same thing will happen for beloved (by the younger generation) PS/Xbox games when they are obsolete?

[dumpster]

Yeah I think that's the difference between then and now.  In the days of cartridges and before patches and downloads you had a console, a cartridge and that was the end of it.  An emulator and roms seems so convenient and simple.  Until Liquid Mass Storage becomes mainstream and people make their own servers for every game I'll stick with the real hardware for the current generation.  If everyone follows Microsoft's lead the current Xbox will play all the old stuff anyway. 

 

But now I really want some LIQUID MASS STORAGE. And it's your fault Anne Summers. 

[Spartan]

I love using original hardware over emulation but I wouldn't dismiss anyone for using it. I know first hand how expensive some original hardware is these days and the emulation for a number of machines is near perfect (neo geo being a good case for this)

 

That said some stuff just can't be emulated. The Vectrex for example, you will never replicate how it feels to use one with a LCD screen

[Qazimod]

8 hours ago, dumpster said:

Aaah, but will the games even work when the servers have been switched off and PSN no longer exists? 

 

It's a bit too techie for me to try myself but I was googling around a while ago and finding details of people playing Outrun 2/006 over XLink Kai or something.  

 

It seems like there's lots of stuff you can try but you need the patience, knowledge and a few suitable multiplayer guinea pigs.

[Colonel Panic]

It's good enough most of the time, even if you're sensitive to input lag and glitches. I've had a ball playing through some PS3 games on PC despite the messing about.

 

Of course original hardware, controllers and using a CRT is better for a lot of it, but I certainly use emulation a lot despite having access to these things. As emulation endeavours move up through console generations it's going to get harder and harder. They're very different beasts from the fixed function, locked to refresh rate hardware in older consoles and getting everything synced and accurate is just a massive task.

[Kevvy Metal]

Emulation is convenient! ...and easily ported to run on lots of different hardware! 

Real hardware is great for the nostalgia gland! 

[Gotters]

It's starting to feel good enough for me in the way I felt about 128kbps mp3 players when they surfaced - I knew it was better listening on a CD (or vinyl if you insist on being that person) but the convenience and form factor of devices now you can load up with whole collections of stuff is incredibly enticing, even moreso in gaming where in some cases you can enhance/improve the original via the software.

 

I don't have the desire to have a dedicated area with a tv with loads of wires machines under it, the Steam Deck on the other hand is never far from where I'm sat at present.

[Anne Summers]

DOS emulation is pretty good also, it has to be said - been playing a bunch of games on Dosbox and scummvm recently and it's hard to fault them. 

[bplus]

There's always a nagging feeling with emulation that the game is broken rather than I'm shit at it. Mario 64 on what of the popular emulators on retro arch still has issues with double jump or what ever it's called not working due to emulation timing issue. (Yes I know this stuff is free so it's not a complaint).

 

On the other hand my RGB modded N64 via an ossc looks awful on my telly. But I'm convinced 1080 just feels a bit off via emulation once you compare it to real hw.

 

I think NES SNES megadrive etc via retro arch with run ahead enabled seems to feel same as orginal hardware. No lag I can notice.

[dumpster]

I do think that, while emulators do introduce lag, it's often overstated because you're playing on a modern TV that has a little lag anyway. Playing Mario World on SNES makes it way easier to notice if there's any lag than playing, I dunno, Assassin's Creed or DriveClub.  

[Colonel Panic]

The lag is cumulative. 

[Phantoon]

Yeah, it all adds up. The reason you don't feel it in Assassin's Creed is because it was designed knowing that there would be lag. Not so much for Punch-Out!!

[K]

I’ve just bought a new computer and have finally been able to dip my toe into PS2 / Gamecube / Xbox emulation, and it feels like this generation of games benefits more from emulation than previous ones. The visuals are just at the stage where you can increase the resolution without the games looking too awful. Like, PS1 games relied on the blur and slight murkiness of a CRT to fill in the gaps in its relatively primitive 3D, and you can upscale an N64 game as much as you want, but it’ll still look pretty sparse. This isn’t to say that the games aren’t worth playing, and Ps1 games do often look quite nice through Duckstation, but I think it’s usually preferable to play them in their original form as much as possible, in the same way as with 2D games.

 

PS2 / Xbox games often look spectacular on modern hardware. Xbox emulation feels like it’s still in its early days (although it’s come a long way), but Amped is one of the few games I’ve tried that works really well, and it looks glorious. I can just about get 30fps at 1080p, and the aesthetic of the game really shines – the glittering slopes and the effect of cutting through deep snow look really sharp. Even the menus look lovely, as they were done in 3D graphics – I remember thinking this was a bit pointless at the time, but they look like a million dollars on modern hardware. The Burnout games look amazing at high resolution too. Gran Turismo 4 could almost be a PS3/4 game.

 

This post is a bit ‘check out my powerful computer’, but it does feel like 2001 was a tipping point in terms of visuals. Plus, you get all sorts of advantages like faster loading, not having to piss around with memory cards or disks. I don’t know about lag – Amped feels harder than I remember – but I feel like you’d notice lag in Burnout 2.

[Fry Crayola]

Poly counts make the biggest difference when you're increasing the resolution. If a character's head is made out of about 40 polygons, it's going to look horrible when blown up, and needs the low resolution and filtering to mask the deficiencies. But the PS2 era brought enough power to smooth out the models. Textures may still be wanting, but they're nowhere near as impactful.

[K]

That makes sense. Driving games seem to have aged particularly well, as you get all the benefits of the more detailed vehicles and environments, without noticing the low-res textures as you're going too fast.

[Ryan]

Depends on the games you play - RPGs etc are fine under emulation - I prefer it. Any game built with tight timing is better on original hardware or FPGA with a low-lag controller. The Amiga is a funny one - I actually prefer playing on the MiSTER because I can use my awesome keyboard with it.. and I went on an Amiga splurge over the summer (bought 2x500+ and 2xA1200).

 

I preferred a lot of PS1/PS2 games under emulation thanks to the upscaling + improved performance/graphics.

[Fry Crayola]

58 minutes ago, K said:

That makes sense. Driving games seem to have aged particularly well, as you get all the benefits of the more detailed vehicles and environments, without noticing the low-res textures as you're going too fast.

 

Driving games also don't have much animation to worry about, so you don't see clunky old puppets jerking around.

[Gabe]

How is Xbox emulation now? When I last looked earlier in the year pretty much nothing was playable. Has that markedly improved? What is the emulator of choice?

[K]

9 hours ago, Gabe said:

How is Xbox emulation now? When I last looked earlier in the year pretty much nothing was playable. Has that markedly improved? What is the emulator of choice?

 

I’m using Xemu on an M1 iMac. There’s obviously a long way to go – the emulator is quite flakey and sometimes needs a couple of goes to load up. Almost everything I’ve tried works to some extent, but not everything is playable and only a few are really satisfactory. But it’s still pretty impressive. Off the top of my head, Amped 1&2, Top Spin, Jet Set Radio Future, Otogi, Rallisport Challenge 2, Halo and Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone work really well. There are probably a few more. Outrun 2 looks great, but runs at 30fps rather than 60.

 

It does feel like they’ve broken the back of Xbox emulation to a certain extent. It’ll be interesting if they can wring more performance out of it as they develop it – I suspect the PC version probably runs better. Generally speaking, you’re probably better off playing multiformat games on PS2 or Gamecube, but for the Xbox exclusives, it’s already pretty worthwhile. Project Gotham 1 & 2 run in slow motion unfortunately, and Metal Arms: Glitch in the System has hugely corrupted visuals and a very low frame rate, but I’ve found Amped an absolute joy to re-visit.

 

I don’t think the emulator supports custom soundtracks yet. Obviously, I could just have Spotify playing in the background, but it’s not quite the same.

[Qazimod]

I played around with Cxbx a while ago, having never really tried Xbox emulators, and it was relatively easy to set up and the game I wanted to try (legendary abomination Kabuki Warriors) ran with no real issues. You may want to look into compatibility lists, and game downloads may be slightly buried away online, but I was impressed with how straightforward it was.

[bplus]

8 hours ago, K said:

 

I’m using Xemu on an M1 iMac. There’s obviously a long way to go – the emulator is quite flakey and sometimes needs a couple of goes to load up. Almost everything I’ve tried works to some extent, but not everything is playable and only a few are really satisfactory. But it’s still pretty impressive. Off the top of my head, Amped 1&2, Top Spin, Jet Set Radio Future, Otogi, Rallisport Challenge 2, Halo and Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone work really well. There are probably a few more. Outrun 2 looks great, but runs at 30fps rather than 60.

 

It does feel like they’ve broken the back of Xbox emulation to a certain extent. It’ll be interesting if they can wring more performance out of it as they develop it – I suspect the PC version probably runs better. Generally speaking, you’re probably better off playing multiformat games on PS2 or Gamecube, but for the Xbox exclusives, it’s already pretty worthwhile. Project Gotham 1 & 2 run in slow motion unfortunately, and Metal Arms: Glitch in the System has hugely corrupted visuals and a very low frame rate, but I’ve found Amped an absolute joy to re-visit.

 

I don’t think the emulator supports custom soundtracks yet. Obviously, I could just have Spotify playing in the background, but it’s not quite the same.

What I don't get is why 360 emulation is pretty great, but of Xbox isnt. It's one of the systems I'd like to play more as I broke my modded Xbox. Plus it's video out put is pretty crap. Emulation would help with that.

[Anne Summers]

1 hour ago, bplus said:

What I don't get is why 360 emulation is pretty great, but of Xbox isnt. It's one of the systems I'd like to play more as I broke my modded Xbox. Plus it's video out put is pretty crap. Emulation would help with that.

Maybe because the graphics card in the 360 was closer to a standard PC graphics card than the one used in the original Xbox. 

 

Edit: In fact, having just had a quick Google, it seems like maybe this is right - the original Xbox used an NVidia card that was specifically created for the console and didn't exist as a PC GPU. Whereas the 360 used an ATI GPU that was a variant of a PC GPU model. According to the first two websites I found that discuss the subject, anyway. 

[Gabe]

11 hours ago, K said:

 

I’m using Xemu on an M1 iMac. There’s obviously a long way to go – the emulator is quite flakey and sometimes needs a couple of goes to load up. Almost everything I’ve tried works to some extent, but not everything is playable and only a few are really satisfactory. But it’s still pretty impressive. Off the top of my head, Amped 1&2, Top Spin, Jet Set Radio Future, Otogi, Rallisport Challenge 2, Halo and Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone work really well. There are probably a few more. Outrun 2 looks great, but runs at 30fps rather than 60.

 

It does feel like they’ve broken the back of Xbox emulation to a certain extent. It’ll be interesting if they can wring more performance out of it as they develop it – I suspect the PC version probably runs better. Generally speaking, you’re probably better off playing multiformat games on PS2 or Gamecube, but for the Xbox exclusives, it’s already pretty worthwhile. Project Gotham 1 & 2 run in slow motion unfortunately, and Metal Arms: Glitch in the System has hugely corrupted visuals and a very low frame rate, but I’ve found Amped an absolute joy to re-visit.

 

I don’t think the emulator supports custom soundtracks yet. Obviously, I could just have Spotify playing in the background, but it’s not quite the same.

Is there a good site to facilitate this?

[K]

13 hours ago, Gabe said:

Is there a good site to facilitate this?

The Xemu site is quite helpful with regard to setting things up. I don’t think we can link to bios files or isos on here, but it’s really not too difficult - I came to this as a complete ingenue, but got it all sorted pretty quickly. 

[bplus]

6 hours ago, K said:

The Xemu site is quite helpful with regard to setting things up. I don’t think we can link to bios files or isos on here, but it’s really not too difficult - I came to this as a complete ingenue, but got it all sorted pretty quickly. 

Archive.org has a page with all required Xbox files for emulation