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How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

arstechnica.com

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Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#21

Post by monocasa »

rossy wrote: post #18
0x00000000 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> using existing open source ones as Sony did for the PS Classic That’s interesting, I wonder if that is the case the for the PS1 emulator on the PS3/Vita used for the PlayStation Classics titles

I think that's a proprietary in-house emulator known as POPS. The fact that Sony already had an in-house PlayStation emulator for the ARM-based Vita makes their decision to use something else for the PS Classic a bit strange.

I imagine some third party approached Sony with a "we'll do the work, take the risk, etc. You just give your blessing, tell us who do we need to contact for final approval to make sure the brand is being well represented, and where to send the royalty checks" kind of deal.

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#22

Post by bitwize »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #17
kingbirdy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is still actively selling SNES games via Nintendo Switch Online, and as far as I know rolls their own emulator(s) for this rather than using existing open source ones as Sony did for the PS Classic, so I doubt this will happen any time soon.

Tangentially related, there's some evidence the ROMs Nintendo was selling a couple years ago were ones they downloaded. Not bulletproof, but more likely than not. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-d...

It's commonplace for original arcade and console game manufacturers to download ROMs from a ROM site and then send a C&D to that same site ordering it shut down. The company owns the rights to the ROM in the first place, and thus are the only party legally entitled to download it. Sure beats the cost of dumping it from an old cartridge themselves. (And no, for old video games there's no source repository. The original sources may be lost.)

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#23

Post by monocasa »

aikinai wrote: post #20
scrooched_moose wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related, there's some evidence the ROMs Nintendo was selling a couple years ago were ones they downloaded. Not bulletproof, but more likely than not. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-d...

I can almost guarantee Nintendo did not use a downloaded ROM. I don’t have direct experience with how the ROMs are sourced, so it’s not 100%, but I worked on a team handling emulation at Nintendo and can say the processes are incredibly careful and strict. The company is extremely micromanaged and pedantic, and this is not the kind of thing that could possibly be overlooked at Nintendo.

It's just weird then that they put a header originally defined by pirates, and now otherwise only used by third party emulators. Including matching the even more informal parts of the header byte for byte with the most common dump of the ROM on the high seas.

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#24

Post by monocasa »

bitwize wrote: post #22
scrooched_moose wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related, there's some evidence the ROMs Nintendo was selling a couple years ago were ones they downloaded. Not bulletproof, but more likely than not. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-d...

It's commonplace for original arcade and console game manufacturers to download ROMs from a ROM site and then send a C&D to that same site ordering it shut down. The company owns the rights to the ROM in the first place, and thus are the only party legally entitled to download it. Sure beats the cost of dumping it from an old cartridge themselves. (And no, for old video games there's no source repository. The origina…

Lol, well they don't own the copyright of the header added by the original dumper in that case.

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#25

Post by Razengan »

I just want to say that some of the most fun I’ve ever had on the PC has been in a SNES emulator. The sheer variety, depth, hours of content, ease of accessibility, and great music has been nearly unmatched on most other platforms.

I highly recommend anyone with an interest in games to grab a bunch of ROM packs (including Japanese exclusive games and fan translation hacks) and spend some of your quarantine on the SNES.

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#26

Post by Polylactic_acid »

monocasa wrote: post #24
bitwize wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's commonplace for original arcade and console game manufacturers to download ROMs from a ROM site and then send a C&D to that same site ordering it shut down. The company owns the rights to the ROM in the first place, and thus are the only party legally entitled to download it. Sure beats the cost of dumping it from an old cartridge themselves. (And no, for old video games there's no source repository. The origina…

Lol, well they don't own the copyright of the header added by the original dumper in that case.

The header likely does not contain enough creative content to even be covered by copyright.

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#27

Post by deelowe »

aikinai wrote: post #20
scrooched_moose wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related, there's some evidence the ROMs Nintendo was selling a couple years ago were ones they downloaded. Not bulletproof, but more likely than not. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-d...

I can almost guarantee Nintendo did not use a downloaded ROM. I don’t have direct experience with how the ROMs are sourced, so it’s not 100%, but I worked on a team handling emulation at Nintendo and can say the processes are incredibly careful and strict. The company is extremely micromanaged and pedantic, and this is not the kind of thing that could possibly be overlooked at Nintendo.

What other explanation would there be for those headers? They serve no purpose otherwise.

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#28

Post by Polylactic_acid »

sprayk wrote: post #7
lidHanteyk wrote: post #3

It is interesting to me how some systems are easier to emulate than others, and the ease of emulation seems to correlate somewhat with ease of programming model. The infamous example which comes to mind even far beyond the SNES is of course the Sega Saturn, while on the other end of the spectrum, Dolphin has support for multiple consoles at once.

Dolphin has support for two consoles: Gamecube and Wii. It supports both of them because the architectures are extremely similar. I don't get what you mean by "ease of programming model". Saturn/Playstation/N64 were the first to have games programmed primarily in C with libraries provided by the system developers. This generation is harder to emulate simply because the system architectures contain more chips connecte…

Nintendo consoles seem to always have the best emulators, likely due to being almost all exclusive games. Every nintendo console recently has had a working emulator before the end of the consoles life. I remember nintendo ds emulators adding support for games that had only just come out.

Re: How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection

#29

Post by ilaksh »

On the last extreme idea, it seems one thing to do for starters is to get the 100x magnification of the PPUs from someone and put it in the GitHub repo.

Then anyone who has the ability to start converting that to VHDL or any sort of identification of components can start on part of it and contribute to the repo.

With some started, it may be possible for less expert people who have a little bit of VHDL or whatever to contribute to some degree with expert supervision.

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