For emulating vintage gaming hardware that's no longer available, one argument would be preservation of the media. But what's the rationale (not rationalization) on running an emulation of the Nintendo Switch, when it's still commercially available? In practice, is it usually because people want to play the games without paying for the hardware and software?
Preservation starts in the present, does it not? I think one thing that's easy to forget, some of the old school emulation, like early SNES emulators, came about when the hardware was still kinda current or recent.
And Nintendo 64 was released 1996-7, UltraHLE was 1999. And apparently early GBA emulation predated the GBA?
There's no officially supported way of obtaining them. The closest thing is owning a console manufactured before mid-2018 and hacking it. But nobody really cares how you get the games anyway especially if you already own them, so just download them from somewhere.
I've done it, and won't pass negative judgment on anyone doing so, but being able to dump your own games actually feels like a bit of an accomplishment, it's just nice to not have to pirate your own games to use them in emulation, and it can open up preservation wider: It's possible that you own a revision of a game that was previously unknown, or maybe you just have a really obscure game card.
> It's possible that you own a revision of a game that was previously unknown, or maybe you just have a really obscure game card.
This isn't as common as it was in older consoles, thankfully. And we have groups of cool people working in the background to preserve perfect dumps of basically any game they can get their hands on.
I've done it, and won't pass negative judgment on anyone doing so, but being able to dump your own games actually feels like a bit of an accomplishment, it's just nice to not have to pirate your own games to use them in emulation, and it can open up preservation wider: It's possible that you own a revision of a game that was previously unknown, or maybe you just have a really obscure game card.
> It's possible that you own a revision of a game that was previously unknown, or maybe you just have a really obscure game card. This isn't as common as it was in older consoles, thankfully. And we have groups of cool people working in the background to preserve perfect dumps of basically any game they can get their hands on.
For me, it's still fun regardless, and removes a lot of friction for knowing where to get games: from my own legit copies of said games! (for as frequently as sites/archives go down that host pirated copies... it's honestly worthwhile doing it myself)
I've dumped all my NES cartridges and even though they match with existing No-Intro entries, it's still fun and gives peace of mind enough that I'm not unknowingly holding onto a rare revision.
For emulating vintage gaming hardware that's no longer available, one argument would be preservation of the media. But what's the rationale (not rationalization) on running an emulation of the Nintendo Switch, when it's still commercially available? In practice, is it usually because people want to play the games without paying for the hardware and software?
If the emulator has good compatibility for the game you want to play, it's just a much better experience overall. Why play games at low resolutions and unstable framerates when an emulator can run them better at whatever resolution you want, on the same device you already use for most other things? And yes, many people just don't want to pay for the game or console, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like…
I disagree with the “better experience” overall. The massive advantage of the Switch is its convenience and form factor. I have a bunch of games that I could play with much better graphics on the versions bought from Steam that I also own, and I still vastly prefer to do so on the Switch.
For emulating vintage gaming hardware that's no longer available, one argument would be preservation of the media. But what's the rationale (not rationalization) on running an emulation of the Nintendo Switch, when it's still commercially available? In practice, is it usually because people want to play the games without paying for the hardware and software?
Gaming PCs can be much more powerful than dedicated consoles these days. For example, Zelda BOTW on Switch is limited to at most 1600x900, but folks running it on their own machines with Cemu can run it at 4k. Some folks also like to try out custom shaders, mods, texture packs, etc. Example: Mario Kart 8 in 4k / raytraced - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIGpt26ocWU
For emulating vintage gaming hardware that's no longer available, one argument would be preservation of the media. But what's the rationale (not rationalization) on running an emulation of the Nintendo Switch, when it's still commercially available? In practice, is it usually because people want to play the games without paying for the hardware and software?
Gaming PCs can be much more powerful than dedicated consoles these days. For example, Zelda BOTW on Switch is limited to at most 1600x900, but folks running it on their own machines with Cemu can run it at 4k. Some folks also like to try out custom shaders, mods, texture packs, etc. Example: Mario Kart 8 in 4k / raytraced - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIGpt26ocWU
Gaming PCs can be much more powerful than dedicated consoles these days. For example, Zelda BOTW on Switch is limited to at most 1600x900, but folks running it on their own machines with Cemu can run it at 4k. Some folks also like to try out custom shaders, mods, texture packs, etc. Example: Mario Kart 8 in 4k / raytraced - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIGpt26ocWU
What’s the point of Breath of the Wild at 4k?!
You can run it at higher than 30fps as well, although with some issues. It does make a difference in smoothness.
You aren't going to get any links to copyrighted content, but a Switch running CFW can dump game backups easily.
Unfortunately the window of Switch consoles sold that are softmoddable (afaik) was very narrow and early on, about the first ~18 months of the console's life (and mind, it is 5 years old now). Most units of the standard console are not softmoddable, nor are any of the Lite or OLED units. Hardware mods exist for all of them.
So I should keep/sell for alot my purchased-in-the-first-three-months switch?
If the emulator has good compatibility for the game you want to play, it's just a much better experience overall. Why play games at low resolutions and unstable framerates when an emulator can run them better at whatever resolution you want, on the same device you already use for most other things? And yes, many people just don't want to pay for the game or console, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like…
I disagree with the “better experience” overall. The massive advantage of the Switch is its convenience and form factor. I have a bunch of games that I could play with much better graphics on the versions bought from Steam that I also own, and I still vastly prefer to do so on the Switch.
Remember that convenience is subjective here. I don't travel regularly and have no interest in playing games in public, for me it's much more convenient to sit at my desk, wait 5 minutes for my game to download on a gigabit connection, grab my controller, open the emulator and launch the game, than it is to turn on my switch that needs its own dedicated dock plugged into my monitor, slowly navigate the eshop to find a game I want, wait 2 hours for it to download through the switch's exceptionally bad wifi connection, wait for it to load from the slow SD card, and finally play an ugly 720p 30fps game which is painful when I'm used to 1440p 144hz gaming.