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RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

ryujinx.org

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Re: RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

#81

Post by mattbee »

swyx wrote: post #13

i gotta ask, what kind of career path does one have to have to figure out how to make this sort of thing? just hacking nights and weekends for 2 years straight? because i dont know how anyone gets paid to do this and yet there is so much incredible depth to learn that is probably undocumented because of legal issues

My very first paid job in 1997 was extending a PC emulator product for an ARM desktop computer with a 486 co-processor. I was a teenager who knew a bit of C & ARM code, otherwise no hardware or x86 knowledge at all. Obviously PCs have always been quite well documented, and there were other emulators to look at for comparison. But where I couldn't work it out, and the few books I had were no use, I just had to experiment: write a bit of code, see what the response was (usually crash, sometimes the whole computer).

A lot of it is building a mental model of the enemy (for me: Windows NT early boot, DirectDraw initialisation) and writing code that got it to the next step, and the next step... It was always slow work, but therapeutic once you find a thread to pull on. When you get it right, the reward is sudden: you have this alien world that is running where it shouldn't, like a fish swimming in a tree.

I'd love to do more of that kind of work!

Re: RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

#84

Post by mysterydip »

Drakim wrote: post #56
DanielHB wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you guys find the energy to hack nights and weekends? I do enjoy hobby programming but it takes me at least one week of vacation to detox from the work grind so I end up doing it only when I have extended vacation

Honestly, it happens when I get some weird idea in my head that I can't stop thinking about, and a sort of mania takes over and gives me the energy and drive to work on it for hours on end.

(not that you should take advice from random strangers on the internet, but) that sounds like classic ADHD hyperfocus to me. Giving a name to it might help in figuring out how to maximize its benefit.

Re: RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

#85

Post by delfinom »

swyx wrote: post #13

i gotta ask, what kind of career path does one have to have to figure out how to make this sort of thing? just hacking nights and weekends for 2 years straight? because i dont know how anyone gets paid to do this and yet there is so much incredible depth to learn that is probably undocumented because of legal issues

The basic skills for this are taught in Electrical/(Computer) Engineering. In fact depending on your college you may end up writing a instruction set emulator lol. So it's not something that requires a 20 year career experience background.

It just takes a lot of dedication and time/energy to reverse engineer. People basically do it as a hobby. Usually the most hobby interest is nostalgia vibes from old stuff but even getting new stuff to run is done for the mental excercise fun

Re: RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

#86

Post by staticman2 »

gnopgnip wrote: post #76
spicyjpeg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you own the game, does it matter how you got the ROM? It does from a legal standpoint. In many countries, making your own backup copies of your games for personal use is legal (although anti-circumvention laws like the DMCA blur the lines here) but obtaining a backup copy from someone else, regardless of whether or not it is a copy of a game you already own, is not; at best it is a legal gray area.

Does it matter from a legal standpoint? You aren't reproducing , distributing , performing, publicly displaying, or making a derivative work. *The uploader is the one reproducing the work, see Disney v. VidAngel And under fair use 3 of the four points would be in your favor, but that isn't determinative

A finding that VidAngel violated copyright doesn't mean their customers didn't also violate copyright. Their customers weren't the ones being sued, that doesn't mean the customers were in the clear.

I don't see where you are getting the uploader is the one reproducing the work rather than both parties were? Also that appears to have been a streaming case so not really relevant?

Re: RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

#88

Post by lockhouse »

urza wrote: post #87

Why doesn't Nintento release their games to other platforms? I would love to play Zelda, but I am not going to buy a console just because of one game..

You just answered your own question. :)

Want to play Zelda? You have to pay Nintendo at least $260. $100 more if you want to play on something better than a Switch Lite.

Unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo actually makes a profit on their hardware sales as well as game sales.

Re: RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

#89

Post by amiga386 »

urza wrote: post #87

Why doesn't Nintento release their games to other platforms? I would love to play Zelda, but I am not going to buy a console just because of one game..

Nintendo is just Nintendo, and enough people have bought a console just because of one game (or several games) for them still have enough money to keep being Nintendo.

I don't really want to defend them, but you need to look at the North American video game market crash of 1983 to understand their current stance. The entire video game market collapsed, because any old crap was being released as a game. Consumers lost confidence in the "platform" of specific games consoles. If they bought a home computer instead, there would still be games and it had other utility.

The NES was the antithesis of this. A walled garden of Nintendo, and plenty of first-party game development. The approach worked, it brought them fortune and made them a major player in the video game market. Why would they abandon this approach if it's still working for them almost 40 years later?

Re: RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator

#90

Post by zirgs »

swyx wrote: post #13

i gotta ask, what kind of career path does one have to have to figure out how to make this sort of thing? just hacking nights and weekends for 2 years straight? because i dont know how anyone gets paid to do this and yet there is so much incredible depth to learn that is probably undocumented because of legal issues

A potential career path would be to work on commercial console emulators at Nintendo or Microsoft. Or on compatibility layers like Wine/Proton.
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