Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C# • Hacker News Board

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#21

Post by monocasa » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #4

Impressive! Is this the first modern console emulator written in a GCed language, or even a language other than C++?

There were a slew of older JITing PSP emulators when it came out using C# that had modern architectures. It's a cute technique to bootstrap a JIT, using a JIT runime that people already can be expected to have.

pspplayer might have been the first? I could be wrong there

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#22

Post by MaximumYComb » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:36 PM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #14

brundolf wrote: post #13

I have mixed feelings about emulating current-gen consoles. I think there's a very strong ethical case for emulating consoles whose games are no longer made (despite Nintendo's best efforts to shut that down too). But emulating something whose games can still be bought new would tend to encourage piracy, I expect. Edit: "cracking" -> "piracy", for clarity

If people who wouldn’t have bought a Switch end up playing those games on PC who has lost out here?

It's ignorant at best to argue that this is only going to be used by those who wouldn't have purchased a Switch. Once something is free then a lot of people won't spend hundreds of dollars on it.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#23

Post by dev-tacular » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

mdgrech23 wrote: post #18

miguelmurca wrote: post #16

Starting a betting pool as to how long this makes it before being DMCAd

what's that mean?

[DMCA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A....)

It could allow Nintendo to take action against this emulator.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#24

Post by barbazoo » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

DC1350 wrote: post #9

This is great to see. It would be nice to play switch games on something at least as powerful as a modern phone

Are you implying that the Switch hardware isn't good enough for its games? I have yet to play a game that doesn't run well.

Maybe I should try Witcher 3.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#25

Post by ddevault » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

brundolf wrote: post #13

I have mixed feelings about emulating current-gen consoles. I think there's a very strong ethical case for emulating consoles whose games are no longer made (despite Nintendo's best efforts to shut that down too). But emulating something whose games can still be bought new would tend to encourage piracy, I expect. Edit: "cracking" -> "piracy", for clarity

There are many reasons to use an emulator. You could play your own games on a new platform, or without having to pay for the hardware (a gaming PC which can run an current-gen emulator is expensive enough!). You could use it to play or develop homebrew software, or to research commercial software. You can use it to bypass region locks, which I would argue are quite unethical in their own right.

Even with all of that said, I support piracy. Information wants to be free, and games are made of information. No one has lost anything when a game is copied.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#26

Post by Orphis » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:45 PM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #4

Impressive! Is this the first modern console emulator written in a GCed language, or even a language other than C++?

I worked on Jpcsp a long time ago, PSP emulator in Java. It was the first emulator to manage to run a large amount of games. We had some crazy devs on it who even wrote a MIPS to Java bytecode JIT. It worked great... sometimes. We ended up running into lots of JIT issues as some patterns were unusual and not always properly handled by hotspot. Fun times!

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#27

Post by bri3d » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:48 PM UTC

miguelmurca wrote: post #16

Starting a betting pool as to how long this makes it before being DMCAd

Why would you see this emulator in particular getting DMCAed?

There's not really good precedent for this that I'm aware of - Nintendo did DMCA the repo for a GBA emulator a while ago, but it came with Nintendo game ROMs in the browser.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#28

Post by mappu » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

miguelmurca wrote: post #16

Starting a betting pool as to how long this makes it before being DMCAd

Emulators are legal (see Sony v Bleem).

Copyright infringement is a civil offense, but there's none here.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#29

Post by oogetyboogety » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #24

DC1350 wrote: post #9

This is great to see. It would be nice to play switch games on something at least as powerful as a modern phone

Are you implying that the Switch hardware isn't good enough for its games? I have yet to play a game that doesn't run well. Maybe I should try Witcher 3.

It appears that many beg to differ with you https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/lm5cvh/supe... https://youtu.be/8FKUJaBCWdU

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#30

Post by edoceo » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 11:57 PM UTC

Why wouldn't one create and emulator for this using QEMU? Couldn't that be possible? Doesn't a bunch of hardware faking have to be rebuilt in C# that QEMU already does (well¿)? Or is it too hard to introduce custom hardware/firmware (like this audio stuff) into QEMU?