Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 172 posts

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#31

Post by genewitch »

oogetyboogety wrote: post #29
barbazoo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

all of the people were having issues with a patched game (version 1.1) - no idea if it ever got fixed or not, i don't have that game to test. Other than some weirdness on 3rd party games i've never noticed any slowdown on any games i've played.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#32

Post by miguelmurca »

mappu wrote: post #28
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.

I had no idea.

I'm not familiar with this case, but [this page][0] seems to be more focused on the use of screenshots rather than the emulator software itself? Did this set a precedent?

[0] https://itlaw.wikia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_Ame...

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#33

Post by Wowfunhappy »

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

It sucks, doesn’t it? Developers deserve to get paid, but I’m glad I didn’t have to wait a decade to see Breath of the Wild in 4K.

I wish there was an easier way to run legitimately purchased cartridges. I don’t know how many people ever did it, but PCSX2, for instance, has always been able to run PS2 discs right off a standard PC optical drive.

If buying games can be made easier than piracy, lots of people will probably do that. But if piracy is way easier, then that’s what 99.9% of users will do.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#34

Post by joshgoldman »

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

Nobody cares about your mixed feelings and support for a greedy, cheating, code stealing company... people like you ruin the game industry and are just jealous

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#35

Post by calaphos »

whoisthemachine wrote: post #19

> The CPU emulator, ARMeilleure, emulates an ARMv8 CPU and currently has support for most 64-bit ARMv8 and some of the ARMv7 (and older) instructions, including partial 32-bit support. It translates the ARM code to a custom IR, performs a few optimizations, and turns that into x86 code. Interesting... since .Net is cross-platform and can run on ARM, if it's running on an ARM processor does it just run the instruction…

The current ARMeilleure seems to emit x86 instructions directly and execute them, so never really using the intermediate representation of Jit compiler of the .Net runtime.

However the previous cpu emulator apparently emitted .Net byte code and used RyuJIT (the .Net jit) to emit the final native code.

> if it's running on an ARM processor does it just run the instructions directly?

So maybe? There are some passes in between but one would think it would at least result in very similar instructions.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#36

Post by miguelmurca »

bri3d wrote: post #27
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.

> Why would you see this emulator in particular getting DMCAed?

Nothing in particular, I was thinking about it from the other end. Seeing as the Switch is Nintendo's latest gen console I'd say it's different to something like Dolphin in terms of how much it might bother Nintendo. That plus the fact that when you want something off the internet nowadays a DMCA is typically the legal path, makes me think that Nintendo would love to find something to DMCA the repository for.

Whether there's anything to be DMCA'd I can't say (and from the replies I see probably not).

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#37

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#38

Post by apatheticonion »

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

I think consoles are great devices to make gaming accessible to the masses, requiring little to no effort to get up and running. Where I draw the line is console exclusives.

I will not purchase a console that forces me to buy hardware I do not need because they ban experiences from other platforms to try gain a competitive edge. I feel this is damaging to the industry as games with incredible experiences are blocked behind a paywall (and often restricted quality).

Consoles should compete on experience and features, not exclusive games that you can't play without buying into the ecosystem.

I only just got around to finishing Bloodborne (at 20-30 fps) and it's a game I have wanted to play since I saw the trailer back in 2013. It's so sad that they limit this game's IP to only PS4 owners. I would love to see the lore expanded upon in sequels (that run at an unlocked, variable frame rate), but if demon souls is anything to go by, we won't.

If it were available for PC, I would buy it. If it were available via emulation, I would buy it.

People who pirate games do so because they can't afford them, and there is nothing less affordable than having to buy an entire device to play a game.

Emulation does complicate this somewhat because piracy is a necessity to the experience, something that could be addressed by the hardware vendors themselves.

Re: Experimental Nintendo Switch Emulator written in C#

#39

Post by Grazester »

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.

There are lots of Switch games that have had to have serious compromises made to run them. You need to checkout the youtube channel DFRetro that does a thorough analysis of the games between their various console releases. The switch is slow and old hardware but Nintendo was never going for state of the art and it serves its function well
Post reply on HN