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n64 emulation gives emulation generally a bad name

Smiff

Emutalk Member
yeah im embarrased sometimes to be supporting (=have moral doubts about) something that possibly is having a negative effect on the "greater cause" (which I suppose is preservation and technical accomplishment), just looking at any general emulation forum theres always some immature probably teen or pre-teen screaming for N64 ROMs next to more mature looking PSX/Arcade/whatever else emu fans, any thoughts on this? Just the games having a younger target audience? or something else? or not true? whose fault is this? can/should anything be done about it? do you think this will improve or get worse? If you could go back 4 years and stop emulators being released (or developed?) would you? Do you think people are too worried about moral/legal concerns and missing the point, or not worried enough and missing the point? I want a 10 page essay on my desk in the morning :D
 

Raging Fuel

The jumbles man, the jumbles
Well I think the reason for me people in N64 emulation for the ROMs only is because the ROMs are relatively smalled compared to the ISOs of PSX games. And when it comes to arcade that is more of a niche audience.
 

DuDe

Emu64 Staff
Oh, believe me, there are enough dumb Arcade Rom leechers, they are probably just as much as the N64 rom seekers. There`s always one of those at Retrogames...
But it`s too bad that people are into the whole N64 community just for the roms... It ruins the whole purpose of it...
 

RatTrap

GODLIKE
the main reason they are in it for the roms.. is bcoz there ARE roms.. they know they are hidden deep inside some sites and some ppl just don't have the time or the patience to look for them.. so.. they end up begging for them.. i'm 100% sure that will continue.. if you look at the GBA scene it's the same.. only there's alot less good games to download and the roms are pretty easy to find.. compared to n64 roms.. so there's less ppl looking/begging for them..

arcade is diferent for many reasons not just the age.. i have 10 year old cousins who love streetfighter and all the capcom coin ups.. as soon as they figured out how to read.. they where looking for emulators and roms for arcade machines and this of course.. is because my uncle (their dad) used finalburn for example.. and they saw it and liked it and want it.. kids usually only want games they know and have seen.. usually they don't start looking up old games that they don't see on tv or wherever.. this is where i put mame into my thesis :p.. since they don't know the older games..they aren't after them.. we who are older and grew up with galaga.. might play it on mame or whatever emu and still find it facinating.. but these kids.. even 15 year old ones.. they probably would see a NES game on nesticle for example and wonder what the hell's so special bout this crap.. know what i mean?..

it's the diference in generations.. as in the n64.. this is an ideal system to emulate for the generation that noticed it.. since the roms are usually kinda small.. and the grafix competes with the other next gen console choises of the time (PSX and DC) and wins in some ways.. also the emulators being already so advanced.. well.. with all those factors taken.. you must really know that this scene becomes big fast..

i also do think most games do have a younger audience in mind.. but i don't think it's anybodies fault.. Nintendo got them selfs into this dilemma by not using their cd-type-ish drive that they had pland.. i bet it would have slowd down emulation of the system alot but never stopd it.. although.. we all know about the CD64.. nobody has emulated the system.. but i'm thinking it's becoz nobody has it :p..

also.. i think of your "greater cause" as not entirelly what most ppl think of the first time they wanna play an old game thru an emulator.. or emulator authors think of when they first set out to code their emulators.. my guess is the same reason i would have to do it.. my greater cause would be.. "to see if i can do it".. and i bet most emu authors feel the same.. and if you add.. "it's my hobby".. then well i'm guessing it's what most emu authors think of the reason they do it.. but i might be wrong in some cases.. i bet there's someone out there who's only making an emu coz he don't want his fav system to die.. hehe..

is that long enugh for ya? :p.. you asked for it..
 

Zero

Liar Liar Pants On Fire!
Most people just want to have the roms evnthough they don't own the origional game and that just because they can find allmost all roms on the Internet so quite frankly internet is to blame.
 
OP
Smiff

Smiff

Emutalk Member
lol ^

I realised ive gone and done exactly what i cant stand people doing, which is making a direct link between age and lameness.. i bet wed be surprised to know how old many of the whiners really are, again, not that it matters, its just this image problem that N64 emulation seems to have.

I would some up my interest thus: its the most advanced mainstream system for which good emulation is possible on current systems. If i want to blame anyone, it would people going around saying "bloody kids" etc. i dunno i find all those rants about how emulation has gone to hell just as anoying as the people asking for roms.. probabably more annoying, because people asking for ROMs have a point at least... they just want to get the game and piss of and play it. I have no beef with that. Just not in my backyard! ;)
 

Trotterwatch

New member
I started off with emulation just to play the games, since then I have grown genuinely interested in how the scene works, how the systems get emulated etc.

In fact, I don't know if it's just me that does this but, I have a lot of roms and the gods honest truth is:

I start playing them, see what they look like
and stop playing them

Only a few games, such as Mario 64, Mario Kart, No mercy and Zelda will I continue to play (though obviously that may change!). The others I am just VERY interested whenever a new emu is released, to see what's been improved etc.

I do despair of the general lamers, in fact one board I used to frequent had a rom requests section. Despite me posting a link (naughty me and telling the person that what he wanted was at that site) the other lamers just didn't bother checking the URL that was present and started demanding I tell them where other games were (that actually were on the site!).

Doh! Anyways, if I ever learn programming, emulator making, graphics design and plugin making... then I'll try to put something back into the scene. :)

Thanks to all that make this possible.
 

Remote

Active member
Moderator
The reason for why arcade emulation is not considered a big problem is that they are not losing any profit, on the contrary the chanses of them, a very wide range of people, making money on products they produced long ago increases everytime someone downloads an old game and goes nostalgic, hey I uses to play this when I was ye high. Later on they decide to buy a used arcade cabinet for retro moments at home, do you remeber when we used to go down to the mall and play until our fingers became numb.

When they introduced consoles to the market they also introduced the concept of separating software from hardware, one set of hardware is no longer only capable of running one or two games. And since console vendors make their profit on software, they sell the rights to produce games for their system to other developers, of course they are going to complain and take drastic actions against anyone who eventually could make the profit smaller, less profit, less salory, less salory, smaller house, ugly wife and a Volvo instead of a BMW or a Mercedes.

If all emulators required a cartridge / disk / cd drive or similar, something to connect the original media to the emulator they would be less interested in hunting down people responsible for possible setbacks in their cash flow, with the Bleem situation being the exception that confirms the rule. If they had not gone they Dreamcast way chanses are that they would never have been sued and later on closed down, it comes down to pride and marketing. This piece of software allows you to play your old, not visually impressive Playstation games on another set of hardware, with enhanced graphics. From their perspective consumers are reciving a message that could and will hurt buisness and it is a direct punch to their pride. Others have achived what they could not, considering the fact that the Japaneese are are proud people nothing will stop them from losing face.

As long as emulators are not competing with the actual product I guess console vendors should be pleased, chanses are that the SNES still is generating millions of dollars over in Japan. But emulators, mainly Snes9x and Zsnes, does not compete against the console on the prime of it's lifespan. If a Playstation 2, GameCube or Xbox emulator were to be released today offering the same capabilities, the authors would probaly be sued beyond recogniction. And it would serously hurt buisness, it would force them to increase prices to make ends meet, but this would only futher piracy, which is a non feasible long term development.

And most people who are into emulation are in it for the games, they can use others tecnical achivements to play games for free, games that otherwise would set them back a couple of dollars. A fair view of my own personal interest in emulation would probaly be 60 % games and 40 % pleasure of seing what other people can accomplish. If you claim that you are only in it for the tecnology why would you then play games? Most people on this forum, except for the authors, use emulators for one purpose - to play games for free. I am sure that there are some honest people that actually own the games for the original system and are using emulators to go beyond the limits of the consoles. Most emulators offer a broad range of possibilities, easier cheating, enhanced graphics, the ability to save and load in games that do not offer this naturally.

And yes, it seems like if it's a fair assumption to assume that most rom request come from adolesents.
 
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sk8bloke22

roll for life
i only played emus for the games to begin with. in particular the n64 and uhle....but if u keep at it and folowing the progress of the emus, u end up not even playing the games. the reason why ppl are always begging for roms for n64 and older consoles is that there games are small to download, but still on the market at full price, like the last batch of n64 games. i dont think people new to emulation even realise their is an emu scene, which could be the problem. hell, they probably had neva heard of an emulator before or a rom. and so when they find out about getting roms, they start begging, as they dont know where to look.

u cant stop piracy, bad or not, u cannot stop it. from wat eva product, be it cassettes, cds or games, piracy has always existed and will continue to exist. its an element of capatilism, in which growing markets hav to cope with peopl illegally selling their product. so piracy can be slowed, delayed and even temporarily stopped (im sure ppl are gonna hav big trouble copying gamecube games, but it will be done eventually).

so the moral issue. i dunno if it has an answer. its a choice that affects only yourself - do u help a profuct evolve which is effectively promoting piracy, if even indirect...or do u just abandon. well they way i personally see it, is that nintendo hav probably been involved in so many scams that piracy should be deemed legal, but at heart there are the game companies struggling to make a profit. i enjoy seeing people figure out how a piece of technology works, i think its interesting and damn right skill. as long as u do not eva let newbies know how to get roms, do not promote piracy...

one more thing...sorry to bore ppl, but the real thing is always better than the emulator in my opinion....its not putting down the emulator, s something like pj64 offers a completely unique n64 experience....but the authentic n64 feel can only come from the n64 itself. and most ppl after a while into emulation do realise that. i find it much better using my ps2 to play ps1 games than my pc + emu. thats just my opinion.
 
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the mere fact that you can get something without going out to buy it will always attract people... i mean ECERYONE downloads roms they dont have, even the most respect emu community members, its just with time u learn to be more discrete about it, and hide it from view...

emulation by its very nature shouldt really detract from console sales because usually by the time the console is dying the emulators are rising... look at the dc, dying a death but still no emu
 

2fast4u

New member
well i think a problem with the emu scene (especially n64) is the way many of the rom sites are managed. when i got interested in this stuff in 1999 and played uhle and mario64 it was an easy thing to find them even as a *complete* newbie (u input "n64 roms" in altavista and find a million *working* *no shit* sites ...... roms****.com ....).
today there are these bloody toplists for ppl who don't know how to get roms which lead u to sites that tell u to vote for them in order to get roms, send the user in the toplist where he finds more sites that do the same ... n64 roms are more and more handled like warez and ppl use them to make money for themselves. mostly they get it from ppl who don't know how to get shit. further they don't know that there's an emulation scene and not only the rom sites. so far for n64...
i believe bleem! also had the problem that it had gfx enhancements which showed psx players that their system had become techincal crap. sony was embarrassed and wanted to kill them from the start.
for moral stuff i think n is trying to make the use of roms worse than it is. if u own the original game for ur n64 i i don't see moral problems to dl a copy and run it on ur pc.
as for xbox ... im not an expert programmer at all but i don't really expect the xbox to need an emulator but a bios that runs xbox' the windows-based os on a regular pc. since the xbox has pc-hardware...maybe someone who knows more about that can say more.
 

Remote

Active member
Moderator
Of course, if I were to make a site which reflects it´s title, the title is a combination of the words nude, xxx, adult and free it would have a massive amount of visitors in a very short time.
 

2fast4u

New member
very good point. and between all this (the word free is fake btw) u find roms. that's an image killer i'll bet.
 

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