This forum needs a post!

[Azimer]

Where is the party at in the emulation scene? I know I feel terribly out of touch with everyone and everything involving emulation. What has everyone been up to?

The last year has been quite interesting for me. Unfortunately I can't discuss most of it in a public forum. I have come to a stunning realization that there seems to be less interest in emulation now than there ever has been. Are most of the achievements achieved and most of the fun had from emulation? Sadly, I think so. There is hope still that the scene we are left with are those who want to be here for the enjoyment of it and not so much for free games.

The Nintendo 64 was released in 1996. I was working with emulation before that time and it makes me curious that the NES was released about 11 years previous to us in the states as is N64 about 11 years ago from today. Does this now mean N64 is no longer a "Next-Gen" emulator and is classified with the NES and SNES as legacy systems? I find that incredibly interesting (even if none of you do).

Last week I went to visit some guys I knew on IRC who have been working with NES for years. I couldn't believe quite a few of them were still around and working on NES development. Most of they were kindly helping the new people and it was the same atmosphere just different people. Why can't N64 development become like this? If there is such a group of people, why do I not know them? I might work a full-time job, pay taxes, vote for a losing candidate on tuesdays, but I will always find a spot of time for N64 emulation.

What is currently being developed for N64? From what I know there's a MESS N64 driver, schibo appears to be dinking around with 1964 privately (based on his post 6 months ago), zil and jabo slowly hacking at PJ with no promised release timeframe (both busy with their individual money making ventures), and Mupen has some 3rd party updates. Am I missing anything? Is there any new blood I haven't caught up with yet?

As some of you have known, I fell into the World of Warcrack population cesspool and have yet to kick my addiction. In addition to working 50-60 hour weeks when we get a new contract, I didn't have a lot of time for things. Why would I want to sit in from of a programming environment plugging away at an emulator when sitting in a zombie-like state staring at the backside of a tauren's ass seems much more entertaining? Unfortunately, that entertainment has run its course and they are planning to launch a new expansion. Unlike the last expansion, I have zero interest in seeing this new one. What I need now is something else to begin focusing my energies toward. Where's the party at and where can I get an invitation?

And to make this post relevant to the current forum.

[smcd]

dreamcast emulation has picked up in the past year or two (nulldc, makaron, demul, and lxdream emerging and chankast fading into oblivion) gamecube and ps2 emulation are still being picked apart with fair progress too. the changes to mupen64 are welcomed by many, and pj64 changes will be too when it happens. emulation isn't dead, i don't think. another thing that seems to be popular these days is porting emulators to consoles/handhelds like the gp2x, psp, ds and creating a whole new "scene"

[Cyberman]

The people who were interested in emulation grew up and got jobs?

I still have the little bit of source left from the Apollo GL graphics plugin.

I am involved quietly in two emulation projects (3 actually)

1. emulation of Square Soft's game engines (think scumvm for Square data instead of Lucas arts).
2. emulation of 80c51 micro controllers for expermentation purposes
3. Related to hi rez texture pack stuff. Not to be discussed really outcome should be interesting (I have finally settled into schedule I can get stuff done in for the projects).
4. I forgot a little bit of modification to PCSX this may prove to be a totally useless bit of fun but, after examining PCSX GTE and GPU interfaces I think I can have some fun.
5. Considering a project using soruce engine and GMOD. This should be a lot of fun.

I tend to have too many interests to get things done.

Another problem is I love playing games a LOT.

I do not like the net games too much however. I love NWN (NWN2 is not good for online just playing single player). I have every version of the FF series save XI and I never will have XI either. It's the worst of all the FF series of games. I like to work at my pace on games so net stuff is no good for me.

Cyb

[Azimer]

The people who were interested in emulation grew up and got jobs?

Jobs are bad mmkay!

Yeah this is about what happen. However, I have the hope that emulation can evolve into something more mature.

It's good to see you are still involved. In the near future I am looking to get more involved. My subscription ends soon and my job is currently between contracts with no prospects for the rest of this quarter.

These Hi-Rez texture projects seem interesting and I wonder how difficult it would be to implement in a graphics plugin. I know I've been wanting to take that graphics plugin you've mentioned and rewrite it for DX9 using shaders. There is also the promised MusyX support that is only half implemented. We'll see what happens.

Either way I am happy to not have so much work to do...

[DanielKO]

The people who were interested in emulation grew up and got jobs?

Not trying to spoil Azimer's nostalgic rant, but this had to be said. It's no surprising when the community is a ghetto; eventually the superstars will lose interest, change priorities, be hit by a bus, etc; and Darwin will find its course.

[Azimer]

Not trying to spoil Azimer's nostalgic rant, but this had to be said. It's no surprising when the community is a ghetto; eventually the superstars will lose interest, change priorities, be hit by a bus, etc; and Darwin will find its course.

Rant? I take exception to that word choice! What I am more surprised about is the lack of new blood in the community. It seems everyone dropped off N64 in favor of Gamecube. N64 emulation has a lot of work left.

[X-Fi6]

I know what hasn't changed: me using your HLE Audio v0.56 WIP II! Seriously it's the best audio plugin I've ever used. I use it to send audio lists and Jabo's to produce the sound with Hacktarux's RSP plugin that comes with Mupen64.

And N64 emulation isn't dead yet--only lots of features in EmuTalk. Whatever happened to that .htaccess rewrite add-on? It's annoying when in old posts I have to copy the parts in the URLs and paste them into another one to make the link work...

[Azimer]

And N64 emulation isn't dead yet

I hope you're right! I am glad someone is still using my work. Here's to whatever I decide to pour my energies into.

[revl8er]

I still use the audio plugin as well, but I haven't had the time for emulation as I did before. I'm too much into my other games right now. I'm looking forward to some new updates for me to try out in the future though.

[Slougi]

I'm a bit saddened by the current state as well. I think many many old-timers still check the board every now and then, but many have also simply taken off. Grown up, got jobs, started families, not interested in the community or what is left of it, or whatever the reason. You need just look at the emu64 irc chan to see just how much activity there is nowadays - pretty much none at all. In fact:

06:20 -!- Azimer [~Azimer@xx-xxx-xxx-xxx.dhcp.stpt.wi.charter.com] has joined #emulation64
06:20 -!- CKemu [~CKemu@client-xx-xx-xx-xx.leed.adsl.virgin.net] has quit [Ping timeout: 615 seconds]
06:33 -!- CKemu2 is now known as CKemu
07:03 -!- Azimer [~Azimer@xx-xxx-xxx-xxx.dhcp.stpt.wi.charter.com] has quit []

That about sums it up I guess. A far cry from a few years ago.

I also find it interesting that N64 emulation has not become like the (S)NES emu scenes. I think one aspect of it is that the n64 is just that much more complex and doing developing emus or doing rom hacking is a lot more difficult. From a personal perspective I must also admit that the old 2d games have much more charm in general than most n64 games...

If there's a party somewhere I'd like an invitation as well. Hint hint.