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Thoughts on emulation?

twilitfalchion

and thus comes the end of an era
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Kind of a question that I've tossed around and discussed with others, but what are your thoughts on emulation and emulating games in general?

For me personally, I generally don't have a problem with it as long as the company is no longer profiting from the game or the game is not easily obtained for one reason or another (with the exception of 3DS homebrew). But how do you feel about it?

Do you emulate? And if you do, where do you "draw the line," so to speak?
 

Sheikah_Witch

I just really like botw
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Apr 8, 2019
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Sweden
To have the discussion, people must understand the difference between emulation and piracy. I think it's fine to emulate your own games. You own them. It's very common with Nintendo. People homebrew their Wii U or Wii, and then rip their games into computer files, which then runs on emulators. I definitely draw a line between there and flinging up the computer files on the internet for anyone to take. That's piracy.

I love seeing what people do with Cemu versions of BotW, or TP versions in Dolphin, for example. TP is able to run in 1080p on Dolphin and it looks fantastic, way better than TPHD. BotW in Cemu, likewise, looks miles better than it does on Switch with ray-tracing mods. Stuff like that is cool to me.

When it comes to downloading games, I definitely see the point and argument that there are some games that simply aren't available anymore, save for as emulation files on the internet. Sometimes, emulation is the only method to play some old games, so old that the devs aren't profiting from them, and in that case, emulation can even be seen as a necessity to persevere their legacy.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
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I only see it as an issue if it's something like the pokemon platinum situation, where just as many people downloaded it as the amount of people who bought it or something crazy like that, back when it was still relevant

if it's downloading old games, shoot go crazy
it's always good to support official releases but if that's not an option, then heck, play it however you can
 
I've never emulated myself, so I can't say I have a strong opinion on it in either direction. I don't equate it with piracy, but it can still fall under piracy depending on how you acquire the games you plan on emulating, I think? I'm not too knowledgable in that area but I would assume if you do emulate, you should be more knowledgeable than me on the matter.

I find it more understandable if it's for games with poor availability due to localization or lack of; fan translations on emulators exist and stuff, so that they can be more accessible to fans.

Though I don't think you should emulate releases that are new enough to still be available or manufactured where you're hurting the profits of the developers. If you've already purchased the game in some format and just wish to play it in a different format, I guess it's less harmful.

If you're unsure about emulation though, you either don't practice it, or find other ways to support the developers. Especially if you discover a really good game through emulating it, if you can, you should somehow ensure the developers get a return on their hard work.
 
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I'm playing The Minish Cap on OpenEmu right now. Downloaded a copy off of the internet, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I support Nintendo and their work, but at this point, they have utterly failed to make their old games accessible. It is not possible to play The Minish Cap on any currently supported Nintendo system except the Wii U which became a total redundancy a long time ago due to all of the Switch ports. The Minish Cap is a great game, and if I had the chance to, I would support Nintendo by buying it, but I'm not going to wait to buy an old, unsupported console or until they finally decide that their legacy games are important enough to bother with. Emulation makes gaming better in my opinion, and the world of Nintendo would be far worse off without it. I'm not going to emulate a game that Nintendo still produces, like 3DS titles, but I will absolutely emulate games that are "out of print," so to speak. I will support Nintendo in making great games, but I won't support the corporate greed that Nintendo exhibits when it comes to emulation.
 

silent lion

ReDead
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UK
I kind of have this question answered for me, because I've never owned a computer powerful enough to emulate a modern game. Therefore any game I emulate has always been at least a generation ago or more.

When I was younger (and if I'd have had a better computer) I think the temptation of emulating a game I couldn't otherwise afford would have been too great. Now though I make a point of supporting developers if I can. The closest I've come to not doing that would be when I emulated aLttP. This was in 2012, so the game was ancient by this point, but I could have bought one of the DS'es that were still being supported and buy that version. So, grey area, I didn't support the re-release?
 

GrooseIsLoose

Slickest pompadour in town
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My answer is that I would try to support the company as much as possible. But like the others said, if it was unavailable, then I would use retroarch emulators. If it was available but really costly, I might consider the possibility. Eg BotW.
If it was affordable, then I'd never eg. Among Us, Fall Guys.
I find it more understandable if it's for games with poor availability due to localization or lack of
Ikr It ain't exaggeration when I say 90% of my friends played BotW on CEMU. If your region was denied e shop service and nso then it's no use getting it.
 

MW7

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Ohio
I have never used an emulator. I luckily have working versions of many older games. I don't really see a problem with emulation of older games that are no longer sold new, and I wish companies re-released games far more often than they do. I wish I could play Nintendo's entire library on the Switch and would gladly give them money to do so. I've bought numerous old games used, but this doesn't support the developer at all. I just have a preference for owning the original game.

I am becoming increasingly tempted to buy a nicer computer and start playing emulated games due to romhacks. I've watched playthroughs of the Ocarina of Time romhacks that have been released in the last few years, and they look excellent. The Banjo Kazooie romhack based on Ocarina of Time, Jiggies in Time, looks better designed and enjoyable than 99% of games that are released by developers today. One day in the future I will definitely have to resort to emulation as well because some games will become totally unavailable like Goldeneye 007 on the N64 which has so many ownership issues that it has a lot of hurdles to ever be re-released. I've honestly contemplated buying a backup, refurbished N64 in case mine ever dies.
 

Dio

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With PC games you can mod them anyway and add graphics upgrades. With exclusive console games there is no such option.

I don't see anything wrong with emulating a console game on PC if you buy a copy of it but don't want to get the console it is on. The other way I think is not wrong is if you can no longer obtain the game as it is no longer made or sold.
 

Magolor04726

Hum dee doo
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Eagleland
I use Project 64 and Dolphin to emulate Nintendo 64 and GameCube respectively. I don't think they make any money, and the only game experience that was really trashed was Sunshine. (It's kind of a long story. Basically, the save state didn't work, and now I don't have any progress. Thankfully, I was able to beat Bowser, so at least I cleared the final boss.)
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
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I have never used an emulator. I luckily have working versions of many older games. I don't really see a problem with emulation of older games that are no longer sold new, and I wish companies re-released games far more often than they do. I wish I could play Nintendo's entire library on the Switch and would gladly give them money to do so. I've bought numerous old games used, but this doesn't support the developer at all. I just have a preference for owning the original game.

I am becoming increasingly tempted to buy a nicer computer and start playing emulated games due to romhacks. I've watched playthroughs of the Ocarina of Time romhacks that have been released in the last few years, and they look excellent. The Banjo Kazooie romhack based on Ocarina of Time, Jiggies in Time, looks better designed and enjoyable than 99% of games that are released by developers today. One day in the future I will definitely have to resort to emulation as well because some games will become totally unavailable like Goldeneye 007 on the N64 which has so many ownership issues that it has a lot of hurdles to ever be re-released. I've honestly contemplated buying a backup, refurbished N64 in case mine ever dies.
ROM hacks and patches are also a great benefit to emulation, the one I always point to is the sound restoration hack for the GBA versions of Final Fantasy 4 - 6, b/c the standard soundtrack for those on GBA is freaking rough, but that fixes it, among so many other patches for all kinds of old games
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

wah
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I'll emulate when a game is no longer commercially available, or when the game is only available on a dead or dying marketplace (see the Wii U and 3DS retro sales). If I can support the people making the game and it's on a platform I don't need to jump through hoops for, I'll purchase a game before emulating.

That being said, I'll also emulate if the emulated game is a superior product to the paid version. For instance, I've emulated all three of the games available in Super Mario 3D All-Stars, because the emulated versions are better. All three emulated versions can be played at a much higher resolution and aspect ratio on PC (heck, you can play a better version of Mario 64 that will run in your browser), so why could I pay for a worse version?

Shout-out to a collection of older games I would recommend purchasing instead of emulating:

81mGP0M5hgL._SL1500_.jpg


Three PS3 games uplifted to the PS4. Now they all run at 1080p and 60 fps on the Playstation 4, including some content that was previously cut from the localized versions of the games.
 
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Quin

Disaster Master
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Netherlands
With how bad companies are with game preservation, I have no qualms with emulation. But honesty I use it out of comfort too. Not only do the games look better on my PC, I'm also too lazy to hook up old consoles, and I don't have a CRT anymore, so I just keep the old stuff for collection purposes.
also have no problem with turning to emulation when nintendo makes a bundle of 3 roms for 60 bucks.
 

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