Current Emulation Scene Status

[xplics]

I have been around emulation for quite a bit, and have seen the almost gold rush times come and go. These days it seems fewer and fewer people are interested in our beloved emulation scene. However as of late a lot has happened in the emulation scene with CPS3, DS emulation etc. Do you see a rebirth almost in the emulation scene or where do you see it heading?

 

[Zach]

Personally I find the scene to be pretty stagnant.
It's true that recent headway has been made, however when the scene first exploded a lot of the focus was on emulating a lot of classic platforms that were obsolete & that many of us had grown up playing on, and even farther back into the first consoles and PC's folks a little older than my age group had grown up on.

With the advent of N64 emulation the scene just flat out changed in my opinion. It suddenly became all about slaving away so the rest of us could play crap perfectly and with that slightly younger generation there was more focus on leeching as opposed to contributing.

Granted it takes a skilled person to work on an emulator, the numbers spoke for themselves. It turned into give give give, take take take. If you ask me, people probably got sick of listening to kids whine about shit not working the way they wanted it to, etc. End result? Disenfranchised coders.

Then there is the boredom factor.. Nearly every system has been done to some degree, looking back in time. But as time drags on and projects slow down, there is this sense of "ugh.. I can't stand this" when it comes to hunting down and finishing up minor glitches here and there, etc.. That is just a fact of human nature. Lots of people start things and don't see them through.

 

[zeldafreak1223]

i think that the emu scene kinda works in a pattern. with the first generation of the emu scene, the people were focused on emulating their favorite systems, the ones they grew up with. So the NES, SNES, Master System, and Genesis were all being developed in the mid 90s. Then after those were pretty much perfected, there was a pause so to speak in development. The programmers had accomplished what they wanted, emulation of their childhood systems. Then, late 90s, early 2000s, it jump-started again, but with the N64 and PSone at the heart of development. Why? Because the people who grew up with those were old enough to begin programming, and emulating their childhood systems. So, as we finish up those, there will again be a down-time for the emulation community. That's not to say that emulation of the newer systems will not continue to be developed in the mean time. It's just that the programmers are probably less enthusiastic about programming things they dont have significant memories of. So, yes DS, PSP, Gamecube, PS2, and XBOX emulation is being done, but not with the same speed and excitement. Just give it time, and then the youth of the late 90s, early 2000s will be ready to begin programming, and emulation of Sixth-Generation systems will refuel intrest in emulation. I think it works kinda like this:

Generation of Gamers ----5 years later----> That Generation of Gamers Grows Up, and an explosion of Development for those Systems is Seen ----2-3 Years Later----> All the bugs are worked out of those Systems, and a slow in the Development of Emulators occurs ----2-3 Years Later---->
A New Generation of Gamers are between the ages of 16-20 and are ready to Start the cycle again

However, this is just my hypothesis, and seeing as I wasn't around during some of these times I only have the knowledge my good friend google can provide me with. ^_^ Sorry if I sound like a n00b, it's just my way of viewing things.

 

[Zach]

Paragraphs are your friend!

I wouldn't call what came out of the mid 90's perfected emulators either. A lot of GOOD emulators came out of the 90's but none of them were near the quality that some are today. Kega Fusion is a good example. Back when Kega first burst onto the scene it was a great emulator, but like most it didn't have a lot of accuracy. NESten was another good example of a decent emulator but it still has it's bugs as well. Now we've got FCE Ultra. ZSNES has been improving from day one of course, so it's about the only emulator that has been consistently keeping up with it's target console platform out of the entire scene.

 

[Ryanfaescotland]

Anyone remember Nesticles? Great name lol

I wouldn't say programmers stopped programming emulators after making them for there childhood systems. Think about the amount of time they spent on them and the amount of knowledge they'd have about emulation, I know if it was me I'd go on and use that to develope more system emulators. But your probably right and a fair few probably did think "god I've been at this for ages, it's pretty good now I think I'll call it a day" and just stopped for good.

You have to think aswell though about the cost of systems when they're new. The PS3 is what about £400? You can bet your ass I'm not buying one to open it up and see how it works! I bet alot of people think that way so that would slow things down.

Also the level of knowledge and the time needed to develope an emulator from scratch is probably alot more than what is needed to continue a developement with the fundamentals already set out. There is probably only a handfull of people with this level of knowledge so again things are slowed down.

Plus at the early stages half the games don't work and need super computers to run the ones that do hence a low level of interest in them by the average user so it may appear slow to you and me but to the developers of emulators things are probably ripe!

 

[Zach]

The safest way to reverse engineer something is to not look at it at all, actually. That way you don't accidentally copy something.

 

[Ryanfaescotland]

Not according to Paycheck

If you do that how do you avoid having an identical end product?

 

[Zach]

Paycheck?

And you avoid having an identical product by using testers... Like every other product. Believe me when millions are on the line they don't want you accidentally copying something that would ruin the whole project. IBM PC compatibles were made by this very process. They couldn't copy any of the original code in the chips or anything, and had to make a whole new way for the computer to do what IBM's did, from scratch. Sure it's quite possible to take apart and study the original hardware you are copying, but sometimes it is worth it to eliminate such variables for accidental infringement where possible.

You might call it one of the earliest forms of emulation, on a hardware level.

 

[Ryanfaescotland]

Yeah the film Paycheck with Tom Cruise set in the future where he works for a big computer company and buys other companies products then opens them up and steals the technology and makes better products for his company and then gets his mind erased. Don't think it's a factual film though

So Testers compare both products and tell the developer if parts are the same yeah?

 

[geezerman]

Port the software.
Create a disk image with the emulators already installed, compress it to a gzip or bz2 file and load it onto an ftp server.
Just an idea.

 

[Ryanfaescotland]

Port the software.
Create a disk image with the emulators already installed, compress it to a gzip or bz2 file and load it onto an ftp server.
Just an idea.

Indeed it is an idea and I'm sure it is a very good one but alas I have absolutely no clue as to what spawned this brilliant idea!

 

[Zach]

Yeah the film Paycheck with Tom Cruise set in the future where he works for a big computer company and buys other companies products then opens them up and steals the technology and makes better products for his company and then gets his mind erased. Don't think it's a factual film though

So Testers compare both products and tell the developer if parts are the same yeah?

Pretty much, yeah. The test the software and also compare code snippets and such. That's what my understanding of the process is.

 

[alcoatjez]

The emu scene is just a bit slow, since most interesting older system are emulated. Most emulator author's are busy with improving those systems to make them more accurate or to support a few more games. Therefore there is not so much excitement anymore as at the time a system was emulated for the first time.
There are a lot of people involved in dumping and verification projects to get all games dumped/ripped. I myself help TOSEC and No-Intro at times. These projects are alive and kicking.
So there's still much life in the emulation community, but I think it's just that the focus has shifted a bit.