Emulation Discussion

[Lex]

I'm kind of a geek when it comes to emulators and emulating older games.

I thought I'd make this thread if anyone knows of good emulators or tips/ tricks to make older games look good and play like they did on the actual consoles.

For years I used ZSNES or Snes9x for all Super Nintendo games. Snes9x had a good version for the PSP (Mario, Zelda and FF on my PSP hooray!). Some of the graphics and smoothing options make the game super awesome.

For older SEGA games I used to use Gens, but I'm thinking about using Kega Fusion. I'm in the mood to replay Sonic 3 & Knuckles but I'm looking for a widescreen hack (not stretched) to enjoy it.

Then there's obviously N64 and Playstation emulators out there that are good. Anyone have recommendations etc?

 

[Fangu]

I've had issues with a lot of emulator save for one, and that's PCSX2. Sure, it crashes with OBS sometimes buuuut I'm willing to look through the fingers. Because it's really easy to set up and use.

I can't decide on which PS1-emulator I like the most, because they all seem kind of messy to me.

 

[Strangelove]

i messed up my ps1 emulator when i switched over to a new laptop (messing up the bios which worked perfectly to one that wouldn't work at all)

 

[Octo]

I havent emulated anything in quite a while, but I loved the snes9x.

I have a very dim memory of emulating Xenogears but I can't remember which emulator I used. Took me fucking ages to stop it running at lightning speed though

 

[Claymore]

I kinda just pick up and try an emulator whenever I get the urge to play some old games. At the moment I have picked up PPSSPP and have ran through Crisis Core again (which reminded me what a blah game that was) and have started on FF Tactics. Got GenDroid or something on my comp somewhere from when I had a massive urge to play Wonderboy In Monster Land and Warpspeed. Speaking of which, I need to get back to those as soon as Tactics is done.

 

[Splintered]

I very rarely emulate, and so I don't know much about it- making emulating almost always a buggy program to play on... but the snes9x is wonderful. It crashes sometimes but I think I just configured something wrong or whatever. I don't know what I'm talking about really, but I managed to get through chrono trigger and ffvi so it wasn't that bad.

For the playstation I have both ePSXe and psx. ePSXe is nicer, more options, and I've got some issues with games not always showing up on the psx (but audio works!? idgi), but I have a fast forward option on the psx so I pretty much always chose that one. Which reminds me I started Suikoden II, I should get back to that.

I have a controller set up for the playstation emulator (and the n64 emulator) but I've never not had issues with it. It's a shame because I want to use the controller for xenogears but the buttons all mess up. Thanks Obama.

 

[Lex]

I've had issues with a lot of emulator save for one, and that's PCSX2. Sure, it crashes with OBS sometimes buuuut I'm willing to look through the fingers. Because it's really easy to set up and use.

I can't decide on which PS1-emulator I like the most, because they all seem kind of messy to me.

The complete opposite is true for me XD. I had terrible terrible issues trying to set up PCSX2 and then when it actually ran a game it was an utter crawl until I messed about with the settings. Too many options that say "don't touch this or things will explode".

ePSXe is a pain to get the hang of settings-wise but once you're used to it it's an excellent emulator for making old Playstation games look really good. pSX is definitely the more accurate and compatible of the two though. Games look ugly in it but that's only because they look the way they should do on a real Playstation. And it works right away in general.

I've spent the last 3 hours playing Sonic 3 and Knuckles on Kega Fusion with my PS3 controller. What a joy <3

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Whenever I emulate PSX games, I use the pSX generator. Mostly because of how easy it is to use and set up. And all the games I've tried on it worked the first time.

 

[Lex]

Epic bump because I've been fiddling with emulators a bunch this weekend.

I discovered something tremendous: there's a functional Wii U emulator called cemu. I've just finished playing some Super Mario 3D World in actual 60fps

Kind of blown away by how smooth and good looking the gameplay was. I'll say there's some slowdown with loading and certain effects, but other than that it's excellent. Apparently Mario Kart 8 works well too.

Also, PCSXr is now the go-to PC emulator for original Playstation games. It's better than ePSXe because it supports all the same functionality, is open source and best of all supports a true widescreen hack for playstation games. It works really well in fully 3D games like Crash Bandicoot - not so well in things like FFVII because of the 2D backgrounds - it stretches them but not the 3D objects (like characters and the invisible walkmesh) so the level geometry is slightly off. Battles look great in widescreen though.

 

[Strangelove]

how does wii u emulation work re: the gamepad? is there like, two screens (like what you'd see in a ds emulator) or do some games that rely heavily on it (like star fox zero) just not work?

(i could google this)

(i have 66 tabs in 3 windows open so i'm not googling it yet)

i have been meaning to play kouldeka so i might give that ps1 emulator a shot

 

[Lex]

I don't know tbh, I used my DS4 as a "pro" controller in the game's settings. I don't think second screen works unless there's an emulation option I didn't see.

 

[Strangelove]

i would mainly be interested in bayonetta and xenoblade as those are the only two games i really wanted to play (which is why i couldn't justify buying a new wii u to myself) (and also i think they region locked it like dumb motherfuckers), so it'd be cool if those would work

 

[Jason Tandro]

Welp, downloading both of those now, Lex. I'll fiddle with them later for sure. My main interest in a Wii U Emulator would also be super mario 3D world, but also Hyrule Warriors. Hoping they both work well!

Thanks for the share, bro!

 

[Lex]

how does wii u emulation work re: the gamepad? is there like, two screens (like what you'd see in a ds emulator) or do some games that rely heavily on it (like star fox zero) just not work?

(i could google this)

(i have 66 tabs in 3 windows open so i'm not googling it yet)

i have been meaning to play kouldeka so i might give that ps1 emulator a shot

I don't know tbh, I used my DS4 as a "pro" controller in the game's settings. I don't think second screen works unless there's an emulation option I didn't see.

I've been playing this again and there are levels in super mario world that require the touchscreen - your computer's mouse on the actual screen has the same function, which is nifty. My DS4's touchpad is a faux mouse on PC so it works quite well for that too

 

[Strangelove]

really tempted to try it out now

 

[Shademp]

Running out of options. Since my computer was reformatted and I moved from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1, I have been unable to use the pSX emulator. The emulator crashes every time I try to start it.

Spoiler: The long and annoying of it

The error message type was "This application failed to start because D3dx9_26.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

I followed this extensive guide on how to solve the problem. Note that I am only experiencing this issue with pSX, not with any other software so far.

I copied the 64-bit D3dx9_26.dll into both System32 and sysWOW64, then performed the Command Line operations to "delete the D3dx9_26.dll file's damaged registry".

Even after restarting the computer several times, this has only replaced the former crashing problem with a new crashing problem. The message that now pops up is "The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b)".

For a moment I figured that maybe I had to copy a 32-bit D3dx9_26.dll file into System32 and then keep the 64-bit D3dx9_26.dll into, but upon doing the Command Line operation to delete the file's damaged registry my computer crashed heavily. Replaced the 32-bit .dll with the 64-bit version again, assuming that I had just done a huge mistake.

This page has multiple suggestions for how to solve the (0xc000007b) error message.

Running pSX as an administrator does not work. There is no installation process for pSX or folder in which to place a .dll file, so placing a D3dx9_26.dll inside pSX is not an option. Again, shutting down and starting my computer again does not solve the problem.

I am not confident enough to try updating the Microsoft .NET framework, re-install DirectX or any other untested solutions from the page. I doubt these solutions will work anyway since the problem is specific to the pSX emulator and nothing else. Even ePSXe and PCSX2 works fine.

Anybody know how to solve this?

 

[Fangu]

Upgrade to Windows 10?

(Not saying it'll fix your problem but it's a better OS)

 

[Shademp]

My brother found the solution.

You must place the 32-bit version of a specific d3dx9_26.dll file in the pSX folder. Find download link in the emulation guide below.
- Guide to set up pSX v1.13

I am blessed to have such a computer-savvy brother.

 

[Cthulhu]

I don't know shit about DLLs, but iirc yeah, that might have something to do with it, something about where .exes will look for .dlls, either the same folder or the system folder. something. idk, I haven't had to fiddle with anything techy in Windows for many years now, thank fuck.

 

[Fangu]

.dlls sre just magically created when you compile. It is known.

 

[Cthulhu]

It is known.

 

[Strangelove]

i wish i knew how to work these settings to get things to play right but i don't and it's a constant horror

 

[Lex]

- Google
- Be frustrated with forum responses to your questions from 2009 and your menus being completely different from screenshots
- Fiddle with it anyway
- Nothing works
- Pull your hair out
- Fiddle for several more hours
- Get everything working the way you want it
- Play the game
- Come back to it weeks later and nothing works anymore

That's emulation for ya :/

 

[Strangelove]

that is exactly what i have experienced except for the part where it starts to work

 

[Strangelove]

i guess this is an emulation question in a sense but it's not so much about software and stuff and is more of a musing about stuff i don't know much about but thought about while suffering through emulating stuff

i assume that one of the problems/difficulties with emulating is replicating the original hardware architecture? i've been thinking of this mainly due to the ps2 having being discontinued from production and so getting a new one will be increasingly more difficult. since the hardware is now 17 years old, i also assume that the components will be cheaper now than they were originally. so what is the likelihood of being able to reverse engineer and clone a ps2 using mass-market components? not like making one which emulates for multiple consoles or anything, just replicating the original ps2 but maybe replacing memory cards with an internal hard drive or sd cards and using modern/pc controllers but still with a dvd drive.