Emulation central - recommendations in 1st post

[flyingjohn]

This will be a nice patreon bux bump.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

So.... download yuzu Mainline Build - 120358cf6 (15 hours ago) now just to be sure? You know how fucking assholish Nintendo is. Fucking shitting down or threatening everyone. Fucking Nips. Maybe they need a hydrogen B downloaded on their HQ.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Even if it is illegal, how can you stop sharing an open source project?

 

[Perkel]

For people wondering why out of nowhere Nintendo sued them and not for example ryujinx.

I dug up a bit and apparently some angry patreon member who had Windows7 did this. He was mad at them for dropping support for Win7 despite his $$$. He gathered internal discord chats and other things that were clear proof of devs using nintendo stuff along with examples of devs using nintendo ip to promote stuff and sent them directly to nintendo.

Companies are scared to sue emulators because due to last emulator spat emulators became pretty much perfectly legal (Aside from few rare circumstances) and it is predicted that next ruling will shut down even those avenues leading to emulators being completely legal from a to z.

So them suing devs means they have some strong case.

Even if it is illegal, how can you stop sharing an open source project?

It's not about sharing. But developement. You can't share something that doesn't exist.

 

[flyingjohn]

For people wondering why out of nowhere Nintendo sued them and not for example ryujinx.

It wasn't out of nowhere. Zelda TOTK promotions were the red line.And switch 2 launching soon also didn't help.

I dug up a bit and apparently some angry patreon member who had Windows7 did this

I have my doubts that Nintendo lawyers would even give a damn about some random schizo or his evidence. Yuzu used Zelda images to promote the emu and one of the patreon locked builds was specifically designed to play Zelda TOTK on launch which led to huge patreon bux.
This is all public.

Companies are scared to sue emulators because due to last emulator spat emulators became pretty much perfectly legal

Well, that didn't help Bleem. And connetix was a different type of case.

So them suing devs means they have some strong case.

They are going for this:
-Specifically targeting the yuzu devs for promotion and profiteering of piracy
This is easy to prove.
-If that fails, then put them in a prolonged legal battle until their funds run out. Like what Sony did with Blem.

There is a reason Ryujinx isn't being targeted.This ain't about emu legality, but emu patreon bux gotten from enabling piracy while promoting copyrighted material to promote said piracy.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Shit, don't you have to be online now for consoles to even work now? The old days of plug n play are fucking gone.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

It's not about sharing. But developement. You can't share something that doesn't exist.

Nobody can forbid you to develop something and nobody can truly prevent any code/algorithm sharing (see the example of a RSA algorithm splitted and printed on several t-shirt weared by people going outside US and then recombined). And nobody can prevent you to compile any code you want on your computer for personal use (as nobody can prevent you to print wathever you want on a t-shirt).

 

[Perkel]

It's not about sharing. But developement. You can't share something that doesn't exist.

Nobody can forbid you to develop something and nobody can truly prevent any code/algorithm sharing (see the example of a RSA algorithm splitted and printed on several t-shirt weared by people going outside US and then recombined). And nobody can prevent you to compile any code you want on your computer for personal use (as nobody can prevent you to print wathever you want on a t-shirt).

No, but creating modern emulator requires shitload of work. The reason why citra ryu and yuzu were so fast on scene and in such good shape was because avenue of making $$$ opened up which pushed work further.
Moreover the emulation aspect becomes more and more complicated with every new machine.
So there is line between working emulator and nothing that keeps getting higher and higher.

Though i don't care much these days. Consoles are effectively dying breed. Even Sony now decided to go full multiplatform leaving Ninty alone.

 

[pakoito]

It's not about sharing. But developement. You can't share something that doesn't exist.

Nobody can forbid you to develop something and nobody can truly prevent any code/algorithm sharing (see the example of a RSA algorithm splitted and printed on several t-shirt weared by people going outside US and then recombined). And nobody can prevent you to compile any code you want on your computer for personal use (as nobody can prevent you to print wathever you want on a t-shirt).

No, but creating modern emulator requires shitload of work. The reason why citra ryu and yuzu were so fast on scene and in such good shape was because avenue of making $$$ opened up which pushed work further.
Moreover the emulation aspect becomes more and more complicated with every new machine.
So there is line between working emulator and nothing that keeps getting higher and higher.

Though i don't care much these days. Consoles are effectively dying breed. Even Sony now decided to go full multiplatform leaving Ninty alone.

Couple of asterisks here.

Projects have started spinning off others, making that start much easier. Yuzu came from Citra IIRC. That gives you the baseline for the UI and multiplatform code, so you can focus on the actual emulation.

Second: the latest generations of consoles have a OS and SDK that's comparable with developing for regular computers, which means you don't have to emulate the full CPU/GPU architecture with crazy accuracy. Gone are the days of memory pokes, the emotion engine and the cell processor. Which means it's easier to emulate.

Switch emulation focuses on reproducing the APIs in the OS, which have a simple mapping to OpenGL/DX/Vulkan equivalents; and sane-ish ones for audio/wifi/filesystem. That's why switch emus started almost at the same time as the console, and have evolved alongside it.

EDIT: And as Nintendo is doing evolutive OS rather than rewriting it from scratch with every console, there's a good chance Switch 2 will have release titles going ingame in an emu, and Playable within a couple of months.

 

[spekkio]

BROs, the incline has started:

I plan to modify the entire list in the OP. Reason?

Well, a couple years ago I jumped the Retroarch bandwagon, hoping that some nice devs will keep updating its cores constantly, so using standalone emus won't be necessary (each core will be updated shortly after standalone emu's update). Sadly, it didn't happen. RA is as good as always, but some of its cores are becoming more and more belated, when compared to standalone emus which they're based on. flyingjohn has written about it ITT recently.

Anyway, I plan to change the list, adding <- convenience and <- compatibility markers. The first one will in most cases be pointing to the RA core (Swanstation) or the "modern continuation" of the old emu (DOSBox-Staging), the second - to the standalone emu (Duckstation) or the "base" emulator (vanilla DOSBox).

So far I only did first two entries (DOS and old Windows), let me know what you think.

And OFC feel free to DISCUSS! which emu should be marked as "convenience" (for example Staging or -X).

 

[flyingjohn]

Dos wise:
Staging and X are ironically both convenient and accurate. Auto crt shaders for staging and x has many enhancements. This is not like console emu's which sacrifice one for the other, here you get both.
Dosbox should use a new tag related to just being old. It still works but the official builds are way too old and there is no point in using it over the others.
A newcomer you should add is a retroarch core ironically, Dosbox pure. It is designed for maximum convenience.
Daum is unfortunately dead, and has been replaced by x and staging.
Early pc emulation:
86 box is pure accuracy with heavy performance hits because of it.
Pcem on the other hand is much more convenient and easier on the performance.
So just switch the tags for them.
Here is a more updated tutorial for pcem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx2H3IV9SG4&t=909s

And since my "spring cleaning" period is beginning, why not just list everything else:

Other Emu's

Commodore 64:
Vice is still the best option, for accuracy and convenience.
You should just add a note to use jiffy dos since the criginal commodore is way too slow. Linking any files would get you the attention of the eye of Infinitron.
Avoid retroarch cores.
Amiga:
Fs-Uae should get the convenience tag and winuae the accuracy tag.
Also, retroarch PUAE core is pretty good and is getting updated. So maybe add that to the convenience bin as well.
Should also leave a note saying that WHDLOAD is for convenience and adf/installing is accuracy.
Atari XL
Change the name to Atari 8 bit, the xl was a very specific line.
Atari 800-Accuracy
Altirra -Convenience
Avoid retroarch cores.
Atari ST
Hatari-Accuracy
Steem -Convenience
Avoid retroarch cores.
NES:
Messen for both. No reason to have nestopia, both are cycle accurate.
Retroarch alternative would be Nestopia, the Messen core is not the same.
SNES:
Ares -Accuracy. Developed by the former guy who made bsnes.
snes9x-Convenience
Retroarch alternative would be any variation of BSNES or snes9x. Snes9x core is perfectly comparable to the standalone.
N64:
Oh boy, here we go:
RMG,simple64, -Convenience but with a big problem. All n64 emulators minus Ares are plugin dependent and that creates its own problems, but these two are made to be as simple as possible.
mupen64plus is in a weird spot where it does both but not good enough to be considered the defacto emulator
Ares-Accuracy. Pretty good for a couple for years of development a a dev switch. No hacks whatsoever.
Gamecube-WII:
The only choice is Dolphin still.
Avoid retroarch core.
WII-U:
Cemu is still the only option. It has gone open source so you can get the newest build here:
https://github.com/cemu-project/Cemu/releases
SWITCH:
Yuzu is going to jail, . Convenience tag, they practically use every trick in the book to make AMD gpu's run the thing normally on Windows.
Ryujinx-Accuracy
Gameboy-Color:
Sameboy-Accuracy
Gambette is only active on Retroarch and i don't think theres are any emulator that qualifies as Convenience for this handheld since there isn't a lot you need.
GBA:
Mgba is still the best option but you are gonna need vba-m for some romhacks.
Mgba retroarch is fine.
DS:
Melonds for both. Desmume is a joke now.Especially since melonds now allows for dsi emulation.
Retroarch core is decent but forget about dsi stuff.
3DS:
Citra is still the only option.
Avoid the retroarch cores like the plague.
Master system-Genesis-CD-32x:
Genesis plus GX retroarch core is still the best.
Kega Fusion deserves the old tag, it still works with great compatibility.
SATURN:
Forget about the saturn beetle retroarch core.
Mednafen-Accuracy, the only accurate Saturn emu.
Kronos standalone and retroarch core are pretty good and should get the Convenience tag.
DREAMCAST:
Demul should be removed.
Flycast, both standalone and retroarch core is all you need.
Redream is free emulator that would get the Convenience tag if you didn't have to buy the emulator to unlock said features.
Nec consoles:
Mednafen standalone is better then the cores.
But, the cores are not so bad compared to other consoles and can be used without any problems.
PSX:
Mednafen standalone-Accuracy
Duckstation standalone- Convenience
I think Xebra deserves to be on the list for the old tag. It is worse than the other two but, it feels so vintage, in a good way.
Avoid retroarch cores.But if you must use one, use Rearmed.
PS2:
Pcsx2 is still the only one, unfortunately.
Avoid retroarch cores.
PS3:
Rpcs3 is still the only one.
PSP
PPSPPP is still the only one worth it.
Retroarch core is not.
VITA:
Vita 3k is still the only one.
XBOX:
Xemu remains the only choice. CXBX has not caught up, in fact i think they even regressed in some games somehow.
XBOX 360:
Xenia is still here, still annoying to use, still completely random in whatever anything will work. Especially in the audio department.
I do give them credit in making Lost odyssey somewhat playable for a week until newer builds made sure that changed.

That is that i guess.Feel free to take, reject any of my suggestions.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

For C64 emulation, I note that sometimes WinVICE seems to not want to work with tape games. Denise is a good alternative in these cases, IMHO.

On computers not specifically mentioned in the OP, even through the link to the other computer post. Acorn 32-bit lines are not mentioned. None of the Archimedes emus work well on my end, but RPCEmu works beautifully for the tail end of the line.

For Japanese computers, the Neo Kobe Emulator pack should be linked. I've found it works fine for everything except MSX emulation. There's unfortunately not a good one-size fits all solution for most Japanese machines, as some machines have games that don't work well with one emulator but fine with others. This is also a problem with DOSbox, oddly enough, I know that for the original version sometimes you didn't want the latest version, as sometimes it wouldn't work with some games. Dunno if it still happens with the better forks.

 

[spekkio]

stuff

Regular:

isn't enough here. We need :peakaustism: tag for such posts.



Edit: DOS -> Snes modified according to suggestions. bsnes > Ares due to byuu alert 'cuz EmuGen says so.

 

[Endemic]

Even if it is illegal, how can you stop sharing an open source project?

Cracking encryption and using the prod.keys file is the issue (as well as the TotK distribution sites pointing to Yuzu pre-launch). They specifically mention over 1 million downloads for the TotK files.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

So extracting encryption keys from owned devices, for personal uses, is illegal now? And why is Yuzu responsible for the Zelda leak too?

 

[flyingjohn]

stuff

Regular:

isn't enough here. We need :peakaustism: tag for such posts.



Edit: Dos & early Windows modified, Commodore64 - Snes added.

If you are interested you can share your favorite strategy games in my thread here:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/your-favorite-strategy-games.149695/
Always looking forward to finding out new or interesting stuff. There are no restriction on platform or subgenre, so even srpg's are allowed.

 

[Endemic]

So extracting encryption keys from owned devices, for personal uses, is illegal now? And why is Yuzu responsible for the Zelda leak too?

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024...ndos-legal-case-against-switch-emulator-yuzu/

Nintendo already won the Dolphin lawsuit on the basis it came with the Wii decryption key, so there is precedent. DMCA doesn't permit the user to break copy protection in order to make a backup, so Nintendo will likely focus on that aspect.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

So extracting encryption keys from owned devices, for personal uses, is illegal now? And why is Yuzu responsible for the Zelda leak too?

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024...ndos-legal-case-against-switch-emulator-yuzu/

Nintendo already won the Dolphin lawsuit on the basis it came with the Wii decryption key, so there is precedent. DMCA doesn't permit the user to break copy protection in order to make a backup, so Nintendo will likely focus on that aspect.

Weren't backup copies for personal use legal? DMCA just forbid reselling and distribution of backup copies. And as far as I know Yuzu don't provides encryption keys, you need to get them from your device.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Shit, I thought faggot month was in June

Yuzu emulator shutting down, paying Nintendo 2.4 million in lawsuit settlement​

https://gbatemp.net/threads/yuzu-em...ndo-2-4-million-in-lawsuit-settlement.650039/

Just last week, on Tuesday, February 26th, 2024, news broke out about the Yuzu emulator team being sued by none other than Nintendo themselves, with Nintendo claiming that the emulator apparently allowed users to play certain games early (due to street dates being broken) and also allowing piracy of the current Nintendo Switch system.

Today, in a rather surprisingly quick manner, it seems like Tropic Haze LLC., the company behind the Yuzu team, has reached a settlement with Nintendo in regards to the lawsuit. According to a recent official document uploaded just a few minutes ago, Tropic Haze will pay up 2.4 million USD in favour to Nintendo, with both parties agreeing in the settlement and its amount.

UPDATE: According to the proposed Final Judgement and Permanent Injunction document, Yuzu as a whole in its current form will cease to exist, meaning no further development and prohibition of any distribution of built or source code forms of it.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I just downloaded it and now i hear its fucked? Fuck off nintendo.

And the underground will likely get more crowded. I hear sea shanties starting up down in the dark waters.

 

[spekkio]

Alright, guess that means I should remove it from the list in OP.

 

[Abu Antar]

There will always be places where you can find it.

 

[Abu Antar]

Citra also bites the dust.

 

[normie]

I just grab any old shit that turns up in the rss
https://www.emucr.com

 

[flyingjohn]

Download citra as well. It seems to be going as well.
Fuck it is gone.