I ask because I decided to try out PCSX2 for the first time in many years today and was blown away by things like the resolution scaling.
When I first started using emulators having save states and the ability to rewind in GBA blew me away.
I am wondering what features, added by emulators, you really appreciate or would make going back to the original console difficult? Are there any emulators you’d highly recommend to a friend who is into retro gaming but never really tried out emulation?
Are there some emulated consoles that don’t quite have the feature set of the native experience? For example I haven’t tried out Xenia but I know a bit about the history of 360 emulation and why it’s lagged behind (Modern Vintage Gamer I believe has a decent video on this I’d link if I wasn’t on mobile). Is it missing some key or quality of life features?
Thought this could be a fun Friday discussion for this community
I mean the first consoles I looked to emulate were consoles I used to play so PS1/2, PSP etc
I was never much of a Nintendo guy but Dolphin has been a gold standard of emulators for me. A lot of features I was begging to get on PCSX2 for years were already on Dolphin, mainly per-game configuration.
As for consoles improved by emulation, PS Vita, although I’d argue it benefits from modding in general, with how much it can then run.
As for the OG being preferred, the 3DS and possibly the PS1. Both to me have a charm to their graphics that work better on the screens they were originally meant to run on.
Classic 8 bit NES. Save state and upscaling are all great features everyone appreciates, but what I really hated was Nintendo’s hard, square controller! Using a modern, soft rounded controller to replay my classic NES favs is just so much better. And yeah, save game state is a literal game changer, lol.
With Dolphin (Gamecube) you can play Prime Hack, a Metroid Prime mod with mouse and keyboard support, then you can also add HD upscaled textures and widescreen support. i loved playing Metroid Prime that way. With CEMU (Wii U) you can improve LOD and other texture settings which is nice, also play at mucb higher frame rates.
Dolphin - absolutely banger of a gamecube/wii emulator. It has absolutely everything imaginable.
Dolphin has so much customization if needed, it even allows typing mathematical equations to alter analog stick sensitivity curve. My mind was absolutely blown when I found that out. Added some tiny tweaks to it to “round out” the curve a bit, as I felt like the small movements didn’t really register as neatly as I would have hoped, and with small mathy-math-math input it was great. For the life of me I can’t remember what the equation was, probably squareroot or squaring the analog input so it curved a bit. (EDIT: I did the equation for trigger, not analog stick, but option for the stick is still there)
Mesen is also quite dope for NES, at least the version I’m still using. I’ve understood the current version bundles nes and snes into same application? Either way, probably still pretty much top tier.
IMO, best features:
- integer scaling to big image, bilinear scaling back down to fit to screen. Less blur and pixels stay (visually) same size without distortion
- online play
ScummVM, not really an emulator per se, rathar an interpreter (afaik). Essentially it lets you play old (and some new) adventure games on modern systems. It does all adlib/midi/mt32 (with roms you need to source yourself) and graphics tricks. Unified settings and all my adventures in one places? Easily scummvm over actual retro-pc/mac/amiga/whatever.
Any console that made extensive use pf dithering to smooth out graphics is better experienced on original hardware (with composite cables) thats basically SNES, Genesis, PS1 and Saturn. Anything past that generation is basically mini-PCs, you don’t lose anything on emulation and may get bonuses like texture amd resolution hacks.
PPSSPP: I initially installed it because my PSP Go was failing and corrupting my save files.
Dumping all the PSP files onto a pc and loading one save with PPSSPP, fixed all the saves. Then I put them back on the PSP to continue my Gran Turismo career while commuting on the train.
It was mind-boggling to me that the emulator could fix the original console. Of course, it also does all kinds of upscaling, double framerate, etc.
After this happened twice though, I replaced the PSP with a Steam Deck. Sadly, the large stick on the Deck has caused me some trouble with controlling the higher end cars. PSP has no analog triggers, so all the finesse is in the flick of the ministick. I should load up GT4 (PS2) on the Deck soon. And MGS 1 through 3. Am very happy playing GRID (2008) and Death Stranding for now though.
MAME is a good emulator for arcade emulation, particularly old arcade machines. It’s a lot easier than having a bunch of arcade cabinets, that’s for sure. It also emulates a large amount of old consoles and computers, including obscure stuff like the Game.com.
We’ve got some good examples of emulators, so I’ll share some examples where the originals are better.
DC, DS, 3DS, and WiiU (especially) because of the inability to give the dual-screen experience that these consoles offer.
Yes, the DS and 3DS can emulate the touch screen with your mouse, or maybe even a touchscreen monitor. But your controls are still going to be on a separate device the majority of the time.
The DC has its VMUs, which were often doing something related to the game you were playing. In Sonic Shuffle (Mario Party but Sonic and cards instead of dice), it actually showed your hand. It was an interesting mechanic, because players could choose cards from ANY player’s hand…and the VMUs were the only way to see which card was what.
The WiiU would probably need to be able to emulate onto a tablet for a lot of the games that utilized it well to work as originally intended.
PS1 once you remove the texture distortion
