OK, real talk, do "inaccurate" emulators like ZSNES

>>4216490
You seem kind of foolish, but I'll go ahead and answer

First off -- an emulator will never affect a games RNJESUS, because that's coded into the game

As far as accurate, and feel -- that's using the original controller for the console. If you didn't grow up using the console this honestly does not matter

Accuracy -- there is always going to be a split second lag input when emulating a game, so using emulators to play professional fighting games like street fighter is absolutely unacceptable

Speed running Mario in an emulator would be unacceptable

Since the games are coded to talk to the hardware, response time from a button press makes the experience -- this is lost 98% of the time on an emulator

>>4216496
Fair enough. I don't really care about competitive gaming, unless you mean casual multiplayer with friends. But like, if an emulator's CPU cycles are off, will it screw with the gameplay significantly?

>>4216506
What I'm really asking is, have I bought too much into byuu's shit about cycle accuracy? I mean, I guess it can affect things in some edge cases, but for like 99% of games, if it looks like the real console, will it play like the real console (excluding button lag, which I don't even notice because I'm a literal autist with slow reflexes anyway).

>>4216490
One of the core points of autistic accuracy is that a game can detect something is different than it would be on real hardware and act differently.

Some games do crazy shit or might have bugs ranging from subtle to serious, but in most cases it's not a big deal. Someone playing SMW for the first time in ZSNES isn't going to have a radically different experience from playing on a real SNES.

>>4216496
>subject is accuracy
>starts talking about lag

Lag is usually a side effect of the OS or APIs used to poll input, draw graphics or output sound.

Despite what some people choose to believe, It's not inherent to an emulator itself. All games or applications running on a PC will have the exact same issues.

Accuracy in the context of emulators is basically the ability to recreate the original in such a way that no software running on it can tell the difference.

Like if some game crashes in attract mode on real hardware due to some extreme edge case, but said bug doesn't happen on an emulator. That's what we mean by accuracy.

>>4216514
I first played SMW on a real SNES at around 3 years old, but when I played it years later on ZSNES, the only difference I noticed was in the sound. I could fire it up now in Higan, if I wanted to get my laptop's fan racing, but I'm thinking Snes9x might be a good compromise. Would I be correct?

>>4216523
Should be fine. Snes9x is pretty much a legacy emulator nowadays, but it has very high compatibility and not too many serious problems.

Fun fact; a few years ago around bsnes 075, bsnes had this strange black line around the middle of the screen in SMW. Rather than admit it was a bug, byuu insisted this happened on real hardware but the black was blurred out as part of the scaling process of the encoder. Then they found out it was actually a bug in bsnes.

>>4216527
Cool. I don't mind using legacy software that's mature and known to work well. As I've learned it often works better than newer stuff. ;)

That's hilarious. I wonder what byuu's problem is. He seems like a smart guy, but he's really got his head up his ass. I mean, why the fuck does Higan need as much power as it does? It's not a fucking circuit level emulator.

>>4216527
>>4216532
On that note, what are some other good emus that aren't too hard too hard to use, and don't need ludicrous specs? Everyone says to check the Emulation General Wiki, but I hate that site. Ten years ago, my programs of choice were ZSNES, BGB, Gens, 1964, FCE Ultra, and ePSXe. I'd be interested in finding replacements for these, bonus points if they have native Linux versions. A good GBA emulator would be cool too.

>>4216532
Higan isn't as bad as it seems. Most of what's going on in the core is there for very good reasons.

The general consensus is that the massive performance drain is due to the cothreading model it uses.

The SNES has a bunch of different components that do their own thing, CPU, SMP, PPU, DSP and sometimes an on-board cartridge CPU. A bunch of these run at their own speeds, so when they talk to each other you have to keep them in sync.

Less accurate emulators will synchronize very loosely, for example running one component for 100 operations then playing catch up with everything else. ZSNES in particular does SMP very badly, assuming two cycles for every opcode and basically having it running far too fast.

Back to bsnes. It keeps tight sync which is a good thing, but it does so by giving each component its own thread which is insanely slow. There is a massive overhead of syncing threads, but bsnes does it tens of thousands of times a second if not more.

It's a design decision that has that huge performance drawback, but it is otherwise very good at what it does.

>>4216547
I've used Higan before and it seems decent enough, but I've never tried using it for SA-1 games like Kirby Superstar. I used to play that in ZSNES on a Pentium III; what kind of monster PC would I need to run it in Higan?

>>4216542
Higan plays GBA if you provide a bios

>>4216553
How well does it work? Is it demanding like the SNES emulation? Would it provide any real benefit over say VBA-M?

>>4216542
Grabbing RetroArch might be the easiest option for everything bar PlayStation. It has Genesis Plus GX and Gambatte which are best in class for what they do, as well as Nestopia and Snes9x/bsnes cores which will handle everything you're likely to play.

>>4216554
Higan supports a lot of different systems, but only the SNES one is anything special.

MGBA is very popular for GBA nowadays. VBA-M will work, but be aware it's in a similar position vs MGBA as Snes9x is to bsnes/Higan.

>>4216550
Some reasonably high end Intel from the past few generations ought to cut it.

Most demanding games are special chip ones, so Mega Man X2 & X3 (CX4), Kirby Superstar and Mario RPG (SA-1) or Yoshi's Island and Star Fox (SuperFX).

But as already mentioned, using the hyper accurate renditions of bsnes/Higan puts you well past diminishing returns.

I would say just get something that is accurate enough that it will not cause glitches on the games that you want to play of any sort, or create lag in areas that it shouldn't.

The problem is that accuracy alone is not the only thing people are looking for in new emulators. There are many other things, such as lower input lag, better audio and video sync and such that make some games definitely more enjoyable and the idea of having to spend money on the real thing perhaps less appealing.

Of course normal people are not going to look hard enough for this, but it's a matter of getting just lesser quality overall. They don't get any incentives, emulation is not much simpler the way they set it up in most cases. They get something less resource intensive but nowadays plenty of people have hardware good enough to have a better experience than ZSNES.

I think it's a really good thing that we get more and more accuracy, better emulators, better optimized experiences if they can exist. Preservation is important and with the effort put into accuracy people will be less and less concerned about having to find the real hardware and software.

Also I have to be thankful for something like RetroArch, pretty much any other alternative that I try on macOS has several performance issues that I don't experience there. If someone didn't get "autistic" enough to work in such software, I would have to use Windows just for that.

>>4216557
I honestly can't stand Retroarch. I mean, I like the idea of it, but the UI just isn't suited for desktop use at all. Unfortunately, it's the only way I know of to use Genesis Plus GX on Linux since they've never bothered to make a standalone version.

What do you recommend for PlayStation, btw?

I knew there was a different program other than VBA-M, I just forgot what it was called. I'll check it out.

>>4216559
So, in other words, shit I can't afford. My desktop's got an Athlon 860k, and my laptop's got an Ivy Bridge i5.

>>4216567
That's kind of what I was thinking. Snes9x, Kega Fusion, ePSXe, etc. They're oldschool but they work.

>>4216567
I'm assuming you tried OpenEmu on OS X?

>>4216576
Actually I have. I built a Hackintosh just so that I could try it. Didn't care for it. Like many other OSX programs, it had very few configuration options. Style over substance, I say.

>>4216580
Yeah it's not as tweakable as RetroArch, but it's a lot more usable, imo. I use a Wii for all my emulating, but I'm a Macfag so I was curious. I honestly still use mostly Bannister Software emulators when I do emulate on my Mac.

>>4216580
Correction; it's more like I repurposed my old Core2Duo box as a Hackintosh. There's no way I could actually afford the parts to build a decent Hackintosh. What I got was an interesting, but useless machine with only one working SATA port, no audio, and an OS I couldn't update because I had to use some sketchy pirate hack of OS X Yosemite. This was like two years ago.

>>4216576
OpenEmu was the very first thing I tried. I'm still waiting for the day that I can play genesis without framedrops on that.

I tried Phoenix as well, which in some cores produces some nasty audio crackling that cannot be fixed at all.

And then I have alternatives like Mednafen, which just have less options overall. As in, there's really no point in using them.

>>4216574
The premiere PlayStation emulator is Mednafen, but it's a bit of a resource hog.

Toaster options are NO$PSX and pSX, but they're both Windows only iirc.

ePSXe might be the best, but it is a plugin based emulator the selection of plugins available on Linux probably isn't as good as on Windows.

PCSX-Reloaded might be worth a look, but I don't know if it's even maintained nowadays.

Putting BizHawk out there as a RetroArch alternative. It's mainly written in C#, but allegedly supports Linux to an extent. ymmv

>>4216584
Mednafen is very versatile and has a ton of configurable options. The only thing is you have to edit the config by hand in a text editor, but it's not something you'd need to do too often.

There might even be frontends that simplify that stuff.

>>4216490

In games like those Mother 3 Eng Fan Translation, I know it's difficult to land the combo attacks based on the rythm of the battle / enemies' heartbeat.

Though I can't recall if it's the botched ROM or the emulator timing.

>>4216593

GBA ROM / Emu

>>4216593
>this really hard part that requires frame-perfect timing
>I messed up because of input/display lag, obviously
>otherwise I'd have done it perfect

>>4216606
There are some games that definitely require good timing and benefit a lot from not having such lag. Adapting to that lag is not the best solution if you do have an alternative.

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>>4216585
How much of a resource hog are we talking? I've heard it can do highres now, but like, would 2x scaling, let's say, be too intensive for a Core 2 Duo? That's about where most of my hardware is at.

How toastery are we talking? I could probably run those under WINE if I had to.

Again, WINE is a thing. I use it to run the Windows version of PCem even though there's a Linux version, just because the latter lacks hardware acceleration and some other features.

I've played around with PCSX-R a little bit. Isn't it more of a mobile app nowadays?

I used BizHawk a bit back when I was on Windows, and it seemed alright. I know it's supposed to be difficult to run under WINE, but if there's a native version, well shit, what am I still doing here?

>>4216589
I recall Mednaffe being a somewhat decent GUI for it, on Windows. Had some issues with how the video output was scaled, namely with it not being 4:3. I guess I'm just being picky though.

>>4216610
and some games already have lag so emulation lag just makes it worse

>>4216613
I have a PC from the same era that barely can't run Mednafen PSX full speed at 1x. For performance stuff there are a lot of variables. Best thing it just to try it and see how it goes.

There is PCSX-Reloaded which is primarily desktop and PCSX-ReARMed which is primarily mobile. It's been a few years since I've looked at either, so I can't really comment.

I don't think there is a native BizHawk version for Linux. It's C# so it won't run under WINE but it might run okay under Mono. Might want to check this thread: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12659

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>>4216625
I guess I will just have to try. My machines are technically newer than what I said, but given that one's a non-Ryzen AMD, and the other's a mobile Ivy Bridge, they're not much better.

Yeah, PCSX-ReARMed. I was pissed when I learned there wasn't a desktop version of that emulator. The Emulation General Wiki seems to sing PCSX-R's praises though, so idk.

Thanks for the link. Since I don't need TAS features, it sounds like the Linux version of BizHawk might be OK for me.

>>4216593
I just got a repro cart of this and have been playing on my gba sp. The combos were easier to do when I last played vba-m but that could be because of the Sennheiser headphones on my pc

>>4216496
>so using emulators to play professional fighting games like street fighter is absolutely unacceptable
because we can't be fucking casuals right

>>4216496
>First off -- an emulator will never affect a games RNJESUS, because that's coded into the game
A long while ago, various Z80 emulators failed to increment the R register, resulting in some games failing to generate random numbers. I'd still be suspect of the exact behavior of R outside a real chip - especially given that some clones exhibit different behavior.

>>4216625
Well fuck me. Looks like running Bizhawk on Linux is still a ways away, partly because the devs think people just use it for TASing. Bitch, I don't care about TASing, I just want an alternative to RetroArch with a WIMP interface.

>>4216686
What emulators used this code?

>>4216490
Once you get familiar with the specific game/emulator combo, "inaccuracy" stops being an issue.

I can hit 100 super jumps (Super Mario RPG) on ZSNES just fine, but can't do it on a real SNES because the timing is a split second different.

I do frame perfect stuff in lots of games on ZSNES, but I can't do them on the real SNES because I'm just so used to the different timing.

>>4216694
I don't *want* to get used to inaccurate timing though. If I play a game on an emulator, I want it to feel as much like the real system as possible. I don't want to get used to exploiting bugs that don't exist on real hardware.

>>4216496
KGEN and Genecyst behave differently in regards to RNJesus. Warsong, for example, shows this very well. On KGEN, you can make a quicksave after initiating a battle, and every time you load it the battle will come out differently. On Genecyst, you have to actually manipulate the RNG (press any button on the scenario map) for a battle to come out differently.

>>4216697
Well, then, you don't want to emulate. No emulation is perfect. Sorry.

If you can't deal with a 1/10ths of a second difference between real and emulated hardware, you just don't want to emulate. Enjoy playing only hard copies.

>>4216701
Slight timing differences aren't a huge dealbreaker for me, what's a dealbreaker for me is if faults in the emulation lead to outright exploits that real hardware doesn't have.

>>4216698
Interesting. I know these are both ancient emulators. Which one's closer to the actual console's behavior?

>>4216706
Well, without the ability to quicksave, it's difficult to tell which one is closer.

Most of the even semi-popular games have 99-100% perfect emulation. You won't find any glitches or bugs that don't exist on the hard copy, and the bugs and glitches that do exist on the hard copy will carry over into the emulation.

FF6, for example, is notoriously bug ridden in the community. All of those bugs still exist on emulatio, but no one has found any bugs or glitches on a rom that don't exist in the game.

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>>4216713
Derp, good point. Fuck I'm tired.

If that's the case, what's the point of using modern emulators? Maybe I'll reinstall my old favorites and call it a day.

>>4216718
Modern emulators have some quality of life improvements, and sometimes they can get closer to the real hardware than the older emulators can, especially in terms of sound and graphical display.

Honestly? Find the emulator you like, play the games you like to play. Don't stress the small stuff, man. Just go play and enjoy yourself.

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>>4216721
> Don't stress the small stuff, man. Just go play and enjoy yourself.

That's a legit problem I have. I honestly created this thread because I wanted validation that it's OK to use older and/or less accurate emulators. I have legit OCD that I'm getting therapy for and it's a fucking nightmare to live with, so I'm always dwelling on shit like this. I'd like to quit giving a fuck about how much street cred my emulators have and just play some damn games.

It honestly pisses me off when I see people on here shilling Retroarch and Mednafen and Higan too, since these are all programs that have high system requirements and/or are a pain in the ass to use and configure. I don't know how you define quality of life, but I think ZSNES and other older emus delivered pretty well in that regard by having easy to use GUIs.

>>4216730
>It honestly pisses me off when I see people on here shilling Retroarch and Mednafen and Higan too, since these are all programs that have high system requirements and/or are a pain in the ass to use and configure.

Well, maybe people shill these because they're not as much of a pain to configure as some people make them out to be + many people have modern computers and they don't usually play games on laptops

I mean, have you considered that, instead of being pissed off about it?

>>4216735
They have more money and patience than I do, I get it.

> I mean, have you considered that, instead of being pissed off about it?

Ironically, statements like that piss me off. Anger is irrational, OK? If it weren't, it wouldn't exist.

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So, what emulators do normies use?

>>4216490
In 99% of the cases accuracy only affects graphics and sound. ZSnes is horribly outdated, and does not render transparency properly in some games. Most modern emulators of PS1 and before have no graphical differences from original console output if you set them up right, but the sound quality may vary and in case of PS1 require in-depth setup and customisation.

N64 emulation is still shit in every aspect, but some games run very well and close to the original. Some games play well on one emulator but not the other - you'll have to experiment with that.

If you have never played the real thing on original hardware you are unlikely to notice any input lag (unless you have incredible split second reflexes), with exception of some borderline cases of REALLY bad emulator+game+machine combo.

>>4216496
Original hardware too has input lag, the difference between good CRT+Console setup and a properly set up good LCD monitor (not TV) +Machine and Emulator is going to be ~1 frame, some times even less. This has been proven by the same guy who was researching input lag and whose early pasta lagfaggots most oftenly paste around.

Also you seem to no know about TAS.

>>4216698
Kgen uses real RNG - it is a modern emulator, while Genecyst is old as fuck and uses seeded RNG as a speedhack for toaster systems of '97 - back then 100% game speed was preferred to accuracy.

>>4216772
I would guess ZSNES/SNES9X, ePSXe, FCEU, VBA-M and Project64 to name a few. Gens maybe? Or Kega? I don't remember which was better but still the one that most people used.

>>4216774
N64 emulation is shit because it has this whole individual hack per game kind of thing still, and they put most focus on the popular games.

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>>4216774
These are the answers I'm looking for. :D Since you mention sound quality, I wonder what's generally considered "decent".

I know N64 emulation is a long way from being any good. It's a real shame. If it were even at the level SNES emulation was in the early 2000s, it'd be better than it is now.

I used to collect real hardware and I acquired a healthy SNES collection before the retro bubble, but most of my experience is definitely from emulators.

I'm surprised to hear Kgen be referred to as a "modern" emulator. I could've sworn I've played around with it on a Pentium II.

>>4216776
Kek, those are most of the emulators I used 10 years ago. I hated Project64 with a passion though. 1964 just seemed like a better emu, and it could use PJ64's plugins so it was a win win.

>>4216787
I remember about 8 years ago, maybe 7, I really got obsessed into emulation and despised both ZSNES and SNES9X for not getting the intro to Kirby Superstar right. It would lag on them and desync like crazy. I think it still does. SNESGT didn't have that problem so I loved it.

>>4216730
There is no tangible, real difference aside from GUI, Sound, and slight Visual aspects in regards to old emulators or old games.

You can play anything up to PS2 with a toaster, plug in your controller, and you'll feel like you're playing the real thing.

>>4216790
>SNESGT
That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Sounds like it hasn't been updated in forever, but I might check it out anyway.

>>4216794
Except for N64 haha

>>4216797
It's because it was this really random, sort of obscure japanese emulator. I believe there was a time where emulator development was overall on a hiatus, maybe people lost interest, and nowadays it seems like a much more popular thing. But at some point it's like people didn't give a shit anymore and it was only progressing a bit through Dolphin and PCSX2, if that.

Are there any decent emulators that have ZSNES's time rewind feature?

I know I need to git gud and all but that's just not feasible with my shit reflexes

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>>4216804
Still, if it does better SA-1 emulation than ZSNES and Snes9x while not requiring the monster specs Higan demands, I'd say it sounds awesome.

>>4216805
BizHawk?

>>4216806
SA-1 emulation doesn't have to be perfect for most games to work acceptably.

It was only broken in the last official ZSNES release, 1.51. Versions before that like 1.42 didn't have random crashes with those games.

AFAIK most SA-1 games run absolutely fine in Snes9x. It's just SuperFX games which ran twice as fast for a long time. That isn't necessarily a bad thing for some people though.

NO$SNS and Kindred are newer emulators that might be worth looking at.

>>4216817
I used to play Kirby Superstar on ZSNES 1.36 all the time. In fact, I kept using that version over later versions because it ran StarFox at the right speed, while others ran it too fast.

>>4216817
>>4216826
For reference, this is the lag I was talking about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Irl2Q9_4YA - Slow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFUp3ysoSIw - Normal

Man, this brings back some memories.

>>4216854
Odd thing is, I don't remember seeing any of that lagginess in ZSNES 1.36.

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OP, quit being such a poorfag and buy a ryzen. It's only like $500.
colors are off because of icc profiles

>>4216962
Damn... I knew I wasn't the only one that played 7 instances of Final Fantasy VII... at the same time...

>>4216817
>AFAIK most SA-1 games run absolutely fine in Snes9x. It's just SuperFX games which ran twice as fast for a long time.
Why the fuck are you using that outdated Snes9x. The latest version is 1.55 and has correct superfx2 speed.

>>4216982
>latest version is 1.55

Uh...no? Latest official release is still 1.54.1 from a year ago.

https://github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x/releases

Cool if they've fixed it since then.

>>4216512
that dude's a fucking scammer. lol

>>4216496
an RNG can get outside input to keep from being predictable, like the game or levels timer for example.

If the emulator effects the time it takes you to reach certain parts of a game or level, that could possibly affect the RNG.

>>4216490
No, enjoy your games dude.

Byuu is obsessive to a fault. I guarantee you wouldn't notice any inaccuracies unless you're actively looking for them, even for games you know really well.

In decent emulators they are rare anyway and insignificant. Shit like a laser sound pitched down a semitone every 500th time.

Unless you're playing less popular 5th gen shit, Observable inaccuracies hardly exist with decent emus, you wont notice them anyway, and even if you did it wouldn't affect your game experience at all.

>>4216585

pSX definitely had a Linux port at some point, because I looked and I've still got a copy on my drive from 2013, though it doesn't seem to work now that I've moved to a 64-bit Linux. I guess I should look and see if there's a newer release.

>>4216687
>I just want an alternative to RetroArch with a WIMP interface.

Minir is a libretro frontend with a WIMP gui interface. So you can run all the libretro backends without the Retroarch frontend crap.

I wouldn't say using Zsnes or ePSXe is any easier than using a more functional emulator, retroarch may have a pretty garbage interface but i prefer just being able to play PSX and Saturn games in the original resolution without having to fuck around with plugins and shit. I'm also a filterfag so the shader framework retroarch provides is a nice bonus.
There's also no reason to use Zsnes since there are other functional emulators that aren't resource hogs.

>>4216735

Retroarch is a half-baked piece of shit with a loud, obnoxious fanbase. Mednafen's alright, though, just needs to be paired with a nice frontend.

>>4216805

Mednafen has this. I know, I use it too -- maybe 10 year old me could beat NES Ninja Gaiden in the 48 hours I had the rental cartridge, but my reflexes aren't that good anymore. (Plus the dpad is busted on my gamepad and I'm using the analog stick in its place, which only makes it worse.)

>>4216585
no$psx had pretty awful issues in general last time I tried and wasn't stable in the slightest, but that was a while ago
pSX sucks, but it's fucking fast (used it a bunch on my netbook that got poor performance with a software renderer on ePSXe and the hardware accelerated plugins had various issues despite running smoothly)
mednafen is ideal, but needs a vaguely not totally shit machine (a random i5 laptop of any variety should be fine though)
it's been so damn long since I've used PCSX-R that I dunno
ePSXe has issues (largely in the various video plugins, but I think there are some important core bugs, you should be fine with a software plugin, but it'll still kind of suck due to issues with disabling screen filtering) but works and is fast

>>4217782
>There's also no reason to use Zsnes since there are other functional emulators that aren't resource hogs.
this
a recent snes9x still has similar system requirements but is basically more accurate by far at this point

>>4217774
I've basically never been able to get pSX's Linux build to run. Ended up just saying fuck it and running the Windows version in Wine at one point (IIRC it worked? it's been a while, I ended up using pcsx-r, this was years ago).

>>4217782
Lol I still bust out Zsnes for those fringe old romhacks with broken sound

>>4217864
>I've basically never been able to get pSX's Linux build to run.

It worked for me on Debian stable for quite a while, but now I'm on 64 bit 9.1, it fails to access the sound hardware and segfaults even after I install all the 32-bit libraries.

>>4217864
Yeah Snes9x tends to be able to play anything you throw at it with decent accuracy, it's my go-to emu if I feel like playing some SNES games.
>>4217941
That's pretty much it's only use although I don't really play romhacks aside from translations, I never had trouble with stuff like the sailor moon or sd3 translations with 9x though.

>>4216805
Retroarch can do that.

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>>4217005
Good point. I guess it'd even be unavoidable with highly accurate emus due to things like input lag.

>>4217015
Thanks :) that's basically what I needed to hear.

>>4217780
I keep forgetting about that program. Will check it out. If it's functional, it may just be the holy grail of emulators.

>>4217782
I was using ZSNES when I was 8, and ePSXe when I was 12. I had more patience back then, but they didn't seem too hard to use regardless. I was able to teach a tech illiterate friend of mine how to use them, after I set them up of course.

>>4217818
Amen on both counts. Mednafen was OK with the Mednaffe frontend last time I used it, though not perfect.

>>4217864
Thanks for the info. :) I wonder what kind of modern machine couldn't handle ePSXe in software mode though, since my friend's Pentium 3 laptop ran it decently back in 06 so long as it was from an iso.

And yeah, I'd only use Zsnes for nostalgia at this point, or if I was on a Pentium 1/2 box. ;)

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>>4216962
I wanna build a Ryzen box, but $500 is expensive as fuck for me. I'd rather just get a used Pentium G3258, since it's single threaded performance that matters for emulation.

>>4217818
>Retroarch is a half-baked piece of shit
Explain yourself.

>>4218218

It's a mess of different cores, most of which are ancient because while they had a good idea (create a standard library for common functions of emulators which various emulators can then be coded against) they couldn't actually get most emulator authors onboard. (Partly because herding cats, partly because their code is said to be very poor quality)
The result is while cores are supposed to be all standardized against their library, they are instead ported by people who only semi understand the emulator they're working with. You get things like save states -- they should all be done through libretro, and be compatible between cores. The code certainly believes this to be the case -- if you save a state in $ROM while using the GenesisPlusGX core, it will be available to load when you run $ROM in PicoDrive, yet if you actually try to load this state the emulator will crash because it's NOT all standardized the way it ought to be. The code just assumes it is.
The interface is terrible and clumsy, designed for a set-top-box environment and not very well designed at that. The scanned rom listing has the same context level as the five other config/etc menus, so if you're using an analog controller to move through the rom list, you have to be careful not to bump to the left or right because you'll exit the rom list and jump to a different menu, and when you return it will put you right back at the top, losing your place. Stupid shit like that abounds in this thing.
Worse, the thing seems to be getting buggier as time goes by, probably a result of the poor code quality that some emulator authors cited as why they didn't want to work with the libretro/retroarch project. Spaghetti code means that changes cause regressions. Things that used to work don't anymore.

Try loading up retroarch's NES cores, and play a game of Duck Hunt. You know that one, everyone does. You can't play it, because only the SNES core supports light guns. Nothing else.
Retroarch sucks.

>>4216496
>input lag in emulation

This sounds like bullshit to me, I've never noticed it in any emulator ever...I DO notice input lag on HDTV's on real hardware, which is why I always game on an SDTV.

So even if there is SOME kind of lag like you say, it's not worse than HDTV lag and everyone plays fighting games on those just fine at pro levels.

>>4218387
Emulator lag is well documented, fag.

>>4218264
That's easily solvable by keeping an emulator around solely for playing Duck Hunt. Retard. It's like you children need mommy to hold your hand and walk you through every step of the way.

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>>4218396

>retroarch fans, everybody!

>>4216490
Yes do whatever you want but I don't know why you want to. It's like having the choice between a free a beat up Civic and brand new Tesla. Why would you want ever want a Civic in that situation?

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>>4218495
Imagine the Civic is old but reliable, and the Tesla requires you to sacrifice a goat in a very specific ritual in order to use it properly. That's an exaggeration, but it's kind of how I feel.

>>4218264
Basically this. Good intentions, poor results, and a UI that doesn't belong on a PC at all.

>>4218396
Funny enough, this is what I used to do to play StarFox 2. I preferred using ZSNES 1.36 for most games, but StarFox2 really needed a newer emu to work properly, so I used whatever version of Snes9x was included with the download on Home of the Underdogs.

>>4218394
If it's documented then you should have no problem providing a verifiable source.

And no, a bunch of random people on a forum claiming there must be input lag because they're shit at a particular game doesn't count.

>>4218387
>>4218394
Not him, but it is also well documented by the same guy, that original hardware also has input lag, On higan, a good machine and good LCD the average difference in lag was just half of a frame.


>>4218778
There was a guy who did actual research and all of /vr/ cited him like a holy bible. His research however was absolutely laughable from "research" standpoint - he had no control group, his setup was unoptimised (he ran emulators on Win 10)m and a whole bunch of other issues.
~2 years later he did another one, now comparing lag of original SNES to properly configured Higan on the same setup, and found out that original console also has input lag, and with a good emulator the difference is neglegible. It's obvious why /vr/ never cites that one.

>>4218752
>Good intentions

They're currently bringing in $1100 a month on their patreon which has been running for a while. They said the entire amount was supposed to be going completely into development, but money being paid out is a fraction at best.

A few years ago before it was as big they claimed they weren't in it for the money and would never resort to monetary donations. They only had a hardware donation setup that was basically "send me xyz system and I'll port RA to it". How times change.

Also no moral conflict whatsoever in distributing the few emulators that were released under non-commercial licenses. Because $1100 in donations every month clearly doesn't count as "commercial".

Is there even much development going on with RA any more? I honestly can't think of anything worthwhile happening in the past few years.

>introduce monetary incentives for devs
>development comes to a standstill

>>4218787
it's not
>introduce monetary incentives for devs
>development comes to a standstill

it's more like
>pay people regardless of what they do
>people do nothing and still get money

That's why the only way to pay someone is through deadlines and milestones - that's the only way to ensure that shit would actually get done.

I know that in donkey kong if you're using ZSNES the barrels are not going to work properly. For instance, the barrels that you're supposed to aim in DK2 won't ever stop moving making some levels almost impossible to beat, this doesn't happen with other more accurate emulators.

>>4218934
I beat all DKs on ZSNES years ago. I don't remember that being a thing.

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>>4218951
This is what makes it such a nasty bug.

If you didn't know better, you'd think the barrels were supposed to turn automatically when you're in them, but you're supposed to be able to turn them manually with the left and right buttons.

It's not a problem in most levels, but it makes Klobber Karnage much harder than it needs to be. That level is part lost world last so most players would assume it's supposed to be ultra difficult anyway.

>>4218264
retroarch dev here, the project is a quite large and complex undertaking, a lot of cores are working, but some are still buggy like you mention, pull requests are usually accepted so if you would like to contribute bugfixes (or know someone who would) then please do so

>partly because their code is said to be very poor quality
the code quality varies wildly depending on the core, some are modern, others are old and wonky because the code generally works fine for most of the games people want to play, and no one has gone full byuu and took the time to make a modern emulator

>>4219024
I know this has been probably asked countless times, but is RetroArch ever going to get a different GUI?

I mean who decided to put so much time into XMB? With all due respect it's pretty terrible for big collections.

>>4219113
I think anyone can make a retroarch menu. There's just no good documentation on it.

>>4219118
Well, that's the thing. Doing it blindly ain't better.

I mean really I actually like RetroArch over other alternatives, at least because I haven't managed to get equal or better performance with some cores on my system.

However it takes long enough to build a playlist with a sizable collection of games if you want to have covers. I had about 15% of PS1 games unrecognized and 40% without covers. It'd be rewarding if at the end of the day instead of it being a list, you could choose to have something else like a grid or something. I think most frontends usually have that view, I would definitely have gone for that.

>>4218752
I don't think your goat analogy is correct. Higan takes very minimal setup to get working, and it does almost all of it for you. Just offload your roms through Icarus and you should be good to go.