Emulation

Post 00032 | March 1st 2023

I would like to propose a toast to one of the most boring pieces of technology from the last century: The humble CD player. For three decades, it was the defacto standard for audio. If a sound was being sold, it was being sold on a CD. Not only that, your CD would play on whatever CD player you had; Your 2006 Arctic Monkeys CD would play equally well in your 1986 hi-fi or the radio in your 1996 Nissan Sunny. And of course, if "I Bet That You Look Good on the Dance Floor" wasn't your jam, by this record companies had put out most of their back catalogues, making most of the soundtrack of the 20th century available for your listeining pleasure.

Nowadays the idea of multiple tech manufacturers and media companies agreeing on anything seems completely foreign, like something from a by-gone era. Your iPhone will not AirPlay to your Chromecast much like your Android phone can't can't cast to an Apple TV. For a little while media companies were happy to license their stuff to Netflix until they realised there were more money to made by cutting out the middle man, so now you are expected to have half a dozen apps installed on your phone.

And don't get me started on games. Wanna play Fantasian, Mistwalker's latest RPG? Okay, first your need to buy an Apple device which allows you to subscribe to Apple Arcade to effectively rent the game; But you better play it quickly, because you never know how long it will be available for and once it's gone, it's gone. To be fair though, video games have never been close to seeing an industry standard such as the audio CD or DVD. Every five to ten years you are expected to buy a new console in order to keep up with the latest releases and more often than not, this new console might not be able to play the games from your old console. And then there's the issue of the lack operability between console brands: A PlayStation game might fit in an Xbox but you're not going to get much enjoyment of out it.

It's been like this forever, but that doesn't mean it isn't kind of ridiculous if you compare it to the audio CD. Nobody goes "I want to listen to Bob Dylan so I should get out my Columbia Graphophone. It's 60hz modded so I can play US imports". Instead, you load a CD or mp3 and press play. This convenience was never afforded to games so as somebody who likes retro games, these consoles quickly become overwhelming. I have about a dozen of these hooked up. You can region mod them enhance functionality, RGB mod them to enhance signal quality and simplify setup, buy Bluetooth adapters to avoid cable clutter, and buy flash carts to make your collection and fan translations more accessible. Keep throwing money at the problem without dealing with the underlying issue: These consoles are a bloody hassle. I just want one machine that does everything. I want a CD player for games. This is why I have started emulating.

Retroarch

These days, it is nearly impossible to talk about emulation without mentioning Retroarch. It is pretty much the VLC Media Player of old games. No matter what you throw at it, there's a good chance it will play it, oftentimes with multiple emulator cores available. Even more impressive, it seems to have overcome most of the downsides that comes with emulation. Normally, emulation will bring some delay as the emulator needs to process the game code. However, with Run Ahead enabled, Retroarch is able to minimise this delay by effectively running multiple instances of the emulator at once like a kind of time portal. A 4D solution to playing 2D games.

Another critism one might have when it comes to emulation is that the output is far to sharp, which wasn't the case on a CRT. If the sharper image bothers you, there is a asortment of shaders available to make the game look its best. If you really want to customise, these shaders can be set up by a per game basis. Some games relied on a fuzzy RF or composite signal to blend colours together. Playing the game on an emulator or using RGB SCART, these colours will be separated into a dithered pattern. You can add a shader to make these games look fuzzy while leaving other games untouched.

The greatest benefit in my mind however is that all of this can be set up by any game controller. It might still be a good idea to keep a keyboard nearby, but honestly, you'll rarely need to use it. And again, you have tons of options available when it comes to controllers. You can use modern controllers, adapters to use original controllers or 3rd party controllers that are designed to look the real thing. As long as your OS can see the controller, it will most likely work with Retroarch.

Does this mean I now hate original hardware? Not at all. I still have my upscaler hooked up and multiple tube tellies in storage. But I think there is a distinction to be made between wanting to play Super Nintendo or wanting to play Super Mario World. It's nice to wind down by putting a vinyl record on. It takes a bit of effort, so it becomes an occasion. However, if I just want to listen to a track by an artist, I will play an mp3 or stream it. Convenience is king.

There are still situations where emulation will provide a worse experience and in these cases I'm glad I still own the original hardware. The best part about Vib Ribbon is how you can swap the game disc with a CD and play custom levels. And what would a Game Boy Camera be without a camera?

Finally, switching to emulation has made it a lot easier capturing footage for the website. The old way was complicated to say the least: All consoles were hooked up via RGB SCART to a Hydra switch, which is about half a metre of SCART ports: sixteen inputs, two outputs (you can probably imagine the cable clutter). One output was connected to a splitter so I could feed the signal to a CRT telly as well a Retrotink 5X to upscale the signal to a sharp 1080p. TokiMemo isn't a HD website, so the second output was connected to a Retrotink 2X (from post 00008), a simple line doubler that provided 640x480-ish output to an HDMI capture device hooked into a PC so that I could record the entire gameplay session via OBS. After playing I would go through the recording to find screenshots and gifs if I was feeling fancy. HASSLE. Now I just load a game. I can take a screenshot with one button and record with a second. It is infinitely easier than before. Because of this, I am planning to post a lot more games I've played. I hope you can all forgive me for not playing on authentic hardware.

Final disclaimer: Commercial games are copyrighted. Most copyright holders are quite protective of their IP and while they genrally don't prosecute individuals who in their eyes misuse their ROMs, please do keep in mind that by emulating you are straying quite far from how you were intended to play the game. Try not getting yourself into trouble.