How the demonization of emulation devalues gaming’s heritage - Polidicks

Looking at the current emulators, Xenia, Citra and RPCS3 are all comming along nicelly. More than just programs to play games, they're feats of programming communities.

[QUOTE=Samiam22;49981638]Actually, the current gen is probably going to be able to be emulated more easily than past gen because current gen is literally custom OSes for x86 whereas last gen was some PPC-based witchcraft.[/QUOTE] If the logic were that simple, we should be swimming in emulators for the original Xbox right now.

[QUOTE=GhostSonic;49984307]If the logic were that simple, we should be swimming in emulators for the original Xbox right now.[/QUOTE] That is not true, one of the issues with emulators for the Original Xbox is simply the lack of interest and hence the lack of manpower needed to do it because of the small amount of games that make it worthwhile. [URL="http://xqemu.com/"]The lack of one maybe changing soon[/URL] however.

[QUOTE=Genericenemy;49984342]That is not true, one of the issues with emulators for the Original Xbox is simply the lack of interest and hence the lack of manpower needed to do it because of the small amount of games that make it worthwhile. [URL="http://xqemu.com/"]The lack of one maybe changing soon[/URL] however.[/QUOTE] That's sad how nobody cared enough about the Xbox to emulate it. I always assumed it was a popular console.

[QUOTE=Genericenemy;49984342]That is not true, one of the issues with emulators for the Original Xbox is simply the lack of interest and hence the lack of manpower needed to do it because of the small amount of games that make it worthwhile. [URL="http://xqemu.com/"]The lack of one maybe changing soon[/URL] however.[/QUOTE] That's not really the case. The hardware is extremely undocumented. While progress has been made, this post by a developer of an xbox emulator (BlueShogun of CXBX) says enough: [quote] "Xbox is just like a PC, it's easy to emulate!" Yes, we've all heard this silly and pointless argument a million times and it usually ends in the same, and rather ignorant conclusion (or should I say assumption) that just because the Xbox is PC similar, it's hardware should be relatively easy to emulate. That's a very wrong frame of mind. How hard can it be? Very. Xbox's hardware is very complex and still poorly documented to this day. This requires some explanation. 1. Is a PC easy to emulate? Well, I wouldn't say so myself. Take a look at the source code from bochs. A lot of source code/work isn't it? 2. Emulating an x86 CPU is a lot harder than it sounds. I don't know where this mindless assumption comes from. Yes, there's loads of documentation on how the x86 processor works, but that doesn't exactly make it easy. First of all, the x86 instruction set is M-A-S-S-I-V-E! There can be at least 20 different versions of one instruction (i.e. There are many different versions of the MOV instruction, as well as INC, DEC, ADD, SUB, SHR, SHL, AND, OR, XOR etc.) and it takes time to implement them all. Of course, that's not exactly difficult. The real problem is that any modern x86 processor including the Pentium III can execute multiple instructions at once. So it's not like emulating a Z80 doing one instruction at a time. The actual algorithm and how x86 does this is undocumented and still unknown. In short, the Xbox's CPU can be emulated, but not accurately. 3. Emulating any hardware by NVIDIA is not a walk in the park! The Xbox's GPU, the NV2A is often assumed just a GeForce 3. It's not! It's similar but not identical. It has some GeForce 4 capabilities too, so it's more of a cross between an NV20 and NV25. This is by no means easy to emulate either. NVIDIA's GPUs have very large register sets and afaik not even half of them have been discovered, and a large portion of known registers have unknown purposes. There is little to no documentation on how NVIDIA GPUs work. The best thing to do is to look at similar GPUs such as RIVA, TNT, and older GeForce cards. Some registers are similar, but not identical. The best place to look for information is in open source drivers available on the net. Adding to the dificulty is that no one has ever discovered how pixel shaders work on NV2x cards, vertex shaders yes though. The Xbox GPU also has exclusive registers that are not found in other GeForce cards. Information on the NV2A's GPU registers are just now beginning to be discovered a few months ago. And yet, there's still a long way to go. The GeForce 3 series is the most mysterious of all NVIDIA GPUs (G7x and G8x aside) and the NV2A is alot worse. "But can't you just directly execute the NV2A instructions on another NVIDIA card?". No, I get alot of questions concerning this, and it is impossible. It's MMIO addresses are different and the exclusive registers must be emulated. Plus, in windows, we don't have ring 0 access anyway, so you all can scratch that idea now. Then comes the NForce 2 chipset. This is where it get easier. The NVIDIA MCPX is the control center for things such as audio, USB for input, Network adapters, PCI, AGP, etc. These things are not really that difficult to emulate IMO except for the audio. 4. The Audio system is rather complex. Xbox's audio consists of at least 4 DSPs, and audio codec (AC '97) and an NVIDIA SoundStorm APU. The DSPs shouldn't be a problem (just figuring out what they all are is) nor should the AC '97 but the NVIDIA SoundStorm APU is the really difficult part. So far I haven't found any information on this thing, but right now, it's relevance is low. 5. The Xbox BIOS isn't fully understood. The basic execution process of the BIOS is understood, but details on the process are at a loss. What we do know gives us hints, but before the BIOS can be emulated, we'll need a better understanding of the Xbox hardware layout because the BIOS does some unknown hardware initialization at boot time and writes to the hardware directly without using any XDK stuff. It will take some time, and effort, but I'll eventually get it working. 6. Video Encoder "Hell". Instead of using a RAMDAC for video output, the Xbox uses a Video Encoder. What makes this suck a pain? Microsoft sought the need to change the video encoder every other Xbox version (there are seven in all, 1.0 - 1.6). Why, I dunno, it's a Microsoft thing, they always tend to try to "fix" things that aren't broken >.> AFAIK, there are at least 3 different Video Encoders used: Conexant CX25871, Focus FS454, and Xcalibur. For more information in Xbox video encoders, click here. Emulating all three video encoders is only less than half the battle, the real problem is that BIOSes can be specifically tied to a specific encoder depending on it's version (don't quote me on this though). Like PS2, every Xbox model revision has a updated BIOS and has different expectations. This is a potential problem, but not exactly major. Basically, I'm trying to get this "Xbox should be easy to emulate because it's just like a PC" crap out of your heads. I'm sure that most of you will disagree with me on this, but for these reasons and more, on a low level, Xbox is harder to emulate than PS2. ^ The exception to that above is that the NV2A is much better documented now, but not fully. There's an open source library for the OpenXDK called pbKit. It interfaces directly with the hardware to fully expose it's potential. This is what Microsoft should have done all along (or at least wrote a low-level OpenGL implementation).[/quote] TLDR: the hardware is all custom and undocumented in the extreme. Progress has been made since then, but High Level Emulation has mostly been abandoned for the more Low Level XQEMU emulator that is making headway

[QUOTE=Genericenemy;49984342]That is not true, one of the issues with emulators for the Original Xbox is simply the lack of interest and hence the lack of manpower needed to do it because of the small amount of games that make it worthwhile. [URL="http://xqemu.com/"]The lack of one maybe changing soon[/URL] however.[/QUOTE] I know about XQEMU. I'm commenting on the myth that x86 somehow means a console is easy to emulate. As CakeMaster7 put it, it's not just simply lack of interest (even though that's a large part).

[QUOTE=Darth_Kris;49983237]Isn't that documentation one of the reasons why emulating GC/Wii been the most successful out of that gen[/QUOTE] There's a lot more to emulating an entire video game console than just the CPU. Frankly, that's the easy part.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;49983930]Almost nobody rips their own bios or games though. Even if they legally own the device.[/QUOTE] That's the facepunch "no warez" clause

The most blatant, backwards bullshit example related to all this is the fact that NES and SNES Virtual Console games have iNES and SMC headers. For those who don't know, iNES/SMC headers are bits of info inserted at the beginning of ROM dumps that help emulators understand the type of cartridge hardware a game originally had. The header standards were created by the emulation scene, not Nintendo, so it's irrefutable proof that Nintendo downloaded these games from the internet rather than pulling them from their own archives. They've also been caught using a modified PocketNES, a third-party NES emulator for GBA, in their "NES Classics" GBA series. And yet, Nintendo is the company who's most adamantly against emulators and ROM dumps. They literally have a webpage telling you that it's not okay to make ROM dumps for yourself, [I]even if it's legal for you to do so[/I], because...they said so. It also says that the preservation angle is a myth and doesn't legitimize anything. And then we find out that fucking [I]Nintendo themselves[/I] didn't keep a proper archival copy of a legendary, iconic game like [I]Super Mario Bros.[/I]. They had to go and download it from the internet, from the same sites they try so hard to fight against and demonize. Complete bullshit. It's perfectly understandable to want to defend your IPs and copyrights, but if you aren't going to preserve your own historical works, don't shit on the people who do. I'm not stupid, I know the emulation scene is built on the desire to play games for free. But if it didn't exist, and people didn't go through the effort to make copies of old games... Can you imagine a world where Super Mario Bros. is some mythical old game that's really hard to actually obtain and play because it only exists on thirty-year-old cartridges?

[QUOTE=Shugo;49985575]The most blatant, backwards bullshit example related to all this is the fact that NES and SNES Virtual Console games have iNES and SMC headers. For those who don't know, iNES/SMC headers are bits of info inserted at the beginning of ROM dumps that help emulators understand the type of cartridge hardware a game originally had. The header standards were created by the emulation scene, not Nintendo, so it's irrefutable proof that Nintendo downloaded these games from the internet rather than pulling them from their own archives. They've also been caught using a modified PocketNES, a third-party NES emulator for GBA, in their "NES Classics" GBA series. And yet, Nintendo is the company who's most adamantly against emulators and ROM dumps. They literally have a webpage telling you that it's not okay to make ROM dumps for yourself, [I]even if it's legal for you to do so[/I], because...they said so. It also says that the preservation angle is a myth and doesn't legitimize anything. And then we find out that fucking [I]Nintendo themselves[/I] didn't keep a proper archival copy of a legendary, iconic game like [I]Super Mario Bros.[/I]. They had to go and download it from the internet, from the same sites they try so hard to fight against and demonize. Complete bullshit. It's perfectly understandable to want to defend your IPs and copyrights, but if you aren't going to preserve your own historical works, don't shit on the people who do. I'm not stupid, I know the emulation scene is built on the desire to play games for free. But if it didn't exist, and people didn't go through the effort to make copies of old games... Can you imagine a world where Super Mario Bros. is some mythical old game that's really hard to actually obtain and play because it only exists on thirty-year-old cartridges?[/QUOTE] It's for shit like this that we should own our own software instead of just getting a "license"

I find it disgusting when Nintendo, one of the culprits of "NO EMULATION/HACKS ALLOWED" owes the existence to Super Mario Maker to Emulators/ROM hacks.

[QUOTE=FunnyStarRunner;49984444]That's sad how nobody cared enough about the Xbox to emulate it. I always assumed it was a popular console.[/QUOTE] It was massively popular. However, the lack of emulator isn't really a big deal yet. They are pretty reliable systems and easy to find. And softmodding is basically down to a science. So you can run the numerous amount of homebrew applications, and your "backups". Upgrading the HDD is very trivial as well. XQEMU is exciting to find out about though, I didn't know that existed.

[QUOTE=CakeMaster7;49984573]Lots of text showing Xbox is hard to emulate[/QUOTE] There's enough of "how x works is unknown to this day" in this to make hardware manufacturers sound like wizards.

[QUOTE=Demache;49987763]It was massively popular. However, the lack of emulator isn't really a big deal yet. They are pretty reliable systems and easy to find. And softmodding is basically down to a science. So you can run the numerous amount of homebrew applications, and your "backups". Upgrading the HDD is very trivial as well. XQEMU is exciting to find out about though, I didn't know that existed.[/QUOTE] I know that the PCSX2 has come a long way but one of the biggest hinderances are the graphic techs used by certain teams like Project Aces renderer for the Ace Combat games still doesn't work right with PCSX2.

[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;49985870]I find it disgusting when Nintendo, one of the culprits of "NO EMULATION/HACKS ALLOWED" owes the existence to Super Mario Maker to Emulators/ROM hacks.[/QUOTE] It's pretty hilarious honestly. Nintendo is just such a rotten company when it comes to dealing with its customers and is utterly stuck in the 20th century, along with many other Japanese game companies. I'd really like to like Nintendo because they make some cool things but it's pretty hard to. [QUOTE=eirexe;49985738]It's for shit like this that we should own our own software instead of just getting a "license"[/QUOTE] It's why it's great to buy from GoG instead of steam whenever you can. Rather than being a heavy bit of DRM like steam where you often get a company's own DRM on top of Steam's DRM, it's DRM-free, you get access to all platforms the game's available for (Steam has this too, other places don't), and often get other goodies such as compatibility patches, PDFs, and other stuff. In theory, places like steam, origin, and amazon can flat out delete your library, which, while it is rare, is pretty disgusting.

I am currently running Windows on Ubuntu to play GameCube games on a Wii emulator using an xbox 360 and ps4 controller. Emulation rocks.

[quote]For years now, "emulation" has been a dirty word in the video game industry[/quote] Has it really been though? Emulation has honestly always been far and away the most tame and morally justifiable form of piracy imo, people only really emulate when there's no possible way for them to play the games legitimately (mostly because of obsolete hardware and no feasible way to obtain physicals). It's nowhere near a threat to the industry that something like music piracy and to a lesser extent pc game piracy are to their respective industries.

[QUOTE=Duck M.;49993482]Has it really been though? Emulation has honestly always been far and away the most tame and morally justifiable form of piracy imo, people only really emulate when there's no possible way for them to play the games legitimately (mostly because of obsolete hardware and no feasible way to obtain physicals). It's nowhere near a threat to the industry that something like music piracy and to a lesser extent pc game piracy are to their respective industries.[/QUOTE] Its not as big of a news item as it used to be. Current gen and last gen consoles still have very flawed emulation which makes it less of a threat. There's already precedent that emulators are legal, and ROMs aren't going anywhere. It was a much different story when the original Xbox could emulate N64 and PSX games reasonably well within a year or so of its release (and PSX games were still produced) and the legal battles were still being fought. But its still very much one of those grey areas. Fortunately, companies are starting to wise up and re-release these games digitally. It would be nice if you could play the CD based consoles through their official emulator, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

[QUOTE=Demache;49994642]Its not as big of a news item as it used to be. Current gen and last gen consoles still have very flawed emulation which makes it less of a threat. There's already precedent that emulators are legal, and ROMs aren't going anywhere. It was a much different story when the original Xbox could emulate N64 and PSX games reasonably well within a year or so of its release (and PSX games were still produced) and the legal battles were still being fought. But its still very much one of those grey areas. Fortunately, companies are starting to wise up and re-release these games digitally. It would be nice if you could play the CD based consoles through their official emulator, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.[/QUOTE] Ah that is actually pretty interesting, thanks!

[QUOTE=Shugo;49985575]The most blatant, backwards bullshit example related to all this is the fact that NES and SNES Virtual Console games have iNES and SMC headers. For those who don't know, iNES/SMC headers are bits of info inserted at the beginning of ROM dumps that help emulators understand the type of cartridge hardware a game originally had. The header standards were created by the emulation scene, not Nintendo, so it's irrefutable proof that Nintendo downloaded these games from the internet rather than pulling them from their own archives. They've also been caught using a modified PocketNES, a third-party NES emulator for GBA, in their "NES Classics" GBA series. And yet, Nintendo is the company who's most adamantly against emulators and ROM dumps. They literally have a webpage telling you that it's not okay to make ROM dumps for yourself, [I]even if it's legal for you to do so[/I], because...they said so. It also says that the preservation angle is a myth and doesn't legitimize anything. And then we find out that fucking [I]Nintendo themselves[/I] didn't keep a proper archival copy of a legendary, iconic game like [I]Super Mario Bros.[/I]. They had to go and download it from the internet, from the same sites they try so hard to fight against and demonize. Complete bullshit. It's perfectly understandable to want to defend your IPs and copyrights, but if you aren't going to preserve your own historical works, don't shit on the people who do. I'm not stupid, I know the emulation scene is built on the desire to play games for free. But if it didn't exist, and people didn't go through the effort to make copies of old games... Can you imagine a world where Super Mario Bros. is some mythical old game that's really hard to actually obtain and play because it only exists on thirty-year-old cartridges?[/QUOTE] To cap onto this. Three other bits of gold: Rareware has directly admitted in an interview that they had lost some of the original visual files for the Donkey Kong Country series as they were on floppies. This almost killed off the GBA port of DKC3 until they decided to just download the ROMs off the internet and rip the sprites and palettes out, themselves. At least one game collection by SEGA suggested to the compilers to download the ROMs off the internet, and this ended up being in the entire collection's data because the compilers didn't delete the notes given to them. Nintendo is the only major company in the game console business not to sue an emulator. Sony, Sega, Atari and (I believe) Microsoft all have.

[QUOTE=The Duke;49994716]To cap onto this. Three other bits of gold: Rareware has directly admitted in an interview that they had lost some of the original visual files for the Donkey Kong Country series as they were on floppies. This almost killed off the GBA port of DKC3 until they decided to just download the ROMs off the internet and rip the sprites and palettes out, themselves. At least one game collection by SEGA suggested to the compilers to download the ROMs off the internet, and this ended up being in the entire collection's data because the compilers didn't delete the notes given to them. Nintendo is the only major company in the game console business not to sue an emulator. Sony, Sega, Atari and (I believe) Microsoft all have.[/QUOTE] They don't because they know they won't win. They do lie saying that emulators are illegal in their website though.

[QUOTE=NGC;49989474]There's enough of "how x works is unknown to this day" in this to make hardware manufacturers sound like wizards.[/QUOTE] Or just to make it clear that at a low level hardware is very complex :v: Modern hardware is even worse