Emulator Accuracy Takes Power

[Diff-chan]

Really good ArsTechnica article on emulator accuracy:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...s-emulator.ars

Goes over the sorts of minor issues people may not see, the benefits of accuracy, what all that CPU power is doing, and why people may not even like accuracy.

[Yoshi]

That's a really good read and flies in the face of people who claim emulators are just like the real thing.

[kingoffighters]

Close enough. I don't sweat the minutae details on my entertainment, I got bigger fish to fry.

[Frogacuda]

That's a really good read and flies in the face of people who claim emulators are just like the real thing.

No, it really doesn't. When emulation is accurate, it's accurate, and when it's not it's not.

Certainly no one would claim that, say, an N64 emulation is just like the real thing. There just isn't a remotely accurate low-level N64 emulator out there. However the author of that article, Byuu, wrote a SNES emulator that is incredibly accurate. Many games in MAME are pixel perfect. Others are missing shadows or have background layer priority issues.

None of this has anything to do with the argument that emulated software is somehow intangibly different even when it's not.

[Yoshi]

If it takes 3GHz to make a 1990 console accurate, then there are an awful lot of emulators that aren't. That was my point.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

For some people, good enough is good enough.
I love messing around with emulators on my Wiz and PSP. But then I never cared enough to mod my consoles to get better AV or stuff like that.

[Yoshi]

Yep. And I'm the complete opposite from a video and/or control standpoint. I'm not quite as finicky on the audio end.

[Frogacuda]

If it takes 3GHz to make a 1990 console accurate, then there are an awful lot of emulators that aren't. That was my point.

But the author even acknowledges that that kind of thing doesn't make a difference from the player experience for the vast majority of games. He's just arguing why the rest of those games, as well as the need for an accurate development environment, are worth it.

So yeah, if you're playing Clayfighter, or Star Fox or any of the 10-15% of games that actually are affected by timing irregularities or incomplete emulation, then this is a concern. If you're not, then it isn't.

[GohanX]

I like this guy's philosophy on emulation, even if my pc can't run his emulator. I am super picky, which is why I stick to original hardware whenever possible.

[Tain]

Last time I checked, bSNES doesn't allow for fixing the SFC/SNES screen update timing to that of my display. I don't know if that will ever be an option, so I probably won't ever use bSNES. Sucks, because I'd like to, otherwise.

Ultimately, though, MAME/MESS level accuracy for everything is what I hope for. It's commendable when developers go above and beyond, as is the case with bSNES.