this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
378 points (94.6% liked)

Games

31968 readers
2194 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Weekly Threads:

What Are You Playing?

The Weekly Discussion Topic

Rules:

  1. Submissions have to be related to games

  2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

  3. No excessive self-promotion

  4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

  5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

  6. No linking to piracy

More information about the community rules can be found here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's most of the reason I got a steam deck. Emulation on the go ftw.

[–] bulwark@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Out of curiosity what is the most modern system you are able to emulate on a steam deck. I've dabbled in MAME and PSX before, but is there a decent PS3 one?

[–] shrodes@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Depends a lot on the games and compatibility. As mentioned Switch is definitely emulateable and often runs great but it heavily depends on the title.

[–] sp6@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (4 children)

On the Playstation side, RPCS3 is the PS3 emulator, it's great. There are some experimental PS4 emulators, but they aren't ready yet.

On the Xbox side, Xenia works well as an Xbox 360 emulator; it's not linux native though, but it might work well under wine. I'm not aware of Xbox One (or later) emulators.

On the Nintendo side, I would be surprised if a Nintendo game that couldn't be emulated exists. Even Switch games run very well on day 1 of release.

[–] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, don't take this guy face value. These systems don't emulate excellently at all. It definitely emulates perfectly up to GameCube and PS2 though.

[–] MudMan@kbin.social 8 points 10 months ago

Sorry, I had responded but also missed the "Steam Deck" qualifier. To be clear, the poster you're responding to is absolutely right in general terms, but performance will be an issue for 360 and probably PS3 on the Deck.

[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I've got some PS2 games to run well, some don't run well at all. Anything below that is great.

So what I've got is: NES, SNES, Genesis and Master System, PS1, PSP and then PS2 as a hit and miss.

I've not tried anything aside from those yet on the Steam Deck.

Edit: noticed I replied to the wrong person, but close enough, I'm not fixing it because I'm about to fall asle...

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A dude I work with just showed me PS3 emulation on the Steamdeck and it’s LUDICROUSLY good. I was shocked.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Only started getting good recently. PS3 is an especially difficult system to emulate.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Phanatik@kbin.social 35 points 10 months ago

Emulating games is important but I would argue that preserving the games is moreso. If you have discs of old games lying around (I grabbed the original floppy disk version of Marathon by Bungie for less than 5 quid), please find out how to dump them into an ISO or some other archive. It's important now more than ever as games tend towards digital distribution and old games are lost to time. The games don't have to be good, they just need to be preserved.

[–] Alteon@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I literally just set up Project64 and SNES9X yesterday lol. Nice timing. I tried Higan, but couldn't get it to run games and got tired of trying to fix it. 9X works well enough for me to get my nostalgia fix.

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

SNES all the way, but there were definitely some gems on SEGA and NES that held up over time.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I've done plenty of SNES and NES emulation, haven't done much on SEGA yet. Any suggestions for SEGA games that are worth trying?

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Depends on what you're looking for. Phantasy Star 4 is an excellent JRPG. Crusader of Centy/Soleil, Landstalker and Beyond Oasis are good Zelda-ish games. Gunstar Heroes and Contra Hard Corps are excellent run'n gun games.

Comix Zone is a cult classic and hard as fuck. Kid Chameleon is also worth trying, though do so with lots of patience. For beat'em up, Streets of Rage

An interesting side note: a lot of the games that are on the SNES and on the Mega Drive/Genesis are different mainly due to Nintendo contracts: "You won't release the same game on competing platforms". This led to several similar but different games, especially from Konami

PS: Also check out dreamcast games, it has the best version of Soul Reaver and Dead or Alive 2.

PPS: Shadowrun on the Genesis is VASTLY superior to the SNES game.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I agree with the guy who said Gunstar Heros and Contra. Also for a crazy weird sidescroller with humor and good music try Earthworm Jim.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Mupen64 was another decent one. Project64 has always been my #1.

[–] Deway@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For accurate SNES (and several other) emulation and yet easy to use, Ares is the goto now.

[–] Alteon@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I'll check it out and get back to you.

[–] schmidtster@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I got a steamdeck for my birthday and I’ve only put EmuDeck on it, they are working on a PC version, it’s an all in one package.

[–] TomFrost@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (3 children)

RetroArch is super popular and available across many systems, with a bunch of open source frontends for it. I have it on a Raspberry Pi, a Mac, an OG Oculus Quest, playing everything from MAME to PSX.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

I have it on my phone.

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 2 points 10 months ago

Heck, if you look at AliExpress, there are a bunch of bootleg retro "console" that boot straight to retroarch for like 10 bucks.

[–] shrodes@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

EmuDeck is basically an all in one installer for standalone emulators but also predominantly Retroarch and its cores / EmulationStation-DE.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 25 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Son, I've been doing it since 1998

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I was thinking nesticle, but yeah

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Thanks Shitman!

[–] Resol@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

So good that even Steve Jobs promoted it in one of his keynotes.

[–] Affidavit@aussie.zone 17 points 10 months ago

Don't forget to check out rom hacks as well. There are so many creative people who have extended or redeveloped games into their own image. Some good ones that come to mind are Chrono Trigger: Prophet's Guile and Super Mario 64: Last Impact.

[–] jeanofthedead@sh.itjust.works 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Ship of Harkinian is an absolutely brilliant way to play The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I have it up and running on my Steamdeck and it blows the EmuDeck/RetroArch version out of the water.

[–] KanariePieter@feddit.nl 2 points 10 months ago

Good to see they have an AppImage now. Setting it up on Linux was a hassle when I last played it around a year and a half ago.

[–] shrodes@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Can’t wait for the MM decomp and similar Ship project there. I’ve never played and and I’m holding out on that and all the great modern tweaks it brings over existing emulation.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Spaceinv8er@sh.itjust.works 17 points 10 months ago

Start it at 11 minutes. Everything before that is just his opinions on why people don't want to emulate games.

Not saying it's a waste of time or anything, just if you already know the arguments then it's unnecessary.

[–] spicytuna62@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

I have a Homebrew Wii that I got set up about 10 or so years ago. Homebrew Wii can run lots of stuff. With emulation, it plays any 2D Nintendo game really well. I haven't tried N64 emulation on it yet, but I imagine it's pretty good.

Then it has hardware support for the entire GameCube library.

Basically Homebrew Wii can play every Nintendo game up to its own generation.

[–] simple@lemm.ee 11 points 10 months ago

If you need a quickstart on emulation, I highly recommend Ludo. it's a wonderful frontend that comes packaged with most emulators and just works without any fiddling.

Ludo is a retroarch spinoff that has sane defaults and a simpler interface.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I emulate a lot on my phone so I have something to do when waiting around while out of the house. Even emulating Windows and DOS to play old PC games that work great with touch controls.

[–] 7of9@startrek.website 2 points 10 months ago

I enjoy Space Crusade under DosBox, it's a very slow game but suits touchscreen pretty well :-)

[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What apps do you use to emulate Windows and DOS on Android? And what games? I guess any point and click game could work fine.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 points 10 months ago

What apps do you use to emulate Windows and DOS on Android?

Wine and Magic DOSBox.

And what games? I guess any point and click game could work fine.

SimCity 2000 and Masters of Orion get the most play for me.

[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Piracy is a moral imperative. I donate to these projects whenever I can.

Imdoingmypart.gif

[–] Deway@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Emulation is not piracy though.

[–] omnissiah@iusearchlinux.fyi 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes you need firmware or blobs that are protected though

[–] Deway@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

True but you can prety much always dump them on your own so you don't need to resort to piracy.

[–] Pratai@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fuck any article that tells you what you SHOULD be doing.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Nacktmull@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

I once spent a 2 week holiday playing an R-Type and Metal Slug game-athon using MAME.

10/10 would emulate again.

[–] burgersc12@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

Been using Lemuroid recently, as well as Dolphin

[–] PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago

Just picked up a new FireTV 4k Max because I heard it was the perfect device for emulation, and it is. And fairly cheap. I had been running emulators on an older firestick but the new one has much better OTG support and will recognize USB storage without mounting via Adb. RetroArch and many other standalone emulators are available on the Amazon store so you don't even need to sideload the apps anymore.

Ive tested up to PS2 and barring a few known titles it'll run pretty much everything. N64 included.

Amazon have stated they plan to drop Android on their sticks in the future, and switch to their own OS which I doubt will support these kinds of uses, so grab one while you can.

load more comments
view more: next ›