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[Jawmuncher]

Everytime we see new emulators it absolutely amazes me that we STILL don't have a fully workingn xbox emulator. I know the reasoning but it's just weird as hell since it was a major console.

 

[Tain]

Rip what?


I think it is kind of disappointing the Xbox/Chihiro will not be emulated for a long time, but the more I think about it, there are only a few games that we really would not be able to enjoy without one. I can kind of understand the disinterest.

Xbox has a good 20+ great exclusives/best versions that would be nice to have preserved. Some of them are among the best games ever. It's absolutely worth emulating.

 

[koutoru]

Everytime we see new emulators it absolutely amazes me that we STILL don't have a fully workingn xbox emulator. I know the reasoning but it's just weird as hell since it was a major console.

I know, right?
We're closer to getting a working Xbox 360 emulator than we are to getting an original Xbox emulator.

 

[Aquamarine]

Xbox has a good 20+ great exclusives/best versions that would be nice to have preserved. Some of them are among the best games ever. It's absolutely worth emulating.

I just want to be able to play Jet Set Radio Future on my computer in 1080p HD.

I've been waiting to be able to do that for many years, now.

 

[7DollarHagane]

With the state it's in it will be 10 years before anything approaching accurate emulation is possible.

Even GameCube and ps2 emulation is spotty at best. Not to mention Wii which I would assume the 3ds is more similar to.

 

[GamerJM]

This might be a dumb question, but why is it likely that the 3DS won't be emulate-able until the end of its lifespan? And why is it taking so long for a 3DS emulator to come to fruition? Like, Dolphin released a year and a half after the Wii released, and that was in 2008. Why is a 3DS emulator more difficult to create? Was it just that the Dolphin was easier to develop because the people who develop emulators were more familiar with the Wii's architecture because of its similarities to the Gamecube?

 

[Kouriozan]

If I'm not mistaking, Dolphin was first a Gamecube emulator and it became compatible with the Wii because it's basically a Gamecube V2.0.

 

[Aquamarine]

This might be a dumb question, but why is it likely that the 3DS won't be emulate-able until the end of its lifespan? And why is it taking so long for a 3DS emulator to come to fruition? Like, Dolphin released a year and a half after the Wii released, and that was in 2008. Why is a 3DS emulator more difficult to create? Was it just that the Dolphin was easier to develop because the people who develop emulators were more familiar with the Wii's architecture because of its similarities to the Gamecube?

The Wii is based off of the GameCube so it was very easy to transition from an already long-in-development GameCube emulator to a GameCube + Wii emulator.

Emulators from scratch take a LONG time to develop. For example, the PS2 emulator PCSX2 has been in development since 2001 and took many years to get games in a playable status.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

This might be a dumb question, but why is it likely that the 3DS won't be emulate-able until the end of its lifespan? And why is it taking so long for a 3DS emulator to come to fruition? Like, Dolphin released a year and a half after the Wii released, and that was in 2008. Why is a 3DS emulator more difficult to create? Was it just that the Dolphin was easier to develop because the people who develop emulators were more familiar with the Wii's architecture because of its similarities to the Gamecube?

Yes, Dolphin was able to release quickly because the Wii had a very similar architecture to the Gamecube. It most other cases, getting an emulator to work well for everything in the library before the end of a console lifespan is a monumental task that gets more improbable with every gen. Considering we're almost at 2015 and the best that can be mustered is a loading screen in one game at the moment, I think its safe to say that the 3DS will be able to dodge the bullet until its successor is out.

 

[Sorcerer]

Didn't even know Xenoblade port was exclusive to new 3DS.

Why'd they make a new 3DS? Why compartmentalize their audience like this?

Urgh.

3DS nearing the end of its life, make a few quick bucks before an entirely handheld is released 1 year later.

I doubt the new 3ds will have more than 3 or 4 exclusives made for it.

 

[charlequin]

Microsoft platforms are always ignored...the original Xbox could be emulated if people cared enough.

The Xbox architecture is a mess -- close enough to off-the-shelf x86 that you get all the misery of trying to duplicate that tangled architecture, but far enough that said similarity can't actually be leveraged to make emulation easier. I am confident it will happen eventually -- I mean, we have good Saturn emu these days -- but how quickly a platform is emulated tends to be a factor of library strength, system complexity, and luck, and Xbox seems to be on the bad side of all three.

Xbox has a good 20+ great exclusives/best versions that would be nice to have preserved. Some of them are among the best games ever. It's absolutely worth emulating.

Oh, absolutely. But interest tends to be driven by access to a few top-line, marquee titles. Getting PS2 emulation going unlocked shit like Final Fantasy XII to be PC-playable; the really good Xbox-exclusive stuff is mostly more niche in comparison.

Even GameCube and ps2 emulation is spotty at best. Not to mention Wii which I would assume the 3ds is more similar to.

....err, have you actually looked at PCSX2 or Dolphin recently?

 

[openrob]

Is it bad to say I am mostly excited for this because it essentially lets me play games on PC rather than the homebrew/translation/localisation stuff?

It's just nice to know I can play 3DS games in the future long after they stop selling them. (Because look how fast DS virtual console is moving /s)

 

[muyricosuave]

This is what's wrong with the world

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

Xbox has a good 20+ great exclusives/best versions that would be nice to have preserved. Some of them are among the best games ever. It's absolutely worth emulating.

I owned an Xbox before I owned a PS2. Crazy I know, but I was crazy hyped by the Xbox. I knew it was going to make me as happy as the Dreamcast. I knew I wanted it as soon as Panzer Dragoon, Crazy Taxi 3, and Toejam and Earl were announced (Along with the Sega and/or Nintendo rumors....). Orta is one of my favorite games of all time. DeathRow as well. Believe me, I love the Xbox

 

[Seik]

Can't wait for this to get better.

Star Fox 64 3D and OoT remake will be so good with better internal resolutions!

Now to find a way to eventually rip my 3DS library, I recently bought a SMS4 for my DS games, maybe with some kind of software update/alt. software it could rip 3DS games as well.

EDIT: OH...oh, and Kid Icarus...and 3D land, AlbW, Mario Tennis/Golf....aaaaaah! >_<

 

[Aquamarine]

The Xbox architecture is a mess -- close enough to off-the-shelf x86 that you get all the misery of trying to duplicate that tangled architecture, but far enough that said similarity can't actually be leveraged to make emulation easier. I am confident it will happen eventually -- I mean, we have good Saturn emu these days -- but how quickly a platform is emulated tends to be a factor of library strength, system complexity, and luck, and Xbox seems to be on the bad side of all three.

Great points.

I just want to supplement it with the following...

In a 2014 interview, blueshogun96 (a developer of the rudimentary, unfinished Xbox emulator Cxbx) outlined four reasons why Xbox emulation still isn't a reality:

"1. The lack of people willing to work on such an emulator is the largest reason.

2. A big misconception is that Xbox is just a PC. It’s not. It is in it’s own right a console, with PC similar (not identical) hardware. The thought of emulating a console that was PC-like, with many of the popular titles having PC ports was not of interest to many.

3. While I’m at it, I’ll mention that there’s also a large misconception that all original Xbox titles are also on PC, which is also untrue. When they bring up examples, they are speaking of Xbox’s most popular (and IMO mostly overhyped) titles, such as Halo. Other games that were exclusive to Xbox didn’t get much spotlight, and to this day, many are still unheard of. i.e. Azurik: Rize of Peratha (my favourite), Gun Valkyrie, Panzer Dragoon ORTA, Shenmue II, Jet Set Radio Future, Sega GT 2002, and many more titles I can’t think of off of the top of my head. If you bring up those titles, chances are they’ve never heard of them. Sega did many exclusive titles, and very few of them got PC ports, like Crazy Taxi did.

4. Even though there are those who assume that Xbox is easy to emulate just because it has an x86 processor and PC like hardware, experienced emu authors will often stay away from it, knowing that it’s a huge undertaking. Think of it this way… Is a PC easy to emulate? Is emulating x86 easy? Is writing a VM easy? Is emulating an NV gpu easy? Absolutely not. There are those who write theories of how “they” would do it… if they could. And there are those who are able to make implementations."

http://pulp365.com/2014/05/last-console-crack-depth-interview-original-xbox-emulation/

 

[dimb]

If only Azurik fans can save us the world is truly lost.

 

[SparkTR]

I really hope somebody goes back and does something with original Xbox emulation. I tried playing MechAssault and Ghost Recon 2 on my 1080p screen the other day and my god did they look terrible. There's some nice tech there but it's buried under migraine inducing IQ.

 

[javadoze]

Can't wait to see some of these games at higher resolutions.

 

[Foffy]

Didn't even know Xenoblade port was exclusive to new 3DS.

Why'd they make a new 3DS? Why compartmentalize their audience like this?

Urgh.

Honestly? I'd imagine because it'd run like shit poorly on a regular 3DS. Look at Smash 3DS: the game actually has to disable system features to run normally, and even then it's plagued with huge load times. The New 3DS' additional power makes the game run in no time at all, and doesn't have to reboot the system into a special mode to do it.

Perhaps they've hit a technical ceiling with the 3DS, hence the revision having such major performance enhancements. The DSi never had anything close to that.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

This is what's wrong with the world

What, allowing us to play games at good settings years into to the future and typically after a platform's death?

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Pretty awesome. I'd love to play 3DS games at 1080p+.

 

[ElTopo]

Kid Icarus Uprising with mouse controls would be nice.

 

[Sciz]

AFAIK the speed record for emulation is the GBA, which had tech demos dumped and playable somewhat in advance of the actual hardware being released. It was much less sophisticated hardware than what people are working on these days, but I'm still impressed.

 

[BKK]

Cool, another handheld, the Gamate has also just started to be emulated this week. In comparison that took nearly 25 years. For such a niche handheld it lasted quite some time, with software still being released for it five years from launch. Some of the later games seem to be a lot more advanced than early titles, but they're incredibly rare (only one documented example of the last known title), so it's quite exciting that there is now a way for these games to be preserved and played by future generations. Also, the original hardware (if you can find a working one) suffers from terrible ghosting issues, so the playability of these games will be significantly increased on an emulator.

 

[GreatestHits]

Great news, much applause, time to take a break

Kid Icarus Uprising with mouse controls would be nice.

 

[bomblord1]

AFAIK the speed record for emulation is the GBA, which had tech demos dumped and playable somewhat in advance of the actual hardware being released. It was much less sophisticated hardware than what people are working on these days, but I'm still impressed.

That's crazy

 

[Foffy]

AFAIK the speed record for emulation is the GBA, which had tech demos dumped and playable somewhat in advance of the actual hardware being released. It was much less sophisticated hardware than what people are working on these days, but I'm still impressed.

I'd also say this. The GBA was probably the fastest platform emulated to get full functionality while the platform was active. Most emulators get solid support after the system ceases to be, but Visual Boy Advance hit it nearly halfway into the GBA's lifecycle.

I believe this particular case was when Nintendo revised their policy on emulators in general, calling them out as an uh oh. Prior to that it was roms were the bad thing, but VBA was a fully functional emulator while the GBA was an actively supported platform, which was no fun for Nintendo.

 

[PGamer]

I don't know how kosher it is to link this kind of stuff here but the Citra team is looking for donations to help fund development: http://gbatemp.net/threads/citra-3ds-emulator-your-chance-to-donate-now.376321/

 

[PGamer]

Cave Story 3D title screen:

 

[PGamer]

Citra can now boot and display the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D intro.

Edit: A couple of in-game screenshots too. Things look to be really progressing quickly now.

 

[-Deimos]

Citra can now boot and display the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D intro.

Edit: A couple of in-game screenshots too. Things look to be really progressing quickly now.

 

[TI82]

Cool, hopefully with emulators and custom controllers we will be able to fix Kid Icarus so its playable by humans.

 

[javac]

Cool, hopefully with emulators and custom controllers we will be able to fix Kid Icarus so its playable by humans.

I must be an alien in that case

 

[gngf123]

Damn. Things appear to be progressing very quickly.

 

[samn]

I'd love to see SM3DL get bumped to 60 fps. It's the only knock I have on that game visually.

Not gonna happen, framerates are often hardcoded in console games. It's why OOT was never playable above 20fps until the remake came out.

 

[R10Neymarfan]

Damn. Things appear to be progressing very quickly.

It was a good 4 year run. New3DS was always basically the swan song anyway

 

[Zee-Row]

Was the 3DS ever talked about as hard to emulate in a similar way PS2 and the Saturn were?

 

[Hattori]

hopefully this expedites the release of the 3DS successor

 

[chronic_archaic]

I wonder if anybody working on Xbox emulation has tried digging into Microsoft's own emulator for the 360? So far it's the best original Xbox emulator out there. And the 360 shares to my knowledge no similarities whatsoever with the Xbox hardware other than DVD structure. I still can't believe they emulated a four year old system that fast at the time, granted they have all the documentation to make that happen!

 

[Peltz]

The sole reason why I ever emulate these days is for translations of games I'd otherwise not be able to play. I still often buy the Japanese version just for personal reasons.

High res screenshots from other users don't hurt.

 

[Sandfox]

hopefully this expedites the release of the 3DS successor

They're already working on a new device and rushing something out wouldn't exactly be good.

 

[PGamer]

In-game now.

 

[R10Neymarfan]

I wonder if anybody working on Xbox emulation has tried digging into Microsoft's own emulator for the 360? So far it's the best original Xbox emulator out there. And the 360 shares to my knowledge no similarities whatsoever with the Xbox hardware other than DVD structure. I still can't believe they emulated a four year old system that fast at the time, granted they have all the documentation to make that happen!

Yeah there's lists of documentation on 3DS processor Next the fact they hacked OT so now the hat get the OS and draw calls and all that

 

[Stumpokapow]

Cool, another handheld, the Gamate has also just started to be emulated this week. In comparison that took nearly 25 years. For such a niche handheld it lasted quite some time, with software still being released for it five years from launch. Some of the later games seem to be a lot more advanced than early titles, but they're incredibly rare (only one documented example of the last known title), so it's quite exciting that there is now a way for these games to be preserved and played by future generations. Also, the original hardware (if you can find a working one) suffers from terrible ghosting issues, so the playability of these games will be significantly increased on an emulator.

This is pretty cool, I'd never heard of it before now. Thanks for the info. Amazing that this thing is so rare that people still don't have an authoritative, complete game list for it. Wow.

 

[fester]

Emulators lead not only to piracy, but also to preservation of vast libraries of video games that generally end up abandoned de facto along with the platforms they're tied to. This is good news.

It's definitely a double-edged sword. Ultimately, I prefer having everything archived/preserved. My carts won't last forever, plus looking at the number of eShop downloads that have been pulled, we can't trust the companies themselves to keep games available. 50+ years from now, emulation may be the only way future generations will be able to play these games.

 

[Subtervotion]

Bring on the Pokémon XY ORAS randomizers.

 

[Burai]

It's definitely a double-edged sword. Ultimately, I prefer having everything archived/preserved. My carts won't last forever, plus looking at the number of eShop downloads that have been pulled, we can't trust the companies themselves to keep games available. 50+ years from now, emulation may be the only way future generations will be able to play these games.

Well, yeah. Piracy has done a great job of cataloguing games long after the companies making them forgot all about them.

The other problem is lack of working hardware going forward. As consoles get more complex, so the chances of keeping this stuff working diminishes. The original Xbox, for example, suffers from leaking capacitors. You can replace these if you know your way around a soldering iron, but most people are going to just boot up a console, see that it doesn't work and throw it in the trash.

And don't even get me started on what happens when Microsoft turn off Xbox Live for Xbox 360 and all those digital games are lost forever.

 

[PGamer]

Cave Story 3D is now playable.

 

[Hero Prinny]

Cave Story 3D is now playable.

oooh damn son. can't wait for the complete emulator.