Community The Emulation Thread - When That PC Port Just Ain't Happening

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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Yes, but I did my last playthrough in Yuzu and now I'm hoping that when I get further along in TotK it's going to detect my BotW horses like it does on the Switch.
This works. But you can convert CEMU BOTW saves to Yuzu saves with an app. But maybe best to just emulate BOTW in Yuzu anyway to have a consistent experience with TOTK too (with improved emulation/performance by the time he gets to that hopefully) and not miss CEMU improvements.
 
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Deku

Just nothing
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Wow, it was easy to start with Cemu. No system file or key file that were needed. I can finally play some Nintendo games again. I haven't played much Nintendo games since Gamecube time :)
So many games to catch up
 
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Acidote

Omega Yul
Jun 16, 2019
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Enjoy, I'm still catching up on WiiU games. Skipped both the Wii (partially) and the WiiU. Luckily almost everything worth a damn on the WiiU was already on the switch and all of it perfectly emulable.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
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Wii has an amazing library but you need original Wii controllers for many titles. Plenty others worked fine with the classic controller so any modern controller too though. Still, acquiring them is worthwhile if you can find them for reasonable prices (or find third party stuff guaranteed to work as good as official products). Throw in a zapper or similar and you can use it for lightgun emulation for Wii and for many other emulators too, but with crosshair enabled as it's not as accurate as a real lightgun (but if you don't have a pricey Sinden or similar gun that works better that's a moot point, it sure beats playing with a mouse or analog stick). That said, CEMU is just for WiiU iirc, you need Dolphin for Wii, even though a real WiiU is backwards compatible with Wii.
 
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「Echo」

鈴鹿御前。
Nov 1, 2018
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Mt. Whatever
Finally went and setup Ryujinx for myself.

I never finished BotW on Switch natively. But now with 4k, 16x AF, and some decent AA... I feel a little more motivated. :p
I'll have to look into some mods too. I tried to play with V-sync off, but all the animations and menus were super sped up and just looked goofy.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
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Finally went and setup Ryujinx for myself.

I never finished BotW on Switch natively. But now with 4k, 16x AF, and some decent AA... I feel a little more motivated. :p
I'll have to look into some mods too. I tried to play with V-sync off, but all the animations and menus were super sped up and just looked goofy.
You have to try the 60fps mod. I’m no 60 or bust but this is something.
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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Yeah, 60 FPS plays so much better.

Also, a fun non-technical mod for BotW is the Linkle mod. There are even extensions of it that rewrite the backstory and relevant quests to work rather naturally.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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Finally went and setup Ryujinx for myself.

I never finished BotW on Switch natively. But now with 4k, 16x AF, and some decent AA... I feel a little more motivated. :p
I'll have to look into some mods too. I tried to play with V-sync off, but all the animations and menus were super sped up and just looked goofy.
Wouldn't it be better to play it through Cemu? 120 and more fps mods there.
 
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「Echo」

鈴鹿御前。
Nov 1, 2018
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Mt. Whatever
I did consider CEMU, but I admit to being lazy i guess. BotW is about the only WiiU game I'd play on CEMU, meanwhile a Switch emulator gives me a lot more options since I already have a sizable Switch library. So that's just a matter of finding time to dump everything.

AKA, I didn't wanna set up an Emulator just for 1 game when I could set up an emulator for that same game and more. :p
======

I looked at the Linkle mod too, and I've been flip flopping on it hard. I wanna try it, but at the same time, having to use a mod launcher for an emulated game...?
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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A mod launcher? I admit I played it on CEMU and a few years ago, but there was nothing like that. Just dropping a few files in the right directories and the emulator loads the mod.
 

sulio

Junior Member
Jan 10, 2022
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Still using older Dolphin for playing some older titles. Have no idea is newest beta stable enough..
 
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TrishaKit

The Recusant's Sigil
Aug 11, 2021
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Should I emulate Digital Devil Saga? I've been holding out hope that since they remastered Persona 3 and SMT Nocturne, that they'd do Digital Devil Saga down the line and release native ports. When I played Nocturne I finished it and then not too terribly long after they announced the remaster.
 

Big McLargehuge

God Cleaver
Dec 8, 2018
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Should I emulate Digital Devil Saga? I've been holding out hope that since they remastered Persona 3 and SMT Nocturne, that they'd do Digital Devil Saga down the line and release native ports. When I played Nocturne I finished it and then not too terribly long after they announced the remaster.
Go ahead. I emulated DDS1 and 2 recently and I think they are among the best SMT games.
 
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Knurek

OG old coot
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Should I emulate Digital Devil Saga? I've been holding out hope that since they remastered Persona 3 and SMT Nocturne, that they'd do Digital Devil Saga down the line and release native ports. When I played Nocturne I finished it and then not too terribly long after they announced the remaster.
Yes, please emulate Digital Devil Saga.
 
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Parsnip

Riskbreaker
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I think I might play that new zelda soon.

So, with it having been out a while, what's the state of the 60fps patch now? I read early on that it caused some animation and/or physics issues on some enemies/bosses or something like that, how's it going now?

Yuzu seems to be the more performant of the two emus with zelda, right? Anything else I should know? Mods? I'll use the xbox button mod at least, and I think I saw fsr disabler mod somewhere, anything else?

Lay it on me.
 
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Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
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Downunder.
Lay it on me.
I don't have any intention to play Zelda, but I do notice some pinned post in the #game-mods channel in the yuzu Discord server that may interest you.

On that note, there are some great updates in their latest progress report as well.

Progress Report May 2023 · yuzu


Project Gaia update in particular is relevant to my interest. :flare_bath:
 

didamangi

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I think I might play that new zelda soon.

So, with it having been out a while, what's the state of the 60fps patch now? I read early on that it caused some animation and/or physics issues on some enemies/bosses or something like that, how's it going now?

Yuzu seems to be the more performant of the two emus with zelda, right? Anything else I should know? Mods? I'll use the xbox button mod at least, and I think I saw fsr disabler mod somewhere, anything else?

Lay it on me.
There's this mod collection that's pretty handy: GitHub - HolographicWings/TOTK-Mods-collection: Mod repo for TOTK on Yuzu emulator.

I've played around with it until the first few dungeons, can't get stable 60 fps because of my 8700k, drops to ~40-50 fps on open world. Yuzu runs better for me. Game works great with my dualsense as well. One of the few games that I don't mind gyro aiming with.

  • The latest CPUs (Zen 4/13th gen Core, always speaking of desktop products) provide massive improvements in IPC, RAM bandwidth, and cache sizes. Where a Ryzen 7 5800X3D barely manages 55 FPS, a Ryzen 5 7600 reaches 90 FPS.
Hey, found another reason to convince myself to get a 7600.
 

Parsnip

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I don't have any intention to play Zelda, but I do notice some pinned post in the #game-mods channel in the yuzu Discord server that may interest you.

On that note, there are some great updates in their latest progress report as well.

Progress Report May 2023 · yuzu


Project Gaia update in particular is relevant to my interest. :flare_bath:
There's this mod collection that's pretty handy: GitHub - HolographicWings/TOTK-Mods-collection: Mod repo for TOTK on Yuzu emulator.

I've played around with it until the first few dungeons, can't get stable 60 fps because of my 8700k, drops to ~40-50 fps on open world. Yuzu runs better for me. Game works great with my dualsense as well. One of the few games that I don't mind gyro aiming with.





Hey, found another reason to convince myself to get a 7600.
:wd_heart:

I need to take a good look at some of this stuff. I tried ryujinx at launch and was floating around 55fps in the very opening scene when you first get control of Link, if yuzu performs better than that, that's already a win. We'll see how the open world fares though.
 
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Parsnip

Riskbreaker
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Well, it doesn't seem like I can get a locked 60 out of the game at the moment, with the Ryzen 5600X I seem to be CPU bottlenecked. After you get to the outside the first time and swim to the shore and just look around, I'm sometimes getting a locked 60 depending where I look, but generally if I look away from the water, down towards the trees, I'm typically hovering somewhere between 50-55.

Now the question is, do I lock to 30 and play it now, or wait for yuzu performance increase or a new cpu, whichever comes first. Decisions, decisions.
 

Prodigy

Sleeper must awaken
Dec 9, 2018
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Just upgraded my CPU to the Ryzen 7600. So that I could transfer my switch games. Amazing to be able to play these games pretty smoothly now.
Only one I haven't tried is Tears of the Kingdom (which is probably the one everyone tries).

Working my way through:
Metroid prime Remastered : slight hitch as you shoot blue doors.
Mario 3d world and Bowser Fury: Haven't seen any issues.
Xenoblade 1 remaster: Seems great but I only just reached the first town.
Skyward Sword HD: Seems to run fine so far.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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I'm a man of simple ambitions, so I just tried emulating Pikmin 2 on Gamecube.
5800X3D (at 2% use) : What year is this ? Is this Minesweeper ?
 
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Magnamalo

Bearded sora
May 9, 2021
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Anyone tried Metroid Prime Remastered recently on either Yuzu or Ryujinx can report if all stutters are gone?
Of course the door one was the main one
 

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
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Downunder.
Hopefully Mike won't troll all of us by making the final RRP $999 USD.:flare_lmao:

But hey, this kit what I wanted all along. Native 4K output, SCART input, HDR-ready Rec 2020 colour gamut, and an interface that won't make you pull your hair out in frustration like the Framemeister.

Looking forward to replaying Xenosaga II/Shadow Hearts II again with this kit. Hopefully the shipping cost will be agreeable, somewhat.
 
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Cacher

Romantic Storm
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I can't stop thinking about the retrotink 4k lately especially after realizing that it can upscale the switch to 4k. I am going to replay xenoblade 1-3 on it.

In addition, there are tons of PS3 games that I want to play, so I will dust it off when I get the 4k. Hopefully this year but I am not optimistic.
 

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
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Downunder.
Re: Tink 4K.

I wish one of Mike's testers would show captures from PS2. It's pretty much only Nintendo's systems that get the highlights (so far).
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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I was in the mood for some old ass adventure game. So I went with Woodruff, which is in abandonware.
But the iso won't launch in Dosbox because it's a windows game. The site where I downloaded it uses dosbox to launch it, though ! Alas it's a basic dosbox version without shader support.
I looked at their custom .conf file but can't make head or tail of it.

So if a good soul want to help...

PS. I want scanlines for my old ass games, you just have to look at the retrotink shots to see the benefits, ffs.

-

This was resolved by using ScummVM.

...now I'm looking into how to add scanlines to FF7 pc or Deck.
I like to suffer.

-

Resolved, sort of. Good day.
 
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MegaApple

Just another Video Game Enthusiast
Sep 20, 2018
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Anyone tried Windows 98 emulation on VM?
Wanna play some classic games
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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Anyone tried Windows 98 emulation on VM?
Wanna play some classic games
DOSBox Pure on RetroArch supports installation of Win95/98/ME. I don't think performance can be the greatest but probably not much unlike it was back then.

But what games? Most oldies I've tried work great on modern Windows environment with just dgVoodoo2, so long as installation/security works or is bypassed.

I guess DOSBox Pure can do even older stuff though (dgVoodoo2 goes down to DirectX7). There's also PCem as alternative but it's probably not as easy to play.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
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Anybody here use Wii remotes (or mouse or any similar device overtaking mouse inputs, I imagine it's similar for Sinden etc.) for lightgun games in RetroArch?

I had it setup fine some time ago but atm I can't see any way to map anything but trigger and reload which aren't enough (I need at least Start, if not the d-pad and an extra button, or three, too). The RetroPad Binds menu shows all Gun controls outside those two are blank, trying to map any of the others times out, it doesn't accept any input from any device, mouse, keyboard, gamepads. It used to be fine, I don't think I ever had to map these, just roll with whatever was default and press buttons randomly to figure out what's mapped where, but now default is blank I guess. Idk if it changed with 1.16 or earlier but that's what I use (fresh setup and all so not a settings problem). I use Wii remote with Dolphinbar in mode 2 that just makes it overtake mouse inputs (+ some extra stuff like - is Esc and + is Enter/start etc.) if anybody has that exact setup though I don't think it matters.

I can't remap the trigger and reload to switch them around either mind, so it really doesn't take any Gun input in the RetroPad Binds menu. Yet those work fine in game as they're at the default setting. Edit: well, I made it work by editing the RetroArch config file and adding some basic player 1 gun inputs (dpad directions, trigger, start, and a second button as that's also commonly used (ie Time Crisis pedal). Reload function is not needed, it just fires off screen for most games, you can do that manually. For games without that function then usually reload is the first button too as they're older basic stuff. Others might have a secondary fire there instead (bombs shmup style). Also remapping actually works for player 2 in the RetroPad Binds menu. Oh well, I'm good with this work around for now.
 
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Le Pertti

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So I want to do some switch emulation on my deck. I do wonder about all the weird things one has to download, prod.keys and whatnot. How safe is it? Will Nintendo send assassins after me if I download them?
 
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C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
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So I want to do some switch emulation on my deck. I do wonder about all the weird things one has to download, prod.keys and whatnot. How safe is it? Will Nintendo send assassins after me if I download them?
So long as you don’t use torrents they probably won’t be able to track you.

But if you’re paranoid, use a VPN.
 
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C-Dub

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But what about when I actually use the emulator? lol I haven't used emulators in so long. Im guessing the game just boots, not that one actually boots into swithOS
I think it uses part of the Switch OS in emulation, but it can’t phone home because the emulator is, well, emulating the hardware environment. So the emulator controls anything inside of it that has access to the web.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
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Happy New Year, yuz-ers! We say goodbye to 2023 with several great changes, ranging from driver fixes to big memory savings, and quite a bit in between! Let’s go.
 

arcadepc

Junior Member
Jan 3, 2020
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Was fortunate to find an old CRT monitor for free, a rather ordinary Phillips 107e5. Not ideal for resolutions more than 1024x768, but fine for lower resolutions, which I am interested in. If I start playing fps at 1600x1200, those 20 year old monitors will wear out fast and waste a lot of energy too. Eg playing Doom, Quake, Blood Duke Nukem source ports at low res and high refresh rates gives a unique look and motion not found on LCD monitors.

I connected the laptop, an old i7 6700 with gtx 1060, via HDMI to VGA converter. Unfortunately Windows 10 is not that low resolution friendly, unless you buy special adapters or put an old AMD card as secondary GPU to allow custom low res.
Hence I settled for Linux Mint where it is easier to set custom resolutions and high refresh rates by just editing the xorg file.

On retroarch I used the CRT Switchres settings at 120 hz and vsync interval at 2. This was the only way to allow low resolutions like 24op on non 15khz monitors. Majority of video games became ultra smooth this way with the unique motion of CRT. Also the low res produced native scanlines looks that make the games look even better than using shaders.

However there was an issue with DOS games. Because I was using DOSBOX instead of running DOS natively, they struggle to maintain a stable frame rate as DOSBOX still lacks in that department.

Fortunately on my desktop, an old i7 4790K with a still decent GTX 1080 GPU, I connected a G-Sync monitor, an old ASUS ROG PG348Q that supports up to 100 hz and ultrawide resolutions up to 3440x1440. This is the max frames the GPU can handle, so any higher refresh rates would be redundant. I set Nvidia control panel at 97 fps max frame rate, enabled Gsync for full screen, latency at ultra and forced vsync on for all games. This means that I have to disable vsync for every game. Games look and play spectacular on that monitor, though for ultrawide I have to use fan patches or hex edits for a lot of games as they do not support it natively.

When it comes to emulation, on Retroarch I just used the VRR Freesync/Gsync option, leaving Vsync to on. Games are as smooth as on the CRT display on Linux. Only downside is that I have to rely on shaders for a better quality picture.

However the thing where Gsync gave the best result, even surpassing CRT monitors and TV sets, is in old MS-DOS games. I am using DOSBOX-X fork with Opengl renderer and vsync off. Not only is the motion smoother for majority of games, but in some cases it is even surpassing the results on native DOS, eg in the case of the Lion King. With vsync to host, it became almost as smooth as the console version. However other games freeze or become very slow with that option.

Also tested it on MAME. Though they recommend to have Vsync on, I turned it off as well as triple buffering. Gsync tests showed the correct results in MK1 coin portrait rolls and Samurai Showdown 2 shadow flicker. Now finally all those games with weird fps counters play smoothly without lag and breakups.
This is even better experience than the best arcade ports.

WinUAE also supports gsync and results are evident there too. Unfortunately monitor refresh of 100hz is not sufficient for beam racing, but it works on the CRT monitor if I set 320x240x157hz.

This is the ideal emulation setup if you are not interested in scalers and converters or old CRT televisions.
 

Le Pertti

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So of all the game boy like devices that are out there for emulation, which one is the one to get? Im thinking it could be cool to have one to play some retro games. The key is for it to be small, in those cases where the steam deck isn't with me, and that it is powerful enough and a nice screen.
 
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didamangi

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So of all the game boy like devices that are out there for emulation, which one is the one to get? Im thinking it could be cool to have one to play some retro games. The key is for it to be small, in those cases where the steam deck isn't with me, and that it is powerful enough and a nice screen.
Whoa, just spend my free time today looking up the same thing and basically I found three choices that pique my interest, mainly because it's under $100.