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Suspicious Dish posted:There's plenty of leaked and archived documentation on how the N64 works. The problem isn't the documentation, it's the fact that the N64 is a crazy beast of a system with games depending on low-level details. There are three different co-processor chips and the timing between them needs to be exact. That means that your one CPU is emulating three different special-purpose chips, and one's fast, it has to purposely wait for the other two emulated chips to catch up. This is sort of like PS2 emulation right? I know that in particular is a massive pain because of how weird the PS2 architecture is. I thought the only thing Project64 hadn't figured out yet was getting Rouge Squadron working at playable framerates. And frankly, since Rare is owned by Microsoft now I doubt we'll see Blast Corps or the Banjo games on the WiiU virtual console. It doesn't make the issue you're pointing out any less of a technical issue but it's rendered moot because the games utilizing it will never get released due to rights issues. Again, looking at just Nintendo-owned N64 franchises, I think there's a way right now to get all of them working on emulators. There's no technical reason Nintendo couldn't put them out now with the technology that's available. I agree if Nintendo tried to put Rouge Squadron or games that use the weirder stuff it might be a pain in the rear end. I think this is why we've never seen SNES emulation of Starfox or Yoshi's Island. Those had co-processors included in the cartridge. axeil fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Feb 25, 2014 22:01
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The way most emulators have worked for a long time is just by having speedhacks for most popular games built into it, while the far more accurate emulators like bsnes (now called higan, and includes other Nintendo systems) need very powerful CPUs to perform well. I'm not sure you could ever get a truly accurate emulator, much less one that runs in real time considering how even Pong is difficult to do this way, but it's possible to compromise until you get something that's very close to playing the game on native hardware. Anyway, Nintendo was able to emulate the Nintendo 64 on the Gamecube for the Zelda bonus discs, so if they can't be bothered to do the same for the Wii U then gently caress 'em.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:02
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axeil posted:There are N64 emulators out there that work for most N64 games though. I'm hesitant to get too detailed because I don't want to run into Aside from what Suspicious Dish said, most (all?) open-source emulators are GPL licensed, which means that if Nintendo used that code directly or as a reference to create a derived work they would be legally obligated to release the source of their emulator, and that's not going to happen.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:03
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trouble. Again, Nintendo should be able to replicate the work that's already been done by amateurs for N64 emulators very quickly and improve upon it because they designed the N64. They should still have all the documentation for it. The people writing emulators generally don't.
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The_Franz posted:Aside from way Suspicious Dish said, most (all?) open-source emulators are GPL licensed, which means that if Nintendo used that code directly or as a reference to crate a derived work they would be legally obligated to release the source of their emulator, and that's not going to happen. Presumably Nintendo could reverse engineer it. Or since it's their own system they're emulating they might be able to use in-house methods to do what the open source stuff is doing. Of course if Nintendo was really awesome they'd make a free open-source emulator for the WiiU/3DS/PC and then just sell the roms. That would be legitimately awesome and once the work was done they could sell their entire back catalog rather easily. But that probably won't happen.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:06
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That loving Sned posted:The way most emulators have worked for a long time is just by having speedhacks for most popular games built into it, while the far more accurate emulators like bsnes (now called higan, and includes other Nintendo systems) need very powerful CPUs to perform well. Wasn't one of those Zelda games a glitchy mess?
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Feb 25, 2014 22:07
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point of return posted:How different is it from something like OpenCL that lets you program a modern GPU? Way, way different. The core concept is similar but they way it actually gets done is completely changed. The_Franz posted:Aside from what Suspicious Dish said, most (all?) open-source emulators are GPL licensed, which means that if Nintendo used that code directly or as a reference to create a derived work they would be legally obligated to release the source of their emulator, and that's not going to happen. There are tons of good emulators out there that use other licenses, or where they can simply hire the people who contributed most to them to do the work again (as mentioned before, Sega is definitely known to have done this in the past, and many other companies producing emulation compilations have probably done so too). There's also stuff like the NES/Famicom where there's perfect emulation of the actual console done several times over, but what's missing is the knowledge of how to run weird pirate cartridges that a VC service wouldn't have anyway.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:08
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blackguy32 posted:Wasn't one of those Zelda games a glitchy mess? Majora's Mask Gamecube had a habit of freezing sometimes, otherwise it was fine. The Wii Virtual Console release has no such issue.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:14
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Spiffo posted:Majora's Mask Gamecube had a habit of freezing sometimes, otherwise it was fine. The Wii Virtual Console release has no such issue. That's honestly the most baffling part of all this. Nintendo already released a lot of N64 games on the Wii Virtual Console. Since the WiiU uses the same architecture, porting over shouldn't be that hard. Or at least, it shouldn't take 18 months.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:17
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point of return posted:How different is it from something like OpenCL that lets you program a modern GPU? The co-processors are in lock-step. They can't be done in parallel. OpenCL is great for parallelizable tasks. axeil posted:This is sort of like PS2 emulation right? I know that in particular is a massive pain because of how weird the PS2 architecture is. Sort of. The PS2 has a bunch of delineated coprocessors that do different operations. The big saving grace is that they don't need to run in lock-step — the coprocessors announce their results when they're done, and that means that games can't code to the exact processor specifications like clock speeds. This makes it a lot cheaper to retool the architecture in the future when the old chips are getting obsolete and more expensive to manufacture. Sony were smart with their architecture. The PS2 also has a sane pipeline. The three graphics coprocessors in the PS2 (V0, V1, and GS) are more like modern hardware. V0 and V1 ("Vector Unit" 0 and 1) share some of the responsibilities of vertex and geometry shaders, and GS ("Graphics Synthesizer") emulates your fragment shaders. It's obviously a lot more low-level than anything you can compile to a shader, but it's a lot saner than the N64's free-for-all approach. I'm not too familiar with the details; maybe it's possible to compile V0/V1 to ARB_vertex_program and GS to ARB_fragment_program? axeil posted:Presumably Nintendo could reverse engineer it. Or since it's their own system they're emulating they might be able to use in-house methods to do what the open source stuff is doing. NST up in Redmond did most of the engineering for the N64 Wii VC. It's a custom-built emulator built from the internal N64 SDK and from the N64 emulator from the Master Quest Collector's Edition, not from any open-source stuff, and it's focused on playing games, not being accurate. Wave Race 64's audio engine was too slow to emulate accurately, so the soundtrack is actually a bunch of .ogg files shipped with the emulator.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:19
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But yeah this is why they don't bother with poo poo for the e-shop, all these games they put up there can be had for a buck for physical copies and shipping for 20-40 SNES or N64 games aren't that bad and you still wind up paying less than 5 bucks a game.  Even stuff like Bahamut Lagoon is going to run you 2 dollars maximum if you get it from one of the better import sites. But the e shop pretty much sucks because they're unaware that America doesn't have a shitload of stores that still carry stuff back to the NES era. You have to go to one of the few retro game stores to find stuff like that, and they're marked up incredibly to boot. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 00:50
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I dunno, that logic doesn't hold up for me, because the Japanese Virtual Console on both Wii U and original Wii has a much larger catalog of titles than its American counterparts.
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Feb 26, 2014 00:54
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Quest For Glory II posted:I dunno, that logic doesn't hold up for me, because the Japanese Virtual Console on both Wii U and original Wii has a much larger catalog of titles than its American counterparts. Wasn't that because they were afraid certain titles wouldn't do well in digital sales in America? Or was that just Capcom only when they were farting around with Pheonix Wright.
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Feb 26, 2014 00:55
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The Taint Reaper posted:Wasn't that because they were afraid certain titles wouldn't do well in digital sales in America? If it was, it's stupid as hell. Because the work to make the games function was already done, and it's essentially free for them to put them up in the US store.
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Feb 26, 2014 00:58
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The Taint Reaper posted:Wasn't that because they were afraid certain titles wouldn't do well in digital sales in America? Or was that just Capcom only when they were farting around with Pheonix Wright. NoJ has games like Super Mario 3, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 6, Bubble Bobble, Secret of Mana, Ogre Battle, Super Mario Kart... games that should be available in America too. They just... aren't. e: And for an extra kick in the ribs, America is only getting 3 GBA titles in April, and Japan is getting 13. And we're not talking like obscure Japanese Pachinko simulators, we're talking Warioware, Zelda: Minish Cap, Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, Golden Sun, Wario Land 4. Japan gets them, America doesn't. IT MAKES NO SENSE 
The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 01:02
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Quest For Glory II posted:That was probably Capcom you're thinking of. Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana and Ogre battle I think are more in line with Square's realm. But yeah I thought the E-Shop had poo poo like SMB3 and Mario Kart. Granted I really haven't paid attention to it since they released Earthbound. But that's still pretty poor. Quest For Glory II posted:
It's like they hate money. Hell even Sony is going back further in it's catalogue and making more HD sets for the PS3 in it's final year for both Japan and America. Like that's just terrible when Nintendo isn't even using it's own definite strength of having the largest library out of the three companies. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 01:09
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I have a hard time believing Square is objecting to a port of a Final Fantasy game, though.
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Feb 26, 2014 01:12
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Peel posted:I have a hard time believing Square is objecting to a port of a Final Fantasy game, though. Me too. Like they released that piss poor PC port of FF7 recently, and they couldn't be arsed to put out the Original Final Fantasy 4,5, and 6 in America(again).
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Feb 26, 2014 01:16
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I've got a theory. On Club Nintendo they always ask "What do you think of virtual console"? And most people put a "1" because it is terrible, and write why. Somehow when this filters up corporate just sees all the "1"s and says "Oh man they sure hate the cirtual console in America, let's not release games there"
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Feb 26, 2014 02:32
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Your theory assumes they do anything with the Club Nintendo feedback they get.
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Feb 26, 2014 02:35
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They sure did something to Paper Mario with it.
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Feb 26, 2014 02:47
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greatn posted:I've got a theory. On Club Nintendo they always ask "What do you think of virtual console"? And most people put a "1" because it is terrible, and write why. Somehow when this filters up corporate just sees all the "1"s and says "Oh man they sure hate the cirtual console in America, let's not release games there" This sounds believable for Nintendo.
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Feb 26, 2014 03:04
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axeil posted:I think this is why we've never seen SNES emulation of Starfox or Yoshi's Island. Those had co-processors included in the cartridge. Yoshi's island was made to work on the GBA so I don't understand why this couldn't be used as a template for recreating the SNES version on the VC. Unless the ownership of the Super FX Chip is somehow tied up with the publishing rights to the original game regardless whether it uses the actual SFX technology or not.
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Feb 26, 2014 03:54
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AngryCaterpillar posted:Yoshi's island was made to work on the GBA so I don't understand why this couldn't be used as a template for recreating the SNES version on the VC. Unless the ownership of the Super FX Chip is somehow tied up with the publishing rights to the original game regardless whether it uses the actual SFX technology or not. At that point you are not asking for a virtual console version, you're straight up asking for a brand new version of the game that's recoded as a Wii/Wii U game
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Feb 26, 2014 04:02
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AngryCaterpillar posted:Yoshi's island was made to work on the GBA so I don't understand why this couldn't be used as a template for recreating the SNES version on the VC. Unless the ownership of the Super FX Chip is somehow tied up with the publishing rights to the original game regardless whether it uses the actual SFX technology or not. Hell what about getting Starfox 2 released in some form? Like going back and releasing all the near releases that got axed for America. I mean you had stuff like OoT Master Quest get released as a promotional disc after Zelda 64 DD went belly up. The Lost Levels to Super Mario were released under Allstars so it's not like stuff like this is unheard of. Then again much like the Hyrule Historia, there's a real good chance a ton of stuff is just plain lost. However Sega somehow was able to release perfect ports of lesser known Genesis titles for Sonic's Sega Genesis collection that were first assumed gone forever.
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Feb 26, 2014 04:05
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blackguy32 posted:Wasn't one of those Zelda games a glitchy mess? Majora's Mask was prone to crashing, even having a warning at the start, but I played through the game several times and it only crashed two or three times.
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Feb 26, 2014 04:06
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AngryCaterpillar posted:Yoshi's island was made to work on the GBA so I don't understand why this couldn't be used as a template for recreating the SNES version on the VC.
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Feb 26, 2014 04:20
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Quest For Glory II posted:e: And for an extra kick in the ribs, America is only getting 3 GBA titles in April, and Japan is getting 13. And we're not talking like obscure Japanese Pachinko simulators, we're talking Warioware, Zelda: Minish Cap, Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, Golden Sun, Wario Land 4. Japan gets them, America doesn't. IT MAKES NO SENSE Because we're dirty gaijin and this system wasn't made for us. It's a Japanese equivalent to the Xbone in that way.
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Feb 26, 2014 05:01
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Install Windows posted:At that point you are not asking for a virtual console version, you're straight up asking for a brand new version of the game that's recoded as a Wii/Wii U game As long as it looks and plays the same I don't see why it can't be released on the VC. The code is unseen to the person playing it. The version of The Legend of Zelda that is on the VC is actually the 2003 Gamecube version with the improved translation, not the NES version. If they did get around the SFX obstacle I also would like to see Star Fox 2, because even though it was never released, it was completely finished. But that is way too much effort than what is going into the VC these days. Quest For Glory II posted:Don't worry, they're in fact putting up the GBA Yoshi's Island so that they never have to bring over the SNES one. I know but it's not quite the same. You can't pan the screen left and right in the GBA version which can lead to artificial deaths, the sound isn't quite as good, and Yoshi has a voice that I find a bit annoying. They're minor things but they disrupt the feeling you're playing the original.
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Feb 26, 2014 06:06
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AngryCaterpillar posted:As long as it looks and plays the same I don't see why it can't be released on the VC. The code is unseen to the person playing it. The version of The Legend of Zelda that is on the VC is actually the 2003 Gamecube version with the improved translation, not the NES version. If they did get around the SFX obstacle I also would like to see Star Fox 2, because even though it was never released, it was completely finished. But that is way too much effort than what is going into the VC these days. Because you'd have to completely rewrite Yoshi's Island to make it work. You can't make it a plain old SNES game, the hardware couldn't handle it then, and the SNES emulator they have would be unlikely to handle it now - the extra chip is key. It would honestly require the level of rewriting that's better suited to just making Yoshi's Island HD instead. And hey, Yoshi's Island HD with the beautiful spritework redrawn at higher image sizes? That'd look awesome.
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Feb 26, 2014 06:17
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Install Windows posted:Because you'd have to completely rewrite Yoshi's Island to make it work. You can't make it a plain old SNES game, the hardware couldn't handle it then, and the SNES emulator they have would be unlikely to handle it now - the extra chip is key. I suppose. They teased a 3D Classics version of Yoshi's Island when the 3DS was announced but it has never materialised. Yoshi's New Island looks to be taking its place. Bleh.
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Feb 26, 2014 08:30
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Of course all this is somewhat superfluous given that there are SNES emulators on Wii Homebrew that emulate FX chip just fine and you can play Star Fox and Yoshi's Island. If a bunch of amateurs can do it, so should Nintendo be able to.
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Feb 26, 2014 12:28
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New Media Create numbers! This Week (Last Week)
Knack #1 on software because the PS4 was only available with that as a bundle, hence 309k sold. Top/only Wii U title in top 20 was DKCTF at #12 with 14k sold for 50k total.
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Feb 26, 2014 15:22
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I'm perfectly okay with the Vita doing well.
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Feb 26, 2014 15:24
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greatn posted:Of course all this is somewhat superfluous given that there are SNES emulators on Wii Homebrew that emulate FX chip just fine and you can play Star Fox and Yoshi's Island. If a bunch of amateurs can do it, so should Nintendo be able to. I was going to say, they should just hire or license one of the homebrew emulators for this. Wasn't the Master Quest/Ocarina Gamecube releases done by the guy that did the Ultra HLE emulator or something?
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Feb 26, 2014 15:31
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Rei_ posted:I'm perfectly okay with the Vita doing well. The PS4 was apparently effectively sold out for the initial shipment; the 309k figure is also amusingly close to what the Wii U sold in week 1 (308,142).
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Feb 26, 2014 16:02
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Eurogamer posted:Wii U has finally overtaken Xbox 360 in Japan Having beaten Xbox 360 is a pretty good achievement. 
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Feb 26, 2014 16:11
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Given that Nintendo sucks at not only virtual console poo poo but also internal security, give it a few more months and I'm sure the wiiu tablet will be able to play all the emulated snes and gba games your heart desires. My Wii pretty much became the Emulator Box and I have no shame in it, because Nintendo is never going to loving release what we want.
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Feb 26, 2014 16:20
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Edmund Honda posted:The PS4 was apparently effectively sold out for the initial shipment; the 309k figure is also amusingly close to what the Wii U sold in week 1 (308,142). For every article I see about it being sold out, I see one about launch stock being readily available. Stores "selling out" were moreso because they ordered less units in fear of being stuck with a ton of consoles they can't move. But what the hell do I know, I just read a half dozen news articles on the interweb
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Feb 26, 2014 22:10
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Install Windows posted:Because you'd have to completely rewrite Yoshi's Island to make it work. You can't make it a plain old SNES game, the hardware couldn't handle it then, and the SNES emulator they have would be unlikely to handle it now - the extra chip is key. You can get non superfx games running and playable on a PSP and superfx games have been playable on emulators for like 15 years, including on the Wii itself. This is not a case of technical limitations, it's a case of Nintendo not giving a poo poo.
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Feb 26, 2014 22:44
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icantfindaname posted:You can get non superfx games running and playable on a PSP and superfx games have been playable on emulators for like 15 years, including on the Wii itself. This is not a case of technical limitations, it's a case of Nintendo not giving a poo poo. The guy was talking about making Yoshi's Island run on the Wii U without emulating the SuperFX chip. Full recode's the only thing that'd work for that.
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Feb 26, 2014 23:36
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