General Emulation Discussion

Inviere wrote: »

Aye, there seems to be serious performance gains using it so I wouldn't be surprised to see it become the dominant backend in time. Though DX12 Ultimate is boating some serious features, have you seen what DLSS 2.0 does? Amazing stuff.

I haven't tbh, I must look into it.

The_B_Man wrote: »

He's taking orders again...

Yeah he announced today that he will be taking orders on Indiegogo soon.
He also said that there's a 10% fee that Indiegogo charge.

Has anyone used the Elgato Stream Deck with emulators or frontends?
I've got one coming during the week(the "Stream Deck XL" version) for other uses and was wondering if it's gonna be any good for MAME, Launchbox, retroarch etc.

The_B_Man wrote: »

I'm considering getting one now myself. The only issue is lack of an actual PC!!!
Since lockdown I've been contemplating building a PC for emulation. In fact I got the graphics card already (R9 380X for analog DVI). So now I need to find meself a good barebones PC.

For those who have already built an emulation PC, any tips on where I can get a 2nd hand PC with a good CPU in an ATX case, for a cupla hundred or so?

All my cabs have that same graphics card and a mix of Intel i7 4790k / 6700k processors. They play absolutely everything arcade emulation wise. MAME, Demul, Supermodel, teknoparrot, CXBX-R Chihiro.



Install the calamity drivers to get the most out of the card with mame (groovymame) for the older games assuming you are hooking it up to a CRT TV.



I haven't touched any console emulators or retroarch but I assume many of them have the same CRT output options as groovymame.



When buying a PC, the graphics card needs a good power supply at least 500W with two 6Pin power connectors for the card. It also needs UEFI motherboard so anything old that only has Legacy BIOS won't work. Most cheap adverts/ebay sales won't have a compatible power supply and the older you go the more likely it will only have Legacy BIOS.

Inviere wrote: »

No experience with it Steve, & all I can see online for it are Launchbox icons and the likes...so someone out there uses it in that vein.

Yeah, sure I'll play around with it when it arrives and see if its any use. If nothing else it'll be handy for flight sims and that sort of thing.

I said I'd splash out, and got the 2 player recoil, with the holsters! £310!

They better be worth it now. At least I have until September to actually build my emulation PC now!

I have a 2 player sit-down cab.
I am trying to restore it, but also have it running emulation at the same time by swapping around a few wires.
So as far as systems, I'll be looking to emulate some of the old SEGA model 2, like Daytona, but also Namco System 22 like Ridge Racer.

I'm aiming for the standard "Top 10" driving games like Cruisin USA, SF Rush and Outrun.

Then I'll be hoping to shoe-horn in the shooter games with this Sinden gun, like House of the Dead, Time Crisis, Gunblade etc.

The cab has dual 4:3 CRTs and I'll probably put on GroovyMAME with the calamity drivers.

Thats the plan anyway. I'll see what happens when I get all the hardware!
If I can't get it working in a nice clean way on the driver (coz of the seats blocking the view) then I'll build a bartop and drill it to the wall and use that instead.

Ye sorry, I'm just mentioning games in general. I'll probably throw Outrunners on too. I liked the Xbox Coast2Coast version of Outrun, or whatever it was called, so I'll be looking to get that modern one too.
There's a few other games I was looking at too, involving jet ski's so I'll see if they play well. Basically I'll be hoping to get anything that will run well, retro or modern.

I've looked at the cab controls. The all go into TAITO JVS PCB and connect to the game board via the "P2" USB port on the bottom right. Not sure if the "G" connector can plug directly into the UHID or not.

I've given up on Force Feedback in emulation tbh.
I saw guides where it says to replace the wheel and pedals with a cheap Logitech set, but I want everything on the outside to look stock.
I also want to be able to switch between the (hopefully working) original cab, and the emulation PC(s) easily by swapping out a cable or two, so I don't want any invasive surgery.

Also, on the UHID, I'm looking on Arcade World and its the bones of £60 each. Is there a "best" one for racers, or will any do? Like the Nano one is half the price. I presume the only difference is it only supports a few button inputs? Is there another website that sells them cheaper?



Cheers.

The_B_Man wrote: »

I've looked at the cab controls. The all go into TAITO JVS PCB and connect to the game board via the "P2" USB port on the bottom right. Not sure if the "G" connector can plug directly into the UHID or not.

I've given up on Force Feedback in emulation tbh.
I saw guides where it says to replace the wheel and pedals with a cheap Logitech set, but I want everything on the outside to look stock.
I also want to be able to switch between the (hopefully working) original cab, and the emulation PC(s) easily by swapping out a cable or two, so I don't want any invasive surgery.

Also, on the UHID, I'm looking on Arcade World and its the bones of £60 each. Is there a "best" one for racers, or will any do? Like the Nano one is half the price. I presume the only difference is it only supports a few button inputs? Is there another website that sells them cheaper?



Cheers.

There is a jvspac device that links the jvs io controls to the pc. Steering controls are planned but for now only does basic jotstick/button inputs so it's no good.

You can disconnect the inputs (steering, pedals, gears buttons etc) from the jvs io board and connect them to your pc interface.

Lots of options for pc interfaces and as long as you buy the matching connectors and crimped wires it's all plug and play between your interface and the original jvs io.


Uhid will work but will never have force feed back. It depends on how many buttons inputs you have in you can save with the nano option.
Steering + gas + break for analogue. start, view change x 4, coin, gears (up down or 1, 2, 3, 4). The nano uhid can only do 8 inputs...


You can also take the pcb out of a logitech wheel controller and solder wires to it just like a cheap uhid. Is the same basic connections for the analogue controls: 5v, gnd and wiper pot.


Some people have managed to get logitech force feed back outputs working with the cab ffb motor for sega model 2 cabs. Search for L2M2. If I had the choice again I'd probably buy a model 2 driver cab for this reason.

Then there is the global vr "immersion usb" pc interface board that not only links the driving controls to the pc but also provides native force feed back output for happ ffb motors. Problem is they cost €500+ from global vr.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Tell me how much one would be and I just might, need a new PC me!

This is something similar to what The Last Bandit has albeit a different processor and what I plan on building.




The Asrock DeskMini A300 includes the Case, the Powersupply (external brick like a laptop power supply) and a Mini-ITX motherboard inside, which makes the whole thing absolutely great value and it’s absolutely tiny.
Think of a standard rectangular power supply in a PC Case - it’s smaller than that!





Great if you want something that takes up feckall space, not so great for upgrading i.e. you can’t fit a dedicated graphics card in there. (ETA Prime managed to connect one to the motherboard without out the case funnily enough though!)


All you’re short is adding an SSD drive, of which you can have 2 in the case, there’s also 2 M.2 slots for an M.2 SSD (they look like a stick of ram in case you haven’t see them and the “NVME” ones can achieve much faster speeds than your average SATA SSDs)


You can get a 128GB SATA drive frequently from my memory.co.uk for £20 so you’re talking the bones of €300 all in.

If you want WiFi you can get a WiFi upgrade kit on eBay. The card connects to m.2 slot on the motherboard and has 2 antennas that can be mounted through 2 holes in the case.

Remember this will be great as emulation machine but if you or ciderboy want to play any new games then you’d be better off with a normal PC which can take a PCI Express graphics card.

Been fiddling about the my (spare) PS3 recently as a way to play PS1 & PS2 over HDMI, its slim version modded it ages ago but never really done much with it.

Had a spare 1TB drive so lashed it in and started exploring options, things have improved a lot since I last looked at the PS3 scene
Most of the PSN store games seem to have been dumped and its a very simple process to install them and the required licence, several PS1 and PS2 games are available in this PKG format - this is definitely the preferred format as it installs directly into the PS3 xmb.

For you own discs (PS1,PS2,PS3) they can all be ripped to ISO and installed to the harddrive as well, ISOs are not as well integrated into the xmb but you can also convert these ISOs into the PKG format. Its a bit more work faffing about to get the preview images and stuff sorted but the games look a whole lot better and can also be sorted into the xmb folders etc.

Emulation of PS1 and PS2 seems to be decent, not come across any compatibility issues yet and can't go wrong with using a Dualshock 3.

Inviere wrote: »

Some of these modern emulator devs & dev teams are pulling in a LOT of Patreon money these days.

Where do people stand on the idea of sponsoring development for what was always traditionally free (done as a hobby)? I have no issue with it...these guys & gals are spending their free time working on emulators for us all to enjoy, and we're at a level of technical development where making/improving these emulators falls to a very very small bunch of people (ie, those with the skills to do it AND who have an actual interest in doing it)...further to that, the donations actually help the devs buy needed equipment, spend more doing programming/debugging, and keeps progress going.

Citra is making €468 per month
cxbx-reloaded is making €929 per month
rpcs3 currently pulls about €3000 per month
Cemu is pulling €4700 per month
Yuzu is pulling €18,500 per month!!! That's over four and a half grand a week! To be fair, it is making massive strides really quickly.

More general point, I'd presume Patreon take a cut of that? Or are those figures after that.

Regarding this post, I think there's more value in backing these guys than a large chunk of no effort YouTubers whose only " thing" is playing games, or showing you what they've bought.(or been given for free)

Anyone bother dabbling with the Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro and the recent USB hack ?

Decent option for one of those 'classic mini' systems especially if the vast majority of Neo Geo titles dont appeal enough to someone to pursue real hardware, but I'm surprised with the positivity from others online given the laggy performance of the expanded titles. Must read up more on the different emulator support.

Aye, the one for the ASP that came out recently is called the Hylohack, and basically allows you to play the games you already own on the stick

The Neo Geo 'mini' scene is certainly a curious one, with not one of the implementations really nailing it. Go back to the X and its dodgy performance, right up to the Mini with its ropey output and even though the ASP is a surpringly competent controller (even for other systems) and resolves the output issues of the Mini, the games included (even the hidden official ones' are not varied enough if you're not a SNK fight fan.

Used to have an AES a lonnnng time back, but never got into it beyond the 4 games we had at the time IIRC, so was offloaded (can't even remember for how much) so at least the ASP allows me to revisit the system in an official manner even if it there has to be sacrifices. More accurate implementations out there, but a decent AIO if the games tickle your fancy.

Has anyone tried the new version of the PS2 emulator PCSX2 version 1.6.0?

Seems to add a lot of improvements since 1.4.0.

Going to try it on my Ryzen 3400G powered mini PC soon.