Dolphin Progress Report: September 2017 | Hacker News Reader

Dolphin Progress Report: September 2017

dolphin-emu.org

143 pointsjoshschreuder16 comments

You might also enjoy reading an article about Dolphin in the International Journal of Proof of Concept or Get the Fuck Out:

https://archive.org/stream/pocorgtfo06/pocorgtfo06_djvu.txt

Look for "3 Gekko the Dolphin" (there is some ad text mixed in there)

Also, PDF version here: https://archive.org/stream/pocorgtfo06/#page/n5/mode/2up (though this might be pretty slow to download as PoC||GTFO tends to hide extras in their PDF files).

Always interesting to read the release notes on this product. They go into such technical detail, its a joy to read

This comment is becoming the HN equivalent of "First!" on Dolphin Progress Reports.

Nintendo just released the SNES classic. Next up should be the N64 Classic.

I think GameCube and Wii are probably too new to be considered retro.

Also, the games are a lot bigger... they wouldn't be able to cheaply make a device powerful enough and with enough storage to make a huge profit.

I don't think we'll see the N64 classic for a while. What makes the SNES stand out even today is that it's home to some of the most well-designed 2D games out there. Games like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario World are still relevant today because on how on top of their game their devs were.

N64 on the other hand, doesn't have that. It very clearly shows that the N64 era was a time where everyone was still struggling with 3D. Few games have a decent camera system, animations are poor, framerate is choppy, fog everywhere, etc etc. I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I can't sit down and play N64 games for that long of a time, they just haven't aged well because of those technical shortcomings.

16 (and more?)-bit 2D ages very well - it's why many 2D games come out even today.

On the topic of "N64 Mini Classic", they will do it. I have a lot of friends who'd buy one just for Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party. The Zelda games are IMO, better on the 3DS (again because of controls), but hold a lot of nostalgia for people.

The problem with the N64 is that some of its most popular games (Goldeneye, Banjo-Kazooie, etc) are owned by Rare which is owned by Microsoft. Will they be able to get the licenses?

Judging by the fact that a port of Goldeneye for XBLA got cancelled partly because of Nintendo, I'd say probably not.

Goldeneye from what has been told is an absolute legal nightmare for all involved

(Allegedly) it goes as such

- Nintendo owns the rights to publish Goldeneye as a "game" (which may be why there was that awful Wii "Goldeneye" game years ago)

- Rare (unsurprisingly) owns the source code. Rare of course is now owned by Microsoft

- MGM/United International Pictures owns the "Goldeneye" film in which the N64 game is based on. And probably needs to give the legal go ahead to both parties involved

It's hard to say if this specific case is just a "too hard basket" for Nintendo's lawyers. Or if Microsoft are playing hardball. It's unfortunate since Rare as a company is basically dead. All its talent having more or less moved on (see: Playtonic Studios "Yooka-Laylee" homage to Rare's platforming)

Coming to it through emulation years later (I played a few multiplayer games a ton at friends' houses, but barely touched the single-player parts of the N64 library—my only home console until college was an NES) I've found a lot of games that hold up well outside the ten or so really, really good multiplayer games I already knew about. A few might not make it for licensing reasons (Microsoft is all over Perfect Dark now, and Goldeneye's probably never gonna be re-released, plus there are two pretty good and one kinda OK Star Wars game none of which I'd expect to make it) but I think they could easily find enough that have held up for a 20-30 game Classic system.

[EDIT] of all the systems of my youth that I only got to play at friends' and relatives' houses, the one that's been the most disappointing to adult-me is the Sega Genesis. I'd have killed for one as a kid but... it's kinda crap. Most (not all) of its best games are available on the SNES and are as good or better there. The exceptions are few, and mostly not that amazing anyway—again, it definitely does have some real gems! Just way fewer than I thought.

The SNES had some amazing games, but the Mega Drive had M.U.S.H.A. so it's not really a fair fight. ;-)

http://youtu.be/PX9U5Slq-Bc

The games that didn't suck on the N64 were golden, though. I'd kill for re-releases, updates, or even just sequels and spiritual successors to most Rareware games.

For instance, I've been hugely enjoying Yooka-Laylee and plan to write to the dev team to thank them, and to floridly encourage them to do the same for another old favorite of mine.

> "N64 on the other hand, doesn't have that. It very clearly shows that the N64 era was a time where everyone was still struggling with 3D."

Bearing in mind that the NES Classic and SNES Classic are just emulators at their core, and that they provide different display modes to upscale content, there's no reason why an N64 Classic couldn't make use of new high-res graphics packs for the games selected to be on the system, giving the user the choice of 'Classic' or 'High Res' modes.

To give a couple of examples of where this has been done before, here's a clip of GoldenEye in high res...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V66hgI1CNY

... and here's a clip of Ocarina of Time in high res...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyWG7o8OWFc

On the other hand, playing Goldeneye is a shock to the system.

I think I must be the only person of my generation who didn't like Goldeneye. Everybody raves about it, but it was just a terrible FPS when compared to its contemporary PC FPS games. Console games always get a boost for getting 4 people in the room trash-talking each other, but in this case it wasn't enough of a boost to make up for mediocre gameplay.

If I remember well the GC games are 1.3GB, 32GB of flash is not that expensive. The right perfs would be harder to achieve although Dolphins now runs (badly) on phones, it doesn't seem that far out.

Also, Dolphin is concerned with faithfully emulating the hardware. Nintendo can just cheat and emulate only exactly what the games need, or even patch the games themselves to avoid having to emulate weird corner cases.

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