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Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

For emulating vintage gaming hardware that's no longer available, one argument would be preservation of the media.

But what's the rationale (not rationalization) on running an emulation of the Nintendo Switch, when it's still commercially available?

In practice, is it usually because people want to play the games without paying for the hardware and software?

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Preservation starts in the present, does it not?

I think one thing that's easy to forget, some of the old school emulation, like early SNES emulators, came about when the hardware was still kinda current or recent.

Yes, the timelines match up pretty well:

The SNES was released in Japan in 1990. The first SNES emulator in 1994 could run a few homebrews; I'd say SNES emulation proper started in perhaps 1996 with Snes96, but that's a judgement call.

The Switch was released in 2017. We are in 2022 now.

Nice observation. I hadn't realized how parallel that timeline is.

I just remember playing games on a pentium 2 in '98 that were published in '94.

And Nintendo 64 was released 1996-7, UltraHLE was 1999. And apparently early GBA emulation predated the GBA?

https://emulation.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_emulation#Game_...

iirc GBA emulation got an early head start due to leaked documentation (citation needed).

Gaming PCs can be much more powerful than dedicated consoles these days. For example, Zelda BOTW on Switch is limited to at most 1600x900, but folks running it on their own machines with Cemu can run it at 4k. Some folks also like to try out custom shaders, mods, texture packs, etc. Example: Mario Kart 8 in 4k / raytraced - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIGpt26ocWU

What’s the point of Breath of the Wild at 4k?!

You can run it at higher than 30fps as well, although with some issues. It does make a difference in smoothness.

Everyone’s different, but to me it does not seem worth giving up the convenience of the Switch.

How about the steam deck then?

Tempting, but part of the draw of the Switch for me is its controller situation. I often play it propped up with the Joycons detached, one in each hand. Steam deck I would always have to hold in my hands, and can it be docked then?

I’ve thought about getting one, but I have a feeling the games that I want to play on a computer instead of my Switch won’t benefit.

You could achieve a similar setup with the Steam Deck by using a Bluetooth controller, either propped up as you do the Switch or plugged into a screen via its HDMI port.

JoyCons are 100% valid bluetooth controllers as well.

Convenience doesn’t matter much to some people. When I get a Switch, I doubt I’ll ever play it undocked. I preferentially play Nintendo DS games on the Wii U Virtual Console rather than on my 3DS as I find it much more comfortable.

Exactly. I wish they’d make a non-portable switch too, since they already made a non-sociable one. That I’d buy. I have no interest in playing games away from my sofa.

Remember the Super Game Boy?

I agree, but lots of people don’t

Convenience is relative to how the rest of your life is arranged. Some people have easy enough access to their computer that switching to a Switch would be less convenient.

> Everyone’s different, but to me it does not seem worth giving up the convenience of the Switch.

To me, the Switch's portability is irrelevant. I'm not really a "game on the go" guy, it's just the console I had to buy to play modern Mario and Metroid. It lives in its dock 99% of the time, only coming out when I go on vacation, and these days since I have a Steam Deck that will probably become 100% of the time.

When Nintendo announced the Switch Lite my immediate thought was how I'd love for them to do the exact opposite, give me a "Switch Heavy" that trades the screen and battery out for a faster SoC that can do 1080p instead of 720p and builds in all the features from the fancy dock that comes with the OLED model

I can honestly say that Ryujinx sold me on the Switch as well, back in the summer of 2020 I saw some news posts about the development of the emulator, grabbed it and a copy of Mario Maker 2, and proceeded to play through the entire single player campaign in one sitting, which made me decide to get a real one so I could get online and get the user created content. I set up a few auto-refreshers on various store web sites and in a week or so ended up getting an order confirmed on one.

It looks and runs better.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet struggle on the Switch. I'd seriously consider switching to emulation on PC if it improved performance and reliability

What kind of question is this? What's the point of any game looking and running better?

For the developer community, I think it's mostly in the challenge and the joy of solving it.

For the player community... I have a Switch, and I have zero desire to play my Switch games on anything but the Switch. After all, I already totally accept its reduced performance for its amazing convenience and controller situation. But I do appreciate the preservation aspect.

(Seriously, it's not just about handheld vs. docked. Just propping up my Switch, screen only, on a table or the edge of my couch, and playing with relaxed arms and a joy con in each hand, is already worth a ton to me.)

Yes, and the OLED version of the Switch finally also comes with a proper latch to prop it up.

Yes! I just replaced my old Switch with the OLED one.

At first I was wondering whether it would be a worthwhile upgrade, but I can now say, for me specifically at least, would do it again in a heartbeat. That screen is amazing, and the kickstand replacement is so much better…

If the emulator has good compatibility for the game you want to play, it's just a much better experience overall. Why play games at low resolutions and unstable framerates when an emulator can run them better at whatever resolution you want, on the same device you already use for most other things?

And yes, many people just don't want to pay for the game or console, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like Nintendo cares about the customer either anyway.

I don't think feeling snubbed by a business entitles you to their wares without paying, and the law would tend to agree with that.

Playing an emulator requires you to grab the keys from your purchased switch, and dump your games. I’m not going to pretend that a lot of people don’t do this, but this is how it’s recommended to use the emulator.

Even of those who don't, some of them may still have paid for the game they are downloading. Dumping the keys/games from your Switch requires hacking it, and some people are hesitant about doing that (you might brick your Switch, or Nintendo might ban it from their online services.) Or, you might only own a recent revision–which are far more difficult to hack than the first revisions were.

I never claimed I was legally entitled to it. They're free to stop me, if they can.

I disagree with the “better experience” overall. The massive advantage of the Switch is its convenience and form factor. I have a bunch of games that I could play with much better graphics on the versions bought from Steam that I also own, and I still vastly prefer to do so on the Switch.

Remember that convenience is subjective here. I don't travel regularly and have no interest in playing games in public, for me it's much more convenient to sit at my desk, wait 5 minutes for my game to download on a gigabit connection, grab my controller, open the emulator and launch the game, than it is to turn on my switch that needs its own dedicated dock plugged into my monitor, slowly navigate the eshop to find a game I want, wait 2 hours for it to download through the switch's exceptionally bad wifi connection, wait for it to load from the slow SD card, and finally play an ugly 720p 30fps game which is painful when I'm used to 1440p 144hz gaming.

I rarely play outside the house, and still I prefer my Switch, docked and undocked. Whether I just want to lie on the couch instead of sit on it, or at the table.

One button press and the Switch is off no matter what it was doing, one other button press and it seamlessly picks up again.

The (Ethernet-connected) dock is attached to my TV. All I need to do to play there is either plop the running Switch in, or press a button on the controller to turn it on. It downloads fast over my Gigabit Fiber Connection, and even if it wouldn’t I don’t buy a new game every day.

1440p 144Hz gaming is not worth the massive loss in convenience for me. Graphics get better all the time, it’s not what keeps me attached to a game. As said, the games that I own on Steam as well I rarely if ever play there.

That's more of a matter of personal opinion than convenience. I've noticed that people who prefer the Switch tend to see video games as quick time wasters that they play for 10 minutes at a time when their hands are free and don't give much thought to where or why they play them. Personally whenever I play games I prefer to sit down in a quiet room for hours at a time and dedicate all of my attention to them, while playing at a level of visual quality that's actually pleasing to the eyes.

    1440p 144Hz gaming is not worth the massive 
    loss in convenience for me. Graphics get better 
    all the time, it’s not what keeps me attached 
    to a game

So, game design and gameplay mechanics are the things for you?

Me too. Honestly, I prefer stylized/retro looks to Call of Duty style attempts at "realism" -- I think Wind Waker on Gamecube is a lot better looking quite honestly!

However... while I'm not overly concerned with graphic detail, I think that frame rates and refresh rates do rather directly affect gameplay.

(Of course, that's just my subjective opinion and it's not any more "correct" than yours!)

Yup. Sleep is killer. The Steam Deck got me playing and buying PC games again because it's sleep mode works unlike a normal PC. I COULD hop over to the PC 10 feet away but then I'd have to boot the whole game up, get the controller connected, etc. then if I want to do something else I have to wait for a save point or check point.

> the switch's exceptionally bad wifi connection

The switch can use usb Ethernet adapters; you might need to look up which chipsets are supported, but it supports an 10/100 adapter I already had, seems like it supports some 1G adapters, but I have < 100M to the internet, so 10/100 is plenty.

I'm aware but honestly I already have way too many cables running under my desk and I don't download games on my switch often enough to justify adding one more.

There are also reports of the network adapters keeping the Switch from going into the lowes power state, thus keeping it somewhat warm. I had the same reasons as above though to not buy an adapter: I buy new games only very infrequently, so wireless is good enough for me.

At one point I didn’t have a TV, so it was easier to play switch games on my desktop as it didn’t require plugging in all the cables for the switch. Was a just works experience.

My only issue is Bluetooth controllers seem to have lag but wired is fine.

I have absolutely no interest in the size or portability of the switch and bought mine solely to play exclusives (Mario/Zelda/etc). If those were available on PC outright i'd have never purchased the device

> And yes, many people just don't want to pay for the game or console, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I suppose that will work out for people until they too become successful, and people start to steal from them.

Piracy is not theft.

I’m years behind on games, but if I have the choice to play an older (say, SNES) game on a PC emulator or on the Wii U (my newest console) Virtual Console, the PC emulator quality of life is miles better, even though I don’t particularly care about graphics.

I don’t have the time to spend hours grinding at games any more, but on an emulator, I can play every game with my preferred xbox elite controller, and map save state/load state/fast forward to paddles on the controller. It basically eliminates replaying of areas in games due to difficulty, since save/load-state makes death near-impossible, and any parts of the game that are progressing too slowly I can run at 10x speed.

I think this may be an overly cynical take - there are already exploits / tools that would allow direct piracy on the Switch itself which would no doubt perform much better than any emulation.

It seems far more likely that this is done just for the curiosity of doing it.

There’s one fascinating outcome to me as a result of Nintendo essentially repeating two hardware generations (GameCube -> Wii, then Wii U -> Switch), which is that on the highest end gaming PCs, games for the Switch can and do run at much higher resolutions and framerates than the Switch itself is capable of. On the YouTube videos I’ve seen the games don’t appear as stable as native hardware, but they really do look tremendous. Especially Breath of the Wild.

I don't want to buy a new Switch, but I'm happy to buy games. I have one of the first Switches which have a bootloader exploit and a screen that got scratched up by the dock and both joycons with a nasty analog stick drift.

With Ryujinx and yuzu, I buy switch-exclusive games from eShop or the local games shop, dump them to my NAS, and stick them on my steamdeck and the machine whose display the nintendo switch dock used to be attached to. I've bought a lot more games from Nintendo once I was able to use my decent xbox controller, PC, etc, since I started doing this.

I own a Nintendo Switch, and several games for it. I also own a Steam Deck, and I'd like to be able to play my Switch games on it so I don't have to carry two devices around. Emulation lets me do so.

Yes. Piracy is a thing people do sometimes. We can beat around the bush and grandstand or be honest about it.

I default to the Switch in many cases due to emulation not being compatible in ways that could be significant depending on the game. But if a game plays well on yuzu or ryujinx? Even setting aside better graphical fidelity, the massive increase in sound quality playing on a Steam Deck compared to the Switch makes it absolutely worth it. If I can get away with playing my games on better hardware, I will.

The nintendo switch is quite a fragile machine. Mine was already repaired twice.

So having a second option if it ends up unrepairable is a good thing imho. Nintendo won't refund my games if my switch die.

I have dumped a few of my Switch games to play on the Steam Deck. It's a better experience overall, for the games that run well, and it means I can take only one console when I'm out.

I haven't downloaded a single pirate ROM since I own both the hardware and the software.

On a powerful PC, you can run some games at much better frame rates than on the Switch hardware as well.

People regularly pirate and violate licensing agreements without even the mildest cognitive dissonance despite knowing it is breaking the law or unethical.

Unethical? Because someone could have profited more?

Sure, whatever. That isn't the point.

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