How We Got Here: A History of Nintendo's Official Emulators | Tech Rules
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ม.ค. 2022
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Videos Used:
BitFS 0x A Presses by welcoe: • BitFS 0x A Presses
Donkey Kong 64 speedrun by 2dos at SGDQ 2015: • Donkey Kong 64 by 2dos...
My Life in Gaming RGB306 (Subscribe to them while you're at it!): • RGB306 :: The NES Clas...
This is a clip from dannyb's Twitch stream, showcasing the delayed bonk we talked about in the video: / belovedrealnostrilthet...
History of Official N64 Emulation Twitter Thread by Volvagia224: / 1453887148113936384
Let me know if I forgot any sources! The creation of this video was a little more chaotic than most!
Check out our Discord, Infinite Azure!
/ discord
I excessively talk about unimportant things on Twitter: / radhewc - เกม
It's finally done!! This video has been in the works since before the expansion pack was even announced; it just gave me a reason to finally finish it. I put SO much effort into this, learning and double-checking everything I can, trying to ensure I'm giving a good explanation for the variety of things I talk about here. With the sheer scope of it, I'm sure I still got stuff wrong. If you caught anything incorrect, please let me know! With how big this video is, I'll frankly be surprised if there aren't some big things I need to correct.
Thankfully, LuigiBlood has already pointed out a lot of these very shortly after the video's release:
-N64 WiiVC doesn't seem to have specialized builds for each game. It was merely constantly updated over time, and the progress was shown in new VC releases. It still used game-specific fixes, but they all exist within the emulator by default.
-That random shot at I took at DK64 at the beginning of the video didn't actually have any basis, it seems. While it was just used as a small joke, I still don't want to spread that misinformation. However, I still assure you that it definitely didn't use the expansion pack to avoid a bug.
In addition to these, LuigiBlood also added a LOT of extra information I had missed and gave a different (although admittedly much more educated) outlook on the future of the Switch's N64 emulation. I highly recommend you take a look at it!
If we're being honest, I probably could've dialed it back on taking shots at Nintendo in this video. While a lot of the things they've done recently have given me a bad impression of them, I'll be the first to admit that I made a lot of assumptions here, especially at the end. I still find my criticisms reasonable, but I'd like to remind everyone (myself included) that we don't know what goes on internally and, while speculation is one thing, taking action based on assumptions is another. This might be a needless clarification, but I just wanna make sure I'm not misconstrued here. Please be nice to other human beings!
With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy today's video!
Welcome back!
No worries man. Keep making videos and I’ll always watch them.
Cant wait to watch!!
looks interesting
Okay now your intro looks weird. The original one was better.
Don't worry guys, he's pretty active on twt. Just said he's working through personal stuff and to give him time.
Personal stuff for over a year lol ok
@@SinclairSan Be a bit more considerate, mate. Yes, it can go on for a year. Over a year. He's not forcing you to stay subscribed.
@@SinclairSan that seems more than reasonable actually, even if his channel is popular or whatever, he has his priority's straight
@jelly_lori agreed. Plus it's not like a Linsday Ellis situation where people are paying him per-month on Patreon (AFAIK he doesn't have one) without any warning
i dont give a dam make a community post its not that hard
The worst part about Nintendo is not that they CAN'T do incredible things... It's that they CAN, but choose not to.
It's why Sega said "Nintendon't", not "Nintencan't"
damn, this feels like an Uncle Ben quote.
HE LIVES!, ITS THE MODDING LEGEND
That does not really make sense given they tend to do incredible things pretty frequently, just look at Metroid Dread, Mario Party Superstars, Bowser’s Fury, Game Builder Garage, and Warioware from last year for instance.
Just look at the Pokewalker for example, it ended up being one of the most accurate pedometers at the time!
random note: I don't have the issue anymore but I can personally confirm there was a letter to Nintendo Power asking of Warioware: Twisted was compatable with the Gamecube GBA player. The response was something along the lines of: "There's technically nothing stopping you but if you do attempt to do this, PLEASE send us a video."
the great and lovable peridot
I would like to see said video
@@bestaround3323 there's a video of someone doing it on youtube.
@@whatisfzeroanymore2nd link?
Funnily enough the game's manual states it's not compatible with the GBA Player. I assume it was a case of them covering their ass if someone tried it and injured them self. I can confirm that it is compatible, albeit incredibly difficult to use.
A friend of mine and I were playing Kirby’s Dream Course online and we saw the rollback netcode and we were both just absolutely in awe about the fact that it has rollback at all!
I'm guessing a lot of Japanese developers don't see the need for rollback netcode if they only test their games in Japan. Maybe they have playtesters in their Tokyo and Osaka offices play against each other and don't notice any latency. NERD (a European team) probably knew how important rollback is, or were aware of how open-source emulators have already implemented it.
@@TFSned if that's the case, I'm giving my switch to a homeless man and telling him to sell it for profit. that's fucking bullshit
@@TFSned yeah,its has been a vig problem in fighting games until recently with games like Guilty Gear Strive and KOF XV
I think it's crazy that some big name fighting still don't have rollback but Kirby of all games does
@@TFSned They can test it anyday. And it's strange seeing how much rollback has been in the public's eyes, with positivity. Maybe they're afraid to implement it.
I used to basically share a copy of animal crossing with a friend of mine growing up until I got my own copy. Any time he would come over we would boot it up on my gamecube and I would just leave it on (sometimes for days at a time) until I wanted to play something else.
... that's pretty smart not gonna lie haha
That was the cool thing about memory cards. You could have more than one save per game.
Wait why would you leave it on?
@@julesk1088 so the game stays loaded in memory and the friend can take the game home while allowing both of them to play
@@pito7722 :O didn't know you could just take the disk out... wonder if this could help get games to 10 people for the cost of 1
The rollback in the SNES Online emulator... is that why sometimes, when playing DKC with my friend online, I would see one of us yeet off a cliff only to end up safe on the platform we were aiming for? That's honestly pretty interesting and so cool
Yes and companies are barely starting to embrace this technology despite it existing for a very long time. If it was delay-based you would have just had to eat the death.
@@TailsSR well you would also be experience standard lag, so you possibly could have more time to react and save yourself
@@cataclyx or more lag to eat up your inputs and kill you
@@cataclyx yes but the reaction time doesn't matter if you have so much input delay that the game doesn't respond when you want it to
For those saying he died: he's alive and well. He uses his twitter regularly, he also said back then that he's going through some irl stuff and we should give him time.
So please don't despair thinking he left the channel to rot or something happened to him.
Is he still going through them or is he fine now.
@@SuperDestroyerFoxBe patient.
@@cotyjackson7200 I’m just wondering on if he is okay now. I already know that he probably is reverse engineering the entirety of some sort of game if he has gotten back to TH-cam but that takes a really long time.
9:50 you mention those tilting-cartridge games being "incompatible" with the GameBoy Player because you'd have to tilt your whole console around, but _Fun Fact:_ in speedruns for _Kirby Tilt n' Tumble_ for the Gameboy Color, most runners play the game on the GameBoy Player and tilt the console around in their hands. The run was even showed off at AGDQ 2017
I mean at least you're tilting the only console that has a _handle,_ and not a behemoth like the OG Xbox
@@ToaderTheToad that would be painful to hold and play tbh
@@legendslayer6558 Yeah, Xboxes are huge
that's so funny lmao
@@ToaderTheToad the handle is on the back tho, you pretty much have to hold the gamecube like a steering wheel
The mini consoles had almost no protection. IIRC the SNES mini even had a welcome message from NERD when you connected a shell :)
How thoughtful, lol
they knew
Yup, they're piss easy to mod and given how it is done it seems pretty intentional. I got my dad a mini NES for Christmas when it came out and was able to add some of his favorite games on it with barely any issue. The only confusion I had was getting it into the state that allowed you to dump ROMs.
Based developers indirectly encouraging piracy
@@tadpolegaming4510 because licensing some of the titles can be a major pain, and cost an arm and a leg for something this small.
bro dropped 18 bangers of videos then dipped
Emphasis on BANGERS
It’s been 2 years, I miss your content dude! Hope you’re doing alright wherever you are 🗿
I was not expecting the Switch's SNES emulator having rollback, that's a big suprise to me.
Can’t believe the SNES got official rollback support before Smash lmao
@@bageltoo Absolute Nintendo move
@@TheMinecraftMan757 You can blame Bandai-Namco for Smash online, at the very least. They’re easily one of the most stubborn companies on embracing rollback for their fighting games.
@@bladeworksmaster Bandai-Namco was involved with Smash's netcode?
I remember the nes online got a lot better after the snes app launched and i just thought that they added the rollback to that too (and feels tied to it having the rewind feature in it too) but the video claims it didnt.
Does nes nso have rollback right now?
Can't believe this vid is 2 years old already. One of the best youtube channels out there with interesting video ideas and funny commentary with solid editing. Man's never missed with a video, they all slap.
As a speedrunner for Secret of Mana for quite a long time, the SNES Mini is my absolute favorite system for running that game in particular. The SNES Mini controllers are so good, that I bought an adapter to play on my regular SNES, as I think they are strictly better than original controllers especially in regards to START/SELECT-buttons. The SNES Mini also has a (great) built-in flashing reduction, while not noticeably impacting the brightness of the game overall. The only time I notice the game being a bit dimmer, is specifically in the menu-borders not being as bright. But considering the rather severe flashing Secret of Mana has at times, I'll happily play this over the original anytime. The only downside is, that it does not support 3 controllers to my knowledge, which makes certain tricks unavailable compared to original console + multitap (although, no one speedruns these categories anyways)
Biggest downside of being a fan of the SNES Mini: Replacement controllers are not being sold. One of my controllers is starting to give up by now, so... That's unfortunate
You can use Wii classic controllers on the S/NES mini consoles, and 8bitdo sells a Bluetooth adapter for using wireless controllers on them
But yeah, as an owner of an WII U, I am quite familiar with the "no replacement parts" thing
@@MrHack4never same I own a Wii U as well and I never have gotten around to playing it because of being afraid of something failing (that isn’t a controller I have had for 11 years
@@masoneveridge4078
That's not really something that I would be afraid of, since I have fallen asleep on the gamepad before, and it just still works without issue
The club Nintendo exclusive Wii super famicom controller is the same as the snes classic controller if you’re looking for a replacement. A new one is kinda pricy though.
I thought the SNES mini controllers were the same as the ones Nintendo is selling for the Switch (or at least very similar). Is there any noticable difference?
I took serious issue when playing Paper Mario on NSO when I was in the Lava Piranha fight. There was very noticeable lag that happened when I’d fight, and if I jumped on him, I had to time the action command much earlier that what was normal, which was really annoying when I was wearing All or Nothing. His animation also had bad stutters in it that I haven’t noticed in any other fight or location(do note I haven’t played past this fight yet). I don’t ever remember having any real issues with this in WiiVC so it’s upsetting on NSO.
I can confirm that the fight was very laggy on the Switch version (also used All or Nothing) and that this problem did not exist on the N64. Luckily it's the only fight that lags but it's still annoying. Can also confirm that the WiiVC didn't lag during that fight, however I never got to play the game on the WiiUVC but I assume it would have the same problem as the Switch version.
@@garden6008
That fight had some issues like the egg glitch, yes, but I never had any actual stuttering on the WiiU VC.
@@rainpooper7088 I deleted the comment, because after looking it up I was wrong. the fight does cause problems when emulated, but not as bad as I thought. Apparently there is a line of code in the NSO emulator that Causes slowdown in both that fight and the pause menu. there has to be a reason as to why its there, but no one is able to figure out why.
That fight was unbearable. I ended up having to cheese it with items and Star Storm because none of my action commands were registering.
That’s fake NSO doesn’t lag
God, two years. Love all the videos, and whatever personal stuff you have going on, it’s more important then these videos.
You should cover the emulators that PlayStation uses. I’d really like to see how the PS3’s PS1 emulation compares to its backwards compatibility.
The psp's ps1 emulator is where its at, its part natuve part emulation
0 lag
Almost complete compatibility
All done in 2005
@@MissiGNO000 Too bad the PSP doesn't have enough buttons to properly emulate a PS1 controller, then :(
@@MissiGNO000 On the contrary, POPS (PsOne on PlayStation, the PSP's emulator) is really only about a bit more than halfway compatible. Half of it is only the main MIPS CPU is responsible for virtualization--the GPU is entirely emulated in software--but the other is that the accuracy shifted wildly between firmware revisions - think Wii VC, essentially, but per-FW rather than per-game.
Play any game outside of the official compatibility list, and results may vary from minor inaccuracies (sometimes missing music, an overscan graphics issue, or some missing effects) to games just not working at all. Any emulation pitfall pre-DuckStation emus had, the PSP's is bound to have as well. It's mid-accuracy for a reason.
Fun fact: this emu is used verbatim on the Vita; it's just done in the PSP's sandbox, which is nearly entirely just that system's core components stuck alongside the native ARM SoC. The only thing that changes is the UX frontend, just to facilitate the added options in POPS vs. the minimal toggles when running normal PSP stuff.
Softmod user here: ehh... it's hit and miss.
There's two PS1 emus; one for discs, and the other for digital - you can tell because the sysmodules are literally named thusly.
Basically, 'discemu' is fairly decent and perhaps better than the PSP's, but has an enforced softening filter (that I don't personally jive with) and a noticeable input delay if you're at all familiar with the game on original hw/better emulation. Meanwhile, 'netemu' looks sharper and has better latency (I don't think it's none, but much better than it would be otherwise), but runs slower on average with more demanding games, and isn't as compatible as it would be if using it through the disc-based emulator instead. I couldn't tell you specifics since I didn't use it for very long, but it was *very* picky about how games are repackaged--even more than PSP--and only worked with maybe half the games I tried.
If you want to emulate PS1 and, for some reason, are not willing to use DuckStation to do it, early Fat PS2s are the best - specifically the ones that actually had the PS1's MIPS processor inside. AFAIK, basically 100% compatible, unless there's some quirk I'm unaware of. Later revisions, most likely all the Slims, moved to a software solution for some of the PS1 operations (probably for cost cutting) which broke compatibility in some more obvious places.
And the less said about the PCSX-ReARMed Classic, the better.
@@ThatOneSeong You are spot on with the Fat PS2's. IIRC all the fat models have ALL the PS1's hardware since they used the PS1 cpu as an IO controller for USB and other features as well as having repurposed the rest of the PS1. This means 99% compatability barring maybe some wierd one off issues. It was the only way I could get Xenogears to work since POPS doesn't run it right. Also, you still use PS1 memory cards for PS1 games, but you can transfer saves back and forth to PS2 memory cards. Wack.
The slim models all had to move to software emulation for PS1 titles since they didn't have space for the extra hardware, and don't have nearly the same level of compatability because of it. The latest models (90k model numbers) of Slims have the best compatibility AFAIK, but have their own quirks and issues in the homebrewing scene. Nothing a regular user would notice.
If you want to get even crazier, the launch model of PS3 has an ENTIRE PS2 inside of it... which as you can probably guess has an entire PS1 inside of it, which means you can play PS1,PS2, and PS3 games on a single machine, natively, in hardware. That is why they are so highly coveted. A Playstation turduckin, as awesome as it sounds.
Man hope things are going well for you. I missed this channel quite a bit recently. Mr Tech Rules hope you see this and know that your content is loved and you are missed these past few years.
Fun fact: Latency issues on Switch tend to be around 3 in-game frames, regardless of the game. That's why OOT is so much worse than other games on the service, as 3 frames of latency is much worse in a 20 FPS game rather than a 30 FPS or 60 FPS one.
That's... not how that works. When you say 3 frames, the implication is that that's 3/60th of a second. The game being 20 FPS doesn't make that 3/20th of a second. 3/60 is 1/20 which is a familiar number - in a 20 FPS game, your delay would be one frame.
Just so we're clear, being one frame of delay doesn't make it any shorter.
Also, I'm curious where you got that 3-frame delay figure. I assume you mean that's system-wide. It sounds right, but I really wonder what they would've done to cause that.
@@strangejune they might mean its easier to spot?
That's a dubious figure, but I think they meant on NSO's N64 emulator, not the switch itself (cause yeah, that's not a thing). If it's NSO's fault, it even makes (very limited) sense that it would be 3 frames, game independent, cause the emu has to deal with N64 framerate
@@berylliosis5250 I'm a Smash player. The Switch has delay.
@@strangejune Nah, not saying switch games don't have delay (or that the switch itself doesn't cause some); I'm saying that they likely (hopefully) were being specific to the NSO emulator. It's not a thing that "every game on switch has 3 frames of delay"; if that were the case (unlikely), it wouldn't actually have a disproportionate effect on OOT
This guy was putting up numbers on his channel.. would like to see him return.
hes working on personal stuff, hes active somewhere
One interesting note - I heard the releases of Earthbound 0 and Fire Emblem 1 use LUA Scripts or something similar to translate ROMs in real time. Which is how, like you mentioned, the original roms are still intact if you extract the files.
In the case of FE this seems to have lead to some odd glitches. The new scripts can't tell which dialog should play in situations where 2 could (ex, an enemy talks to you on top of an interactable house tile) resulting in enemies giving you tips on how to fight themselves. But I have no explanation for why the game sometimes simply seems to read / write to the wrong addresses and instead displays the OG JPN letters while glitching out game graphics, presumably trying to translate them. It's fascinating stuff and I don't think anyone's ever bothered to fully understand it.
Not sure about this (this is all speculation) but Earthbound Beginnings might be using a localization ROM that was originally completed in 1990 or so but was cancelled due to the SNES launching at the time it was suppose to release.
OoT Deku Scrub moment
@@murphmariotwopointoh7714 It does change the title screen from the prototype though, so maybe it's doing that in real time
When King Bob-Omb invades Archanea...
@@swagar It does? How so?
Hi, I'm volvagia224 mentioned in the video... - Someone linked me this video. Thanks for referencing my tweet.
Cool video. Saw a few comments about people being tempted to message Stephen, please dont bother just to say thanks lol. Hes a busy guy and graciously previously responded to our very technical questions when we found him long before i mentioned him in that tweet. We in speedrunning have known who he was for about 5 or so years now. Seems like a great guy and would hate to see him bothered by journalists and fans because of a tweet that was never meant to blow up.
Also never knew DS emulator was made by NERD but that makes sense given their other work being good.
I think theres some inaccuracies with what was said about SM3DAS - I believe this was also ique for n64, you should talk to someone more informed than me like Luigiblood on it though to confirm. Notice, n64 is missing on NERD's public facing blog regarding sm3das!
Enjoyed the video - wish you showed the n64 gc emus running under Wii environment through nintendont (using the Wii hardware, not the gc sandbox mode) to see what could've been also.
Re: disc eject for animal crossing, you can also do this for zelda collectors edition until next scene load.
P.s. I'm not a speedrunner, just someone who has been involved in that community for over a decade now and used to be an admin on the speedrun leaderboard website and mod in the oot speedrunning discord. Cant type the website... TH-cam will purge lol
I wonder what a security breach coding breakdown would look like. I mean we all know the game is broken but why it is so could be interesting.
I’m sure it would be a reverse engineering nightmare
@@theodoregifford8239 yea that’s for sure, could just look at the bugs people have found and look to see why that happens
considering its in unreal engine, i feel like a decompilation is only a month or so away. not as easy as unity, but not impossible
i watched my friend play it on stream recently, and while i didn't notice many interesting bugs the ai was REALLY bad
Honestly with how slow it runs sometimes I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't programmed in ue4 blueprints
Am I the only one who wonders where tech rules went? Loved his content ❤
Same!
He's been dealing with real life and personal stuff a bit, hasn't been able to make content.
I think he passed away unfortunately
@@SonyaBladesBooty source?
@@chocomelo454He made it up
I would like to say that I disagree with a lot of this research. I have done some reverse engineering of my own on some of these emulators, and I have an idea who developed pretty much each of them. For the sake of research and sharing information, I would like to do bulletpoints correcting, AND adding with what I know:
- First things first: No, Donkey Kong 64 didn't use the Expansion Pak just to delay a crash bug. While it is true, they still continued development to make use of the extra RAM, else you would have seen a hack that would make the game work without it in this golden age of N64 hacking. It doe really use the Expansion Pak.
- Nintendo in the late 90s hired a japanese developer who worked on iNES, an early NES emulator. This developer, Tomohiro Kawase was involved in Nintendo's NES emulator for N64 and GC, as well as the GB/C emulator for Pokémon Stadium's GB Tower. To this day he is still at Nintendo doing archiving and preservation work for them.
- I believe the N64 emulator for GC and Wii isn't necessarily different versions finetuned for specific games, but rather the latest version of the emulator they had which contains all finetuning for every game it supported. In fact the GC N64 emulator supports quite a bunch of games, including unreleased Panel de Pon 64, Dr. Mario 64, and Slicradic (also known as Mini Racers), all those game specific hacks are included in the emulator, and it can easily be found since their emulator executable also includes development information that eases the reverse engineering process. All those games are of course supported on Wii VC's emulator.
- Nintendo originally had a single person developing the SNES emulator for Wii, but was transferred to Intelligent Systems who were already in charge of the new NES emulator for Wii, this information comes from the gigaleak. Intelligent Systems then improved those emulators for the Wii U... and were also used in the official localization of Fire Emblem on NES for Switch, dark filter included, and 3D World's Luigi Bros... without the filter.
- iQue Studio did indeed develop the new N64 emulator for Wii U, but in reality iQue had developed their own set of emulator called "TRL", which you have mentioned, which included NES, GBC and GBA (unused). It was used for 3DS, but the GBC emulator was ported to Wii as WTRL for Kirby's Dream Collection. The N64 emulator explicitly refers to TRL, meaning it is the 4th emulator of the set. As far as I know, iQue was entirely responsible for Super Mario 64 in 3D All-Stars because it still heavily refers to TRL-NX.
- NERD has taken over Intelligent Systems's NES and SNES emulators from Wii U to the Mini consoles and Switch, and used their own set of codenames. However I do suspect they took over the N64 emulator from 3D All-Stars possibly later as they pretty much made sure to remove every reference to TRL and instead has a new codename.
The N64 emulator for Switch is definitely based on the Wii U's, as it contains very similar configuration files, and very similar code as well. For exemple, I found that the Wii U emulator had unfinished emulation code for the Japan only 64DD expansion. This code is still on the Switch versions, untouched since the Wii U in the exact same way.
- The difference in emulation between 3D All-Stars and Switch Online is staggering, and as far as I know, seems to be a regression which resulted of an attempt to externalize graphical rendering configuration in an attempt to make an emulator that can work for any game if properly set up. However I personally believe the emulator is in every way worse than on Wii U even since 3D All-Stars due to many hints of serious issues that wouldn't really be noticed because they did everything in their power to avoid them for 3D All-Stars.
A lot of games on Switch Online rely on serious game hacks just to avoid to emulate specific things that slows down the game. But as far as I know... these things were emulated just fine on Wii U. In fact, adding games to the Switch emulator already require serious reverse engineering work and hacking just to make sure they even boot up. I'm usually fine with game specific hacks, but here, it is done to **an obscene extent** that makes me doubt that the emulator, as it is currently is, to be competent. And it cannot be just a matter of optimization, because emulators like mupen64plus-next, which does not rely on a lot of these hacks, work just fine on the Switch console itself.
I personally think the emulator is victim of years of changes that were considered "good enough" from iQue, and no one really had the time to sit down and think that the emulator had only gotten worse through those changes. It's very probable that Nintendo simply didn't allow them to do this, but I personally think if you give a bad emulator to a competent engineering team, that team wouldn't necessarily be able to do anything of value. And clearly NERD is capable of great things like their DS and GameCube emulators. I do not believe in the emulator's future unless they do massive changes to it, or simply rewriting the emulator itself.
...Hopefully this comment is of good enough value :)
I have to note that the comment is only about my current knowledge and information that I understand at this time, based on research, and reverse engineered emulators... and admittedly, educated guesses. So I don't really want to pretend to have THE knowledge as I don't really have inside sources or anything like that to fully rely on.
Love all the work you've done in the N64 sphere, thanks for the write up and clarifications :)
Thank you so much for this!! I really appreciate you taking the time to make these corrections, I'll add them to the pinned comment!
Admittedly, with my mistake on DK64: I had figured that the only reason DK64 was never hacked to not use the expansion pack was because I assumed it wasn't a reasonable thing to accomplish. I saw that the game was heavily using extended RAM addresses but had just figured it was a compiler option and not because the game actually needed it. That being said, that's what I get for making too big of an assumption without evidence to back it up haha.
Everything else here is stuff I reasonably should've figured out but just didn't for either lack of skill or carelessness, so I'm really glad you cleared things up!
hell yeah, extra information on the video, this is like a day 1 patch
joke aside, thanks for the both of you
@@TechRules To be honest it is not the kind of information you can easily find, even if I tweeted about that stuff, it's also stuff I don't really take the time to just write it all down somewhere in a blog or something, so I don't really blame you that much.
And he was never seen again
Refuses to elaborate
Leaves
Code injection of a DS VC title is the main method for modding a Wii U. The specific game doesn't matter, there's a quirk specific to the DS VC that means it pretty much doesn't check what the software actually is, although for various reasons, Brain Age is the game almost always selected for this purpose, hence why you see it at the top of the Wii U eShop's best selling page.
Because IIRC it was free in the EU-PAL region for older accounts (My console can confirm ^.^) and was among the first games supported by the installer, but then word of mouth spread and when they made guides for "new" consoles with no DS games it was easier to say "just buy this game".
@@Valery0p5 Yep, it's basically a result of a lot of people already having the game for free anyway, the ones who don't are probably less worried about actually playing the game, and it being cheaper than most other DS VC titles.
I just love looking at that eShop all the time and seeing Brain Age at the top of the charts. It is a shame, though, I hear the ability to add funds to your system is going away later this month, and I don't know of any other reliable methods of modding the console.
@@PanjaRoseGold It's also the cheapest game on the storefront. No point in paying $8 for a DS game when you can pay $6 for the same thing.
From my understanding the ability to add funds is only going away in Japan, and even that is only credit card transactions on the console. eShop cards will still work, and you can add funds through the web store (and I believe the Switch eShop as well)
@@thetechconspiracy2 Hm. Alright, then, fair enough. I do still hope that someone finds a better way to mod the system in the future, however. The eShop won't last forever, and while there are ways of getting into homebrew other than a DS VC game, they all rely on internet support, which also won't last forever, even ignoring that those methods are far less reliable anyway. Sadly though, the Wii U doesn't see much attention nowadays, so I doubt that'll ever happen.
@@PanjaRoseGold added homebrew to my virtual wii (wii U) using the web browser.
"You are safe to engage Ridley... however crudely you want" got me good.
When tech rules uploads a new video I drop everything. They’re so rewatchable!
ong
I still use the AI explained videos to fall asleep
I have watched that damn spryo piracy video more times than I can count. I've never played that game, I wasn't Alive when it came out, it generally isn't about anything I care about. SO WHY ARE THEY SO ENTERTAINING
@@rosemarycrafting1202 Well researched video essays are a blessing, no other sleeping aid has worked better for me
Funnily enough, I actually was in contact with the person who put custom roms in Animal Crossing! (We were both in the TCRF discord, and they put mega man 2 in the game and demonstrated it simply because i bugged them about it)
This is a good video, which is why Nintendo sent the assassins.
As a kid my family including my now dead grandma played Mario Kart 64 together and we had so much fun. I bought this thing so my family could play MK64 together again and it was a shit experience thanks Nintendo
ITS NOT SHIT
@@jaxsterminator8634 That’s a ratio just WAITING to happen.
@@GB_256 No
@@jaxsterminator8634 ratio + L + bozo
@@jaxsterminator8634 too late bud you're cancelled I'm typing up the tweet now ahahahahhaha
Nintendo killed him for this…
12:40 omg!!! I had that special collection disk as a kid and I always thought there was something wrong with the disk because it kept crashing
It's funny how I hear people say MM crashing was such a common problem with it. I think in all my years playing MM, I only encountered a single crash and honestly I'm iffy if it was that collection or Wiiware, I just know it wasn't 3D and I wasn't allowed to play the N64 version because I was the youngest and it only had 2 save slots
9:38 - "It was obviously an anti-piracy measure ... But... you were worried about us watching _this_ on our TVs?"
IMAGINE the world where VHS recordings of GBA Video movies played with the Game Boy Player became a popular form of bootlegging! You could just buy Shrek on the street and what you'd get is... _that_
ok this was definitely the good ending
Using Game Boy Interface, I can confirm that they look like shit on COMPOSITE.
"We should make fun of this until they fix this."
I like how you think.
I remember watching my older brother play through Majora’s Mask from that GameCube collection.
I now realize how impressive it was for him to 100% percent that version.
we miss you tech rules !!!!!!!!!!!!come backkkk
I can honestly say that I have never had any issues with any of Nintendo's official emulators.
To be fair, I don't actually own any of the official emulators, so that is the main contributing factor.
While you mentioned that speedrunners often consider WiiVC to be the definitive version of many N64 games, most NES game speedrun communities have long abandoned WiiVC because of the minor framerate difference causing runs on WiiVC to be slower than original hardware.
Yep, the NES and SNES run at roughly 60.1hz while the Wii is at roughly 59.94hz. xD
30:17 'In this case, I imagine it's some rollback/delay hybrid implementation'
That's what all rollback is. Rollback is built on top of delay based netcode, using a minimal amount of input delay to mitigate potential rollbacks. As a famous rollback developer once said 'Rollback netcode is delay-based netcode, it just has more features.' You can choose to have no delay, but the netcode would still be built on top of a delay-based framework. If you set it to have no delay though whatsoever, you'll end up with a LOT of rollbacks in most scenarios, which is one of the problems SFV's netcode has.
Of course, if you want SNES games with rollback, you're better off using fightcade, which is free for Linux and PCs, but as you said, official solutions will never trump fanmade passion projects that have been worked on tirelessly for years.
I've actually been wondering if Nintendo somehow stole the fanmade rollback implementation for the snes emulator, since that's the only emulator on vc to support rollback afaik (maybe genesis does too?) and the only system on the list to have a fanmade implementation in the first place (once again other than genesis).
0:40 Hello, person from 2 years into the future here, absolutely nothing has been added since and the value isn't good enough for me to want to get it.
I like how you make a 40min video of Nintendo's Official Emulators highly enjoyable the whole way through.
Thank you for all your content, and I hope to see you upload more soon. It’s all been really enjoyed by myself and I’m sure there have been hundreds to millions of others!
I consider the dark filter a huge thing, as there are games where it makes it so dark you have to turn up your screen brightness/contrast. I notice it big time on Wii U's Donkey Kong 64.
It seems like a dumb anti-seizure filter, too. They already did the ROM patches to fix effects, and added in filters that would add the filter only when there was a lot of flashing. There's no need to have a dark filter for every game.
I honestly had no idea that was the reason for it. I actually had assumed it was a messed up attempt at a scanline filter as an attempt to make the lower resolution textures look better. I didn't even know it was on the 2D systems.
I thought it was in attempt to increase color gamut, after all in NES color palette several colors theoretically have higher blue channel than white color
Considering the amount of people online who think emulation is just as simple as putting a rom file in a program it magically works, I would not be surprised if Nintendo's higher ups also think its that simple and rushed NERD into making N64 NSO
Yeah, cause emulators nowadays are easier and easier to use by even people with 0 prior experience
Is dad coming back with the milk?
Personally I find the Gameboy Tower in Pokemon Stadium 1/2 the most interesting. It’s one of the earliest official Nintendo emulators, it’s designed for a current system rather than a previous console, and is the only one I can think of that allows speed up. It’s also very game specific; trying to load any other game in it breaks it down entirely.
Outside how unreliable the Transfer Paks are, it’s probably the best way to play your original carts on official hardware.
I admire the optimism in thinking the NSO expansion will have added value going forward, but Nintendo has a habit of barely touching the service beyond adding a console occasionally. Bugfixes and new games for existing emulators don't bring in subscribers.
It's kind of a problem with a subscription model in general. It's one of the reasons movies constantly disappear from Netflix but are always on the iTunes store. The added revenue of outright selling each title makes it worth the cost of licensing, porting, and hosting it. Conversely though, Nintendo isn't going to invest the resources into doing another Virtual Console eShop because the idea of buying a ROM isn't valuable to consumers like it was in 2006.
NSO's emulation is a novelty, and an expensive one at that. At least the novelty of playing Zelda inside your copy of Animal Crossing wasn't a recurring annual subscription.
sadly part of the Homebrew Community could be contributed to this. If you have a Modded Switch either a: it's banned/ never going online ever, and there would be No sale of a Emulated platform game be it within NSO (because that can be yanked at any second.) or individual rom because of this, or b: they're using Retroarch in some fashion. (Lakka/ "HOS" Native port. (HOS= the switch's native OS "Horizon") or Linux/Android and thus using the Appropriate version of Retroarch for it.)
Much in the same way with a Modified Wii/WiiU/3DS that because they would be modded, most either are banned or are using the much better performing community emulators (RetroArch in the WiiU's case)(SnesGX/VBA GX/FCE Ultra GX in the Wii's case)(arguably mGBA 3DS/Snes 9x (theres a specifc version for O3DS and a better one to use w/ an N3DS)and retroarch for NES w/ an N3DS. Point being in the end is if you have a modified system there's usally always a better performing community offering than what Nintendo's going to provide and make little to no point for these users to get anything by Nintendo.
@@CaelThunderwing I'd argue most gamers don't have the tech savvy or the effort to softmod a console. Even installing RetroPie is too technical for some. Homebrew was a thing when the Wii was current and it didn't affect the VC much.
also every other 3rd party is making their own collections instead is probably also another reason as to why the virtual console is not around anymore.
I wonder if more companies should be adopting a hybrid subscription service similar to what XBox is doing with Game Pass, where you can pay a monthly subscription to get access to a ton of games, or you can buy the games individually.
@@PlayerZeroStart I highly doubt that's going to happen, the less options can get the costumer, the more they will be forced to pay Nintendo's high prices and this expansion pack only being per year and adding the AC DLC for no reason other than make the service $50 is most likely the proof of that
I played through Wario Ware Twisted on my GameCube like a mad lad.
I can't believe TechRules out of all people forgot his TH-cam password!! Dang it :(
Clarification on Donkey Kong 64, it actually DID require the expansion pack. It being just used to handle a memory leak in the code isn't true; one youtuber showed that when one looks at the n64 memory in real time, the expansion Pak is being used regularly.
Is it being used just because it's there, or is it being used because it's necessary? I'll admit that I have no idea how the N64 uses memory, but I've heard about that memory leak thing and now I'm curious about whether or not the extra memory is actually needed. So you're saying that even if that bug wasn't a thing, the expansion pak would still be needed to run the game anyway?
@@qactustick yes, the expansion pac is absolutely necessary to play the game.
I believe TR is saying that Rare *might* have been able to optimize it to the point where the expansion pac wasn't necessary.
Legend has it the fnaf 2 AI video gets pushed back another year every time someone brings it up.
...So like- sorry about that.
the issue with the water in the dark link room is because the rock texture is re-used as a transparent overlay over the texture that makes up the water, as the water was made up of two textures moving at different rates, and in different directions, with the added transparency affect, it makes a more realistic seeming water like water... the issue with the emulator is that its not doing the transparency pass over the rock texture....
some of the traditionally classic issues with making 3d games going back to their origins, are z fighting and seam stitching, but also transparency is hard to do apparently. nintendo's emulator seems to suffer from all three.
nintendo will later use a similar method to the water I mentioned previously, in their mario galaxy game, but on a grander scale.
Thank you for all your content, it’s super enjoyable and I hope to see you put out more soon.
hes getting milk
"You're not here for my opinion, you're here for information"
Bold of your to assume I'm not here for both.
33:18 - Just as he hit the wall I was waiting to hear the vibration from the controller, only to have my phone give me a notification at the EXACT same time and spook me the hell out 🤣
As someone who already knew (basically) everything you said in this video, I was worried going in, but I am thrilled to see the level of detail you went into. You know your stuff on this subject! I've been a part of the OOT speedrunning community for over ten years now, and I love that this information is becoming more and more public knowledge! Great video! Good job!
please come back with the milk dad
RIP Tech Rules 🙏
I really miss his videos. I hope he is okay and that he comes back eventually. Even if I have to switch from TH-cam to watch it.
Could you imagine if Ninendo just actually sold ROMs. Like you buy the ROMs, then you can provide your on emulator on your choice of platform like you would for MP3 files.
What would stop people from just copying those sold Roms and offering them for free?
Thank you for mentioning the Control Stick problem. Most people don't realize it's even a problem and just assume that the games are old and bad.
i literally JUST started rewatching the baldi's basics video wondering when there would be a new upload. great timing
Same xD
I love everytime you upload a video. They're always well worth the wait with how much detail you can go into things without making them confusing. Keep up the amazing work!
I literally just rewatched your FNAF, Anti Piracy, and Doki Doki videos and out of no where you uploaded. Now that is amazing!
Hi! I introduced you to my brother.
He's super into technology and emulatation! Thank you for being such a good channel. We learn so much, and it's presented very nicely.
Thank you sir, we love your videos.
Good research, good editing, good script. Superb video! It really makes me look forward to your videos every time.
You never mentioned the crashing issue where it reverts the save files to the point when you last opened the N64 emulator when it crashes.
I'm not gonna lie and say I'd never get these emulators because they DO look appealing it's just that with all these issues and the lack of button remapping (no the switch system button mapping doesn't count because it doesn't support remapping buttons to the sticks) I won't.
Stay brilliant, and on the path of sparks, my fellow Jolteon fan.
Someone actually figured out why that happens. For the save revert issue, it's because the app doesn't actually save to memory until it's closed properly, so a crash means that the save is never actually done. As for the main game that the issue came up with, it's been traced to a specific graphical effect with the partner Watt and some odd lua script that seems to be there to bypass a crash but had a function added that... makes it crash anyway?
Miss you dude! Still looking forward to your next video whenever that may be. Just let us know you're alive somehow :)
"It's really that bad; it's not a joke."
Tech Rules: It's funny, actually!
"...DID I STUTTER?"
Always excited to see one of your videos in my box. They are always a deep dive and interesting.
I never realized that animal crossing was so small you could effect take the game out and still play it! I guess I was to scared to try it or something. Had this wierd bug with smash bros melee where I would have to constantly pop the disc in and out on the hyland temple stage
holy your channel is so good. Very informative and fun to watch, I started the video just to see few minutes and I watched it all the way
As a speedrunner of Donkey Kong 64, I'd like to point out that although the lag in that game creates cool tricks that save time, the game is so broken that for essentially every trick created using lag, they can be replicated in some way or another without the need of the speed gained from lag. The time save from having no lag easily makes the Wii U the fastest console to run on for all categories, saving nearly 20 minutes on the 101% category alone, and is clear when looking at the leaderboards. I thought it was a weird mistake so I'd like to point it out, great video nonetheless!
I am still immeasurably disappointed that the VC release of Kirby and the Amazing Mirror on the 3DS doesn't support multiplayer
I just finished binging all your videos and you finally uploaded again,,, I love you-
Great video! Really love the care you put into the research
Emulators running inside of emulators is something we call emuception
I really recommend you to take a look at it its some interesting stuff
Minor quibble with comment at 14:15 onwards: Input latency does not do a damn thing to disturb a frame perfect sequence of inputs. If you need to press some sequence of buttons in some fast, pre-determined sequence so that each input falls on a specific frame, you're already mentally "queueing" the inputs and doing them before you can react to anything happening onscreen. You can't 'react' to the first frame of a sequence of frame perfect inputs and do the rest of the inputs on reaction, so it doesn't matter if they come out 1ms later or 1 year later. It's actually the general gameplay itself, where you interact with anything that moves or time inputs based on onscreen animations, where input latency becomes impactful.
That might be true if it's just a series of inputs you can perform at any time. But if you're waiting for a particular audio/visual cue to time the input, like if you needed to press a button on the same frame you took damage from an enemy or something like that, then the delay would change when your input is registered relative to the cue, throwing off your timing.
Oooh, been looking forward a new Tech Rules video! Looks like it'll be a great one :o
Fantastic Video! I love the in-dept analysis and history. Mad Props.
A quick correction about the NES/SNES Classic operating system: It probably isn't Linux based due to license issues. Linux is licensed under the GNU GPL, which is an awful license that plagues most open source software, which requires that the source code for any forks of GNU GPL licensed software be public, which Nintendo is definitely not going to do. It's more likely based on a real *nix system such as FreeBSD or POSIX where the licensing permits using the code without sharing any modifications to it. In fact, Unix-like operating systems were also used in the Wii and Wii U.
I appreciate the deep dive into each emulator Nintendo made and seeing the problems with each one. A good majority of the issues the Switch emulator had were on the Wii and/or WiiU Virtual Console versions too, so they aren’t new issues.
Thanks for the video. One thing I'd like to note is what you refer to as a rollback/delay hybrid is just how rollback implementations usually work, combining rollback frames with (sometimes variable) input delay, making the game both look and feel as good as possible.
Incredible video TR! Very informative and interesting.
Nobody wants to sell you a product anymore. They want nothing less than to sell you a subscription.
Also let's be honest, not having support for a virtual memory card is completely inexcusable these days, especially from the company who made the original hardware in the first place.
Companies hate you actually owning anything digitally. If a piece of software or media can be made into a file that a person can put onto a drive, transfer, and use to their heart's content, there's no need to buy their rereleases or deluxe editions in a few years. Imagine if Nintendo actually let you pay for a game and then just gave you the ROM for the game you bought. Instead, some people are paying for Mario 64 for the fourth time now because Nintendo upcharged for the Wii U virtual console and killed it on Switch. Ownership is dead.
@@cjaymeme "ownership is dead"
Not unless you're a pirate!
Yar har fiddle dee dee~ 🏴☠️
@@bane2201 same here. The worst excuse for a """product""" you can """buy""" is anything Adobe-related. Imagine actually paying upwards of $100/year for a suite of products that you might use half of. Even once you buy them for such an outrageous price, they're always checking themselves, authenticating, and updating so that they're a hassle to use.
Eventually some company is going to try doing the same thing with physical goods and then people might realize the state of the fucking world. People will pay $200/year to access the Sony Suite that will let their Sony TV, PS7, Microwave, Fridge, and everything else function. If you don't pay, the closed-source operating systems built into each device will shut them off from you. That is exactly what is happening with software, but because people really like having Photoshop instead of GIMP they let it slide.
This is brilliant; I knew about some of the emulators but never in this much depth.
I haven't watched the video yet, because i want to say thank you!
I enjoy your videos.
also happy new year!
Damn every video its worth the wait, amazing work.
We patiently await your return. We will be here when it happens
I think it’s worth mentioning that I did experience that same crashing while attempting to save bug on Ocarina of Time Master Quest when I played it as a kid. It only happened maybe a total of 3 times but it was enough to make me so nervous about losing progress that I’d save every chance I got.
At least it gave you a good habit
Both the GC and VC versions of OoT actually have an incredibly small chance to crash at any given time. It appears to be vaguely tied to how long it's been running, but beyond that we have no idea why it happens.
It's an absurdly small chance, though. Like...top runners will see *maybe* one VC crash every few months
just earlier today i was thinking “man, i hope tech rules uploads soon”. i wasn’t expecting it to be this soon! lets goo!
As a person that has done his own virtual console history research, this is such a well research video that even i learned a few things from!
And if nobody else notices that but me then I just wanna say good work! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
This was really good, mind-blowing at times even. But the pedant in me has to correct an error for fact's sake
NSO's MD/GEN emu wasn't developed by NERD, but M2, the studio behind SEGA 3D Classics Collection,
some titles on the SEGA Ages line (Sonic 1 among them) and more. Also, SNES with rollback is so surreal
Really interesting video. Have you thought about doing one for Playstation? They also have the issue where emulation doesn't necessarily get better on each new platform.
For instance, the PS Classic using a poor quality emulator with some games provided at 50Hz in all regions (probably just to support more languages). The PS3 going from full hardware PS2 BC to partial emulation and then full emulation. The hidden button code to disable v-sync on the PS2 emulator on PS3 for lower latency.
The issues with software PS2 emulation on PS3, PS4 and PS5, like comparing the native ports of Jak trilogy and Resident Evil CVX on PS3 to the emulated versions on PS4/5. Also the games that are secretly emulated PSP games on PS4 like Locoroco, Parappa and Castlevania Dracula X Collection.
that would be very interesting, I wonder how they went from using a very good PS1 emulator on the PSP to taking PCSX ReArmed, putting it into an old version of a raspberry pi and call it a day
@@speed3414 There's a good article on Eurogamer talking about the PS1 BC on PSP. The PS1, PS2 and PSP all used MIPS processors, so the CPU instructions might be running natively with the rest of the components emulated.
It's a shame none of the official Sony emulators offered anything like higher resolutions, perspective correct textures and floating point precision to fix all the warping and shimmering, but at least we got better load times and the option for texture filtering on PS2.
Im curious if Ace Combat 5 for PS2 is emulated in the PS4 edition of Ace Combat 7
@@bigdoggo5827 That's right. It's probably why there was a different pre-order bonus on Xbox One, which was Ace Combat 6 for the 360 running through backwards compatibility.
@ThatFuckingSned They didn't want to make a PS2 emulator for Xbox One, huh. Well, the fans steppee up there.
And to your original point: using 50hz was only bad for games originally made for 60hz. If Medievil was there, that game SHOULD be 50hz for example.
when you upload, it's always a treat
What an amazing birthday gift to get! A Tech Rules upload, LETS GO!
16:15 Small correction, this happens in the original version as well. It's just that the platform goes _faster_ on the emulator.
Edit: no I'm dumb
what? the floating point rounds closest to 0 and not to the nearest number. that means it drifts ever so slightly closer to the vertical origin of the level. if the platform was faster then it would just stay put. where did you even get that
@@marioisawesome8218 Darn, I thought I heard it somewhere but I guess I was mistaken?
@@marioisawesome8218 Ok I was wrong, it was something about TAS versus actual gameplay instead...