Emulation & Preservation.
Discover more from Daryl+
Emulation & Preservation.
The ones I use almost every week.
Pre-Order ‘The Making of Tomb Raider’ book here.
Hello.
First of all, this isn’t a post full of where to download games to run the following emulators. Make sure you own the games you want to run on your PC first.
Emulators are something that I’ve used for years, ever since the days of UltraHLE and ePSXe, when I would play Knuckles Chaotix on a SEGA Mega Drive 32X emulator that would run the game at only 10 FPS.
Since then emulators have become incredibly powerful, not only replicating how a game can run perfectly, but also improving it through better textures and even mods.
With the Steam Deck showing how emulators could be even more of a possibility on the go than what Android handhelds could bring, I thought I’d draw up a quick list of the emulators I use the most, and the games I play for each.
DuckStation - Site
Before I had a Gaming PC, I was on both a Mac and an iPad, and I would use OpenEmu to play PSX games. But going back to the PC, I didn’t want a UI that hadn’t been updated in years like ePSXe - I wanted something similar to how Dolphin worked.
This is where DuckStation came in, and went right to the top in my choice for PSX emulators. It scans your directories and shows all the games available in a helpful list, but that’s only the start.
A plethora of cheats are already built-in to the emulator, so you can unlock plenty of things to extend your playthrough of Metal Gear or Rosco McQueen.
Even different filters and hotkeys of fast forwarding, screenshotting, or even rewinding if you’ve made an error.
It’s being updated almost daily, and there’s even an Android port with a macOS version at an early stage.
Dolphin - Site
The cream of the emulation crop, and as recent as this year they’ve managed to implement Game Boy Advance emulation to enable the features of GameCube and Game Boy Advance connectivity in some games, such as Wind Waker.
The team have a focus of accuracy here rather than speed, and it shows in every game you load up. It was thought of as impossible in having Rogue Squadron II play at full speed as recent as 2015, but now it’s as easy to run as any other game. I run every game in 2K/1440p, and with features that enable cheats, texture replacements, widescreen view, there’s plenty here to give you the HD remaster that you’ve been hoping for, for years.
Cxbx-Reloaded - Site
I had been watching the progress of this emulator for years after many false starts in the Xbox emulation scene, mainly so I could play Star Wars: Obi Wan at full speed.
As the above shows, it now runs great. It’s still at an early version compared to the other emulators here admittedly - some features are greyed out, some features are visible but not clearly explained, and some games simply crash or not run well at all, such as Genma Onimusha.
However, for the games it does run, it runs well, especially with my Dual Shock 4.
PCSX2 - Site
This is an emulator as old as Dolphin, however the UI and how it runs on modern PCs is starting to show its age, but it more than makes up for this in its high compatibility with the PS2 library.
Running everything with hacks and at a 1440p resolution to make everything super sharp is a breeze, while playing games that have next to no chance of seeing a re-release such as Tekken 4, Wipeout Fusion and AirBlade, run perfectly.
The standard features are also here, such as save states and widescreen patches, but again, the dated UI and the fact the app still runs on 32-bit, and only Windows machines is prompting other PS2 emulators such as PLAY! to emerge and run almost-well on Android devices.
If there’s one thing I can take away since having a Gaming PC for the last eighteen months, alongside a dedicated GPU in November 2020, is that emulation has mutated into something that’s more accessible for all now.
It’s become much easier to go from downloading an emulator, to playing a game with a controller in far less steps and time from what I remember around 2006.
There’s net play, high-res textures, built-in cheats, and upscaled/widescreen hacks to make so many games shine.
Again, it comes back to preservation. While the word ‘emulation’ is almost a forbidden word in some gaming circles, it only highlights how some companies seem so far behind in maintaining their history in gaming, whether that’s Sony, or Nintendo, or even Disney with the properties and rights they have now.
The absence of official means only spurs others to make incredible emulators such as the above, and until companies become more accepting of the scene, they’re only going to get better.
Thanks for reading.