Emulation coding is tricky business done by some people that are clearly 100x smarter than I am, and now the Nintendo Switch emulator yuzu devs are just showing off.
In their April 2023 progress report, they talked about a big performance improvement landing thanks to a rewrite of most of their old buffer cache code, plus work in other areas. The result is that you could see up to 87% better performance, although they said for most people it will probably be about 50%.
Just look at these differences (click to enlarge):
They said nothing special is needed to get this boost, you just need to be up to date and set GPU accuracy to "Normal".
Plenty more was mentioned like asynchronous presentation with Vulkan, which is behind a tickbox, because in some cases it might make frametimes less consistent but for a lot of people it might actually make things smoother. It needs more testing for them to be sure where to enable it.
The Linux side of yuzu got some nice improvements too like fixing up the initialization of the Vulkan swapchain on Wayland, making it work better for NVIDIA GPU owners and also a crash with Flatpak was solved too.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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psycho_driver May 12, 2023
Quoting: Mar2ckQuoting: legluondunetWe had never known an emulator that emulates a console still on sale.Not true, it happened with the N64 (UltraHLE), the GBA (NO$GBA) and the DS (Desmume). Citra was running most 3DS games about half way through that console's sales period so you could say that one counts too. This isn't a new phenomenon.
If I'm not remembering incorrectly Dolphin was already working pretty damn good in 2010-2011 which was very much in the wheelhouse of Nintendo's product cycle for the Wii.
Ethical discussion about emulation aside, this performance bump is really impressive for a project that's been out there for as long as yuzu now. Kudos to the devs.
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Quoting: mr-victoryQuoting: Cybolicwhen it became possible to play DVD films on PC DVD drivesWait, it wasn't possible initially?
Yes but also no. For more info you can read about DeCSS. Basically Windows (and over on the Apple side, MacOS) DVD players paid for a license from the DVD Copy Association, so they could play DVDs on computers. But for obvious reasons that left out other OSes such as linux, bsd, etc. DeCSS leveled that playing field.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyMy understanding of the business model for consoles is they lose money on the consoles but make it back on the games.This is the Sony/MS business model where they compete on hardware and sell it at a loss to keep the price down. Nintendo doesn’t take part in the hardware race, so they most probably have been making a profit on Switch hardware from day 1. I’m sure people have written about this.
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Quoting: KomorebiQuoting: mr-victoryQuoting: Cybolicwhen it became possible to play DVD films on PC DVD drivesWait, it wasn't possible initially?
Yes but also no. For more info you can read about DeCSS. Basically Windows (and over on the Apple side, MacOS) DVD players paid for a license from the DVD Copy Association, so they could play DVDs on computers. But for obvious reasons that left out other OSes such as linux, bsd, etc. DeCSS leveled that playing field.
I think initially PCs may have been too slow to play DVDs in software. I had a hardware DVD video decoder for that. It must have been around 97-98?
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If Nintendo released their games on PC, they'd sell like hotcakes. Their brand is so strong, they probably wouldn't even need to go through Steam. It's an untapped goldmine that Nintendo actively chooses to leave on the table. Why the hell would I feel bad for them when people resort to unofficial means? It's the only option they've been provided!
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Quoting: legluondunetThe gap between today's consoles and working emulators is narrowing. We had never known an emulator that emulates a console still on sale. I don't think it's ethical to publicly release an emulator of a console that's still on sale, in my view, developers should at least wait for the end of life of a console. Nintendo is an innovative company and produces user-friendly games, switch emulators must be costing them a lot of money.
You must be young because I recall playing PlayStation 1 games on my PC long before the PS2 was out. I had a decent PC so had no interest in getting one but there were a few games I played on my friends PS1 that I loved so I bought Tekken 3, Grand Turismo, and a couple more. If it was not for those early PS1 emulators I never would have bought those games and the Devs would have got zero money from me.
If you are ok with a company holding your saves of many hours hostage behind a pay wall be my guess but don't judge other people because they don't want to be mug.
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To add to the great points already made in this thread, it's also important from a preservation standpoint to be concerned with improving the quality of emulation while the console being emulated is still in the mainstream. The current gen emulators tend to benefit from rapid development, so it's a good thing for the sake of the project to take advantage of that while the hardware is still being sold. The alternative is protecting poor Nintendo from the boogieman that is software piracy and hoping that people still care about emulating the Switch after it's EOL.
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ElectricPrism May 13, 2023
Imagine being a WhiteKnightTM for a multi-billion dollar corporation that has a history of hostility towards gamers who love the products so much they become modders or make fan games.
Also imagine being so hastily judgemental you naively believe everyone who emulates is doing so unlawfully.
I'm sure there are people in this thread who have bought various Nintendo games half a dozen times over the last 30 years. It's not weird at all. Get over it and get off your self righteous high horse making the world a worse place for the rest of us.
If you don't have a literal leg to stand on -- don't just invent theoretical bullshit to simp for an oppressor.
Nintendo, having not released on PC, is obviously xenophobic and tone-deaf to what customers want. Don't be a battered housewife enabling bad behavior.
Also imagine being so hastily judgemental you naively believe everyone who emulates is doing so unlawfully.
I'm sure there are people in this thread who have bought various Nintendo games half a dozen times over the last 30 years. It's not weird at all. Get over it and get off your self righteous high horse making the world a worse place for the rest of us.
If you don't have a literal leg to stand on -- don't just invent theoretical bullshit to simp for an oppressor.
Nintendo, having not released on PC, is obviously xenophobic and tone-deaf to what customers want. Don't be a battered housewife enabling bad behavior.
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If we were talking about GPLed software you'd be whining about how immoral this behavior is. It's the copyright's owner privilige to decide how anything is released. This is true for Free & proprietary software.
If you don't like Nintendo, why are you buying stuff from them & support their "anti-consumer" behavior?
If you don't like Nintendo, why are you buying stuff from them & support their "anti-consumer" behavior?
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