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  • Showing only topics with the tag "emulation". Back to normal view
    1. With Yuzu and Citra gone, why is Dolphin seemingly unaffected?

      Given the fact that Yuzu (a Nintendo Switch emulator) and Citra (a Nintendo 3DS emulator) were recently taken down by Nintendo's legal team, is there a reason why Dolphin (an emulator for Gamecube...

      Given the fact that Yuzu (a Nintendo Switch emulator) and Citra (a Nintendo 3DS emulator) were recently taken down by Nintendo's legal team, is there a reason why Dolphin (an emulator for Gamecube and Nintendo Wii) is still going strong? Did Dolphin take any extra steps to protect themselves from lawsuits, or it's just a case of Nintendo taking their time?

      24 votes
    2. On Bleem v. Sony and the legality of emulators

      The Bleem v. Sony case is often brought up whenever legal action against emulators happens, and I got curious, so I dug a bit deeper. It's quite hard, as most of the actual source material is not...

      The Bleem v. Sony case is often brought up whenever legal action against emulators happens, and I got curious, so I dug a bit deeper. It's quite hard, as most of the actual source material is not publicly available for free, only the appeal decision by the ninth court. But from what I've gathered from secondary sources, this is what actually happened.

      1. Sony sues Bleem on one count of unfair competition and one count of copyright violation for the use of Sony game screenshots in Bleem advertising.
      2. A judge dismisses the unfair competition claim. Sony wins the copyright violation.
      3. Bleem appeals, and the Ninth Court reverses the decision on copyright violation for advertisement material.
      4. Sony sues again, this time for unfair competition and also patent infringement for using their BIOS.
      5. Sony and Bleem settle for an undisclosed amount. Bleem declares bankruptcy.

      As far as I can tell, the only precedent was on whether or not you can use a competitor's screenshots in your advertisement, and indeed that's all I've ever seen the case referred to in future cases. The first unfair competition claim was dismissed (so cannot be a precedent) and the second case was settled. I see a lot of people say that this case set a "precedent" that "emulation is legal", but I don't see how?

      Is this just another case where through a game of telephone and rumors people just take it for assumed fact that somehow or another this case "set a precedent that emulation is legal"? For over 20 years?

      On whether or not emulation is legal, generally things are legal unless they are made to be illegal; there is certainly no specific law that says that emulation is legal. The question, then, is whether or not emulation is inadvertently made illegal by an existing law.

      In that respect, Bleem v. Sony is a useful indicator in that Sony's lawyers couldn't really find anything concrete to nail Bleem on. But not really more than that, unless you really care about whether or not an emulator can use screenshots in their advertisements.

      19 votes
    3. Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu, saying their tech illegally circumvents Nintendo's software encryption and facilitates piracy

      @Stephen Totilo: NEW: Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu, saying their tech illegally circumvents Nintendo's software encryption and facilitates piracy. Seeks damages for alleged violations and a shutdown of the emulator. pic.twitter.com/SGZVI6Cs0x

      67 votes
    4. Word processing like it's 1993

      I thought younger people may find it interesting to experience what older, very popular, word processors were like. Here's WordPerfect 6.0, emulated in the browser:...

      I thought younger people may find it interesting to experience what older, very popular, word processors were like.

      Here's WordPerfect 6.0, emulated in the browser: https://archive.org/details/msdos_wordperfect6

      Here's a link to the instruction manual: https://archive.org/details/wordperfectversi00word/mode/2up

      Here's a bit of history: DOSDays - WordPerfect $495 in 1983 is roughly $1500 today.

      Here's the recommended specs (not the minimum specs)

      Personal computer using 386 processor
      520k free conventional memory
      DOS 6.0 or memory management software
      Hard disk with 16M disk space for complete installation
      VGA graphics adapter and monitor

      F1 is the default help key.

      Page 409 of the manual talks about menus. This is version 6 so they give you a drop down menu. To get an idea of how version 5 and earlier would appear by default (without the menubar, just the blue screen), hit alt v, then p. T (To get the menu back hit alt =, then V, then P) People might find it weird but those drop down menus first appeared in 5.1, and were a bit deal: "On 6th November 1989 WordPerfect released what would be their most successful version - WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, selling for $495 in the U.S. This was the first version to support Macintosh-style text-based pull down menus to supplement the traditional function key shortcuts and mouse support."

      I'd be interested to know how easy people find it to use. At the time I had the keyboard overlay (example for WP5) and the muscle memory, but that's all gone now.

      53 votes
    5. What are some games that you recommend emulating today?

      I should be getting a Steam Deck soon and plan to spend a lot of time diving into old console libraries. What are some games from previous generations that you recommend revisiting today? That is:...

      I should be getting a Steam Deck soon and plan to spend a lot of time diving into old console libraries.

      What are some games from previous generations that you recommend revisiting today? That is: games you feel have aged well and that aren’t readily available via a re-release or re-master elsewhere.

      Any console and any recommendation is fair game, but I’m definitely interested in the kinds of recommendations that aren’t likely to show up in “The 25 Best Games for the [Console Name]”-type articles out there. I already know Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid are great for the PSOne, for example, but what about the thousands of other games for the system? Give me some deep cuts!

      29 votes
    6. Recommend me a small SBC!

      So I'm looking to do an improved version of this project from a couple of years ago that rebuilt the dreamcast VMU into an emulator system that could even interface with a modified dreamcast...

      So I'm looking to do an improved version of this project from a couple of years ago that rebuilt the dreamcast VMU into an emulator system that could even interface with a modified dreamcast controller using the original connector. That project was really neat, but it used a raspberry pi zero, which is frankly anemic for running any emulators past the SNES, and I'd like to find one that's powerful enough to emulate the dreamcast itself, but small enough to fit inside a VMU. To that end, my requirements are:

      • Must be of a similar size to the pi zero. Smaller would be better, but it absolutely cannot be more than 40x65mm.

      • Must have a processor at least as powerful as a cortex A53, preferably something more powerful like the A72.

      • Must have a release of armbian (or similar) with drivers for full video acceleration.

      • Must be able to drive a display over SPI.

      • Must be available. The NanoPi NEO Core 2 is pretty close to what I need, if maybe a bit underpowered, but it seems to be discontinued and I can't find it anywhere but aliexpress at double the list price.

      • Composite video out would be nice.

      • Analog audio out would be nice.

      • Availability without soldered headers and large ports would be nice, like the pi zero or nanopi neo.

      9 votes