The future of portables...

Lucretius · Post by **Lucretius** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:04 pm

I've noticed a frightening trend. Emulators. Now I like the gp as much as anyone (cept tri, he just loves it!). Now we can do WAY more than half of what ben's done just by buying. Kinda scary. Thoughts? Is portablizationing a lost art? Or was it never really found?

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:12 pm

Well, I think the answer is simple enough: portablizing will stick around for as long as people enjoy doing it.

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:19 pm

sure, i use emulators...but there is nothing better than the real thing( or a portable of it, for this case ) And i agree, portablization will live on for eternity...just because people enjoy doing it!

Post by **Skyone** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:24 pm

I don't use much emulators, sometimes, but on my next project: YES!

I love portable making, I don't think it will ever die out.

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:29 pm

One key difference:

Portables are legal. Emulators with commercial ROMS are not.

Besides just by buying something from the store you don't get the fun and experience of building one yourself. Handyman-ness skills (for lack of a better word) are a lost art. People don't know how a car works, they just know how to use it. They don't fix things themselves because it's easier to pay someone to do it.

Not to mention compatibility on some emulators is awful.

Turbo Tax 1.0 · Post by **Turbo Tax 1.0** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:00 pm

remember, emulation will never be perfect, plus i think its just plain cool having people ask you a bunch o questions about your portables and stuff, and portables are pretty fun to build

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:17 pm

one of the reason emulators even started (i think), is that someone wanted the challenge of getting to know the electronics of a game system inside-out. there are entire communities of people just like us dedicated to hacking apart consoldes and figuring out exactly how all the signals and data and stuff works. most recently this happend to the nitendo DS (there are almost working emus for it). i wasnt a part of this, but i followed it rather closely.

what im trying to say is that they have their fun, and we have ours. its all just different people with different ways of learning about and getting firsthand experience with electronics. even if protabilization DOES die (it wont), you guys arent giving the emulation scen enough credit. its actually more involved electronically than portabilization is.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 10:14 pm

I measure success in terms of fun.

Emulation: Not all that fun. You have to screw with the settings all the time to get it right. Then of course you have downlaod games. You know how fun that is....

Virus city baby. Then theres the whole "friends tattle to their parents aobut your 'pirated' (I own the games on hard copy anyways, but they don't care) games on your computer, then the parents try to talk to me about piracy" thing.

Then after all the searching on crappy sites, and painfully slow downloading at 28.8k , of the game you already own, you laod it only to find....the game dosn't work.

The GP32 emus might be better than most I ahve tried, I dunno. That's jsut my experience with them so far. It's worth it to play MAME games, bu not console games. For those, I jsut dust off the original system and play it.

Now portablizing: That is the complete opposite of emulation.The games always work thanks to 100% compatibility. No messing with settigns, just plug and play, man. 100% legal too!
And the best part, YOU get to decide what YOU like! You liek the NES D-pad better than a PS1 pad, use it. You like 15 minute recharegable AA's better than Li-Ions, use em. Small screen Vs. Big screen, up to you. AV out, HECK YAH!
Heck, you could even get artsy if you wnated too, and draw nudes on the front of it. Whatever the heck you like, you can do it! (I jsut used heck three times.... Gotta stop that.)

One thing that I really like is everyones amazement when you show it to them after all the hard work. It's great! You show a PSP with an emu on it an they won't show half that enthusiasm.

The only draw back to portablizing is the size, weight, looks, and batterie life. But those are improving vastly as we get more info on how to make them batter.

And it's educational! Really! I learned 90% of my electronics skills from this hobby. My parents often lend me a bit of cash for my projects since they know I'm learning stuff, and it's batter than actually playing video games from their view

Emulation has it's place and I love it. But there's something jsut cool about making it yourslef and sticking the cart/CD into the thing and seeing it run.

Post by **Gamelver** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 11:04 pm

all I know is that I'm still gonna portablize as long as I can help it, and if other people want emulation, then fine.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:03 am

Emulations and portables will always be around. There are going to be people that want one of these. Some will want emualtion because as of PIII its become easy to emaulate 32/64bit game system. Others will want portables as its the real deal and you can use your own media like with those built here.

I know that as of now it would be easier to make a PSone portable that fits in your hand easier then emulating the system. The reason I say this is because the PSone hardware has been reduce to one chip in the PS2, and Sony will likely never release the software/bios code to the public. This can all be the same for the N64 too.

I'm very sure that the hardcore Dreamcast people would prefer an actual DOAC to a computer emulating the system.

Conn · Post by **Conn** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 1:00 am

G-force wrote:"friends tattle to their parents aobut your 'pirated' (I own the games on hard copy anyways, but they don't care) games on your computer, then the parents try to talk to me about piracy" thing.

1) ROMs are illegal unless you make the back-up yourself.
2) Only certain publishers allow back-up copies.

So yeah, your friends are right. Unless..
1) They lost their copyright.
2) They're homebrew.
3) They've been released by the developer and or publisher.

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 5:52 am

yeah, some system's roms are LEAGAL, because they have stopped producing them, thus removing the copyright.........but some(N64, PS1) are illeagal, unless you use the original cd/cart.................or you know how to rip cd's and make n64 backups.....cough...cough...me.....cough....whow, i better get to the docter.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 6:20 am

Uhh...you know game copyrights are effective for 75 years right?

The first ROM won't be legal till 2036 (when we can all Legally play Spacewar!)

cowsgoquack101 · Post by **cowsgoquack101** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:16 am

I'd say that PC emulators will kinda vanish into the whole PC/console system. But then there will be emulators for that. Sooo...but portabilization will be around forever. Because the technology will just get better and better, and smaller too.

legoboy · Post by **legoboy** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 8:02 am

I just like messing around with the electronics. I think protablizing will stay as long as supplies last. I doubt any systems from now on will be able to be portablized, other than maybe nintendo systems. Emulating is cool, but it just can't be replaced by the feeling of blowing on a hunk of plastic, shoving it in a slot, and playing on the original system.