"Square Rape"... wth?

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:36 am

I've mentioned this several times in other threads but go no response. What's with this? Is anything being done about this? Why hasn't anything been done for so long? Would it be that hard to fix?

blackmyst · Post by **blackmyst** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:54 am

Simply put, Squaresoft and many other companies (Square games just being the most well known example) fuck with the hardware to produce the desired noise. And this is hard to emulate, because since it takes advantage of stuff that the hardware wasn't really designed for, accurate timing is crucial.

Though I believe this is mentioned in many places.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 8:12 am

But what the hell... I've been using Zsnes since I was in the 6th or 7th grade and that would be 6 or 7 years ago, and I remember Zsnes used to have proper sound with Chrono Trigger in the earlier versions. Snes9x never had problems with it and it still doesn't but sadly windows xp on my computer hates Snes9x.

The first time I used Zsnes was on a super ancient laptop which was 12mhz... I ran the game in DOS. The first game? Chrono Trigger of course. On that note how fast/slow were laptops 7 years ago? I seriously think they were waaaaay faster than 12mhz, this one just happened to be one that was lying around... probably for a number of years before I came across it.

blackmyst · Post by **blackmyst** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 8:35 am

hax

They have been removed now.

But Zsnes has never had completely accurate sound for all games, even with hacks. Neither has Snes9x (unless there has been a recent update I'm unaware of).

But others are more qualified to talk about this stuff than I am.

12 Mhz? Haha, uhh, for some reason I don't think you're remembering that right.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 8:55 am

blackmyst wrote:hax

They have been removed now.

But Zsnes has never had completely accurate sound for all games, even with hacks. Neither has Snes9x (unless there has been a recent update I'm unaware of).

But others are more qualified to talk about this stuff than I am.

12 Mhz? Haha, uhh, for some reason I don't think you're remembering that right.

I've mentioned the 12mhz laptop before in a bunch of other threads. I would think I was smoking shit as well if it weren't for the fact that I still have it. And yes I confirmed (EDIT: I confirmed that a long time ago, I could be wrong), it is a 12mhz compaq laptop with a colour screen (looks about 14 inches). Possibly one of the first standard colour laptops out there.

blackmyst · Post by **blackmyst** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:12 am

You should try running CT on it again and estimate the average FPS, heh.

I mean, since the minimum requirements for Zsnes to run smoothly apparently lie around 200-300 mhz, or something.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:19 am

blackmyst wrote:You should try running CT on it again and estimate the average FPS, heh.

I mean, since the minimum requirements for Zsnes to run smoothly apparently lie around 200-300 mhz, or something.

Isn't 200mhz the amount needed to run windows zsnes? I'm talking about Ye Olde Fashione DOS. I really hope I wasn't on shit and that it's 12mhz and not 12mb of stone age RAM or something.

I hope it still works, but I can't seem to find it's adapter. But I recall beating CT on it with horrible lag. I beat the game with chars from level 30-40 because leveling up took forever due to the lag and because of those low level it was damn hard beating lavos. If I'm not mistaken it should have been about 15fps which is amazing for 12mhz.

I will do my best to test it one more time if I can find it's parts. I remember it couldn't switch video modes so I had to disable the BG3 layer in certain areas of CT in order to see anything. Man I'm gonna test it tomorrow if I can.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 11:34 am

The speed boost from switching to the DOS version is not that much... only a few fps, in my experience.

12 MB sounds more likely to me.

dansun · Post by **dansun** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:00 am

I'm sure this question has been asked plenty of times before since it's such an obvious one, but I can't seem to find the answer anywhere I look. Why doesn't zsnes take the code used for supposedly better sound cores from other emulators such as sneese or the sound core from snesamp? That way, it would combine all the features and compatibility of zsnes with well-emulated spc700 code. I suppose of course there may be licensing issues or maybe the spc700 timing code is so intertwined with that of the cpu core that it would be impossible unless one would rewrite the spc700 code in zsnes to conform to say the equivalent code in sneese.

Sorry if this question has already been answered or if my post is just plain stupid.

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:03 am

Maybe they are trying to do it, and it's hard or the process takes time? Or maybe those other emulators are using hacks?

Post by **grinvader** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:04 am

It's just not feasible without major headbanging. It's like trying to fit a cube in a triangle slot.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:45 am

Uh back on topic can those hax be reimplimented? I'm playing Chrono Trigger now and hearing the sound butchered so horribly makes me want to punch a wall or something. Which is a bad idea, walls are too soft.

Starman Ghost · Post by **Starman Ghost** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:47 am

FireKnight wrote:Uh back on topic can those hax be reimplimented?

No. Never.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:54 am

Megabyte wrote:
FireKnight wrote:Uh back on topic can those hax be reimplimented?
No. Never.

Don't make me ban you from the internet.

But seriously can they be reimplimented or would there be a problem with that?

blackmyst · Post by **blackmyst** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 8:05 am

I think there's been lenghty discussion about that in the past. I wouldn't know where to dig up the thread on it though.

I think it might be somewhere in the WIP thread, even.

Stifu · Post by **Stifu** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 8:34 am

FireKnight wrote:But seriously can they be reimplimented or would there be a problem with that?

There would be a problem, it's been discussed before indeed...

Basically:

1- It's unclean
2- From what I gathered, hacks only work with a limited amount of ROM sets, as coders have to specify them one by one... Which means ROM hacks, translations etc won't "benefit" of the hacks unless the coders bother adding them to the list of ROM sets the hacks will work with.
3- Hacks sometimes get in the way of coders, one of them mentioned how a game actually worked better without hacks, so he's been wasting time trying different stuff because one hack or more were fucking things up... Or something.

The ZSNES team is (rightfully) trying to slowly but surely reduce the amount of hacks used in the emu... Using more hacks would be like adding more obstacles to the endless quest of trying to get closer to "perfect emulation"... Or something, yeah. o_o

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 8:48 am

Stifu wrote:
FireKnight wrote:But seriously can they be reimplimented or would there be a problem with that?
There would be a problem, it's been discussed before indeed...

Basically:

1- It's unclean
2- From what I gathered, hacks only work with a limited amount of ROM sets, as coders have to specify them one by one... Which means ROM hacks, translations etc won't "benefit" of the hacks unless the coders bother adding them to the list of ROM sets the hacks will work with.
3- Hacks sometimes get in the way of coders, one of them mentioned how a game actually worked better without hacks, so he's been wasting time trying different stuff because one hack or more were fucking things up... Or something.

The ZSNES team is (rightfully) trying to slowly but surely reduce the amount of hacks used in the emu... Using more hacks would be like adding more obstacles to the endless quest of trying to get closer to "perfect emulation"... Or something, yeah. o_o

Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important. Bah maybe the sound is better in the latest WIP or something, it's been forever since I used one of those. Now if I can only remember what the hell the WIP page's URL was. To the google mobile!

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 11:17 am

http://www.ipherswipsite.com/zsnes/

Just download the last version that still had the hacks.

Post by **grinvader** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 11:34 am

FireKnight wrote:Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important.

No hack is important. Ever. Period.

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 11:37 am

grinvader wrote:
FireKnight wrote:Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important.
No hack is important. Ever. Period.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:41 pm

SquareHead wrote:
grinvader wrote:
FireKnight wrote:Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important.
No hack is important. Ever. Period.

Absolutely. I third this!

1.) Adding hacks to the emulator counters true emulation and having many hacks impedes one's ability to work on improving proper emulation..

2.) As mentioned, it's unclean code.

Yeah, I know we all have appreciated a hack or two in the emulator to be able to play our favorite game properly if at all(I think Emerald Dragon still won't run without a hack?), BUT.. in general, we should stay away from them. Once they have been removed, they should stay out. No new hacks should be added.

Jipcy · Post by **Jipcy** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 4:05 pm

FireKnight wrote:Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important.

It's a difference of priority. Most emulator coders strive towards accurate emulation, but most emulator users just want the benefits of accurate emulation: playable games. You want Chrono Trigger more playable, but in order to do that, the programmers have to make a less accurate emulator.

Try SNEeSe. I think it might accurately emulate SPC rape. Or wait until bsnes has more features, like sound buffering, savestates, and joypad input.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 5:02 pm

Nightcrawler wrote:
SquareHead wrote:
grinvader wrote:
FireKnight wrote:Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important.
No hack is important. Ever. Period.

Starman Ghost · Post by **Starman Ghost** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:18 pm

adventure_of_link wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:
SquareHead wrote:
grinvader wrote:
FireKnight wrote:Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important.
No hack is important. Ever. Period.

Which is exactly why my response was "No. Never.".

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:57 pm

Megabyte wrote:
adventure_of_link wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:
SquareHead wrote:
grinvader wrote:
FireKnight wrote:Yes but I think it's safe to say this one hack is quite important.
No hack is important. Ever. Period.
Which is exactly why my response was "No. Never.".

Yeah, you're right.