Nintendo Entertainment System - Bad Dudes - EMU - Points - 69,700 - Andrew Mee

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Originally Posted by Don Atreides

Also with the Wii Virtual Console and numerous ports of games to other consoles (Intellivision Lives, Capcom Classics Collection, Sega Classics Collection,Sega Genesis Collection, Sonic Mega Collection Plus, Namco Museum, Arcade's Greatest Hits, and all the NES games available on the GBA) it seems completely unnecessary to do this. All this plus the Everdrive which gives you access to any NES rom and allows you to compete with genuine NES records. And all of this applies to the Genesis, SNES, TG16 and others. Do we really want to duplicate everything in the database AGAIN?

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Jace's TG is intended to be a place that is open to game play for all aspects of gaming. Placing any arbitrary limitation on its use based on the mindset of a select few is the opposite. Learn to enjoy what you like about gaming without attempting to presenting artificial limitations on other's views.

Examples:
Rage: clarifying vision of emulator use.
Hanasu: identifying research done by third-parties.
Pat: clarifying that additional steps would provide better evidence.
Don: MESS suggestion.

I don't understand how you go from being open-minded to nay-saying in two responses...

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Originally Posted by pat33999

No input file? I'd argue that as a piece of evidence, it's at least as important as video, if not more so. They provide details that you can't see by watching a video. An input file combined with a video is the best possible evidence package.

Attachment 14501

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I didn't know that FCEUX had a recording option - and I'm sure many others won't know. Like Commodore 64/Spectrum emulated submissions, there's no hard & fast rules governing their use: just tradition that it be a PAL model and a decent emulator. I see no need to treat NES any different from C64/Spectrum.

Note: MAME is a different ballpark with rules requiring the INP and specific version of emulator so I would not compare any other platform's emulation to MAME.

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Originally Posted by Don Atreides

Why not use MESS for console emulation? It outputs an INP file, yes?

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It's an option. Traditionally MESS lags behind on good emulation compared to the popular platform-specific emulators, however. I also find it a mess to use. I see no reason to prevent it from use but am personally wary of its implementation on complex scenarios (mappers in NES, for example) - more my mindset than any real reflection, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Barthax

I didn't know that FCEUX had a recording option - and I'm sure many others won't know. Like Commodore 64/Spectrum emulated submissions, there's no hard & fast rules governing their use: just tradition that it be a PAL model and a decent emulator. I see no need to treat NES any different from C64/Spectrum.*

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Except for the PAL aspect... NES has far more NTSC games and popularity in the US/Japan. If a specific game requires PAL, then PAL-be-it. Otherwise, probably best NTSC for the game (this game is NTSC-specific: the PAL version is listed separately on the scoreboard already).

Also, add Atari 2600 into the mix for emulator comparison... for example.

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Originally Posted by Don Atreides

Also with the acceptance of Everdrive submissions, this seems like an unnecessary can of worms to open.

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Answering this bit separately as it is divergent (spot the movie!). Everdrive has already opened multiple cans of worms that aren't resolved and there are very strong suspicions of users using emulated submissions for real NES - the two combined make NES an adjudication difficulty. If the outlet is open for emulated submissions, there's one less reason for an emulator-gamer to attempt to hoodwink the adjudicators and a wider audience of gamers can potentially be reached.

I agree that other platform emulation shouldn't be directly compared to MAME, but it is valid to discuss how MAME excels in some aspects and has had a long history of performance validation via INP. I know you weren't saying the discussion was invalid. Comparing NES emulation to C64 and Atari emulation is an even comparison in my book.

Now, since we're trying to shape the things to come by discussing this ability in the modern age of TG for players to create and submit like this, here are my opinions:

1. The more evidence the better will always be the case but a lack of further evidence in some cases shouldn't necessarily disqualify the submission (video vs. video + INP). See #2 for further detail.
2. Open source emulators should always be used to foster accessibility. If an open source emulator is available for a particular platform that has an input recording feature (INP creation) it should be used. If it is not available, video evidence should suffice.
3. Players should strive to use the same emulator as their contemporary competitors if it is favorable. Example would be NES emulation players all using FCEUX because it's open source and can record INPs. Ten years from now it wouldn't be fair to say you have to use FCEUX because it could be a dinosaur by then, so it has to be relative to contemporary play.

I think that's all I have to contribute to this discussion.

I had one more!

4. For video-only submissions, all efforts should be made to display all settings in an effective and visible manner. Frame rate is a big one I know. Just show everything I guess. Leave nothing to question if you're submitting video-only evidence for emulation runs.

I was thinking about this again and I'm still convinced that we don't to spread the competition out any further. Allowing emulation for games that are already emulated on the Wii VC and many, many "Collections", Vs. MAME, etc.

Look at Mega Man for instance. You can currently submit a Mega Man 1 score on 13 platforms:
- Mega Man Legacy Collection (PS4)
- Mega Man Legacy Collection (XBox One)
- Mega Man Legacy Collection (Nintendo DS)
- Mega Man Anniversary Collection (PS2) Both NTSC and PAL
- Mega Man Anniversary Collection (Gamecube) Both NTSC and PAL
- Mega Man Anniversary Collection (XBox) Both NTSC and PAL
- Capcom Essentials (PS3)
- Capcom Essentials (XBox 360)
- Wii Virtual Console
- Original NES (real cart or Everdrive)

Come on - that's ridiculous. I don't think we don't need more accessibility. All we're going be doing is jamming up the submission queue and diluting the database. I think it's a really, really bad idea.

That's an understandable view from someone with access & will power to want to toe the line of the existing scoreboard. Not having NES emulation on the scoreboard (and many other emulation) has turned away 10s/100s of people in the past.

As for your example, by the fact we have so many Mega Man on the scoreboard does this also mean you would like the 3DS version of the collection to remain never tracked? How about when it comes out for the Nintendo NX - probably sometime 2018 given the NX is due next year + some time for typical bugs to be ironed out & then the back catalogue being made again...

That's just it. I'm certain that it WILL be tracked when the NX comes out - which is why we don't need it twice (or 14 times). Some tracks are inevitable as games are made, I can accept that. But adding tracks to the database unnecessarily should be avoided in my opinion. I don't really see how this benefits anyone except those trying to avoid paying game publishers for their games.

Also, emulators are VERY easy to cheat on - it's going to become an adjudication nightmare. WolfMAME is difficult enough to adjudicate as it is and it has built-in anti-cheat measures.