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[hououinkyouma00]

I woke up this morning in a very nostalgic mood and decided that I wanted to play one of my favorite games of all time The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker. I remembered that I already had the WiiU version downloaded on my hard drive for CEMU so I booted it up and played about 6-7 ours this morning/afternoon. This is the longest that I've ever emulated anything in over 20 years of playing on PC not including trying out tons of games for a few minutes each.

I've just always had an aversion to emulation. I prefer to play on original hardware, and have on multiple occasions bought older consoles that I no longer owned in order to play older games. As an example about 6 months ago I spend more money then I would have wanted to on a New Nintendo 3DS XL (technically LL as it's an import) in order to play DS/3DS games (despite having a flashcard for DS that I mainly use for GBA titles I only really use it on my old DS Lite as it could play GBA natively) even though I could easily emulate them and turn my monitor and have a BIG 3Ds experience.

As somebody that is also into minimalism I like the idea of emulation as it could help simplify and downsize some stuff but I just can't seem to stick with it and fall back to original hardware despite a lesser experience.

This combined with a recent video from Hoki Hoshi about the Spec II mod for Gran Turismo 4 got me thinking and I was wondering what the main reason for people choosing to emulate is.

tl;dr I can't seem to force myself to emulate stuff despite knowing it's a better experience in many ways and I'm wondering what people's main reason for emulating are.

Also curious what people emulate on like PC, retro handhelds, Steam Deck, etc.

 

[amigastar]

I'm honest

 

[Fortress of Regrets]

Performance. Image quality.

Old games and Switch games look great on PC at higher frame rates and higher resolution. It has been wonderful being able to dump my Switch games. I have a large collection of physical Switch games and some of them are just better on PC.

So, convenience, I guess?

 

[Pelao]

In my case it is for convenience.
I have a dualshock 4 phone clip, so my phone is pretty much my retro portable with hundreds of games up to PSP.

 

[RoboFu]

only thing I emulate is when I am messing around programming for the nes or genesis.

I own a lot of real consoles.

I do play back ups of games I own and homebrew on those consoles though.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

I'm honest

I know for a lot of people this is the real reason which I get because as much as I would love to play Haunting Ground, Rule of Rose, and LSD Dream Emulator there is no chance in hell I'm paying the horrendous prices for those games unless I won the lottery or something.

 

[PauloRoberto]

I could only finish Metroid Dread running via emulator... that cursed EMMIs aren't hard... they are simply boring, a mod to make the last parry 100% valid was/is a bless.

 

[lughnasadh123]

I used to long ago but not for a long time always for multiple reasons names price and convenience.

 

[IFireflyl]

Mods/QoL Features: Being able to play games with higher refresh rate, and/or with upscaled textures, and/or with other QoL features (such as save states) is awesome.
Accessibility of old games: I have a ton of ROMs from older systems, and I can play them when/where I please. I don't need to worry about some third-party server going down.
Convenience: Everything accessed from one PC is a huge convenience. This includes both materially (I don't need to have space taken up by older consoles/platforms) and with accessibility (I don't need to fire up different devices, worry about my inputs, or have multiple different controllers).
Other: I also emulate games to be able to play them on the go (hello, Steam Deck).

 

[ap_puff]

I used to emulate in my college years because I couldn't afford to buy the systems, but mostly because they were arcade games through mame. Tried android emulation a few times for better performance on phone games but it was kinda not very good. Also emulated SNES/NES/PS1 in the late 2000s cause I wasnt gonna buy the systems for a single game

 

[Aesius]

Honestly, I like playing through old games with minimal bullshit. Emulators allow that.

I'm married with two kids and a full-time job. But I can still blast through a NES or SNES RPG in a fraction of the time it would normally take with save states, fast-forward and rewind functions, and even occasional Game Genie codes (if I use them, I limit myself to things that only give small boosts).

I've also found a lot of entertainment out of ROM hacks. The Legend of Zelda Remastered for NES is basically the definitive version of the game for me now. I don't 100% love the art style but it mostly looks great compared to the NES original.

 

[kapshin]

Because I can't afford a pirate ship so this is my only chance to sail.

 

[SyberWolf]

better graphics/framerate.

 

[Fbh]

Piracy is a "how" not a "why".
I don't think people emulate pirated games because it's piracy, they emulate pirated games because it's free and convenient.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Because I’m hard as fuck

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Nude mods

 

[Holammer]

I recently played Sunshine to completion with Dolphin. 60fps hack, HD textures, Lossless Scaling to 120fps and injected a CRT shader with reshade.
The best way to experience the game, so +1 vote for modding.

 

[Lokaum D+]

one machine to rule them all...

its cheaper, better, i dont need 600 consoles in a basement to enjoy my old games.

 

[Optimus Lime]

Because modern games are, in the main, utter shit - and emulation lets me play games from decades past at higher framerates and resolutions, while competing for epenis via Retroachievements and Twin Galaxies. Modern games cannot compete with a decently curated emulation setup, and 'offical' pathways to emulation (NSW/PS+) are always complete shit.

 

[ArtHands]

my steam deck hold thousands of Steam and retro console games, that the console makers and the publishers will never officially touch anymore, sometimes because the publisher studios has closed.

Parasite Eve, Onimusha, Street Fighter EX, classic Silent Hills, Fatal Frames, Rule of Roses. Console fans can continue to wait till the end of time for official release if they want. But not me

 

[BennyBlanco]

Performance and convenience. I’ve played through a ton of old games on Steam Deck the last few years.

 

[Mhmmm 2077]

Higher resolution, better framerate, availability, RetroAchievements, playing on the Deck.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

I woke up this morning in a very nostalgic mood and decided that I wanted to play one of my favorite games of all time The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker. I remembered that I already had the WiiU version downloaded on my hard drive for CEMU so I booted it up and played about 6-7 ours this morning/afternoon. This is the longest that I've ever emulated anything in over 20 years of playing on PC not including trying out tons of games for a few minutes each.

I've just always had an aversion to emulation. I prefer to play on original hardware, and have on multiple occasions bought older consoles that I no longer owned in order to play older games. As an example about 6 months ago I spend more money then I would have wanted to on a New Nintendo 3DS XL (technically LL as it's an import) in order to play DS/3DS games (despite having a flashcard for DS that I mainly use for GBA titles I only really use it on my old DS Lite as it could play GBA natively) even though I could easily emulate them and turn my monitor and have a BIG 3Ds experience.

As somebody that is also into minimalism I like the idea of emulation as it could help simplify and downsize some stuff but I just can't seem to stick with it and fall back to original hardware despite a lesser experience.

This combined with a recent video from Hoki Hoshi about the Spec II mod for Gran Turismo 4 got me thinking and I was wondering what the main reason for people choosing to emulate is.

tl;dr I can't seem to force myself to emulate stuff despite knowing it's a better experience in many ways and I'm wondering what people's main reason for emulating are.

Also curious what people emulate on like PC, retro handhelds, Steam Deck, etc.

Save money and play any game.

 

[ReyBrujo]

I used to emulate back when I was a teen and most games weren't easy to find down here in Argentina. Nowadays with a good job (as a programmer, of all things) I don't see the point in emulating games I don't own, I already have a good backlog for Switch and don't have time to play older games unless I use "Switch" time. The games I haven't played I don't plan on playing anytime soon. The ones I emulate are the ones I play in Switch at most (recently I finished Collection of Mana which means I played all three original Mana games via the Switch).

 

[WoJ]

I dumped all my PS1, PS2, Wii, GameCube, and WiiU games a few years ago specially to emulate. It's been great. The improved image quality and QoL features of emulation makes these games much more fun to revisit.

Silent Hill 2 was awesome on PCSX2.

Plus I don't have to deal with keeping a bunch of consoles set up. I can access anything from one machine.

 

[kiphalfton]

I do this thing where I invest all this time modding the consoles, dumping the games, getting set up on PC, etc... only to never actually end up emulating games.

 

[kevboard]

ease of use, convenience, and because many games are literally impossible to play otherwise unless you wanna pay exorbitant prices to people on ebay.

 

[Shakka43]

What did I mark?

 

[reinking]

Portability mostly. Old classics are now handheld/portable games.

 

[dave_d]

Other. My sister-in-law got me Mother 3 one of the times she was visiting family in Japan. However I don't understand Japanese but there's a patch for the game. So I pulled an image from the cart applied the patch and played it on my SteamDeck. (Well that and the screen on my GBA is so tiny for my 50+ year old eyes.)

 

[El Muerto]

I emulate just to play old games and translations. I bring my R36s or Powkiddy x55 if i'm going to be stuck somewhere like a Dr office. I emulate switch games just to try them out. I would rather have them run on original hardware with no hiccups.

 

[baphomet]

I don't.

I own the majority of the actual hardware if I want to play anything.

 

[Kabelly]

I found out you could buy a USB Wii infrared bar for PC, then I loaded up Sin and Punishment Star Successor for the first time in years. Upscaled to 4k I was blown away at how clear it looks. Plus other Wii games. I've never been loyalist to playing games on its original hardware. Software is software to me. I've been playing San Andreas in its original form and I love that I can still play games with the original art direction in mind but with a nice resolution bump. It just makes the game more enjoyable. Outdated textures do not bother me. There's charm to what devs try to achieve on limited hardware.

 

[kruis]

You left out an option:

- Better performance than the real hw

I had a Wii back in the day, but was always disappointed by the hw. I was astounded when I saw for the first time how much better emulated Wii games looked running in Dolphin thanks to upscaling. I played through and completed Xenoblade on my PC. It ran perfectly and looked gorgeous in 1080p back then. I'd never be able to finish that game in blurry 480p.

 

[ReBurn]

I really only emulate classic arcade games and some early 8-bit console stuff. I own hardware for pretty much everything I would want to play from NES/SNES and PS1 onwards, so no need to emulate that stuff.

I buy collections of older games whenever they're available because I would much rather play them on hardware I'm currently using. Midway Arcade Classics for 360 back compat is on sale on the Xbox Black Friday sale right now that has stuff like Smash TV, Joust, Defender...great games. I love stuff like Atari 50 and its DLC, Taito Milestones and Arcade Classics Donkey Kong because it means I can buy and play so many of my favorite old games more conveniently. I recently got a collection of the Atari 2600 Activision games and an Intellivision Classics disc for PS1 so I can play them on my PS3. I'm going to pick up Tetris Forever here soon.

But there are still a lot of games I want to play that I just can't buy anymore, so I will emulate them when the urge to play strikes or until they're finally released on modern platforms.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

 

[PendekarRajawali]

It’s really difficult to find retro hardware in my country.

 

[Pyral Phoenix]

I used to hoard classic consoles, and every time I wanted to play something, I just got that from under the bed and played to my heart's content
Then they began to fail, and it's hard to fix them in my country, in addition to the space and my moving out a lot, it became a drag tbh, not to mention all those crazy mods and that I like playing on CRTs
Anyway, I got a good PC for work and gaming a couple of years back and I just decided emulation is the way, and it's pretty easy, so why not

 

[TheInfamousKira]

I don't do so frequently by any means, and it's always stuff at and to the left of PS1/N64 era. Not even attempting to be virtuous, I just don't have a gaming PC.

 

[dcx4610]

Ease of access and preservation to me. Just recently, I've gotten back into the Guitar Hero games. I've never played Guitar Hero 1 or 2. Those are on PS2. The options are to get a PS2, find a PS2 compatible guitar and get the games. Or, emulate on PC and just use my Riffmaster guitar. Pretty simple choice.

 

[Stu_Hart]

Because sony doesn't have a clue or don't want to put in the effort to bring backwards compatibility of older games to ps5.
My old ps2 and ps3 are no longer working, and I still want to play games locked to these 2 consoles, and I get to play it with higher res among other tweaks made possible.

 

[poppabk]

I mainly use emulation for three things:
1) to play old arcade games
2) to play games on my phone that don't have an online hook and aren't riddled with mtx.
3) playing games at higher framerates and resolutions

 

[marquimvfs]

I don't emulate in a daily basis. I prefer to go to my gaming room and turn my old consoles/arcade boards on. When I'm not in the mood to deal with the collection (remove from the boxes, install what I want to play, etc), or when I want to play in the living room, I emulate.

So, convenience, I guess. It's not really a piracy matter to me.

 

[lordrand11]

Game preservation (less wear and tear on the physical media I own), ease of access versus plugging it up, updated or better visuals (given I only own newer flatscreen TVs), accessibility primarily. Online multiplayer (using programs like Parsec and having a friend connect up to you to play the couch coop game across the internet), being able to access defunct features/gameshark stuff. I mean the list is large.

 

[Topher]

Convenience. I own the games but don't want to have multiple old systems connected all the time. Besides, PC emulator makes all those games better.

 

[Danjin44]

I don’t own gaming PC so I don’t and can’t emulate games.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

I emulate games that I couldn't play otherwise because the games aren't being sold anymore or games that I own but don't want the hassle of connecting old systems.

 

[yet_another_alt]

Because I can.

 

[Kataploom]

It always depends, when I was younger, I didn't have money for game consoles and it wasn't even close to be a priority for my family, but we had family business that had computers and that I could use for entertainment, there I discovered Gameboy emulator and man, was really happy downloading ROMs, specially Pokemon since it was my frustration to not be able to play those games before, it was like 15 years ago.

When I was finally able to afford my own games, I stopped pirating them, specially after getting more conscious of the malware risk since my computer was also for work, but even to these days, I do it to emulate pretty old games that are not available these days, to I always played most games I wanted to play anyway so I don't do it pretty much never. I think publishers got a customer because otherwise I wouldn't be spending money on current entries of franchises if I didn't enjoy them a lot before.

Another reason I would use emulation is for proper translation, I really hate unnecessary changes in game translations like, why are all names changed and most dialogs changed in DQ11 to the point it completely changed the sense and tone of actual voiced dialogs many times? Or why did some anime style games come with no Japanese voices? I'd rather emulate them or find a fix on PC.

For example, I had to play SMTV and FE Fates from an undub ROM because I'm refuse to play anime games with English voices, I'd rather pirate then or not play them at all.

But these days re-releases are pretty commonplace and I rather wait for remastered to get announced, they usually do and I'll get them on PC so voices availability or bad translations can be fixed (assuming someone made a mod), that's mostly my reason for staying on PC as main platform.

 

[jshackles]

For this

RetroAchievements

Adding achievements to retro games since 2012

retroachievements.org