Emulation: Difference between revisions
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This can be done for a wide variety of computers--any computer, theoretically, can be emulated. However, you're probably here for the definition that involves games. Yes, emulators that run on standard home/office computers have been developed for most consoles, as well as for older computers, for running games which originated on those platforms, allowing a user to play a game a non-native platform.
Not surprisingly, emulation does take more processing power than the original, varying wildly depending on how similar the original platform and the one running the emulator are. For example, 80x86 emulators like [[DOSBox]] run at nearly native speed on typical 80x86 PCs, while exotic
The most popular computers to emulate are [[Arcade Game|Arcade Games]] and games consoles, although emulators for other systems do exist. Most emulators are written by fans/enthusiasts, as a technical challenge, as a way of storing computing history ([[MAME]] and [[MESS]] have this as their primary goal), or as a way to run games on something other than what they were written for in the first place. A few emulators are written by the official manufacturers, such as Nintendo's acNES for GBA (used for the eReader, GBA extras in ''[[Animal Crossing]]'', and Classic NES Series) and the emulators in [[Virtual Console]] titles on Wii Shop Channel.
In order to play games, emulators [[Captain Obvious|require the game software as well]]. These usually come in the form of [[ROM|ROMs]] (for cartridge-based games) and various disc image formats (for disc-based games). Publicly distributing your ROM dumps (pirating copyrighted games) without permission is generally considered illegal, with possible, nebulous, and debatable exceptions for “fair use” in some cases, though some companies, most notably Nintendo, will have no mercy towards those trafficking ROMs and ''will'' prosecute people doing so. The veracity (and legal validity) of these beliefs have yet to be formally ruled on in either direction; and thus, talk about emulation (especially talk about [[ROM|ROMs]] themselves) is generally a [[Flame Bait|very dangerous subject on internet fora]], such as the [[GameFAQs]] fora and others, which may auto-delete posts that direct other users towards emulation sites, possibly even if they don't link to games themselves, partly due to legal reasons. Morality issues are even grayer, so [[Internet Backdraft|it's probably best not talk about it]], lest you start up rampant [[Flame War|Flame Wars]], or [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|worse yet]], philosophy students bandying about terms such as "utilitarianism" or the dreaded "Kant's Categorical Imperative." There's really no reason to share such information anyway, since most web searches can provide it handily.
Nevertheless, the lure of [[Retro Gaming|classic games]] is too much for many gamers to resist, especially for [[Abandonware|games that are long out of print]], [[No Export for You|were never sold in one's part of the world]], were never (or were [[Blind Idiot Translation|poorly]]) [[Fan Translation|translated]], or do not exist in a portable format. In addition, emulators tend to add lots of comfort features such as state freezing, upscaling, control remapping, cheats, etc., and also allow gamers to study, [[Game Mod|modify]], and [[Tool Assisted Speedrun|find interesting things to do with]] these games.
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Additionally, some newly released games are issued as ROM images that you can use in an emulator (or copy to a cartridge to use on real hardware, if you prefer).
In terms of accuracy or authenticity to the system being emulated, emulators are classified into two major types:
* High-level emulation (HLE) approximates the system's functionality rather than simulate the hardware itself. Graphics calls could be intercepted and then translated to the native graphics API by the host machine such as OpenGL or DirectX. This started becoming popular during the The Fifth Generation of Console Video Games, as hardware have become complex enough to make low-level emulation infeasible. HLE was made famous by Bleem!, a PlayStation emulator, and UltraHLE, a Nintendo 64 emulator which made headlines for being able to play (major) N64 titles at full speed (and nearly prompted legal action from Nintendo, who threatened to sue UltraHLE authors as they saw the emulator as a threat to their console business.)
* Low-level emulation (LLE) simulates the original hardware more faithfully, sometimes to the point of emulating them gate-by-gate or down to the last processor cycle, especially as timings are paramount to accuracy; get them wrong and you'll end up with issues such as graphical glitches or in some cases broken logic, case in point ''[[Speedy Gonzales|Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos]]'' whose programming bugs broke most emulators until bsnes by the late byuu fixed the issue for the game to be beaten properly.
The choice between high or low-level emulation has understandably led to arguments over the merits of either or both. Those in favour of HLE argue that high-level emulation is enough as long as popular titles could be played, while those in favour of LLE argue that accurate emulation is key to preserving what amounts to cultural heritage, especially as vintage hardware could only last so long and thus maintaining an accurate if not exact record of the hardware's inner workings is of absolute importance. In practice however, most modern emulators typically use a combination of both approaches. MAME for example uses LLE as much as possible as part of their philosophy of preservation, but in some cases HLE is used especially when the hardware being emulated hasn't been well-documented yet.
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{{examples|Emulators with pages at All The Tropes:}}
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