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When Lack Of Pixelation Leads To Consternation

Posted by simoniker on from the hip-to-be-squares dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for its 'Pixel' column discussing the problems inherent in translating classic remakes to modern consoles. The author argues plaintively: "For reasons both technical and probably cultural, most video game companies not giving their reissued classics the polished, flawless presentations that they deserve." He explains of Mega Man 2 from the forthcoming Mega Man Anniversary Collection for PlayStation 2: "The low-res, 256x224 graphics of the original NES game have been line-doubled for display on the PS2, are run in an interlaced (flickery) screen mode." He also laments: "Believe it or not, things were a good deal better back on the original PlayStation and Saturn... Looking back, the 32-bit era was a golden age of classic game reissues, with great products like Irem's R-Types, the Namco Museum line and the Capcom Generations series offering 99% accurate renditions of dozens upon dozens of classic video games", although it's suggested "the 32-bit renaissance was more likely due to technical limitations than actual care on the part of the developers."

42 comments

  1. Why didn't they by foidulus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    just make the mega man collection a ps1 game instead of a ps2 game(like Final Fantasy origins), I find it hard to believe that they could not pack all the data onto a cd. Plus, releasing it for the ps1 would have reached a larger audience, maybe not your core audience, but when you have backwards compatability and no need to put a game on a DVD, why bother?

    1. Re:Why didn't they by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Slightly harder to pirate on ps1 vs ps2? only explaination I can think of, plus say someone has a ps1 and is sortof casually looking at getting one of the next gen of consoles, this could push them towards ps2...?

    2. Re:Why didn't they by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the games are emulated (which is what I suspect), there's no way the entire collection could run on a PS1. The NES games could run full-speed given enough programming talent, but the the SNES MM7 couldn't. Plus, I have to wonder if there is enough space on the MM8 cd that the other games (and the interviews) could still fit.

      The PS2 is, to put it mildly, popular. They're not going to lose that many sales by using it (and the GC) instead of the PS1.

    3. Re:Why didn't they by Firehawke · · Score: 1

      They can't get them all on a single disc for PS1. The PS1 apparently isn't powerful enough to do the audio emulation, so the Rockman Complete Works discs on PS1 use digital XA audio rather than emulate the sound chip-- each game, as a result, uses up nearly an entire CD..

    4. Re:Why didn't they by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Slightly harder to pirate on ps1 vs ps2?"

      From my own experience they're both pretty damned easy to pirate on. I'm against having to open a console case for any reason on philosophical terms but I've managed to boot burned code on both of these consoles.

      You can pirate software on the PS2 exactly the same way you do it on a PS1: You change disks without letting the machine know you changed disks. You can do this either electronically (install a mod chip that lies to the rest of the hardware) or you can do it physically (defeating physical switches that let the machine know the drive is open).

      With the PS1, the lid pushes in a button that indicates to the hardware that the lid is open. A spring works well in the original PSX while the PSOne requires a little more creativity with a small, plastic tab. Once you've got that, all you need to do is insert a disk you know will eventually stop spinning so you can make the swap. The ol' Action Replay disk works well for this (but not Game Shark). And now you can play your favorite NES games through an emulator to your heart's content without ever cracking open the case.

      The PS2, with its front-loading mechanism, is a bit trickier. The easiest way to do it (without opening the case) is to carefully remove the front of the disc tray so you can then slim jim the tray open. If you look on the bottom side of the tray you can see a groove in which a locking arm moves through. The trick is to move that locking arm back out of the way. Once you do that, the trick again is to get a disk that you know will stop spinning. If you're trying to play PS1 softawre, you can use the PS1 flavor of Action Replay (as before). If you're trying to run PS2 software (say, an SNES emulator) things are trickier and unfortunately the PS2 flavor of Action Replay won't help you (it never stops spinning as far as I can tell). You can find proper boot disks in the Hong Kong gray market, but note you'll need a boot CD and a boot DVD, using the proper one for the media you're aiming to run. Once you've done that, all you need is a Super Wild Card to dump your SNES carts and you can then put all your SNES periphernalia safely into storage.

      The PS2 will read music CD-RWs but not PS1 code on said CD-RWs. I haven't had the opportunity to try PS2 code on a CD-RW, though. The PS1 doesn't seem to want to read CD-RWs at all, no matter what's on it.

    5. Re:Why didn't they by Guppy06 · · Score: 0

      "The PS1 apparently isn't powerful enough to do the audio emulation,"

      Bullshit

  2. What about the Gamecube? by wheresdrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This same collection is coming out for the Gamecube. Will it be plagued by the same problems?

    1. Re:What about the Gamecube? by mausmalone · · Score: 1

      It would sadden me if it is... since Nintendo has a damn fine working NES emulator on the GCN (you see it in things like animal crossing, and even in second-party stuff like Metroid Prime). Though I do miss the ideology behind things like Tempest 2000 and Super Mario All-Stars... leave the gameplay alone, but update the graphics and sound a little.

      --
      -=-=-=-=-=
      I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
    2. Re:What about the Gamecube? by Bloomy · · Score: 5, Informative
      If Capcom or Atomic Planet had used Nintendo's emulator, I'm sure similiar complaints would be made. From what I've read, Nintendo's emulator for the Gamecube might emulate the NES too perfectly, down to the scanline flicker when too many sprites are at the same vertical line on the screen. The easiest example of this is the graveyard in the original Zelda, let out as many ghosts as possible. I haven't played it yet on my Zelda Collection disc, and I haven't cracked Animal Crossing to unlock it, but I've seen it mentioned enough to give it some credence.

      According to the IGN review, "slowdown and flicker from the original cart versions have been almost entirely eliminated (it's still in there, but it's only noticeable a few times per game)". IGN didn't do separate reviews for the GC and PS2 versions, and the person that reviewed it is one of their PS2 people.

    3. Re:What about the Gamecube? by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      That is nothing new. Free NES emulators have been emulating the scanline flicker due to too many sprites for years now! Nintendo is such a hypocrit. They first claim that emulators are illegal, and then they make emulators themselves.

      FCE Ultra is the best, most accurate free and open source emulator that I have yet to see. I use it to play NES games on my XBOX. Who needs Nintendo?

    4. Re:What about the Gamecube? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nintendo is against OTHER PEOPLE emulating their systems, which leads to piracy. Emulating their own systems, and selling their own games that way, is not the same thing.

      Oh God, Slashdot comments are such a wasteland. Why I even read them? You are stupid.

    5. Re:What about the Gamecube? by Bloomy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, the scanline flicker has been in emulators as far back as I can remember (I think it was 1997 when I first played one), because that's how the NES worked. But newer emulators have gotten around that limitation of the original hardware, and apparently Atomic Planet and Capcom have as well (if not perfectly) for the Mega Man collection. If others can do it, there's certainly no reason Nintendo can't.

      On a similiar point and out of curiosity, are there any emulators for CD based consoles that keep load times the same as they were on the original machine? It couldn't be helped if the game was hardcoded that way, but if such emulators exist (I don't know and don't have the time to check right now), I'd hope it would be quicker to load from a ROM / ISO on a hard drive, or from the original game CD in a 50x drive, than the original console could read from a single speed CD-ROM. Does playing a PS1 game on the PS2 improve load times since the PS2 can read the disc faster than the PS1 could? (I know the PS2 doesn't emulate the PS1, it has PS1 hardware inside that runs the games, which could be another limitation preventing faster load times.)

    6. Re:What about the Gamecube? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The PS2 has an option to speed up load times for PS1 games, and it works. They leave it an option, because sometimes it breaks compatability (but not on any games I've played).

      The annoying thing is, the option doesn't STAY on, and you have to turn on the ps2 without the game in, and set the option, each time you play.

    7. Re:What about the Gamecube? by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      Some NES games do not work correctly if the emulator doesn't emulate the flickering. Thats why most emulators do it... so as to keep 100% compatibility.

  3. What I don't understand... by th1ckasabr1ck · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I realize that when rereleasing a game on a new console, they want to keep it as true to the original as possible, but they should give that a second thought when it comes to load times.

    This is definitely noticible in Final Fantasy Anthologies (FF5 and FF6), and Final Fantasy Chronicles (FF4 and Chrono Trigger). After hitting the menu button there is a good two or three seconds of black screen before the menu itself actually pops up. I find it hard to believe that my PS2 (or PS1) really needs that much time.

    1. Re:What I don't understand... by DLWormwood · · Score: 3, Interesting
      After hitting the menu button there is a good two or three seconds of black screen before the menu itself actually pops up. I find it hard to believe that my PS2 (or PS1) really needs that much time.

      Actually, I'm surprised it wasn't worse. The PS1 re-releases of the SNES originals were emulations of the original cartridge ROMs. The SNES did memory accesses assuming ROM latency, not CD latency. There was no streaming or pre-caching of data via asynchronous memory access.

      The original game ROMs are too large to fit within the PS1's working RAM. Everytime the PS1 version tried to change the graphics context (between menu, combot, and field modes), a synchronous CD hit was required, slowing things down. (Things might have been different for FFIV if Square waited to port it to PS2 instead, that older game may have fit in the PS2 RAM.)

      --
      Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
    2. Re:What I don't understand... by Thedalek · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why isn't there a moderation option for "blatantly false?"

      No, The PS1 re-releases in Final Fantasy Origins and Chronicles were not emulations of the SNES originals. Yes, Chrono Trigger (and possibly some of the FF series) included the SNES original on the disc. However, this was used only for retrieving sprite graphics. This was demonstrated by the fact that, back before Square announced that they were going to release the re-issues in English speaking parts of the world, many rom-hackers tried inserting English-translated snes roms into the disc image. This resulted in nothing noticably different occuring. All text was still in Japanese.

      Simply put, at 2 megabytes, the PS1 didn't have enough RAM to successfully emulate the SNES. True, the SNES didn't have all that much RAM itself, but the contents of the cartridges themselves were locations in memory. Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger both exceed this limitation.

      And no, you couldn't stream the data. Not without putting your framerate in the toilet.

      --
      Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
    3. Re:What I don't understand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No, The PS1 re-releases in Final Fantasy Origins[sic] and Chronicles were not emulations of the SNES originals." False. Look at the FF6 disc. Now go look at the ROM offsets pages all over the net about FF6. Notice anything? Like the files, minus the remastered sound and videos, are exactly the same size, name, and format as the originals? Down to the programming files. If they didn't create a complete emulator, they came damn close

      I think the CT rom however is just a neat little bonus with no real use. Or they had to fill space (ff6 disc has a bunch of big DUMMY files)

    4. Re:What I don't understand... by Thedalek · · Score: 1

      Just a quick point of curiousity: Why is my usage of "Final Fantasy Origins" considered "[sic]"? I didn't misspell anything. That's the American title of the collection.

      Now, as for the ROM offsets being the same, you'll have to be a lot more specific. Especially with respect to "the programming files." SNES emulation on the PS1 is, quite simply, not feasable. It is possible, in the sense that any Turing Machine can emulate the functionality of any other Turing Machine, but speed is a consideration with respect to games, and the PS1 lacks both the speed and memory capacity to accurately emulate the SNES in real time.

      --
      Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
    5. Re:What I don't understand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am not the other AC who tried to deny your [correct] post.

      He was probably referring to the fact that Final Fantasy Origins is composed of two games that are not available on the SNES: Final Fantasy and FF2. It's Final Fantasy Anthology and Final Fantasy Chronicles that are composed of SNES re-releases.

      The re-releases are certainly not emulations. In addition to the points you make, one need only look at the battle transition effects: They don't use the pixel scaling effects of the SNES originals, because that's something that the Playstation can't do in hardware. That's right, those snazzy new battle fades exist because the SNES can do pixel scaling and rotation in hardware, but the Playstation can't. (These new fades are also quite slow, to mask the loading of battle data from CD.)

    6. Re:What I don't understand... by man_ls · · Score: 1

      SNES was a hightly optimized piece of equipment, and taxing games often had their own coprocessors on the cart themselves to do things. 3D effects processors courtesy of Rare, for their more intricate 3D games, sound processors, etc. Plus, when you're only dealing with (for the most part) 2d sprite/vector graphics, rotating those in hardware isn't that difficult to accomplish.

      The slower, fading battle transitions on these discs were a very good way of making it seem like there was less loading -- because your screen was doing something that appeared integral to the action, you wouldn't notice the fact that it actually had to hit the CD ROM to load a lot of the data for it.

      Trickery, on their part.

    7. Re:What I don't understand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've mostly got it. 3D on the SNES was actually something that Argonaut, not Rare, pioneered. In the SNES days, Rare was big on pre-rendered models animated as sprites in traditional 2D style, not real-time 3D. Other chips co-developed by Nintendo and Capcom also brought 3D and other enhancements to the SNES.

      I was making that same point about the newer battle fades - sure they mask the actual slow access, but they also came about due to the Playstation's inability to handle sprite scaling in hardware (as trivial as it was on the SNES, by default - no on-cart co-processor was required to do it). Playstation simply has to resort to software in order to do sprite scaling and rotation, no questions about it. "Mode 7" effects strcitly can't be done using Playstation hardware alone; software routines have to be written to do them, and they eat Playstation CPU, not the graphics hardware.

    8. Re:What I don't understand... by DLWormwood · · Score: 1
      No, The PS1 re-releases in Final Fantasy Origins and Chronicles were not emulations of the SNES originals. Yes, Chrono Trigger (and possibly some of the FF series) included the SNES original on the disc. However, this was used only for retrieving sprite graphics.

      Poor choice of word on my part. I was aware that parts of the game engine were re-written to be more native. But the fact of the matter is that the original ROMs were the point of reference for the PS1 implementations. Some older versions of MAME used ROMs that were partly "emulated" like this. (Usually for native sampled sound implementations to replace analog sound circuitry.) But see below...

      This was demonstrated by the fact that, back before Square announced that they were going to release the re-issues in English speaking parts of the world, many rom-hackers tried inserting English-translated snes roms into the disc image. This resulted in nothing noticably different occuring. All text was still in Japanese.

      This proves little. English translations were notorious for requiring more ROM space than the original Japanese text. What Square probably did was to remap the memory accesses for text data to an external memory region that didn't exist in the original ROM, this way they could re-use the Japanese ROM as is. (This was most important for FFIV, since the PS1 version was based on the "hardtype" version, which was never translated to English in the first place.) Since the graphics and scenario data, as well as any original SNES object code, would likely be at the same memory offsets in both the original ROM and the hacked versions, there naturally wouldn't be any change of behavior.

      the PS1 didn't have enough RAM to successfully emulate the SNES

      You're only reiterating the point I was trying to make. For a cartridge, the working set is the entire game, while for a CD, the working set (segregated scenario data and object code) is designed to stay resident while media is streamed asynchronously from the disc.

      --
      Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
    9. Re:What I don't understand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could use the PS1's rasterizer to do mode7, though you'd have to tesselate the playfield pretty heavily, as the PS1 did linear texture mapping.

      Still, not unreasonable with some careful coding.

  4. Load Times by fwitness · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Agreed. I still wince when I see Crash Bandicoot:Wrath of Cortex in game stores. I rented that once, and the load times made it absolutely unplayable. Sad, since my girlfriend would have really enjoyed that game.

    I am a programmer, and I know there are techniques to avoid this, but it takes some design thinking, and of course, time.

    GTA and GTA:VC do this beautifully (especially VC) for huge environments, and Jak and Daxter does it even better (which they mostly acheived while using LISP, if you can believe that).

    If there are game developers out there, please listen:"Load times suck. Long load times may not decrease sales, but they will decrease your company's image. Oh, and hire me will you? I'll fix the load times. Swear."

    --
    -- I have fans? Wow.
    1. Re:Load Times by mausmalone · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I recently tried out the *achem* less than legal PSO gamecube hack (lets you run ISO's across 10 MBit ethernet). I'm quite shocked that Zelda: Four Swords runs ::gasp:: really well across it. The little video clip in the menu runs at like 1 fps, but the actual game's load-time is barely affected at all.

      But Nintendo's great at that. Take Animal Crossing, for example... it's done loading by the time it finishes saying "Nintendo!" at the logo. Try it for yourself, you can take the game out after the logo and boot it on another system. One copy is good for a whole party, since the entire game finishes loading before the title screen is displayed. :)

      --
      -=-=-=-=-=
      I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
    2. Re:Load Times by ymgve · · Score: 1

      That doesn't really have anything to do with Nintendo as a developer, it's more that those games have simple graphics and therefore doesn't need as much disk space. Animal Crossing is a somewhat updated edition of a N64 game, and Four Swords is a juiced up GBA port.

    3. Re:Load Times by Weirdofreak · · Score: 1

      Nintendo has very few games with long loading times - or at any rate good tricks to hide said loading times. Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, SSBM, Mario Sunshine, the list goes on. Prime loaded each room separately, and the loading was covered up in the opening - this can be seen when you shoot a door to a large room and it takes a few seconds to open. Wind Waker just gives you a black screen for half a second, it's barely noticeable if you aren't looking out for it. Melee simply didn't take long, and SMS didn't have any that I noticed, although I presume they load the levels seoarately as you enter them.

      Of course, there's also the disk size, although (CMIIW) I wouldn't expect that makes much difference.

    4. Re:Load Times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd expect nothing less from the company that bypassed CD-based gaming altogether (despite the hit they took in market share) due to the horrible CD load times of competing systems at the time.

      GameCube still has the best load times of all the current systems. Only the Dreamcast was almost as fast at reading optical media. The PS2 is relatively as slow to read DVD media as the PS was to read CD media. (PS load times were worse than on Saturn, partially because of the pittance of RAM that the PS had - just like PS2.)

  5. They did. This is a different product. by Thedalek · · Score: 2, Informative

    With the exception of Megaman 7, all these titles were released on the PS1 in Japan. In fact, on each of the Rockman remakes for the PS1, Capcom included little Pocketstation games.

    If, as another poster mused, this collection is emulated, that means an interesting step in emulation for the PS2: SNES emulation has been slow and glitchy in most cases, and it would be nice to see it done accurately. It would be even nicer to see, one week later, someone rip the emulation code out and make a standalone emulator.

    --
    Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
  6. author is talking out of his ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He doesn't have a fucking clue.

    Btw, I don't think a modern console can actually output "double-strike" NTSC video signals.

  7. Classics on Modern Hardware - Zelda Collection by extrarice · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The GameCube Zelda Collection, released this past Christmas, is a good example of the proper way to release older games to a nostalgic audience. The sprites are the same, the music is the same, and most importantly: the games have the same slow-down in the same places they did in the original releases. It seems like the Zelda Collection disc just has a real-time NES emulator that loads on the cube and runs a ROM, keeping the speeds the same as the original.

    Though FFOrigins for the PS1 is a fantastic remake, I would not want to see the same treatment done to the MegaMan Collection.

    --
    "Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
    1. Re:Classics on Modern Hardware - Zelda Collection by BinaryOpty · · Score: 1

      They did do that with the MegaMan Collection: They set it up so MegaMan 8 graphics could be turned on for any game in the series pre-MM8. So you have a choice of the original graphics with original music or MM8 graphics with remixed music.

  8. a-hem by Fry-kun · · Score: 1

    are run in an interlaced (flickery) screen mode

    I feel obligated to point out that in the NTSC standard, everything you see on your TV is interlaced already (at 60Hz, so the end result is considered to be 30fps).

    --
    Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
    1. Re:a-hem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, BUT old consoles tended to output low-res in an NTSC-illegal signal called "double-strike" mode (Nintendo terminology) where the succeisve fields are not offset by a scan line. This reduces flicker, but produces visible black gaps between scan lines. You could call this an X by 240ish x 60hz "progressive" signal.

    2. Re:a-hem by LocalH · · Score: 1

      This is a straw man argument argument. Anything properly done, when running in interlace, still looks just as smooth on a standard NTSC CRT. You don't believe me? Look at Sonic 2 on the Genesis - it's 2p mode uses hardware interlace - one of the few uses of true interlace in the 16-bit era.

      But to be properly done, the best resolution to use is one with 480 scanlines, and enlarge the original image by EXACTLY 2x, with no filters. You might be able to fudge a little bit on the horizontal width, but you can NOT mess with the vertical size, or it WILL look like shit.

      Properly done, it should look equally good on progressive AND interlaced.

      --
      FC Closer
    3. Re:a-hem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely agreed. I was just pointing out that Fry-kun was wrong. There's no good reason for these games to not look good.
      However, don't get me started about input latency...

  9. Or, slightly more succinctly... by Thedalek · · Score: 1

    The poster is referring to It Might Be NES, a fullspeed NES emulator which runs on the PSX (and therefore, also the PS2). It was coded in 100% assembly.

    --
    Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
  10. *cough*BULLSHIT*cough* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Looking back, the 32-bit era was a golden age of classic game reissues, with great products like Irem's R-Types, the Namco Museum line and the Capcom Generations series offering 99% accurate renditions of dozens upon dozens of classic video games...
    I don't think this guy actually played any of the games he's talking about.
  11. Article low on details... by SamNmaX · · Score: 1
    While I wouldn't be suprised if Capcom did a sloppy job on the remake, this article doesn't really describe the problems very well.

    At one point he says there is blurring, but then he corrects himself. So... is there blurring??? The picture he presents as evidence seem to suggest this, but some/all of the ugliness of that could be attributed to his tv tuner. The author doesn't seem to specify the source of the "old" picture, but I'm guessing it's from an emulator, which isn't exactly a fair comparison. Any blurring would likely be due to the game be drawn on a quad with texture filtering setup wrong.

    Then he says something about line-doubling... I'm guessing he means the sprites are stretched since I'm guessing the PS2 doesn't run at low resolutions (correct me if I'm wrong). Either way, if the game is being run at a resolution higher the original, there is nothing wrong stretching or 'line-doubling' as he calls it to make the images the right size.

    He then says something about interlacing being a problem, but doesn't really say exactly what the problem is. Interlacing isn't usually an issue for a TV since it's already interlaced. This would be a problem though for those who want to play the game on a progressive scan TV/monitor.

    The author should have been more careful with his terminology, if he was going through around that kind of jargon at all. He could have done almost as well just saying "game doesn't look so good".

    1. Re:Article low on details... by Rethcir · · Score: 1
      Yes, his terms were a little vague. You can tell that this writer didn't necessarily know the most about computer graphics, but that's no crime.

      The "blurring" would be doubling the resolution by extrapolating what color the pixel in between two other pixels would be (IE if a blue pixel is next to a white pixel, put a light-blue pixel in between them.. although the algorithm may be more complicated than that). Some of the newer NES emulators can do this (and no, IMO it doesn't improve the graphics as effectively as it does on say ZSNES, where the "blurring" is actually pretty neat).

      The "interlacing" the article author describes sounds more like increasing the framerate, which the NES emulator probably doesn't like - it would theoretically exacerbate the sprite flicker problems the NES is (in)famous for. The author does say however that that "feature" was removed.

      Either way, I'm extremely glad that A) Capcom released this collection at all and B) They put more thought into it than just dumping the ROMs on a disc with an emulator. I wish Square for example had put slightly more thought into the two-disc FF collections (although they did a nice job with FF Origins IMO). Hearing about this collection made me almost as happy as when I heard Family Guy was coming out on DVD. It will be great to have these classic games in a long-lasting hardcopy and not have to Lewinski your cartridge every time you want to play them.

  12. It's a bloody miracle they re-release oldies... by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

    ... considering that console emulation is huge and emulating the original 8, 16-bit and older 32-bit consoles for a modern PC is easy performance wise. The N64 and the PS1 are completely emulated on modern PC's they do have their quirks and not all the games work, but all the "golden oldies" and usually the most popular ones you'd actually want to play do. Also pulling ROMS off DC++ and the newsgroups for pre Playstation/CD games is cake on most news providers that provide binaries.

    I got to play Majora's mask for N64 via emulation that I could never have done since I never owned an N64 but I managed to play Ocarina of Time and some other N64 games at a friends.

    I don't know how these guys can re-release the really old classic games when PC emulation negates any reason to play them on a console.