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UK University Making Universal Game Emulator

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-good-to-have-ego-strength dept.

Techradar reports that researchers at the University of Portsmouth in England are working on a project to create a game emulator that will "recognise and play all types of videogames and computer files from the 1970s through to the present day." One of the major goals of the project is to preserve software from early in the computer age. David Anderson of the Humanities Computing Group said, "Early hardware, like games consoles and computers, are already found in museums. But if you can't show visitors what they did, by playing the software on them, it would be much the same as putting musical instruments on display but throwing away all the music. ... Games particularly tend not to be archived because they are seen as disposable, pulp cultural artefacts, but they represent a really important part of our recent cultural history. Games are one of the biggest media formats on the planet and we must preserve them for future generations."

13 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. So basically by abigsmurf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's going to be a GUI that just links dozens of different emulators?

    1. Re:So basically by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So, are they trying to recreate MAME?

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      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:So basically by courseofhumanevents · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wrong. Dolphin is already playing two or three Wii games perfectly.

    3. Re:So basically by syntaxglitch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      DRM still has the awkward flaw of giving the user both the key and the lock and hoping that they won't figure it out.

      Modern encryption is computationally intractable for solid, mathematical reasons, but that doesn't really apply to smoke and mirrors DRM schemes. The keys and everything else are in there, and a university probably has better access to stuff like high-end hardware analysis tools vs. your average basement-dwelling w4r3z guy.

    4. Re:So basically by damaki · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's more like Mame and MESS together.

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      Stupidity is the root of all evil.
    5. Re:So basically by stonedcat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      MESS has really crappy support for a lot of games, it was a great idea but quite a let down from my experience.

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      You can't take the sky from me.
    6. Re:So basically by tuffy · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, I think the point here is not to just recreate MAME, but to create a legitimate system of emulation that can can be used for valid historic archive purposes

      MAME is a system of emulation for valid historic archive purposes. Its whole purpose is to preserve classic video games with the greatest accuracy possible. If these guys don't leverage the MAME team's work, they have no chance of success because systems like the CPS-2 or DECO Cassette System will have degraded out of existence while they spend 10 years reinventing the wheel.

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      Ita erat quando hic adveni.

  2. Early computer music by troll8901 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sometimes, I'm still blown away by the music in early 1990s LucasArts and Sierra games.

    Monkey Island 1 and 2
    Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
    Leisure Suit Larry 5 ... and so on.

    They're making music sound good on a Yamaha OPL3 FM chip.

  3. DRM + DirectX by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Good luck trying to beat the various forms of DRM through an emulator (without using a crack).
    Also DirectX is also a bitch, specially the earlier versions (4-6) have various compatibility issues.

  4. That's so easy I could do it! But I didn't. by Alarindris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What? You guys are just gonna mash up a bunch of emulators? That's so stupid!!
    I could just download a bunch of different ones doing a bunch of research and do it that way!!
    I hate that you guys are just putting all that together for me, cause I could just do it myself!!

    That's why you can't have nice things assholes, you don't appreciate it.

    Why do people have a problem with this?

  5. Preservation by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm glad someone is taking preservation seriously. These are a part of our history. I wonder what the government will do about copyright, which is the usual counter-argument. Especially now that copyrights last for 6 billion years or so.

  6. Loading... by PhilJC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If they really want to emulate systems of old are they going to add the loading screens to the tape loading computers?

    The countless hours I lost of life watching the eplieptic fit inducing loading screen of my Spectrum 48k really made you appreciate the game once you did finally start playing (oh and then when you did get them loaded up a speck of dust would land on the power cable or you had the temerity to press a key a little too hard and the whole system would reset)

  7. Controllers by EdgeyEdgey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How are you going to play the games?
    What is pong without the rotary control?
    Imagine (in 50 years time) playing Wii bowling without the wiimote.
    How are you going to get a light gun to work without a screen that does a full refresh.
    etc.

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