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Playstation emulation on Macs
Bob_Dobbs wrote in to tell us that there are major rumors that
the next Macs should actually do Playstation Emulation. Requires
a G3, but it's not like many people are buying Mac Classics
any more.
H: Sounds like Jobs will be announcing this officially
tomorrow. Very cool.
Update: 01/05 12:23 by S : Here's some more info thanks to
Narbo:
Connectix'
press release confirms the story, and
lists the games you can play on it.
playstation file system I do believe
-------------------
http://morpheus.hartford.edu/~joliveir
Fool, Playstation. Waste of a good first post. (Flame good... help bad... at least at 1:30 AM :)
I sure as hell can't wait to burn Tekken 3... and more. PSEmu is already there for the PC, but Tekken 3 and other popular titles are only playable at 10 frames per second, even on some of the fastest hardware. Oh well, it'll get there and I'm waiting with my PII 400 and 128 megs o' RAM...
PSEmu can be found at http://www.psemu.com
"Wooohoo!!!! PSX emulation to first turn out on the mac (or is it?)"
/THINK/ something comes out first for you? I think it's pretty childish, myself.
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but I remember fooling around with PSX emulators for my PC is mid 1997.
They've gotten to the point on the PC where it's quite playable, and makes use of 3D accelerators. (OpenGL, Glide, and maybe D3D too)
...
To the Mac fanatics; look, we don't bust you around because stuff comes out for our system first, why the hell do you have to go off on a rave when you even
So to get this straight, software suppported by an actual company is by default better?? Hadn't we all better move back to Windows then?
There is already a very good PSX emulator running
on Windows, PSEMU. It runs tons of games (even many new ones) nearly at full speed in a current PC with hardware 3D acceleration (yes, this includes Tekken 3 and the like). Get the last version if you have not done it yet.
It may be one of the most impressive pieces of software I've ever seen. Go to the homepage at www.psemu.com, there is some talk about a Mac port, so maybe there is a chance to see a Linux port some day.
Anyway this is a closed-source project, and very Windows-based (DLL, DirectX and all the crap).
"my gold chain wearin ass!"
I'm thinking that has GOT to be, at least, just a little bit uncomfortable.
So that means that Connectix had a license from Intel to develop VirtualPC?
-Rodrigo
Hello there. I know that everybody is pointing out that here has been a PSX emulator for the PC for some time now. I have not seen this product but I bet is some sort of shareware/freeware type thing like all the other emulators.
The fact the Mac PSX emulator is such a big deal is because it is made by Connectix, a company with many years of experience developing Mac software who also makes another impressive emulator: VirtualPC.
Connectix makes a lot of great software that many feel should come bundled with all the macs been sold. So when Connectix announces a PSX emulator (or just about anything) it always makes the headlines because of the company's reputation for making quality products.
-Rodrigo
http://technopole.le-village.com/rejeb/sope.html
It only does 2-D graphics and lacks sound, but it's a start...
PSX Emulation has been out for the PC & Mac for many months already. I found that only the latest games work on my PC & Mac. I think the Woo Hoo! is in part of the official larger corporation doing the project. They make good products and theirs will be officially supported. It will probably bring the PSX emu market to more people. I wish Connectix would officially make one for the PC then some of my older games would work. I think part of their platform choice may be from the past software Emu experiance with the Mac and the is converting RISC calls in to RISC calls and there will be certain funtions that that chip will handle better. But my CISCy Pentium handles PSX emu fine. Well let's just wait and see. I saw the info on this story first at macosrumors.com which is also host be BLM just like slashdot.
DDDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
QWERTY!!!!
All the current PSX emulators require you to put the actual CD (or I suppose a CDR copy of it) in your drive to play the game.
I don't know what your basis is that all the current emulators are "warez" though..
Geez, I built a "cart slot" (I have no idea what to call it, it connects to the carts and connects to my parallel port) for my SNES and Genesis games to work on my PC. Is that warez? It lets the emulators I have use the actual games I own, without having to keep everything stored on my hard drive.
The main utility of the PSX emulators consists on execute illegal unprotected copies of the games without the need of strange devices. I recall on the PSEMU page something about the emulator not being usable in pirate copies, only in originals. With the current (very usable) versions, this is not the case.
Is this a limitation of the Mac-Connectix software? Will connectix be licensing the Playstation BIOS?????
To legally use PSEMU you need playstation, if I had a playstation, I wouldn't be so eager to run PSEMU.
Time to buy an iMac!
who cares, i mean, wow, i've boycotted slashdot.org on its account of being incredibly stupid, and when i come back for a sec to see if it's gotten better, at least in a sense, of course not, its still pathetic and ridiculous. slashdot.org is [word for majorly stupid/pathetic/retarded/gay/lame/etc.]. pFFT.
Although PSEmu has been around for some time, it is a "hack" and I mean that in the least flattering sense. It play ROMs, not actual PlayStation discs. Connectix's Virtual GameStation will allow Mac owners to go down to the store, pick up Tekken3, tear off the shrink wrap and start playing the game. Why is that a Woo-hoo? For all you PC users, it isn't, but for the Mac community and anyone thinking about buying a Mac, it basically solves the game drought we'd been suffering. For more details, check out AppleInsider, the site that first broke the story and seems to have the most accurate account. Or listen to Steve Jobs' keynote at Noon ET.
I hate to wound your personal pride, but that was an unbelivably uninformed thing to say. PSEmu doesn't work for any of the games that matter, and this almost definately will.
Perhaps you went temporarily blind and missed the statement at the bottom that Jobs should be announcing it tomorow? And if he does, this means that this is a product sanctioned and backed by Sony and therefor will not only WORK (unlike psemu) but will be supported pretty well too.
Just for reference, I'm not a mac user. I don't own a mac.
And have never seen graphics like in Turok II. It makes all my PlayStation games look like Sega games ;-)
last time i check a brand spanking new dual shock playstation was 160 CDN.
You can use it, abuse it, take it to your friends house, let your little cousins play on it with no worries etc.
Why in gods name would you waste a 3-5000 dollar machine on emulating a 160 dollar game console?
I understand how a coder could get excited about the achievement (emulating the machine successfully) but really, I see an emu for a *cheap presently available machine* as no more than a test of coding skills. Now an emu for some old no-longer-available console, hey I understand that.
Here: take the money you would have spent on the emu and 1 or 2 games and go buy a real PSX.
'nuff said
The emulator does not know, or care whether the rom it is running came from a physical cartrige connected to the computer, a legal image copied to the hard drive, or an illegal image gotten from the net. By the way, roms are no more and no less legal than any other piece of commercial software sitting on a hard drive. Its all copies of somebody else's work. Legal if the owner got a licence, illegal if not.
Last time I checked (which I admit has been awhile), the authors of PSEmu had gone out of their way to prevent pirate CDs from being used. What laws is it breaking?
> It play ROMs, not actual PlayStation discs.
You got that part backwards. It plays actual playstation discs, not duplicates or roms. The only rom it needs is the BIOS. This is the same reason why we don't have Mac clones. Anybody can clone the hardware, but the BIOS (software) is owned by Apple, and cannot be redistributed without permission. For analogy, PSEmu + Rom BIOS = Mac Clone. Both are intended to be used with shrinkwrapped software.
Calling it a hack is like calling any other piece of software a hack. It was written to perform a task, and it comes much closer to performing that task thon not.
But the fewer versions to get a PC versus a Mac, the more likely that more people will move to the Mac.
Way to go! Proprietary monoplatform software! Where do I sign up?
Realistically -- is there a piece of software written exclusively for the Mac that doesn't have a functional equivalent on another platform?
>Why in gods name would you waste a 3-5000 dollar machine on emulating a 160 dollar game console?
Why in god's name would you "waste" a $1100 machine (which is what iMacs go for these days, not $3500) emulating a $100 typewriter? or emulating a two-cent paper spreadsheet?
1) Sony does not make a laptop PlayStation. Now, thanks to Connectix, Apple does.
2) Not having seen specs yet, I don't know if Connectix has done this, but it wouldn't be too hard to save a game state to disk, which is something that you can't do with a PSX. Other tricks like zooming, freeze-frame, split screen, wouldn't be too much of a stretch. With QuicKeys, you could even program macros for PSX games.
3) As the Mac hardware evolves, the emulator can apply higher frame rates, better rendering, etc.; and the iMac already has faster CD access than the PSX (24x vs. 2x); so an emulator could actually run the games better than the PSX.
4) If you already have an iMac, then as cheap as the PSX consoles are, the emulator is cheaper still.
5) Installing an emulator does not "waste" a machine; it does not make all the other features of the machine go away. Words can still be processed, sheets can still be spread. It's just one more feature, one additional application, that adds to the machine's value (unless, of course, you were thinking in terms of productivity, in which case "waste" may be apt).
I don't know why they would die. I've heard some people giving up Dvorak, or refusing to learn QWERTY because they're afraid it'll hinder their typing speed or something. AFAICT, the only way this would come into play is if, for some reason, you were forced to use QWERTY. But I mean even Windows can switch keyboard layouts in a matter of seconds, so I don't see how that's much of an issue.
:). Not to mention your typing speed will almost always increase with Dvorak (I've not heard of anyone whose speed didn't increase). When I first learned Dvorak, my QWERTY was at about 110wpm...now my Dvorak is at about 130 and my QWERTY is at about 90...considering I use Dvorak 99% of the time, that's not a bad trade.
:)
Plus I think if you're that worried about your typing speed, you've got a serious ego problem
Anyway to answer your question, I'd say about 5% or so of the geeks I know use Dvorak instead of QWERTY. I've yet to see or hear of anyone seeing an actual Dvorak keyboard, though. Until I saw someone selling them on the web, I thought they were some sort of myth
I didn't notice anybody mention the press release.
http://www.connectix.com/cvgs/index.html
Gumber sez:
...and we have missed your insightful commentary, really.
Although it hasn't been mentioned yet, I would imagine there are other advantages to running PSX games via emulation rather than on a console. For instance, how about those games that support a link cable? Probably fewer than 3% of all people who buy these games ever get to set two playstations up with two tv sets in order to take advantage of this feature. I would not be surprised if this functionality would be supported via network play in the Connectix 2.0 release of this emulator.
It really hasn't been mentioned yet, I would imagine there are other advantages to running PSX games via emulation rather than on a console. For instance, how about those games that support a link cable? Probably fewer than 3% of all people who buy these games ever get to set two playstations up with two tv sets in order to take advantage of this feature. I would not be surprised if this functionality would be supported via network play in the Connectix 2.0 release of this emulator.
Is this going to play NetYaroze (Sony's cool hobbies/developer package) games as well?
-MushMouth
This was settled a long time ago when Atari sued Coleco over its 2600 add-on module for their ColecoVision game system. It let CV owners play all 2600 games. Atari sued, of course, and lost. And this wasn't some underground project. It was all big name game companies. Bottom line, you can patent board designs and ASICS, you can copyright software, but emulation is 100% FSCKING legal.
1.) Metrowerks Codewarrior already has a nice package where you can write C/C++ for a Palm Pilot and test it on the included Palm Pilot emulator. The nifty thing about Connectix Virtual Playstation is that it will allow Metrowerks to revise their Codewarrior for the PlayStation and Net Yaroaze products so that you can do easier development by using the emulator. Couple that with a CD-ROM burner, and your Mac is a self game creation machine.
2.) If you've already got a G3 laptop, well, Sony doesn't make a battery powered, color LCD machine.
Sure there are lots of cd-swapping techniques that people can use to get around the copy-protection crap in a PSX (incorrect checksums and the like), but will this emulator include this copy-protection checking at all? If not, then a common cd burner might be even more useful than before.
Needing a BIOS is not a limitation of any particular hardware. It is a limitation of how complete the emulation is. Cloning a BIOS would be extremely time consuming, difficult, and not much fun. Very little motive for a free (beer) group of authors to bother with such a thing. On the other hand, if you want to make money off a product, you want to ship a complete solution (no BIOS rom hunting) and don't want to pay anybody else licensing fees. Cloning a BIOS looks better and better, especially when willing to invest paid programmers to do the grunt work.
Why get exited !? What if you all ready have Playstation and a Mac ? Well know you can go back and forth with the same CDs!!!! That IS Cool !!!!
I haven't seen one message here that's gotten it totally right
;)
:)
;)
so far. So to begin..
1. PSEmu Pro by itself is perfectly legal. However, to make it
work you need a copy of the PSX BIOS, which is pretty easy to get,
but having a copy is absolutely illegal if you don't own a PSX. No
two ways about it. And PSEmuPro does not come with a copy; it's your own
responsibility to get.
1a. Bleem, the long-rumored-to-be-a-fake commercial PSX emu for Windows
is reported to have skipped this method and simply coded up their own BIOS,
not needing any external files except the game CDs.
1b. Psyke is dead, by the way--the remnants of the team merged with the PSEmu team.
2. PSEmuPro will play CDR copies. The team said they were going to
disable it; I think they've got better things to worry about
3. PSEmuPro was out at least last year; friends of mine remember experimenting
with it(and they remember how bad the frame rate was.).
4. As someone else pointed out, and as I saw in the press release,
it isn't licensed or even really acknowledged by Sony. This leads me to wonder
if Connectix spent some time browsing the PSX documents at Emulation Programmer's Resource
and/or decided to examine PSEmuPro really closely.
5. And the last point; PSEmuPro is _someone's personal project_.
It is _not_ intended to replace a PSX in any serious way, I still consider it a miracle they've gotten this far.
As Tratax said in an interview he gave a while ago, it all started when he began thinking if it was possible
to use some dynamic recompile tricks to enable programs for the R4000 to run on x86 architecture. As he says in
his farewell announcement, "A lot of users will probably forget the freeware (and currently imperfect and slow) PSEmu Pro. I dont mind that, these are most likely the kinds of users that demand regular updates, demand fixes for games, and expect the program to run without flaws on their computers. Exactly the kind of users that should just buy a commercial emulator where they can get their money back if it doesnt run as expected."
Probably a good part of that was redundant, but I'd like some people to delve a bit deeper before jumping into the flame-fest.
Cookie's buried at my dorm room, I'm Scott Francis[Mechaman] at mechaman@mail.wsu.edu
Its not about being about to run Playstation games on a $1000. computer, its being able to sell a bundle deal to Apple.
Look to see the emulator bundled when the big (17 inch) iMacs come out Feb 15th as a way to push the smaller (current) model.
It fits Apples consumer vision, a juicy perk, like the other software (i.e. Quicken, etc.) that is in the current bundle. Just a little something to sweeten the deal and sell a few more computers. You know, something for mom (quicken), dad (internet porn) and something for the kids (playstation).
nuff said
Me and my roomate chipped in and bought a copy of Final Fantasy 7 when it came out because we really wanted to play it... ON A BORROWED PLAYSTATION. When the game was over we gave back the playstation, and now it sits on the shelf gathering dust. I would love to be able to pop this thing into my PC, maybe use some wavetable and 3D hardware, and play the thing like it was intended to be played! I don't see anything illegal or even morally wrong with that. Many people do copy ROMs illegally but many people copy many things.. =) The possibility that something may be used illegally is no reason to outlaw it. Look at encryption and the government, for crying out loud!
But there really is no job. So they can't do it at all, right or wrong. It's a hobby. And that can be done however one wants.
320x240 is not a TV's 'res'. NTSC is 525 lines (minus a few for extra information). The playstation uses these modes: 256x480, 320x480, 384x480, 512x480, and 640x480.
The ability to go higher would be kind of cool, but the fact is the bulk of games are designed for 512x480 mode and a few for 640x480 (playstation high resolution mode). Taking these games to higher resolutions would reveal just how low-resolution the textures, bitmaps, objects, etc. really are. They are fit only for TV (or a really, really bad shadow-mask monitor).
Take for example the PC port of the ever-excellent WipeoutXL. 640x480 looks okay.. Playing at anything over 640x480 is not a pretty sight. Playing Gex2 for PC is the same.. it doesn't even look that good on any monitor.
The rest of your arguments could quite easily be applied against you.. Why listen to games on crummy PC speakers, and watch on a sharply flaw-revealing monitor, when the Playstation hooks up to a home theater system with 3 RCA plugs?
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd much rather listen to it on a Dolby surround system, use regular analog dual-shock controllers, and not tie up my computer.
"Silence when you're talking to me!" -- Leona Ozaki, Dominion Tank Police
Posted by mayhexx:
,would the difference still 40% after having used the other system for a year? Don't think so.
Firstly, the number 40% is so rediculously high it cant be true.
And even if it were true
Secondly, most major graphics software excists for both mac and windows so if you lose 40% of your productivity, you must be really stupid.
What about ROMs made from games you own?
i.e. I have a PC. I have lots of old Nintendo games. I don't have room in my dorm to hook up a classic NES or SNES.
I download the ROMs to games I have. Nothing illegal there, I believe there are laws saying you can make a backup copy of software you own for personal use - That's what the ROM is, a backup of a cart you already own.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I own three Macs and a Playstation. Personally, I don't have much need for a Playstation emulator, unless I had a G3 Powerbook, I suppose (which I don't).
I'm far more interested in the handheld Playstation that I've seen tidbits about.
The great thing about the Playstation is that it's never crashed, boots quickly, plays Playstation games flawlessly, and my 4-year-old son can work it with no problems. (He can also use the Mac, but can't do everything on the Mac, like he can on the Playstation.)
However, if the emulator works, and works well, it could be a boon to Mac sales ("runs all of your office software and it runs Playstation games, too!").
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
This is not for people who just want to play games. This is for people who ALREADY have a G3, and for the borderline people who say "I want a Mac, but it doesn't play any games." That is who this product is designed for. This must quadruple the amount of games available for Mac now.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
It's smother on my bashee than my G200
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
worth mentioning that all the PS emus I know of require a CD with the game -- they do not encourage the echange of game ROMs over the 'Net
Many of the open source emulators you're talking about are either incomplete or horribly limited.
If you'd ever watched Windows 95 boot on your PowerMac, you'd have more respect for this company.
-Hollis
Not really. Not like this. Yeah, it's been around for Windows (as a matter of fact, they're working on a Mac port right now), but you've fotgotten two things:
1) Its compatibility, while admirable for a project of its kind (emulating a recent system within only a year or two of development time) isn't exactly stellar.
2) It's illegal anyway. This might not be (then again, it depends on how Sony's feeling).
Perhaps YOU went temporarily blind... or didn't read Connectix' press release, which states at the bottom that the product is not licensed.
To those comparing this to open-source projects trying to do the same thing: like most things, it's a tradeoff. Connectix' product isn't going to be free in any sense of the word "free", and it's only going to run on G3 Macs. On the other hand, a commercial company has the ability to throw programmers at a project full-time, something very few open source projects have the luxury of. CVGS is almost certainly going to be substantially better than PSEmu is now. PSEmu may eventually catch up (all open source projects do if people keep plugging at them), but that has no bearing on Mac owners.
Wow, I can emulate only if I have an accelerator card. Connectix's Virtual Game Station lets you emulate VERY VERY well without any additional hardware. I think that's much more impressive than needing an accelerator card that costs more than a brand new Playstation.
You need to own a Playstation? I didn't see that bit. Hmm...
.22 pitch and I am just blown away. The thing cost $1045, which is steep for a monitor but cheep when you consider how long you will have it. It replaced a 15" SVGA monitor I bought 7 years ago. The computer that drives it is almost obsolete, but it runs games and Netscape. I'll sacrifice, because the NEXT upgrade means I'll have a better computer AND a nice display.
Regarding monitors, I just got a 21" Hitachi with like
Multimedia monitors are expensive, but I'm willing to bet you get PS comparable imaging using a TV out card, which I think the new ATI's do anyways. The big 56" monitors are just for tradeshows and Microsoft employees..
Framerates might drop on an iMac revB, but I don't see it happening on the new entry-level 300MHz desktops.
All emulators, and MP3 players as well, coincide but do not directly cause an increase in piracy. Sales and rentals will go up though, especially if this is as good as the real thing on at least some of the new Yosemite boxes. Oh well..
And what is PSX emulation?
Last I checked, I couldn't bring a television, PlayStation, and FF7 to the coffeeshop. And the PlayStation costs around $150 after you add the memory card and taxes, while this is $50, or likely less in a bundle. And for those of us without TV, that's a big extra expense for the console.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to invite friends over to gather around the 13" LCD screen and play Tekken 2 with two people sharing the keyboard.
As for CVGS vs. PSEMU, you can't legally use PSEMU without owning a real PlayStation. No comparison, regardless of the other relative merits of the products. So it appears that the Mac *does* have the first full PSX emulation.
Not that it matters to me, my laptop being a PC... But CVGS for Linux would rock.
I have yet to find a game that has as much replay value as MarioKart-64. The fact that the graphics kick ass is just gravy!
Is there a web page stating this, or where did the info come from?
---
"To know recursion, you must first know recursion."
Playstation emulation. I think I read something a while ago about Apple installing either a new drive for N64 carts or PSX support in Macs... I guess they chose the latter.
The press release is at:
:)) I would wager almost complete support. At the very least significantly more
:)
http://www.connectix.com/cvgs/index.html
According to the press release the compatibility list should be at:
http://www.virtualgamestation.com
though that site doesent seem to be up yet.
However based on the fact that Connectix rules,
(one of the few software companies I have real faith in
games then the 50% or so that psemu supports.
From the link off the press release you can
see that both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy
Tactics both work which already puts it ahead
of psemu.
That and though I have not yet seen the full specs the only required hardware is a G3 mac with 32MB of RAM, which would seem to include the powerbook series, whereas psemu requires as much hardware as you can throw at it including a voodoo board.
Tekken on the bus anyone?
Chris
>Clue Factory: What the hell games are out for the >Mac to begin with? Oregon Trail Gold Edition? Sim >Hooker? Invasion of the Mutant Happy People?
The fact that you cannot name a single Mac game
implies you lack the clue you would have others
seek.
To answer your question (short list the top few):
Myth 2, Starcraft, Quake[1-2], Unreal, etc...
And what is this upgrade you speak of? Its a piece of software little man. Not some plugin board.
That and the price is $49.99USD, and it will likely be shipped for free with new iMac systems.
Chris
I mean, I'm not sure if this is still true, but is Sony still taking a loss on every PSX sold? I mean if not, at any rate they don't make a profit. It could be somewhat logical to assume that if Sony coded thier OWN emulator, for Mac of PC, they could pull in more of a profit on it then an actual PSX unit. Sony makes is money from games, not the system. In my opinion, they are doing Sony a FAVOR by releasing this. This is a new market to sell games to(their $$ maker) without having to do anything.
Most that will buy this will buy it so they can use it on a laptop, possible internet play. Probably a load of other options most emulators have, such as real-time saving and loading, and outputing of music to a sound file will be included as well.
So Sony should just sit back, and be thankful they have a new market. Only thing they are probably steamed about is that they didn't do it first.
In general, Open-source software is superior to proprietary. A company must do a *damn good* job to beat OSS, ...
Without starting a regligious crusade here, could someone tell me where the particular meme above came from, and what the justification for it is?
Before you start taking pot shots, I use Mac, Windows, Linux and find then all useful. I've used open source and proprietary code and have found good and bad in both groups.
So I find statements like the one above to be more based on faith then on facts. I think open source is a good idea. I don't think it's the only good idea.
SteveM
I'd like to comlain about this posting. It's writen poorly, has no mention of the source or places to get more info and from what I can read from the other relpies it's also a very old story.
And yes, I am aware of the fact that slashdot is free, that's no excuse for not doing the job right.
Calling them "my system" and "your system" seems to me to be a very childish concept in itself. There is no war going on between users of macs and PCs, please stop treating it as such. Hardware is only the tool, it's the software which should be fought over. One type is evil, the other is pure and good. Turn your upturned nose to the sellers of overpriced and lacking software instead.
The time has come for the mac lovers, the amiga freaks and PC fanatics to set their different layouts aside, join keyboards and say "no" to propriatary software and set the power of knowledge free.
Again, another "Open Source advocate" who doesn't read the darn press release...
Its hand coded PowerPC 750 Assembly! You probably don't even know anything about Macs, much less PowerPC assembly....what good would Open Source do....by the time your guys could understand it, port it, and optimize it, Moore's law will have made that all irrelevant, for by raw speed alone, you'll be able to play it.
And then the PlayStaion II will come out....
: )
The difference is this: PSX for windoze practically requires a Voodoo II 3dfx card...CVGS will require an iMac or better....and its more playable and polished, because its 99% PowerPC assembly....but we'll see how it is in the reviews....just my 2 cents
$50? For an emulator where the actual Sony Playstation is only about $99 USD depending on where you buy it?
This is a whole new degree of lameness.
The reality of it is, the emulator is NOT perfect, according to their own website. It will not play all the games on the market, on top of which you have to own a playstation to begin with, and legally you can't use the playstation AND the emulator at the same time.
What I see happening is a lot of illegal downloads of the playstation BIOS rom, coupled with illegal downloads of the Emulator itself. Possibly a lawsuit against the company for making the emulator isn't far behind... although since I am not a lawyer I don't fully understand copyright law, and how it would apply.
PSEmu, unlike this project, was run by a guy in his spare time, more or less just to see if he could do it. No one makes any money off of it and it never once has claimed to be anything other than a pet project by some college student.
As far as your comments about using VPC emulation I'm very happy you've found something you can use.
Though if you're using a SCSI CD-Rom you're using hardware technology that's much older than a decade. I guess it never hurts to have old standards huh?
Oh, and none of the games I've ever played take 5 minutes to load up. Gran Turismo (a game that the emulator claims to run) only takes about 20 seconds on my playstation to load. I would like to find out how long it would actually take to load on this emulator, and how well it plays. Is it really going to be worth the loss in framerate due to the emulation? Or the fact that most monitors aren't nearly the size of a TV? (You can spend $1300 on a 21" monitor or the same on a 56" TV, and yes resolution is better on a montior, but we're talking a GAME console here)
Wow, I'm impressed that your PowerMac G3/400 can run a game intended for a 33Mhz system.
TV's resolution is a bit higher than 320x240, as a point you should remember that the playstation games are designed to be used with a TV and not a computer monitor. The games are fine tuned to look good on a TV, and sometimes they blur images just so they look good on a TV.
It's like using any emulator on your PC, the games seem to look better if they are on a TV simply because thats what they were designed to work with. Heck, Look at zSnes, a popular Super Nintendo Emulator, it has a mode where it blurs the pixels for you, otherwise the games look too crisp. I doubt the Virtual Game Thingy has a blurred mode since it would take precious CPU time...
But hey, if emulating playstation games on your Macintosh makes you happy, by all means, go right ahead, nobody's gonna stop you. But it is not, by any measure, a Macintosh "First", and given the games list on that website, niether is it a Macintosh "Best".
I'd be interested in comparing the performance/price for emulator on PC vs. Macintosh, my current PC costs about $900 to build and with it's 3dfx voodoo2 card emulates the Playstation pretty nicely, though I only loaded one game, just to see if I could. I much prefer playing Gran Turismo on my real playstation using the Dual Shock controller....
ummm...
last time I checked, Intel DOES own all rights to the 80x86 chips, and it is NOT an "open spec". It may be well known, and repeatedly duplicated, but it is not open. Companies have to be very careful of how they go about copying others work to ensure that they do not violate copyrights.
Specifically, "Black Box" development techniques must be employed.
The story so far...
Flame: "Windows had it first -- go see psemu.com! Nyah nyah..."
Response: "Ah, but this is being released by a large, well known, and well respected company. It will be faster, more compatible, better supported, and actually legal (once Sony gets its obligatory posturing out of the way)..."
Flame: "Well if the code is so great, then it should be open sourced! It's the code that matters, not the games!"
Response: "Uh, guys, this is something target at consumers, not developers. It most certainly is the games that matter, and your average PC-using family is not necessarily willing or able to track down something that was just hacked together by the still relatively unknown geek community."
Flame: "Well if we wanted to be at the mercy of big companies, we'd all go back to Microborg!"
Response: "Um, the whole world is not run by Microsoft. Believe it or not, there are still some decent, respectable companies out there, and companies can still do a lot of things that the geek community cannot..."
Am I missing anything?
OK people here is the deal a lot of what has been said here is way off base or just plain wrong. ...
l
due to what ever reason ( I think ignorance has something to with it) several of you have done a great injustice to people who work many hours on these emu's
there are several play station emus out there that
work relatively well and can play, play
station CD's very well thank you. not ROM's
as some
people have mentioned (CD images is another
story)...
psemupro has come along ways since its humble
beginnings and is now one of the leading psx
emu's out there it has its very own software
GUI for systems without a decent 3d card and
it also has the optional d3d and glide GUI as
well as a opengl GUI (although it is slightly
Lacking)...
another great psx emu was
psyke although it needed glide to function
properly it was the hottest psx emu at its
time it has now been merged into psemupro.
Although these emulators are great they do
require you to have a psx BIOS image of some
sort.
This is where all the fun and games ends, if you
do not have a play station you are not entitled
to
a BIOS image. If you do you have a play station you can have a image of that system's BIOS
made and be a
legal owner of it. otherwise if you just download
one off the net somewhere it is still illegal.
the only emulator that I know of that does not
require a play station BIOS(besides virtual game station ??) is bleem which has
undertaking the task of reverse engineering the
system and developed a working play station
emulator out of it which works very well and upon
its release will have full d3d support and
should play 85 - 90 % percent of
play station games out there...
psemupro http://www.psemu.com/index.html
sope
http://technopole.le-village.com/rejeb/sope.htm
bleem http://www.bleem.com/
also there is a linux psx emu in the works called sope so check it out..
chaos4u
Music the Paint dancefloor the canvas your body the brush
Sorry to wound your mac-pride... but... well it's the truth. The page is at www.psemu.com, see for yourself. They've been around for a WHILE...
Hey, sure I like to play all those old console games... but I mean seriously, IMHO it's really about the emulation and the implication that code will never die once emulated. NOT THE GAMES. Connectix is trying to sell to all the kiddies out there who have macs and no PSX, however if the source isn't released what good is it??? Connectix could go under any day now for all we know and then where are we??? Now I didn't think PSEMU was open, so I'm not neccesarily speaking on their behalf either, I'm speaking on behalf of the Free Software/OSS Community. IF I WANT PERFECT GAMES I'LL BUY THE FRIGGIN MACHINE --- If I want EMULATION, GIVE ME THE SOURCE!!!
...the playstation has some actual play value under the hood, @ least from what I've seen... flame away if you like, I'm going to sleep. Sleep now there's an interesting subject, the paradise of the weak and the terminally bored... well I'm bored, time to hit the sack...