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.
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.)
it cheats, and the "develop your character any way you want" thing just flat out isn't true. If you don't stick to the right character upgrade paths, you're screwed.
AMEN. I really, really, really wanted to like that game, especially since I liked Dark Wizard for the Sega CD. But FFT was the only console game I ever played that got harder when you used a GameShark. I always got stuck at the same place, three battles in.
FFT really ruined the tactical RPG genre for me. I've tried Arc The Lad, Vandal Hearts, Might & Magic Heroes (?) and I've disliked them all. It's depressing, since the classical console RPG is going by the wayside in favor of these so-called tactical RPGS, (which really aren't, not enough units like Dark Wizard or tabletop wargames.) And computer RPGs are no haven, since they've become more like Balder's Gate or Dungeon Seige, which use combat systems I also hate. Pause/Real Time/Pause sucks.
Am I the only one thinking that these things could get easily stolen or damaged because of how small they are and how much they resemble these? They even use the same swap out part for converting the built-in plug into a cord.
It's not like you're supposed keep these in your pocket with a protective cover like an iPod...
4) Due to the realities of Japanese population density, niche games are somewhat easier to promote---distribute and advertise in a few key cities, and you can sell to a majority of the population. This means a greater variety of games, from a greater variety of developers; in general, the huge publisher overheads in the US (massive land area) and Europe (5 or 6 languages necessary) are reduced.
Wow, I never thought of population densitiy being a factor quite like that... I've always assumed that the USian market was damaged due to an inate "monolithic" tendency in our corporate culture.
It's kind of ironic. Japan is a so-called "collectivist" culture socially, but this social cohesion permits higher population densities, allowing for more "individualistic" marketing. While the individualistic tendencies of the average USian pull us apart, making it harder for marketers and distributors to serve niche markets... The fact that a country of people who believe that "fences make good neighbors" was able to export a conformist culture like Microsoft's now makes much more sense.
Re:Mac's notoriously difficult... yay book
on
Fix a Troubled Mac
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· Score: 2
what disk drive eject button?
Believe it or not, certain modern Macs still have need for a paper clip or similar probe. The pinhole's just been moved to either the CD tray for Macs don't have CD eject buttons on the case or real early iMacs used a pinhole for the Programmer's Switch.
OTOH, my flat panel iMac uses a pencil instead of a paper clip for it's CD tray... there are times where you have to get a jammed CD out while the system's powered down. (Apple eventually had to replace that one drive, it was still under warrantee...)
When I read this article, I thought this was originally a joke, but it's not.
When I first heard about this a couple days ago, I thought the same thing. And I'm a Mac user!
Seriously, though, this is just a convenience utility. The game itself was already Carbonized, but it required launching into Classic to use the installer. With current Mac OS X installs not even having the OS 9 files needed to use Classic, I'm guessing that Blizzard realized that the tech support phone calls for the clumsy Classic based procedure could be potentially expensive in the long.
this is such a sad little bit... screenshots of an installer?
Since the game was ported first, most OS X users already did the old jury-rigged install process. So they may be curious as to what artwork Blizzard used for installer screens, since they are unlikely to see them. Blizzard tends to make even their installers a little high on the "eye candy" scale compared with most companies.
I've blown hundreds of dollars on collectable dice, so I've been "taken in" by these kinds of games too. But, judging from the tenor of the posts to this article, it seems to me that the parents here seem to think of the games as some kind of "new" evil. Before Magic, Bionicle, Mage Knight, etc., kids collected and played with baseball cards, marbles, dress-up dolls and vending machine capsules.
I personally think the current crop of "collectable toys" is a better deal since you get much more play time and, get this, social interaction than the older games. I was never aware of marble tourneys or Barbie fashion shows when I was a kid, but now kids can get college scholarships and impressive social networks set up from playing these "trading" games. And most of these games now have a college-friendly sensibility to them that encourage continued play into adulthood.
No, I meant 20 Hz. That's all that's needed to replicate a 10 Hz signal. Of course, you can't hear anything musical or even vocal with such a low sampling rate, but that's another issue.
A 20 KHz sample rate is usually considered the minimum to enjoy music, but you really need 40 KHz or higher to minimize perceptual distortion. You can get away with as low as 8 KHz for just speech, however. (This is what the old Sun mu-Law format worked at.)
Note that you won't get the full range of the subwoofer with a DVD or CD. Both have a bottom limit of 20 Hz, while the sub in question can allegedly output down to 10 Hz flat (and well below that with fall off).
Forgive my naivete, but I cannot see how that can be. My understanding of acoustics and digital sampling suggests that a DVD or CD only has a top limit (of 22-24 kHz). Low frequencies, like 10 Hz, are easily represented by almost any digital sampling standard; they are all over the Nyquist frequency of 20 Hz.
Any problem with bass reproduction from a CD or DVD is purely a matter of the amplifier or signal reproduction circuitry between the CD/DVD player and the speaker, not of the medium itself. Or is there something in the Red Book standard that limits the reproduction after the signal is read off the disc?
Different blends are used that come out tasting the same
The different colas do taste different; it's just that most people don't care. People continue to drink Coke out of Microsoftian inertia and lack of selection; most fountains in the States serve Coke exclusively. (Though maybe that should be using Microsoft-ware out of Coca-Colian habits... just to be chronologically consistent.)
In theory, there should only be one "cola" product.
Why? The only thing that makes a cola a cola is the inclusion of the cola bean as an ingredient. What Pepsi, Coke, RC, and others do is vary the other ingredients, like sugar and caffeine, to taste.
Advocating that Linux should be the one true OS is to fall for the same kind of hubris that Microsoft is known for. We need diversity in our OS space for security reasons, to prevent any form of "monoculture."
Yes, it supports MP3, but it only has a 210 Meg capacity. I can get an additional hour out of it if I use 128kbps AAC instead of 192kbps MP3. I'm just curious if either Vorbis or MP3 suffer more from transcoding to AAC than the other.
I am actually in the possession of that rare beast, an non-Apple AAC player.
When transcoding to 128kbps AAC, which source material suffers less degredation, 192kbps MP3 or Q6 Vorbis? This music site has decently high quality originals for a change, but not in formats suited to my player.
The funny thing is, that statement shouldn't have been needed. Everything the site says about water being dangerous is absolutely true "from a certain point of view." Water causes drowing, is a carrier of pollutants, thirst causes eventually death, etc. The shear accuracy of the site's content is what makes it so funny; it's the Perfect Troll(TM).
Slashdot Mirror
Shouldn't that be...
I am NaN... I am a person!
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.
ThE MaStEr DoEs NoT aPpRoVe Of WiReLeSs, OnLy FiBrE
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.)
I, for one, welcome our new Apple overlords.
Okay, I'll bite...
Assuming that Puerto Rico is the 51st "State," what's 52nd?
AMEN. I really, really, really wanted to like that game, especially since I liked Dark Wizard for the Sega CD. But FFT was the only console game I ever played that got harder when you used a GameShark. I always got stuck at the same place, three battles in.
FFT really ruined the tactical RPG genre for me. I've tried Arc The Lad, Vandal Hearts, Might & Magic Heroes (?) and I've disliked them all. It's depressing, since the classical console RPG is going by the wayside in favor of these so-called tactical RPGS, (which really aren't, not enough units like Dark Wizard or tabletop wargames.) And computer RPGs are no haven, since they've become more like Balder's Gate or Dungeon Seige, which use combat systems I also hate. Pause/Real Time/Pause sucks.
It's not like you're supposed keep these in your pocket with a protective cover like an iPod...
Wow, I never thought of population densitiy being a factor quite like that... I've always assumed that the USian market was damaged due to an inate "monolithic" tendency in our corporate culture.
It's kind of ironic. Japan is a so-called "collectivist" culture socially, but this social cohesion permits higher population densities, allowing for more "individualistic" marketing. While the individualistic tendencies of the average USian pull us apart, making it harder for marketers and distributors to serve niche markets... The fact that a country of people who believe that "fences make good neighbors" was able to export a conformist culture like Microsoft's now makes much more sense.
Believe it or not, certain modern Macs still have need for a paper clip or similar probe. The pinhole's just been moved to either the CD tray for Macs don't have CD eject buttons on the case or real early iMacs used a pinhole for the Programmer's Switch.
OTOH, my flat panel iMac uses a pencil instead of a paper clip for it's CD tray... there are times where you have to get a jammed CD out while the system's powered down. (Apple eventually had to replace that one drive, it was still under warrantee...)
Kind of like the Butlerian Jihad?
It's worse than that... they're playing using INWO rules and Military-Industrial Complex is in play. That -4 to control's now a +4!
When I first heard about this a couple days ago, I thought the same thing. And I'm a Mac user!
Seriously, though, this is just a convenience utility. The game itself was already Carbonized, but it required launching into Classic to use the installer. With current Mac OS X installs not even having the OS 9 files needed to use Classic, I'm guessing that Blizzard realized that the tech support phone calls for the clumsy Classic based procedure could be potentially expensive in the long.
Since the game was ported first, most OS X users already did the old jury-rigged install process. So they may be curious as to what artwork Blizzard used for installer screens, since they are unlikely to see them. Blizzard tends to make even their installers a little high on the "eye candy" scale compared with most companies.
Wow. I didn't know my computer had a little "electric-one-eyed-nerd" in it! I better get a toothbrush to clean it! (-;
The acronym is emphasized as...
the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy
...not...
the Hitchhiker's Guide 2 the Galaxy
There is already a BBC website called H2G2 that competes with Wikipedia and Everything2 as an online, community-edited reference work.
I personally think the current crop of "collectable toys" is a better deal since you get much more play time and, get this, social interaction than the older games. I was never aware of marble tourneys or Barbie fashion shows when I was a kid, but now kids can get college scholarships and impressive social networks set up from playing these "trading" games. And most of these games now have a college-friendly sensibility to them that encourage continued play into adulthood.
No, I meant 20 Hz. That's all that's needed to replicate a 10 Hz signal. Of course, you can't hear anything musical or even vocal with such a low sampling rate, but that's another issue.
A 20 KHz sample rate is usually considered the minimum to enjoy music, but you really need 40 KHz or higher to minimize perceptual distortion. You can get away with as low as 8 KHz for just speech, however. (This is what the old Sun mu-Law format worked at.)
Forgive my naivete, but I cannot see how that can be. My understanding of acoustics and digital sampling suggests that a DVD or CD only has a top limit (of 22-24 kHz). Low frequencies, like 10 Hz, are easily represented by almost any digital sampling standard; they are all over the Nyquist frequency of 20 Hz.
Any problem with bass reproduction from a CD or DVD is purely a matter of the amplifier or signal reproduction circuitry between the CD/DVD player and the speaker, not of the medium itself. Or is there something in the Red Book standard that limits the reproduction after the signal is read off the disc?
Hence my "simulation thereof."
Different blends are used that come out tasting the same
The different colas do taste different; it's just that most people don't care. People continue to drink Coke out of Microsoftian inertia and lack of selection; most fountains in the States serve Coke exclusively. (Though maybe that should be using Microsoft-ware out of Coca-Colian habits... just to be chronologically consistent.)
Make that "the inclusion of the cola nut, or a simulation thereof, as an ingredient." It's coffee that come in beans... feh.
Why? The only thing that makes a cola a cola is the inclusion of the cola bean as an ingredient. What Pepsi, Coke, RC, and others do is vary the other ingredients, like sugar and caffeine, to taste.
Advocating that Linux should be the one true OS is to fall for the same kind of hubris that Microsoft is known for. We need diversity in our OS space for security reasons, to prevent any form of "monoculture."
Yes, it supports MP3, but it only has a 210 Meg capacity. I can get an additional hour out of it if I use 128kbps AAC instead of 192kbps MP3. I'm just curious if either Vorbis or MP3 suffer more from transcoding to AAC than the other.
When transcoding to 128kbps AAC, which source material suffers less degredation, 192kbps MP3 or Q6 Vorbis? This music site has decently high quality originals for a change, but not in formats suited to my player.
The funny thing is, that statement shouldn't have been needed. Everything the site says about water being dangerous is absolutely true "from a certain point of view." Water causes drowing, is a carrier of pollutants, thirst causes eventually death, etc. The shear accuracy of the site's content is what makes it so funny; it's the Perfect Troll(TM).