hacks for compatibility

Player1 · Post by **Player1** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:12 pm

I would suggest that Zsnes should use more hacks to make more games playable, especially for those no other solution can be found. Of course this hacks should only stay as long as a better solution can be found. I'm thinking especially on daffy duck - marvin invasion, without hack the flickering of the background makes it unplayable and switching it of makes no fun.

To resume it in one sentence: More hacks should be used as a temporal solution, please don't get me wrong, I just ask to take into consideration.

How about making a poll whether to use hacks?

Thanks for your attention

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:23 pm

If it makes people stop bitching about certain games, I'm all for it. However, I think pretty much all the popular bitching targets work properly now.

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:59 pm

There's already enough hacked SNES emulators already (UOSNES, SnesGT). I don't think that the devs want to take this course.

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:13 pm

Besides, ZSNES is already quite loaded with them.

Post by **Nach** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:27 pm

Well ZSNES doesn't compare to UOSNES hacks wise.

In ZSNES we have a few dozen hacks. In UOSNES, I can't name a single game that isn't hacked. Every game I could think of I found a hack for in UOSNES source. It's incredable how UOSNES even goes ahead to rewrite major segments of some games to get them to work.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:28 pm

It's... UltraSNES. All the incompatility of UltraHLE, now for the SNES!

Post by **Nach** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:33 pm

Noxious Ninja wrote:It's... UltraSNES. All the incompatility of UltraHLE, now for the SNES!

Well, it's a really old core of Snes9x with parts stolen from ZSNES, XPP, SNEeSe, newer Snes9xs, AdvanceMAME and possibly other stuff. Then to get things to work with all that monstrosity, it just keeps on hacking and hacking away at the core.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:35 pm

No.. The current paradigm of doing things at this point is to REMOVE the hacks in favor of more accurate SNES emulation. This will serve to better the emulator, help point out problems, and clean up the code.

It's about emulation here and not just being able to play your favorite pirating game right?

ShadowFX · Post by **ShadowFX** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:46 pm

Nightcrawler wrote:It's about emulation here and not just being able to play your favorite pirating game right?

You are correct, being able to play the games is just a nice side effect... but really, it's all about accurate SNES emulation.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:53 pm

Accurate SNES emulation is what ZSNES is trying to do. So let's stick it that way.

Stifu · Post by **Stifu** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:05 am

EMu-LoRd wrote:being able to play the games is just a nice side effect...

I think that's a tiny bit hypocritical... If pure emulation was the only goal, we wouldn't have stuff like filters or online play...

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:39 am

Stifu wrote:
EMu-LoRd wrote:being able to play the games is just a nice side effect...
I think that's a tiny bit hypocritical... If pure emulation was the only goal, we wouldn't have stuff like filters or online play...

Valid point.

But at least those features are optional. Using or not using hacks is not an option to the user.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:49 am

Byuu and anomie are working on the future of SNES emulation. It will be interesting to see what comes out of all of their research.

BTW, is the version of Snes9x with anomie's rewritten gfx engine available anywhere? Or any time soon?

Post by **Nach** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:59 am

Noxious Ninja wrote: BTW, is the version of Snes9x with anomie's rewritten gfx engine available anywhere?

Yeah, in Snes9x CVS along with all sorts of other rewrites. anomie is making some excellent progress lately. And no, Snes9x CVS is not for non developers.
If you ask certain devlopers nicely for a copy for a platform that they're able to compile, odds are you'll get it.

Esturk · Post by **Esturk** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:19 am

I agree that Zsnes should continue to develop accurate emulation. Hacks are a no-no in my book. The Zsnes team has already done a fantastic job emulating the SNES. The less hacks, the better.

Player1 · Post by **Player1** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:31 am

EMu-LoRd wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:It's about emulation here and not just being able to play your favorite pirating game right?
You are correct, being able to play the games is just a nice side effect... but really, it's all about accurate SNES emulation.

Its just what I said, the developers should work on accuracy, but hacks can make the game playable before. I don't said that hacks should be used for everything

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:42 am

While we're on the subject, does anyone know what Sleuth's strategy is? How many hacks does it have? Just curious seeing as how it has great compatibility and is fairly new.

Post by **Nach** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:54 am

Overload has told me that his emulator doesn't contain a single hack.

Based on the fact that his emulator doesn't even do SPC7110 via decompress packs (hack/cheating) I take that as fact.

Stifu · Post by **Stifu** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:09 am

IceFox wrote:
Stifu wrote:
EMu-LoRd wrote:being able to play the games is just a nice side effect...
I think that's a tiny bit hypocritical... If pure emulation was the only goal, we wouldn't have stuff like filters or online play...
Valid point.

But at least those features are optional. Using or not using hacks is not an option to the user.

Indeed, I didn't mean to sound like I was supporting the use of hacks, I'd rather have accurate emulation... It's much more suitable.

Player1 · Post by **Player1** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:56 am

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I mean if a game doesn't run and can't get to run by accuracy, a hack should be made until the hack gets obsolete, because of higher accuracy.

Has someone a good argument against hacks? you could make a command line or switch to turn hack on/off, so everyone can get what he wants, would this be a solution?

Zsnes users want: a fast emulator that runs every game without bugs and an easy GUI

Developers want an accurate emulator, easy to maintain

I just try to find a way user and developer can be happy. I'm sad I can't contribute more

Post by **Nach** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:11 pm

The problem with that is when you start playing games with hacks, you don't realize it's broken, and hence don't ever get around to fixing it correctly.

It's also a problem knowing when to remove a hack, since you no longer remember where in the game the hack was needed for exactly and you can't reliably test if it's safe to remove the hack or not.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:53 pm

Player1 wrote:Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I mean if a game doesn't run and can't get to run by accuracy, a hack should be made until the hack gets obsolete, because of higher accuracy.

Has someone a good argument against hacks? you could make a command line or switch to turn hack on/off, so everyone can get what he wants, would this be a solution?

Zsnes users want: a fast emulator that runs every game without bugs and an easy GUI

Developers want an accurate emulator, easy to maintain

I just try to find a way user and developer can be happy. I'm sad I can't contribute more

Several ZSNES users want an accurate emulator as well.
Notably ROM hackers.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:05 pm

Player1 wrote:Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I mean if a game doesn't run and can't get to run by accuracy, a hack should be made until the hack gets obsolete, because of higher accuracy.

Has someone a good argument against hacks? you could make a command line or switch to turn hack on/off, so everyone can get what he wants, would this be a solution?

Zsnes users want: a fast emulator that runs every game without bugs and an easy GUI

Developers want an accurate emulator, easy to maintain

I just try to find a way user and developer can be happy. I'm sad I can't contribute more

Didn't we just go over this? Hacks don't do anything to help the emulation. In fact, as Nach pointed out, they can hurt it. All a hack does is allow people like you who don't give a rat's ass about the emulation and just want to play a game you don't own faster and for free. I'll be honest.. I play games I don't own too, but the mentality that this is what ZSNES is for and all about is very bad and gives the emulation community a bad name. ZSNES is not being developed with this mentality. Go switch to an emulator that is.

If you want to play it that badly, buy a copier or look on ebay for the cartridge and an SNES.. or... USE A DIFFERENT EMULATOR THAT DOES RUN IT!

Being that you have several options and there are a handful of good SNES emulators, preaching for more hacks in ZSNES when the devs are trying to REMOVE them is fruitless.

Either take some of the above actions or have some patience and wait for the day ZSNES will run xx game without a hack.

Player1 · Post by **Player1** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:46 pm

Nightcrowler, I am patient. It is just a suggestion.

Quote Nach:
The problem with that is when you start playing games with hacks, you don't realize it's broken, and hence don't ever get around to fixing it correctly.

It's also a problem knowing when to remove a hack, since you no longer remember where in the game the hack was needed for exactly and you can't reliably test if it's safe to remove the hack or not.

I said you could make a switch that turns all hacks of, I would volunteer to test games in an unhacked version. I don't want to bitch around, as I said I just see it from the user side and try to learn how everything works

AntoineWG · Post by **AntoineWG** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 5:00 pm

The problem with turning hacks on and off is that hacks are modifying the ROM itself. The emulator is ignorant to what is hacked or not.