The DCEmu Network Public Interview (Question #3)

[wraggster]

To those who dont know what this is ill let you in to what this is.

This is a rather unique experiment if you like of a public interview of up to 40,000 people who are members of the DCEmu Network. We are all here for the love of homebrew and gaming and so the questions will be based around that subject.

With the new Network Forum i only need to post this once for it to show on all the sites

Heres question 3

What has been the most Amazing Homebrew or Emulation Release you have Played with ?

The most amazing for me goes back some years and im split between 2 releases so ill post them both.

UltraHLE- the N64 Emulator

This emulator came from no where and all of a sudden you could play Mario 64 and a load of the other top Nintendo 64 games on your PC, amazing release and the frenzy around it was awesome.

Bleemcast - the Playstation Emulator

This was another fantastic emulator that took my breath away and it was awesome to play my playstatio games on my PC instead of the Playstation.

Thats the release(s) that really amazed me then and still do today, Whats yours ?

[Musoka_Eimin]

My PC is constructed from ancient parts it doesn't run cool apps like that, it won't even run any gba :( it even has problems with a few of my NES roms which is odd cuz it plays my SNES roms fine....So I have to go with YoyoFr great release of SNESTYL fantastic app, tho there are MANY cool little homebrew apps that have nothing to do with emu.

[felonyr301]

Well for me it has to be the first real emulator i tryed on my computer and that was project 64 i was soo happy that i could of played all my old games on my computer and in higher definition yes real HD lol.It made me convert one of my xbox controllers into a usb on one end to connect to my computer and use it for all my games. This started me in using all other emulators like snes ,nes,gba,gbc,i tryed to get playstation one but it was confusing at the time but mentioning it ill give it a another go. If anybody can point me to a good one ill be extremely happy so i can play my favorite games on it like gran turismo 2 and metal gear solid yes good times good times..lol

[quzar]

Neocd/sdl v5

It was the first publicly released emulation project I ever contributed to. I remember going to school the morning that it was going to be released with a copy of it and showing it to my programming class after not having slept the prior night (spent the whole night helping IMR to get that region selection working properly).

[RCON]

The UltraHLE N64 emulator was dope because it leveraged the power of the computer to emulate the system. That was totally unique and worked great but was not a real emulator in the same way MAME is. MAME blows me away because that project keeps getting expanded and gets better and better. I wish in some ways it would use High Level Emulation like UltraHLE because then you would be able to play some of the newer games at full speed. MAME is my all time favorite because I can play all my old school favorite arade games like Starwars and TRON. Daphne is a cool one too because you can play some of the old laserdisc games like Dragons Lair.

For homebrew I would have to say it is PSP Rhythm, because I am programming it and I have almost reached my goal of having a program similar to the classic Rebirth audio program. I have learned a lot from programming that and when my brother and I come up with crazy ideas to implement it is exciting figuring something out I would have though was impossible for me before I started it.

[whatsorrow]

i remember my first emulators NO$GMB , and Zsnes....this was the first time figuring out what emulators and roms were...it was such a long time ago.....i used to run these progs on a 486. haha but back then it was heaven, hell it still is.

[takieda]

Umm... Bleemcast actually was a commercial release allowing you to play certain (very few) Playstation games on the Dreamcast. Bleem was the original emulator for PC which started as homebrew (I believe) but grew into a commercial enterprise, which Sony, sadly, managed to shut down through brute force and immoral tactics.

Personally, though, I'd have to say the best I've messed with has got to be Xbox Media Center, as it has been the most robust and most heavily supported homebrew application ever created (correct me if I'm wrong) - taking a $150 console (or more if you purchased the system earlier) and turning it into the best media player ever produced (beating out units costing upwards of $500 without even half the features, extensibility and usability). Now, I have all my DVDs - movies and shows alike - backed up onto my Xbox and I can watch anything I have in my collection without ever worrying about scratching my originals, or even carrying them with me.

[moogster66]

I agree with Takieda that XBMC is probably the best homebrew ever. But the most amazing thing for me are some of the PSP emulators. The ones that surprize me are Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem', and Rise of the Triad. Emu's that play the older PC games on the PSP. Ten years ago, you could only play these games on an expensive PC. Hell, I bought my first PC in '97 for about $3000.00! Being able to bring these great games back, I think, is what keeps the PSP exciting for me. These FPS games are some of the best titles ever! I don't care what the younger guys think. If you are not trying these games out on the PSP because you think they are too old, you are missing out big time! And you are not a true gamer!

[HtheB]

i remember my first emulators NO$GMB , and Zsnes....this was the first time figuring out what emulators and roms were...it was such a long time ago.....i used to run these progs on a 486. haha but back then it was heaven, hell it still is.
Yeah I remember those days too :)

[Eric]

The very first emulator i used was Nesticle for Dos i believe it was at the time. I was amazed just cause well yeah at the time i didnt own the system and i hadnt played it in alongtime so i thought id give it a test shot on this old 386 PC that i had. After awhile i bought the Sega Dreamcast and started using Nester DC and once again was quite amazed at the emulator. I had also tested DreamSNES and used SNESX9 on my parents pc.

Those were my favs i have plenty others that i dont really use i dont really use many emulators anymore cause i much rather play the games on the original systems. Emulation isnt 100% perfect well neither is the original system but it was meant for that system. I only use Emulation for beta testing purposes now cause now i'm all about homebrew games.

[vettacossx]

does anyone remember THE PSX CHEAT DEVICE/VIDEO PLUGIN! THAT WAS A RARE GEM INDEED! what was it you ask?
a video plugin for your epsxe playstation 1 emulator, but more than a video plug it was the best damn cheat device ive ever used for anything!!! imean this thing had every game ...of every region ....and went by the "slus number" of the game so you had a list of every game made for the ps1 and cheats for every game made!!! wow!!! still i think its amazing too play ff7 on my lap-top on the go with a team like " 1 young cloud 1 sepheroth and 1 chocobo for my charichter moddifier cheat in this plug-in it has charicter moddifier codes !!!! i think this was my fav. and the Project64 emulator is a close second!

mad props too zillmar from the pj64 team for helping out our very own beloved psmonkey on the m64 too!!!

[Hawq]

Ah yes PEC I remember it well, a very usefull little plugin that was but now to the question.

What has been the most Amazing Homebrew or Emulation Release you have Played with ?

I think I'll have to rank UltraHLE up there as well for largely the same reasons as wraggster, despite having a N64 at the time I was rather blown away by the ability to play my games on the PC & as this was firmly within 3DFX's Voodoo lifespan it was brilliantly done, it did kind of leave nVidia or ATI users out in the cold though, didnt matter to me I had a Voodoo 3 2000 & it got used a lot even though using a keyboard for Mario64 wasnt exactly easy. It also stands out for me for the swift action of Nintendo to try & stamp it out, it was something like just under a day it was on the original homepage before they demended it was removed, by then though it was too late as every emu site in the world had it pretty much, you cant stop emulation it seems.

Also contenders of course are Callus & then Final Burn for giving us CPS1 & CPS2 emulation respectively, Final Fight & SF2 on the PC was a marvel to behold the first time round, though for CPS2 games we had to wait for the arcane magic of xors to run them & put up with the hoarding that went on for some of them. It didnt take anything away from having all the classic Capcom fighters & shooters available though, if anything it made it all the sweeter when we could finally play them.

On the homebrew front I think even though its not a game the homebrew dashboards for the Xbox must get a mention, I use EvoX myself but XBMC is a dash in its own right, I mainly just use it for video & music thoguh as it handles just about everything I throw at it with no problems. What does this have to do with emulation & homebrew games? simple without the homebrew dashboards we wouldnt have the ports & emu's on the Xbox.

While the many great emulators on the DC hold a strong place in my heart & could feature here in my answer I have to give it to the Xbox emulators I'm afraid & of the large amount out there the award probably has to go to Xports ports with the exception of Surreal64 of course, with this I can finally play my N64 games on my telly again without getting it out or dragging my PC downstairs (sure its got some bugs in it but damn its good when they dont rear up) Hang on! I've come full circle to N64 emulation, I wasnt expecting that when I started typing.

For a proper homebrew response then I reckon its got to be eitehr the Xrick Rick Dangerous port to the Xbox, the Rise of the Triad port, Doom port or Quake 2 port on the Xbox. Veering into portable though its got to be A Touch Of War I reckon, even though I havent fired up the latest version yet I've liked it since it started & from the shots its just getting better & better.

Special mention for Rice's N64 emu video plugin that lets you use hi res textures in games as well for its outstanding & when it came out totally unexpected brilliance.

[grin.ch]

thanks to SamuraiX, I would say it is Beats of Rage for an emu, other than that, PSP Bruce Lee has brought the most entertainment by way of homebrew games.

[felonyr301]

almost forgot about the xbmc now that is the best homebrew app because of its extensive support from people its a must dont bother selling your xbox just mod it for media purposes..

[DCDayDreamer]

What has been the most Amazing Homebrew or Emulation Release you have Played with ?

Bleemcast!, although a commercial product, it broke the mould, there is nothing else that can practically transform one console into another with no hardware mods, hacks, and by simply using disc swap - pure genius!.