Bob

byuu’s ‘The Edge Of Emulation’

Developer byuu just posted a really interesting article about the current state of SNES emulation and pretty much the only thing left to finish:  Individual pixel timings.  While this may only affect raster effect accuracy in emulation, it goes much deeper than that…

When I was a kid, emulation was a new, fun way to experience my NES and SNES games.  I found it fascinating how developers around the world were working to make it all happen and I’ve been using emulation ever since, for enjoyment purposes.

These days, I tend to play my games on original consoles on RGB monitors, to enjoy the ‘original, enhanced experience’ and emulation for me has taken on an entirely new meaning:  Development and preservation.  While I’m nowhere near smart enough to be a game dev, I use emulators for all consoles for testing and preparation for work I do on real hardware.  Without emulation, many of the things you and I use wouldn’t be possible and I’ve now gained an entirely new layer of respect and admiration for the people who make emulators possible.

I said all of that to say this:  One of the most groundbreaking SNES experts in the world has asked for our help.  In byuu’s own words:

…this article is also a call for help.  Effectively, I’ve gone as far as I could. I’ve designed higan and bsnes so that it will be as easy as possible for anyone to plug in exact PPU cycle-timings should they become known in the future. I also made a scanline renderer that worked around every issue it possibly could.

So, is anyone out there willing to help take on the task?

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