Timecop - ZSNES & bsnes

EDIT: Now featured on ars technica: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz...

GoNintendo as well: http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=158596

A short play-through of Timecop for the Super Nintendo, in ZSNES v1.51 (0:00) and bsnes v068 (2:51). The music plays twice as fast in ZSNES, likely due to accuracy issues.

Snes9x v1.51 (not presented in video) plays Timecop's music at regular speed.


Another note of interest is the warping and twisting of the time pod. In ZSNES, it is simply skewed left and right, while Snes9x and bsnes skew it vertically as well, giving it a better warping and whirling effect, likely as intended.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Super
• Nintendo
• Entertainment
• System
• SNES
• Timecop
• ZSNES
• bsnes
• music
• emulator
• comparison

[TheRealBoxman]

Oh thank God! I'm so relieved that I can now play the masterpiece known as Time Cop the way it was meant to be played!

[Lateralusticus]

@TheRealBoxman Yep, good ole' Timecop in all it's original intended glory. Same for other masterpieces too like Der Langrisser, Star Fox, Earthworm Jim 2, Kirby's Dreamland 3...

[TheRealBoxman]

@Lateralusticus Just a little bit of teasing there (which I hope you recognized).

Just so I'm clear, I fully understand the important of art preservation and emulation accuracy, so I view this as a worthwhile endeavor.

Unfortunately, the differences found in most other games are rarely ever quite as striking as those noted here. That, and many are just so used to the "feel" of ZSNES/SNES9x and are spoiled by certain key features they offer that bsnes doesn't (yet?).

[Lateralusticus]

@TheRealBoxman Certainly. Emulators are often geared to play the most commonly played games, and most don't care about bugs in obscure games. Unique features are also big factors in choosing an emulator. Perhaps, if people are to use only one emulator instead of keeping around one (or more) version of each most popular emulator, they should be aware of what limits that emulator has, be it game-specific hacks or lack of popular features.

[Phenylalanin1979]

bSNES is awesome. It is the only SNES emulator I use these days. ZSNES was king 6-8 years ago, but it is dead now; No new release in over 4 years. bSNES has 4 or 5 releases just in 2011 so far, so it is under very active development and is getting better all the time.

[Lateralusticus]

@DarkBones64 You aren't supposed to 'dislike' it, but rather realize that the faster music is incorrect. To each their own, would it be okay if an emulator glitch made the end boss of Earthbound have crazy colors that made it look "better"?

[bananadayada]

@CyberAkumaZero But no more SNES machines are made and every one that breaks will be lost forever. If in 2021 your computer wont run bsnes any more, if all else fails, just use some virtualization solution to run one of todays operating systems - problem solved! Don't know which PS1 emulator you're talking about, but I bet you can get it running in some sort of virtual machine.

[ArfJason]

Fuck everything and everyone, this game seems to have bitching music.

[Lateralusticus]

@CyberAkumaZero As bsnes is in very active development, I think that at the very least, it will outlast ZSNES, which is written in assembly. Unless ZSNES 2.0 is actually released, it'll die off soon enough. Whether either will outlast a real SNES is certainly an interesting question, my own is in perfect working order (though my NES needs a new 72-pin connector...)

[Lateralusticus]

@CyberAkumaZero If you meet the specs, in my opinion it's a worthy investment, as long as you can have a constant 60 fps (or 50 for PAL). Snes9x is improving considerably, actually, and I could recommend it just as well. It's certainly better than ZSNES regarding accurate emulation, and is actually in recent development, instead of no updates for 4 years.

[CyberAkumaZero]

@Smarty4789 Most Atari 2600 units and cartridges are still in fine working order, yet there are PS1 emulators that can't run on modern systems. True that the system won't be around forever, but with how fast computers and their Operating Systems move, unless there is an organization to keep bsnes always running on current operating systems for the sake of archival, the emulator will get outdated long before the systems start becoming rare and hard to find a working one. SNES will outlast bsnes.

[CyberAkumaZero]

@Lateralusticus I understand wanting to get it done right, but again, its the price vs payoff. For "gaming" rather than study or archival, the other emulators run 95 to 99% of games just fine, to get that 100% you need to jack up the system requirements to a rather insane level. Its just not practical to use bsnes for just plain wanting to play a game, its kinda like how software rendering can look better than any 3D card....... if you have a few petahurtz of networked cpus to do the processing.