Return to grace!

[WatchMaker]

So I recently downloaded one of those fancy pants emulators (Different platforms, btw.), and have begun playing through all the oldschool RPGs. Suggest any I missed!

Golden Sun
Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Breath of Fire I
Breath of Fire II
Breath of Fire III
Breath of Fire IV
Breath of Fire V

Quest

Mario RPG

Various "Of Mana" series. Haven't decided yet...

 

[Gate]

I've got several emulators and a ton of games for them on my computer. My cousin built my machine and he loaded it up with a couple of gigs of NES, genesis, super nes, and N64 games
Out of the RPGs, I've played FF3,4,5,6, Dragon Warrior 1 (I never liked the others), the Mana games, Tales of Phantasia, Quest 64, and a variety of others on the emulators.

By the way, every single NES game released in the US and some japanese imports, as well as the emulators take up only 199mb on my hard drive. Scary isn't it?

 

[HJ-Pinnelipe]

Any Suikodens!
Tales of Destiny
Lunar(1+2)
Koudelka

I might have more later.. I'm actually not at all sure about how emulators work. At least, have never used one.

 

[Lethe5683]

Only 199 mb? That's... rather disturbing. I might have believed only 2 gb but there were a good amount of SNES games for them to all be only around 200 mb they must be tiny!

 

[Homeslice513]

Only 199 mb? That's... rather disturbing. I might have believed only 2 gb but there were a good amount of SNES games for them to all be only around 200 mb they must be tiny!

He said NES game not SNES And in terms of most games they were/are small.

I find it funny when arcades came out they pretty much had a whole motherboard or possibly two to run them and now you can get like 100 of those games on one chip.

 

[Lethe5683]

Oh... NES well that makes more sense. I was pretty sure most of the SNES games were more like 2-8 mb each.

 

[Gate]

Actually each SNES emulator game is about 1 to 1.5mb. I have 120 SNES games and they and the emulator take up 160mb.

Sorry for derailing the topic!

 

[HJ-Dune Walker]

You know, since it's already derailed, I'd like to make a quick detour. I was recently reading about a sort of coding trend that some experts believe may result in a crisis. In modern times, coders have become inefficient, lazy, and sloppy because they have so much power to work with.

The argument goes that back when computers were expensive monsters used primarily for military or space use, programmers and coders had to write incredibly efficiently because there simply wasn't any processing power to spare. Space flight in particular demanded computational systems that were lightweight and yet reliable and versatile, so every bit of data counted.

Nowadays, we've got more processing power than we know what to do with, even though our hardware is incredibly inefficient by comparison. An average home computer operates with a significant loss of electricity to heat, and our habits of leaving computers on while idle is extravagantly wasteful. The problem is we have so much energy and so much computing power that what we do waste is negligible, and we therefor have much lower standards in all areas of computer technology and coding.

~Dune~

 

[Performer]

First off, I'm quite sure modern Computers are thousands of times more energyefficient. I found that a C64 had some 400 Flops and nowadays we get more like 800 MFlops (and Way more on Graphicscards) - if old Computers actually were more Efficient, the C64 could've run on the Biosbattery for its entire Life.

As for the Efficiency of Programming, you're right. But today we've got lots of different Components working together, and to make that possible, many Layers of Programs underneath every Application (OS, Drivers, DirectX, ...). While you could run Programms faster, you'd have to write natively for exactly the Hardware you have. But nobody could expect a Developer to ship their Game with special Graphicsdrivers for every Card out there, as it was during the DOS-Days. So we sacrifice Efficiency for Compatibility.

Still, I agree that the Option to just buy two more GB of Ram is likely to make one care less for Memorymanagement.
...but given how big the fps-Differences between some Games are, there've still got be at least some folks out there, that work very very cleverly.

 

[Gate]

I can't comment on programming efficiency or inefficiency, but in terms of energy use, almost all electronic products are more energy inefficient than their older counterparts. The reason is two-fold. One is that they are simply vastly more powerful and thus innately consume vastly more power than they used to. A modern TV does things no older TV could do, and it does it with alot more power. However, modern devices are also not efficiently designed, and happily consume far more energy than they really should, owing, as Dune said, to the massive amount of energy available.

Cell phones are the only product that are actually getting more efficient- even as they do more and more things, they consume less and less power, proving that it is quite possible for other devices to follow suit.

 

[HJ-Onilink]

Earthbound/mother =D
secret of evermore

....all i can think of atm.

 

[Performer]

Hold on, "Efficiency" means Performance per used Energy.
Are you claiming older Devices used less Energy for the same Task than modern ones do ?

The total Power, though, used by modern Electronics is higher, I can agree on that.
With some noteable Exclusions, like Refridgerators or Washingmachines...

 

[Gate]

Hold on, "Efficiency" means Performance per used Energy.
Are you claiming older Devices used less Energy for the same Task than modern ones do ?

There are two ways I'm going to qualify my answer.

In a very significant percentage of cases, the answer is a straight out yes. Efficiency requires precise design, and in a world with (percieved) power to spare and where quantity outsells quality, companies are not producing efficient products.

In addition, devices nowadays have many "features" are entirely extraneous. These features include display screens on shavers, tons of blinking or glowing lights on almost everything, useless extra power (far above what is required to do the job- yet incapable of doing anything else due to the specialized nature of the device), etc. None of these extras actually enhance the product's performance, yet they increase it's inefficiency.

 

[HJ-Pinnelipe]

Not to mention the lifespans of items from yesteryear..

Today, a fellow student brought in a Pong game.. That's right. It was a little newer than the original, but still manufactured by Atari. Ran on batteries, plugged in with an RGB cable(one poker), and had a built in speaker. Still worked! Now of days, you're luck if something works for 5 years straight.

 

[Seeria]

Five years.... ppffftt one year at most.

 

[Lethe5683]

I guess I must take good care of my stuff or something... I have had a NES for 10 years, SNES 8 years, N64 5 years, GC 3 years, and lots of other old things that still work fine. Only thing that tends to break is my socks. :-/

 

[HJ-Pinnelipe]

I guess I must take good care of my stuff or something... I have had a NES for 10 years, SNES 8 years, N64 5 years, GC 3 years, and lots of other old things that still work fine. Only thing that tends to break is my socks. :-/

That's what I mean. Old things tend to last a long time, but new stuff breaks...a lot. Nintendo actually makes pretty sturdy products.

 

[Dainarshial]

That's what I mean. Old things tend to last a long time, but new stuff breaks...a lot. Nintendo actually makes pretty sturdy products.

I can personally attest to that. Nintendo is the only company (of any kind) that can build a product that can survive our son for more than a year. Unless I keep it hidden in a hole in the bottom of a well in a locked closet behind a brick wall (Even then a year is a pretty good lifespan).

 

[HJ-Dune Walker]

I have always liked Nintendo's sturdiness. They make very survivable stuff.

I've seen gameboys that had a single giant crack through the entire casing and screen, and they worked fine. I've seen an N64 fall out of a bag and fall down three flights of stairs and it had a mere two scratches and still worked perfectly. I've seen an electronics review team repeatedly take a sledge-hammer to a Gamecube, and it survived much better than the Xbox and PS2 that suffered the same fate (it still worked, even though it was beat to felgercarb, but the other two were dead).

The more modern Nintendo stuff seems a lot flimsier though, like the Wii, but dang if the Wiimote can't take a beating. When it gets thrown and hits something hard, the thing it hits gets damaged, not it!

~Dune~

 

[HJ-Onilink]

I still have a working Game Boy that had all four AA batteries blow up and leak acid everywhere.