Atari Jaguar Emulation Has Arrived On iPhone

It's good to see support but will be interesting to see what compatibility is like.

AND STILL NOBODY BUILDS A MASTER SYSTEM ONE

Great news, but when will it come to Android? With all the retro handhelds that run on it, getting BigPEmu going on Android would be fantastic!

I'm willing to support it just for Alien vs. Predator.

Rich Whitehouse continues to give people reasons he's a god amongst men

@Sketcz I'll do my best not to evangelize too much about Retroarch because it's fine if people don't like it. But for as to why I like it and use it, it simply did a number of important things much better than the standalone emulators I had access to at the time. Specifically, it was better at all things display related. It had better scaling options, better frame rate handling(fixed stutters that were common with other software), better scanline overlays, etc. The unified interface was also a huge plus. When I switched, I had already migrated from Windows to Linux which may have limited my access to some emulators, but every single one that I had used was inferior to Retroarch in some major ways, even if they were simpler to use. Before I switched, I was mostly using command-line MAME, MESS, and Mednafen. MAME was the best of those, and the only thing close to Retroarch in terms of results. To be clear, I'm not even a command-line guy, but that route made the most sense at the time so that's what I ended up doing. I know Retroarch seems complex at first. I felt the same. I also laugh looking back at my trouble because you don't need to know much to actually get started. I've rarely had to do much fiddling with it, and have had little trouble getting and keeping things working. I've helped other people get started with it too with good results. It's even easier now that I switched to the AppImage version(no installs). I approached emulation like a project(same as when I switched to Linux). That's why I took the time to learn the MAME command line when things weren't quite right otherwise. When I figured that out, learning the same for Mednafen wasn't intimidating. When I decided to see what all the hype was about with RA, I figured if I could do the command line with those, I could figure RA out no problem and I was right. I'm glad I did too.

But the main reason I replied is to ask what the issue is with PC Engine CD emulation? Is it that the standalone emulators you know don't support it or that it's difficult to set up? I had PC Engine CD working in MESS(which is part of MAME now it seems) and Mednafen. I spent a good bit of time getting the CD games to work in those about a decade back and it felt like quite the accomplishment when I got the commands right. I also had PCE CD working in one or two Linux-based handheld systems(non Retroarch). Of course, it works fine in Retroarch, and I don't mean to be snarky saying that. I'm genuinely curious what the issue is with PCE CD.

@Sketcz Thanks for replying. It refreshed my memory of a few things as I recall some of that. I haven't thought about TOC files in quite a while. Luckily, I never spent much time on that, perhaps because I was already willing to work with the command line. But that is very annoying when you have those issues with file formats that don't need to be that way. I never dealt with any of the emulators that had that other limitation on iso files and would need a disc or virtual drive, but I have been aware of one or two of those. I've never liked that concept. My recollection is hazy, but I think some of that nonsense is why I gravitated toward and persevered with the command line and then Retroarch a couple of years later. In fact, I think the reason I switched to the command line was because I was using a GUI frontend with MAME and MESS and I could not figure out how to load PCE CD with it, if it was even possible with that frontend. I think it was a limitation of it because it was a more complicated command to pass through than it would have been for a HuCard. It was a process to get to this point for sure. For me it was even more interesting because I had decided to switch to Linux shortly after I started learning the various emulators, so I had a lot of things to figure out all at once.

No surprise about that last part. It seems there are a lot of rude people connected to this scene(that applies to Linux as well), including various people who work on the software. I've always steered clear of various forums and such because of that. That's why I did my best in my original reply to find the right tone to not come across as defensive or condescending because I know that's too common with this sort of thing.

The solution you ended up with sounds pretty good at least. I probably would have gotten the TerraOnion if I hadn't found the solutions I did, as it seemed to be well put together. I do have some PCE hardware, so it would have been of interest to me under different circumstances.

@Sketcz

What emu did you try? Ares supports Cue/wav and CHDs at least and I would be surprised if it didn't support ISOs too.

@Sketcz I'd recommend you try running Linux in a VM or on an old PC/laptop first, if you have one, rather than jump in with both feet for a big switch from Windows. I've been Linux-curious for about 15 years now; done the VM thing or the old laptop thing about 10 separate times for various reasons. Every time though, I come out of it wanting to write a ragepost like your one above about the emulators! Stuff just doesn't work with Linux and I can't for the life of me understand how it is so popular. Apps and libraries have cyclic dependencies so a lot of time you just can't install stuff at all. Crucial download repos seem to just not exist at the expected URL. I have never ever been able to get Wine working. Wine! Possibly the most popular app on Linux! What in the world am I doing wrong? Why can't I just download an app installer, run it, and then the app is installed and works?
But it must be working for someone though, right? Maybe everyone except for me! So what I mean to say is that you should probably try it out and see if it actually works for your use case. One thing that's great about Linux is that it's easy to spin it up and try it out at least.

@N64-ROX When I committed, and I use that word intentionally, to switching to Linux, I had reached my limit with Windows. My rage post would be directed to that. Even the "good" Windows versions like 7 caused me so many headaches. When I switched, I was determined to be patient and give it time because I really wanted it to work. I actually got off to a rough start because my hardware at the time was quite new and a lot of the popular distros didn't have the updated kernel my hardware needed which led to some bizarre problems. It was not a great way to start that journey. I eventually tried out enough distros and found one(OpenSUSE) that actually worked. Once that happened, I was very happy with everything. I mean that in a literal sense, like using the computer made me happy. Linux just felt right to me, even as a newb. It only took a few months for me to abandon my dual-boot setup.

WINE is weird. I've had it working many times and it has worked great. Just this past summer, I installed a bunch of games on the laptop I'm currently using without issue. Just recently, the option to run Windows exe files has disappeared, and they now open in a file-compression program I like. I don't know why or how that file-association issue developed. I can't say I run into issues like that too much. I have seen them, and other issues, but not often, so my Linux experience has been very good on the whole. I had many problems with Windows, so I still consider myself way ahead. But as far as that WINE issue, I recently bought the Batman Arkham games on sale from GOG and decided to try out Lutris which I had heard a lot about. The Lutris page had a specific script for that game, which installed successfully with a version of Proton. You can also install stuff without a script which I haven't tried yet, but it may be better than just installing WINE from the distribution repository or following the instructions on the WINE page, both of which I have done successfully. I also recall a program called PlayOnLinux which seemed to simplify dealing with WINE. I haven't used that one in a while, but it worked well. I should take a look at that again, but opted for Lutris this particular time. At the end of the day, it depends how happy you are on Windows. I was very unhappy, so I was more willing to deal with issues and push through. The nice this was, when I dealt with each issue, things just made a lot more sense to me and I felt like I was moving forward, so I've been very happy, but I acknowledge that the issues you've had, along with others, are real, though not universal.

@Sketcz Windows 8 was the final straw for me with Windows. Before that, I had some major issues with Windows 7. They were enough to plant the seed that I should consider changing OS. Windows 7 was always annoying with how it handled OS updates in my opinion. That seems to have gotten worse. But beyond annoying, for whatever reason, Win7 updates were breaking my install. I'd just get a black screen. So I had to restore the system back to working order and then I disabled auto updates.....and then it still did it. I later found out that the auto update setting didn't matter, but there was a secret setting buried somewhere that actually disabled auto updates. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed.

I had a laptop that started to fail around this time of year in 2012. It was right around the time Win8 was rolling out. I purchased a replacement on black Friday to get a deal. I don't recall if I had the option for Win7 or Win8, but I ended up with Win8. I had heard reports before its release that it wasn't well received in testing, yet Microsoft insisted they knew better and changed nothing. I thought "how bad could it be?" I hated that OS and interface so much. I had an open mind and tons of patience, but the interface made no sense to me, probably irritating me in the same way a grid of folders bothers you. The OS constantly got in my way and made simple things take way too long. I at least wanted a choice to have the old interface back. What Microsoft communicated to me was I could not trust them with interface design. That's when I committed to changing, but I wasn't ready to do it then. A friend of mine had a spare copy of Win7 that he gave me and I "upgraded" to Win7 and stayed on that for several months to at least make the computer usable. After a few days of Win8 upon receiving the laptop, I didn't touch it for a few weeks until I had that Win7 DVD in hand.

@Sketcz second message....

I think I understand what you're describing in terms of folders. Sounds like you want to be able to move them arbitrarily and have them stay there rather than snap to a grid. The weakness of Linux is also it's strength, and that's choice. Choice makes it hard to start, but having the choices is wonderful when you really need it(so that interface changes don't have to feel like doom). I tested a few different file managers on a couple of systems today. At first, I wasn't finding that manual placement, even in file managers search results claimed had that. Anyway, I switched to the computer I'm on right now and I was able to change the sorting in the file manager to manual and drag files and folders wherever I wanted. If that's what you need, it is doable. It's going to depend on the specific file manager. In this case, I'm on Mint with the Cinnamon desktop which happens to be what I recommend to beginners with good results in the past. The default file manager which allows manual placement is called Nemo. I experienced some regressions with Mint on some of my other systems, unfortunately, but I'd still recommend it as a starting point because it seems to work well for most people the vast majority of the time. My issues included networking issues(specifically WPA2 passkey verification), and some audio glitches, and maybe one or two others. They seem to be hardware specific(third and fourth-gen Intel systems in my case). Instead of working out the problems, I decided to just try other distros since that would likely be faster. I recently started running Mageia on one system which worked better. It's probably not too difficult for a beginner, but the support for it will be less than Ubuntu and Mint. Mint actually didn't work for me when I got started because of third-gen Intel being too recent for it, so I got started on OpenSUSE and did fine. Loved it. But Mint is easier to start with. If you have more questions, immediately or down the line, feel free to ask. I'm not an expert(I only got to the command line when necessary and mostly copy and paste for that), but I've been happily using various Linux distros for almost 12 years. I can at least provide the perspective of a regular user who just wants a stable and functional OS with an interface that works the way I like.

@Sketcz You must do what you think is best. I'll not try to sell you on switching other than to say that I've been very happy and am glad I did it. I'll also just say that I was already doing enough faffing with Windows that faffing about elsewhere was more appealing to me. It just seemed more futile doing that on Windows, but that's just me.

I developed a high sensitivity to light a while back which comes and goes now, so I know what you mean about bright white backgrounds. On all my computers, I use programs or features to reduce the blue light generally. Yes, that gives things a yellowish or reddish hue, but I'm fine with that. On Windows, the program I knew was called f.lux. Beyond that, if you ever move away from that old version of Word, you should take a look at LibreOffice which is multiplatform. I just checked and there is an option to change the colors. That's a good thing to know if there's ever any issue with your set up.

Good to know you understand the revulsion I felt toward Widows 8. What a terrible error in judgement that was.

@Sketcz Funny you ask about OLED now. I literally just switched to an OLED phone yesterday. It's my first experience with OLED that wasn't extremely brief. A year ago, my father needed a new phone for a specific feature. I decided on a used Pixel 6a which I had to then set up. I used it for a couple of hours maybe, which was the longest I had spent with OLED up to that point. The Pixel didn't work out well for him so I just picked out a new phone(Galaxy A35) also with OLED. I ended up with the Pixel and just switched my SIM card yesterday. I did read that this phone is not great for those that seem sensitive to this. So I don't have a lot of experience to share. I can tell you that I was using the phone earlier today and did feel what I perceived to be some eye discomfort and general fatigue. I adjusted the brightness a number of times and never could find a setting I liked as far as comfort. With this topic in mind, I grabbed my old phone with an IPS screen and found it to be more comfortable straight away. This was just one data point and there were other variables, so I'll have to keep on testing, but I suspect I have a sensitivity to a degree. I have been prone to migraines in the past, but that's uncommon for me now. Instead, I experience extreme fatigue from certain triggers like certain kinds of lighting.

I had heard of people having issues with PWM in the past, though I never looked into it much since their symptoms seemed more pronounced than mine. I also recall hearing about it in the context of LED light bulbs. In looking this up, I did see your post last month on NintendoLife where you went into more detail and how you hadn't dealt with OLED before the Switch. I have always favored IPS screens in theory thinking that OLEDs might be brighter or harsher, though not with the PWM issue in mind. I have been sensitive to various things such as the 3DS 3D effect(once was enough for me), certain TVs and monitors especially those lit via fluorescent tubes(PWM issue?), extremely bright white screens in general, and possibly certain kinds of overhead lighting.

I used to also assume photosensitivity related to epilepsy only, but I learned otherwise some time ago. That famous incident with that episode of Pokemon in Japan did trigger some people with epilepsy, but I read that many people who also reported being affected were non-epileptic cases of photosensitivity so stuff like that can be pretty rough for a lot of people.

I'm going to try some of the suggestions I read today for dealing with OLED sensitivity and see how it goes. That's the problem with devices like the Switch where you don't have many options outside of a basic brightness control. It's a big reason I favor PC gaming these days.