Where does emulation fall off from true the hardware experience?

[Sim085]

Hello, I have several A500s and a couple of A1200s however most of the time I find myself using either WinUAE or FS-UAE. I am not what anyone could consider a core user, don't produce art or music with the amiga, never did, don't think I'll ever do.

However I am deeply interested on the limits of things. By reading many posts over time I seem to understand that emulation - even with today's powerful machines - still doesn't match 100% a real hardware experience. I believe this has mostly to do with sound but not sure of it.

I was therefore wondering if others could point out where exactly they believe emulation falls short from a true hardware experience.

Is sound really the only problem? Or there are other aspects? Why is it so hard to achieve same level on modern hardware through emulation?

[Nobby_UK]

For me the Sound is definitely an issue.

Others may have controller (Pad vs Stick) issues
but that is not the emulators fault.

[Hewitson]

Smooth scrolling is the biggest issue.

[arcanist]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Smooth scrolling is the biggest issue.

I've found WinUAE to have flawless scrolling on a 50Hz display (my TV) and with Freesync/G-Sync. WinVICE worked great with Freesync, too.

It's a problem on a 60Hz display, for sure, or a monitor that interpolates 50Hz to 60Hz by itself.

[chip]

I totally disagree on the sound issue

WinUAE emulated sound is really accurated

I did an experiment on this which confirm the splendid job made by this emulator

I'm too lazy now to find the post i already written on this subject

[chip]

Ok, i found the post :

WinUAE does a PERFECT job with audio emulation

Just try this by yourself :

Take a module which you like

Make a recording in .WAV with WinUAE option

Create a .MP3 from the resulting .WAV

Then go to this site

http://www.paula8364.com/

Download the "same" .MP3 you created with WinUAE and make comparison

I can ensure you that i tried this by myself with some different modules

Well, result is that the real thing sounds exactly like the emulated thing

Or, at least, my ears are not able to spot the difference

[Retro-Nerd]

WinUAE scrolls silky smooth. Why does it comes up from time to time? Do you guys still have no 50/100Hz capable monitors?

Last real issue for me was Input lag in past. But that was fixed due to Beam Racing. It's nearly as responsive as on real hardware. Sound output is great too. And we have beautiful shaders that mimics the look of CRT TVs perfectly. So, it's pretty close to real hardware for me now. Took some years though.

[hth313]

One is real the other is not. You have the real keyboard, real floppies, mechanical things happen and it displays only what it should.

With emulation, none of the above is true and you always have that feeling, is it doing the right thing? If you develop, you want to also test it on real hardware to ensure that everything works as it should.

Emulation is a good alternative, even a substitute when the real thing is not possible. Otherwise I prefer the real thing.

[Retro-Nerd]

Well, real Amiga keyboards aren't a problem with Keyrah and it's possible to output the image to a real CRT monitor or even a CRT TV. But yes, the haptic is the big difference which is left.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by hth313

Emulation is a good alternative, even a substitute when the real thing is not possible. Otherwise I prefer the real thing.

The "real thing" is NOT an option for me, as I simply don't have the money or room for even one Amiga machine, whereas on WinUAE I can "use" any Amiga I like. Also, it seems that these days owners of real machines need extensive experience in electronic engineering, and I'm not competent enough.

[wiser3]

WinUAE has a noticeable sound lag on my PC. This destroys the gaming experience. A bullet will hit you or nearly hit you before you hear it being fired.

Hard to describe but emulation doesn't have the same 'feel' as the real thing.

While i like loading from HD it's nostalgic to put in an actual floppy.

[Retro-Nerd]

WinUAE has a noticeable sound lag on my PC. This destroys the gaming experience. A bullet will hit you or nearly hit you before you hear it being fired.

A PC hardware/too old OS problem though, no emulation problem. WinUAE runs perfectly fine with WASPI exclusive mode and Sound Buffer Size = Min.

[gulliver]

Emulation makes the Amiga experience more comfortable, convenient and certainly less expensive.

The real hardware, gives you a direct physical contact with the Amiga which might resurface some nostalgic feelings and bring you some headaches when things starts to fail.

Developing and testing AmigaOS is certainly easier on an emulator, but nothing replaces the real hardware when it comes down to accuracy and bug hunting. We have found cases where bugs only occur in the real thing and not on emulation, and vice versa.

But in the grand scheme of things, for the average user, it all comes down to their own particular preference.

[chip]

Like Foebane, i'm forced to use emulation for money reason

I would probably like to have the real thing, but if i think at all the systems i should buy to do the same things i do with emulation,
i immediately think i'm lucky to have WinUAE

[Toni Wilen]

Note also that defaults are not optimized for latency but for stability = no sound glitches or other very annoying side-effects which can easily happen when using older hardware or not having 50Hz/gsync/freesync/etc monitors. (and oddly enough it seems most users don't seem to care if scrolling is jittery or not..)

[jotd]

I NEVER play in emulation unless I'm testing/debugging stuff. Setting the controllers properly (2 players!), making sure no program will interrupt the play, no popup, update or stuff like that...

I NEVER develop on the real thing (anymore) now that WinUAE & cross assemblers/compilers exist and WinUAE can log all faults without crashing, dump all memory, all those kind of things you can't do on the real machine easily.

[Twiggy]

The smell of the plastic! A bit difficult to emulate that. Can't beat the visuals of a real CRT n all.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Note also that defaults are not optimized for latency but for stability = no sound glitches or other very annoying side-effects which can easily happen when using older hardware or not having 50Hz/gsync/freesync/etc monitors. (and oddly enough it seems most users don't seem to care if scrolling is jittery or not..)

Would it be possible to include default quickstart defaults for low-latency

settings?



Or is it too many variables that can differ between host setups to reach that?

[jotd]

I heard about emulators (NES) that use branch prediction and multithreading to pre-emulate the various outcomes of the branch instructions, allowing to reduce input latency, and make the emulator more reactive than the real thing. Crazy.

https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewto...?f=2&t=1428411

[Hewitson]

NO emulator scrolls perfectly. Some come very close, but none are absolutely flawless like a real machine connected to a real CRT TV.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

(and oddly enough it seems most users don't seem to care if scrolling is jittery or not..)

Obviously most users are idiots then...