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Hope everyone had a good weekend. This week i finished my SL1 run of DS3, almost finished the painted deck in Balatro, and started a campaign in Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion as the Eastern Roman Empire

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This demo includes a playable overworld, a new dungeon (the Minotaur Temple), some updated graphics, and general improvements to make the game play more smoothly. Check it out!

@Nakoichi@hexbear.net Pin please? powercry-1

EDIT: Thanks for pin heart-sickle

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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by riseuppikmin@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net
 
 

Here are some educational resources/explanations for the games community about emulation and other game-related tools.

Note: Check my top-level replies in this thread as I ran out of text in the post

[Informational Resources]

Reddit's ROM Megathread - Unaffiliated with this site

Emulation Wiki

[Emulation as a field]

Emulation is the process of re-implementing the functionality of something (hardware and/or software) in a separate software environment. You're probably most most familiar in the term as it relates to game system emulation- like the Dolphin Wii and Gamecube emulator, but it's actually much broader than that.

While emulation does cover physical systems, it can also cover things that strictly exist as software. If you've ever played on WoW or any other MMO private servers, the actual underlying software that was being run was likely a server emulator (or in rare cases the actual official server software itself may have leaked or released).

These server emulators are created by analyzing the network information exchange (packets) sent from the game client to the server and those received by the client from the server. A painstaking and brutal process of analyzing these packets allows server reverse-engineering projects to then re-implement the functionality of the official servers, and then we can point the game client towards our reverse-engineered private server (that speaks the exact same "language" as the official servers). This then allows the private servers to provide additional or changed functionality (for example, more exp per quest) which allows a much more customizable experience.

Emulation can also be used to re-implement vendor solutions like the Steam API which provides various utilities like DRM (which the emulator could choose to ignore). A great example of an emulator in this regard is the Goldberg Emulator.

Let's say you've acquired (through legal purchase only of course) the clean steam files for a game and want to run it offline. Normally you wouldn't be able to because the steamworks DRM check wouldn't be able to authenticate against the official steam servers. If we instead replace the steam_api.dll (this could also be named steam_api64.dll depending on the game) with the one provided by the Goldberg Emulator, when the game makes the check for the steamworks drm authentication status, the Goldberg Emulator's implementation of steam_api.dll will simply return true and let us play our game offline. The game itself just knows that it asked for a DRM verification check to a service, and the Goldberg variant of steam_api.dll looks (to the game) exactly like the "real" version, except that it always returns that the steamworks DRM has been verified.

Refer to the readme within the Goldberg project for more information about what to do with specific games. Also take note that this only works with games that only use steamworks drm (most of them) and games using other/multiple DRM solutions won't work with this method only for offline play.

[Console Emulators]

All of the emulators listed below are my personal per-console pick. Each is at least in the recommended section of a great general emulation resource, the Emulation Wiki

Game Platform | Emulator Name | Emulation Platform | Comments

Nintendo Consoles

NES | Ares | Windows/Linux/Mac

SNES | Ares | Windows/Linux/Mac

SNES | bsnes-hd | Windows/Linux/Mac | Widescreen modifications for some SNES games

N64 | Simple64 | Windows/Linux | Soon to be replaced by Gopher64 by the same developer (26/3/2025) N64 emulation has a lot of viable candidate emulators, check the page here

GC | Dolphin | Windows/Linux/Mac/Android

Wii | Dolphin | Windows/Linux/Mac/Android

Wii U | Cemu | Windows/Linux

Switch | Ryubing Ryujinx Fork | Windows/Linux/Mac/ Android/iOS | Continuation of the Ryujinx project by some of the original contributors

Switch | Yuzu | Windows/Linux/Android | Killed by Nintendo 3/4/2024

Nintendo Handhelds

GB/C | mGBA | Windows/Linux/Mac

GBA | mGBA | Windows/Linux/Mac

DS | MelonDS | Windows/Linux/Mac/Android

3DS | Azahar | Windows/Linux/Mac/Android | UPDATE 2/28/2025 Pablomk7 and Lime3DS forks have joined to work on Azahar

Sony Consoles

Playstation | DuckStation | Windows/Linux/Mac/Android

Playstation 2 | PCSX2 | Windows/Linux/Mac

Playstation 3 | RPCS3 | Windows/Linux/Mac

Playstation 4 | ShadPS4 | Windows/Linux/Mac | Heavily experimental and not for casual use yet

Sony Handhelds

PSP | PPSSPP | Windows/Linux/Mac/Android

PSVita | Vita3K | Windows/Linux/Mac

Sega Consoles

Sega Master System | Ares | Windows/Linux/Mac

Genesis | Ares | Windows/Linux/Mac

Saturn | Mednafen | Windows/Linux

Dreamcast | Flycast | Windows/Linux/Mac/Android

Microsoft Consoles

Xbox | Xemu | Windows/Linux/Mac

Xbox 360 | Xenia | Windows

Apple Phones

iOS 2.x | TouchHLE | Windows/Mac/Android

[Graphics Packs]

A lot of emulators have texture replacement capabilities built into them. What this means is that users can manually and/or AI upscale textures from the game into higher resolution or outright replace them with other textures. There aren't currently (that I'm aware of) area that have consolidated links to these things, so you'll unfortunately have to search individual project forums and look for texture or graphic packs links.

Some known graphics packs repositories:

Dolphin Forums

Citra Forums Killed by Nintendo 3/4/2024; waiting for the dust to settle for recommendations

[Graphics API Translation Layers]

Sometimes there are scenarios where a game may only use DirectX to draw it's rendered graphics to screen and we may not want this. This could be for performance reasons (maybe the Vulkan graphics api has better performance, maybe DirectX isn't available on our OS, or maybe the DirectX version is really old and not properly supported by our OS/GPU/Driver combination). In these instances we can use translations layers to translate DirectX graphics api calls into Vulkan calls using utilities like DXVK . Explaining which files to copy over depends on a per-DirectX version basis, so you'll have to use a combination of the PCGamingWiki and DXVK documentation to figure out which files to replace.

[Graphics Post-Processing]

With a utility called ReShade we're able to inject various post-processing effects into the final stage of the graphic rendering pipelines of games. This allows you to adjust color curves, inject path-traced global illumination (a method like ray-tracing), and add a bunch of other effects to DirectX9/11/12/Vulkan games.

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Only links i can find divide it into 2 parts, and installing it on Vita3k fails when i merge the two. Feel like there's gotta be something working out there.

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The random name generator in this game occasionally lands on pure gold.

I'm buying a pig in a couple of days (in-game). Here's hoping I can get the randomizer to spit out "Gorka" so my duck can have an arch nemesis.

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for me, it would be Nintendo... In General

any time people are critical of something Nintendo-related it gets treated as a widespread boycott.

That way when the supposed "boycott" is inevitably unsuccessful, Nintendo devotees can sarcastically go "Another successful boycott, right??"

Has happened with every Pokemon release on the Switch since Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee

As someone who also enjoys Nintendo stuff, I find it pretty difficult to criticize Nintendo without a bunch of fans getting really defensive about it.

Like with this recent Switch 2 "boycott" narrative

there isn't a boycott, it's just simply people reacting to market conditions and overall economic conditions.

Wages haven't met with inflation, games are getting expensive, times are hard right now with layoffs and a bad stock market. Prices for goods across the board are going up. Is it any wonder that people are just going to continue playing what they have or buy a cheaper (and maybe more powerful) alternative instead of being early adopters for a new console and 70-90 dollar games?

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Im not saying that playing as her in Tekken 3 as a kid made me gay, but it certainly didnt impede that happening. Seriously tho her win poses are so camp, its like watching a drag queen.

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Just got translated and released this morning. Haven't watched it yet, but it's a hard NES action-platformer so I can figure out how it'll go.

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they redid all the assetes (it's not just a simple upscale), has all the orginal DLC. Not just Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine, but also all the smaller home dlc too.

they're also not spammed the second you leave the tutorial. and are a part of the world now, and NPCs have rumors discussing them

They also gifted the game to everyone working on Skyblivion instead of sending them a C&D like Nintendo did to the people who worked on AM2R

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First 5 hours and expedition 33 might be my GOTY

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50 bucks for vanilla Oblivion with a shiny coat of paint? Why do that when I can apply the paint myself and use Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and a shitload of gameplay mods?

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there is a lot of excitement around here to replay mid ass remake slop bullshit like oblivion and not a single mention of blue prince

A lot of yall got some dooky ass taste in video games

send tweet

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some of these are taken directly from the "woke content detector" list

Undertale- "Contains overtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Multiple non-binary characters that use they/them pronouns, including the player character. Two major characters can form a homosexual relationship."

Hollow Knight- "Contains subtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. The npc Cloth is revealed to be a lesbian. An achievement called Happy Couple involves the nailsmith becoming a male model for the npc Sheo."

Celeste- Trans Protaginast

Cassette Beasts: fawking PRONOUNS and all companions can be romanced regardless of gender

Ultrakill: "Contains overtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. The word 'gay' is spelled out by three mannequins posing in flag symbols. Level 5-S contains a reference to the Blåhaj plushie, a pro-trans symbol"

Sorry We're Closed: : "Contains overtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Features multiple LGBTQ+ characters including the player character. Features multiple non-binary characters that use they/them pronouns"

Fraymakers: "Contains overtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Features multiple non-binary characters that use they/them pronouns."

a lot of Indie games are "woke" in some way

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I was looking to scratch my mmo itch and since I have a shitty computer and no income I end up playing abandonware or private servers, so hunting around I came across lineage by ncsoft. The original game shut down many years ago in north america but it's still really popular in south korea from what I can tell.

The game is like diablo meets d&d, you got the dark arpg fantasy from diablo and the high sorcery tropes and dice rolling mechanics of d&d.

I'm playing on one of the two I know of private servers for this game: https://www.lineage1classic.com/ the other being lineage justice.

Anywho if you've ever played this game let me know!

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Bethesda didn't want to make a proper CRPG with actual dialogue trees and speech checks so this is what they came up with instead

Even making random townspeople like you by impressing them with massive farts in Fable makes more sense

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cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7668018

With the remaster coming out I started looking into the original game since I had never played it. I found that a mod, NorthernUI, exists that adds controller support to the game. So I decided to install a GOG copy of the game on the Steam Deck.

I tried to get Mod Organizer to work but failed. But it turns out there is a native Linux mod manager called Limo Mod Manager that can work with Skyrim. The whole process of getting it work kept me up til 2AM.

So I have the original game installed now with NorthernUI and Unofficial X Patches for bugfixes.

Anyone has suggestions for more QoL mods that can smooth out the jankiness? Thanks.

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