> Classic Sega Games From Genesis To Dreamcast Are Going Free On Mobile > Source : > http://forever.sega.com/ > > So, what's the catch ? > This : > "an ad-supported free to play format"
Eurogamer article bringing up performance issues as well as a little behind-the-scenes failed agreement to use Retroarch. In short, apparently Sega wanted RA to relicense under MIT among other things- pretty much an impossibility. Think when MAME relicensed, but instead with most contributors firmly against the new license (from what the RA developer said, for good reason).
> Eurogamer article bringing up performance issues as well as a little > behind-the-scenes failed agreement to use Retroarch. In short, apparently Sega wanted > RA to relicense under MIT among other things- pretty much an impossibility. Think > when MAME relicensed, but instead with most contributors firmly against the new > license (from what the RA developer said, for good reason). > > Sega releases classic games on mobile, for free, but at what cost?
I didn't find any drop rate on the iPad Pro and Chromebook 3 with Google Play Store added. Haven't tried on my Moto Android Phone yet to see there is a drop rate on that.
Some of the devices probably can't handle those games. For example. My Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 GT-3113 might not handle the speed. It a very old device. My grandma have some old devices that might not handle those as well.
The only thing I don't like is the controller artworks is too dark. They need to fix those so we can read the texts on the screen. Just ruin the games.
It's the backbone software / emulator that causes the slowdowns. I have an old iphone and Sonic runs perfectly (made in 2013 with different emulator apparently) and Altered Beast runs like molasses.
> Eurogamer article bringing up performance issues as well as a little > behind-the-scenes failed agreement to use Retroarch. In short, apparently Sega wanted > RA to relicense under MIT among other things- pretty much an impossibility. Think > when MAME relicensed, but instead with most contributors firmly against the new > license (from what the RA developer said, for good reason). > > Sega releases classic games on mobile, for free, but at what cost?
I can't see how a relicensing of RA would have changed anything. RA is only a frontend for other emulators which would have kept their licensing scheme.
> > I can't see how a relicensing of RA would have changed anything. RA is only a > frontend for other emulators which would have kept their licensing scheme.
The developers expounded on this in a /r/emulation post on Reddit. Just look for the posts marked as from Libretro/Retroarch developers.
> I can't see how a relicensing of RA would have changed anything. RA is only a > frontend for other emulators which would have kept their licensing scheme.
And that's exactly why RA can't relicense. You solved it in one.
> > > > I can't see how a relicensing of RA would have changed anything. RA is only a > > frontend for other emulators which would have kept their licensing scheme. > > The developers expounded on this in a /r/emulation post on Reddit. Just look for the > posts marked as from Libretro/Retroarch developers.
Thanks for the link.
So if I understand it correctly it looks like:
SEGA was going to port their own in-house emulator to libretro as a libretro core. So if the libretro/retroarch folks had been willing to relicense to MIT, then everything would be fine from SEGA's point of view. I mean of course it would. At that point, libretro would just be giving them everything once that they could use forever without giving anything back. SEGA didn't even want to give them some kind of "powered by retroarch" splash screen or visible credit when you run the games.
> > > > > > I can't see how a relicensing of RA would have changed anything. RA is only a > > > frontend for other emulators which would have kept their licensing scheme. > > > > The developers expounded on this in a /r/emulation post on Reddit. Just look for > the > > posts marked as from Libretro/Retroarch developers. > > > Thanks for the link. > > So if I understand it correctly it looks like: > > SEGA was going to port their own in-house emulator to libretro as a libretro core. So > if the libretro/retroarch folks had been willing to relicense to MIT, then everything > would be fine from SEGA's point of view. I mean of course it would. At that point, > libretro would just be giving them everything once that they could use forever > without giving anything back. SEGA didn't even want to give them some kind of > "powered by retroarch" splash screen or visible credit when you run the games.
yet they're quite willing to ruin the whole thing by wrapping it in a system hogging ad-serving unity-based frontend that seems incapable of delivering 60fps even on the best phones out there rendering some games literally unplayable because they rely on flicker effects etc. which end up rendering at 30fps causing you to miss things..
I'm not a fan of RA by a longshot, but it would be nice if Sega could get it right for once. Don't think that will happen tho, their priorities seem to be completely backwards, always picking the worst options, sounds like they need a restructure top to bottom.
> > > > > > > > I can't see how a relicensing of RA would have changed anything. RA is only a > > > > frontend for other emulators which would have kept their licensing scheme. > > > > > > The developers expounded on this in a /r/emulation post on Reddit. Just look for > > the > > > posts marked as from Libretro/Retroarch developers. > > > > > > Thanks for the link. > > > > So if I understand it correctly it looks like: > > > > SEGA was going to port their own in-house emulator to libretro as a libretro core. > So > > if the libretro/retroarch folks had been willing to relicense to MIT, then > everything > > would be fine from SEGA's point of view. I mean of course it would. At that point, > > libretro would just be giving them everything once that they could use forever > > without giving anything back. SEGA didn't even want to give them some kind of > > "powered by retroarch" splash screen or visible credit when you run the games. > > yet they're quite willing to ruin the whole thing by wrapping it in a system hogging > ad-serving unity-based frontend that seems incapable of delivering 60fps even on the > best phones out there rendering some games literally unplayable because they rely on > flicker effects etc. which end up rendering at 30fps causing you to miss things.. > > I'm not a fan of RA by a longshot, but it would be nice if Sega could get it right > for once. Don't think that will happen tho, their priorities seem to be completely > backwards, always picking the worst options, sounds like they need a restructure top > to bottom.
What's funny is that they WERE doing better. They were finally getting their heads straight when it comes to PC stuff. Their recent upgrade to the Genesis emulator on PC / Steam helped a lot with this.
And then they pull this BS. I guess Atlus is rubbing off on them.
> So > if the libretro/retroarch folks had been willing to relicense to MIT, then everything > would be fine from SEGA's point of view. I mean of course it would. At that point, > libretro would just be giving them everything once that they could use forever > without giving anything back. SEGA didn't even want to give them some kind of > "powered by retroarch" splash screen or visible credit when you run the games.
This is the same reason the "New Retro Arcade Neon" frontend is controversial: it's commercial closed source that runs retroarch cores. Except that they do give libretro visible credit, just not the original authors of the retroarch cores (e.g. MAMEdev, Mednafen, byuu, Eke-Eke, etc, etc).
> > So > > if the libretro/retroarch folks had been willing to relicense to MIT, then > everything > > would be fine from SEGA's point of view. I mean of course it would. At that point, > > libretro would just be giving them everything once that they could use forever > > without giving anything back. SEGA didn't even want to give them some kind of > > "powered by retroarch" splash screen or visible credit when you run the games. > > This is the same reason the "New Retro Arcade Neon" frontend is controversial: it's > commercial closed source that runs retroarch cores. Except that they do give libretro > visible credit, just not the original authors of the retroarch cores (e.g. MAMEdev, > Mednafen, byuu, Eke-Eke, etc, etc).
and as I've said a thousand times, it's just one of the many horrible problems with this plugin mentality.
yet people are buying it like crack, and promoting that approach the same way.
I actually think we've hit a low point in emulation lately - massive funds being raised on paetron for current gen emulators when money is badly needed elsewhere and then everybody else only wanting to use this kind of lib based junk that hacks up existing emulators and dumbs down every experience to the bare minimum. Beyond that everybody is still trying to run things on phones or lowest cost devices like the Pi when they're about the least suitable platforms you can find for emulation.
The recent commercial offerings are mostly awful too, not only this Sega offering, but physical products like the Nintendo Classic selling like crazy when the actual product is a piece of junk, there are chinese Famiclones that are better in every way. Furthermore the Snes version is apparently selling out on preorders despite that and with no real guarantee it's going to be any better; it's almost like nobody cares about the years of research people have put into understanding these things properly.
How anybody can be anything other than disillusioned with how things are right now is beyond me, but the reality of the situation seems to be that the majority think things are better than ever.
> How anybody can be anything other than disillusioned with how things are right now is > beyond me, but the reality of the situation seems to be that the majority think > things are better than ever.
You care about what the unwashed masses think. That is and has always been both your fault and your forte.
Me, I'm not disillusioned at all. The DU is getting ever more capable at doing reverse-engineering work, Sean Riddle has thoroughly proven that decapping older devices can be done on the cheap in so much as a household garage, Guru continues to work with the MAMEdevs with which he has positive ties, Team Japump are working with us again, Github is producing ever more contributors despite the supposedly larger popularity of other emulators, Stiletto has somehow managed to get that crazy Chinese spammer to start producing valid pull requests, Dullaron is leading a charge to acquire PSP documentation, dumps, and boards for dumping, there's no end of obscure systems out there for which MAME threatens not to be the best emulator, but the only emulator, and Carl is proving time and time again how powerful our Lua bindings really are.
All of these individual points are unlikely enough to happen, but taken as an aggregate it seems to me like MAME is going better than ever. You're a capable coder, and I think via the HLSL and BGFX systems I've thoroughly proven that kiddie-friendly features can be added as long as they're structured in a modular enough way to be isolated from adding hacks to actual game code. Rather than proclaiming gloom and doom across the multitude of MAME-related fora, why not put your skills to work and make something that'll turn the tide against the wave of popular one-off emulators? Why not actually start your own Patreon?
You can moan all you'd like about how much the emulation community sucks, but that and a dollar will get you a plain hamburger at McDonald's. It accomplishes nothing to point out what we already know.
EDIT: What is with this attitude that MAME development used to be better in "the good old days"? I was there for those times, I've been using emulators since practically the first version of MAME was released. People were always upset about its performance requirements. People on low-end 486 systems would complain about how certain games required a Pentium for decent performance.
People constantly moaned about finding ROM sets. People moaned about MAME not supporting new enough games, back when there were still Taito F3 and new Neo-Geo games coming out. People still used Raine and NeoRageX, and both emulators for whatever reason got a lot more skin in the online circuit. FinalBurnAlpha is also no spring chicken, it's been around for quite a while, and it arose from people wanting an arcade emulator that did what MAME didn't. Things have not changed, there will always be "more popular" emulators with superior visibility. I don't know why you're acting like this is a modern thing.
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