Which Is Best? Original Retro Consoles vs Emulation 

As much as I love my original hardware, I'm 100% onboard with emulation now. It's just so convenient. I mean my whole channel is dedicated to emulation

CRTs are the crucial centerpiece. I hope mine will work forever and I am still baffled there is no company yet invested in keeping this technology alive for retro gamers. I know it’s a niche but this niche is willing to pay.

I grabbed the CRT I used to play MegaDrive and PS1 on when I was a child 1 year ago. I don't see myself playing old games on anything else now. I just love how they look on it, and shaders aren't close enough right now for me (but they're improving really fast!). The glow, the composite imperfections, etc. I simply love them. Retro consoles and emulation are two great solutions with different strengths, and it's awesome to have the choice.

I love the DuckStation shoutout at the end, that emulator is crazy good. Same with Redream that the question mentioned, Dreamcast games in 4K looks super sharp and clean with those vibrant colors.

This is something I've flip-flopped on here recently. When I got back into retro gaming, I had watched channels like DF Retro or My Life in Gaming and really craved that having that real retro aesthetic for my retro collection and game-playing just like they did. Over time, however, I've come to really see the value in emulation, especially in terms of accessibility. To John's point about using a Mister for his arcade games, I think situations like that going to be more common with consoles as the years go by because -- whether due to rising prices or failing hardware -- access to original hardware will become more and more difficult for people who don't already have them.

I feel it’s like preferring Vinyls over CDs. Playing a Vinyl is more involved and i also kinda feel i appreciate it more. Hard to describe that feeling. That said i do use official backwards compatibility for older consoles as long as it is good quality and the compatibility is high. Simply due to space requirements. My PlayStation setup for example is just a PS3 (CECHA) and a PS5.

I choose emulation. There are only 2 scenarios where I'd choose real hardware: 1) If a certain game I want to play requires a special peripheral such as the NES Zapper (which also requires a CRT). 2) If there currently isn't a way to emulate a certain game without running into game-breaking bugs. I understand that the look, feel, and smell of original hardware matter to a lot of players, but personally it doesn't matter all that much to me. Emulation doesn't provide a time-capsuled experience, but what it does provide is convenience and many many options. I love having an "overwhelming" ROM list, a controller that fits nicely in my hands, very high resolutions in 3D games, a convincing enough CRT shader that makes my 65" tv look like it weighs as much as an elephant, CPU overclocking settings to reduce frame drops, the ability to find and download some obscure game the minute I find out about it, save states, and access to a ton of classics on my favorite modded handheld when I'm away from home. Honestly, the best way is YOUR way. Both ways aren't perfect. Play how you want.

Been using an OLED with CRT shaders and it get’s around 80-90% there. I’d like to get a CRT monitor soon for retro games, but my main concern is finding a PC monitor locally that goes over 120Hz as the flickering at 60Hz and lower bothers my eyes and even BFI at 90Hz I can still notice the strobing. Pair that with a fightstick or an 8BitDo controller (I use the M30 for Saturn emulation and a PC Engine controller for those games), and it’s nice. You can buy USB adapters for cartridges and a USB enclosure for a disc drive where you can play games straight from the disc. Been using the disc drive for PSX/2/3 games and ripping my music CD collection.

I mainly use Analogue products with the DAC and JVC PVM, which is absolutely gorgeous. I do like to own the games physically if possible. With old computers like the Amiga I have the original hardware and CRT, but I’ve modded it for convenience (SD-card for a HDD, more RAM, turbo chip).

2:33 - This is why I'm actually working on building a standalone emulator. - And sure, that still means ending up with a little PC with software on it. However, I will set it up so that it's like launching a console, and it will have a case that looks like a console, one that even has a drive that acts like a cartridge, down to the cloned gamepads depending on what will be emulated. - And I've thought it through. I've considered going the "collect all the things I want" route, but that's just a waste of time and money, just for "getting the experience" and playing some of the games of which I won't even know if I'll actually enjoy them beforehand. It's a hassle to find and get all that stuff, as well as set it up, plus the risk of degradation, be it already present or in the future. - Then I've considered why I would even want to go back to the old consoles and games. To play the games? Sure. To have the experience? Sure. But I realized that I can "emulate" THAT as well, by doing what I've described. And not everyone will see that as "genuine" enough, which I get. But I've already lived in that era, so I don't need to go back, and it's not all that perfect either. I'll gladly take the advantages of modern technology and have it up and running quicker for less money in a more convenient and streamlined way. Also, I'm definitely a sentimental person, I basically don't get rid of anything and all that. But I feel people are being overly sentimental of "the physical days". I get it, but maybe it's just too nerdy for me. I don't know. - I say that as someone who likes to buy and play records. Yet I stream more. I will also not play guitar through a computer, even though I use one every day. - But if old videogames are done well through emulation, and I can run them on a small box or something, that's good for me. I really don't have this fetish over it when I look at the old Mega Drive II that I still have. They're valuable to me for the memories, but not to play with as an adult. That was then, not today.

Recently plugged in the PS2, loved the feel of plugging everything in and turning it on. That being said, its easier to just use an emulator, especially on an android and being able to play on the go especially a story based game.

I remember digging out my PS2 a few years ago to play on a HDTV and was shocked how bad it looked. I knew nothing of the technical aspects of why, but without a doubt it was awful. I spent hundreds on different leads and upscalers etc. to try and get it to work and look good but nothing worked that great. Tried emulation but that was more hassle than it’s worth IMO. Spend more time messing around with emulation settings than playing the game and also just didn’t feel right playing those games on a PC. So I finally bought myself a CRT TV and was blown away by how good it looked. It simply comes down to that’s the way it’s meant to be played. You can’t beat it.

RetroArch's rollback netplay, ability to remove any amount of lag built into a game, fast forward, save states, controller overrides and speed hacks means software emulation is king of quality of life in my opinion. Especially true for 5th gen consoles where 99% of 3D games ran at 30 FPS at best and have 4+ frames of input lag. There are ways to hook up a computer to a CRT if that's your jam.

I use an original Wii for 240p CRT console emulation and it's excellent. It has allowed me to slim down my console collection so it's not overly cluttered anymore. I still own a number of consoles and have them hooked up to the same CRT as well.

I think "well-emulated" should be changed to "basically indistinguishable" from the real hardware in the way graphics, pixel arrangement, special quirks of the console, input lag, audio synthesis and mixing are presented. If this is not correctly implemented, emulation is worthless to me outside of an immediate commodity for messing around or reverse engineer games. Of course, this only applies if you already have the real console in question.

This is about how I feel

Beside the fact that i love playing on a real CRT and real hardware, emulation is a great way to enjoy older games. My favorite way and most preferable way to get a retro experience with emulation is using EMUVR. Even without using a VR device and playing it on a flat monitor or tv, the way CRT's are emulated is pretty good. Also you have to insert a disc in the emulated playstation or other retro consoles up to PS2/GC. You can give them cd covers to make it seem more authentic.

I saw a review from a famous RU-vidr, where she strongly criticized the game Super Metroid because the controls were oddly positioned, causing accidental jumps. She had played it using Joy-Cons on the Nintendo Switch. This is a perfect example that to have the intended experience for the game, one should use the original hardware. Like a SNES controller. Due to its slightly diagonal displacement, Super Metroid was designed for that specific controller, providing perfect gameplay and no accidental input. Furthermore, in retro games, deaths are important and part of the learning process, acting as a tutorial through trial and error. Having options like "Rewind" removes a crucial aspect of gameplay, the learning by making mistakes and improving and mastering the gameplay, so mostly modern reviewers reaches the final stage in 1 hour playing like a total newbie and skipping all the game content and design. One thing to notice is specially on Megaman X on Snes, on the real hardware i feel like a ninja and how to Snes listen to all my frenetic inputs, but when I played on Legacy Collection I was making mistakes I've never do on the original hardware. So we have these RU-vidrs doing reviews and criticizing these games as if they were the worst things in the world, while they never die, never lose, and play with the wrong refresh rate or misaligned controls. I do like emulation and play a lot on it, but be mindful that while you can improve emulation correcting input delay like on retroarch, fix graphical issues on PSX, there is a downside like missing some VFX, having a controller that will not feel correctly, etc. But I believe that for profissional reviewers is important to when to criticize something, to go after the original experience.

Retro achievements is a huge bonus I think needs more love.

Rom lists. Yup that resonates with me. I have been a long time emulator, since around ‘97. But recently I got an Analogue Super NT. Decided not to JB it. The process of collecting and playing using original cartridges is something special. I finally feel like I’m playing the street fighter II turbo of my childhood days, but on a glorious OLED with perfect crisp settings on this FPGA. Hard to describe the experience, but it does just feel different than emulation, even the version from SNES classic a few years ago, just had that extra frame or two of latency, as well as slightly different looking graphics and audio!

For me as a kid back then who has the original systems and controllers now but still emulates i think there are two major physical differences now in favour of emulation one being actual space in the environment and the other difference being using original controllers as an adult its much more cramped. Personally i prefer to use my PS4 controller with emulation and for PS emulators it works like a dream.

Dark 1X shares the exact sentiments towards emulation as I do. I feel the same way

As someone who loves collecting retro games and has all of his old consoles and their boxes too (even my jaguar and 32x etc) i do love emulating games. The quality is superb. However the nostalgia of just loading the discs and carts and playing with the controllers is also preferable. I own every silent hill game and would much rather play those on the original hardware, but im not paying 800 dollars to play kuon. I also dont want to have to worry about having a ton of consoles hooked up or having to unhook some to hook some up. Its a huge hassle. 😅

I will emulate if I absolutely have to, but I generally stick to original hardware. Using a CRT is a given either way for me though. Sony Trinitron TV for my original hardware, and my Dell CRT as my main PC monitor. But typically if I'm emulating, it's for something like trying early prototype builds of games

The display is really the defining factor here. Despite the best efforts of the community I haven't seen shaders that 100% replicate the look of a CRT TV (or maybe it's not even possible considering the differences with LCD). This gets even worse if we're talking about composite signal and the different ways each console handled that. If you take out the display then the emulator is the winner in most situations hands down. Everything else (handling a cartridge, using original controllers, etc) can be replicated or adapted to an emulator.

I'd say if you wanna play on a flatscreen it's better to just use emulation because you won't have to buy expensive scalers or do soldering mods to get better picture quality. Emulation with integer scaling is the same as a retro console with an expensive scaler on a flatscreen tv. If you have a crt that's still working then that's gonna be the best way to play with original consoles because that's what they were made for.

This hits hard as I'm in the process of moving house at the moment and will have less space for a time. I'll definitely keep hold of the CRT as I agree with John, it makes the world of difference. I'm just trying to figure out what things I need physical copies of.. Most DS, 3DS, SNES, MEGADRIVE and PS1 things can be emulated or acquired digitally elsewhere, and I even have FreeMcBoot and a Hard Drive in my PS2 so I don't really need the discs anymore either, but there is just something about having those boxes with manuals that cannot be emulated. I do feel like having a digital library often means you just forget about games and never play them. We all have Steam libraries full of unplayed games for example (right?).. I'm currently thinking I'll just keep hold of a few of the special games (ICO, SoTc, SilentHill2, MGS2,3 etc). I'll likely keep hold of all the PS1 demo discs I have too, those hold perhaps even fonder memories for me

I play emulators with native resolution and the original controller.. the rom list are overwhelming but once I settle for a game im immersed.. upressing or anything other than applying crt filters ruins the experience for me because I see right away it's a modern version. I like chunky pixels and jagged edges on my old games

Emulation is not always the best answer. An example is Alien - Resurrection: you'd think that the ps1 is well emulated by now, but every emulator I've tried (including on ARM, x86, on all (!) ps2 models and on the pstv, vita) has some more or less obvious issues with that game. And all of them run it a little faster in some situations than how it is on the real hardware. I like to see how that old, weak hardware actually runs a game, without audio lag, that's why emulators are out of the question for me for 3d consoles. The only things missing are save states, and some of those old games are super hard without them.

It's the tactile feel of putting the cartridge in or opening the disc tray - or holding the original controller. I also really like old hardware in general

Playing GameBoy Color games on original hardware is shit nowadays because of the screen, I still like the controls. Gameboy games are far better emulated than the original Hardware. I can see the argument for 2D CRT Games but I still hate flickering and low res. The quality of life aspects of emulation surpass the retro feeling for me.

I feel like RetroArch shaders are scratching that crt itch for me.

Lol Jhonn i always see you on CRT Collective, exchanged some opinion about PAL pros and NTSC cons with you

For me, the only "retro" console I would rather play on orignal hardware with is PS3. This is because of Trophies and the fact that its 720-1080p.

The other thing with emulation is just like, getting a controller to work can be a pain in the ass. Plug it in, Windows doesn’t recognize it for whatever reason. Have to go through and map the buttons. Unplug the controller? Well get ready to do all that shit again. Dealing with two players? Get ready for some confusion- (“Wait, which one is ‘Gamepad 0’?”) Some things are just much easier with actual original hardware. Or even just emulating on something other than a PC, like a Wii, where you can use original controllers but everything is still very simple.

1:10 analysis-paralysis

While there are obvious arguments for physical media and original hardware. I feel like the argument is more of a console gamers vs everyone else kind of thing. PC gamers do not typically care abou this sort of thing and just want to experience the game at the best possible resolutionc and fps, PC gamers do not have typically have much nostalgia for physical media as a lot of PC gamers since the 90's always wanted to not have to swap out their PC discs every time you want to play a different game. Preservation is also important as these consoles and physical games do have an expiration date whether we want to believe it or not. Backup your physical games to your PC for the sake of video game history and preservation.

emulation is the way to go unless you got the old system and a crt

I play my older games on my steam Deck for roms. Expect my PS3 I still play MW2 and others for now on it

i have a sony wega 29" tv. it's awesome! but using duckstation with crt filter on a lct monitor the image gets more clean and crt-like than the sony tv itself! so i retired the tv. it's behind the monitor right now. almost every game looks better and pleasing with crystal clear and realistic crt on the lcd monitor than in the tv. the ONLY game who look better on the sony wega is Tales of Eternia. the only game i really found it's better there.

My take is I emulate almost everything 4th Gen/16 bit or older simply for convenience. 5th gen and Dreamcast is case by case. Everything else I play on original hardware.

My issue with emulation is that i find it a bit of a hassle to find the right emulator and the right settings for it, and making sure the game im playing doesnt have a lot of audio and graphical bugs and inaccuracies. The only exception is if a game is impractical (ie too expensive) to get. This is kind of why I got the PS2 versions of Devil May Cry 1 and 3, once I noticed the graphical bugs in the HD versions, it couldnt stop bothering me.

I only care about the games and I want the best looking and running versions so it's emulation all the way. I'm not going to watch a film on video tape on an old CRT just for nostalgia sake and I feel exactly the same about games.

Why not have both? Play roms on original hardware. This has become my go-to method. The key is shrinking your roms list down to a manageable size so you actually play the games.

Well, I have an Ossc, an expensive switcher, every console since 1980 rgb modded with scart cables. It is all in boxes and I just play everything on my gaming pc.

Accessibility is big deal for many; simply the media is just not in your area where ever you are then being tied to physical hardware limitations of consoles not being cheap either even with the m being much older then it can be inaccessible that way as well; i understand having ROM lists is overwhelming to many people its missing putting the physical media in to focus on the game but its a high barrier entry to get into playing retro than just trying emulation first

I just like playing games because they're fun. 🤷‍♂️

I think Original Hardware/FPGA is the best option for playing games, but the biggest offering emulation delivers is ROMhacks/enhancements/randomizers. It can renew the experience of playing a game you previously enjoyed.

Unfortunately getting a good crt is harder and harder All i have is a flat sharp crt, light gun games suck because the screen isnt curved and it only had composite and s video so i have to spend more to get a set of s video cables also Much better experience with a clone retrotink2x and a modern tv, no input latency that i can notice but still cant find quality s video cables anywhere for a good price I will stick to my mister and in the future maybe mars

Compare it to the fpga core on MiSTer which is even superior to og hw imo. ☮️

Every time I've seriously tried to play a game through emulation, I've run into issues. It's not displayed right, glitches, endless tinkering. Today, nothing beats original hardware on a CRT or Retrotink with an everdrive and a wireless controller.

emulation on a crt with run ahead enabled for less input delay than original hardware tho

MISTER FPGA > both

I would not mind doing emulation if it was easier to do. Stuff like: Where do you get the emulators? Where do you get the roms? So on and so on. Nobody likes talking about where you can get stuff like that because of pirating.

Good back ground

Simple answer: LAG Emulators and modern displays have audio/video/input lag Original consoles with CRTs do not

except you can use emulation on CRT with batocera and CRT script

Redream is very broken still. Just start sonic adventure and let it run.lots of chance the demo run just bug out and show a game over even before you press start...

Emulation is way better than hardware

Mister fpga and emulation is superior to og consoles , especially using shader presets with retroarch using oled

CRT ftw

Original hardware and that's because you don't need internet to play them and you have the system and the games forever incase your PC gets hacked So I recommend the actual hardware

Not only do older console games look wrong on emulation without the old crt displays, but handheld emulators also look wrong. PPSSPP or Citra at original resolutions has pixelation that looks weird, which was masked by the original small screen low res LCDs of the real thing.

Swanstation is better 😊

I prefer original hardware when possible. Emulation just feels ...wrong.

PlayStation > xbox