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1. Emulator Lingo

E

Euchale

Crazy German Guy
For this first topic I want to talk about some words that are going to is in the following threads and about legality of some stuff:
Emulator: A software to emulate a environment. This can reach from emulating a console, over emulating a environment for software that is based on a programming language, to emulating a OS. (legal)
Rom: A software that is run in the emulated environment. This is how your games will be called. (semi-legal to download from the internet. If you own the game it´s legal)
Bios: Emulators by themselves are legal, since they don´t share anything made by the companies. To get some emulators working properly you will have to add a bios. This you can get from your console directly. (illegal to share on the internet)
Plugins/Addon: An addition to a program. It usually extends or adds features.
Save state: You save the state the game is currently running in. It saves the whole "code" of the game and is thus differently than saving the game. For example: If you have a glitch and do a safe state and load it, the glitch will be still there as you found it.
Cheats: Additionally to the usual game shark, most emulator feature a cheat "thingy" that works like cheat engine for the PC. It allows you to search for a specific value and then for a changed value. If you do this often enough, you can find the address it is in and mess with it.

So let´s go for some setting specific terms:
Safety vs. Speed: Since emulating a console on a PC can be very taxing on the system you might have to adjust some sliders, to get the game run in a good speed with decent quality.
Frame Skipping: skips a frame per second and gives a huge boost in performance
Screen Resolutions: These are the resolutions the game will be rendered in and doesn´t necessarily influence the size of the window. You can render games at a higher resolution if you have a beefy machine so they look better.
Layers: On older consoles you would have different layers. For example your character is layer 2. If you have something in front of your character it would be 1. If something is behind your character it would be layer 3.
Sound: Mute turns off the sound, but it is still "there". Some games (Pokemon for screams) require sound. If you turn sound off in comparison, the machine cannot play the sound file and will just wait. Turning this off, can give you a big speed boost as the emulator will try to match the sound with the stuff you see on the screen.
Filter: You can use filters to smooth out corners, to change colors, to add tv lines and various other things. A nice example is 2x Super Eagle compared to original.
2xsai_example.png

Speed up: Most emulators give you the option to speed up your game. This can be very helpful.
Capture: You can capture video and pictures directly in most emulators available.

These are the basic terms you will probably need with any of the upcoming emulators, so learn them and this weekend we shall start with the dosbox.
 
In the past, we've tended to stray away from emulator topics because of the "grey area" for legality...

But I like this. As long as we don't link or mention any actual programs or where to get them, we should be good.

I'll let tr1age decide if he wants to keep this around or not though.

Edit: My bad!
 
Gyoin said:
In the past, we've tended to stray away from emulator topics because of the "grey area" for legality...

But I like this. As long as we don't link or mention any actual programs or where to get them, we should be good.

I'll let tr1age decide if he wants to keep this around or not though.
Click to expand...

I´ve already asked for his approval and he said yes. I intend to keep it the way it is now. I might say:"Google for HCP1007"
 
Regarding legality, there's a lot of conflicting information on the internet, but the best answer I've found is from here: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080303221759AAO01SA

Ian on Yahoo Answers said:
As far as the United States goes, two Supreme Court cases seem to be guiding. One is Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. from 1984. The other is MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. from 2005.

In the 1984 case, the court ruled that VCR manufacturers couldn't be found liable for copyright violations just because consumers used their products to make copies of videos they owned. The deciding factor was that a majority of these consumers were making copies for their own "personal use", rather than to sell them.

Furthermore, going by the 1984 case, I don't think it matters WHO makes the copy. For instance, if you operated a service that made backup copies of DVDs and gave those copies back to people, it seems like you wouldn’t be liable for copyright infringement either.

So going off the 1984 case alone, it seems like making a ROM copy of game you owned would not violate copyright. It also seems like if someone else made the copy for you, they wouldn’t be in violation of copyright either.

What about a service that hosts ROMs on the internet? They probably wouldn’t be protected under the 1984 decision, because of the many distinctions between a ROM hosting website and a VCR manufacturer.

Then there’s the 2005 case. In this case, the Supreme Court said that Grokster, a peer-to-peer service was liable for copyright violation, despite the fact that there were many legitimate uses for the program that weren’t based around online trading of copyrighted intellectual property.

So why did Grokster lose? The case hinged on the fact that the Grokster company actively promoted their software as a great way to download copyrighted materials that users didn’t already own.

One of the relevant takeaways from this case is that during oral arguments, one of the supreme court justices was concerned that if Grokster could be liable for copyright infringement, Apple could also be liable when people use their Ipods to play mp3s that they download illegally. MGM, the plaintiff (the party suing Grokster), specifically said that Apple should NOT be liable because people can use iPods to play .mp3 files from CDs that they already own, and Apple does not specifically advertise their products as a way to listen to music that you don’t already own.

So it would seem that in the United States, it’s likely that possessing a ROM copy of a game that you already own wouldn’t put you in violation of copyright. Unless the Supreme Court wants people to be liable for transferring their own CDs to their Ipods, and Apple to be liable for every illegally downloaded .mp3 file that’s ever been used on their devices, that’s the way it’s gonna stay.

Sourece:http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=04-480
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TL;DR- Making ROM copies for yourself or someone else that owns the copyrighted material seems fine, but getting ROMs you didn't make yourself and haven't bought the copyrighted material is infringement.
 
While I do agree what you wrote, a general rule is to NEVER torrent anything. Because you are sharing the data at the same time.
 
Keleynal said:
TL;DR- Making ROM copies for yourself or someone else that owns the copyrighted material seems fine, but getting ROMs you didn't make yourself and haven't bought the copyrighted material is infringement.
Click to expand...


Yes, this is how I always understood it. Modification of ROM's also get tricky, however. Say, a Japenese to English translation patch for the first Star Ocean on SNES. Now, profiting on said ROM patch is illegal, but what about the ownership of said patch with ROM? It's a Japanese only cartridge, which would state I should own that before I could justify downloading a ROM and applying the English translation patch.

This is the fine line. You can experience content that was never distributed for your access before.

But I digress, I feel like I'm jumping the gun a little on Euch's Emulating series of posts.
 
Gyoin said:
Yes, this is how I always understood it. Modification of ROM's also get tricky, however. Say, a Japenese to English translation patch for the first Star Ocean on SNES. Now, profiting on said ROM patch is illegal, but what about the ownership of said patch with ROM? It's a Japanese only cartridge, which would state I should own that before I could justify downloading a ROM and applying the English translation patch.

This is the fine line. You can experience content that was never distributed for your access before.

But I digress, I feel like I'm jumping the gun a little on Euch's Emulating series of posts.
Click to expand...

I think more to the point, you are using software that was never copyrighted under the US. If it's not copyrighted, it's not protected, so ROM away.
 
I will simply try to avoid this all together by saying:"To find games google for "Gamename Consolename rom"
 
The core of this whole legal battle is archaic.
Dumb old people trying to fight just to win something that has no point.

If they really wanted to solve the problem just sell the emulators and ROM games on their website or something like Google play.
even giving them away for free would generate ad revenue.

Instead they like to prevent people from using the things they love and create an environment for legal obscurity so all those kids who paid WAY too much to go to law school have something to do.
YAY~ (sarcasm)

Regardless, thanks for the info and writeup!
 
Keleynal said:
If it's not copyrighted, it's not protected, so ROM away.
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Yes, that has always been the reasoning. That's why international bootlegging is such a huge sham and knockoffs are created (we've all seen them). In the digital arena, it's MUCH easier to not only obtain these types of files, but also to distribute. The part I wanted to make more apparent are those who are gaining ad revenue or are charging for content (or even just profiting) that isn't actually theirs. That's when I start to have issues with the whole system.
 
Gyoin said:
Yes, that has always been the reasoning. That's why international bootlegging is such a huge sham and knockoffs are created (we've all seen them). In the digital arena, it's MUCH easier to not only obtain these types of files, but also to distribute. The part I wanted to make more apparent are those who are gaining ad revenue or are charging for content (or even just profiting) that isn't actually theirs. That's when I start to have issues with the whole system.
Click to expand...

Or you can be Disney and just rip off all the fairy tales and stories that haven't been copyrighted or are out of copyright and then copyright them yourself as much as possible.
 
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