yeah anyone saying you need to adjust how many cores the emulator itself uses externally is full of shit. You just toggle the “mtvu” setting in the system settings panel as that’s the problematic multi-threading option that makes some games run like shit and others run extremely well. Should be off by default, imo
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I’ll give it a shot! Thanks!
one last tip is that the rendering threads is based on how many cores your cpu has, up to a hard limit of 6 (you gain no benefits from having more than 6 threads)
Optimally, you use 2 threads less than the number of cores you have, so a quad core cpu should only have 2 rendering threads, a 6 core should have 4 threads, etc.
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Considering to play Tomba! and/or Tomba! 2… do they hold up?
I mistakenly watched some footage of recently released (past few years) action-RPGs, and I noticed that some of them, such as FF7, do a thing where they display the subtitles for incidental/situational dialogue in a scrolling text display on the side of the screen. It’s the same kind of UI element that has displayed loot pick-ups and quest updates in MMOs for quite a while, and was integrated into more and more offline games since, but I haven’t previously seen it used as a way of showing what party members or overheard NPCs are saying.
When did this start appearing in games?
got a screenshot example of this? i don’t remember how it looks from reading your description, but I am definitely familiar.
yeah, see also:
there must be a common ancestor here. I feel like a lot of classic 60’s/70’s east asian pop/rock music uses this same compositional style, which feels vaguely european in origin but I’m not enough of a music nerd to say for certain.
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french ye-ye sometimes sounds like this too… I feel like there’s some surf rock DNA buried in there alongside like, certain schools of 60’s R&B
someone who knows more than me pls make sense of this
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I usually call these toast notifications. Because villager dialogue can play on top of critical walk-and-talk dialogue, and because they trigger on proximity so there’s not a lot of control on the rate of playback, the traditional bottom of the screen caption location, which can only show a single linear sequence of dialogue, is not appropriate. It’s a problem you need to solve in some scrolling fashion like this as soon as you caption voiced dialogue and it fits almost all the same parameters as status notifications.
In this case, they also support overhead speech bubbles. They could plausibly support only those but I think they felt the town dialogue was just so sparkling and witty no one would want to miss a syllable.
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For Final Fantasy IV and V, are either the GBA or PSP versions considered some of the best ways to play those games? And what about the Persona PSP ports?
you’ll prob get a different answer from other people but I recommend playing SNES final fantasy games on emulators, optionally with quality-of-life/retranslation/decensorship patches. ffIV and ffVI both have excellent all-in-one patches with a few different options… although VI arguably is totally fine on its own. I’d recommend a patch of IV that at least restores the cut content and difficulty from the original. the namingway edition is the one I played recently, but there may be something newer than that now. I know you didn’t ask about VI but if anyone is curious I quite liked the ted woolsey uncensored edition.
(incidentally the DS remake of IV is excellent and totally works on its own as an option – though for that I’d recommend original hardware. definitely avoid the steam port)
last I checked with V in terms of romhacks you basically can choose the original fan translation which is like… ya know, a mid-90’s fan translation with all the good and bad that entails, or a patch which ports in the gba translation, which is also cringey and full of annoying memes and stuff. they both have their drawbacks… I used the gba script last time but I kind of regret it. I don’t know of a bonafide retranslation effort but maybe things have changed since then.
but the main reason to play the original game imo is the music quality is just so much better on the SNES and that’s a huge part of the experience. I also mostly dislike the color palette changes and more cramped screen space. I haven’t really played the bonus content of either gba port though… it’s just never seemed worth it. maybe it is with V since it’s much more mechanics-oriented.
this video is a good deep dive between different versions of V. it’s frustrating bc they all have their drawbacks. I still recommend a romhack but it might help you make a clearer decision. it makes a good case for the gba port to be the best all-around in terms of commercial options.
of course there are also the pixel remasters which I haven’t played bc they’re so expensive and are just a little too aesthetically off-feeling for me to feel good about buying at full price.
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I can vouch for FF4 GBA being good. The bonus content, while not very essential, provides some much appreciated options in the endgame that are lacking in the SNES original, DS remake, and pixel remaster. However, if you’re going to go with that, then use the European version since it fixes some wacky ATB bugs that were in the US release. Also, I’d suggest looking into the music restoration patch for it.
As for GBA vs. PSP, that’s mostly a matter of aesthetic preference, and frankly I think the redrawn sprites are kinda ugly. IIRC it does have a built in rewind feature at least. Also, it includes the sequel FF4 The After Years, but by all accounts it is very inessential at best.
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Looking at the FFV iOS sprite and I cannot believe what I am seeing
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I like the FF4/5 GBA ports for the bonus chapters, to stay with the characters and jobs for a little longer. It’s just nice to have an overpowered postgame Edward too
In Persona 1 PSP the battle music was changed from :
To :
It doesn’t fit the game at all. It never stops feeling like embarassing pandering to the Persona3+ fan crowd.
I really enjoyed having the Snow Queen quest to play in this version, but maybe this was better left as a curious mystery we never got
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i have no stakes in FF recs, but would second toups in discouraging PSP or GBA unless you can hack in the SNES music, shit is really good.
music is honestly the best part of the uematsu FFs anyway, the rest is just a elaborate vehicle for those uematsu bops tbh
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I think I’m gonna play a hacked version of IV and maybe play the PR version of V when I get around to that. I already own the PR version of VI but the woolsey hack sounds quite good, so it’s gonna be a hard choice between those when I get to that point.
I’d say go with the GBA port of V as the extra jobs and content really add to that game’s skinner box approach to play.
Also you can restore the sound/framerate with this:
The colours with this:
And if you want there’s a mod of this I like a ton that gives you the option of FOUR custom classes even allowing you to replace the ATTACK button with a custom ability which is just fantastic)
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I don’t have an opinion about ff version differences but for some reason reading about them always activates this very specific part of my brain in a way nothing else does. Like, there are so many different versions of them and the ways they are different are so funny. It’s not possible to create one that is the “best” even though the flaws they all have are so obvious. It’s like if Sisyphus also had to deal with seeing the time trial ghost of every other time he had to push the rock up
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this might be the ultimate hack!
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the only ‘ultimate hack’ on these forums is me
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