Nintendo Switch emulator yuzu gets a huge performance boost

The purpose of copyright isn't to protect some "god-given" right to control "intellectual property," it's to incentivize contributing to society by guaranteeing a good faith opportunity to profit from one's work. It's entirely reasonable to question how well copyright achieves this, and to scrutinize how individual owners use their copyright.

You're right: It's a man given right. But you're not scrutinizing how their using their rights. You're just violating their rights. And they are contributing to society, they spend a lot of money (paying people) to create video games which people want to play.

Like jarhead was saying, I already have hardware that would be perfectly capable of running their games. If they won't sell me their games without strings attached (buying redundant hardware), then I would argue they aren't really using their copyright in good faith.

Just because you own a car doesn't give you the right to drive it (anyway you want). You still need a permit & must comply with the rules.

It doesn't matter what you're arguing in some forum. You're still just violating their rights. If you disagree, sue them. Maybe you will receive the permission to do so.

If a bunch of hobbyists are able to meet a demand in their spare time, for free, better than a large, wealthy corporation, then the profit motive has failed, and the system should be re-evaluated. In the mean time, it is ethical to resort to alternative means. No one should be able to lay claim to a market they choose not to pursue.

Neither the demand nor the means justify these actions. We're not talking about basic needs, we're talking about recreational activities. Also, we're not talking about limited goods. There is an endless amount of alternatives which you can use without violating someones rights.

In fact, it doesn't even make sense: If you'd simply buy a game from a developer which supports your platform you improve the platform itself. The developer will have the means to support your platform in the future.

As for the GPL, I have no idea what parallel you're even trying to draw. The entire concept of copyleft is to use copyright against itself to "hack" freedom into a system that would otherwise tend to restrict it, and would be unnecessary if copyright didn't exist in the first place.

You don't own any software in the copyright world. Any software is provided under the terms of licenses. It's hypocrisy to demand compliance with FOSS licenses & ignore everything else.

Seems a bit strange […]

What the heck? You're behaving like a white knight fighting for justice when you're just a kiddy who needs to justify its "piracy". There is absolutely no reason to play these games in the first place. It's better to not play any games and do something useful instead. It's really strange to justify these violations with FOSS.

To summarize: You don't have right to decide what is right & what is wrong. Stop sugarcoating your behavior.

Just because you own a car doesn't give you the right to drive it (anyway you want). You still need a permit & must comply with the rules.

This is a pretty bad analogy. You don't need a permit to drive your car or comply with traffic laws on your own private land.

The purpose of copyright isn't to protect some "god-given" right to control "intellectual property," it's to incentivize contributing to society by guaranteeing a good faith opportunity to profit from one's work. It's entirely reasonable to question how well copyright achieves this, and to scrutinize how individual owners use their copyright.

You're right: It's a man given right. But you're not scrutinizing how their using their rights. You're just violating their rights. And they are contributing to society, they spend a lot of money (paying people) to create video games which people want to play.

Like jarhead was saying, I already have hardware that would be perfectly capable of running their games. If they won't sell me their games without strings attached (buying redundant hardware), then I would argue they aren't really using their copyright in good faith.

Just because you own a car doesn't give you the right to drive it (anyway you want). You still need a permit & must comply with the rules.

It doesn't matter what you're arguing in some forum. You're still just violating their rights. If you disagree, sue them. Maybe you will receive the permission to do so.

If a bunch of hobbyists are able to meet a demand in their spare time, for free, better than a large, wealthy corporation, then the profit motive has failed, and the system should be re-evaluated. In the mean time, it is ethical to resort to alternative means. No one should be able to lay claim to a market they choose not to pursue.

Neither the demand nor the means justify these actions. We're not talking about basic needs, we're talking about recreational activities. Also, we're not talking about limited goods. There is an endless amount of alternatives which you can use without violating someones rights.

In fact, it doesn't even make sense: If you'd simply buy a game from a developer which supports your platform you improve the platform itself. The developer will have the means to support your platform in the future.

As for the GPL, I have no idea what parallel you're even trying to draw. The entire concept of copyleft is to use copyright against itself to "hack" freedom into a system that would otherwise tend to restrict it, and would be unnecessary if copyright didn't exist in the first place.

You don't own any software in the copyright world. Any software is provided under the terms of licenses. It's hypocrisy to demand compliance with FOSS licenses & ignore everything else.

Seems a bit strange […]

What the heck? You're behaving like a white knight fighting for justice when you're just a kiddy who needs to justify its "piracy". There is absolutely no reason to play these games in the first place. It's better to not play any games and do something useful instead. It's really strange to justify these violations with FOSS.

To summarize: You don't have right to decide what is right & what is wrong. Stop sugarcoating your behavior.

The fundamental mistake underpinning your reasoning is that you're completely ignoring the power dynamics of capitalism. You keep appealing to people's rights under the law, but the law is disproportionately shaped by the owner class. The game is rigged, and you're wagging your finger at people for not following its bogus rules, even as those who rigged it continue to win despite that defiance.

Also copyleft isn't so much an assertion of copyright as it is an assertion against it. It's not inconsistent to support an assertion of freedom at the same time as excusing defiance of restriction.

This is a pretty bad analogy. You don't need a permit to drive your car or comply with traffic laws on your own private land.

No, I think it's still ok. A car on private property is just an exception with limited usage, the main purpose is transportation on public streets. I wouldn't argue against license violation for research reasons. Development of the emulator itself is not necessary wrong. Besides: If you don't like it, just ignore it, it's not an important part of the argument.

The fundamental mistake underpinning your reasoning is that you're completely ignoring the power dynamics of capitalism. You keep appealing to people's rights under the law, but the law is disproportionately shaped by the owner class. The game is rigged, and you're wagging your finger at people for not following its bogus rules, even as those who rigged it continue to win despite that defiance.

Also copyleft isn't so much an assertion of copyright as it is an assertion against it. It's not inconsistent to support an assertion of freedom at the same time as excusing defiance of restriction.

No, I'm wagging the finger at hypocrites who try to disguise that they're simply cheapskates. Do whatever you want to do, I don't care. But don't rationalize your behaviour with an imaginary fight for freedom. You can live your live without playing Nintendo games on your PC, you're not resisting anything by playing Nintendo games on your PC.

There's one question I'd like answered by people against console emulation: How do you feel about people running Windows software on Wine/Proton? How and why is it any different, ethically or legally? How much am I allowed to deviate from the intended target platform until I'm hurting some corporation's feelings?

This is a pretty bad analogy. You don't need a permit to drive your car or comply with traffic laws on your own private land.

No, I think it's still ok.

It's not. A car maker can't tell you where or how you are allowed to drive their product. Traffic laws and driving permits are irrelevant to the discussion, as they have a very different scope and purpose. Emulating a game does not endanger public safety.

A car has never been a good analogy for digital goods, no matter what a certain doofus wanted you to believe twenty years ago.


Last edited by tuubi on 14 May 2023 at 4:46 pm UTC

No, I'm wagging the finger at hypocrites who try to disguise that they're simply cheapskates. Do whatever you want to do, I don't care. But don't rationalize your behaviour with an imaginary fight for freedom. You can live your live without playing Nintendo games on your PC, you're not resisting anything by playing Nintendo games on your PC.

That's an incredibly privileged position. A few of the studies I've skimmed talk about why piracy is rampant either in countries where the pirated material isn't sold, or the living wage is so low that it rules out legitimate purchase of (that kind of) leisure material.

Sure, not everyone is in that boat, and I'm sure a lot of rationalisation is happening. But globally, there's a myriad of reasons for piracy. Emulation, perhaps not so much, I haven't considered it much. But I'm sure are plenty of cases there too.

There's one question I'd like answered by people against console emulation: How do you feel about people running Windows software on Wine/Proton? How and why is it any different, ethically or legally? How much am I allowed to deviate from the intended target platform until I'm hurting some corporation's feelings?

"Wine Is Not an Emulator". And I don't think you violate any licenses. You can download & run the unmodified binaries from the official sources. Just as Nintendo, a developer can take (legal) actions if they have concerns about the usage (e.g. Roblox).

It's not. A car maker can't tell you where or how you are allowed to drive their product. Traffic laws and driving permits are irrelevant to the discussion, as they have a very different scope and purpose. Emulating a game does not endanger public safety.

It is. The car maker is not part of the analogy. The analogy is about rules & that just the means is not enough of a justification. You need a permit to drive in public streets. You don't own the software you buy & are bound by its license. Both is regulated by law.

Whether the license is valid or not is not of importance since it's not your decision. You can only initialize a review.

But as I said: Ignore the analogy, it's not important.

That's an incredibly privileged position. A few of the studies I've skimmed talk about why piracy is rampant either in countries where the pirated material isn't sold, or the living wage is so low that it rules out legitimate purchase of (that kind of) leisure material.

Sure, not everyone is in that boat, and I'm sure a lot of rationalisation is happening. But globally, there's a myriad of reasons for piracy. Emulation, perhaps not so much, I haven't considered it much. But I'm sure are plenty of cases there too.

I don't care if you emulate or "pirate" anything. I onl argue against the justifications about it. Nobody is forced to play anything.

[quote=Bogomips][quote=MadWolf]

.....

Indeed, who remembers the no-cd patch to be able to play your own game without putting the f*****g CD in the player making the sound of a plane ready to take off…

Oh, I remember. As of two years ago I still needed a No-CD crack to play Warhammer40K Space Marine on Steamplay. That's since been fixed, but still a great example of how that crap is still screwing people over ten years after release.

I was there for the DOS age of PC gaming. I was there for the transition to Windows95/98, 3D acceleration, etc. Over the years I noticed certain trends that continue to hold:

1) Software companies do not care about the future. They just want you to buy whatever they are releasing right now.

2) If that release is buggy it will never be completely fixed. It will be "good enough" and then dumped on the market with nothing further spent on it.

3) The companies that deliver quality up front will deliver support down the line, and vice-versa.

4) It's obvious that software is covered under the wrong branch of IP law. Instead of copyright it should be covered under patent.

5) Copyright law is a sledgehammer that corporate uses to beat little guys over the head with.


My solution is that all software should be required to be open-sourced at no latter than five years from date of first sale with a very limited grace period for existing software at time of making this change to the law. The software companies don't want to support their product, and will fight it with everything they have, so why force them to? Simply force them to provide the code that will make it possible for others to support the older software and the problem will disappear.

This rule will work as well for operating systems and productivity software as it does for games.

I don't care if you emulate or "pirate" anything. I onl argue against the justifications about it. Nobody is forced to play anything.

You certainly appear to care, as your various replies attest.

Good luck with your "arguments". Please remember that you're trying to convince free and open source advocates of the legitimacy of anti-consumerism from a company valued at over $50B. I'm not here to tell you to stop, but think about how that's going to land, please.

And in general, to the whole thread, keep it civil, please. There's already been one personal insult I nearly edited out, let's not have any more.

There's one question I'd like answered by people against console emulation: How do you feel about people running Windows software on Wine/Proton? How and why is it any different, ethically or legally? How much am I allowed to deviate from the intended target platform until I'm hurting some corporation's feelings?

"Wine Is Not an Emulator".

Hah! Somehow I knew you'd cite this. I don't see how that bears any legal or ethical relevance. You're still running a game on an unsupported operating system, using software other than what the game was made for, and possibly even on a different hardware platform. What difference does it make if the game was originally made for Windows or for the Switch?

And I don't think you violate any licenses. You can download & run the unmodified binaries from the official sources. Just as Nintendo, a developer can take (legal) actions if they have concerns about the usage (e.g. Roblox).

So you don't have anything against emulators as long as users run their games from the original media?

I think I saw Roblox mentioned in the title of a GOL article, so I'm guessing it's a game. But what sort of "concerns about the usage" of some Mario game should Nintendo have if someone wants to run it on a PC in the privacy of their own home? Or maybe you mean they might be concerned about the existence of software that makes it possible?

It's not. A car maker can't tell you where or how you are allowed to drive their product. Traffic laws and driving permits are irrelevant to the discussion, as they have a very different scope and purpose. Emulating a game does not endanger public safety.

It is. The car maker is not part of the analogy. The analogy is about rules & that just the means is not enough of a justification. You need a permit to drive in public streets.

The developer is the car maker. I'm simply trying to explain why this analogy does not work. There's no equivalence, because driving in traffic without a permit is clearly illegal. Emulating a game is not, to my knowledge.

You don't own the software you buy & are bound by its license. Both is regulated by law.

Whether the license is valid or not is not of importance since it's not your decision. You can only initialize a review.

That's probably true in your average corporate dystopia. In the slightly less dystopic environment I happen to reside in, I am free to ignore license terms if they conflict with laws and regulations. An agreement or contract is binding only as far as it is legal. For example, it's safe to disregard the fairly common EULA clause prohibiting personal backups if you live in the EU. I think it's actually considered "fair use" even in the (considerably more corporate) US. It's not my decision, but neither is it the licensor's. I don't have to sue to exercise my rights as a consumer.

Here's a couple of sources that seem to support my points. There are probably better sources, but it's late and these are what DDG picked for me.

Whether you actually own a game you paid for is neither here nor there, because you're not sharing unauthorized copies or whatever if all you do is play them on different hardware. Seems like you're still arguing against piracy, not emulation.

But as I said: Ignore the analogy, it's not important.

You don't get to write a paragraph in support of a weak analogy and then tell others to ignore it. You walk away first!


Just a short disclaimer here at the end, just to show my lack of skin in the game: I have never owned any consoles or console games, Nintendo or otherwise. I am an occasionally vocal proponent of strong consumer protections and free software, but other than that, my interest in this topic is largely academic.

I think initially PCs may have been too slow to play DVDs in software. I had a hardware DVD video decoder for that. It must have been around 97-98?

Side note: it wasn't about CPU power but about memory bandwidth. DVD videos used Mpeg2 as codec, which use a big bitrate in order to keep quality good enough. We couldn't reproduce DVDs with the CPU until the release of CPUs with 133 Mhz FSB (almost sure that PIII was the first one). So, in the beginnings we relied on specific hardware to do the job, but when CPUs had the necessary bandwidth the software DVD players became a thing and that's when the encryption keys got leaked (iirc).

Fun fact: you could reproduce a similar DVD video quality with Xvid/DivX on a Celeron 300 Mhz while you couldn't reproduce the original DVD in that same computer... wild days.

when it became possible to play DVD films on PC DVD drives

Wait, it wasn't possible initially?

If you bought a capable drive with legal software it was. I bought mine at a CompUSA so that I could play the DVD version of Wing Commander IV.

It would be a few years before DVD John cracked the DVD copy protection, which is the reason all the media software these days can play it all.

I used to rip copies of movies off of the DVD specifically to have a copy without the unskippable commercials and stupid menus. Thanks to DVD John.

Precisely. I was already on Linux when I got my first DVD drive in 2000, which meant I was sort-of technically a pirate for playing my legally purchased DVD on my computer (and double the pirate when I played my imported region-locked ones that weren't even available for purchase in my home country of Denmark, the import of which was actually illegal).
The law (at least in Denmark) quickly changed so that any tinkering needed to be done to enjoy legally purchased media, was covered by consumer rights. Looping back to the main topic, I would expect this to also cover playing a purchased Nintendo game on the hardware the consumer has available - at least in theory.

Side-question: Could any of the people against emulation, explain to me how I'm hurting Nintendo when I play the Wii U games that I physically have on my shelf, on my Steam Deck instead of dragging the console out of storage?

how I'm hurting Nintendo when I play the Wii U games that I physically have on my shelf, on my Steam Deck instead of dragging the console out of storage?

Simple. You don't.
PS: You may wish to drag the console out of the storage, Wii U's may self destruct if unused for a long time.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/8/23630417/wii-u-system-error-160-0103-bricking-nand-memory


Last edited by mr-victory on 15 May 2023 at 6:41 pm UTC

You certainly appear to care, as your various replies attest.

How about reading & understanding what I'm complaining about? To quote myself: "Do whatever you want to do, I don't care."

Good luck with your "arguments". Please remember that you're trying to convince free and open source advocates of the legitimacy of anti-consumerism from a company valued at over $50B. I'm not here to tell you to stop, but think about how that's going to land, please.

We're talking about proprietary games on a site mostly promoting a proprietary service for proprietary games requiring a proprietary client. "But I run Linux" is a really shallow argument (for what actually?).

Hah! Somehow I knew you'd cite this. I don't see how that bears any legal or ethical relevance. You're still running a game on an unsupported operating system, using software other than what the game was made for, and possibly even on a different hardware platform. What difference does it make if the game was originally made for Windows or for the Switch?

Nintendo sees a violation, everyone else is not. With Proton it's even easier: Any developer on Steam, believing in a violation, will report directly to Valve as responsible entity.

I think I saw Roblox mentioned in the title of a GOL article, so I'm guessing it's a game. But what sort of "concerns about the usage" of some Mario game should Nintendo have if someone wants to run it on a PC in the privacy of their own home? Or maybe you mean they might be concerned about the existence of software that makes it possible?

Nintendo is a for profit company, any concerns will probably be about losing profits (they are losing hardware sales). Hacking is another concern.

The developer is the car maker. I'm simply trying to explain why this analogy does not work. There's no equivalence, because driving in traffic without a permit is clearly illegal. Emulating a game is not, to my knowledge.

It doesn't work because you changed the analogy. There is no car maker in the analogy, the analogy is about means (owning a car or a system capable of running the game) & permission (driving without permit, licensing of the software).

And at no point did I ever claim anything was illegal. I'm strictly talking about "pirating" (emphasis on the quotes) & license violations.

That's probably true in your average corporate dystopia. In the slightly less dystopic environment I happen to reside in, I am free to ignore license terms if they conflict with laws and regulations. An agreement or contract is binding only as far as it is legal. For example, it's safe to disregard the fairly common EULA clause prohibiting personal backups if you live in the EU. I think it's actually considered "fair use" even in the (considerably more corporate) US. It's not my decision, but neither is it the licensor's. I don't have to sue to exercise my rights as a consumer.

Here's a couple of sources that seem to support my points. There are probably better sources, but it's late and these are what DDG picked for me.

Whether you actually own a game you paid for is neither here nor there, because you're not sharing unauthorized copies or whatever if all you do is play them on different hardware.

Maybe it's allowed. But there is still no clarification. Obviously the whole argument is a biased interpretation, e.g.:

[…] These circumstances are effectively the same we saw for dumping BIOS, except that
they are more easily satisfied in the case of dumping ROMs, because there are no problems now with
potential availability of the information necessary to achieve interoperability according to article 6
(1) (b) – videogames are usually not supplied with this kind of information and no problems usually
arise with usage of such information to develop, produce or market a computer program substantially
similar in its expression in accordance with article 6 (2) (c) – emulator developers are usually not
game developers. […]

I'm missing the interpretation of article 6 (3):

In accordance with the provisions of the Berne Convention for the protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the provisions of this Article may not be interpreted in such a way as to allow its application to be used in a manner which unreasonably prejudices the right holder's legitimate interests or conflicts with a normal exploitation of the computer program.

Seems like you're still arguing against piracy, not emulation.

I'm not arguing against or for either. I'm arguing against the notion people act in "self-defence". There is no reason to play Nintendo games. If you consider them anti-consumer then ignore them. Vote with you wallet.

You don't get to write a paragraph in support of a weak analogy and then tell others to ignore it. You walk away first!

It's not my fault that you put words into my mouth.