Two blog posts in less than a month? They're spoiling us!

This is a real humdinger of a progress report, too. High-level summary:

• (link) Massive performance improvements to the two Rogue Squadron games through a combination of emulation improvements and settings changes, which now allow for it to run at full speed on high-end hardware (and very playable speeds on low-end hardware)
• (link) Further improvements to the newly-added Triforce arcade emulation (check out the previous blog post for more info about Triforce)
• (link) Core emulation improvement to an edge case of floating-point arithmetic that fixes a desync in Mario Strikers Charged; now, Dolphin can play online with real Wiis in that game. I think this was my favorite bit in the post—a real team effort with perseverance over many years!
• (link) Rough timings implemented for Wii NAND management to allow for better performance on that menu
• (link) The ability to preload entire games into RAM, a long-requested feature. The reason it hadn't been implemented earlier is that it's completely unnecessary with any modern storage, since even a crappy USB stick is faster than disc access on a GC/Wii, but this is apparently helpful for people who have their games stored on a NAS where disks might actually spin down, causing lag spikes.
• (link) New GUI settings for SDL controller tweaks, specifically SDL hinting (apparently helpful for using Joycons as separate Nunchuck + Wiimote as well as fixing DS4 connectivity issues).
• (link) Performance patches for a half dozen games, most notably Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (my beloved) and 007: Quantum of Solace. For those not in the know, there's a relatively new feature in Dolphin which allows for games to be patched on-the-fly to fix issues like uncapped framerates and complex idle loops that can bring the emulator to its knees even though it can otherwise run the games fine.

Aside from the interesting technical details, reading these progress reports always gives me the warm fuzzies. I love hearing about how all these different people come together and use their unique talents to improve emulation for everyone.

Really interesting free-flowing interview, quite different from many of the ones I typically see, especially from Miyamoto. Even in '89 they were grappling with some of the same issues developers are dealing with today, including the trap of pursuing shallow "realism" and the perception that there were no fresh ideas out there.

Also, it features this prescient quote from Miyamoto:

Miyamoto: I think there are still plenty of possibilities in game design. For instance, imagine a game where you input something, and when you check back a month later, it's transformed into something totally unexpected. We don't have anything like that, do we?

Or, take how people living in apartments today can't keep pets. If someone who was obsessed with the joy of having a pet made a game that captured that feeling, I think it would become a huge craze. And since it's a simulation, you could even include the "unfortunate" parts, like the pet eventually passing away, as part of the experience.

Truly bizarre story—still completely unclear what the copyright troll's motive is—but it's cool that an organization like the VGHF fought back and won as well as detailed the process to help others facing similar issues.

Release information:

https://haroohie.club/blog/2026-01-01-chokuretsu-full-en-release

General information + patching guide:

https://haroohie.club/chokuretsu

About the game

Released in 2009 for the Nintendo DS, Suzumiya Haruhi no Chokuretsu (The Series of Haruhi Suzumiya) is a partially-voiced visual novel/puzzle game based on the Haruhi Suzumiya series!

Play as Kyon as you work with the rest of the SOS Brigade to keep Haruhi from discovering the unnatural phenomena occurring all around you! Set during summer break after the second light novel, the SOS Brigade members must distract Haruhi while she investigates the Seven Wonders of North High and erase the evidence before she finds it.

Featuring over 38,000 lines of dialogue and many possible routes, this unofficial translation made by Haruhi fans from around the world seeks to make the game accessible to a non-Japanese audience. Please support the series by buying the original games & merch!

An impressive translation effort given the scale and complexity of the task! I've only done a bit, but I can already see how much care the team has put into this romhack—there was a background with a storefront that only showed up for about 5 seconds, but they still went through the trouble of editing the image to replace the Japanese name with an English translation. And it's really neat how they went above and beyond by adding little speech bubble translations for in-game audio that was never associated with any text

If you're studying Japanese, one thing you can do is set up two instances of melonDS (or another emulator, I suppose), put them side-by-side, and then use a controller to play (I use the advanced technique of blocking-the-English-translation-with-my-controller so I don't cheat). The controller will simultaneously send input to both games, so you can stay synced without much fuss. Granted, I haven't gotten past the pure visual novel section, so it might get dicier when there's movement involved, and I don't know if there are random elements in the game. but I don't think there's anything fast-twitch. The one thing to keep in mind is that, since Japanese is always going to have fewer characters, you can advance more quickly through the Japanese text, so if you're mashing you can easily desync.

If you're interested in the romhacking process, check out the Haroohie Club blog as well as Janko's YouTube channel.

Christmas has come early with a new Dolphin Progress Report! There's some juicy technical details, so I definitely recommend that folks read the full report if that sounds interesting, but here's the high-level summary of user-facing impacts (click the ¶ symbol to the right of each heading to jump to the relevant section in the progress report):

• RetroAchievements are now available on Android ¶
  • Not my thing (I have a bad enough completionist streak without achievements), but welcome news for the achievement hunters on-the-go—here's a list of supported games.
• 2509-493 - Add Rush Frame Presentation and Smooth Frame Presentation Options by Billiard ¶
  • Really neat new options that allow users to improve latency and frame pacing, both of which can actually be better than a console + CRT in certain games! The effectiveness and compatibility will vary by game (for instance, they show why you definitely don't want to enable Immediately Present XFB for Rogue Squadron II), so you'll want to test these features on a per-game basis. See the post for more guidance.
• 2509-74 - GameCube - Add SDL Stock Profile by Samb ¶
  • No fuss default profile included so you won't be forced to manually configure your SDL controllers for GameCube if you don't want to (but make sure you calibrate your joysticks!). See report for step-by-step instructions.
• 2509-237 and 2509-339 - Add Option to Reset Settings Back to Default by JoshuaVandaele and Simonx22 ¶
  • Not much to say about it, but with how byzantine Dolphin's settings can be this was both non-trivial to implement and I'm sure very welcome for the people who tinker with their Dolphin settings and get themselves into trouble.
• 2509-217 - GamePatch: Modify Certain Games to Behave Better in Dolphin by SuperSamus with additional contributors ¶
  • Interesting technical details for this one that involve the JIT and analog TV signals, but the bottom line is: Dolphin will apply game patches that will massively improve performance (as in potentially 2-3x better) in
    • Conduit 2
    • Driver: San Francisco
    • Monsters Inc. Scream Arena
    • Tetris Worlds
• 2509-242 - BBA: IPC for BBA Between Multiple Instances of Dolphin on the Same Machine by cristian64 ¶
  • Neat, but niche enough that rather than try to explain, I'll just copy-paste the explanation:

  Broadband Adapter (IPC): HLE solution that allows Dolphin instances on the same machine to share memory and communicate directly without the need for a host network.

  BBA-IPC allows for easy testing of BBA features on a single PC, and can also be used in conjunction with game streaming services like Parsec to play BBA titles over the internet without needing to meet the strict latency requirements of emulating the BBA over the internet.

• 509-250 - IP/Top: Make InetAToN async by sepalani ¶
  • This change will improve online Wii play for those on high-latency connections (e.g. mobile data) by making DNS lookups non-blocking
• 2509-481 - SDIO: Fix CSD/CID emulation by Naim2000 ¶
  • Fixes an inaccuracy in Wii SD card emulation that will allow for use of virtual SD cards up to the 32GB limit present on original hardware (the bug caused errors when the data exceeded 10.7GiB). This is especially useful for those using games with lots of DLC (Rock Band, Just Dance) or large homebrew software (_Super Smash REX).
• 2509-542 - USB: Emulated Support for Logitech Microphone for Wii by Biendeo ¶
  • This Wii peripheral used in roughly 100 games (think Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and various karaoke games) can now be emulated with any standard PC microphone!
• 2509-406 - On-Screen Display: Add New Default Font by TryTwo ¶
  • The default OSD font is now a vector font rather than the old raster (pixel-based) font, so it should be clear and easy-to-read at any scale! You can also commit font crimes by supplying your own font:
• 2509-554 - AX-HLE: Fix Low Pass Filter Edge Case by flacs ¶
  • I love stuff like this: coding error in a game few people care about (or even remember) exposes flaw in the current emulation logic, leading to improved accuracy. The sloppy coders of today plant seeds for the emulation developers of tomorrow!

Great video for obscure retro gaming aficionados chock-full of brand new information—as usual, the VGHF has done some stellar preservation work. Bonus amazing fanart that some kids sent in ("VICTIM DISPOSAL" goes hard)

edit: article version for those who prefer a quick summary (it also includes links to relevant resources)

New Edge of Emulation just dropped, hell yeah! If you're at all interested in reverse engineering and/or emulation, shonumi's website is an absolute treasure trove.

Xcancel link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/707234

Comments

Emudev sickos get in here

One key finding of the analysis is stunning: A large swath of the U.S. currently does not have the basic, ground-level immunity medical experts say is necessary to stop the spread of measles, which had once nearly been eliminated. The data further reveals that:

• Since 2019, 77% of counties and jurisdictions in the U.S. have reported notable declines in childhood vaccination rates. The declines span from less than 1 percentage point to more than 40 percentage points.
• Vaccine exemptions for school children are rising nationwide: As many as 53% of counties and jurisdictions saw exemption rates more than double from their first year of collecting data to the most recent.
• Among the states collecting data for the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, 68% of counties and jurisdictions now have immunization rates below 95% — the level of herd immunity doctors say is needed to protect against an outbreak.

[...]

Student enrollment in Saint Louis Public Schools has been declining as a growing number of people are moving out of the city or choosing to send their children to charter schools.

That puts tremendous financial strain on the school system. Average daily attendance primarily determines school funding, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. And the board of education is considering a proposal to close half of its schools for the 2026-2027 school year.

Boleyjack blames steep budget cuts for lax vaccination enforcement. She said that some administrators allow noncompliant children to stay in school to keep enrollment up to be eligible for tax money.

"They got to get their dollars. So they're going to let in students who may not be completely compliant," she said. "I don't agree with it, but that's what it is."

Found thanks to a Video Game History Foundation tweet (Xcancel link, Bluesky link); you can browse the magazine (the November 1983 issue of Electronic Games) and do full text searches in their archive.