Poll: Anyone Interested In A Port Of Magic Engine?

[skeezix]

Be very honest with him, since he likesly doesn't know much about the platform. ie: That theres already a p[retty good PCE/TG16 emu out there (GPengine, great but missing savestates and some compatability issues), and some coming out (fPCE someday maybe), and I think a couple others. Further, the total number of people who would buy even aside from there being freebies would be in the realm of 5 to 30 probably, unless he was careful to post about it every week rto keep people buying.. so at $20/shot he might get 30*25 bucks.. maybe even twice that So its enough to fund a quickie port and if he like sot do it, it'd be worth it.. but if hes in it for _profit_ then its a waste of his time. (So if he does it for fun, or for profit, whose to say .. but just be honest with him.) Don't say he'll make a pile of money, since we know he can't

jeff

 

[Bronze]

In response to x68000's comment about the current emu developers getting a 'kick in the teeth' for doing all their hard work for free, while this emu wants to charge...

I completely agree and know where you are coming from, but I am assuming that for an emulator to be worth paying for - it would have to be perfect.

When I mean 'perfect', I mean runs at least 90% of the games for that system perfectly.

If the other emus did that, I would certainly pay/donate to them, but none of the emus I use does.

 

[tattooman]

Nah, it's not worth saying... <_<

 

[triksR4rabits]

not interested here. I'm perfectly happy with GPEngine, save states are not a necessity for me, especially since most of the games can be finished in one sitting. But i'm sure Rylehs emu is going to be very good. If anything, we need to find someone to code a SNES emu. I'd pay $20 for that, PC Engine, not worth it since the emu we already have is very good and Rylehs will undoubtedly be very good.

EDIT: btw, these polls are pointless for a hypothetical situation. Of course people are going to say they'd pay for it, but when it actually comes down to it, i'd bet that only 10% of the people that said they'd pay, would actually put up the money.

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Why do you even bother to post to these forums, you aren't helping. Go off and save your $20.00 and be a cheap ass and play GPEngine in the corner. This is not about SNES so I don't know why you rhing this up. This poll is not pointless and is good to see some one is taking the posative route. I bet you asume wrong because you are asuming that the people like my seld whos ay they will pay, wull pay. PCEngine is not 100% compadible for all roms, is not full screen and does not ahve save states. Perfect, hell no!! A good emulator yes but it could be improved!!!!!! I am sure Ryelhs emulator will be good but who wants to wait months and months for that. However, $20.00 is not that much at all and it is well wirth paying for good software!!! Also, free software can be good as well!!!!! You are entiteled to your post but you are NOT really helping...

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STFU YOU HYPOCRITICAL TROLL!!!!!!!!

you post is absoultely fucking pointless. I am not willing to play 20 bucks either; I am perfectly happpy with pcengine (which plays many games flawlessly). That dousn't make me or anyone else a cheapass; we are just satisfied with what we have. And for once I agree with KickinWing.

If you know anything about forums, or the internet in general, you would know that people don't always live up to their promises; just because someone says they will pay does not mean they will, especially when they can get already get the same product (though be it of lesser quality) for free.

And proofread your godamn posts. You sound like your 11.

 

[KickinWing]

i am helping, this poll is to help decide if its worth porting to the GP32, and in reality it's not. First of all, he's not going to make much money, like if he did it for palm or pocket pc, because not many people have GP32s compared to any other system.

Just because i'm not interested does not make my attitude negative. This poll is designed for both sides, negative and positve. Why woud you want to give the guy false hopes if we only had posts from the people that want the emulator and nothing from the people that are already happy with what they have. I know i would want to know.

As for SNES, sorry to give you the wrong idea, but i was basically trying to state that the state of SNES is far worse than PC-Engine and more money could probably be made with a SNES emu than a PC-Engine that is already pretty damn good.

 

[bast525]

damn guys don't ruin the thread please.


This poll was definately designed to be open... I put the options I did for a reason. I'm not expecting 100% positive and no one to say anything negative. *I* really want to see just how many of us would really be interested. This poll has accomplished that task quite nicely thus far.


About me telling Mr. Michel "oh you'll make a fortune" quite the contrary I've said nothing of the sort. How the heck do I know how much he'd stand to make? Really, it's inconsequential... he's already been doing magic engine for the PC and Mac for a long time, and lots of people have paid to register it, including myself. I'm sure he's already brought in a decent amount of money doing that. Now, I don't pretend to really know, but I ASSUME that doing a port is not *TOO* hard... since the PC/MAC versions are already so far along. It's not like he has to start again from scratch, or is it? I assume that a port would be relatively easy to do, so it woulnd't matter if a relatively small handful of us did end up being interested... like was said above... if even 30 of us paid x $20, that's $600... not pocket change.


And yes I did already mention to him that we have a relatively good PCE Emu already, and I mentioned to him it's flaws.


DaveC - I'm sure even if it was hardcoded to one GP and something happened to that GP, he'd give you a new key for free. The way I know this is... when I first bought magic engine a few years ago, I had it for a while and then my HD crashed, and I lost everything. I emailed Mr Michel and told him the situation, and he sent me a new key to get magic engine running on my new system. He's really a great guy and has been very cool the few times I've talked to him. But I doubt he would even do it that way. The PC version registry entries are not 'hard coded'.

Personally, though I have enjoyed GP Engine, I'm not really 'happy' with it. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am a HUGE fan of the PC Engine, it is one of my most loved retro systems, and one of the systems I play thru emulation the most. The lack of saves might not bother me much if I were playing at home, but in a handheld format, the lack of saves definatley hurts. I usually only play my GP on the go (as was it's intention as a PORTABLE system)... if I'm at home and want emulation I just play on my Xbox. Of course, the nature of 'gaming on the go' is that often you can only play in short bursts... 5 mins here, 10 mins there. Since the GP has no sleep feature to speak of, and a relatively short battery life (talking about a BLU... about 3-5 hours per charge)... it's really inconvenient to just leave the system on every time I need to stop playing. So yeah, the lack of saves definately hurts GP engine.

Another problem is that two of my favorite games, Neutopia 1 and 2, are absolutely not playable w/o saves.

And yeah, obviously for a Magic Engine port to be viable on GP it needs to be better than GP engine, and probably does need to be 'perfect' for most of you to consider shelling out $20 for it. That's why I thought of M.E. to begin with.. in it's PC iteration it is pretty much perfect, I believe all HuCard games do run perfectly or there are very few bugs left. Most of the bugfixing that has been done over the last couple of years has been CD-ROM game bugfixes. In it's PC iteration it's also got a lot of great options... all the usual ones that you'd WANT in an emulator.

So I'm sure if he did it for GP it'd be about as good as it could be, like I said, on par with DrMD and Ryleh's emus. So in my eyes would definately be worth the money... as I personally have paid more than that in donations for some of the great stuff already out for the GP.

And like I said, for the cheapest of you out there, the PC version of M.E. does have a fully functioning demo mode, so hopefully we could get the same for the GP version.


EDIT: Now please, DON'T turn this thread into a retarded flame war!

 

[DaveC]

damn guys don't ruin the thread please.


DaveC - I'm sure even if it was hardcoded to one GP and something happened to that GP, he'd give you a new key for free. The way I know this is... when I first bought magic engine a few years ago, I had it for a while and then my HD crashed, and I lost everything. I emailed Mr Michel and told him the situation, and he sent me a new key to get magic engine running on my new system. He's really a great guy and has been very cool the few times I've talked to him. But I doubt he would even do it that way. The PC version registry entries are not 'hard coded'.

​

I just don't like this "big brother" approach where I have to beg the author to let me use my copy of the emu that I paid for on another unit. It is like you aren't buying the emu but just renting it for the unit you have now. What if this guy dissapears (it happens alot, just try to find the coders of GPengine) then I can't use the emu that I bought when and where I want. I have had this happen with a D&G that was locked to a NLU that I had. I can't use it on my BLU now because of encryption. I am against encryption and keys etc as it limits my freedom to use it where I want. That is just me though, I would still enourage him to port it as I am sure many don't mind messing with keys and encryption etc. Plus it still would be better than what we have. Hopefully he will do it.

Honestly though I a not sure why you would be wanting this so much. I thought you were more into the PSP now and that has a real good free PC engine emu and will likely get alot better.

 

[bast525]

Because having Magic Engine on ANY handheld would be sweet. And I still love and play my GP. AND the fact that who knows WHAT'S gonna happen with the PSP emu scene... more specifically, about forced updates and if they'll continue being hacked.

I KNOW that at some point I'm going to end up buying a game that will force me to update... so emulation on my PSP may not be a permanent option for me.

And there ARE still reasons I prefer to play on my GP sometimes... for instance if I am planning on playing outside during the daytime, when the PSP can be largely useless...

Like I said... I still love my GP, and am sure I will still be getting use out of it, otherwise I'd be putting it up for sale.

 

[White Demon]

I like what you're thinking bast but I also agree with DaveC re Encryption. If the GP32 version were to have something like a file you put in the Magic Engine folder to disable 'demo mode' when you register then fine, since that could be used on any further system should the one being used breaks. Of course this means that the file could be passed around (illegally) but the people who do that don't deserve to have the emulator. And being the community that we are re donations to devvers and so forth I'm pretty sure that everyone who wants one will pay for it.

It's just this whole encrytion thing that gets me really. If it is available unencrypted then you can add me to list of interested parties (even though I am looking forward to fPCE32 all the same) otherwise I'll just stick with what we've got now.

I was thinking what Evil Dragon wrote just before I saw his post too - if the registration was for both PC and GP32 versions (even if it was a little more for both) then I'd really be interested as I've used the demo version of his emu before and it is amazing. He's still developing for it after all these years? Wow, now that's staying power. I might have to investigate getting a registered version anyway.

So yeah, barring encryption I'd be in support for it. It sounds like a great idea. And .iso support (even without mp3 support ala GBA) would rock all the more.

 

[DaveC]

Yeah another reason for no encryption is that I have a BLU and a NLU and I would like to use this emu on both. I use the NLU outside as it is much brighter outdoors. Inside I use my BLU. I like being able to use my emus on either one without anyone elses permission.

But again this emu with encryption is better then no emu without encryption.

 

[bast525]

Well, as I'm not the programmer all I can say is, regarding the matter of encryption, it's up to him what he'd want to do. But if a lot of people expressed certain concerns, I'm sure he'd work it out in a way where it wouldn't be a problem.

Also, I really have almost no doubt that if you payed for the GP version you would get the registry key for the PC version as well at no extra charge... I think to him it's all the same, like I said I bet that if someone has the PC version and then gets the mac version, I highly doubt they have to pay again.

The guy really is very reasonable and just a cool guy, I'm sure he would try very hard to make this thing be feasible and worth your money. He emailed me again and let me know he has checked out this thread as well. One problem now is that he doesnt' have a GP, but would like to get one.

On another note, he also expressed great interest in doing a dreamcast port, and he feels it would be NO problem adding in full CD support for that version and to have the emu running perfectly, full speed and sound. Good news for those of us who held onto our dreamcasts, and if he matches the PC's compatability, this would be a GREAT alternative to the Xbox Hugo emu.


As for me, I just bought an actual PC Engine Duo R system so am finally enjoying these games on the real thing for the first time in a VERY long time.

The Duo R is possibly one of the sexiest game consoles ever designed

 

[Hanz™]

I'd pay $20 and I probably wouldn't even use it - the GP32 needs quality progs so it would be a good investment...