Do working Turbo Duo emulators exist?

[Overbite]

I don't have a zillion dollars to buy a real duo so I was looking for emulators to use instead and to just buy the CDs. The only one I can find that works great is magic engine but for some reason it wants me to pay for it which is dumb. Do any other good emulators exist for this thing?

[bust3dstr8]

The only other one is just for HuCards-Hu6280

[Juganawt]

Magic Engine is the best PC Engine emulator out there.

Unfortunately you have to pay for it, but if you look in the regular shady places, you can find keygens and hacks to allow you to run it completely unrestricted.

[tomaitheous]

The only other one is just for HuCards-Hu6280

Hehe, you're really behind the times there.



Ok, here are some others.

Mednafen - runs everything from hucard to Arcade card, to SuperGrafx. It's actually *much* more accurate than ME as far as emulation goes, but it's a command line emulator. Not for the technically challenged. It's a fav among demo and indie programmers for its debugger, too.

Ootake - It started with the source from PC2E, which strives for accuracy. This EMU is free and fastly becoming a contender. It'll play hucard,CD,SCD,ACD, and I think it does some SGX emulation now. It has regular updates.

MESS - someone is working on upgrading the PCE/TG support, but nothing public yet.

Charles MacDonald might be redoing his in the future (not entirely sure on that though).

There is another multi-system emulator out there that does hucards and CDs, but I forget the name of it (XE or something like that).

[smork]

I don't have a zillion dollars to buy a real duo so I was looking for emulators to use instead and to just buy the CDs. The only one I can find that works great is magic engine but for some reason it wants me to pay for it which is dumb. Do any other good emulators exist for this thing?

Real Duos aren't THAT expensive, a bit over $100 maybe.

Sorry, got no help on the emu thing, just throwing that out there!

[zektor]

I paid for Magic Engine years ago...$11 I think. More than well worth it honestly.

[InsaneDavid]

I don't have a zillion dollars to buy a real duo so I was looking for emulators to use instead and to just buy the CDs. The only one I can find that works great is magic engine but for some reason it wants me to pay for it which is dumb. Do any other good emulators exist for this thing?

Booohooohooo, someone spent years developing a polished, commercial-level emulator and wants around a 10 spot for it. How dare them! Pay for someone else's work that was developed as a premium pay emulation project from the start? That's nuts! :roll:

Geez, pony up the cost for a real TurboDuo or at least purchase a proper license for MagicEngine - you honestly get what you pay for.

[Putney]

I paid for Magic Engine years ago...$11 I think. More than well worth it honestly.

Very true. I bought it as soon as it was available (if I remember correctly), about 11 years ago and I never regretted it. Works great, feels like a commercial product, and great customer support (I've lost my key file a few times and a quick e-mail to the author got it fixed up really fast).

Haven't really used it much since I got an actual Duo, but it's still well worth it.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

Geez, pony up the cost for a real TurboDuo or at least purchase a proper license for MagicEngine - you honestly get what you pay for.

I know, really...it never ceases to amaze me how cheap and self-serving people can be when it comes to supporting the community (whether by buying classic consoles or emulators, homebrews, etc.)...then people wonder why there's no motivation by anyone to bother producing anything.

On a more general level, situations like this clearly demonstrate the effects that all the illegal music downloading and other such "harmless" :roll: activities have had on modern youth culture...everybody expects everything for free.

[whoisKeel]

Geez guys. I could see getting all upset if he said he was going to pirate it, but clearly he is just asking for another alternative. No need to get all defensive, and in all fairness, every other popular console has excellent free emulators available. That, and emulation isn't exactly the most ethical practice to begin with. One could argue that charging for an emulator is quite unethical as well.....

[roushimsx]

Seconding Mednafen and Ootake. Magic Engine has a nice litle interface and all, but there's absolutely no reason to use it anymore. Mednafen is a better emulator overall, and if you just have to have a GUI because you don't want to make a short batch file to boot cd-based games, then Ootake works damn well, too. It seems like as soon as I stumble on a bug for Ootake, it winds up getting patched in the next version. The guy is a fucking coding machine.

If you really want to spend some cash, donate it to the Mednafen (http://mednafen.sourceforge.net/donate/) team or email Kitao Nakamura asking how to send him $$$ :)

[PingvinBlueJeans]

One could argue that charging for an emulator is quite unethical as well.....

How is it unethical to charge for a program you put time a lot and effort into (no matter what it does)? They charge for the emulator, not the ROMS (which no one indeed has the right to charge for). I don't follow you.

[Greg2600]

Believe it or not, but the legal foothold on emulators and any reverse engineering of software at all was set by the Sega vs. Accolade trial in the early 90's. So if you reverse engineer to learn how a console works, and then develop your *own* code to mimick that, it is legal and ethical. Frankly I think the same could be said of ROM's, but nobody is going to do that. Yet it would only really apply to the game's basic design. Any of the characters or logos would likely be trademarked.

As for paying for emulators, I paid for bleem once, probably the biggest waste of money in my life for a video game product (aside from NES Airwolf). That product had no right to be sold, because it barely worked and the games looked aweful. Then open source ePSXe was better developed, and for free I had an emulator that was 50 times better than bleem! Honestly I don't care if they charge for Magic Engine, if they are still actively updating it. However, if its something they developed and sold 10 years ago and stopped working on, shame on them. No better than EA.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

As for paying for emulators, I paid for bleem once, probably the biggest waste of money in my life for a video game product (aside from NES Airwolf). That product had no right to be sold, because it barely worked and the games looked aweful. Then open source ePSXe was better developed, and for free I had an emulator that was 50 times better than bleem!

You may be right...people do sell shoddy products, and as a consumer you have a right to not buy them. I wasn't trying to start a debate about whether or not it's proper to charge for emulators, I was simply making a general point that anytime you ask someone to pay for something nowadays that's not a tangible object (you know...music, movies, computer software), they piss and moan. In this world brought up on internet culture, intellectual property rights are basically nonexistent, and people will go to outrageous lengths to defend their inalienable 'right' to have everything they want for free. That's all. ;)

[udisi]

Real Duos aren't THAT expensive, a bit over $100 maybe.

Sorry, got no help on the emu thing, just throwing that out there!

US Duo's are a bit more than one hundred. More like $200-$300.

[DreamTR]

Yeah, line me up on $100 US Duos, I'll buy 100 of em!

[Greg2600]

You may be right...people do sell shoddy products, and as a consumer you have a right to not buy them. I wasn't trying to start a debate about whether or not it's proper to charge for emulators, I was simply making a general point that anytime you ask someone to pay for something nowadays that's not a tangible object (you know...music, movies, computer software), they piss and moan. In this world brought up on internet culture, intellectual property rights are basically nonexistent, and people will go to outrageous lengths to defend their inalienable 'right' to have everything they want for free. That's all. ;)

I agree, hard to complain about something which is free. I have purchased many a (small) software product over the years in that way. Usually for around $10, and they often work terrifically, for what they are intended to do. The best one I've bought was called TV Tool, by a guy in Germany. It allowed for TV output from an nvidia card, which nvidia never bothered to develop working software for. My point is sometimes these apps are released and 3 years later, nobody is updating them and the creator still charges. This stinks because if that guy isn't going to work on it, release it to open source so it can be improved. Don't know if that is the case with Magic Engine, just generally.

[roushimsx]

My point is sometimes these apps are released and 3 years later, nobody is updating them and the creator still charges. This stinks because if that guy isn't going to work on it, release it to open source so it can be improved. Don't know if that is the case with Magic Engine, just generally.

Well it's been almost 3 years since the last release of Magic Engine on PC and there's still a ton of noticeable bugs left in there (such as incorrect colors in Dracula X). They're just finally improving the MacOSX port to make it suck less than it used to, but I haven't bothered to try it out yet.

Their main focus seems to be on working on their PC-FX emulator, for some ungodly reason. The CD-I had more good games on it. Speaking of CD-I and charging for an incomplete piece of software that's never updated, the CD-I emulator (http://www.cdiemu.org/) is still >$30 to register, has a low compatibility, and hasn't been updated in...3+ years?

[CosmicMonkey]

I'd be happy to pay the Magic Engine guys for an improved version that worked on AppleTV.

[Gentlegamer]

Paying to register Magic Engine is money well spent.

[whoisKeel]

Believe it or not, but the legal foothold on emulators and any reverse engineering of software at all was set by the Sega vs. Accolade trial in the early 90's. So if you reverse engineer to learn how a console works, and then develop your *own* code to mimick that, it is legal and ethical. Frankly I think the same could be said of ROM's, but nobody is going to do that. Yet it would only really apply to the game's basic design. Any of the characters or logos would likely be trademarked.



Well, that's just a different scenario altogether. That case was to develop software for proprietary hardware, was it not? This is a case of developing software to circumvent the hardware, denying NEC any sort of profit or ownership of their own developed hardware. Also, I think it is a bold statement to say that case made an ethical statement, although clearly a legal one. Was it ethical for the Intellivision to play Atari cartridges? Legal by loophole, sure, but my argument stands on the unethical side.


How is it unethical to charge for a program you put time a lot and effort into (no matter what it does)? They charge for the emulator, not the ROMS (which no one indeed has the right to charge for). I don't follow you.

So let's say NEC comes out with a system next year that plays their back catalogue, or better yet releases their games on the virtual console. With emulation available, I think you would have a hard time arguing that this doesn't cut away from their profits, and worse yet, someone who profits from the loss of profits from said company. You can argue all day about the emulators not being released with any copyrighted roms, but you would be lying if you said it was not the developer's intention to play illegal roms on the software.

I can understand the effort of developing such software (I am a software developer), but that doesn't make it right to sell it. In one sense I can respect the choices of some who chose to attack the 'system': developing emulators, cracking copyright protections, etc., even though I may disagree with these choices ethically, but to charge for such software is selfish and clearly with harmful intent.

[InsaneDavid]

I can understand the effort of developing such software (I am a software developer), but that doesn't make it right to sell it. In one sense I can respect the choices of some who chose to attack the 'system': developing emulators, cracking copyright protections, etc., even though I may disagree with these choices ethically, but to charge for such software is selfish and clearly with harmful intent.

If that's the case then reselling a physical TurboDuo is unethical from your perspective. I mean, NEC did support a system that plays their back catalog, it's called the Wii. So buying a used TurboDuo and used HuCARDs technically cuts into their virtual console profits. How dare us retrogamers!

[smork]

Yeah, line me up on $100 US Duos, I'll buy 100 of em!

Well, I'm thinking of Japanese Duos, not US. Sorry, I haven't lived in the US for ages so I don't really know what US prices are like!!!!

I thought everybody used the relatively-easy-to-find Japanese Duos...

[Mangar]

The only truly ethical thing to do - Is to just pirate the Duo Emulator. In this way you teach that evil programmer a lesson for making a utility that promotes and enables thievery. This is how i will teach that pirate scum a lesson!

(or just how i will now justify it)

[TheRedEye]

Seriously, don't even bother with Magic Engine (which was a fine piece of software in its time, I even registered it!). Mednafen is free, and more accurate.

[jb143]

Seriously, don't even bother with Magic Engine (which was a fine piece of software in its time, I even registered it!). Mednafen is free, and more accurate.

I wish I would have known about this...oh...2 months ago. I had the demo version of Magic Engine and it worked sooo much better than whatever piece of junk I had previously. So now I have the fully working version of Magic Engine and just find out that there's something better out there for free. Oh well...it seems to suit my needs just fine anyways and is a really nice program.

[roushimsx]

I wish I would have known about this...oh...2 months ago.

I've been trying to make it a point to pimp Mednafen and Ootake whenever a thread like this appears for like the last two years :(

[jb143]

I've been trying to make it a point to pimp Mednafen and Ootake whenever a thread like this appears for like the last two years :(

Sorry...I just joined a few months ago. But I'm sure I would have heeded you advice had I known. But out of curiosity in case I want to switch...do they have configurabe controls and can they close down on esc?

[RadiantSvgun]

After using emulators for years, I just shelled out money for a DUO. Nothing beats the real deal.

[roushimsx]

But out of curiosity in case I want to switch...do they have configurabe controls and can they close down on esc?

Yea, controls are fully configurable. Configuring controls in Mednafen is a bit of a pain at first, though. Oh, and Ootake didn't like working with AC97 chipsets last time I tried, but since actually buying a real sound card, the problem went away. Go figure.


After using emulators for years, I just shelled out money for a DUO. Nothing beats the real deal.

I thought so as well until the cd motor died on my Duo R and I was left with a paperweight. On the other hand, with emulators you can: actually use (and configure any which way) comfortable controllers, play online via netplay, save screenshots, more easily record videos (rather than the sad looking camcorder videos people love to post because they don't want to shell out $20-$30 on a decent capture card), use save states (handy!), etc. Plus you don't have to do a silly RGB mod and use a special monitor/tv/whatever to get a clean image.

...and other than that, the emulators (well, Mednafen and Ootake anyway) are free...which kind of beats the disgustingly inflated price of the Duo consoles in the US.

But yea, whatever. Different strokes and all.