Best way to play the original games: emulation or remaster?

Joined
Aug 28, 2018
Hi everyone.

I was wondering what would be the best way to experience the original games today, especially Shenmue II. As far as emulation goes, I last played the games on nullDC a couple years ago and it was a little glitchy but mostly playable. I've heard that reDream is better now?

I've read that the PS4 version of the remasters still has a lot of bugs. Is the PC version with mods the best way to go then?
 
The PC version isn't perfect, but it beats playing the games on an emulator.
 
Most of the bugs I remember being awful when the remasters first came out seem to be fixed. The voices are still kinda shitty quality, but that's the biggest gripe imo. If you play on pc you can install a mod to fix the audio quality.
 
PC Version is the best with Mods.
https://nexusmods.com/shenmue/mods/
https://nexusmods.com/shenmue2/mods/


Especially this one.
https://www.shenmuedojo.com/forum/i...ck-native-mod-it-works-without-specialk.1378/

Here some images I took with HD mods.
https://www.shenmuedojo.com/forum/i...ck-native-mod-it-works-without-specialk.1378/

But if you want to Experience Every Scene in the game Emulator is the Way to go. Example you want to do a Notebook Completionist to see every possible story path or want to see the different Events Scenes that happen if you fail a QTE.
Then emulator way to go.
As well Shenmue I & II still have bugs that Sega will likely never fix they stopped adding patches last year.

Now About emulators.
Right now there is only 3 emulators to consider from best to worse.
1) Redream
Pros:
- Works Perfect no Setup needed other than tell it the folder you put games.
- Works Perfectly No Graphical issues like Redream/Flycast.
- No Sound Glitches due too your computer lacking resources.
- Perfect Performance. Redream Basically has the Performance of NullDc but with the graphics of Demul!
- The Creator is extremely High Performance he writes codes a LOT more than other Dreamcast emulator developers and constantly updates.
-Creator will talk to you if you reply him on discord. Very active.

Cons:
- HD option cost money.
- Only 5 save state slots that you have to Pay.
- It's not Open Source anymore.
- Premium version cost $5 But totally worth it. Better spend $5 than waste 5 hours trying to setup demul properly. Making it work or Testing settings.
- Has least compartible games but when they work they work 100% perfect.

2) NullDc---->Became(Redream)--->New Port for Retroarch(Flycast)
(Basically, NullDC creator made Redream with a stronger focus for Mobile. Flycast is a new port of Redream with improvements. They copy-pasted code from Redream old codebase (When Redream was open source) and improved Redream for PC.)
Pro:
- Flycast has Save States.
- It has great performance like NullDc and doesn't need a powerful PC to run.
-999 Save States! slots.

Cons:
- Drama The creator of Reicast threaten to sue Flycast. Since Retroarch creator basically removed all Dreamcast emulators in Retroarch and only left Flycast only. Retroarch lead developer constantly harrassed Redream creator when he chooses to make code private and add premium version.
- Has same issues with Graphics that Redream and even Null DC has.
- Works great but clunky compared to Redream and not properly optimized.

3) Demul.
Pro:
-Best compatibility can play most if not all Dreamcast games.
-Games Run great if you have a powerful PC
Cons:
-Very hard to setup.
- Very Demanding you need a stronger PC and video card with High Video Ram to get the max possible settings.
- Last updated 2016
- Has Save States but they very buggy and don't work well.
 
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I played II on Redream on my Android phone and it worked great. Only issues were about 4 or 5 crashes during my whole playthrough (not too much of an issue with Save States), and the music for Wild Throw was off. Only time a Save State didn't work was while doing Chawan Sign.

I won't play II on PC until the Japanese Audio Restored mod is finished, playing at half bitrate is ridiculous.
 
That is a hard one, the remasters I can play on PC in 1440p with widescreen hack, audio and graphics mods and faster loading but stock I find some aspects inferior. It is clear some of the bugs, arcade games, the textures of licensed items removed, the fighting feels different, audio and music issues, I think the DC version on the actual dreamcast is really the preferred option. It just feels more natural in many cases on the Dreamcast.
 
I would argue that Shenmue plays better on Redream than Dreamcast.
The emulation in my case was perfect. Unlike other emulators were you have the quirks of an emulator.
Having Save states is great for completionist that want to experience all failed QTE. As well get items.
 
Is the full Japanese version of the game no longer available for PC without mods? I remember reading something about Japanese interfaces and subtitles being removed in a patch.

I played 1 and 2 through emulation a month or two ago and aside from the occasional glitch(probably due to settings or my shitty GPU) it was a great experience. I would like to give the rereleases a go though.

I would argue that Shenmue plays better on Redream than Dreamcast.
The emulation in my case was perfect. Unlike other emulators were you have the quirks of an emulator.
Having Save states is great for completionist that want to experience all failed QTE. As well get items.
Yeah redream is awesome. The save states almost made Shenmue 2 too easy for me. I made more money than you'll ever need in the game in like 15 minutes gambling near Worker's Pier thanks to the save states. Next time I gotta keep gambling to a minimum to make the street fights and meeting Ren feel more important :ROFLMAO:
 
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Is the full Japanese version of the game no longer available for PC without mods? I remember reading something about Japanese interfaces and subtitles being removed in a patch.

I played 1 and 2 through emulation a month or two ago and aside from the occasional glitch(probably due to settings or my shitty GPU) it was a great experience. I would like to give the rereleases a go though.


Yeah redream is awesome. The save states almost made Shenmue 2 too easy for me. I made more money than you'll ever need in the game in like 15 minutes gambling near Worker's Pier thanks to the save states. Next time I gotta keep gambling to a minimum to make the street fights and meeting Ren feel more important :ROFLMAO:
You could had challenge yourself and make that money with Lucky charm!
I think best use other than seeing all QTE branches is getting Gatcha items and very rare raffle items.
 
I would argue that Shenmue plays better on Redream than Dreamcast.
The emulation in my case was perfect. Unlike other emulators were you have the quirks of an emulator.
Having Save states is great for completionist that want to experience all failed QTE. As well get items.

Flycast just got Vulkan renderer [ which fixed some remaining shadow issues while improving performance ] and anisotropic filtering,
Graphical glithches in Flycast are usually caused by subpar defaults for PC, the reason behind that is that flycast/retroarch is available for bunch of under-powered platforms. At least in case of Shenmue with per-pixel sorting toggled, all graphical issues go away for me.

Flycast also supports texture replacements, thought nobody did anything with that it seems?
I'm currently toying with both versions, PC and Flycast and the only thing I can say for sure currently is that I like the new UI
 
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Flycast just got Vulkan renderer [ which fixed some remaining shadow issues while improving performance ] and anisotropic filtering,
Graphical glithches in Flycast are usually caused by subpar defaults for PC, the reason behind that is that flycast/retroarch is available for bunch of under-powered platforms. At least in case of Shenmue with per-pixel sorting toggled, all graphical issues go away for me.

Flycast also supports texture replacements, thought nobody did anything with that it seems?
I'm currently toying with both versions, PC and Flycast and the only thing I can say for sure currently is that I like the new UI
I tried both Flycast and Redream and Redream is just in another league.
You can read my Review I posted above comparing both.

With Redream you don't need to setup up anything, it works perfectly.
Flycast is just a fork of Reicast which is a fork of NullDc
Flycast cast still have same issues that NullDc had for me.

As well did you knew about the drama surrounding Flycast?
apparently the creator of Flycast was one of the main contributors of Reicast. Reicast and NullDc created by same person.
As well many of upgrades Flycast did was by using the old code base of Redream.
You can see the creator of Redream showing the copied code from github
check inolen posts if you are curious:
https://www.reddit.com/user/inolen/

I don't think there is no one more skilled in Dreamcast Emulation now than inolen, he is extremely productive, just check his commits and compare them with the other authors.
 
I have the premium version of Redream.
It doesn't look better than steam version.
The difference is huge and noticeable. Play them both at the same time.
Here I did so and took screenshots.

I wasn't trying to argue anywhere that PC version doesn't look better, It does, especially with some decent mods [ of which exactly one exists ]. Still, both emulation and PC have their own pros and cons which I won't get into as many already did [ can link some elaboarte posts if there's a demand ]

I won't get further into emu debacle as it feels like a pure dick measuring contest. All of them have their own use-cases. Be it whatever. Flycast fits mine [ I'm a big fan of retroarch and have multitude of uses which are exclusive to it, amongst other things ]. It just seemed that you weren't up to date on its progress.

You're throwing word "fork" like it's supposed to be something detrimental, "drama"; for me, someone who spent whole life in open-source world, some of it in development and on source based distro, it's all but a fart in the wind. With a few exceptions I will always stand behind an open-source solution.
 
I wasn't trying to argue anywhere that PC version doesn't look better, It does, especially with some decent mods [ of which exactly one exists ]. Still, both emulation and PC have their own pros and cons which I won't get into as many already did [ can link some elaboarte posts if there's a demand ]

I won't get further into emu debacle as it feels like a pure dick measuring contest. All of them have their own use-cases. Be it whatever. Flycast fits mine [ I'm a big fan of retroarch and have multitude of uses which are exclusive to it, amongst other things ]. It just seemed that you weren't up to date on its progress.

You're throwing word "fork" like it's supposed to be something detrimental, "drama"; for me, someone who spent whole life in open-source world, some of it in development and on source based distro, it's all but a fart in the wind. With a few exceptions I will always stand behind an open-source solution.

You are misunderstanding tvshtr, I was not arguing that post you used reply was for the thread owner., Found some screenshots I took before and decided to show to TheFoolontheHill.

I use retroarch as well to play nes, snes, game gear and playstation games etc.
If you notice Snes emulators in retroarch there are around 9+ Reason is so that users could have a choice to use emulator depending on their computer.
But why Dreamcast there is only flycast now and all other emulators Reicast/Redream were removed. Why?

Read this post to find out:



About flycast been a fork that is because it is. You can read it yourself.
See? It says forked from reicast/reicast-emulator
1576612634707.png
A fork means they copy another problem and then work from there. Flycast is not a project made from the ground up.

Both Reicast and NullDc are made by the same person:
https://github.com/skmp
 
I wasn't trying to argue anywhere that PC version doesn't look better, It does, especially with some decent mods [ of which exactly one exists ]. Still, both emulation and PC have their own pros and cons which I won't get into as many already did [ can link some elaboarte posts if there's a demand ]

I won't get further into emu debacle as it feels like a pure dick measuring contest. All of them have their own use-cases. Be it whatever. Flycast fits mine [ I'm a big fan of retroarch and have multitude of uses which are exclusive to it, amongst other things ]. It just seemed that you weren't up to date on its progress.

You're throwing word "fork" like it's supposed to be something detrimental, "drama"; for me, someone who spent whole life in open-source world, some of it in development and on source based distro, it's all but a fart in the wind. With a few exceptions I will always stand behind an open-source solution.
Now about which is a better Emulator Flycast and Redream

Redream is superior to Flycast in my personal test. My advice is to test it yourself side by side and compare it, and Send me Results and screenshot. I am interested to see where with actual proof were Flycast perform better, look forward to it.
  1. Redream has higher performance 60 Fps and No Graphical issues while Flycast has lower FPS and Graphical issues. I am playing on a laptop not a gaming PC through. Redream is setup to perform perfectly without any customization on your side, just setup the games folder and done. I don't like spending minutes or hours changing settings when I wish it would come that way by default like Redream does, this is what I despised about Demul.

  2. Now Shenmue has issues in both Reicast/Flycast.
    The eyes look messed up had this issue in NullDC as well. Same issue in Flycast. While Redream looks perfect.

    https://i.imgur.com/VnEoHHk.jpg


  3. As well seems Redream save states seem to be better optimized in size! Flycast save state around 48mb while only 9mb in Redream.
    q2wgDVj.png

    As well loading seems better in Flycast loading state seems clunky. Compare size yourself to see it.


  4. Flycast requires you to format the memory to save. My Question Why? go to the trouble for that?Redream you don't have to do this. I tried to reformat the memory card but Retroarch crashes whenever I hit reset not only that after I tried to start Flycast crashed after I turned to start in Bios. It ruined my user experience.Flycast seems to have many interesting features but has same issues NullDC game graphically that Redream never gave me as well no need to reformat card.
  5. Here is a screenshot comparing the top emulators.
    Look at this screenshot. See the ugly graphical issue line in the clouds?
    mpjxOv0.jpg


    source:

 
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