A question about ROM hacks.

[WNDG]

Hello, I have a question about ROM hacks, especially translation hacks. How reliable are they against new emulators or newer versions of the current ones? Thanks.

 

[Yuki Senoue]

Depends. If they're made to be compatible with real hardware, yeah, they'll run in accurate emulators, even if a newer version is released. Emulation nowadays doesn't focus in only speed, as it was in the past. Accuracy for some devs is more important than speed.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

I ran all hacks I found on Delta and it recognized each one.

 

[Clippy]

Ancient romhacks e.g those made with ZSNES and its inaccuracies in mind might have issues on newer, more accurate emulators. Other than edge cases like that everything should run fine.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

most should be fine unless you're trying to play some N64 romhacks. Some of the Mario 64 ones can be a configuration nightmare to set up. Most of them don't run real hardware either.

 

[Varyag]

Depends on the ROMhack, the console it's for, and the emulator it was developed on. It usually needs to be tested on a case-by-case basis.

 

[RageBurner]

As general rules of thumb:
- Try more than one emulator
- Make sure it is up to date
- Read the hack's documentation carefully. If it relies on inaccuracies or quirks of specific emulators, you might have a bad time.

 

[Sinmenon]

I can attest that I have played PSx translations on real hardware. That means that if the game is capable of running on the physical console and is playable from beginning to end, it will likely run on most modern emulators.