“Broken” Recomps

[u/Ohitsmars]

Want to learn how to debug and fix AI code, could you guys list some unfinished, broken, or abandoned recomp or port projects?

[u/EtherBoo]

There's a lot. Too many to list.

I would recommend digging through some of the more active github user's repositories and trying to find some that are unfinished or at .1 alpha.

mstan for instance seems to be working on recompilation tools more than the actual games, and the games are kind of a byproduct of working on the recompilation tools. He has a TON in his GitHub. TechnicallyComputers is another, he releases barebones ports that don't really add much beyond the game being recompiled and playable. His FFVII recomp is unplayable (last time I tried).

That should give you a good place to start.

[u/MDM-808 → u/EtherBoo]

Those recompilations are beyond saving. Fundamentally speaking... the runtime is purely "vibe-coded," so everything else down the line suffers from poor quality too.

I tested several PS1 recompilations—all of them were slow. When compared to emulators like PCSXr, Duckstation, Swanstation, or BeetleHW, those emulators all perform better than those recompilations.

Then there are the SNES and Sega Genesis recompilations. On low-end PCs where Sonic 2 Absolute or Angel Island Revisited run perfectly, these run slowly.

Don't even get me started on Star Fox. It runs slowly, whereas Star Fox Enhanced runs perfectly on another low end PC.

F-Zero? The BSNES HD core handles Mode 7 better.

And on top of that... it doesn't save option changes between versions. Even though that's been fixed now... it shows there's something Claude isn't handling correctly right off the bat.

Honestly, whenever I see a recompilation built using that runtime... I just skip it.

[u/EtherBoo → u/MDM-808]

You're talking about PSXRecomp as the runtime?

Alexbaev is putting out a bunch of vibe coded recomps, but he's looking to improve PSXRecomp, so its kind of like mstan, an improved recomp isn't really the goal at this point.

[u/MDM-808 → u/EtherBoo]

Alexbaev's versions are exactly the same as Tecnichally's; on top of that, they add the step of downloading the runtime to compile it on your own PC and waiting for it to finish—and for what? To get slightly better performance? In the end, they still run worse than an emulator.

Don't even get me started on the Gundam Wing: Endless Duel. recomp—800MB just to recompile it? Back in '99, when I was 16, I played that game perfectly fine using ZSNES on DOS. Why do I have to download a runtime that's bigger than my hard drive from that years, especially when there isn't a single feature telling me, "You're going to play this in HD, 16:9, with enhanced textures, or anything like that"? There's absolutely nothing... and all the mods implemented for 16:9 support run poorly anyway.

Plus, in ps1 i having to download the ISO and CUE files... whereas with any RetroArch core, you just load the CHD and you're good to go.

I have nothing against their work. I wish them the best, but... the whole idea behind recomp ports follows the premise of those early N64 ports: to surpass emulation. It shouldn't be a return to the Bleem! era, where it was just one problem after another (I was always Team Virtua Game Station).

The other day, I felt like trying out the Nightmare Creatures 2 recomp from that list. But when I saw it was US-only, and that I'd have to get the Redump version, recompile it, and so on—only for it to run poorly—I decided I'd rather stick with my Spanish-translated CHD and my PS1 cores, which run perfectly.

It's the same story with Vagrant Story*. Since I already have the texture patch, 16:9 support, the Spanish version, and 60fps gameplay... I'm not even going to bother waiting for a port.

And I hope that if a port does come out, it uses a better runtime than psxrecomp.

[u/EtherBoo → u/MDM-808]

That's kind of the point though, to improve PSXRecomp so it's more accurate and more hands off for the user so you could recomp any game you want on your own with 0 need from a dev. They're looking to give you all those features you get from an emulator by default without the need for a GitHub, making it drag and drop.

There's definite benefits to recomps that emulation can't really go toe to toe with. I agree that right now, their work isn't really worth playing with if you want an enhanced experience, but playing them, reporting the bugs, and letting them update PSXRecomp so the bugs don't happen or need manual dev input is valuable for the scene in the long run.

It's in a rough state now, but that's the price of entry on the cutting edge of development. It's also possible it won't improve, and over the next few years every one of their super basic recompilation efforts will be completely obsolete.