It’s a more subtle but powerful difference, which is recompiling creates native code, which is more expansible and efficient (usually).
Emulation can appear similar but the code remains unchanged, so the system itself has to be emulated to run the non-native code, which (unless the emulator is very efficient) will usually be more limited and slower.
Emulation is nice if you go for an authentic experience. This is better: It allows a lot more easier modding, especially for older titles which then get widescreen support and improved graphics.
What I’m hearing through the grapevine is that these quick and dirty executables are not conducive to any of those benefits, because it’s hardly different from just emulating it in the first place.
That I can confirm firsthand. Recompiled code is just prebaked CPU instructions in another language that can be compiled. That’s all there is to it.
So for modding, it’s only slightly easier technically as you have the option to inject code easier than on the emulated platform and providing facilities for the host OS to load them (dynamic libraries, which is a big benefit which most of the slop coders don’t fully understand how or why it is).
For proper modding research, a decompilation (of the portions of the game you want to mod very extensively) is needed.
For a simple aspect ratio and UI fix patch (and other simple improvements) - that is achievable on the original code itself via cheats/code injection (anything that has an FPU should work, PS1 and older are harder generally). You generally do not need a whole recompilation/decompilation for this kind of a thing.
Sometimes even the original hardware without any performance boost can handle it, but most of the times this is where emulator’s overclocking and memory extension features come into play to help.
Honestly, in my opinion, machine code hacking is not that hard. It takes way less time and energy to do it than this to achieve the same “improvements” with way lower barriers to entry.
werent they already ‘ported’ to pc with rpcs3 and the like
It’s a more subtle but powerful difference, which is recompiling creates native code, which is more expansible and efficient (usually).
Emulation can appear similar but the code remains unchanged, so the system itself has to be emulated to run the non-native code, which (unless the emulator is very efficient) will usually be more limited and slower.
if i remember correctly rpcs3 actually does recompilation on the fly
The on the fly translation hit might be a major bottleneck
https://deepwiki.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/2.2.3-jit-compilation-and-recompilation
Emulation is nice if you go for an authentic experience. This is better: It allows a lot more easier modding, especially for older titles which then get widescreen support and improved graphics.
What I’m hearing through the grapevine is that these quick and dirty executables are not conducive to any of those benefits, because it’s hardly different from just emulating it in the first place.
That I can confirm firsthand. Recompiled code is just prebaked CPU instructions in another language that can be compiled. That’s all there is to it.
So for modding, it’s only slightly easier technically as you have the option to inject code easier than on the emulated platform and providing facilities for the host OS to load them (dynamic libraries, which is a big benefit which most of the slop coders don’t fully understand how or why it is).
For proper modding research, a decompilation (of the portions of the game you want to mod very extensively) is needed.
For a simple aspect ratio and UI fix patch (and other simple improvements) - that is achievable on the original code itself via cheats/code injection (anything that has an FPU should work, PS1 and older are harder generally). You generally do not need a whole recompilation/decompilation for this kind of a thing.
Sometimes even the original hardware without any performance boost can handle it, but most of the times this is where emulator’s overclocking and memory extension features come into play to help.
Honestly, in my opinion, machine code hacking is not that hard. It takes way less time and energy to do it than this to achieve the same “improvements” with way lower barriers to entry.