The corner of common sense for emulation

From the Oxford Learner's dictionary, Emulation means "the act of a computer or computer program working in the same way as another computer or program and performing the same tasks". This excerpt is from a computing point of view. While that is the goal of video game emulation, it's a very complicated process that can and will fall short of yielding perfect or near perfect results in most instances.

It's important to remember that when dealing with emulation especially on a portable platform, there will be compromises. The various emulation software programs that are included with distributions such as ArkOS and others were NOT designed, coded, or optimized by 1 or a few individuals. There are hundreds if not thousands of experienced individuals who are contributing to this effort and most are doing so with no compensation or want of compensation. They're doing this for the sheer love of preserving access to great video gaming content from years past and broadening the access to it on other platforms.

Below are some key points to keep in mind with emulation especially on portable low dollar devices such as the RG351P and other Odroid Go Advance devices:

1. Emulation will be far from perfect for higher end systems such as the N64, Dreamcast, PSP.
   This is also true for Sega Saturn. These systems require more computing resources than what these platforms can currently offer. The situation will most likely change as better hardware is made available and coding techniques and optimizations continue to improve. Remember, most of this work is done for free and you're benefiting from the work because the developers just want to share the benefit with you.

2. Emulation will be fair to good on lower end systems such as the PS1 and below.
   This is mostly due to longer software development times and the hardware being capable to handle emulation acceptably for those systems. Keep in mind, this does not mean emulation of these systems will be perfect or near perfect. Temper your expectations!

3. Be weary of claims of how great emulation works on any portable platform.
   Many manufactures and sellers of these cheap portable systems tend to claim how well various high end video game systems such as N64, Dreamcast, and PSP perform which are simply not true. At the time of this writing, these systems are indeed able to emulate these high end systems, but not well! This may improve overtime as the platform is still new. At the time of this writing, the platform is barely 11 months old. Give the developers time to continue to optimize software for the platform if they choose to continue to do so. Again, this is done with no compensation, just the love of the process, love of gaining experience and love of video gaming.

4. It's not fair to compare emulation performance on this platform to what you get with a Android or IOS smart device.
   Those devices generally have better hardware and much more development because it's a much broader audience. Keep in mind that those devices are generally more expensive so it's fair to expect them to just perform better overall.

5. Don't expect emulation performance on this platform to compare to what you get with a PC or Mac.
   They just simply have much more power and have had decades of development happening for many video game systems. If you want emulation performance of that caliber, simply grab a controller and use your PC. Keep in mind that even on a PC, emulation is not perfect. There are glitches there and emulators can simply crash for no expected reasons. Again, the work on these emulators is most likely free.

6. When dealing with emulation, don't just depend on in game saves or save states.
   Use both if the option is available to do so! In game saves can corrupt for no apparent reasons. Save states can corrupt or simply fail for no reason as well. If you do both, you'll most likely be able to recover some or most of your progress one way or the other.

7. Don't use cheap or no name SD cards. SD cards are manufactured at different levels of quality.
   Typically in order to reach a certain price to performance/quality ratio SD cards are manufactured to different quality assurance standards. Cheap or no name SD cards tend to fail quickly and not perform well. If you want to reduce the likelihood of suffering strange issues and sudden loss of your gaming collection and progress on them, get a good and authentic name brand card. Sandisk and Samsung SD cards are typically the best quality cards you can get.

8. If buying your name brand SD card from an online source, be careful as there are many fakes out there!
   A good sign of a fake card is much lower pricing than what is seen from other reputable retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and items sold and shipped by Amazon themselves for the same exact card. Preferably stick with reputable retailers that stand by the products they sale and accept returns with full refunds.

9. Be patient and understand there will be compromises.
   When you're coming to this platform, understand that you are getting into this hobby where you'll not only enjoy the gaming experience but to contribute to it as well. If there's something you'd like to see improved, nothing wrong with reporting that. Even better would be if you can contribute to improving the experiencing. If you have experience with coding or tweaking an Operating System on Arm to get a better experience, your help would be appreciated in moving this community forward.

10. Make sure to read all documentation available for a distribution.
    In ArkOS, make sure to read, understand, and follow how to install and use the OS. These instructions are on the same page where the link is available to download the latest version of ArkOS. Don't just skip that section, if it wasn't important, time wouldn't be spent on it. Be sure to check the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section as well as much information is available there. Many of your questions can most likely be answered by just reviewing the content in these 2 mentioned areas above. When you post questions or issues either in the issues section of this github or in the discord channel, most in this community will just simply point you back to those 2 areas. So you might as well make sure you review it yourself first and save yourself and community members some time. For 351Elec/AmberElec, much of the documentation is available here.

11. If you simply just expected something better than what your getting, you can try different distributions or a different platform.
    Try them all out and see which one best meets your needs. If none do, perhaps this platform is not for you. You may get better enjoyment from a more powerful Android device, a PC/Mac, or the original hardware of the video game system(s) you're trying to emulate.

Keep in mind that life is full of compromises and this platform and community is no different. It will continue to improve as time goes on. Perfection is usually the goal but we know that it will most likely not be reached anytime soon.

Temper your expectations, use good judgement, invest wisely, and last but not least, Happy Gaming!