This is during the era when the N64, PS1, SNES, Dreamcast or Sega Genesis were popular. Games back then were released physically via disc or cartridge, meaning distributors or publishers would've implemented anti-piracy (like Lenslok) measures onto physical copies but some knew how to tamper with anti-piracy if they have a computer using other sources of capturing data (floppy disks).

Also, games at the time were 'simple' to torrent but with a catch (dial up was still a thing at the time meaning downloads could take a while if you have a PC). Discs were more straight forward than "torrenting" cartridges (unless you have connections with the manufacturer on smuggling circuit boards). Like with movies, games that came on discs were "torrented" through CDs by using a PC.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

To give some perspective: BitTorrent was released in 2001. So in the 90s, you'd be looking at some precursor to that. And the first CD recorder to cost less than $1000 was sold in 1995. Before that, they'd cost something like a car.

We definitely shared and copied a lot of floppy disks back then. And music on tapes.

[–] 007ace@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When I started, I was downloading mp3s and recording them on to cassettes. Use what you have. As for console games, there were DOS based SNES NES and geneses emulators for those who didn't have the hardware.

Pj64 was emulating Nintendo64 titles while the console was still releasing titles.

Napster, limewire bearshare, winmx DC++ were all around before bit torrent was used for downloads.

Hooked up the family computer to the tv using a video card with s video output and impressed the whole family!

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think the first time I tried N64 emulation must have been in late 2002. There were indeed still games released for this system at the time, although not many. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (ported to the console in 2002) was one of the last big games for it. Fun fact: The PC version at lowest settings looks almost identical to the N64 port.

Early N64 emulation was spotty, but the fact that it worked at all absolutely blew my mind, especially since I was just in the process of switching from N64 to PC as my main gaming platform. Super Mario 64 was one of the first titles to be properly playable with next to no issues, but outside of that game, it was a bit of a gamble and remained so for years. Performance could vary wildly, glitches were very common (some titles remained unplayable until surprisingly recently, like the excellent voxel-based Command and Conquer port for the system) and the plugin system proved to be a nightmare, as it fractured development resources.

[–] 007ace@lemmy.ca 3 points 15 hours ago

It was a struggle to get the right combinations of plugins going for pj64. I never had the console myself so I was happy with whatever I could get. Zelda64 and Majora's mask were really all I was interested in. The SNES NES and PSX were really where I spent most of my time emulating. PC piracy was another beast. Cdcopyworld and all the DRM cracks or mini-iso files loaded up with daemon tools or alcohol to bypass cd checks. What a time to be alive.