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Just over a year ago, PS2 emulator AetherSX2 made a splash when it hit the Play Store as a surprisingly capable ARM-based PS2 emulator that could get solid performance Android devices, even some mid-range phones (depending on the game). The project left early access in July 2022, and development has continued steadily since then. However, today, the emulator's website was taken down and replaced with a post from the project's sole developer, Tahlreth, explaining that development has been "indefinitely suspended," blaming this decision on "neverending impersonating, complaints, demands, and now death threats."

"AetherSX2 was always meant to be a fun hobby for me, not profit driven," writes Tahlreth. "It doesn't make sense to continue working on a hobby which isn't fun anymore." They also warn of a number of "scammers" and imposters on social media who claim to represent AetherSX2, but do not.

The AetherSX2 Discord is also currently locked and not accepting new members, though it's unclear if this is a temporary measure.

It appears as though these frustrations with community complaints have been building for some time. In a developer update blog posted in July, Tahlreth discusses some new "micro-optimizations," before addressing complaints that the emulator cannot run on certain underpowered devices, explaining that these small optimization measures emphasize how little there is to do in terms of improving performance. They goes on to write, "Sorry, but your little Cortex-A53 is never going to cut it, so please stop saying 'AetherSX2 is unoptimized, give them time/devs need to work harder', there's never going to be a 5-10x improvement in performance in these scenarios, which is what you'd need. Instead, we'd like to point out the competition, and let you draw your own conclusions as to which implementations are 'optimized' and not."

Downloads are still available at https://www.aethersx2.com/archive/ and the Google Play Store, but no more builds will be developed in the foreseeable future, if ever.

Source

 

[HellGhast]

Disappointing news, hope he reconsiders and soldiers ahead with the project.

 

[carizard]

good riddance imo, talreths dancing around licensing has always rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[Lumince]

Disappointing news, hope he reconsiders and soldiers ahead with the project.

The way he talks, he hates working on the emulator and the death threats/thousands of emails has made him quit entirely. Hopefully if he IS done with the app, he actually open sources it so others can take over if need be

 

[HellGhast]

...open sources it so others can take over if need be..

Yeah it be cool if other devs could pick up the torch and continue.

 

[Lumince]

good riddance imo, talreths dancing around licensing has always rubbed me the wrong way.

This is the main thing that makes me thing that he CAN'T open source it lol We will see though....

 

[CoolMe]

Why not ditch the lower/ mid-tier devices and focus on the ones with sufficient hardware, Instead quiting the project all together? Sounds to me that they knew they bit more than they can chew with this project, and couldn't get it to work consistently/ reliably, so they used the reasons above as a cover to call quits..
I guess it sounded too good to be true the first time around (PS2 emulation on phones), so..

 

[relauby]

Why not ditch the lower/ mid-tier devices and focus on the ones with sufficient hardware, Instead quiting the project all together? Sounds to me that they knew they bit more than they can chew with this project, and couldn't get it to work consistently/ reliably, so they used the reasons above as a cover to call quits..
I guess it sounded too good to be true the first time around (PS2 emulation on phones), so..

It does work consistently and reliably on the devices it targets, it's just that people would complain that it doesn't work on unsupported devices.

 

[YugamiSekai]

Guess that leaves the Play! PS2 emulator for Android.

 

[guisadop]

how is cyberbullying real? like, just close your eyes

 

[Desconocido90]

good riddance imo, talreths dancing around licensing has always rubbed me the wrong way.

What do you mean?

 

[carizard]

This is the main thing that makes me thing that he CAN'T open source it lol We will see though....

he absolutely can make it open source the original license for pcsx2 is gpl

What do you mean?

He took pcsx2's code which is gpl then relicensed it with lgpl then published the builds with the original pcsx2 source code and the aethersx2 code build into blobs so that you couldn't see the source code but could still build it, the legality of this is disputed in the opensource community. You had to send him an email for these blobs however he was sending outdated copies which is almost definitely illegal

 

[x65943]

he absolutely can make it open source the original license for pcsx2 is gpl


He took pcsx2's code which is gpl then relicensed it with lgpl then published the builds with the original pcsx2 source code and the aethersx2 code build into blobs so that you couldn't see the source code but could still build it, the legality of this is disputed in the opensource community. You had to send him an email for these blobs however he was sending outdated copies which is almost definitely illegal

Illegal yeah but can you bring someone to court for it? Surely you can't claim losses on something free

 

[Kioku]

he absolutely can make it open source the original license for pcsx2 is gpl


He took pcsx2's code which is gpl then relicensed it with lgpl then published the builds with the original pcsx2 source code and the aethersx2 code build into blobs so that you couldn't see the source code but could still build it, the legality of this is disputed in the opensource community. You had to send him an email for these blobs however he was sending outdated copies which is almost definitely illegal

The epitome of personal problem, yeah?

All I have to say is that this is sad. The best PS2 emulator we'll see on Android is now no longer seeing active development. However, I do believe that this project is too huge to just up and walk away from because of issues involving strangers online. I wouldn't be surprised if they were still working on it on the side and pushing out silent updates periodically.

It does work consistently and reliably on the devices it targets, it's just that people would complain that it doesn't work on unsupported devices.

Including iOS devices, which they apparently received a lot of complaints about from what I've read...

 

[Jayro]

Why are emu devs like this? Start a killer emulator project, then drop it before it's done.

 

[carizard]

Illegal yeah but can you bring someone to court for it? Surely you can't claim losses on something free

it would probably be a DMCA violation which iirc includes something like a fine portion which could be applied but the real question is who has the resources for that

 

[_47iscool]

Not entirely different with what happened to POPStarter.

 

[scoobydude51]

this is what happens when you have your contacts open to everyone.

 

[Wolfy]

Why are emu devs like this? Start a killer emulator project, then drop it before it's done.

No one who starts up a project are designated to finish them, sometimes it's to test their skills or simply as a hobby. There are projects that the developers are cool with opening it to everyone in case they give up on it, but it's their work so it's not a requirement. Gotta give people a break, life is rough enough at times to put down other "responsibilities", especially when people act entitled as hell to the releases.

 

[Paralel]

This is why when you make something you ensure that no one can contact you. That's usually how I release stuff. I upload it somewhere along with whatever else is required by derivation from the license, and that's it. Let people shout into the dark. It's also why I always put things into the public domain, then I don't have to care about people abusing a license, because they will, it's just a matter of time.

In this case, the fact that the code was released in blobs, you had to contact the author, and they still provided outdated code, is just not cool. If you're going to do something, do it right, or don't do it at all. I'll never understand why people can't respect the license.