... Or lack thereof. I've yet to find the optimal settings for my capture card and even then whatever's pulled will never be pixel-perfect. Interestingly the card does possess an accelerated mode which sharpens the image and makes everything a little brighter/clearer but it only affects screenshots. There's a problem, however, in that it completely screws up the aspect ratio. It zooms and crops off-center, often removing about 10-20% of bottom edge. This is unacceptable so slightly dimmer/squishier it is!

Emulation can and does provide clearer material but can introduce all sorts of flaws not present when a game is run on real hardware. Sometimes it's as small as additional stuttering and slowdown. Even commercially produced ports often suffer from framerate hiccups not present originally. Often there are minor differences in audio quality. Usually it's just a few hard to notice pitch variances but then you get something so off-key it becomes painful. I really, really appreciate the newest Splatterhouse including the old arcade and Genesis titles but their emulator for 2 and 3 has the worst audio reproduction I've ever encountered. The opening of Splatterhouse 2 sounds fantastic on real hardware and you'd never guess that from the port. The elevator is also a source of pain due to the yelping hopping monsters. SCRRRREEEEETCH! Most debilitating of all, however, are graphical glitches. Certain emulators just hate certain titles. Jaki Crush Pinball's table nearly always dissolve into graphical sludge and that sure as hell doesn't happen with a physical SFC/SNES. The high-score table just explodes in The Flintstones and the menu in Spiderman is indecipherable.

What I snag isn't the best it could theoretically be but there's something to be said for showing off how games run and render in their native state. I appreciate roms and emulation for preserving aging and hard to find titles. Boards die, batteries lose their charge and discs can't be trusted to run forever. There's also something to be said for the ability to try titles that would normally be unobtainable. I own a Jaki Crush cartridge but if I'd never tampered with Super Famicom ROMs I'd never have known it existed. Most of the 16-or-under bit titles I own were sought because of emulated experiences. Why would anyone suspect offhand that the Famicom edition of Rampart is nothing at all like the US and European titles sharing the same name?

My fascination with "real stuff" isn't the product of elitism but of wanting to share what I can as it originally was. I like collecting stuff so why not do something beyond just hoarding it?