Importance of Direct Hardware emulation

I guess it would be pretty cool if code I wrote myself were to run on the real hardware, though I don't think there's a chance of that. Regardless, it makes sense to code something as if it were going to run on the hardware instead of just an emulator. It's like coding a site to be compliant with web standards so that it will work just as well in any standards-compliant browser. In this case, the "browser" is the emulator you're running your code in, and the closer it is to perfectly emulating the hardware, the better your code runs.

I've seen a few SNES rom hacks that only run properly in either ZSNES or Snes9x due to crappy ASM code. Similarly, one could have a hacked Sonic game that only works with either Gens or Kega. If your code works properly on hardware, it's all but guaranteed to do the same with any emulator.

 

A hack you've only made sure works on one version of one emulator isn't guaranteed to work on other emulators or the real hardware, or even later version of the the same emulator when in the later version it supposedly conforms better to the original hardware.

 

Besides, if one wasn't concerned with trying to work based on the Genesis standards, why not just make a fangame with extra potential features (transparencies, scaling/rotation, multiple layer backgrounds, wave (etc.) audio,)?

 

What he said.

A well known example is the Gens-only vram bug.
Hacks programmed in Gens don't work well in a more accurate emulator like Kega.
There's nothing more accurate than the hardware itself to test your hack.

 

I personally like to know it'll work on real hardware. Because if I'm just "writing for an emulator", I might as well just be coding my own engine. If platform independence is your concern, then use ANSI C with popular libraries like OpenGL/Allegro/etc. or a completely platform independent language like Java. (I realize its slow as molasses, but then, Genesis ran at less than 10MHz, so...)