REAL Emulation on iPhone! Delta on App Store

[Music]

hey everybody this is rust Metro game

core and I've mentioned it before but I

am primarily an iPhone user and a lot of

that has to do with the fact that I've

been embedded within the Apple ecosystem

for like 20 years at this point and so I

don't really think that I'm ever going

to be leaving it however one of the main

sticking points about iPhones and iOS is

that they are pretty heavily locked down

and there are ways to sideload emulators

and I've sh that off in videos before

but it is a fairly cumbersome process

well over the past couple weeks we've

hit a turning point when it comes to

emulation on the iPhone and that's

because recently Apple changed their

terms and conditions to now allow

emulator apps on their App Store and

after getting a couple copycat and

underbaked apps we now have something

that's really legit this is Delta this

app has been around for years but

previously it had to be side loaded but

now with these new app store changes you

can get it directly from there and so in

this video we're going to do a full

showcase and walkthr I'm going to talk

about all the different systems you can

play on it and also show you how to get

them up and running and while the app is

not perfect it does have a bunch of neat

features that make it a joy to play and

it also supports a wide variety of

systems including NES Super Nintendo

Nintendo 64 Nintendo DS game boy Game

Boy Color and Game Boy Advance and I

think what makes me most excited about

having this on my iPhone is that I now

have access to all my emulators just at

the top of a button on the phone that I

have with me at all times this means if

I just want to sneak in a minute here or

there using the touchscreen controls I

can do that but then also it has full

controller support as well we've got a

lot of ground to cover here so make sure

that you grab a snack and drink and

let's go ahead and get

[Music]

started okay first and foremost Delta is

available on the App Store so all you

have to do is just search for the words

Delta game emulator and it should pop

right up however one thing to bear in

mind it's not currently available in the

App Store in Europe and this has to do

with the new digital markets act or DM a

instead if you want to use Delta you'll

have to use the new official alt store

that's been released in Europe and this

app is not free it cost A50 a year and

this is to offset Apple's new core

technology fee that they've implemented

as part of this new digital markets act

and so for Europeans it's a little bit

complicated and according to the

developer Apple was going to charge them

50 cents per download even if it was

free and so as a result the alt store

pal seems to be their solution and so I

will leave a link to an article about

that in the video description below if

you're in Europe and you want to read

more about it but for everybody else you

should be able to go to the App Store

and download it like any other app now

when you first start it up it's going to

say that there are no games and that is

because you need to load them up

yourself and this is also a pretty easy

process if you tap on the plus icon on

the top right it's going to give you

access to your files app from there you

can access wherever you've stored your

ROM Library say for example you have

them stored locally on your phone or

maybe on Google Drive or iCloud drive

for me personally I just made a ROM

folder within my iCloud drive and then

uploaded all my games there and once you

have this set up importing them is super

simple you would just go into one of

these folders then tap on a game and

then on the bottom left you'll see an

option that says select all tap on that

and then on the top right tap on the

word open this will download all my

games for my cloud storage and then it

will import them into Delta it might

take a minute depending on the size of

your library but here you can see all my

NES games are showing right up and the

app is going to support all your

standard file formats they have a full

Wiki page which I'll leave link down

below either way once the import is done

you should see the game in your library

and from there it's super simple you can

just tap on the game and it's going to

start right off now if you don't have a

controller connected it's just going to

show you the onscreen controls and

they're not half bad they give you

haptic feedback it's probably one of the

better touchscreen controls I've ever

used one thing of note if you're not

getting any audio then I would recommend

swiping down from the quick menu and

then turning off the silent mode if you

have this turned on I've seen a lot of

reports of people saying that the audio

doesn't work and it's probably because

of this either way while we have it set

up let's go ahead and turn up the volume

and get a listen at how everything

sounds

[Music]

overall I think the audio is pretty good

they're just using standard emulator

cores that you've probably seen before

on other apps like retroarc every once

in a while I would hear an audio crackle

and pop here and there but for the most

part I thought it was pretty solid now

while in the game if you tap on the menu

button it'll bring up a quick access

menu we've got a couple different

options here for example you can choose

to save and load estate and they also

have a cheat code option too now as far

as I can tell there's no way to import a

cheat database so you will have to type

in your cheat codes manually and

depending on the system it's going to be

supported by like Game Genie game shark

or action replay so it is a bit of a

manual process to add these codes it's

kind of old school in that regard either

way your other two quick menu options

include a fastforward toggle as well as

an option called hold button and this

allows you to set a button to be held

down the entire time when you're using

touchscreen controls and there are a

couple use cases where this might make a

lot of sense for example if you're

playing a racing game like fzo instead

of having to hold onto the gas button

you could just set that as being a hold

button and to set this up you go into

the quick menu then the hold button

section then tap on whatever button you

want to hold and then once you exit the

menu and return to your game the button

is now going to be pressed down and

depending on how you play this game that

might be a good or bad thing you might

want to let off of the gas every once in

a while this is not going to give you

that here's another example with Super

Mario Brothers 3 with these games in

particular it's hard to press down on

the Run button while also pressing the

jump button and so in instead you could

go in and set the Run button to be

constantly pressed down it does take a

little bit of time to get used to but I

do like the fact that they have this as

an available feature and even though it

is pressed down if you press the B

button again it's still going to do a

tail swipe so it kind of gives you the

best of both worlds now even though we

do have save and load States available

in the menu it also will autosave

anytime you close a game so for example

when we close out of Castlevania and

then try to start it back up it's going

to ask whether or not you want to resume

your game or restart it from the

beginning and so in addition to ingame

saves you also have this autosave

function which makes it really handy

with a mobile platform now one thing of

note for both Nintendo and Super

Nintendo they both are playing at an 8x7

aspect ratio as we'll discuss later

there's no way to change the aspect

ratio within the app either I'm sure

this will make a lot of people happy you

know those who like that 8x7 aspect

ratio but me I'm a 4x3 guy and so I wish

we did have that choice now once you've

imported your library you might notice

that some games have autod downloaded

box art While others do not and this all

has to do with your file name and I

found that with certain systems like

Nintendo for example it doesn't pull up

any box art for some reason thankfully

there is a way to change that let's use

this game as an example this is a

patched version of Final Fantasy 3 or 6

depending on where you're from and it

has a bunch of different bug fixes and

things like that but as expected it

doesn't show the box art so to change it

you can just long press on the game and

then it'll show an option to change the

artwork and we have a few choices here

but we're going to use the games

database option from there you can

search the name of your game and with

any luck you can find it because this

game was originally released as Final

Fantasy 3 in the US that's the name I'm

going to use and sure enough there it is

so I can tap on the game and now I can

see that lovely box art and so if you

want to make sure that you have the most

uniform user interface possible you may

have to go in and clean up some of your

games thankfully it's a pretty easy

process and once you've done it one time

you are then good to go and speaking of

that quick menu let's bring it up again

so we can go over all of our options in

addition to changing out the artwork you

can also rename the file you can also

change the controller skin we'll do that

later on top of that you can can share

the game or access your save states

directly but then also you can import or

export your save file too and of course

if you decided you don't want to have

this game in your library you can delete

it from there as well now when it comes

to Pitch Perfect emulation there are a

few features that I wish Delta had that

it doesn't for example when playing an

NES game there are many times when you

need to cut off extra pixels on the top

or bottom or even left and right and

this all has to do with the old CRT

televisions that these games were

originally developed for with Final

Fantasy you can see that there are too

many pixels at the top and the bottom

and so it gives you this weird

flickering and flashing because those

pixels are not meant to be seen and

unfortunately within the Delta app there

is no way to make any of those

adjustments like you could with

something like retroarch you can find

this on other NES games mostly on the

left and right for example with Mario 3

there're supposed to be about eight

pixels cut off on each side at the end

of the day it's not a huge deal but

unfortunately it's just a feature I wish

we had within this app and like I

mentioned before you cannot adjust the

aspect ratio which is kind of a bummer

for example here I'm playing a patched

version of Super Mario 64 this allows

you to play the game in a 16x9 aspect

ratio but unfortunately no matter if I

use the 4x3 or 16x9 aspect ratio within

the game it's going to be locked at a

4x3 aspect ratio within the app and

again it's not the end of the world but

given the fact that many of these games

can be played with a widescreen aspect

ratio and you know iPhones are wider

than 4x3 I just think it would be better

to be able to take up some of that

screen real estate with actual game from

a conceptual standpoint I really wish it

was here within the quick menu that we

could just toggle on the different

aspect ratios or maybe cutting off

pixels things like that another feature

I really wish we had is the fact that

game boy does not have any sort of

colorization again this is probably

something they could Implement within

the quick menu option but unfortunately

as it stands right now when you start up

a game it's just going to be in black

and white and it's definitely something

that's possible for example there's a

user within the Delta emulator subreddit

who a couple years ago figured out how

to change out the custom pallettes and

so they were able to get a green

colorization on their Game Boy games but

they had to rebuild the app either way

it's cool to see that it's within the

realm of possible if the developer does

choose to implement it now as far as

game compatibility I found that

everything worked really well that

includes things like super FX games on

the Super Nintendo and I also tried a

bunch of different Pokemon ROM hacks and

everyone that I tried worked perfectly

fine as well so provided that you can

patch the game into an original ROM file

you should be able to play these games

on the Delta emulator app and I found

that Pokémon games are a great fit for

this device because you can use

touchscreen controls for this and it's

not really a big deal at all in addition

they have that fastforward toggle within

the quick menu which can speed things up

if you already know what's going to

happen within the game or you want to

get through a battle pretty quickly

another thing I noticed is that with

slower games like role playing games and

Pokemon you can play these all

one-handed and it works out pretty well

however one thing of note the stock

skins seem to be made with right-handed

gameplay in mind for me I'm left-handed

when trying to hold this naturally I

found that the meat of my hand will

sometimes touch that menu button on

accident so I would keep those

ergonomics in mind either which hand

you're going to use it or maybe just

using it with B now for nearly all of

the emulators it's a super simple setup

no bios files or anything else like that

the one exception is going to be

Nintendo DS so let me show you really

quickly how to set this up if you try to

start up a game it's going to say that

it's missing the required DS files if

you get this warning click on the import

files button and then on the bottom you

will see there are three DS bios files

that are required now much like with ROM

files these bios files are copyrighted

you can either dump them directly from a

Nintendo DS or a little Google searching

will get you on your way for my part

what I did is I just stored them within

the NDS folder in my iCloud drive so I'm

going to access that and then we're just

going to add those files one at a time

the first one is called bios.bin and the

second one is called bios 9. bin after

that the third one is called

firmware.bin and once you've imported

those three files when you go back to

the app you'll now see that there's a

home screen option we'll check that out

here in a second either way that's how

you get Nintendo DS games working and I

think it looks really good within the

app especially in vertical mode you can

also play the games in horizontal mode

but I just think that the screens are a

little bit too small in this setup now

because we have those bios files loaded

we can boot directly into the Nintendo

DS app and it's pretty cool to see this

old menu from back in the day there's

not a lot you can actually do here but

it's kind of cool to go into pcto chat

and just see what this interface looked

like back in 2005 anyway once you've

imported all of your games this is what

the setup is going to look like now

obviously I still need to go through and

clean up some of this box art but as you

can see it's coming together nicely so

next I want to go into the settings and

talk about some of these features that

we have available within Delta and we'll

start by talking about controllers and

if you don't have anything connected

either physically or via Bluetooth it's

going to default to a touchscreen layout

and I think the touchscreen controls are

going to work perfectly fine when you're

in a pinch and don't have a controller

and you're going to be playing something

a little bit slower however when trying

to play something that's a little bit

more controller intensive like an f-zero

game it is basically impossible so my

recommendation here is not not to try to

play some of these action heavy games

with the touchscreen controls unless you

are a glutton for punishment now

thankfully setting up controllers is

super simple we'll start with the

backbone one this is a telescop

controller with a USBC port and so I'm

just going to plug it directly into my

iPhone 15 once it's connected you will

see the touchscreen controls go away and

just like that you will now have the

ability to control everything within the

game however one thing I noticed is that

the controls weren't mapped the way that

I expected them and so there is a way to

change the mapping let's do that next

we're going to go back into the main

menu then into the settings and then

under the player One controller and it

should already be assigned as whatever

controller you've connected it to from

there you can tap on customize controls

and now you can map them for each of the

individual systems since we are playing

a game boy game let's go down to the GBC

system so that we can map it here and

setting this up is super simple you

would just tap on the touchscreen button

and then the button that you want it to

correspond to on the physical controller

not only that there are a couple hotkey

options like a quick save and a quick

load as as well as fast forward so

depending on the system that you're

playing you can assign them to whatever

button makes sense for you and it's

going to remember those mappings the

next time you plug in the controller now

if you plug in a different controller

you may have to remap it depending on

how that controller actually works now

sticking with the topic of telescopic

controllers let's check out my next one

this is the gamer G8 in fact this is my

favorite telescop controller right now

this one has big chunky controls and

feels a lot like having an Xbox

controller slapped onto a phone it's

pretty nice now to get this one to work

you have to turn it into the white

chicken mode in order to do that you

have to hold on to select and start for

a moment until you see a white light

after that it should work out perfectly

again you'll have to remap the controls

if you were using it with something else

previously but yeah it works out pretty

well I found that in particular Nintendo

64 seems to play the best because this

one has a lot of analog stick Centric

games and these analog sticks are great

but I did find it to be a little bit

overkill for NES given the fact that

this controller is so wide and that the

NES is at an 8x7 aspect ratio it just

felt kind of ridiculous if you're going

to be focusing on more retro games you

might want to try out this one instead

this is the gamer x2s and I made videos

about all these controllers on this

channel if you want to check them out

regardless this one has a more Nintendo

DS style feel which I think is really

fitting for a lot of retro games

speaking of which let's talk about

Nintendo DS emulation with a controller

hooked up and right off the bat the

first thing I noticed with an iPhone is

that my little like camera island or

whatever they call that on the far right

is really prominent within the screen

and unfortunately like with the other

systems there are no scaling options

here and so there's no way to actually

avoid this but to be honest after a few

minutes of game play I just kind of

ignored it and it just sort of faded

away and I didn't really see it anymore

either way if this is something that

would bother you I think it's something

to keep in mind now one system I found

that needed a lot of button remapping

with Nintendo 64 by default this one has

the Z button set as the select button

for most controllers and the Z buttons a

pretty important button you're probably

not going to want to have it there it'll

really depend on the game but for most

of my use cases I prefer to put it at

the R2 button instead and one thing to

note with these button mappings it

doesn't seem like they have the L3 and

R3 buttons available at all for example

I wanted to make the R3 button the fast

forward button here with Nintendo 64 and

unfortunately it just wouldn't register

the input at all either way yes if

you're looking to play more action heavy

titles or something that relies more on

an analog stick input I would definitely

recommend getting a telescopic

controller because this is going to

improve the system quite a bit and if

you're looking for recommendations I

would say that the gamer x2s is your

best bet this one is pretty Compact and

also relatively cheap it's only 45 bucks

and I think another controller that

works well for it is the backbone one

this one's a little bit more expensive

it usually goes for $90 to $100 but all

the same this is a really comfortable

experience as well now in addition to

these Snap-on telescopic controllers you

can also use Bluetooth controllers and

these work perfectly fine as well for

the best experience I would recommend

getting a controller with an X input

function one of my favorites is the

apito sn30 pro this one kind of looks

like a Super Nintendo control controller

but has R2 and L2 buttons and then also

two analog sticks as well so that means

that no matter what system you try to

play on Delta you will have plenty of

different inputs to work with this

controller and as far as input lag it

felt very Snappy so I didn't have any

issues using a Bluetooth controller with

the Delta app now if you want something

smaller you've got plenty of options if

you want to go to the full extreme you

have the 8bit do 02 8bit do also makes

another compact one that kind of looks

like a very small switch controller but

I recommend the 02 this one has X input

and the other one does not now obviously

this one lacks analog sticks so it's not

going to work really well with Nintendo

64 but all the other systems that run on

Delta are going to be great it's

obviously a little bit cramped but it's

also super small you can throw it in

your pocket or your purse and just kind

of pull it out when you want to play a

game now if you're looking for a good

middle ground between portability as

well as comfort then I would recommend

this one it's called The apito Light in

fact this is my favorite controller to

use when playing platform games it's

d-pad Centric but then also has clicky

and precise controls this one's also

super cheap I think it's like 20 or $25

so I think it's well worth it I'll leave

links to all these controllers in the

video description below one last note is

that you can connect multiple bluetooth

controllers to the same phone and then

play two-player or even four-player

games that way all you have to do is

just make sure you assign the controller

to the correct person within the

settings and then after that it's just

going to work out of the box now of

course it's all going to depend on the

game that you're playing and whether or

not it supports multiplayer but it is

pretty cool to be able to play something

like contra 3 with two controllers at

once so that's about it when it comes to

the controller settings let's move down

and talk about controller skins and

these will allow you to change the look

and the feel of your touchscreen

controls if you want to try out new ones

you need to go to this website delt

skins.

github.io and once you're there you'll

see all these system icons when you tap

on those you can see a preview of all

the different skins you have available

and there are quite a few here and they

are very cool one of my favorites is

that they have an analog pocket skin and

getting these downloaded is super simple

you would tap on the skin and then tap

on the download now button it's going to

ask you to confirm the download you're

going to say yeah man I want to do it

and then go into your download section

and then tap on the skin and it should

get autoloaded after that when we go

back into the settings you can pick that

system and then tap on the skin and you

should now see it as an option and

depending on the skin they might have it

for the vertical or the horizontal

version or they might have both either

way that's how you swap out between the

different skins and just like that we

have transformed our iPhone into an

analog pocket for free this means you're

going to have the smug satisfaction of

being an analog user without having to

pay a penny to the company at all all

jokes aside I would recommend going

through all these different skins and

finding any that might actually be a

good match for you for example even

though I really like the standard NES

skin there's something about the famicom

one that looks pretty awesome too and I

love the fact that these are so easy to

set up if you've ever tried to use a

skin with retroarch you know it can be a

pain in the butt however one thing to

note it's not a perfect solution I found

about a quarter of the Skins altogether

wouldn't actually let me download them