Reaperman

Saturday at 03:50 PM

Also interested in figuring out the core removal stuff. I'm subscribed to the big 3 youtube news channels, but somehow it flew under my radar.

I do remember when the 2600 core went obsolete, update_all didn't remove it. not only that but I just checked, and somehow I now have 3x 2600 cores...and the 7800 one.

@awbacon which video did I skip to miss the drama?

April 13

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, GoldLeader said:

Bobbler! Haaa, I like that!

Does Bomb Jack fit in? If so, maybe we call them 'Jackers.'

That'll really confuse the zoomers.

Gamers have named/renamed a number of genres after the fact.

Shmup, replaced plain old shooters. About the time 'shooter' came to commonly mean FPS (a trend that's mostly ended now).

and I seem to recall platformers were run-and-jump (or jump-and-run) games BITD

Two I named after the fact (names which refuse to catch on 😁) are sub-genres of racing/driving:

Spoiler
- 'Here comes the curve' racers are mostly rally-themed (sometimes F1) overhead games with a short forward view. They flash an image of an upcoming corner on screen, and a second later you execute it. It's a dead sub-genre of arcade racing, that really plays like speed-reading mixed with simon. Kind of replacing a co-driver, which is why rally theme is common. Mille Miglia and World rally are two.
- 'dodge racers' are the racing games where you're concerned with getting 'around' cars rather than coming in first place. Hyperchase and Enduro come to mind. Some endless runners actually scratch this itch in modern times.

April 12

I'm probably the only one waiting in suspense of figuring out what's inside the custom twin stick, but:

better than I expected. IL parts with cherry switches--not my favorite of IL's sticks, but I've been told I'm wrong about that opinion 😉
100% plywood construction. I'm more of an MDF guy, but it's largely done well.
some of the exterior countertop artwork is coming off, which offers a view of joinery below--there's a surprise. Gluing/clamping that is tonight's job.
electronics is a ps/2 ipac from ultimarc with a usb adapter cable--must date to before they offered dedicated usb ones. It looks like the latency numbers on ultimarc stuff is still absolute top notch.
One edge is missing a 3" strip of t molding, and is a slightly odd size, so of course that comes in 20ft rolls (ordered from spain)
very clean wiring.

All things considered this stick lucked out and is now back in the hands of somebody who knows what it is and gives at least half a darn. RIP to previous owner, we'll get it polished up.

April 6

this one was a bit expensive to be thrifty, but it's pretty fun.

I collect custom arcade sticks, and while searching for right-handers, came across this gem of a twin-stick.

I don't use eBay's 'make offer' button, since I don't like interacting with sellers or being a low-baller, but the last couple years I really like how eBay has been doing semi-automated(?) price offers on watched buy-it-now items. Whenever I see a make-offer button, now I just watch the item, and more often than not get an offer message in an hour or two. Maybe current eBay sellers could let me know about the seller half of this process and if it's really automated?

This one came to $60 plus $21 shipping. Even if it's the cheapest controls and encoder, that's close to what I could source the parts for. But generally these custom sticks come with pretty nice stuff, and I'm guessing IL or SUZO-HAPP.

It feels like it's from an estate sale reseller, so RIP to the deceased fan of crazy climber or robotron. My retirement plan is to move to a 55+ community with a woodshop and make crazy arcade sticks, so right in the feels there.

April 6

3 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

Assuming you're familiar with SNAC usage -- if I have SNAC for "real" controllers, does it save the info after initial setup to allow easy switching, or any issues with switching from NES to Genesis to SNES to PS1, etc?

For example, if I use a real NES controller with the NES core, then unplug that and plug in a Genesis controller for Genesis, then later switch to SNES controller for SNES, will it seamlessly know and use my settings, or do I need to config anything between switches.

... hope all that made sense. 😁

There's no per-controller setup or save like usb controllers, loading the appropriate core, and setting a controller to snac is all that's required.

from my understanding, the cores hook to the snac controller port as the original systems did. So the controllers can't manipulate MiSTer menus.

It's a little weird in some core menus, when you have a snac-connected light gun in hand, the correct answer to what kind of controller is attached is 'snac,' and not light gun.

SNAC is pretty great. About the only bummer I've ever had while using them was finding out the 2600 one didn't support paddles. But it's great to be able to use an nes zapper, or back up my ps1 saves from back in the day.

April 1

Yep, velcro cable ties.

I go for quick folds and chuck them into a bag, because I have a drawer system for controllers and they'll still find a way to tangle if I don't.

(an old vid I made on controller storage)

March 30

On 3/20/2024 at 10:28 PM, Maztr_0n said:

dont wanna be that person but its likely that people don't wanna work with the same amount of effort for a wage that hasn't been livable for at least 3 decades,

Were they ever meant to be livable? I don't think that's been the play at any point in my lifetime. I think many of the fast food, grocery, and retail jobs were meant to take advantage of highschooler, retiree, and disabled labor who didn't actually need to fully support themselves with work. These days it seems immigrants entered the equation to replace the highschooler component. Not sure how they survive on the money. My guess is 'barely.'

Spoiler

(and this is the section where I cut out a corporate, dystopian, sadly-realistic-future rant, so blackpilled my having the thought probably dooms me to hell. )

Since you sound pretty young, note that money gets considerably easier to acquire as people age. Salaries increase with experience, investments snowball, and lifestyle expenses drop greatly.

But, it's a great time to be a gamer. Here's some relatively nice gaming things that are cheaper than ever:

Spoiler

Consolized MVS systems, and MVS Multicarts
Arcade Superguns,
aliexpress knockoff everdrives and ODE's
IGS PGM motherboards and games, (except a few...)
That GBS-C fast rgb scaler
BeharBros and RAD2x hdmi cables
drop-in handheld IPS screen mods
DS Lite's still cost nothing for whatever reason, ditto with r4's and even legit games
Whatever Amazon's current amazingly-cheap, huge, low-latency fire-TV deal is.
And MiSTer might be expensive, but it's probably the biggest bargain in gaming history

March 30

I've been having n64 controller-pak saving issues with the core, so I've got an n64 snac on order to see if my saving problems go away. ...or if they start spreading to my real saves. 😅

Between the n64 turbo core, 0mhz collection, and replacing ps1 cue/bins with chds, MiSTer's really been monopolizing my free time.

March 29

My first thrift store Dart Zone find. For the last 5 years, Nerf blasters have consistently come up well short of their Dart Zone competition, so I'm a bit surprised it's taken this long for them to trickle out to the thrift shops.

Today's find is a $4 Dart Zone Max Dictator, which is a half-dart blaster with a weird, stock-feeding magazine system. (video going over the mechanism) The cats clearly love chasing after the darts, but as with many other Dart Zone Max/Pro blasters, it shoots a bit hard for inside--and unlike some other DZ blasters there's no easy way to drop that velocity without taking the whole thing apart.

If you see Dart Zone MAX/Pro or their walmart-branded 'Adventure Force Pro' options at the thrift shop go for them. They hit a bit hard for the kids, at fully twice Nerf's 'elite dart' standard of 75fps (these days nerf's more like 65-67 tbh...).

March 24

My current fave for modern gaming is a Gulikit KingKong 2 Pro--but a coworker let me handle the KingKong 3 Max, and I'll be switching to them in the next few months for the option for increased trigger throw. This is my choice on PC, switch and the MiSTer cores that benefit from analog sticks. Its tiny analog deadzone is incredibly refreshing, and I can't go back to Alps sticks after that.

For arcade sticks, my favorite is my MAS Prostick, and I build tons of adapters to use it on other systems. Not too many options for american style arcade sticks, and neo geo controllers adapt easily&laglessly. I may someday need more buttons and start building adapters for MAS Supernova 25-pin controllers, but I don't care that much for street fighter, and have a few other options on the days I do.

For pre-crash, I go for the Epyx 500xj/Konix Speedking for it's precise, microswitched stick, and its attempt at ergonomics. The NES version pairs especially well with NT Mini, especially the Atari 7800 core (which never got a 500xj variant of its own).

Saturn batwing and Neo Geo gamepads are up there, especially back in the day these would have topped my list. but even owning modern/wireless equivalents, I find myself reaching for an 8bitdo M30 over both--which surprises me. This is generally my first choice for MiSTer use, because it's got enough buttons in the right places to do a lot of things. If I spend more than a day or two with a core, I'll generally switch to something more nostalgic, but the M30 is good at many tasks. In theory I should be grabbing the retro bit wireless batwing, but I just don't.

March 13

I don't know why, but the above result bugged me. So I bought a zippy stick with a long shaft, since all the sanwas/clones I have around are shorter.

some things I noticed:

That mounting plate doesn't just have a corner off of it--it's entirely too small for a standard plate to fit down inside the routed area.
also in addition to screws they glued it in, and soldered the contacts with fairly high temp solder.
zippy sticks have a seimitsu-style 2/4/8 gate, but it's a bit sloppy. 'a bit sloppy' is still a considerable improvement over using the control panel's oval hole as a restrictor plate.
I forgot that even from my standing-workbench here, the screen's viewing angle can't be played standing in front of it, and it's polarized off to one side as if they chose a horizontal screen and just said 'eff it.' Maybe a wedge to tip it backwards would help.
galaga 88 control lags, never played enough to notice that before.
played one life of galaga 88 and switched it off. this represents probably 1/3 of my time playing on this unit. Not sure I've ever made it to game-over
I considered giving it a neo geo joystick port, because I'm clearly mentally ill. And I'm sure I'll have done that by the next post.

It's basically the same result as before, but I got to use my hands to make something that's terrible, a bit less terrible, which is illogically, still a pretty good feeling. A zippy stick improved something! let that one sink in.

March 8

Anybody got NGPC turf masters? Mine plays the intro and menus, but goes to black-screen when I try any single player game (menu music still plays)--or a silent white screen if I choose to continue my last save before the intro plays.

Speaking of saves, I'm a little surprised today. I assumed the 2032 battery in the NGPC would have been for both the rtc and gamesaves to the system itself, so a mild shock when my neo geo cup save was right there with my name on it in the pocket adapter. Huh, cart-saves, I probably should have put that connection together earlier.

March 8

On 2/22/2024 at 2:05 AM, roots.genoa said:

I think you'll be happy because it seems that Kev's Lynx core is way more accurate than current emulators.

Adapters came in today, Lynx's low-contrast screen filter seems to look great, and the core really captures the crunchy-crappiness of lynx sound. I'm not turning that audio filter on--perfect the way it is. I will say the stereo separation from the side-firing stereo speakers can occasionally be a bit jarringly awesome when I only remember the games coming from the mono speaker. the roadblasters intro a big improvement in stereo.

The STUN runner lower UI color flash seems a bit off to my memory. I'll have to compare it to real HW later, because the screen mod on my more-easily-accessible lynx seems to have died in storage...again. 🙄 so I have to dig up whatever thread I used to fix it last time. Motivation to fix it is very low as long as I'm looking at the pocket's screen.

February 27

Just not worth the effort. And I was really trying to be positive about it.

There are no generic 2-way JLF gates, so I spent WAY too much on this failure, but not enough to also sink time/effort into it too.

February 25

I recall Schaumburg, IL's Gameworks having a VF3 Team Battle back when I visited on my 21st birthday, so 2002. That arcade leaned way too heavily toward Sega. I didn't play it, because 'oh, it's on dreamcast' and promptly never played that one either, because of my memories of VF1 & 2... I think gameworks mostly all closed a couple years ago.

I want to say I've encountered a VF4--but can't recall with the above degree of specificity.

My 'arcade never-seen' is Ridge Racer--any of them. Or any Namco racer in general, for that matter. (except pole position, but that was atari). Only Midway/Atari, or Sega racers locally. East town mall in Madison had a Cyber Sled--which is the closest I've had to a namco racer.

February 24

6 hours ago, RobDangerous said:

Duo jailbreak is out: https://github.com/analoguejb/Analogue-Duo-JB

And here I had stuff to do this weekend.

Well, now that's all out the window 😆

Supah Grafx time.

February 22

Yeah, but this is the same bunch that loves to fill twitter with their upcoming hardware running games--or at least implied it's their hardware, and I don't see anything new/recent depicted as running on pocket. Surely no lynx/ngpc, but some years-old tg16. Admittedly, I don't understand how twitter works, older posts seem to appear above newer ones for seemingly no reason, and at a glance the place is too disorganized to know if I'm just missing things.

My best guess is an official TG-16 core will drop about the time the set arrives, and the other systems will come on a TBD schedule.

I'm most looking forward to lynx, personally. lots of atari-games' games, from an era of arcade we're unlikely to see any more of in the future. It's not easy to find a console that plays Xybots or Hydra.

February 19

Woot? Got an email that my pocket adapter set order is 'being prepared' with a last day to change my address on the FEB 25th.

Has there been news on this front of it nearing completion on the core side? This is the first I'm hearing of it.

February 13

As software emulation of older games becomes the norm, my greatest worry is that future generations are going to think old games just sucked because of terrible money-grab emulation. We're obviously suffering from time/money budget limitations bringing these old titles to market again. It's hard to look at them and think their IP owners or licensees care at all.

I have hope! SNESTang is coming to the ~$19 Sipeed Tang FPGA. (here's a good vid) It is not ready yet, but theoretically a hobbyist could get it together for $60 with all the trimmings. At that price, I'd HOPE to maybe see some 3rd party plug-and-plays, mini-arcades or alterno-consoles going for this over android. Cell phone chips are no doubt cheaper, so I don't have 'that much hope'

All the trimmings:

And yes, I do still emulate in software, even with my current overly-picky perspective.

My standard for software emulation is simple--it has to offer an experience significantly better than real hardware or fpga emulation. Only then will I put up with it. For example emulating a 3d game at many times its resolution, with upscaled textures, and 60fps patches, etc.

But if I notice any chug, skip, or heaven-forbid an a/v glitch, ANYWHERE, the whole emu's done. I once got absolutely roasted in normie circles for my opinion that the steam deck was an awful emulation platform. The folks saying it can do Switch and PS3 emulation disagreed with my opinion that it can't even successfully handle N64/DC/GC. 😅

February 13

If emulation's been working for you, keep on it and enjoy every minute that you can. But it sounds like your time with it is almost over. Once you start seeing the problems, you really can't go back, and the free/cheap ride is over. When you spend into the thousands trying for slight incremental improvements over absolutely free tech, you start to long for the old days.

And it doesn't end with FPGA and done. Then comes display latency. Then comes input, 1000hz USB vs SNAC. Even MiSTer comes with a few sync/buffer settings and many TVs can't handle the fastest ones--also there are other hefty usability implications to them, and they are not defaults. so MiSTer users can expect (1-2 frames of lag) without ini file tinkering, in addition to screen lag. Oh it never stops once you start down this path, and costs more and more for less and less obvious improvements.

Yes, software emulation is considered 'gaming a bit wrong,' and I've noticed that some of the most common examples (big-brand commercial emus) are some of the worst. Not sure if new TVs have helped, but when it came out, there was a thought that NES classic's punch-out was impossible. There's a recent term that popped up--'NES hard.' I think that term is as much from lag (both from modern screens and software emulation) as it is modern changes to the concept of gaming. (no 'game over' means no 'game' IMO, but that's a different thread)

Conversely, I've seen a video where a MiSTer NES core w/ SNAC, was put up against real hardware in a CRT lag comparison (link)...and MiSTer appeared(?) faster--which is either great, or really, really not.

Also CRT doesn't necessarily mean zero lag. It should mean that. But various devices impact it. I caught lag in my crt setup from DVD recorders, and I actually haven't found one that does very well. Found it using 60fps camcorder shooting PSone LCD while passing through to dvd burner then CRT. The LCD is ahead of the crt fully 4-5 frames. I didn't think it could possibly ever be that bad, but (link)

February 11

Oh I've had a ton of these. Mostly I give them as holiday gifts. (sorry fam, you got Datafrog sf2000's last year)

Ali's emu-boxes are neat, but I never really like them. They never seem to 'game' very well, but the Powkiddy A13 was the most disappointing of them because I REALLY wanted to like it:

Loud speaker
Arcade Controls
Aftermarket Firmware
Folds down small

Kept it in my glove box, used it to save the clutch of my temp-junker mazdaspeed3 by pulling off on busy traffic days and gaming (car's clutch hydraulics were going).

Anyway, the first board, that I spent all that time building and loading SD cards for burnt up, about the 3rd use--smoke came out in my lap
what a 'coincidence' aliexpress sells a revised replacement board
New board can't take the aftermarket firmware ☹
Also stopped loading games after...I swear this video is the first time I've turned it on after the initial testing of the replacement board, and it won't load ANYTHING, and just freezes.

REALLY cool idea, but I wish it wasn't 100% useless.

Made a quick vid to vent , it'll finish processing some time in here

^^(also that Datafrog up there--it may not be good, but it's one where 'for the price' helps out, because that's a lot of stuff for $20 shipped)

February 11

11 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

But it sure read to me as if you were saying, without a hint of irony, that Kevtris got the idea for making an FPGA-powered multi-system from Mike Kennedy and Coleco Chameleon.

Lord no. 🤣

More 'responsible for' as in unintended butterfly effect from the drama. The 'core store drama' is when kevtris's nifty but generally solo fpga hobby started really gaining steam, right inside the vgs thread, and he created the big FPGA system thread we have today. It's mentioned in the first post:

Quote

Welll, some people seemed interested in my FPGA Videogame doodad that I presented in the RVGS thread and it was suggested I make a post about it, how it works, and what it does. I still don't have immediate plans for selling it, but if there's enough interest, that could change. I will attempt to explain what it is, how it works, and what a sellable version of it would entail, so let's go!

The 'core store' season of ColecoVGS drama starts here. It's my favorite chapter of the VGS adventure by far, with second place going to the 'mad race to find the board in prototype #3'

Spoiler

Big rambly edit:

I even found my first post over there (below screengrab), and certainly felt the same way BITD.

Incidently that other fpga system I mention higher up in the post, that got me to join AA (back in jan '08)--does it sound familiar to anybody?, I forgot the name. It was a vertical clamshell handheld, IIRC looked like a big altoids tin, never got past the rendering stage(?) so technically not as far as the VGS's snes 😁, and for that render they just hired ben heckendorn to do that part. (I remember that bit because I was on his forum at the time)

when the project went silent and its forum died, I remembered that a bunch of people I met there were from here and joined up.

February 9

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

That's a bold statement imho. Kevtris refused to work for the Chameleon the same year he was hired by Analogue to work on Analogue Nt's video output. And Kevtris had the idea for his FPGA console for quite some time...

It's possible kevtris and analogue might have still gotten a system together anyway after the NT's HDMI drama, but still in a timeline that didn't have this other retroVGS FPGA drama. But do think this chameleon drama motivated the move from fpga fiddling being 'that thing kevtris posts about that looks neat,' to the lengthy 'maybe we actually get a zimba someday' thread.

As for the rest of these responses, are there multiple ways to read my words that I'm not aware of?

February 9

Yeah, and we can sometimes all have our own 'moments' too. This one was a big deal, but was a fair bit ago, and is largely 'under the bridge' already. I'm also not sure that the average video game tradeshow/prelaunch BS really goes too much differently than the RetroVGS/Chameleon in terms of 'buffaloing.'

With all the drama, we got some pretty cool stuff out of it. I don't just mean the 'reproduction chameleons' making the rounds, but for a time AA was the center of the vintage gaming community (probably its most culturally-relevant moment).

And would we even have an Analogue Pocket if there wasn't a Chameleon? I don't think so. The pocket and all the rest of the analogue FPGA consoles have generally changed the way we game. FPGA gaming was out there already, but it was mostly the realm of commodore fans.

Time heals a lot, and I think 'gaming in general' actually made out pretty well in the end, with a story to tell too.

Man, that mad race to identify the board in the transparent shell was really something. And the 'core store' of turned out to be a pivotal moment historically.

February 8

Seems like he's still in and out, with his last post being about 2600+ late NOV.

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