Underball
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Posts posted by Underball
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What you're describing isn't "Classic Gaming".It's "The giant pain in the ass that is collecting classic game equipment".
<SNIP>
But again, this is all rinse and repeat. Any time someone suggests to a self-described "collector" that emulation can be just as good a gaming experience, or just as rewarding and fun - out comes the snobby, "You don't have the money to compete with my AWESOME COLLECTION" attitude in response. It's one of the things that makes this site unbearably childish sometimes.
Okay, I think we get the point already. Collecting the original hardware is too much trouble for you, the emulators work just fine for you, you think that ought to be true for everyone, and anybody who says otherwise is just a fanatical childish snob who's only interested in showing off the size of their collection. Got it.
Personally, I think you're being just as dismissive of certain people's reasons for wanting to own the original hardware as you're accusing them of being towards the merits of emulation. I gave some of my reasons, and not all of them can be dismissed by simply saying "Bah, you just haven't tried any new emulators since the Windows 98 days!" Well, yes, I have. I try newer emulators and replace my old ones regularly, although I do keep some older versions of MAME around for some of my old ROM sets. While the accuracy of the emulation and the available horsepower have improved, the more fundamental issues I discussed have not changed.
One other topic I neglected to mention in my previous post: the availability of multi-carts and flash cartridges has eliminated many of the "headaches" that people enjoy complaining about. If you can load up a system's entire library onto a multi-cart without having to own a drawer full of cartridges, and if the system is working great and you take good care of it, where are all these "headaches" of owning the original hardware? Having it take up an extra two square feet of space (or less) on a shelf? Having to keep an extra controller or keyboard around? Having to dust the thing off every few weeks? Just get an extra power strip and a switchbox for your TV, use some basic cable management techniques, and you're done. If classic gaming really matters that much to you, these kinds of "headaches" are easily mitigated, and if it doesn't, why do you continue to belabor the point?
We were talking about the pros and cons of collection vs. emulation, and the person I quoted DIRECTLY SUGGESTED TO ME that I don't have "the means" to acquire all the classic gaming equipment I would like to own.
That's snobbery, straight up, no chaser. There's really no other way to put it. And I've seen that exact scenario play out dozens of times on here with various users. To the point where some users who were starting to build up a modest collection (Shadow460, for example) was completely shunned by some of the "tough guy" collectors who look down their nose at everyone who doesn't own multiple copies of Chase the Chuckwagon and Video Life, and was chased out of threads and treated like crap and picked on until he left.
That's why I belabor the point. Because it's bullshit behavior that is allowed to persist. The conversation always seems to gravitate to someone eventually dropping a "You're just jealous of my collection" accusation. I don't like it. So I say something about it.
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As far as control lag - it really depends on the controller, and the moreso, the speed of the PC the emulator is running on.
I have two at home with emulation on them.
One is a 7 year old Athlon XP with 1gb of ram and a shitty GeForce 5000 something card. It has issues with the bigger games in MAME, and certain other emulators. controls are laggy, and I blame it on moth the PC speed and Windows XP.
My last major experience with emulation was on xbox1, so I suspect that my experience compares poorly to even that 7 year old athlon. I had been assuming that the lag was due to putting controllers on USB, but processor speed makes a lot more sense.
Although there aren't a lot of Emulators out yet, the PS3 Custom Firmware emulators are so far absolutely fantastic. GenesisGXPlus and Stella are great with the Sixaxis Dual Shock.
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I just moved, too.. I did a change of address at the post office, but I'd like to forward my new address to Curt just to be safe... Any idea how to do this?
Yeah the problem with this is that I don't think that the post office forwards packages, only letter mail. Hopefully it'll be a moot issue and we get through to Curt but I'm moving May 3,4 so if it ships in May it really needs to go to my new address.
They will only forward First Class Mail. Bulk mail, Priority Mail packages, and 3rd class junk mail needs to be properly addressed with your new address.
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Here's an odd one, which is probably a prejudice on my part. Does anybody else just love the clone systems coming out, and favor them over much more accurate software emulation?
Also is software emulation control lag all in my head, or is there really measurable slop there? I'm perfectly willing to accept the truth of it, which I somewhat suspect disagrees with my hands on the subject.
If it weren't for my unnatural love for the Sega 32x, I would have gotten one of those Genny clones long ago.
As far as control lag - it really depends on the controller, and the moreso, the speed of the PC the emulator is running on.
I have two at home with emulation on them.
One is a 7 year old Athlon XP with 1gb of ram and a shitty GeForce 5000 something card. It has issues with the bigger games in MAME, and certain other emulators. controls are laggy, and I blame it on moth the PC speed and Windows XP.
I also have a recent Core2Duo machine with Windows 7 and 8bg ram/1gb video card. It runs pretty much every emulator I throw at it flawlessly. and the same USB controllers/adaptors have no timing issues that I can see.
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The list goes on and on. Classic gaming often isn't worth the time, effort and cost investment, when compared to emulation.
Ah, I had suspected this. For you, classic gaming isn't worth the time, effort, and cost. For others it is. Though the cynic in me suspects that maybe you want to own more of the real hardware and games, but don't have the means to do so at this time. So, you rely on emulation as a stop gap measure and try to get others to validate your decision to make yourself feel better. But again, I'm a bit of a cynic so actual mileage may vary! :-)
What you're describing isn't "Classic Gaming".
It's "The giant pain in the ass that is collecting classic game equipment".
Classic Gaming is PLAYING these games, in any form.
Hence the difference between GAMING and COLLECTING. The only people who care about this distinction are fanatical collectors.
I own a 7800 with a Harmony cart, a Genesis with an Everdrive, a PS2 with a mod and 40 games on the internal Hard drive, and a PS3 with Custom firmware, 32 games, and emulators for everything else. I have the ability to play pretty much every game I'd like in original console format, if I so choose.
As for your dig about "having the means", LOL, I'm pretty sure I have the means to own every piece of everything the fanatics on this site collect. What I don't have is the desire to deal with trying to acquire it all, or the patience to deal with the scumbags who try to rip people off in the process.
But again, this is all rinse and repeat. Any time someone suggests to a self-described "collector" that emulation can be just as good a gaming experience, or just as rewarding and fun - out comes the snobby, "You don't have the money to compete with my AWESOME COLLECTION" attitude in response. It's one of the things that makes this site unbearably childish sometimes.
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Fair enough. But do you really think that emulators get down to the state of absolute perfection or "just good enough"?
I think in most cases now, the perceptible difference is barely noticeable if at all - with a few rare exceptions. And really, the only people who do notice it are the same people who are also visibly bothered by an almost imperceptible 2 millimeter crease on the corner of a cardboard box that a 2600 game was packed in 32 years ago, thus ruining their week and feeling like their world is dashed until they find another one that is "PERFECT - MINT - VIRGIN" or whatever.
I know what you're saying about CRT. I do still have a CRT in my Basement game room, because light gun games and the Sega 3D glasses don't work on LCD. But I have my Atari 7800 and my Genesis hooked up to the LCD TV and they look fantastic. One of the things that always bugged me about CRT/RF as a kid was the shit-awful picture through those clunky RF switchboxes, and all the RF wavy static. Not to mention the bad geometry of Picture Tubes, and the corners/edges of games getting cut off because of the bubbled/rounded corner effects.
I ALWAYS wanted the home console games to be as pixel-accurate as computer games and lots of Arcade games were. But they weren't. They were terrible looking in some cases. Now, with good emulation, shaders, scalers, and a pristine 1080p LCD - It looks 1,000% better than I could have ever hoped for as a kid, while I was cursing that damned RCA junkbox TV and fiddling with the stupid rabbit-ears.
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I had one 7800 console the couldn't use paddles either. I believe certain revisions of the 7800 motherboard have trouble with paddles. The paddles are locked in the position all the way to the right. My same paddles work just fine on a later 7800 board though.
Oddly enough, the one that couldn't use paddles had none of the Activision FE banking game compatibility issues. Robot Tank, space Shuttle and Decthlon all worked fine.
My later 7800 that could use paddles fine had problems with Decathlon and Robot Tank until I modded it to use the channel 3/4 switch to toggle the suspect timing circuit they added for 2600 Dark Chambers on and off.
I don't know that they ate related issues, but it is an odd coincidence worth mentioning.
How did you do the mod and what does it do?
As I said before, certain revisions of the 7800 had compatibility issues with a few 2600 Activision games, notably: Robot Tank, Activision Decathlon, and Space Shuttle: A Journey Into Space. They added a timing circuit to fix problems wiht 2600 Dark Chambers, but that timing circuit broke compatibility with those Activision games.
I did two mods to my 7800. A composite video mod, and the one described above. Since it was modded for composite video, the channel 3/4 switch was no longer needed, so I cut the motherboard traces, and used it to toggle the suspect timing circuit on or off, depending on the game.
What I was saying was that: the 7800 I did the video and timing circuit mods to, works fine with my paddles. But I have another older 7800 that I didn't need to mod to be able to play all of those games, but that particular 7800 can't use paddles for some odd reason. I found that out when I built a custom 7800 Proline Paddle out of a poorly-working Proline joystick case. I then bought a pair of standard 2600 paddles thinking the paddle I build was bad, but it wasn't. It was the 7800 itself.
I've read reports elsewhere that very rarely, but still occasionally, 7800's don't play nicely with paddles. Such is the case with one of mine. maybe the timing circuit it a clue to be able to identify the 7800's which might not use paddles correctly.
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Thus far in this thread, the sentiment seems to tilt towards emulation being mostly a crappy, inaccurate, sub-par experience.
I would suggest that those say this haven't actually played a game on a recent/current version emulator.
But, let's look at the other side of it.
Regardless of emulators, often times obtaining, connecting, and successfully running 30ish year old game systems can just as often be a thoroughly frustrating, disappointing, and lackluster experience.
Finding a good working console and the specific games you want at a reasonable price can take YEARS. Often with having to deal with getting ripped off by unscrupulous sellers or having your purchases get lost in transit.
Then when you do find one, it is often plagued with problems. They wont play on 99% of TV's made in the last 5 years without modification or sacrifices. They won't play because of dusty, dirty insides. They won't play because they're a Front Loading NES, which didn't play 1/2 the time even when it was new. The cart you bought online is dead, or has bit-rot and is unplayable. The console you bought didn't come with a power supply or some essential cables, which you can't normally get on their own and now have to spend all that money again on another whole console. The screen rolls because Oops!, it's a PAL game and the eBay seller forgot to mention that. The gamepads or joystick you bought can't go left like they are Derek Zoolander.
The list goes on and on. Classic gaming often isn't worth the time, effort and cost investment, when compared to emulation.
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I would understand the complaints about emulation being inaccurate if it were still the 1990s, and we were all still trying to run emulation on a Pentium II.
But seriously now - C'mon!
With very, very few rare exceptions, current emulators like Stella, prosystem, FCE ultra. SNEStyl, Kega fusion, etc. and the existence of USB adapters for pretty much every classic controller, the current state of emulation delivers a nearly flawless gaming experience.
The lack of RF noise/static and crappy low resolution interlaced displays is the best reason for emulation
To say otherwise is either prejudiced foolishness, or the mark of someone who is uninformed.
I'm curious... If getting away from an interlaced crt is such a great thing, why do people work so hard to build specific hardware or software options to emulate scan lines on lcd and other supposedly "better" display technologies? You do realize that a good number of classic consoles rely on the inherent limitaions of crt technology to properly render their graphics, right?
You answered your own question. The whole point of emulation is to recreate the original experience as accurately as possible, minus the static/noisy picture of RF.
Not finding a way to accurately emulate the 15 and 30 hz flicker of the 2600 would render certain games unplayable. That's why anyone who's played recent versions of Stella knows the has been done very well in emulation.
It almost seems like the people here who are saying emulation is so inaccurate haven't actually played any emulators since their computers still ran Windows 98.
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That doesn't make sense. You're saying anyone who doesn't own all the original systems for all the games they like probably aren't into the games they like.
If I owned the original systems and individual carts for all the games and systems I enjoy, my house would look like an episode of Hoarders.
I have a 7800 with a harmony cart and about 15 7800 carts, a sega genesis with an everdrive, and a custom firmware launch model PS3 with emulators for everything else.
Am I really into these games, or am I just fooling myself?
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Some people don't want to clutter up their houses with tons of old games systems cables boxes carts etc.
Just because you have room doesn't mean you should fill every inch of it with dusty old stuff.
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I would understand the complaints about emulation being inaccurate if it were still the 1990s, and we were all still trying to run emulation on a Pentium II.
But seriously now - C'mon!
With very, very few rare exceptions, current emulators like Stella, prosystem, FCE ultra. SNEStyl, Kega fusion, etc. and the existence of USB adapters for pretty much every classic controller, the current state of emulation delivers a nearly flawless gaming experience.
The lack of RF noise/static and crappy low resolution interlaced displays is the best reason for emulation.
To say otherwise is either prejudiced foolishness, or the mark of someone who is uninformed.
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and some people resent the implication that if some 30 year old game isn't played on the original hardware, that experience is ALWAYS inferior and the mark of someone who doesn't care.I'm not a snob at all. I just don't like the implication that if I'm not cool with emulation, then I must be a "collector" and not a "gamer". That's a bunch of crap. I LOVE playing old video games, and for that very reason I want the genuine experience. Someone (not me) might argue that if someone were fine with just playing old games through emulation, they aren't that in to old games.
Chris
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I also don't care for this being billed as a "Collectors vs. Gamers" debate. It should be a "Discriminating Gamers vs. Gamers who don't mind a sterile, approximated experience". I am a gamer more than a collector, but emulation doesn't hold a candle to the real thing.
Chris
Or you could more accurately call it: "Collector snobs who look down their nose at inferior gamers" vs. "People who like to play video games and don't get all hung up on insane details that only those with OCD would notice or let ruin their fun playing games."
Note I am putting a smiley face here to denote hyperbole for humors sake. :-)
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I had one 7800 console the couldn't use paddles either. I believe certain revisions of the 7800 motherboard have trouble with paddles. The paddles are locked in the position all the way to the right. My same paddles work just fine on a later 7800 board though.
Oddly enough, the one that couldn't use paddles had none of the Activision FE banking game compatibility issues. Robot Tank, space Shuttle and Decthlon all worked fine.
My later 7800 that could use paddles fine had problems with Decathlon and Robot Tank until I modded it to use the channel 3/4 switch to toggle the suspect timing circuit they added for 2600 Dark Chambers on and off.
I don't know that they ate related issues, but it is an odd coincidence worth mentioning.
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They're admitting to being hacked now:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/226128/sony_makes_it_official_playstation_network_hacked.html
I've seen stories like that too, and the sony quote in it can be read a few different ways. No doubt those words were very carefully chosen and I'm not sure that there is enough information to confirm a second attack.
They're also awfully vague about why they're down, except that sony themselves is responsible for the outage.
They were Just DDOS attacked the first time. That just disables the network due to traffic. This time, they were hacked. The original version of PSN was completely trashed by intruders, and they are now in the process of rebuilding it from the ground up.
Corporations the size of Sony have nothing to gain and everything to lose by admitting as such publicly, which is exactly what they did. They will lose a shit ton of money on this fiasco.
You don't rebuild an entire online service that has to support several million customers from the ground up on a whim. Doing this short of it being absolutely necessary to get the service back online would demonstrate the worst level of customer service and BAD PR in the world.
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HatefulGravey and Underball I don't know either of you both of you guys have made strong points on this topic. I think you Both for that BUT for the Love Of God!! stop trying to get the one up over eachother. Don't take it personal.
People address me directly, I reply. This is admittedly a bad habit of mine.
Someone posts a thread that asks a question or elicits a response that I believe I can speak to, I reply.
I can't control what others do. My points were all made pretty concisely a while ago. I probably should have just not responded to his accusations and taunts, and let him tucker himself out until he crashed and napped it out. Sorry If I messed with the feng shui of your thread, skaredmask.
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You assume collectors don't play the things we collect.
It would seem a collector in your mind is a person that buys things just to have them.
Congrats, you have completely jacked this thread.
EDIT: Wow, I just went back and counted, there were 10 post before your first post, and that is exactly when you jacked this thread. Amazing work sir. You stepped into a conversation, made a blanket statement about the intelligence of collectors and took this conversation away from the OP. Trolling at its best.
I made no statement about the intelligence of anyone here. OCD tendencies, and impulse buying has nothing to do with intelligence. Some of the smartest, most capable people in the world are compulsive personalities.
I've continued to make posts on-topic throughout this entire thread, re: why I think classic gaming pricing is too high.
You've done nothing but insult me for 2 pages now.
I dont' ASSUME anything about you, or anyone else. You can stop taking my comments personally, until I directly address you. I suggest you actually READ my last post. I clearly said "I know some people straddle the line between being gamers and collectors, but I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE PEOPLE WHO BUY UP THESE GAMES WITH THE INTENTION OF NEVER PLAYING THEM."
That doesn't pertain to you because you do play these games, right? So why are you being so defensive about it?
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I'm not sure where you're seeing all this focus on emulation, but the only discussions I have seen about it involves efforts to preserve physical stuff that's incredibly rare or at risk of being destroyed by time. There are certainly lots of sites focused on creating emulators and distributing roms, but this sure isn't even close to being one of them. Honestly, I can't tell if you're trolling or not, but I would hope that you would at least be respectful of the fact that most of us are collectors and pretty savvy about what we collect and don't really agree with your basic views on the subject.You are kidding, right?
There's an entire subforum here dedicated to it. This site hosts the ROMS of ALL Atari Console Games, and all of the various releases of Atari console emulators. Most of the major and minor developers in the Atari emulation scene are frequent posters here. There are currently active and ongoing topics in ALL of the various console specific forums about the ongoing update status of the various emulators, homebrew development, and rom preservation here. In fact, I would argue that homebrew and hack game development, and testing and playing them in emulators pretty much dominates the conversation in 3/4 of this board. Especially in teh 2600, 5200 and 7800 forums - not to mention the development forums.
Yes, there is one subforum out of 37 total which only has a total of 2001 posts and 13,097 replies, placing it in the bottom third of all the subforums and below even current events in total activity. I would dispute your claim that emulators and roms "dominate" this board. It's a small part of it and I can confidently say that the overwhelming majority of the folks in the emulation community also have a physical collection. In fact, many people here actually buy reproduction versions of cartridges of the roms that get released simply because they prefer to have a physical version and the board creator has a small side business which makes these releases possible. You are in the minority here and while I support your right to express your opinions and participate, there is simply no arguing the fact that your views are out of touch with the vast majority of the participants on this board and don't reflect anyone else's opinion but your own.
I don't disagree with the early part of this. Emulation isn't the "focus" of this board, but neither is collecting. Buying games to play isn't the same as collecting games. I've made this distinction before, but there is a vast difference in both mentality and intention between "gamers" who have a reasonable amount of physical games on hand they play regularly, and "collectors" who have large collections of unopened games that will never be played or enjoyed beyond staring at their boxes and hoping their value rises. I would argue that what drew most of the users here to this site is the Gaming aspect of that, rather than the collecting aspect. Sure there are a lot of people who straddle both sides of this. I just dont' understand the people who come here to buy up these games with no intent on ever opening or playing them. Seems less like an interest in Atari games, and more like and obsession with collectibles and making a speculative investment.
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Ok well the carts aren't too difficult to get out, they are just worse than I am used to with other consoles such as the Genesis. Has anyone tried this mod? S-video would definitely be preference and it doesn't seem too bad to install.
There have been conflicting reports about the quality of that mod - some say it's great, some say it's terrible. But pretty much everyone complained about ridiculously long wait times for delivery. Like several months, to well over a year from when payment was received. Procede with caution.
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I'm not sure where you're seeing all this focus on emulation, but the only discussions I have seen about it involves efforts to preserve physical stuff that's incredibly rare or at risk of being destroyed by time. There are certainly lots of sites focused on creating emulators and distributing roms, but this sure isn't even close to being one of them. Honestly, I can't tell if you're trolling or not, but I would hope that you would at least be respectful of the fact that most of us are collectors and pretty savvy about what we collect and don't really agree with your basic views on the subject.You are kidding, right?
There's an entire subforum here dedicated to it. This site hosts the ROMS of ALL Atari Console Games, and all of the various releases of Atari console emulators. Most of the major and minor developers in the Atari emulation scene are frequent posters here. There are currently active and ongoing topics in ALL of the various console specific forums about the ongoing update status of the various emulators, homebrew development, and rom preservation here. In fact, I would argue that homebrew and hack game development, and testing and playing them in emulators pretty much dominates the conversation in 3/4 of this board. Especially in teh 2600, 5200 and 7800 forums - not to mention the development forums.
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Saying that people that collect games as art or people that worry about the condition of their games, or people that would pay more then original retail for a game are OCD impusle buyers with no self control here is a lot like walking into a pick up basketball game and saying "people that play basketball are idiots".
Assuming that the vast majority of users on this site are hardcore collectors is pure folly. Many users here are really only interested in the games themselves, and don't collect at all. A good deal of people here like myself will occasionally buy real hardware when it's found for a reasonable price, but are disgusted by the insanely inflated prices of certain "rarities". Emulation wouldn't exist and be talked about at length here, if collecting were the focus of this site, or somehow against the "collectors principles" being employed here.
Please take your emulation fanboyism to the emulation forum. We don't need to turn this into a "real hardware vs emulation" topic. We are talking about prices here, you have already let us know you are against it, and that the people that do collect are less then you for paying too much for the things we enjoy. The site might not be all about collecting, but I'm pretty sure the marketplace is. Maybe not "hardcore" collecting, but collecting none the less. If you can emulate this stuff there is no reason to buy it if not to collect it.
You seem pretty disgruntled. I merely posted an opinion. I did not direct it at you, or anyone in particular.
As for emulation vs. buying real hardware - some people like doing both, myself included. I own real hardware to play at home. I work on emulators for the PSP to play on the go.
As for pricing, most people don't like overpaying for this stuff. But there is a small minority of people who are willing to throw ridiculous sums of money out there to be "The One" to own certain rarities. Be it compulsion, or bragging rights - it's a want, not a need. No one needs this stuff to live, but some want it so bad they will nearly put themselves in financial trouble or debt to satisfy an impulse buying urge. That's self destructive behavior - and it's present all over the place here. But I don't have a problem with these people, as you suggest.
It's the SELLERS who know this about their target market, and gouge on pricing and set ridiculous standards that prey on them that I have a problem with. The subject of the thread is pricing. I posted why I believe pricing gets out of control sometimes, and how that directly affects the going market rate for everyone setting an unfair standard.
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Saying that people that collect games as art or people that worry about the condition of their games, or people that would pay more then original retail for a game are OCD impusle buyers with no self control here is a lot like walking into a pick up basketball game and saying "people that play basketball are idiots".
Assuming that the vast majority of users on this site are hardcore collectors is pure folly. Many users here are really only interested in the games themselves, and don't collect at all. A good deal of people here like myself will occasionally buy real hardware when it's found for a reasonable price, but are disgusted by the insanely inflated prices of certain "rarities". Emulation wouldn't exist and be talked about at length here, if collecting were the focus of this site, or somehow against the "collectors principles" being employed here.
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Looks like Anonymous says they didn't do it this time.
I think it might be tangentially related to the Amazon datacenter crash thing.
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Why I prefer emulation
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted
I like both. I have both. But this thread just gets entertaining when the die hards start suggesting to people that emulation is "invalid" or "severely lacking". I love cracking back at people who tell me that there's no way I could possibly be enjoying myself, because of something that bothers them which I coulnd't care less about.