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Cynicaster

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Everything posted by Cynicaster

  1. Yeah I've got a RG351MP and I think it's great, but yes, reliable emulation pretty much tops out at PS1. That's totally fine for me, though. Having the later games in your pocket sounds great in theory but I feel the tiny screens on these "pocketable" handhelds are much better suited to the older games and simpler control schemes. Playing PS2 on ~4" diagonal screen with oddly placed shoulder buttons just isn't that fun, IMO. Even a lot of PS1 games I've tried aren't very fun in that format even if they are fun on the TV.
  2. I have the same PS2 that I bought in 2001 or so, but it has spent the vaaaast majority of that time just collecting dust in a closet until about a year ago when I set up a bunch of consoles to play their arcade-style games (mostly shoot em ups) with arcade controls. I'm not much of a dual analog stick type guy so games that work well with arcade sticks and buttons are kind of my jam. I've played a ton of PS2 since then. Some of my favorite titles so far: Espgaluda DoDonPachi DaiOuJou Mushihimesama Homura Ibara Dynamite Deka Backyard Wrestling Contra Shattered Soldier Neo Contra Gradius V Intelligent Qube ReMix Rez Recently I set up a flatscreen TV on a rotatable wall mount so I can easily play shooters in TATE mode. It looks freakin awesome. My wife happened to have another PS2 from around the same time which was also collecting dust so I brought out that one too and set it up on a different TV to play racing games with my Logitech GT Drivng Force wheel. Many of the games I've tried on PS2 with the wheel have not worked very well but there is GT4 and I've also quite enjoyed Burnout 3: Takedown. On that note, if anyone has any recommendations for PS2 games that are arcade-y in nature and play nice with digital controls (i.e. d-pad) then I'd love to hear about them for my setup. Driving games that work with Logitech wheel as well.
  3. All true, which is why the advice I will give 100% of the time is to not upgrade. Get a full ROMset, get the corresponding version of MAME singing and dancing just how you like it, and archive the whole setup for replication later. My daily driver ROMset is v122, which is pretty ancient (circa 2007, I think). But it plays almost everything I want to play, and plays it well. As mentioned earlier, I do run recent versions of MAME just to bring a few newer games into playable status, but that's it. One weekend I remember I did try a few old favorite games on the newer version of MAME just to compare it with my old version. I remember trying DoDonPachi, Popeye, and a few others. I'm not saying there are absolutely no differences in the emulation "quality" between new and old, but I can tell you this: if I tried to claim I could describe any meaningful differences, I'd be bullshitting. They feel identical to me. I guess I get the urge to stay at the bleeding edge and have the latest and greatest everything, so long as it's dead easy and straightforward to do. But as we've discussed here, it's not with MAME. And to me, as such a huge fan of MAME, it seems a tragedy that anyone who would otherwise have a hoot diving into the MAME archives would shy away from it due to frustrations related to upgrading ROMsets when upgrading ROMsets brings such little practical benefit in the first place. It's like deciding not to buy a swimming pool because you don't want to drain it and refill it every few months. Just enjoy it and don't do that.
  4. That's consistent with what I read as well, so sounds like you lucked out on that one if you're able to play burned discs. I'm pretty sure the optical drive emulator will not work at all on VA2 though, but I don't know if some "early bird" VA2 builds are excluded from that or not. I'll check it out, thanks for the suggestion.
  5. I don't know exactly why they handle the versioning of ROMsets the way they do, but rather than trying to fully understand such technical details I just accept that's how it works and don't worry about it. It's been a long time since I have really tried to hunt down a full MAME ROMset of any version, but I don't recall it ever being difficult to do. Yes, dozens of gigabytes' worth of retro roms is cumbersome; especially if, like me, you like to use older not-so-powerful machines for retro emulation purposes. But once you have it, you have it. Set up the MAME folder structure with your full romset, get it running smoothly, configure the inputs for all your favorite games, then create a back up of that root folder somewhere. Then, anytime you would like to get MAME up and running on a different/new PC, just copy that backed up root folder over to the new machine and you're up and running in the time it takes to copy files over. Very painless, really. Edit to add: the above only really works for running MAME on PC, obviously. If you would like to prepare similarly for stuff like RPi, Anbernics, etc. then you should hunt down the so-called "reference ROMsets." At some point certain historical ROMsets were settled upon as de facto standard ROMsets for these emulation devices. Versions 0.78 and 0.139 are very useful for this. I think these get referred to as "MAME 2003" and "MAME 2007," respectively. I may have the names wrong but it's something like that. I got the 0.78 set and it runs totally trouble-free on both my RPi and Anbernic.
  6. I remember getting Atari 2600 Track and Field for Christmas in 1986 and it came with that blue arcade-button controller, which we were very excited about because we loved the arcade game back then. We used that controller for Decathlon as well. One thing I distinctly remember is that the fairly compact form factor and very light weight of the controller meant that it would always sort of slip and slide around during "spirited" play, and as a result it wasn't nearly as much fun to use as it seemed that it should have been. To get around this problem, eventually we ended up adopting a method where we'd use one hand to hold the controller still, and then stick the other hand inside a plastic McDonald's cup and rake it back and forth across the run buttons as fast as we could. A finger from the hand holding the controller down would hit the jump/throw button. This made it possible to fairly easily max out the speed meter and get some really good scores. I've noticed that T&F and Decathlon on the 2600 seem to really reward a true left/right "alternating" of run button presses, as opposed to random mashing of left and right independently. The cup sliding back and forth ensured it was a true L R L R L R L R L R input pattern at high speed, where as mashing the buttons independently with fingers would likely be something more like L L R L R R LRR LLR RLLR RLR RL. 😆
  7. Playing Hitogata Happa on PS3 this evening. There seems to be a pretty steep learning curve to this one and it seems comically difficult but it’s something a bit different and I’m having a good time.
  8. Yeah, from what I was able to glean, the VA1 is the “correct” version for the optical drive emulator. VA0 can supposedly be hacked with variable results, and VA2 is a no-go.
  9. Yeah, I was looking at the ODE for DC as a possible safety net but unfortunately the console I picked up is a VA0 version which, from what I understand, does not like ODEs because some of the system voltages are different from the more common VA1 revision. There seems to be a resistor hack that can make it work on VA0 but there doesn't seem to be any consistent word on whether it works reliably or not. I've been looking around for a good deal on a VA1 but no luck yet.
  10. ^^ this all day, for me as well. Yes, the sheer size of the MAME romsets and the version-to-version compatibility issues and all that nonsense can create big-and-unnecessary headaches if you insist on grappling with those things. I've never understood why anyone would subject themselves to that, though, because it's entirely avoidable. I've been running the same MAME version with its associated full romset for 10+ years on my cabinet and it plays 95% of the games I'd ever want just fine. For the remaining stuff (e.g., games like Raiden II, some of the later CAVE shoot-em-ups, some NAOMI stuff, etc.) that will not run on this old version, I just find newer versions of MAME (or other emulators) and set them up only for these outlier games. It gets me to where I want to be in mere minutes, and I'm up there playing games rather than farting around with file collections dozens of GB in size. By the way, since I'm using Launchbox/BigBox as a front end, it makes the whole thing pretty transparent because games from the same platform can be configured to launch using different emulators. For example - on my MAME cabinet in the main "arcade" game list, if I launch Dig Dug it will use the old version of MAME because it runs perfectly. If I launch, say, Ketsui it will use a newer version of MAME. It's all seamless and can be re-configured very easily at any time.
  11. That may or may not be the method I used to play Mars Matrix. I just got my first Dreamcast a few months ago and have been having a blast with it so far. Hope it doesn't die on me.
  12. A little bit of Mars Matrix on Dreamcast. This game is ruthlessly difficult but it’s probably my favorite new-to-me** shooter. ** new-to-me meaning games I never played until <1 year ago or so.
  13. Very cool - thanks for the data point. I also use MTPO as a "litmus test" for lag. Even after 35 years I can pretty reliably TKO Mike Tyson on a real NES with CRT. I've never been able to get past Super Macho Man on an emulator, so Tyson is completely out of the question there. On a Raspberry Pi I can barely last a round against Sandman. It's terrible. If I ever do get a Mister, mark my words, the first thing I'm going to do is 007 373 5963. This has been my experience as well, almost to a tee. As a recent example, playing primarily on emulators through the years, I have never had any success at beating Contra without the Konami code, but as soon as I got my real NES with Everdrive and CRT setup, I did it on my 2nd or 3rd attempt, totally out of the blue. Not very scientific as far as evidence goes, but interesting nonetheless.
  14. Yeah, I have a portable little Retropie system I built using an RPi 3. It's a neat little novelty thing that works for a casual blast now and then, but honestly, it's pretty useless to me if my goal is to actually try to work at a game or get a score. The lag is pretty atrocious on some of the MAME stuff. I don't understand why RPi is so popular for emulation... I mean, the allure used to be "a cool little emulator gadget for 20 bucks!" or whatever it was, but it's not as though they're even cheap anymore. For RPi money I was able to pick up not one but two old PC's that blow the Pi out of the water on emulation.
  15. Oh yeah, no doubt the CRT is helping. Interestingly, on that same CRT setup I have an emulation PC. So when I run emulators on that, they run very well but not as snappy as the real hardware. It's especially noticeable on the slightly more demanding stuff (roughly PS1 and onward).
  16. Here's my take: if you have to ask this question about FPGA vs. emulation then you've probably answered your own question; i.e., it's probably not worth it for you to invest in FPGA with its premium price tag. I don't mean that as a judgment - at all - as I have spent the vast majority of the last 15 years playing emulators constantly, and advocating for them as being more or less interchangeable with the real thing so long as you don't make a big fuss about the ritual of inserting physical media into a console. After all that time, though, I have to walk back that sentiment a bit. I set up some real hardware with Everdrives on a CRT and after spending a few months messing around with that setup and then going back to emulation, I finally - after all that time - saw for myself that input lag in emulation is a real thing that can impact the experience. I just never noticed it before, despite hearing about it all the time. But, most emulators that are worth anything these days are accurate enough that the lag is very small and it only even comes into play (for me, at least) on certain types of games. The big eye-opener for me was shoot-em-ups. When you have to weave through complex bullet patterns and hazards, the slightest bit of lag is like trying to run with a refrigerator on your back. But that same lag on Streets of Rage or RC Pro Am is completely unnoticeable. As for FPGA, I don't even have any direct experience with it yet, but now that I'm attuned to input lag, I'm interested. If it does indeed live up to the promise of, for all intents and purposes, perfectly mimicking the original hardware then there is value in that for me. I do wish it wasn't so damn expensive, especially in Canada... which is the only reason why I haven't pulled the trigger on a Mister yet. I can't remember where I saw it, but there was this video where a guy set up a real Genesis and a Mister side by side, with the screens exactly synced together. He let the programs run for like 24 hours straight, and after that whole time, the two screens were still in perfect sync. I thought that was pretty impressive accuracy. I have never attempted such an exercise with software emulation but I'm reasonably sure it would be a fair bit out of sync after all that time. Mike Tyson's Punch Out is probably the most input-lag-sensitive game I've ever played. Even when I was of the mindset that emulator input lag was completely negligible, I still noticed it in that specific game. I've seen testimonials from big fans of MTPO saying that it runs perfectly on Mister. That's impressive, and if true, is very compelling evidence (to me) that FPGA is (or at least can be, with the right core) the real deal.
  17. Digging deeper into the Mega Everdrive archives, playing Arrow Flash on Genesis. Never heard of it. Pretty basic horizontal shooter but I’m having fun with it somehow.
  18. Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that. I do like the game, but for all the love it gets, and how much I enjoy the genre in general, it seems I should like it more than I do. For a long time after I first got into retro games in 2010 or so, I played strictly arcade/MAME shoot em ups and mostly ignored the console stuff. Overall I'd say that the arcade is still where my heart is with this genre, but I can see now that there is a ton to explore on the consoles too, and I've been doing a lot of poking around on that front for the last 1-2 years. Primarily on Genesis, TG16/PCE, and the CD systems related to those two. A recurring gripe I have with 8- and 16-bit console shooters is that so many of them have you zipping around the screen really fast, which makes it hard to control the ship with precision, and that leads to frustration. To make matters worse, lots of the games that are affected by that are plenty fast to begin with, then start dropping "speed up" powerups every 30 seconds that I pick up by accident, which makes the ship even faster and harder to control. As a result, I find some of those games basically unplayable. I haven't maintained a list of every game where I've experienced this, it's just something that I feel like I see over and over again on the consoles but I don't remember noticing in the hundreds of arcade shoot em ups I've played through the years.
  19. Yeah, for the longest time I played it that way too. Then around 15 years ago I started really taking a liking to the arcade game and after you do that, IMO, the 2600 version is hopelessly dull unless you get the UFOs and the diagonal-flying asteroids in the mix to make it more challenging. It's not hard to just sit there and play indefinitely in the easy modes, which is just rather mindless and not very fun.
  20. A little bit of Gaiares on Genesis this fine winter evening. Cool game, not easy.
  21. Pico-8 runs great on my Anbernic RG351MP. Pico-8 in general is a really fun idea that has been home to some really high-quality retro-styled game experiences. There are tons of ports, re-makes, and de-makes of known games as well as all kinds of all-new games. Some of the ports are of very high quality, but I almost wish those efforts would be focused on new original games rather than creating yet another way to play games we can probably play on multiple other platforms. On that note, my main "complaint" with Pico-8 is that, due to its nature, it has tons of half-cooked little programs and games which makes for a lot of junk to wade through to find the cream of the crop. I'd strongly recommend following a P8 developer named Paul Hammond, as he does outstanding and highly-polished work, including the Beamrider port pictured above. He does do mostly ports but what makes his work interesting is that he often takes liberties with the source material and adds cool new features to the games. For example, in his ports of Berserk, Demon Attack, Beamrider and others, you can get weapon upgrades which provides a bit of differentiation for his port vs. others.
  22. Yeah, definitely needs the flight yoke. I have played the game on original cabinets semi-recently at some retro-arcades I've visited. I'm a huge Star Wars fan from way back (especially Ep IV which the game is based on), I absolutely loved this game as a kid (especially the cockpit version), and I really enjoy vector games in general. But even with all of that background, this game does not hold up for me today. I still dig the vector look and the nostalgic music and voices, but none of that changes the fact that the game is nothing more than a dull rail shooter, which I find to be a pretty boring genre of game on its best day.
  23. I was playing that game recently on my Anbernic handheld. I remember thinking it seemed like a dollar-store "In the Hunt." Not very fair I guess, since it came before In the Hunt by at least a few years. On the cute-'em-up topic, one I played recently and actually rather enjoyed was Mamorukun Curse! on PS3. When I saw the cartoony aesthetic I had low expectations but I ended up playing for 45 minutes or so, and will happily do so again.
  24. There would probably be a lot of these modern type games that are supposedly awesome but I would play them and say, "I'm not feeling it." I seem to have a pathological aversion to slow-burn, 100+ hour, "open world," cut-scene-heavy games that are all the rage these days. So it's more interesting for me to take stock of what games are consistent with the sorts of games I typically like, and see which "well-regarded" games don't do it for me. I'm mostly into walk-up-and-play arcade-style games from the early 80s up through the mid-90s or so. Shoot-em-ups are a favorite genre too, so if they're considered, there are games that go up into the 2010s and beyond that would be in my wheelhouse. So here are some popular ones that I don't much enjoy at all. And I realize, sometimes the problem is simply that you don't give a game enough of a chance, and you end up feeling like you don't like it simply because you're dying too quickly. The games below are ones I have actually tried to like (or even used to like when I was a kid) but I just don't find to be much fun. Galaga Moon Patrol Joust Dig Dug Mario Bros. Raiden (original, I dig many of the sequels) Gradius Simpsons Star Wars (1983, arcade) Tron Wizard of Wor Venture Gyruss Castlevania Rastan Bomberman
  25. Yeah, I've never been able to get into the "cute-em-ups." I guess Fantasy Zone is pretty fun, and Harmful Park is decent... but most of them are uninteresting to me. I mean, logically, I know it's just a different skin for the exact same type of gameplay seen in the usual "space ships" or "pseudo WW2 planes" fare that I enjoy. I guess it just demonstrates that these details are important to the overall experience. Music and SFX too... for me at least, these things can make or break a shooter.
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