Justin222

Here's what byuu, the author of the cycle-accurate SNES emulator BSNES said about lag and emulation: Byuu's statement suggests that USB is indeed a problem. I have heard people say increasing the polling rate helps. I don't even know of any serial gamepads. The post you linked to is marred by the use of an LCD display. I did see at the end that you attempted to bypass display lag, though. A TCL LCD TV measured 147ms by CNET all by itself. My BenQ LCD panel was measured as having a much lower lag by tftcentral: Total Display Lag (SMTT 2) -- 8.3ms. Pixel Response Time Element -- 5.45ms. Estimated Signal Processing Lag -- 2.85ms

Pinball is always fun, especially if there are modes that enable players to have things like a bumper in the middle of the center exit hole. When I was six I rolled over the score on a pinball machine at a bar so I was pretty good at it. However, some machines are no fun at all -- being so biased against the player with things like huge exit holes. The bar eventually replaced that machine with one of the cheesy quarter-killers.

Only if you want to use speed hacked emulators, high level emulation, etc. If you want cycle accuracy you need more power unless you're going to stick with an 8-bit system like the NES. If you want accurate Jaguar, Dreamcast, or PS2 emulation you're talking about a lot of computing power indeed. Also, emulation at the transistor level is so demanding that high-end consumer PCs can't even run Pong at a smooth framerate. The best choice at this point of time for emulation seems to be an overclocked anniversary Pentium.

link There is a TCL TV that was measured by CNET as having an input lag of 147ms all on its own. But, even the best case scenario byuu provides is 60ms and who is using serial gamepads, DOS, and a CRT? I did a Google search and couldn't even find serial gamepads.

$600 with two controllers.

Yeah, I mentioned that one on the previous page. There would have to be a workaround for not having a keyboard, but I think that's possible, especially since the Coleco has a keypad. I think a remake should have autogenerating levels because that was something that was supposed to be in the game and was stripped out merely to shrink the ROM from 16k to 8k. There is a webpage that has great detail about the game's inner workings and I think the source code is even available. Both of these things should greatly expedite a port. Restoring the automatically generating levels would make the port more relevant, too, by restoring the developer's original vision.

Frenzy, Q*Bert, and Venture are games I wouldn't choose to skip under any circumstances.

So, from the review it looks like: 1) Definitely no flash cart support 2) Poor quality control for the controllers 3) Florid color 4) Less detail in the graphics (look at the texture in the white walls in Ninja Turtles and the top leaves in Contra) 5) Very low price 6) Supports more cartridges than competing units I really had no idea it was so difficult to make a decent gamepad. It seems like every single cloned gamepad is poor-quality, except perhaps old ones from the 80s.

The Youtube video showing this game is weird, by the way. When the ship is hit it doesn't blow up. When I played the game recently with Mame it definitely does.

I've read that Forth was used often for 2600 games.

Crystal Castles (with trackball support) Venture II (more levels, new enemies and treasures) Frenzy II (more music, more special levels, power-ups like an automatic energy shield, kid's mode with slower bullets) Dungeons of Daggorath (source code is available as is a detailed analysis of how the game's code works.. game was intended to have random level generation but had to be cut down to 8k to cut costs) Smurf Rescue II (more scenes with new music, more enemies). Instead of just Gargamel's Castle it could also have Hogatha's Hideout. Hogatha was his mother. It would be a good idea to work in a pound cake somehow, because there was a joke in the show about how her pound cake was more like a ton cake. Carnival II (more things to shoot, at least one new bonus level that doesn't use bears, a duck bomb powerup that clears all the ducks on the screen) Sky Love (with a mode that gives a less fat ship, a kid's mode with a slim ship and slower bullets, and the optional ability to scroll off the side of screen to the other side) Night Stalker Gravitar Crystal Quest (black and white Mac game, would need trackball) Dodge It (Fairchild VES) — including the bug that rarely causes two blocks to fuse and go haywire Sonar Search (Fairchild VES) Taz Wizard of Wor Donkey Kong that has the pie level Battlezone

Mr. Do!, Frenzy, Q*Bert, Gorf, Venture, Carnival, Popeye, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Smurf Rescue, Q*Bert's Qubes, Pitfall, Time Pilot, Zaxxon, Lady Bug, Mouse Trap, BurgerTime, Galaxian, Frogger, Mr. Do's Castle, Pitfall II, Time Pilot, Antarctic Adventure, Cosmic Avenger, River Raid, Jumpman Jr., Pepper II, Defender, Dragonfire, Jungle Hunt, Miner 2049er, Tutankham, War Games, Mario Bros. (HB), Galaga (HB)

Thanks for the info. I will be sending the Paypal money shortly. I have two Fairchilds. One is an original and the other is a model II. I really prefer gaming on the original due to the nostalgia factor (I got a Fairchild from my uncle in '80) and also because I think it looks a lot better. But, there is a loose connection somewhere because I can only get it to turn on intermittently after disassembling it. It worked fine when I got it from Ebay years back but I didn't know then that you have to let it warm up for a few days before using it. I was playing Alien Invasion and it died -- "popped a chip". I was hoping that it would be a matter of just snapping a chip back in but, of course, that wasn't the case. Pressing on all of them caused some of them to click due to looseness. While the clicking was reduced after I rubbed them and pressed them, the system died several times just from being moved a little bit. It's nice that it does power on and does work, but until the loose connection is identified and repaired it's not usable.

Did you sell the last one on Ebay just now? I missed the auction but I am interested in getting one of these.

USB has a lot of input lag. I've read that USB 3 can be tweaked to have much less than USB 2.

Input lag stinks. Emulation is only adequate for things like RPGs and simulators — games that don't require split-second reflexes.

People talk about cycle accuracy and transistor accuracy but all the accuracy in the world won't solve the problem of input lag. Input lag ruins action gaming. Throw a 500 GHz processor at an Atari 400 game and have it emulate at the transistor level and you still have up to 150 ms of lag from the TV, the USB controller, and the emulator's buffering. Emulator accuracy alone isn't enough. Input lag remains a critical problem. There has been so much talk and debate about emulator accuracy and lag continues to be nearly ignored. Byuu, for instance, who is famous for his bsnes emulator and advocacy for accurate emulation, said his emulator will have around 150 ms of lag because of USB controller polling, digital TV lag, and the emulator's buffering. It seems to me that the only way to play action games is with some sort of real hardware on a minimal lag TV. I was planning to build a machine to run games in emulation but now I've decided to go the multicart route instead. It's bad enough to be old enough to have lost some of my quick reflexes without huge amounts of variable input lag making gaming infuritating.