LocalH

The SID has three voices, but it's also possible to play 4-bit digi samples as well through a tweaking of the volume register.

There was a bug in the VIA, such that they had to do it all in software, and stayed with that until the C128. That's why the C64 was even slower and they had to release the 1541 - without changing the ROM, a 1540 is incompatible with a C64 unless you turn the screen off due to the VIC-II eating 40 cycles every 8 lines (badlines). That's also why there is a command in the 1541 that will switch it to 1540 mode, which is a bit faster on a VIC-20 (or screen-disabled C64).

My opinion is that, the act of programming, when done masterfully and elegantly, is every bit the art form that composing music, writing literature, painting, or any countless other forms of art. Even if the game, as played, isn't itself art, if the game is coded well, then that piece of code is a work of art in my opinion.

Plus, as has been said, both tape and floppy could be sped up with software. I don't know about cassette speeders, but there were many cart-based floppyspeeders, which usually included some or all of the following: ML monitor, screen dump, sprites dump, memory snapshot, DOS wedge (instead of LOAD"*",8,1 you only had to type %*), and more. I'm partial to the Super Snapshot series of carts, other popular ones are Datel's Action Replay, Epyx's Fast Load Cartridge, KCS's Power Cartridge, and The Final Cartridge III (I don't know who manufactured this one).

If your video card supports it, you might try using 720x480 instead of 640x480 - I know that at least on my laptop's nVidia tv-out, 720x480 is the actual output resolution, and all other resolutions are resampled to fit - I can notice some slight distortion when using 640x480. I've done this, and most games look excellent when displayed on a TV.

Another thing to remember is that the Amiga used planar graphics, thus the rendering engine also had to basically convert from chunky to planar each time the screen was updated, eating CPU cycles (the CD32 included a chip called "Akiko" that did this conversion in hardware, meaning that CD32 versions of FPS games would run a little better than on a stock A1200). The Genesis uses a chunky format broken up into tiles (1 pixel per nybble, 4 bytes per tile row, 32 bytes per tile), so it ought to be possible to layout your tiles in such a way as to simplify conversion between X/Y pixel coordinates and location in VRAM (perhaps one could start by using a map of 16x16 tiles, starting in the upper left hand corner and placing successive tiles vertically). Of course, you'd want to render in RAM and then DMA to VRAM, otherwise there's no way in hell you'd be able to update all the necessary tiles. You'd also probably want to use 32 cell mode instead of 40 cell mode - that way, a 16x16 tile map would at least take up half of the screen width, and more than half of the height (which is 28 tiles in the usual 224-line mode). You're also limited to 16 colors unless you use both layer A and B, and then you'd have to double your RAM buffer and probably skip every other frame to ensure that you have enough time to DMA both layers to VRAM. Basically, I think that the SegaCD could easily handle a Doom-style FPS, even if it's not Doom itself, and even if it has graphical restrictions. I mean, the Genny alone did have a port of Duke Nukem 3D, and while it wasn't that good, the SCD should be able to make a better FPS.

I dislike most PC gaming due to the need to install to hard drive, thus making it hard to keep several games "ready to play". I do enjoy the game "Flatout", however. The driving physics are decent, and I enjoy the ragdol physics when you wreck (I've gotten my driver to fly almost all the way to the other side of the map before). I don't like how the game keeps you in bounds of the map - it uses a 'wall' that is designed to look like more forest (but doesn't quite, since it's completely flat), so you effectively drive into an invisible wall if you go too far off the track. All in all, it's a neat little game though, and it's mostly more fun to load it up, toss the guy out of the car for 5 or 10 minutes, then dump out and do something else. If PC games would run off the game media like console games do, but without the need to reboot to play them, then I'd be more interested in them. Sure, I know some games let you do a 'minimal' install, but still I'd rather have no install at all - put in the game and either let Autorun take over, or manually run "game.exe" on the CD/DVD's root. As it stands, I don't play lots of PC games simply because they take up too much hard drive space.

I mostly play only classic games, although there are a few newer titles that I enjoy. Right now, I've got "Wiz 'n' Liz: The Frantic Wabbit Wescue" loaded on my Genesis right now, and it's one damn awesome game. Fast-paced, easy to start out with but hard to master. The variety of effects that you can get from mixing fruits is nice, and it's got a damn good two-player mode.

I think that SGB Donkey Kong is awesome, in it's own right. I don't compare it to the arcade game, however, even with stage 0. In fact, I find it more fun than vanilla Donkey Kong. Hence, of games merely titled "Donkey Kong" with no qualification, the SGB one is the best. But, using the arcade ori as the "gold standard", the SGB one falls short due to the modified gameplay.

Check my sig for a few good sites. There's also Sonic CulT but they're down right now due to extended DoS attacks.

50? There are way more than 50 different stages.

The Atarisoft C64 version is actualy quite close to pixel-perfect - it's just that the pixels are much wider. If you take a screenshot and make it 160x200, it looks much better. Also, gotta give props to the unlicensed CoCo2 version by Tom Mix - Donkey King. It wasn't that close, but on such an underpowered machine, it was a piece of art. It was quite hard, though, but there was a "practice" mode that gave you a large number of lives. I still could only get up to L03 or so even in practice mode. It's got all four stages, too, which is always a positive point in home conversions.

None of the above. My current "best" game is a hack. Knuckles in Sonic 1 Yes, that's real hardware.

As with many systems, the asterisk is a wildcard. In the special case of "*" by itsef, it refers to the first file on the disk. So yes, %* will suffice. Although you'll have to use the other method posted by supercat if the game doesn't boot correctly with the cart installed (and some games will break due to using their own loading routines, or using the part of memory where the cart is located).

The FL cart has a "DOS wedge" built in, which means you can try using it for loading. If the program would be loaded with LOAD"filename",8 then use the command /filename. If the program would be loaded with LOAD"filename,8,1 then use %filename. So, for example, the most common C64 LOAD command is LOAD"*",8,1, which would be %* with the wedge. Fast Load Manual - Project 64 e-text

To make this thread more useful, here is a complete list of Sonic 2 MD cheats, including Knuckles in Sonic 2. Sonic 2 Act Select: play tunes 19, 65, 09, 17 on options screen, hear ring sfx, A+Start to dump to title screen, A+Start In-game functions enable: play tunes 01, 09, 09, 02, 01, 02, 02, 04 on act select, hear ring sfx, A+Start on the desired act "All emeralds" enable: play tunes 04, 01, 02, 06 on act select, hear emerald sfxA+Start on the desired act In-game functions + "All emeralds" enable: play tunes 01, 09, 09, 02, 01, 02, 02, 04, 01, 02, 06 on act select, hear ring sfx after 04 and emerald sfx after 06, A+Start on the desired act (Explanation: The game considers the last tune of the in-game functions code to be the first one for the "all emeralds" code) In-game functions: B - toggle object placement mode During object placement mode: A - go forward through object placement list hold A, tap C - go backwards through object placement list C - place selected object During pause: A - dump out to title screen B - continuous frame advance while held C - single frame advance regardless of whether you hold it or not Knuckles in Sonic 2 Act Select: Press UUUDDDLRLR, hear ring sfx, A+Start In-game functions enable: Play tunes 01, 09, 09, 04, 01, 00, 01, 08, hear ring sfx, A+Start on desired act "All emeralds" enable: Play tunes 01, 06, 07, 07, 07, 02, 01, 06, hear emerald sfx, A+Start on desired act (Note: this code was found by me about two years ago, it's still not that widespread) In-game functions + "All emeralds" enable: Play tunes 01, 09, 09, 04, 01, 00, 01, 08, 01, 06, 07, 07, 07, 02, 01, 06, hear ring sfx after 08 and emerald sfx after 06, A+Start on desired act In-game functions are identical to standalone Sonic 2.

I believe VIC-20 keyboards are also compatible, and even have a "proper" color scheme and same key layout as the C64.

Know that the PC version of Sonic CD sucks ass, because it's a pain to get it working on an XP system. You might be better off finding a copy of the Mega CD version and running it under Gens or Kega Fusion (or on a real MD+MCD).

Give me two Chun-Lis and I can knock your Ryu and Wolvie all the way over into MvC =P

Wow, that's a hell of a bump anyways.

No, that's not correct at all. Emulators are generally 100% legal, unless they include copyrighted ROMs without permission. Nintendo's lies notwithstanding, if you own a game, then you are fully entitled to play that game on any piece of hardware you own, whether original or emulated. Technically, to be legal, you have to dump your ROMs yourself, but as it's virtually impossible to determine whether or not a particular copy of a ROM image was legally acquired or not, you can most likely download ROM images to games that you own in cart form, and not get in trouble (although to be within the letter of the law, you must dump your own carts). Also, since you only lawfully own one copy of the game, then you can't use the original and the ROM image at the same time, if you want to stay 100% legal. Technically, it is 100% illegal to have ROM images for carts you don't own. And, based on copyright law, it is 100% legal to have ROM images for carts you do own. Of course, none of this matters if you have permission to have the ROM image in question (such as is the case with freely distributable ROMs). But even without explicit permission, if you buy a legal copy of the game (and I also include emulated compilations in this, since you're still buying the original program code), then you have the right to pretty much do whatever you want with it in the privacy of your own home.

No screenshot taken from an actual console will ever be pixel-perfect like that of an emulator. "Better quality", perhaps if you're referring to it being the actual hardware, but emulator output will always look cleaner and sharper, even with a console that can do RGB. Since the best that the 2600 can do is S-Video, you will always have a small bit of chroma bleeding. Luckily, you won't have any chroma crawl or rainbow artifacts due to cross-bleed between the chroma and luma. It's done by simply taking a good quality video capture card that can handle composite or S-Video input, and capturing screenshots from that. However, since the 2600 is noninterlaced in virtually all instances (yes, I know, the 2600 can do interlace), then the capture card will weave each pair of two 2600 frames together, possibly causing "mice teeth" on moving objects. This is fixable by using something like Photoshop's Deinterlace filter set to duplication and not interpolation.

Yeah, I'm not going to spread my DVR recordings, since it's not a Tivo but a cable DVR, and the bitrate is only 4.85Mbit/s MPEG-2 with 128kbps MPEG-1 Layer II audio (yuck).

Those are the same two guys I saw on the C64DTV's appearance =P

Oh yeah, you know you're a geek when you added QVC to your DVR's record list so as to ensure that you get to see a retro game machine getting airtime =P