Quetzalcoatl

Alright I finally got around to trying this all out again. Turns out there's a Games List options menu within the Main Menu which lets you turn on and off games from displaying in the Games List. For whatever reason a whole ton of games were disabled by default from this menu. I turned them all back on and they're all displaying correctly now in the list. The issue with Tomcat was also fixed with a different ROM, and by putting it into its own folder. Looks like I'm only missing the VecCaves ROM at this point, but it would appear that one isn't widely available to download. I believe you need to actually own a copy of the game and dump the ROM yourself in order to play it on VecFever. Thanks again to everyone for your helpful input.

Thank you for the very informative replies CrossBow and vectrexroli. I've made some progress based on your input but I'm not 100 percent done yet. I successfully updated the firmware version to 2.53. I added Pooyan, Donkey Kong, Bomb Jack, and Major Havoc PE roms in their own separate file folders under data. Now I have Pooyan and Bomb Jack working. However, my games list stops at Tomcat and so I can't see V Kong or War of the Worlds, etc. I haven't added the Tomcat rom yet so maybe that's causing some issues there. I'm not sure what to do with md5 info text file, or is this just for informational purposes to let you know which roms it's expecting? I'll mess around with it some more tonight. This was a bit more convoluted than I expected. Edit: I added the Tomcat ROM as well as Protector and verified I have all the ROMs at the end of the alphabet such as Warrior, WOTW, etc, and they're all there. For some reason the Tomcat ROM didn't work and still nothing is displaying beneath Tomcat (I will try putting all the files in their own folder rather than a zip). Perhaps it's a RAM issue and I do need to remove all the Music, etc. But it's definitely not a ROM issue as this is the MicroSD VecFever and I have a big MicroSD card for this. I'll keep tinkering with it later tonight.

Does anyone have the MicroSD card version of Vecfever and know how to properly update the firmware? I'm having trouble getting the updated firmware to work for Vecfever 2.53. I replaced the System folder with the one from the zip folder. Then took the files fw_update_v2_53.v4e and md5_info and put them into the root folder of the sdcard. When I try to run any games, Major Havor PE says "wrong Vectrex cart" and all other games say "firmware too old". Also I don't even see Pooyan in the list. What am I doing wrong here? Do I need to go into the file browser and manually install the new firmware update or something? This seems like a stupid question as it appears this should just be a drag n drop type of deal. I emailed Thomas but figured I'd see if anyone here knows what to do. There doesn't appear to be any folder to put the firmware file. I don't see any other file with a similar filename. I've attached a screenshot for clarity.

Dang, now we can't see mocked up screenshots of vaporware titles that will literally never be released. Please pardon the harshness of my comment here. There are many people here that know he deserves every bit of hate that he gets. He held peoples' preorder money for Warrior for literally years. After about 3 years of waiting I had enough and helped him get a quote for the overlays from a print shop I knew (since it was the overlays he wasn't happy with and why he refused to release the games). By the end of it he was accusing me of making up ever actually even talking to a print shop and getting a quote. That's how crazy and paranoid he is, he literally accused me of making up the whole thing just to get him off his ass and get the game out. The last part is true, which I did do him a big favor by motivating him to finally release it. But I certainly actually talked to a print shop and got him a quote for overlays. And what did he do to thank me at the end of it all? He forcefully refunded my preorder money as a big f*&$ you for helping him out, since I dared to bring up how much frustration he caused people over the Warrior fiasco.

Someone actually just released a playthrough video of A Crush of Lucifer. I'm avoiding watching it to avoid spoilers before I receive my copy. This should be of help to you if you're having trouble clearing a level. I'm really excited about this release.

If you have the Raspberry Pi Zero WH, Pitrex cartridge, and a MicroSD card, it's as simple as plugging the Pi Zero into the cartridge, formatting the MicroSD card to FAT32 (takes 5 seconds with a utility), and copy and paste the Pitrex folders onto the MicroSD card. It really doesn't take long at all. Although there were some reports of issues with the most recent Baremetal release of Pitrex.

FYI here's the text from the Youtube description...it says it will be released in Spring 2022, so must be in the next month or 2! This will be a Sean Kelly release and available on his website I believe, based on the flyer that was posted above. "Missing for nearly 4 decades, A Crush of Lucifer is a first-person flight shooter game for the Vectrex video game system designed by General Consumer Electronics (GCE) during the console's original run in 1982. Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the Vectrex, now enthusiasts of the console will be able to enjoy this lost game for the very first time! A full release of A Crush of Lucifer will be available for the Vectrex in Spring 2022."

Toaplan stuff as in the original boards? Are you the guy who has been providing the Toaplan footage on actual hardware for Shmup Junkie on Youtube?

The transformer on the Vectrex never fully powers off when the unit is plugged in. I was told by the more knowledgeable Vectrex owners that it's best to unplug a Vectrex whenever it's not in use. This will increase its lifespan. Adding a switchable extension cord or power strip is another option for this. As for not using the actual power / volume knob though, I've never heard this before. Someone was saying that using the power/volume knob actually helps keep it working properly. It's one of those parts that if unused, is more likely to deteriorate due to lack of use (supposedly). What's there to say about the Vectrex? Prices have gotten pretty insane in the past several years. Controllers are over $100 in decent working condition, and systems are $300-400. In 2011 I sold a perfectly working Vectrex with controller for $100, and that's what they were going for at the time. Controllers are a major problem with the Vectrex because they have centering springs that wear out over time, and it's not easy to disassemble the controllers. You have to remove the top label of the controller to get to the screws in order to get inside the controller. Which means you need to buy a replacement overlay if you want to do this. The alternative is using Sean Kelly's printable controller screw position overlay and using an exacto knife to cut out the overlay over the screws. This is what I plan on doing if I ever replace the springs on my controllers, which have fairly bad drift and don't recenter perfectly. The other thing about controllers is that there are homebrew controllers that people in the community sell. Unfortunately though I still have not found one that is a suitable replacement for the original Vectrex controllers. The one I got a year or 2 ago is nicely built but the joystick used on it feels way too stiff and makes my gameplay worse, not better. I've got a couple nice 6 button Sega Genesis arcade sticks that I'm considering converting to work on the Vectrex. As others mentioned, you should get a multicart or flashcart. The Sean Kelly Multicart 3.0 is very worthwhile, I'm not sure that the Jason Kopp multicart ever released (no offense to Arcade Jason but he seems to be one of those tinkerers who doesn't usually end up releasing a finished product...still waiting on his repro Vectrex board among other things). What I have is the Vextreme and VecFever, both of which are difficult to come by. Vextreme gets sold in small batches once in a blue moon, and VecFever seems to always have a long waitlist to buy. But if you can get one from Thomas, the VecFever is the killer app of the Vectrex. The main feature that everyone wants it for is that it can play all classic vector arcade games at a full speed, with extremely high emulation accuracy. There is also the Pitrex which is much more readily available, although their arcade emulation is more of a work in progress. https://www.vecfever.com/ The homebrew community for Vectrex is one of the best around. When someone releases a new homebrew game with a box and overlay in limited quantities, it's an easy choice to always buy a copy if you can. Many of these games end up reselling for stupidly high prices on Ebay after the initial run sells out. In my opinion it's bad form to buy these games with the intent of reselling them later in order to profit on them. It's a very touchy subject within the homebrew community. The VecFever especially sells for ludicrous prices on Ebay, and I happen to know that this bothers the creator quite a bit.

Vextreme is simply a multicart. PiTrex does have some MAME games playable on it however. You need to order the actual Pitrex cartridge from Australia, then also get the correct version of Raspberry Pi (Raspberry Pi Zero WH), which has the header pins presoldered on that allow it to be plugged into the Pitrex. And you also need a MicroSD card as well. All told it ends up about $90-100 with all 3 of those items combined.

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that you can legally play backups (ROMs) so long as you own the real game. You don't necessarily have to dump it yourself is my understanding. Also the original Vectrex games are all allowed to be played freely thanks to Jay Smith. Not that I want to discourage you from doing it yourself, it actually seems pretty cool to try that.

Any chance of uploading that BIN file so we can try out the prototype ourselves on a flash cart? Or is that being tightly guarded until the full release of the improved game? It would seem it has already been decided to hold off on releasing a ROM, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Thomas releases an occasional firmware upgrade and new games are released regularly. But as the other guy said, it's literally only one screw you gotta remove to get access to the Vecfever board.

A standard Vectrex cartridge shell worked for the Vecfever microSD, so that 3d printer file should work. It doesn't need a hole in the back for a USB cord like the Vextreme did. You can order cartridge shells from Sean Kelly very affordably as well: http://vectrexmulti.com/order2.html#!/Vectrex-Empty-Cartridge-Shells/c/38886086

Try replacing the transistors to try fixing the issues with the vectors warping and bouncing you mean? What was the chip you were talking about reseating on the thread on the Vector Forums? "Probably wouldn't hurt to pull that 6522 VIA chip, clean the legs & socket, then reseat it (only if it's socketed to begin with)". I mostly just have problems with a couple games, otherwise my Vectrex runs pretty well. I guess since I did all the caps and diodes it got me sort of obsessed with getting it running perfectly now. The buzz definitely seemed to have gotten worse which is why I decided to knock that issue out too, I just ended up buying the kit on ebay so we'll see how it goes. Since you seem to know about this stuff, what do you think about the idea of removing the Vectrex soundchip and upgrading it to a POKEY or something? The goal would be to be able to play arcade quality sound on the Vectrex so that the arcade emulated games on Vecfever and Pitrex would sound right. That's really the only limitation with arcade emulation on Vecfever at the moment, and it's a hardware issue that can't really be overcome without replacing the sound chip.

He had no problem shipping to the USA in my case. Hopefully he's willing to sell some more of the MicroSD card versions. The memory on the regular VecFever definitely did seem quite restrictive. On the MicroSD card version I've got every ROM version there is of every arcade ROM, with many GB of space left of course.

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but email Thomas and tell him you're interested in Vecfever. I was finally able to get one. He has the MicroSD version for about $150 shipped, and the normal USB version for about $250. The MicroSD version is a full VecFever cart except no USB port and you gotta provide your own shell. That's what I ended up getting in order to save a bit of money. The original VecFever has onboard rewritable memory chips that need to be flashed by connecting to USB, whereas the MicroSD version just uses a MicroSD card. Otherwise they're exactly the same thing. http://www.vecfever.com/cookie-policy-eu/

There was a guy on the Facebook group Vectrex Fans Unite whose dad had worked for GCE / Milton Bradley back in the Vectrex years, and he found a bunch of his dad's old Vectrex prototypes in their attic or something. And it just so happened he had this previously unknown unreleased Vectrex prototype Devil's Crush. Just a couple people have played it. But based on what they said, and based on the video, you can tell there are gameplay and collision detection problems, etc. It needs lots of work before it will be a real game.

Sean Kelly's website is www.vectrexmulti.com

Overclocking a Vectrex? What would you need to do that for? Are there games with performance issues that this would benefit? Seems like a VecFever or Pitrex is a better alternative than upgrading the actual hardware. However, one thing I would like to upgrade is the soundchip. I discussed this with Thomas regarding the VecFever, because the only thing the VecFever can't accomplish is arcade quality sound due to the soundchip limitations of the Vectrex. I wonder what readily available chip we could use to achieve that?

Thanks for the reply and my apologies for the slow response. I ended up doing a full cap kit, the integrator board / styrene cap kit, and the power diodes. This only gave slight improvement, which was Every Day is Halloween no longer causes screen tearing and crazy scaling. I still have really bad buzzing and some high pitched sounds. Also arcade Armor Attack on VecFever as well as the Joust clone Knightex both still cause some blooming / scaling of the screen. For Knightex is happens when a character wraps around from one screen to the next, the screen briefly scales down by an inch or so, then goes back to normal. I looked at some gameplay footage on Youtube and this doesn't happen for everything. Anyway I ended up buying the Buzz Off kit on Ebay in order to hopefully fix the whining and buzzing sounds which have gotten increasingly worse lately. The blooming/scaling issue I'm getting on a couple games seems to be vector monitor performance related, and only applies to those 2 games. Is there anything else I can do to help with this, or is it just that I have the old model of Vectrex and it's failing to keep up with games with tons of large vectors?

That's awesome, thanks for the update. I've been really wondering if and when this would be released, because it needs significant retooling to be a fun game. The reason it wasn't completed was because it wasn't really working on the fun factor and playability it would seem. Definitely is super visually appealing though and hopefully Sean can make it as fun as it is cool looking. If it were a fully completed game then obviously it would be released already. This is very exciting, probably the final lost Vectrex prototype we'll ever get to uncover.

I didn't mean to denigrate the work you and Malban have done on Pitrex. I'm very appreciative of all the time and effort you two have put into all your projects. I also do not regret my purchase of the Pitrex at all, I'm very glad to have it and to be able to finally try some arcade emulation on Vectrex. As for needing more programmers, I can't help in that regard unfortunately, I can help with testing although I'm sure you guys have enough people already telling you what isn't working properly, etc. One weird bug I've encountered is that sometimes the menu system seems to stop allowing me to move the cursor above a certain game in the AAE menu and other menus (sometimes can't move left or right past certain games in the standalone binaries lists, etc). Like all of a sudden I can't move up above Star Wars in the list, for example. Also I'm not sure what a soft reset is supposed to do (Using the Vectrex reset button), but all it does for me is get a black screen. So I have to power off and on the system to reset the Pitrex. Otherwise I really like the interface you guys have for the Pitrex, it's very easy to navigate. If you ever need a new version tested of anything with the Pitrex, feel free to message me or post on here. QA is my background so I'm quite good at it, just never got into programming or scripting.

I ended up getting one of these and have it setup now. The standalone binary versions are the ones to play for the games they have them for like Battlezone, Asteroids, Tailgunner, Black Widow,etc. Otherwise all the other games like Star Wars are in the AAE emulator. The only game that works pretty well and has some sound is the Battlezone standalone binary, otherwise none of the games have any sound. I didn't realize how far ahead of this the VecFever emulation was on everything, seems all those games have sound and run way better. Why the VecFever guy forced Malban and Graham to reinvent the wheel instead of just producing enough copies of VecFever, will forever be a mystery to me. I had figured that he may have shared code with them and that PiTrex and VecFever would be at a similar level of emulating arcade games. I didn't realize just how far ahead of Pitrex the Vecfever emulation really is. It's still nice to finally be able to play some vector arcade games on my Vectrex. Just would be nice if Thomas would let others play in his club too someday.

Hello everyone, I was wondering what all parts I should replace or adjustments I should make to try and fix the following Vectrex problem. I get a high pitched whining sound from the top of the monitor, and the screen starts warping, with the vectors on screen scaling up and down, etc. I notice on Pole Position that the vectors bounce around quite a bit, I was told this was indicative of a particular problem but I can't remember what they had said. Based on what's on console5.com I was thinking of doing the cap kit, integrator circuit cap kit, and power supply diodes. A year or so ago I re centered the monitor and also reset the DAC, although it seems to have gotten slightly off to the left again. Also, the Vectrex monitor is seeming to take an extra 5 or so seconds to start up, I don't see a picture or hear it buzzing until much longer than it used to take to start up. Any help is appreciated as I don't know what to try other than the cap kit, not sure what's causing this. Based on what I was reading on the integrator circuit on console5 the styrene caps can degrade over time and decrease the accuracy of the vectors being drawn.