Retro Freak firmware update

[+remowilliams]

I am going to try what remowilliams suggested.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247050-retro-freak-firmware-update/?p=3443046

Worked well so far with the carts I tested. You do have to remove the adapter with the cart though, you can't just leave it in there.

[goldenegg]

I tested with Krikzz's NES to FC adapter and it worked without issue.

 

Quick question for others who own the Retro Freak, as I'm not near the system to test at the moment. Can you use the base console, without the cart adapter? I'm thinking for portability needs, it would be nice to just throw that piece in a bag with the power supply and a controller.

[Bill Loguidice]

I tested with Krikzz's NES to FC adapter and it worked without issue.

 

Quick question for others who own the Retro Freak, as I'm not near the system to test at the moment. Can you use the base console, without the cart adapter? I'm thinking for portability needs, it would be nice to just throw that piece in a bag with the power supply and a controller.

 

Yes. You never have to use the cartridge adapter.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I am going to try what remowilliams suggested.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247050-retro-freak-firmware-update/?p=3443046

Pin converters work great, for NES and Master System games.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Worked well so far with the carts I tested. You do have to remove the adapter with the cart though, you can't just leave it in there.

Actually not true. You can physically remove the game from the adapter, leaving the adapter in place, and as long as you do not remove the pin adapter, the console still thinks the game is inserted.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I tested with Krikzz's NES to FC adapter and it worked without issue.

 

Quick question for others who own the Retro Freak, as I'm not near the system to test at the moment. Can you use the base console, without the cart adapter? I'm thinking for portability needs, it would be nice to just throw that piece in a bag with the power supply and a controller.

The cartridge adapter is only there to dump the ROMs.

[+remowilliams]

Actually not true. You can physically remove the game from the adapter, leaving the adapter in place, and as long as you do not remove the pin adapter, the console still thinks the game is inserted.

 

Well yes I suppose - if you plan on plugging in one game, then removing it and leaving the adapter in, and never plugging another game in

[goldenegg]

I just spent the past couple hours with the system and am really enjoying it. It does have a little lag, compared to playing original consoles through a X-RGB Mini, but it's very minor and you actually adjust to it after a few minutes of playing a game. It's a massive improvement over the Retron 5, which I've found makes certain games completely unplayable. There wasn't a single game I threw at the Retro Freak that I didn't feel comfortable playing.

 

I ended up playing carts for NES, SNES, Genesis, PCE, TG-16, GBC and GBA. Everything I threw at it worked perfectly. I even quite enjoy the controller it comes with. It's not perfect and the d-pad is a little 'clicky' for my taste, but it's what I used to play all the games and it wasn't until I turned the system off that I even thought about using an original controller using the included adapter.

 

I'd actually be very happy to recommend this system to anyone interested in it. It might be a little on the expensive side, but I feel that it's a pretty good value for its performance and its ability to dump your cart collection to a microSD card. I have a feeling this system will be getting a decent amount of use going forward.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I just spent the past couple hours with the system and am really enjoying it. It does have a little lag, compared to playing original consoles through a X-RGB Mini, but it's very minor and you actually adjust to it after a few minutes of playing a game. It's a massive improvement over the Retron 5, which I've found makes certain games completely unplayable. There wasn't a single game I threw at the Retro Freak that I didn't feel comfortable playing.

 

I ended up playing carts for NES, SNES, Genesis, PCE, TG-16, GBC and GBA. Everything I threw at it worked perfectly. I even quite enjoy the controller it comes with. It's not perfect and the d-pad is a little 'clicky' for my taste, but it's what I used to play all the games and it wasn't until I turned the system off that I even thought about using an original controller using the included adapter.

 

I'd actually be very happy to recommend this system to anyone interested in it. It might be a little on the expensive side, but I feel that it's a pretty good value for its performance and its ability to dump your cart collection to a microSD card. I have a feeling this system will be getting a decent amount of use going forward.

I just wish I could get the controller adapters somewhere. The Retro Freak Premium was $245 when I first bought the standard, but they've since dropped the Premium price tag down to $200. I would have been willing to pay $200 to get the controller adapter with it, but no such luck finding one.

[goldenegg]

Ya, the individual adapters seem to only be available for a premium on eBay. I got my Premium system from a seller on eBay for $220US, which included EMS shipping. That was about $10 cheaper than Play-Asia wanted to charge with their basic shipping and $30 cheaper for what they wanted for EMS.

[Guest LiqMat]

I just spent the past couple hours with the system and am really enjoying it. It does have a little lag, compared to playing original consoles through a X-RGB Mini, but it's very minor and you actually adjust to it after a few minutes of playing a game. It's a massive improvement over the Retron 5, which I've found makes certain games completely unplayable. There wasn't a single game I threw at the Retro Freak that I didn't feel comfortable playing.

 

I ended up playing carts for NES, SNES, Genesis, PCE, TG-16, GBC and GBA. Everything I threw at it worked perfectly. I even quite enjoy the controller it comes with. It's not perfect and the d-pad is a little 'clicky' for my taste, but it's what I used to play all the games and it wasn't until I turned the system off that I even thought about using an original controller using the included adapter.

 

I'd actually be very happy to recommend this system to anyone interested in it. It might be a little on the expensive side, but I feel that it's a pretty good value for its performance and its ability to dump your cart collection to a microSD card. I have a feeling this system will be getting a decent amount of use going forward.

 

and the fact it will read roms from the interwebs off of your SD as well. bonus!

[TheClassyGamer]

I got to spend about two hours messing around with the system.

 

So far here is my take away.

 

I don't care for the controller. I didn't enjoy the D-pad and something about the placement of the four buttons seemed off. That last bit there may just be me more so than the controller.

I think this weekend I'll get a chance to start testing out some of the other controllers I have about and see how those go.

 

As far as lag goes, I've yet to notice any on the games I've played. Though so far I've only played NES games. Oddly enough there seemed to be some kind of bug going on and I don't know what caused it. But I loaded up a game and the music was game play was faster than it should have been. It was only that game. If I went to other games things seemed to be correct. It didn't happen every time, but it did happen several times. I've no idea what is or was causing that. Anyhow, I feel there is less lag here than when I was using the the Retron 5 or a NES with XRGB-Mini. Also, I'll throw out that overall the image quality on the same TV is not as good as with using a RGB modded console and XRGB mini, but its so close that I can't imagine anyone would care and this way is a whole lot cheaper.

 

About the image, it took a bit to find a setting that makes the games look like I should like. At first all the games seemed like maybe they were squished from the sides. Found the setting to work that out. I don't like any of the image filters. Mostly the options seems to be about the same as the Retron 5. I don't have that console any more so I can't do a side by side comparison of how the two look at the moment. I do however have a nice big Sony tube to hook the NES up too so I can compare that way. If I'm able I'll try to get some comparison pictures this weekend.

 

 

The more ROMS you have on your SD card the longer it takes to load up. That's fine but, I was a bit surprised just how long it took to load up all the NES files I put on there. Now, I admit I've no plans to keep that many but I was just messing around and wanted to see how it would handle a loaded down card. With a reasonable number of games I would imagine it would be fine.

 

 

 

 

Updating the firmware was very easy thanks in large part to this thread. So a big thank you to everyone here who contributed to helping out with that.

 

I don't know if there is a way to import stuff from the SD card to the system memory. If there Is I've not figured it out yet. Also, the sorting of games is not a lot of fun.

 

I would imagine that the future updates will keep bringing improvements though, so I really think this little console has a lot of untapped potential still.

[+evg2000]

So I was adding some sms games to the system last night. It wouldn't recognize, nor load Aerial Assault. I tried both the original Power Base Converter and the StoneAge Game PowerBase Mini. Works fine on my super retro trio using either converter.

[LadyLilith]

Has anyone had any luck dumping SMS games via a Power Base Converter with the save files intact? I've been trying to get my Phantasy Star and Ys saves from my Master System to the Retro Freak, but it keeps acting like there's no save, I can't copy it to the Freak and it defaults to starting a new game. I had this problem with the Retron 5 too. It can't be a problem with my PWB, can it? It works fine for reading games

 

I wonder if I'd need to clean the cart and/or converter, but that shouldn't affect it if it reads the game fine, right?

[Andromeda Stardust]

Has anyone had any luck dumping SMS games via a Power Base Converter with the save files intact? I've been trying to get my Phantasy Star and Ys saves from my Master System to the Retro Freak, but it keeps acting like there's no save, I can't copy it to the Freak and it defaults to starting a new game. I had this problem with the Retron 5 too. It can't be a problem with my PWB, can it? It works fine for reading games

 

I wonder if I'd need to clean the cart and/or converter, but that shouldn't affect it if it reads the game fine, right?

You might try a Retrode. You can dump save to the computer and back it up. Due to oversight on the part of the Retrode creator, the Power Base Mini doesn't work with Retrode and the Retrode SMS won't work with Genesis or emulator clones. Pinout is incorrect so you'll need to by the SMS adapter for the Retrode.

[+evg2000]

Seems like the RF doesn't read 32x games. Will it run them if you add the roms to the sd card?

 

Also, nothing happens at 200 or 250 game dumps.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Seems like the RF doesn't read 32x games. Will it run them if you add the roms to the sd card?

 

Also, nothing happens at 200 or 250 game dumps.

I never understood why Retro Freak and Retron5 didn't support 32X. It seems like it would be easy to do considering 32X emulation is fairly accurate and the carts share the same pinout with Genesis. I mean, they work with SMS pin adapters just like original hardware so why not? There's not a whole lot of games I'd be interested in, and I'm certainly not going to bother tracking down a 32X and hand crafting a cable to make it work with my Model 1 Genesis. Be nice to throw one of the cheaper 32X games at it though.

[<<<Andrew>>>]

 

The more ROMS you have on your SD card the longer it takes to load up. That's fine but, I was a bit surprised just how long it took to load up all the NES files I put on there. Now, I admit I've no plans to keep that many but I was just messing around and wanted to see how it would handle a loaded down card. With a reasonable number of games I would imagine it would be fine.

 

 

I agree its really slow with lots of ROMs but once its loaded everything is very quick. Also with micro-SD cards so cheap and ROMs so small you can also have multiple SD cards (say one per system) then just pop in the one for the system you want to play and it will load quicker.

 

The other thing I do is have one MicroSD exclusively for my own carts I have ripped via the retrofreak and another of "backups".

 

Also in case you are not aware you can use the "select" button on the RetroFreak controller to choose between "Compact", "Middle" and "Large" display mode of listed titles as well as sorting by Rating, Year, Developer or Title (using the dpad left and right to change).

 

In "Compact" mode you can list a large number of games on a single screen. You can then (with the latest firmware) hold down the Y button and press up and down on the dpad to move down one page at a time. Even with big collections this can get you where you need to be pretty fast. Note you can also connect a standard USB keyboard and use pageup and pagedown buttons to do the same. Standard USB mice also work.

 

Some wish list feature requests I'd like to see in future versions:

- Keyword search for titles, developers, etc

- Fast initial load of titles on SD card just from the games database XML file (could reconcile list in background after initial load)

- Not have to reload whole title list from SD card when you rip a new one from Cart

- Be able to play inserted cart immediately instead of having to wait for SD card to load first on system start up

- Be able to choose which screen shot (or which ones to cycle through to show many) is used on the preview image (I think it uses the last game play screen now)

- Be able to upload game database XML files to Cyber Gadget to be included in future firmware updates (so more unrecognised carts get added to the list)

- Be able to create your own code freak codes (just instructions would be fine)

- Emulation of Super Famicom mouse by USB mouse for games that support it see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_NES_Mouse

- Support of Super Famicom multi-tap via the original controller adapter

- Support of the Mayflash Gamecube controller adapter in PC mode (this almost works, but all 4 controllers work as controller 1)

- Network file share support via USB ethernet/wifi adapter (bonus points for remote Web Interface, direct ROM download function or network multiplayer support)

- Official way to add and start 3rd Party emulators or other Android Apps

- Official support for 32x and Sega CD ROMS

- Additional cartridge adapters for NES, Atari 8bit, Intellivision, C64, etc Even if these needed a second V2 shell (sold separately)

- UI Theme, background image and skinning support (ideally per system) to customise the look of the UI

- Game recording function (even if only low res, vine style short gifs) which could be shown instead of the screenshot in game listing

- Emulator preview running in the single game screen instead of static screenshot before you hit play

 

Anyone know how to get feature requests to Cybergadget? Anyone from Cybergadget reading this? :-)

 

Overall even without any of this I am super happy with the console and thank Cybergadget for their work and updates given so far!

[TheClassyGamer]

I've noticed that the reset feature does not work. Is that just me?

 

Also, still seeming to have had some random issues with game speed on one game. Sometimes when I load it up it plays very fast and other times at normal speed.

 

The system does not want to recognize my usb controller until after I plug in the one that came with it some times. Kind of hit and miss there. I'll start it up and everything works fine. Next time I start up I can't use my controller, so I have to plug in the original and the my other one works.

 

On the subject of controllers. I tried out the controller adapter and used one of my NES controllers. it worked, but that was the last time that controller ever worked. When I tried to use again later it was not functional. Not even on my nes. Don't know if it was just time to die or the adapter killed it.

 

I've a few more controllers to try out on it still and will see how that goes but I'm not sure I want to use any or my original ones anymore as I'm not sure why my nes controller died.

[Guest LiqMat]

I've noticed that the reset feature does not work. Is that just me?

 

Also, still seeming to have had some random issues with game speed on one game. Sometimes when I load it up it plays very fast and other times at normal speed.

 

The system does not want to recognize my usb controller until after I plug in the one that came with it some times. Kind of hit and miss there. I'll start it up and everything works fine. Next time I start up I can't use my controller, so I have to plug in the original and the my other one works.

 

On the subject of controllers. I tried out the controller adapter and used one of my NES controllers. it worked, but that was the last time that controller ever worked. When I tried to use again later it was not functional. Not even on my nes. Don't know if it was just time to die or the adapter killed it.

 

I've a few more controllers to try out on it still and will see how that goes but I'm not sure I want to use any or my original ones anymore as I'm not sure why my nes controller died.

 

Reset works for me off the menu. It resets the game. Game speeds seem normal as well, but I have only tested SNES, Gameboy Advance and Genesis so far.

[<<<Andrew>>>]

I've noticed that the reset feature does not work. Is that just me?

 

Also, still seeming to have had some random issues with game speed on one game. Sometimes when I load it up it plays very fast and other times at normal speed.

 

The system does not want to recognize my usb controller until after I plug in the one that came with it some times. Kind of hit and miss there. I'll start it up and everything works fine. Next time I start up I can't use my controller, so I have to plug in the original and the my other one works.

 

On the subject of controllers. I tried out the controller adapter and used one of my NES controllers. it worked, but that was the last time that controller ever worked. When I tried to use again later it was not functional. Not even on my nes. Don't know if it was just time to die or the adapter killed it.

 

I've a few more controllers to try out on it still and will see how that goes but I'm not sure I want to use any or my original ones anymore as I'm not sure why my nes controller died.

 

 

 

Reset works for me off the menu. It resets the game. Game speeds seem normal as well, but I have only tested SNES, Gameboy Advance and Genesis so far.

 

Reset works for me too as is game speed. Which game are you having speed problems with?

 

I have used original Famicom, Super Famicom, Genesis, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour and Gameboy Advance games.

 

Really surprised if the controller adapter could kill your Famicom controller, unless your house has wiring issues? Very sorry to hear this has happened though. USB usually doesn't have enough juice to be able to fry anything like that. Its only 5V at max 500 ma and Nintendo hardware tends to be pretty bullet proof. It is possible you have a defective unit but it should still at most send the USB 5V at 500ma.

 

It might be worth checking the connectors on both console(s) and controller. Maybe the insertion and removal of the controller has bent or loosened the pins so they no longer make good contact? If you are willing to take it apart a multimeter could quickly see if and where the connections are bad. There's iFixit guides for both controller and socket (on the NES) which may help https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo+Entertainment+System+Controller+Maintenance/51585 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo+Entertainment+System+Controller+Outlet+Replacement/3838

 

I've not tried an original NES controller with mine, but tried SNES and Mega Drive through the RetroFreak controller adapter, PS1/2/3 and Gamecube via other USB adapters and PC USB controllers including the 8BitDO SFC30 and iBuffalo SNES clones without any issues. Hope you can get it fixed.

[philyso]

I never understood why Retro Freak and Retron5 didn't support 32X. It seems like it would be easy to do considering 32X emulation is fairly accurate and the carts share the same pinout with Genesis. I mean, they work with SMS pin adapters just like original hardware so why not? There's not a whole lot of games I'd be interested in, and I'm certainly not going to bother tracking down a 32X and hand crafting a cable to make it work with my Model 1 Genesis. Be nice to throw one of the cheaper 32X games at it though.

Simply because they did not wrote any of the emulators they use to save cost and the one they are using in both Retron 5 and Retro Freak does not support 32x (https://bitbucket.org/eke/genesis-plus-gx/issues/65/32x-support).

 

Contrary to what you are assuming,there are not that much 32x emulators out there and even fewer ones that are open-source and portable to consoles like this so you can minimize your software development cost (and maximize your profits !). I think Picodrive is the only one actually. They could have use it I guess but it's far less accurate and has compatibility issues so they likely picked the one which claims to have 100% compatibility for Genesis to avoid getting customers complains but also costly emulation debugging and issues fixing on their side.

Edited February 27, 2016 by philyso

[TheClassyGamer]

I picked up one of those el cheap 'o knockoff NES controllers from the local hobby game shop and will give it a try this afternoon. I don't know that the Retro Freak did in my previous one, it may just have been a case of curious timing. Those things are getting kind of old so it could have just failed. Because of the timing of the failure I thought it may be worth mentioning just in case anyone else had or has such a thing happen.

 

Though I had not thought about the bent pin thing and I'll get to checking out and testing the old controller soon hopefully.

 

The reset on the menu does nothing at all for me.

 

The game that has been giving me speed issues is Ghosts n' Goblins.

[Bill Loguidice]

Though I had not thought about the bent pin thing and I'll get to checking out and testing the old controller soon hopefully.

 

The reset on the menu does nothing at all for me.

 

The game that has been giving me speed issues is Ghosts n' Goblins.

 

It all works fine for me on mine. Hopefully yours is not defective. You should play Daimakaimura (Ghouls n Ghosts) for the SuperGrafx. It's brilliant on the Retro Freak.

[Guest LiqMat]

I picked up one of those el cheap 'o knockoff NES controllers from the local hobby game shop and will give it a try this afternoon. I don't know that the Retro Freak did in my previous one, it may just have been a case of curious timing. Those things are getting kind of old so it could have just failed. Because of the timing of the failure I thought it may be worth mentioning just in case anyone else had or has such a thing happen.

 

Though I had not thought about the bent pin thing and I'll get to checking out and testing the old controller soon hopefully.

 

The reset on the menu does nothing at all for me.

 

The game that has been giving me speed issues is Ghosts n' Goblins.

 

Are you already up to the 0.2.0 firmware? The reset not working from the menu is odd.