Supaboy S

[BawesomeBurf]

Well the Supaboy allow some people to feel "legit" and not touch emulation.

But yeah, as far as myself goes, the PSP is fine for emulation. Except maybe the PSP-1000 with that recessed D-pad that is hard to use. But a PSP-2000, with composite/component output so you can even play on your TV? It's just perfect!

Yeah, I hated the d-pad on the PSP-1000. Upgraded to a 3000 a few years ago and am much happier with it.

[Metal Jesus]

Why did Hyperkin chose it to be Widescreen for?

 

 

My guess is that manufacturers that still make 4x3 square LCD displays are becoming very rare these days.

[Punisher5.0]

I think they chose the 4.3" screen to be deceitful. It would very easy to miss the extra dot.

[chuckwalla]

Maybe i'm luckier than many but i've got two original Supaboy's and they work perfectly (I also have two FC Go 2 systems that work fine).

This upgraded version would be great if not for the widescreen display - i'll have none of that. That's why i've got three flatscreen CRT Sony Trinitrons to play videogames on.

 

I would like to see some effort on making a Sega Nomad replacement in the spirit of the Supaboy given the flop of the their last attempt.

[Punisher5.0]

Maybe i'm luckier than many but i've got two original Supaboy's and they work perfectly (I also have two FC Go 2 systems that work fine).

This upgraded version would be great if not for the widescreen display - i'll have none of that. That's why i've got three flatscreen CRT Sony Trinitrons to play videogames on.

 

I would like to see some effort on making a Sega Nomad replacement in the spirit of the Supaboy given the flop of the their last attempt.

That's very lucky. I'm on my second. First one had stuck red pixels, hard to get games to work, and bad sound. The second one has intermittent noise on the screen and better(not good) sound quality. It's good enough but I'd pay $100+ for a quality one.

[Tanooki]

I had the 2nd version of the unit. It makes me very curious about this one though because both of the previous releases internally had a broken design on the D-Pad. On the inside of your standard SNES game pad the dpad has 4 points that pop into the rubber pad that contacts the circuit board, and in the middle of that is a rounded off half circle rocker nub. The Supaboy internally is in layers, and the D-Pad is actually on 4 stilts. The design of the unit is stupid, it has no blocker like the legit game pad nub. Because of this games will pick up multiple directions pushed at the same time and the responses varies by the game. Gradius III for one it will just keep flying in the first direction you chose until you're totally clear of the next which is death in a shooter. A game like Street Fighter 2 and clones it's super hard to pull off a simple fireball move unless you consciously only roll your thumb over the extreme edge of the d-pad but even that isn't a sure bet.

 

I had to basically mod mine. I found that the electrical tie caps you find in your walls to twist 2 wires together just happened to have a perfect diameter to the pegs in their ghetto d-pad. It took me about 30 min of using a smooth grit sandpaper but I got the cap down to the needed height to simulate how the SNES worked, then rounded it off into a nice nub and it worked out. I had the only really correctly working handheld for a few years until whoever bought it off me on ebay picked it up. Truth be told I lost interest in doing SNES off the TV, and if I felt the need SNES9XEX+ on my shield tablet with a game pad was nicer anyway.

 

Supaboys are picky. I can't speak for the S model, but v1 and v2 would not run SA1 games natively but on a low % of the time. You had to bypass the SA1s security by booting a normal game, holding reset, keeping it held (blue screen), swapping in my SA1 games then releasing reset to use them. SFAlpha2 (SDD1) didn't work. 1/2 the FX games would either not work at all or reset after 5minutes of use. DOOM (FX2) and Starfox worked, but Stunt Race and Yoshi were jacked.

 

I don't care about the wide screen, I don't much care for wasted space even if it is stretched (I do it on my GBA SP) but if they didn't fix the special chip game problems and the d-pad they couldn't pay me to use it.

[Metal Jesus]

Following that logic, since ye olde PSP can play SNES games, who needs SupaBoy S?

 

 

I think this is really for people who want to collect the physical cartridges... It is kinda cool popping in the real thing, instead of just selecting the game from an endless list

[Punisher5.0]

I had the 2nd version of the unit. It makes me very curious about this one though because both of the previous releases internally had a broken design on the D-Pad. On the inside of your standard SNES game pad the dpad has 4 points that pop into the rubber pad that contacts the circuit board, and in the middle of that is a rounded off half circle rocker nub. The Supaboy internally is in layers, and the D-Pad is actually on 4 stilts. The design of the unit is stupid, it has no blocker like the legit game pad nub. Because of this games will pick up multiple directions pushed at the same time and the responses varies by the game. Gradius III for one it will just keep flying in the first direction you chose until you're totally clear of the next which is death in a shooter. A game like Street Fighter 2 and clones it's super hard to pull off a simple fireball move unless you consciously only roll your thumb over the extreme edge of the d-pad but even that isn't a sure bet.

 

I had to basically mod mine. I found that the electrical tie caps you find in your walls to twist 2 wires together just happened to have a perfect diameter to the pegs in their ghetto d-pad. It took me about 30 min of using a smooth grit sandpaper but I got the cap down to the needed height to simulate how the SNES worked, then rounded it off into a nice nub and it worked out. I had the only really correctly working handheld for a few years until whoever bought it off me on ebay picked it up. Truth be told I lost interest in doing SNES off the TV, and if I felt the need SNES9XEX+ on my shield tablet with a game pad was nicer anyway.

 

Supaboys are picky. I can't speak for the S model, but v1 and v2 would not run SA1 games natively but on a low % of the time. You had to bypass the SA1s security by booting a normal game, holding reset, keeping it held (blue screen), swapping in my SA1 games then releasing reset to use them. SFAlpha2 (SDD1) didn't work. 1/2 the FX games would either not work at all or reset after 5minutes of use. DOOM (FX2) and Starfox worked, but Stunt Race and Yoshi were jacked.

 

I don't care about the wide screen, I don't much care for wasted space even if it is stretched (I do it on my GBA SP) but if they didn't fix the special chip game problems and the d-pad they couldn't pay me to use it.

I have no problems running SF Alpha and the FX games. I've tried the SA1 trick but it wouldn't work

[Tanooki]

Hmm so maybe they improved some of it, but at a loss of the other. I did videos of the swap trick on youtube years ago, still get the rare random reply to it. It comes back with a mix of them working or not, so maybe the 'S' model is the same. I think it could come down to the v1.0, 1.1, etc release on your specific cart will determine if the SA1 swap will work or not. Mine happened to luck into just working when I had the thing and made the video. Maybe I'll find a S locally some day and throw a SA1 game of mine at it and see what happens. If it swap works, then it's great because the FX and SDD1 problems are resolved.

[NinjaWarrior]

Why do people still buy this for?

 

The Scren is streatched to 16:9, People get a New Thing without thinking

[Tanooki]

Because a lot of people don't care if it's stretched. I didn't. I knew what I was going into buying the 2nd version of it other than the really busted d-pad I had to mod to work right. I rarely like to play a game pillar boxed, feels like I'm just wasting space.

[godslabrat]

Because a lot of people don't care if it's stretched. I didn't. I knew what I was going into buying the 2nd version of it other than the really busted d-pad I had to mod to work right. I rarely like to play a game pillar boxed, feels like I'm just wasting space.

By that logic, it'd be okay if we invert the colors or cut off the top. Because hey, some people won't care, and if we're gonna screw it up, might as well go all the way.

[fiddlepaddle]

I don't really care if its stretched either... I always widen the GB games on GBA, for example. Makes it easier to see.

 

Cutting it off at the top is a silly analogy, you're losing information. Inverting colors might create unpleasant looking/non-aesthetic combinations, but it's probably still perfectly playable.

[BillLoguidice]

While it's true that some people don't care (or notice) about watching SD over HD, or stretching an image that isn't supposed to be stretched, it certainly does personally bug me. It just looks wrong. I suppose it's good on one level to not be that discriminating; perhaps we're all discriminating/not discriminating in our own ways.

[Metal Jesus]

As a followup to this video review... I have continually had problems with the SupaBoy S loading some of my cartridges... clean or not. Not sure whats going on with that, but I'd be curious to know if anybody else is having the problem, or I just got a finicky one.

[Tanooki]

By that logic, it'd be okay if we invert the colors or cut off the top. Because hey, some people won't care, and if we're gonna screw it up, might as well go all the way.

Not really the same thing. Opposite colors or removing part of the intended view area designed for the game is an actual problem. Taking an image and stretching it isn't. That's a personal choice if you want/like that or not. The other is just dicking with the game and making it partly unusable potentially. I for one am fine either way, but when it comes to my GBA I tend to just stretch the old Gameboy image as it doesn't distort it much in the stretch and it's already such a small image anyway I like the added space. When it comes to the Retron5 though kind of depends on my mood and how bad it will jack an image up. Console based stuff isn't so bad, but for some reason it's insanely blocky and mis-sized on GBA games in some drastically more than others. Stuff like the faux 3D stuff (Doom, Duke, Wolf3D, etc) they're already blocky by design, but widened both ways and blown up the visuals are on par with the scaling of the enemy ships on the NES game Silent Service (and in a game that busy as DOOM you'd hosed.)

[godslabrat]

You can prefer it if you like, that's your choice. But to say it isn't a problem is optimistic at best. The distortion can definitely confound play, especially in jumping mechanics.

[in the dark]

I have the second version of the Supaboy and my biggest complaint is the directional pad. I love the SNES shmups. The pad seems troublesome and difficult concerning the tight controls needed for playing those type games. It is like the membrane under the pad hinders contact. The feel is not natural or like an original controller.

 

I am curious to know if there has been any improvement. The one thing I did like was the fact that it does play Street Fighter Zero 2. But the same problem with the shmups carries over into fighters.

 

I like the Supaboy and the fact it uses the original carts. And I never had a problem running most of the special chip games, even Kirby Super Star worked sometimes.

[Tanooki]

I have the second version of the Supaboy and my biggest complaint is the directional pad. I love the SNES shmups. The pad seems troublesome and difficult concerning the tight controls needed for playing those type games. It is like the membrane under the pad hinders contact. The feel is not natural or like an original controller.

 

Read my Post #31. The design of the system is defective from the factory by choice. I had to mod mine so it would work. No game needing tight controls or any circular motions (free flight shumps, 1/4 or more circles in fighters, walk arounds like Zelda) can be played correctly using a stock Supaboy. They put no stopper between the 4 direction button pegs on the inside so you can press many directions at once which can confuse a game to get stuck in a direction or straight up malfunction.

[Tanooki]

I found my own last post from a year and a half ago and want to bring this one back from the dead.

 

 

Two things, one there is for this year the Supaboy SFC -- It has your precious overly square image more square than an old TV even did really (but obviously closer to original intent) as an option by holding a button down to switch between stretch and not.

 

The second -- Does anyone actually own the S or SFC? I can't seem to dig up any actual intelligent discussion about it. Has anyone honestly stress tested these with chipped games? It appears between the first two releases they used an entirely different board setup, perhaps chips too? It was unstable. Many of the original run could do the SDD1 but most/all v2 would not. SA1 was a crap shoot on working at all, more so but still a bit of luck using that swap trick mine was ok doing. And then FX games, none worked correctly. The ones that appeared to like Star Fox/Stunt Race ran like a 5min reset demo kiosk and others like Yoshi just straight up bombed hard. I saw some posts elsewhere online asking about this and there were no answers either so I figured I'd ask using this old thread.

[Punisher5.0]

I have one but havent used it much. Ill do some tests with the enhancement chip games and post the results

[Tanooki]

I do know as much that the system itself can handle the SD2SNES fully as much as up to the MSU1 support levels, but I can not find one solitary typed or youtube video covering the S or SFC with that kit or even the original games like the Kirby's, SMRPG, the Star Fox's, Yoshi, Doom, etc. That in the end would be a deal breaker for me at the existing new/gently used price I've seen. As much as I like using my Super NT, for when I need to go to the other room or elsewhere and play I'd like the option so that's why I'm so curious.

[Punisher5.0]

Ok so Street Fighter Alpha 2 was a complete pass. I tried Doom and Star Fox 2 on carts and they wouldnt play but all the FX games would work through the SD2SNES. That could easily just be a contact problem. Ill have to find my SMRPG cart to test SA1.

 

Just tried out SMRPG and it worked perfect right off the bat. I could never get it to work with the original Supaboy

[mmbe]

I have the original Supaboy and have played the following FX chip games without issue:

 

Stunt Race FX

Dirt Trax FX

Vortex

 

The only real issue I had with it is when I used the Game Genie cartridge. The system needed to be plugged into an outlet even if the battery was fully charged. Otherwise all I would get is a blank screen when I turned it on.

[Video]

I had the first console, rev2. It was fine for me. I think the card connector should have been deeper in the system, towards the bottom. That could eliminate a lot of wiggle that can cause the game to crap out.

 

Yes, the cart connector is higher up because the lower half of the system had the battery, but it could easily be behind the cart instead of under it. Not like you would remove the battery while the cart is running anyways LOL.

 

Used it for a couple years and have it to a friend. Last I talked to him, it still worked. Never ran into a game not working, aside the dpad issues, but I never had to many snes games anyways, so most were likely older bankswitch setups. Stafford and yoshis island bein my newest ones.