AtGames 2018 speculation thread

[Bill Loguidice]

Bill, will AtGames still be making a Genesis unit this year? I've heard the widespread news of the "Genesis/MegaDrive Mini" being taken from AtGames, but I wasn't clear if ppl were just calling the Genesis Flashback a mini and confusing terms, or if it was something completely different.

 

So far, I'm really looking forward to the Atari Gold unit and was still hoping for a Genesis unit (mentioned earlier this year) with a better / more common emulator. Also, from what you said earlier this year, they were releasing another Genesis portable without fixing the emulation/sound issue. Is this still accurate?

 

Nothing new for this year. Sega is handling all announcements.

[phoenixdownita]

EDIT: I was just told that the BN Blast! is 720p, while the others are 1080i, so that will need to be changed to reflect that.

Wouldn't a 1080i run at 30fps and add a 1/30 lag by default + 1/30 by the TV that really only understand progressive? (that's 4 frames unless the SoC allows frame mixing and so possible tearing)

Why even bother with 1080i ....

the PS2 had an interesting trick to perform it (you can literally program it to have even/odd be of successive images [not frames] to maintain 60fps but at the price of jagged borders)

[Bill Loguidice]

Wouldn't a 1080i run at 30fps and add a 1/30 lag by default + 1/30 by the TV that really only understand progressive? (that's 4 frames unless the SoC allows frame mixing and so possible tearing)

Why even bother with 1080i ....

the PS2 had an interesting trick to perform it (you can literally program it to have even/odd be of successive images [not frames] to maintain 60fps but at the price of jagged borders)

 

It's what those Blast!'s are for this year. There should eventually be a change with future models.

[phoenixdownita]

 

It's what those Blast!'s are for this year. There should eventually be a change with future models.

You mean confirm 30fps ?

How about the Namco with arcades?

[i don't hide the fact that I doubt there will be a release at all, if it doesn't happen before the holidays may as well keep it for next year season, so unless the production snafu is resolved and quickly I don't see them hitting the shelves in time]

[Bill Loguidice]

You mean confirm 30fps ?

How about the Namco with arcades?

[i don't hide the fact that I doubt there will be a release at all, if it doesn't happen before the holidays may as well keep it for next year season, so unless the production snafu is resolved and quickly I don't see them hitting the shelves in time]

 

No, I mean that all but the Bandai Namco Blast!'s are unavoidably 1080i this year. In terms of issues that might cause on some TVs, I'm not sure. Both versions of the Bandai Namco Blast! are 720p. I don't think the arcade version will make it in time for the holidays. Either way, there should be some type of announcement.

[Sardonyx]

Wouldn't a 1080i run at 30fps and add a 1/30 lag by default + 1/30 by the TV that really only understand progressive? (that's 4 frames unless the SoC allows frame mixing and so possible tearing)

 

No, 1080i is always 60 fields (half frames) per second in the US. It's 50 in areas that were previous PAL. Any HDTV will be able to handle a 1080i input properly.

[phoenixdownita]

 

No, 1080i is always 60 fields (half frames) per second in the US. It's 50 in areas that were previous PAL. Any HDTV will be able to handle a 1080i input properly.

No SoC that I know of allows you to control directly what goes into the 540 lines of each field, you give it the full framebuffer it does the rest, if you screw with it halfway you get a nasty mess due to the way the 2 frames are read from the buffer. Maybe Stella 3.9.x is sophisticated enough to render at 60fps interleaved if it detects a 1080i output but I doubt it (I admit I did not read the code).

So unless this 20US$ marvel has some neat trick up his sleeves or Stella 3.9.x takes the brunt of it I am having a hard time seeing how it will generate 60fps, TV does the rest, there's no real modern HD TV that displays 1080i natively it's always progressive, so they have to buffer it somehow and be late (add lag if you will).

 

It may not affect gameplay all that much depending on game especially for the target audience, but 1080i is an odd choice, it does solve the problem for the TV of non-integer scaling that a 720p has but many sources are 720p so maybe there are smart/neat ways to do it (like drop every 3rd line and linedouble the remaining to get to 960), and in the end the source material is 240p so to get to a 1080i you need to go 4.5x .... I bet it's just 4x.

[Sardonyx]

No SoC that I know of allows you to control directly what goes into the 540 lines of each field, you give it the full framebuffer it does the rest, if you screw with it halfway you get a nasty mess due to the way the 2 frames are read from the buffer. Maybe Stella 3.9.x is sophisticated enough to render at 60fps interleaved if it detects a 1080i output but I doubt it (I admit I did not read the code).

So unless this 20US$ marvel has some neat trick up his sleeves or Stella 3.9.x takes the brunt of it I am having a hard time seeing how it will generate 60fps, TV does the rest, there's no real modern HD TV that displays 1080i natively it's always progressive, so they have to buffer it somehow and be late (add lag if you will).

 

It may not affect gameplay all that much depending on game especially for the target audience, but 1080i is an odd choice, it does solve the problem for the TV of non-integer scaling that a 720p has but many sources are 720p so maybe there are smart/neat ways to do it (like drop every 3rd line and linedouble the remaining to get to 960), and in the end the source material is 240p so to get to a 1080i you need to go 4.5x .... I bet it's just 4x.

First question would be: are you sure the Blast units are running Stella? I know the Atari Flashback 9 is running Stella 3, but I hadn't heard anything about the Blast units doing that.

 

Secondly, the frame buffer whichever emulator is writing to may not be handling the upscaling and HDMI signal generation. That's probably being handled by the system software or underlying graphics libraries if it's built on something like SDL2.

 

I definitely noticed what looked like occasional interlacing artifacts from the vol. 1 Blast (I went ahead and picked them up) while playing Centipede. Pretty sure the TV is in fact updating alternate lines every 1/60th of a second. Otherwise stuff like that would get buffered out.

[phoenixdownita]

First question would be: are you sure the Blast units are running Stella? I know the Atari Flashback 9 is running Stella 3, but I hadn't heard anything about the Blast units doing that.

 

Secondly, the frame buffer whichever emulator is writing to may not be handling the upscaling and HDMI signal generation. That's probably being handled by the system software or underlying graphics libraries if it's built on something like SDL2.

 

I definitely noticed what looked like occasional interlacing artifacts from the vol. 1 Blast (I went ahead and picked them up) while playing Centipede. Pretty sure the TV is in fact updating alternate lines every 1/60th of a second. Otherwise stuff like that would get buffered out.

I assumed it was the same Stella as it runs pretty much everywhere now (including a 250Mhz ESP32) but I do not know for sure.

 

Wrt to artifacting on your TV I can't speak for but I have seen "upscalers" wrongly interpret 240p as 480i and make a mess with combing, weird artifacts, stuttering etc...etc.... not sure that is what happens on your TV but to avoid artifacts 1080i has to be at 30fps, anything else is messy at best. Not saying it is your TV, likely the Blast unit itself.

 

Again given the target audience maybe nobody cares and because 1080 > 720 many will swear it is better that way, 1080i was really to be used for broadcast with slow/rare motions and does not do well when stuff move a lot from frame to frame unless you stick to 30fps at which point aside the interlace effects that makes lines "tremble" is mostly fine (note I am particularly perceptive to the interlace trembling, I can see it pretty clearly on PAL CRT TV, less on NTSC CRT TV but even on my old 720p HD plasma NTSC TV the 1080i gives me headache rather quickly due to that, I think old LCD are a bit better due to higher persistence which causes ghosting though).

[Flojomojo]

No, 1080i is always 60 fields (half frames) per second in the US. It's 50 in areas that were previous PAL. Any HDTV will be able to handle a 1080i input properly.

I'm pretty sure digital TV signals are 1080i, too, at least in the US. I agree it's not something to get worked up about.

[Bill Loguidice]

Stella is not used on the Blast! line.

[kakutoman]

I got the arcade flashback legends and I can say that there seem to be audio issues for sure. Super Street Fighter 2 audio is just awful sadly. * sigh* I was looking forward for at games to have a strong showing this year but so far it's not been good. I think I will not be buying more of their products until there is a strong consensus that they have a strong product

Edited October 23, 2018 by kakutoman

[phoenixdownita]

I'm pretty sure digital TV signals are 1080i, too, at least in the US. I agree it's not something to get worked up about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i

 

Example of poor deinterlace done by LCD panels:

 

From the article I admit I didn't know the 2 fields in broadcasting are actually from different instants in time (for native 1080i) so you literally get 60fps but at half the H resolution (540px), while when translated from 1080p that's not true.

[Flojomojo]

Okay. But still good enough for Dig Dug and Mappy.

[phoenixdownita]

Okay. But still good enough for Dig Dug and Mappy.

Those are Namco and for the Blast units those are in 720p

 

After the acronym IANAL I think I can coin AMIANAL? (not an acronym)

[Atariboy]

I got the arcade flashback legends and I can say that there seem to be audio issues for sure. Super Street Fighter 2 audio is just awful sadly. * sigh* I was looking forward for at games to have a strong showing this year but so far it's not been good. I think I will not be buying more of their products until there is a strong consensus that they have a strong product

 

How are the early 80's Data East games?

[Sardonyx]

I assumed it was the same Stella as it runs pretty much everywhere now (including a 250Mhz ESP32) but I do not know for sure.

 

Wrt to artifacting on your TV I can't speak for but I have seen "upscalers" wrongly interpret 240p as 480i and make a mess with combing, weird artifacts, stuttering etc...etc.... not sure that is what happens on your TV but to avoid artifacts 1080i has to be at 30fps, anything else is messy at best. Not saying it is your TV, likely the Blast unit itself.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i

 

Example of poor deinterlace done by LCD panels:

 

From the article I admit I didn't know the 2 fields in broadcasting are actually from different instants in time (for native 1080i) so you literally get 60fps but at half the H resolution (540px), while when translated from 1080p that's not true.

 

 

Yep, 1080i is 60 fields per second as I mentioned above. The content in that image isn't being deinterlaced beyond writing the fields directly to the screen. There a number of deinterlacing algorithms that can interpolate and try to reconstruct the full image. Simple ones like line doubling just double one field into a full frame and discard every other field. Others like bob methods, Yadiff try to interpolate a clean progressive image from the interlaced signal. They look good, but will introduce lag because they need both fields first and then need time to interpolate a frame. This is great for video processing where real time doesn't matter. I've used it quite a bit for archiving old VHS material.

 

However a modern TV with game mode enabled will usually turn off any processing like this (and others such as MPEG denoising) to reduce latency. So deinterlacing artifacts aren't unexpected. I'm just saying it's additional evidence the Blast really is running 1080i at 60 fields per second.

[Sardonyx]

I got the arcade flashback legends and I can say that there seem to be audio issues for sure. Super Street Fighter 2 audio is just awful sadly. * sigh* I was looking forward for at games to have a strong showing this year but so far it's not been good. I think I will not be buying more of their products until there is a strong consensus that they have a strong product

 

Interesting, I haven't run into any sound issues with mine. I haven't played Street Fighter though. I also saw on another thread that Edward Randy had poor sound. I'll check both of these on mine and see if the same issue is present.

[Sardonyx]

I got the arcade flashback legends and I can say that there seem to be audio issues for sure. Super Street Fighter 2 audio is just awful sadly. * sigh* I was looking forward for at games to have a strong showing this year but so far it's not been good. I think I will not be buying more of their products until there is a strong consensus that they have a strong product

 

So I tried Super Street Fighter II and Edward Randy. I've never played (or heard of) Edward Randy before. My general thoughts playing through the game is that the sound effects are too quiet and aren't loud enough to stand out over the background music a lot of times. Whether this is just how the game is, I don't know. I pulled up a Longplay on Youtube and it doesn't sound any different. I'm assuming it's a MAME emulation I'm watching and I'm guessing the Flashback Legends is running MAME. They seem the same, but it's possible it doesn't match the arcade. It's also possible it's just a poor sound mix and it sounds like this in the arcade, I don't know.

 

As I've never heard of it, and no one VAPS member has an arcade cab in their collection (or wants one), I'm going to assume this is relatively rare and not many people have actually played an arcade cab. So I don't know how to tell what it's supposed to sound like.

 

Super Street Fighter II I haven't played in a while, but the version here sounds like Super Street Fighter II. I don't see any issues with this one. What's happening with your unit?

[Sardonyx]

Welp, someone's unhappy.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co-xkOEIq10

[PikoInteractive]

I can almost guarantee I know why there was a bait and switch on the roms. Honestly is not a big deal, Atgames should just come forward with what happened. If people are interested i'll explain.

[Bill Loguidice]

I can almost guarantee I know why there was a bait and switch on the roms. Honestly is not a big deal, Atgames should just come forward with what happened. If people are interested i'll explain.

While you can join the theory crowd, the answer is early review units sent out featured arcade versions, which could not be produced at the last minute, so the home versions featured in all stores is what's available. We're working on correcting the production run for the arcade versions.

[PikoInteractive]

Is not a theory, for a fact we know Bandai has changed they way they structured their Legal entity. So now all their games need to be changed to a new copyright line.

 

We have done two other projects in which we clean up Bandai roms and put the new copyright line "Game name TM and C 2018 BNEI". Problem is BNEI does not have these done, so the companies that license the games are stuck needing to clean up the roms. Other big problem is that MAME is so delicate with file names, rom names, checksums, and file sizes that any little change on a file can just break the rom. So it is almost impossible to change any information on them (luckily we have been able to).

 

John's unit had the arcade roms with the old "Copyright [year] namco", that is ok for press, but very likely BNEI did not approved them for retail without the correct new copyright notices. Leaving atgames stuck between meeting retailers POs and updating the arcade roms copyright notices. That is why the NES rom version of Blast shows the new copyright format screen before the game boots and the NES rom without the old copyright, because NES is easy to clean up. Thus using those to meet retailer's deadline.

 

In reality, atgames was victim of a bully licensor that does not provide technical aid (but oh how well the charge their licensing fees!).

 

We just cleaned up a lot of BNEI arcade roms for another company (not BNEI themselves) Im not under NDA, but still won't give out details. Depending how this company's contract is, they maybe obliged to give the cleaned roms to BNEI, and them making it all the way to atgames. Until then, (or if they themselves fix the arcade roms) they would have to use the approved NES roms to be commercially released.

Edited October 23, 2018 by PikoInteractive

[phoenixdownita]

Is not a theory, for a fact we know Bandai has changed they way they structured their Legal entity. So now all their games need to be changed to a new copyright line.

 

We have done two other projects in which we clean up Bandai roms and put the new copyright line "Game name TM and C 2018 BNEI". Problem is BNEI does not have these done, so the companies that license the games are stuck needing to clean up the roms. Other big problem is that MAME is so delicate with file names, rom names, checksums, and file sizes that any little change on a file can just break the rom. So it is almost impossible to change any information on them (luckily we have been able to).

 

John's unit had the arcade roms with the old "Copyright [year] namco", that is ok for press, but very likely BNEI did not approved them for retail without the correct new copyright notices. Leaving atgames stuck between meeting retailers POs and updating the arcade roms copyright notices. That is why the NES rom version of Blast shows the new copyright format screen before the game boots and the NES rom without the old copyright, because NES is easy to clean up. Thus using those to meet retailer's deadline.

 

In reality, atgames was victim of a bully licensor that does not provide technical aid (but oh how well the charge their licensing fees!).

 

We just cleaned up a lot of BNEI arcade roms for another company (not BNEI themselves) Im not under NDA, but still won't give out details. Depending how this company's contract is, they maybe obliged to give the cleaned roms to BNEI, and them making it all the way to atgames. Until then, (or if they themselves fix the arcade roms) they would have to use the approved NES roms to be commercially released.

Wow, thanks for the details Piko ... in a way I hope that's not true here because if it is it means Bill has not been made aware of the real issues.

[PikoInteractive]

Again, Atgames would be the victim here IMO.