Retro games and emulation - Discuss retro shit in case you're stuck in the past or a hipster

  • 🐕 I am attempting to get the site runnning as fast as possible. If you are experiencing slow page load times, please report it.
I know this is a emulator thread (I think) but I picked up reproduction copies of Conker's Bad Fur Day and Harvest Moon 64 on ebay for $25 all around, whether pay for this instead of $100+ for legit copies. No sense wasting that kinda of money on aging media that is beginning to show signs of bit rot in some copies of older games. Plus it looks legit, feels legit, is the same game, and runs on my N64. Also picked up some N64 end labels for cheap as well.
For real, I hate the American gaming community for jacking up the prices for commonly known games, but good thinking buying those reproduction carts.
I was reminded earlier this week that disc rot is a thing, too. I wonder if sometime in the next decade or so, everyone is gonna have to start modding their PlayStations and Xboxes to play reproduction discs since the originals will start developing pinholes. Kinda worried about how Dreamcasts are gonna hold up, too. GD-Roms are obsolete at this point and you would have to compress a ton of data to fit on a CD, which also is a risk of wearing out the motor and there's a slight quality difference between the actual games.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Dark Emporer Dood
For real, I hate the American gaming community for jacking up the prices for commonly known games, but good thinking buying those reproduction carts.
I was reminded earlier this week that disc rot is a thing, too. I wonder if sometime in the next decade or so, everyone is gonna have to start modding their PlayStations and Xboxes to play reproduction discs since the originals will start developing pinholes. Kinda worried about how Dreamcasts are gonna hold up, too. GD-Roms are obsolete at this point and you would have to compress a ton of data to fit on a CD, which also is a risk of wearing out the motor and there's a slight quality difference between the actual games.

I remember some morons blaming Game sack for making the price of Turbograph carts rise when they released part 2 of their videos about it, there was a little drama about it it was just one guy that was mobbed to oblivion

Also thanks to them i discovered Soldier Blade, a very underrated shmup for the Turbo and with a very neat OST

 
  • Like
Reactions: soryu
For real, I hate the American gaming community for jacking up the prices for commonly known games, but good thinking buying those reproduction carts.
I was reminded earlier this week that disc rot is a thing, too. I wonder if sometime in the next decade or so, everyone is gonna have to start modding their PlayStations and Xboxes to play reproduction discs since the originals will start developing pinholes. Kinda worried about how Dreamcasts are gonna hold up, too. GD-Roms are obsolete at this point and you would have to compress a ton of data to fit on a CD, which also is a risk of wearing out the motor and there's a slight quality difference between the actual games.

I also have reproductions of all three Mother games, the OG Harvest Moon, and Secret of Mana 2 (Seiken Densetsu 3 Fan translation). I'm picking up a reproduction of a Sailor Moon RPG on SNES that is also a fan translation for my wife for her birthday. Xbox can be modded to have a bigger HDD and to be able to run games from said HDD, PS2 can do the same, if you grab a gameshark and have an original model ps1 you can soft mod to run burnt discs, you can run Wii and Gamecube games from a SD card from your Wii or Wii U, etc. People are finding pretty good ways to continue playing games. The real question is, what are we going to do when our consoles also succumb to rot. Its Happening to Atari right now.

Also on a completely different topic, my physical copy of Persona 3 FES for PS2 is signed by Vic Mignogna. Pretty cool guy btw
 
So my emulator box is collecting dust. Because my setup is already pretty crowded, I have to set it all up if I wanna play it and that's a bit of a hassle. I'm thinking about getting a PSP as a more convenient alternative. Anyone know what models I should look for and where I'd start with all that?
 
  • Like
Reactions: BoredAtHome
So my emulator box is collecting dust. Because my setup is already pretty crowded, I have to set it all up if I wanna play it and that's a bit of a hassle. I'm thinking about getting a PSP as a more convenient alternative. Anyone know what models I should look for and where I'd start with all that?
PSP 3000, memory cards should be cheap. Ebay might be the best place to find hacked PSP, I got a softmodded PS2 off Ebay with a HD. You could try PSP Go, but the memory cards are quite rare.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Sergeant Politeness
Anyone else actually get an SNES Classic? I think I got lucky and had a line with people who were genuinely excited to see this thing get released.
 
Anyone else actually get an SNES Classic? I think I got lucky and had a line with people who were genuinely excited to see this thing get released.
I was thinking about it but then someone mentioned the Raspberry Pi. That's great you got one, I hear it's quite hard to get.

I wonder if there will be a N64 mini. If it does happen regarding game selection, I would buy it instantly for the WCW and WWF games, wishful thinking though. Emulating N64 games doesn't feel right in terms of performance.
 
I was thinking about it but then someone mentioned the Raspberry Pi. That's great you got one, I hear it's quite hard to get.

I wonder if there will be a N64 mini. If it does happen regarding game selection, I would buy it instantly for the WCW and WWF games, wishful thinking though. Emulating N64 games doesn't feel right in terms of performance.
Maybe I'm just an autist, but I like actually having old games in a physical and/or legal fashion. An OG SNES goes for almost as much as the Classic's asking price, and there isn't a single game on there that doesn't push it over that. It also has a CRT filter and a bunch of other charming bits that I like.
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Pointandlaugh
First emulator? It was honestly Visual Boy Advance because I was a sonic sperg fanboy who wanted back his glory days. But it was still fun. I moved forward into the future with a DS emulator when I first saw Phoneix Wright on youtube.
 
Friend tells me of how some friends of his are arguing about the Super Famicom vs the SNES in terms of the aesthetics of the consoles themselves.

That's like arguing which of the not-that-hot-girl's two really-not-hot friends is the less-ugly one.
 
The emulators I've used at least once are the first PCSX, PCSX2, No$GBA, DeSmuME, Dolphin and PPSSPP (a very good PSP emulator). Since I've never had any consoles, I use them to play all the console-exclusive stuff I couldn't play when I was a kid, like Burnout 3 and GTA Liberty City Stories.

ULUS10041_00001.jpg
ULUS10041_00002.jpg

Not pictured - incredibly tiny draw distance.

Oddly enough, the PSP version of LCS runs flawlessly on my PC, while its PS2 port is ridiculously slow. At the same time, Vice City Stories for PS2 works okay 95% of the time, except for some areas in Vice City Beach which bring the speed down to 55-60% or so.

Burnout 3 works flawlessly in hardware mode except for some issues with sky textures (easily fixed for me by pausing the game and switching between hardware and software mode a few times). The first Mercenaries game is veeeeeeeeeeeeery laggy and freezes altogether after the opening cutscene - what a shame.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: c-no
The emulators I've used at least once are the first PCSX, PCSX2, No$GBA, DeSmuME, Dolphin and PPSSPP (a very good PSP emulator). Since I've never had any consoles, I use them to play all the console-exclusive stuff I couldn't play when I was a kid, like Burnout 3 and GTA Liberty City Stories.

Oddly enough, the PSP version of LCS runs flawlessly on my PC, while its PS2 port is ridiculously slow. At the same time, Vice City Stories for PS2 works okay 95% of the time, except for some areas in Vice City Beach which bring the speed down to 55-60% or so.
There was a Vice City Stories mod for San Andreas on the PC, sadly the team behind it stopped working on it.

Liberty City Stories on Android is pretty good, especially on the Nvidia Shield TV. Sad they removed some of the songs due to licencing. I do hope they release Vice City Stories on Android and IOS.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: The Last Stand
I wonder if there will be a N64 mini. If it does happen regarding game selection, I would buy it instantly for the WCW and WWF games, wishful thinking though. Emulating N64 games doesn't feel right in terms of performance.
If it doesnt have Cruisn' World I aint buyin it!
 
Since this is the appropriate thread, I'm planning on playing Marathon Aleph One. Reading through the lore of Marathon, it's no wonder Bungie has a knack for packing so much information of lore in all their games all the way to Destiny.
 
Since this is the appropriate thread, I'm planning on playing Marathon Aleph One. Reading through the lore of Marathon, it's no wonder Bungie has a knack for packing so much information of lore in all their games all the way to Destiny.
Nice! I wouldn't say the combat is as engaging as Doom, but Bungie figured out how to make it fun nonetheless. Marathon 2 is probably easier than the first one starting out, but there are some seriously frustrating parts later on. There's this one level in particular that I think is close to the point where you get thrown in the clinker that piles the enemies on to an absolutely ridiculous extent (and I was playing on Normal)

Speaking as someone who hasn't played on a 64 emulator in a few years, should you still have at least a few different emulators if you want have the ability to play every game released on the console (barring Superman 64 and other horrifically buggy messes, unless I feel I need an excuse to wail and gnash my teeth for three hours straight)?
 
Ahhh it's kinda nice knowing theres other people who like playing older games (Emulator or not). I find myself gravitating towards older games because some have really good stories/gameplay. So I've found myself caring less about HD GRAPHIX and more for just a good story/experience these days.

Y'know what I mean?
 
Old Nvidia Shield Portable is prolly the best handheld I've ever had for emulation. I'm a sperg on vidja games and have a huge hoard of shit from Atari 2600 - Switch.

It's nice seeing a resurgence of retro with quality plug and play consoles and compilations come out. AtGames started the "high quality" line with their Flashbacks, Nintendo upped the game and now everyone wants a piece of that pie.

Homebrew companies making add-ons for long dead consoles like the Colecovision's Super Game Module is fucking awesome. I love seeing new tech for old shit, like Everdrives and the PCE/TG16 Super System 3 SD. Modern classic consoles being made with FPGA Cores like the Analogue NT / Super NT and the RetroUSB AVS is awesome.

What is terrifying to see for me is the mountain of shit coming from nostalgia name purchases. Shitty Android consoles, poor spec linux machines, raspberry pi's put into elaborate shells and branded with a long dead name is some of the lowest tactics ever and it works. All hail the 3 million shekels Atari VCS and the upcoming Intellavision 3
 
I tend to use Launchbox Frontend when I'm emulating games. It's easy to setup and the UI is pretty cool.

I've been playing a lot of DOS games lately, mostly Syndicate.
(Peter Molyneux did nothing wrong)
LaunchBox-3.6.png
Syndicate_screenshot.png
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Opposite Time Nomad
I use DeSmuME when playing Pokemon Black, Platinum, and SoulSilver.
 
Back