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

[Judge Dredd]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but recently I've been looking at softmodding various old consoles. What surprised me was that for many of them the preferred method is a mod chip.

The OG Xbox is particularly surprising because I remember back in the day, people would do a hard drive swap with some custom software on it, and from then on it was simply a case of running a game for it to be copied to the hard drive. People would do this then go on a renting spree at blockbuster.

 

[Dojima's Dragon]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but recently I've been looking at softmodding various old consoles. What surprised me was that for many of them the preferred method is a mod chip.

The OG Xbox is particularly surprising because I remember back in the day, people would do a hard drive swap with some custom software on it, and from then on it was simply a case of running a game for it to be copied to the hard drive. People would do this then go on a renting spree at blockbuster.

The ps2 softmodding scene is a joke compared to nintendos stuff and thanks to sony making the PS2's hardware complicated means that the modding scene for it is almost dead ( doesnt help that if you live in a country like mine where phat ps2s are rare you're basically screwed since everyone says lol get a phat ps2 for modding ). Besides when is the PSX remake of SMT 2 getting a eng translation

 

[Carpenter Trout]

phat ps2 for modding

The Slim can read hard drives just fine and the FMCB does exists on Slim models. I agree that OPL is a mess and HDD can result into a clunky experience, but I think that's due to the playstation 2 still not being fully documented (as seen by the PS2 emulator pcsx2 only recently getting very good after years being shit)

 

[Pissmaster]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but recently I've been looking at softmodding various old consoles. What surprised me was that for many of them the preferred method is a mod chip.

The OG Xbox is particularly surprising because I remember back in the day, people would do a hard drive swap with some custom software on it, and from then on it was simply a case of running a game for it to be copied to the hard drive. People would do this then go on a renting spree at blockbuster.

I'm surprised there are mod chips for Xbox at all. Xbox softmodding gave you the full kit & caboodle.

IIRC, you needed some software that could read an Xbox memory card, and a way to hook up an Xbox controller to a PC. You could just make an adapter by taking a USB cable, cutting it, taking the four wires, and soldering them to an Xbox breakaway cable. You then go get a save file for one of a handful of games: I can't remember which ones exactly, but something Indiana Jones, James Bond, Splinter Cell, and maybe a few others worked. Then you start the game, load the save, and install your hack. Even if you didn't wanna swap the hard drive, you could just burn games onto DVD-Rs and play those.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I'm surprised there are mod chips for Xbox at all. Xbox softmodding gave you the full kit & caboodle.

That's what surprised me too. I was never in the room when the HDD swaps were done, but I'm guessing those memory cards were common and passed around a lot.

The ps2 softmodding scene is a joke compared to nintendos stuff

Nintendo DS was easy. I remember finding it funny the SDcard readers went from huge bricks hanging out the console, to basically another cart.

I never got one though, despite wanting one, no one would sell it to me. Same with the PS2 mods back then.

 

[Pissmaster]

If you need something pleasant to listen to while you do stuff, Ashens did a 50 minute video about the PS1.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

If you need something pleasant to listen to while you do stuff, Ashens did a 50 minute video about the PS1.

Aah, the PSX, the console I hardware modded by biting off a piece of a bic pen casing.

 

[Enig]

The PS2 even existing amazes me after looking at it in detail made me realize they took a N64 type of RISC hardware layout, spun the audio processing off into a miniaturized partial PS1 that was already doing the I/O handling, drove the processing through two retardedly blunt vector units and then made sure to duct tape RAM on everything to overcome the RISC set's choking on everything even after making the bit width retardedly wide even for modern standards. No wonder middleware became a thing, there's no other way of easily handling such a fucking berserk hardware setup.

 

[Chaos Theorist]

The PS2 even existing amazes me after looking at it in detail made me realize they took a N64 type of RISC hardware layout, spun the audio processing off into a miniaturized partial PS1 that was already doing the I/O handling, drove the processing through two retardedly blunt vector units and then made sure to duct tape RAM on everything to overcome the RISC set's choking on everything even after making the bit width retardedly wide even for modern standards. No wonder middleware became a thing, there's no other way of easily handling such a fucking berserk hardware setup.

The PS2 was rushed out of the door so Sony could sell a cheap Game Console/DVD Player to the masses and leapfrog past the Dreamcast

Is there a list of PS2 Middleware and Game Engines somewhere beyond Renderware and Criware

 

[Gramh]

Hello fellow Kiwi Bros who have survived the Great Troon Wars. Asking as a hypothetical, if I were to be looking for a certain piece of software for say, a MAME cabinet, is there a gold standard place to be looking or is it googlefu and guess?

 

[Dojima's Dragon]

Is the redmi mi 11 good for ps2 emulation heard it has a Snapdragon 888 chip in it and is the cheapest phone in the market to have one

 

[Stasi]

Been playing some older PC games recently that happen to have fan made conversions (I don't actually know what the correct name is - total conversion? open source ports? patch?), got me thinking abut how impressive this stuff is but more importantly how convenient it makes playing the games. Trying to get some of these games to run on modern systems can be a huge pain in the ass but drag one or two files into the game folder and it works perfectly on modern machines with quality of life improvements like controller support, improved graphical options and so on.

Some of the ones I've messed around with recently/can think of off the top of my head:

• Diablo + Hellfire
• Build game like Duke Nukem and Blood
• I guess Doom has a bunch? I've only ever used GZDoom
• Arx Fatalis
• Morrowind
• Tyrian - would highly recommend the game btw, not a big fan of shoot em ups in general but had a lot of fun with this one
• GTA 3, VC, SA

People mentioned TimeSplitters and Jak & Daxter earlier in the thread (these are even more crazy because as far as I understand people reverse engineered the PS2 game code and ported them to PC?). Any others people like/know about/recommend?

 

[Dojima's Dragon]

Tyrian - would highly recommend the game btw, not a big fan of shoot em ups in general but had a lot of fun with this

Shame with tyrian no one knows about it the music is pretty kino too also its freeware. Btw theres the 1964 project for pc that allows you to play goldeneye and perfect dark ( and donkey kong 64 ??? ) without an n64 emulator irrc.

 

[fartsnstuf]

looking for an emulator that can play sega naomi roms, got any recommendations?

 

[Carpenter Trout]

looking for an emulator that can play sega naomi roms, got any recommendations?

The Flycast emulator can play both dreamcast and sega naomi roms IIRC

 

[Judge Dredd]

Any others people like/know about/recommend?

Xash is a Half-Life 1 engine replacement. Though Half-Life 1 works on current hardware so it's not really needed, and some mods don't work with it.

I guess Doom has a bunch? I've only ever used GZDoom

Most of the other Doom engines are for specific purposes like being vanilla accurate or speed running or whatever. GZDoom is good for mods and casual use. The main limitation is the WADs themselves. The Xbox Live version had a unique set of levels, and the playstation had altered maps, sound, and music to play up the horror.

I believe there's one source port that re-creates the N64 version of Doom, which is a completely different and really good version of the game. I think that the N64 ending is canon with opening of Doom 2016 since it ends with Doomguy staying in hell to kill as many demons as possible so they don't try invading earth again.

Edit: Supposedly, the N64 and PSX versions of Doom are available as mods for GZDoom now. I've not tried them yet, but might not need a new engine for them.

 

[Dojima's Dragon]

Xash is a Half-Life 1 engine replacement. Though Half-Life 1 works on current hardware so it's not really needed, and some mods don't work with it.


Most of the other Doom engines are for specific purposes like being vanilla accurate or speed running or whatever. GZDoom is good for mods and casual use. The main limitation is the WADs themselves. The Xbox Live version had a unique set of levels, and the playstation had altered maps, sound, and music to play up the horror.

I believe there's one source port that re-creates the N64 version of Doom, which is a completely different and really good version of the game. I think that the N64 ending is canon with opening of Doom 2016 since it ends with Doomguy staying in hell to kill as many demons as possible so they don't try invading earth again.

Edit: Supposedly, the N64 and PSX versions of Doom are available as mods for GZDoom now. I've not tried them yet, but might not need a new engine for them.

Btw you buy doom 64 on steam it was remastered by the system shock remake devs and irrc it was one of the few n64 games that was 60 fps.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Hello fellow Kiwi Bros who have survived the Great Troon Wars. Asking as a hypothetical, if I were to be looking for a certain piece of software for say, a MAME cabinet, is there a gold standard place to be looking or is it googlefu and guess?

You're better off engineering one using a microcontroller.

Xash is a Half-Life 1 engine replacement. Though Half-Life 1 works on current hardware so it's not really needed, and some mods don't work with it.


Most of the other Doom engines are for specific purposes like being vanilla accurate or speed running or whatever. GZDoom is good for mods and casual use. The main limitation is the WADs themselves. The Xbox Live version had a unique set of levels, and the playstation had altered maps, sound, and music to play up the horror.

I believe there's one source port that re-creates the N64 version of Doom, which is a completely different and really good version of the game. I think that the N64 ending is canon with opening of Doom 2016 since it ends with Doomguy staying in hell to kill as many demons as possible so they don't try invading earth again.

Edit: Supposedly, the N64 and PSX versions of Doom are available as mods for GZDoom now. I've not tried them yet, but might not need a new engine for them.

I got the 2020 doom 64 re-release, wasn't bad additional content was good. The problem with nightdive is before they became a studio a lot of their employees were internet open sourcers, they created something called the kex engine which reruns the original games code with some modifications. It's a great engine from a software perspective as it reuses 80%-90% of original code and thereby doesn't bloat, doesn't run badly and doesn't cause problems, other than compatibility. A lot of nightdive employees used to post kex engine open source ports for retro games online, on archive.org on forums and the like. Once nightdive remastered all these games and put a price tag on them, the source ports posted online were taken down, which is shitty. But you can still find some of them on archive.org and other places, that's how I got both the doom 64 and powerslave source ports. With that said, brutal doom 64 on the gzdoom engine is a much better experience.

 

[Stasi]

Edit: Supposedly, the N64 and PSX versions of Doom are available as mods for GZDoom now. I've not tried them yet, but might not need a new engine for them.

I had the PSX version back in the day, pretty good game and works surprisingly well on a playstation controller. Never played Doom 64, should give it a crack sometime.

 

[NoonmanR]

Been trying the Vita as an emulation machine and tbh I don't like how it can run PS1 stuff with ease but has trouble running random fucking SNES games at full speed. Anyone know if there's a better emulator for it than RetroArch for it or is that gg.