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

[Xarpho's Return]

Got that Cowboy Bebop game patched and ready to go, the only issue was that the title was displayed in Japanese on PCSX2 so was listed at the end not under C. I had a little browse around to see if anyone knew how to edit it so it'd be listed as Cowboy Bebop and found a thread with the following message on some obscure PS2 forum

Use the search function before making a new post, locked.

 

[TaimuRadiu]

The correct answer is to not buy a PS2 and just emulate

Emulation still sucks for the PS2.

the Saturn was a dud because it cost too much and had barely any good games

I found him

I found the man with no taste

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I found him

I found the man with no taste

But is he wrong?

 

[TaimuRadiu]

But is he wrong?

yes

 

[Two Dollars]

But is he wrong?

Did you see this post?

Four hundred and twenty nine dollars to play the six DS games worth playing. Ok I know that's being hyperbolic but even $249 is a stretch for a console that tons of people have in their cupboards and would easily part with for $40

I gotta hand it to these modernised console manufacturers because they know they have a niche and people will pay hundreds to ensure their 256kb rom in a cartridge that is rapidly degrading plays exactly how it did as a kid but also better and also in a way that's significantly more inconvenient than left clicking a desktop shortcut.

Yes I'm a retro console hater.

He’s not just wrong, he’s fucking retarded.

 

[deeman]

Sure, we all remember Nesticle, but there was also a Genesis/Mdrive version of it IIRC but i can't for the life of me find out the name of it...

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Emulation still sucks for the PS2.

Wrong

PCSX2 works better than it used to many years ago. Only thing you need to worry about is hitting F5 if the screen decides to jitter.

Otherwise I use it all the time and never ran into a major game-breaking issue.

 

[analrapist]

Sure, we all remember Nesticle, but there was also a Genesis/Mdrive version of it IIRC but i can't for the life of me find out the name of it...

Genecyst.

Thanks, Shitman!

 

[Never Scored]

The key reason why I hate reproduction consoles is that the very issue they're trying to solve: playing the old games on improved hardware with modern sensibilities (native HDMI etc.) sounds fine in theory but there's no way in hell that those consoles will have the lifespan of the original consoles they're trying to emulate because so much relies on flash memory.

These are not console manufacturers with the R&D of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, these are companies that are taking little shortcuts and manufacturing products that look sleek out of Chinese chips. The moment the flash memory starts to disintegrate the OS is fucked and the console is dead. I'm sure you all remember the Nexus 7 and how it was the most innovative tablet around until the flash memory started to wear out and it couldn't even open a browser tab. So potentially in five years time you're holding onto a Chinesium box that's broken and unable to play anything, and if the retro reproduction market falls off a cliff there's nothing to replace it with.

That's just one of the components which could go wrong over time, the physical cartridge slots will likely have shortcuts in the design so would wear out fast, any capacitors on the board might be cheap junk and leave people with the same issue as the original Xbox where by the time you realise what the issue is, the board is beyond repair etc. Hell maybe the PSU gives up the ghost in 3 years and that's that.

In comparison, I'm 95% sure if I picked up any Sega Megadrive or Snes in a car boot sale that's had multiple owners and been shoved loosely into a car and knocked around for 30 years would power up fine. Those consoles were designed knowing that kids would be rough with them whereas reproduction consoles are built for enthusiasts who will likely never move them from their cabinet below the TV for their entire lifetime.

I keep sperging about creating an emulator box but honestly the ability to just take out components and upgrade/replace if anything goes wrong is a very big thing when it comes to complete future proofing your retro gaming needs. For slightly more than a reproduction Mega Drive you could create a micro-atx build that's practically silent and can be configured to your needs completely. No, you can't use original controllers or cartridges, but we live in the year 2025 where there's some actually fantastic gamepads that are useful for gaming and would elevate the experience. I'm nostalgic as fuck for the Mega Drive but no fucking way am I ever going to touch one of those uncomfortable boomarang controllers ever again when 8biitdo have some of the most comfortable controllers around.

You know how when a boomer had a midlife crises back in the early 2000s, he'd go buy the car he had in high school, spend a ton of cash on it and cruise around in it? That was never about the car, that was about making him feel the way he felt in high school. He probably already had a car that was objectively better than the old car with better gas mileage and features like air conditioning, but that car doesn't make him feel the way the old car does. That feeling he feels when he drives that old car is totally subjective and inside his own head.

Retro gaming is millennial men's version of that. An emulation box is objectively superior, but doesn't cut it because it doesn't make him feel the feeling he is looking for. Retro clone consoles built with a system on a chip or an FPGA with a cartridge slot come much closer to having the same feel as booting up one of those old consoles, where you stick the physical game in, flip the power and it just boots into the game. People want to flip a clunky sounding switch and instantly see the little "Nintendo Presents" on the screen. It's really not more complicated than that.

 

[Two Dollars]

Retro gaming is millennial men's version of that. An emulation box is objectively superior, but doesn't cut it because it doesn't make him feel the feeling he is looking for. Retro clone consoles built with a system on a chip or an FPGA with a cartridge slot come much closer to having the same feel as booting up one of those old consoles, where you stick the physical game in, flip the power and it just boots into the game. People want to flip a clunky sounding switch and instantly see the little "Nintendo Presents" on the screen. It's really not more complicated than that.

In that case:

• Get the MiSTer FPGA system of your choice such as the MiSTer Pi
• Load it up with a bunch of games to play with console accuracy because it’s FPGA
• Get an NFC reader and print a nice TapTo case or print and build this case with a built-in power switch and reader (you DO own a 3D printer, right?)
• Buy some NFC cards and print sticker labels to make cards for your favorite games
• Optionally, get some SNAC adapters that let you use the original controllers with 1:1 accuracy, even with stuff like the N64 transfer pak

You have now recreated the experience of putting a game in a dedicated console and flipping the power switch, except now you have way more to work with.

 

[BullfrogBill]

Like I really do appreciate people who have such a bond with an old console they need a 100% accurate version of it in their house, but ultimately it will only play as good as the console itself. No room for tweaks, no room for overclocking, no room for bumping up the resolution, no room for playing with a controller that isn't dogshit etc. and a Saturn for example will only be able to play Saturn games while an emulation box with a 4TB hard drive will be able to play every console game in existence up to the 360/PS3 era.

Some people like to tinker and keep their consoles, there's nothing wrong with that at all. What you're saying is the equivalent of seeing someone in their garage tinkering with their old sports car from the 60s or something and some guy comes in and is like "Ya know that car is pretty old and outdated right? You'll probably get better performance with a new car from the lot, just throw this one away." That would be unacceptable to anyone into old cars and would most likely tell the guy to fuck off. Emulation is awesome and all, but fuck there's nothing wrong with wanting to rather pick up the real old hardware and maybe even modify it to your liking.

Not everything needs the "streaming service" treatment either, who cares if a modded Sega Saturn can only play Sega Saturn games, that's literally what the fucking thing was made for you don't need to have every game ever made in existance on the fucking thing for it to be worthwhile lmao zoomer logic

 

[Never Scored]

In that case:

• Get the MiSTer FPGA system of your choice such as the MiSTer Pi
• Load it up with a bunch of games to play with console accuracy because it’s FPGA
• Get an NFC reader and print a nice TapTo case or print and build this case with a built-in power switch and reader (you DO own a 3D printer, right?)
• Buy some NFC cards and print sticker labels to make cards for your favorite games
• Optionally, get some SNAC adapters that let you use the original controllers with 1:1 accuracy, even with stuff like the N64 transfer pak

You have now recreated the experience of putting a game in a dedicated console and flipping the power switch, except now you have way more to work with.

Or I could buy a RertoN 3 HD for like $30 that my original Genesis and SNES carts and controllers work on and runs the games decently enough that an average person can't tell the difference. (NES performance is shit)

I'm a retard who has a million devices I can emulate games on, has clones, an FPGA device, the original consoles, plus a bunch of those Chinese handhelds because I'm into messing with all that shit anyway. My point was more there are reasons people decide to buy Hyperkin and Analogue shit over emulating.

 

[redlenses2112]

Got that Cowboy Bebop game patched and ready to go, the only issue was that the title was displayed in Japanese on PCSX2 so was listed at the end not under C. I had a little browse around to see if anyone knew how to edit it so it'd be listed as Cowboy Bebop and found a thread with the following message on some obscure PS2 forum



When I'm king of the world I'm taking 95% of jannies, tying them to a post and burning them alive.

Here's a quick video on the Cowboy Bebop game, for those curious.

 

[DavidS877]

People want to flip a clunky sounding switch

I feel targeted.
This is my MiSTer FPGA build, no gay-ass soft buttons here. (Some day I'll finish it so it can actually play games.)

Games?

 

[Xarpho's Return]

He’s not just wrong, he’s fucking retarded.

Just because I agree with that line doesn't mean I give tacit approval to every take he's given on this thread, ya goof.

That's why you can give garbage cans to one post and Winners to another post, even if they're made by the same person.

 

[Two Dollars]

Just because I agree with that line doesn't mean I give tacit approval to every take he's given on this thread, ya goof.

That's why you can give garbage cans to one post and Winners to another post, even if they're made by the same person.

Huh? When did I say any of that? All I said was that one specific poster was retarded, nothing to do with you.

 

[Atlas Sneezed]

If I wanted a PS2, what's the best model if you intend to hack it to play games from a USB drive or something?

Fat 50k if you want the SATA drive, 70k if you want to fuck with sd2psx solutions but have a slim.

Don't expect to play PS1 on them

https://consolemods.org/wiki/PS2:Model_Differences

 

[73_Autistic_Fuck_54]

Here comes the Good Shit boys and >girls, say hello to the AYN Thor:
View attachment 7814572
A dual screen handheld with a lot of power and a good price. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 should be well worth the extra $50, but even the 865 should handle most if not all 3DS games at a full 4x resolution.

… But it’s not perfect. The top screen is 1080p as expected, but the bottom screen is a bizarre 1240x1080, meaning those DS and 3DS bottom screens are gonna have a few pixels cut off the sides if you want integer scaling. And because the bottom screen is so much smaller than the top, games that effectively use both screens as a single connected screen like Yoshi’s Touch and Go or Sonic Rush won’t feel good to play.

So it’s not a true replacement for DS. Very tempting, but I’ll hold off until I see what Retroid inevitably makes.

Honestly, if someone wants to play DS and 3ds games, they should just get the real thing, the n3ds xl isn't ancient by any means, and if properly cared for, should last decades longer. These Chinese handheld devices will probably start dying after only a few years at best, as they are made of chineseum

 

[Xarpho's Return]

You have now recreated the experience of putting a game in a dedicated console and flipping the power switch, except now you have way more to work with.

This may be a dumb question but what about just putting stickers on SD cards? There are probably enough floating around that you could get a good deal on even 16MB cards that were for cameras twenty years ago and do just fine for your favorite SNES/NES games.

Honestly, if someone wants to play DS and 3ds games, they should just get the real thing, the n3ds xl isn't ancient by any means, and if properly cared for, should last decades longer. These Chinese handheld devices will probably start dying after only a few years at best, as they are made of chineseum

I'm still on the fence about getting a Steam Deck but one of the things that the Deck (because it's a miniature PC) has is the ability to hook up a USB Game Boy cartridge reader to play physical Game Boy games. I realize that's impractical when it's easy to load and unload games these days including far more games than I ever had growing up. I do wish there was some sort of similar device for the Nintendo 3DS to play physical cartridges (other than DS/3DS cartridges, of course) on the 3DS itself.

On the other hand, what I probably need to do is invest in a flash cart or something for the 3DS because taking apart the 3DS to add new games to the microSD isn't fun and I've wiped out my entire 3DS' memory while it was plugged into my computer once (including StreetPass Miis and purchased Virtual Console games).

 

[Two Dollars]

This may be a dumb question but what about just putting stickers on SD cards? There are probably enough floating around that you could get a good deal on even 16MB cards that were for cameras twenty years ago and do just fine for your favorite SNES/NES games.

First off, those would be some tiny-ass stickers. Second, TapTo (or “Zaparoo”, the much dumber name it got changed to for legal reasons) is a program that lets you scan an NFC chip to run a program. The idea is that you buy some cards (100 for $30, maybe less), and use your phone/PC to program a card, then scanning that card runs the desired game. Combine that with a card-sized sticker and you have PC Engine-style cards that load a game the moment you scan them. You can even set it up to close the game when you remove the card from the NFC reader like you’re “pulling out the cartridge”.

You can do some creative things with it, like make a card that loads a random SNES game, or inserts a coin for arcade games.

On the other hand, what I probably need to do is invest in a flash cart or something for the 3DS because taking apart the 3DS to add new games to the microSD isn't fun and I've wiped out my entire 3DS' memory while it was plugged into my computer once (including StreetPass Miis and purchased Virtual Console games).

Just use FTPD and a client like FileZilla. The transfer speed is a bit slower since it’s over local network, but you don’t have to take the card out of your 3DS or even turn the system off.