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

[Two Dollars]

With any emulation handheld, you are only a couple of months from what you bought becoming obsolete, so it is really just down to getting what you think looks like what you want for the price you want to pay today and not sweating future developments.

Pretty much, yeah. But Retroid said the quiet part out loud and announced the mid-gen refresh shadowdrop that makes the current gen obsolete and the next gen that releases very soon and will make the thing they announced literally 30 seconds ago obsolete at the same time.

You'd be surprised. PS1 on Duckstation at 3x looks really good. Very clean looking. I bet PSP looks really nice at 2x or 3x on the 5, but it looks like shit on my mini because it's so tiny on the 4:3 screen.

My rule of thumb is that 2x is a game changer, 3x is nice, 4x is almost negligible unless you need better integer scaling, and anything beyond that isn’t worth the trouble. All of this is especially true on handhelds where DS/3DS/PSP look great even at 2x.

 

[Strangolapreti]

Does anyone remembers the Jazz Jackrabbit series?

 

[alphabetnigger]

https://cdromance.org/ is no longer hidden behind having to be a forum member of https://retrogametalk.com/forums/

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Pretty much, yeah. But Retroid said the quiet part out loud and announced the mid-gen refresh shadowdrop that makes the current gen obsolete and the next gen that releases very soon and will make the thing they announced literally 30 seconds ago obsolete at the same time.

My rule of thumb is that 2x is a game changer, 3x is nice, 4x is almost negligible unless you need better integer scaling, and anything beyond that isn’t worth the trouble. All of this is especially true on handhelds where DS/3DS/PSP look great even at 2x.

Retroid seems to be a company run by idiots, especially with some of the PR own goals they've had over the years.

I agree on handhelds, but on a beefy enough computer, PS2 at 4K internal is a revelation in a lot of games. Wizardry for PS2 almost looks like a PS4 game with the settings pumped up.

 

[Baraka Obama]

https://cdromance.org/ is no longer hidden behind having to be a forum member of https://retrogametalk.com/forums/

Just after I made a new user for the 18th time

 

[Mr. 0]

Does anyone remembers the Jazz Jackrabbit series?

devan shell did nothing wrong

 

[redlenses2112]

“The Life Stage: Virtual House” (1993), 3DO

/// I wish I came across this early 3D Construction / Interior Design Simulator when I was going through the history of the photo mode. No one talked about this game released by Panasonic for the 3DO system, but this was the cusp of a new wave of FMV games in the mid-90s.

There are definitely camera viewing options which I will show later, as well as immersive sample spaces to explore. Unlike some of the camera mechanics from earlier games like “Gekibo: Gekisha Boy” and “Night Trap,” this game actually has the 3D exploration gameplay that the photo mode was ultimately designed for.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

My rule of thumb is that 2x is a game changer, 3x is nice, 4x is almost negligible unless you need better integer scaling, and anything beyond that isn’t worth the trouble. All of this is especially true on handhelds where DS/3DS/PSP look great even at 2x.

FE:Awakening looks great because the choice to make buildings and environments 3D but the characters 2D will never not be charming.

 

[Fester Shinetop]

I just don't see the market for a kit like this now that all in one FPGA solutions like the Superstation are hitting the market. Something like that is not that much more than a Pi 5 with a case, some controllers and whatnot, and I would assume anyone who cared about input lag would go for the FPGA.

I guess the Pi 5 can do N64, Gamecube and Dreamcast.

I'm honestly really happy with my MiSTER Pi as is. Not as sleek as the Superstation, sure, but I love it still.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

Did anyone else try (or even manage) to buy an Analogue 3D earlier today when they were on sale this morning? My payment kept getting declined despite refreshing the store page constantly, but before I could get it figured out they had already sold out. I was REALLY interested in playing through Goldeneye and Perfect Dark with the overclock setting enabled.

Extremely annoying to miss it after the reviews were relatively positive, especially as someone who doesn't own particularly good equipment for playing retro games. This may be a sign for me to invest in an upscaler of some kind rather than an FPGA console though, especially since something like the RetroTINK 5X Pro is priced in a similar ballpark. I don't need the 4K, all of my displays go up to 1440p at best.

 

[Never Scored]

Did anyone else try (or even manage) to buy an Analogue 3D earlier today when they were on sale this morning? My payment kept getting declined despite refreshing the store page constantly, but before I could get it figured out they had already sold out. I was REALLY interested in playing through Goldeneye and Perfect Dark with the overclock setting enabled.

Extremely annoying to miss it after the reviews were relatively positive, especially as someone who doesn't own particularly good equipment for playing retro games. This may be a sign for me to invest in an upscaler of some kind rather than an FPGA console though, especially since something like the RetroTINK 5X Pro is priced in a similar ballpark. I don't need the 4K, all of my displays go up to 1440p at best.

I managed to get one. Had page open about 10 minutes before and hit refresh on the dot and still had to wait in a line to order.

I wasn't going to get one because of the price, but the wife was saying she'd kind of like to have it too, and I have a fucking ton of N64 carts, so fuck it.

 

[HexFag]

Did anyone else try (or even manage) to buy an Analogue 3D earlier today when they were on sale this morning? My payment kept getting declined despite refreshing the store page constantly, but before I could get it figured out they had already sold out. I was REALLY interested in playing through Goldeneye and Perfect Dark with the overclock setting enabled.

Extremely annoying to miss it after the reviews were relatively positive, especially as someone who doesn't own particularly good equipment for playing retro games. This may be a sign for me to invest in an upscaler of some kind rather than an FPGA console though, especially since something like the RetroTINK 5X Pro is priced in a similar ballpark. I don't need the 4K, all of my displays go up to 1440p at best.

Apparently there's a pretty big flaw with the Analogue 3D where you can't run everdrives on it and apparently there's some spotty controller support. It's up to you on if this is worth not buying for.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

Apparently there's a pretty big flaw with the Analogue 3D where you can't run everdrives on it and apparently there's some spotty controller support. It's up to you on if this is worth not buying for.

I had done some pretty extensive looking into the device. Everdrives will likely be updated to run just fine, I actually saw a twitter post from krikzz earlier today showing that he was working on it and got it running.

As for the controller support, I recently bought one of the 8Bitdo 64 controllers too in advance of this launching to take advantage of the rumble if I were to have actually gotten a 3D. The controller itself is quite nice, and I wanted a 64 styled controller for PC use when I'm emulating stuff. It reminds me of a modernized version of the Hori pad that's so beloved.

 

[Never Scored]

Apparently there's a pretty big flaw with the Analogue 3D where you can't run everdrives on it and apparently there's some spotty controller support. It's up to you on if this is worth not buying for.

The thing about N64 is it's notoriously hard to emulate and even popular games like Mario Kart 64 are riddled with visual glitches on emulators, so it does kind of make sense to stick with an FPGA or original hardware with the N64.

What kind of FPGA really depends on your use case. If you don't have a bunch of cart or original controllers, apparently Mister FPGA is pretty good with N64 nowadays. I was a teenager when Nintendo 64 had its heyday and was really into it, so I literally have 50 physical carts I've just accumulated over the years, so it makes sense for me to buy an Analogue 3D to play them all on newer TVs. My crts aren't going to last forever.

With regards to bluetooth support, I really don't know why you'd use bluetooth controllers with a device like this anyway. One of the issues with emulation is even good emulation adds a slight input delay. Bluetooth controllers are going to add another slight delay. I would think someone going for an FPGA would want as little lag as possible.

I can easily perceive the input delay on say, the SNES classic, but I find it hard to notice in a high end emulator like Duck Station. This will be my first FPGA system, and I'm kind of excited to compare a game I know well like Mario 64 on the Analogue 3D vs emulation on the same TV. I have compared to source port of Mario 64 on an Android device to emulation in Mupen 64 and and the difference was slight, but noticable side by side.

 

[Two Dollars]

Kinda late, but I did decide to get an AYN Thor (Pro). Android is a nightmare to set up compared to Batocera, with each emulator needing its own full manual configuration. There aren’t any good dual-screen launchers since Console Launcher is filled with bugs and questionable design choices and isn’t even compatible with RetroArch unless you get RA from the Google Play store, NeoStation doesn’t have dual-screen yet, and iiSU is still in alpha. And if you want to use cloud saves or something like Syncthing, then you can go fuck yourself because some emulators’ storage have an arbitrary restriction of only being editable within the app itself, and if you try to add/edit files from outside the app, really weird bugs can occur.

… All that being said, this thing feels great when you’re actually playing. The screens are excellent, and I have no complaints about the questionable scaling on the bottom screen; it looks fine in practice. Having two screens to multitask is a game changer even beyond playing games that actually need two screens. And I got a black model, so when I do play a dual screen game, OLED makes the black bars blend in perfectly with the system itself, like you don’t even notice they’re there unless you’re actively looking. Smash feels surprisingly comfortable, though I’ve mostly been playing GBA. And the battery life is excellent, with barely any battery being used during sleep mode.

Aside from Android, my complaints include the triggers being an uncomfortably weird shape and the system being kinda heavy (for comparison, it’s slightly lighter than an original Switch plus joycons). And I typically don’t play games that use the right stick, but I can’t imagine it would be very comfortable given the positioning. And even though playing Steam games through GameHub Lite is really cool, I feel like the technology isn’t quite there yet, and it’s not very comfortable to use; with Valve currently working on Steam OS for ARM, I’m hoping we get an official Steam client for Android next year.

Overall I recommend it, and I certainly don’t see myself getting another handheld any time soon.

 

[Enig]

As of 11:30 last night I may currently be the only person in the world to watch Michael Cusack’s Cartoon Song using a Wii, a CRT TV, component cables, a shitty ancient wifi router/repeater using WPA1 and WiiMC having a fork that can load youtube videos. The low amount of hoop jumping needed to watch a shitpost on a near 20 year old game system is actually impressive to me just from how the only issue in the chain is the wifi access.

 

[Two Dollars]

As of 11:30 last night I may currently be the only person in the world to watch Michael Cusack’s Cartoon Song using a Wii, a CRT TV, component cables, a shitty ancient wifi router/repeater using WPA1 and WiiMC having a fork that can load youtube videos. The low amount of hoop jumping needed to watch a shitpost on a near 20 year old game system is actually impressive to me just from how the only issue in the chain is the wifi access.

(cool though)

Also right after I mentioned iiSU being in alpha, they released a video showing off features and announced a (very tentative) Q2 2026 release window. Honestly, I think it looks amazing. It reminds me of when Nintendo and Sony used to actually try for their system menus.

 

[Never Scored]

As of 11:30 last night I may currently be the only person in the world to watch Michael Cusack’s Cartoon Song using a Wii, a CRT TV, component cables, a shitty ancient wifi router/repeater using WPA1 and WiiMC having a fork that can load youtube videos. The low amount of hoop jumping needed to watch a shitpost on a near 20 year old game system is actually impressive to me just from how the only issue in the chain is the wifi access.

I had a similar feeling a few months ago. I tried out the Wii U version of BOTW in Cemu for Android to see how it ran. It ran OK on the device I was playing on, but seemed to crash a lot. I was about five hours in, had caught the bug, and decided I wanted to play through the game again. I extracted the save file from the folder Cemu was saving it on Android, and used SaveMii to continue the save file on my actual Wii U. I remember just thinking, "Man, there's no way more than 10 or 12 people in the world have bothered to do this." All the tutorials online were for doing the reverse.

 

[Baraka Obama]

With regards to bluetooth support, I really don't know why you'd use bluetooth controllers with a device like this anyway. One of the issues with emulation is even good emulation adds a slight input delay. Bluetooth controllers are going to add another slight delay. I would think someone going for an FPGA would want as little lag as possible.

It's way worth it to not deal with a cord.

People tend to get overly picky about lag but the truth is every system has inherent input lag even in ideal setups (even wired only analog only connection to a CRT). Tacking on 10ms so that you'd don't need to worry about pets or children tripping on a cord isn't such a big problem. This is a far cry from the problem of years ago when LCD TVs would have 50-70ms built in even with their best mode and PS3 games would have 100-200ms of their own lag.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

I can easily perceive the input delay on say, the SNES classic, but I find it hard to notice in a high end emulator like Duck Station. This will be my first FPGA system, and I'm kind of excited to compare a game I know well like Mario 64 on the Analogue 3D vs emulation on the same TV.

It would be interesting to know how FPGA stands up to emulation, because that was another piece of curiosity that led me towards wanting a 3D. If you've had any time testing that out yet, I'd love to know.

I was a very young child when I owned my N64 initially and it's kinda difficult for me to tell where the accuracy ends and emulation issues begin, especially as some of the emulation issues have been smoothed out over recent years. If you do end up testing it out at all, I'd like to know how the Ares emulator stacks up, considering its whole premise is high accuracy.