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

[Baraka Obama]

S-Video is twice as sharp as composite, 480i vs 240i, so text would be ok above a certain font size.

Both are 480i and have the same vertical sharpness (240 lines per field). It's just the comb filter used to clean up the extracted color subcarrier on the composite signal causes significant horizontal resolution limits, usually you can't resolve more than 300 distinct dots per line with composite but can go as high as 700 with a good svideo setup because the color info is carried on a separate wire and doesn't need the comb filter. In practice a CRT's shadow mask would limit what can be resolved anyway, it's unusual to see higher than 450TVL in consumer CRTs.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Obviously, the GPU would output a 15.7 kHz signal here, but what games would use that, and would it work with DOS, Windows, Linux?

It's not a video output in the way we think about it today, at least the ones I remember using, so it needs drivers to work. Plug in the S-Video port with a tv as a monitor and boot into DOS, you get nothing.
You also need lady luck on your side because that shit was finicky as fuck even if everything worked perfectly yesterday.

 

[Billy_Sama!]

Finally managed to get an N64 Expansion Pak today. Now I can have the true Perfect Dark experience.

That was the last banger for me on the n64 and I got my copy new for 5$ when they had a lot of unsold stock.

That and Goldeneye, as much I love playing it on the original console, plays so amazing on that emulator/mouse and keyboard setup even though the N64 controller plays just fine. I know it's not the original experience but its like playing another game.

 

[Never Scored]

Finally managed to get an N64 Expansion Pak today. Now I can have the true Perfect Dark experience.

Space Station Silicon Valley cucks can get fucked.

 

[Billy_Sama!]

Space Station Silicon Valley cucks can get fucked.

I remember getting a used copy of that game and was wondering why it would freeze in the intro and that one gold trophy you could not collect since it was bugged. Thank goodness someone patched the game to be playable and one of the rare times that online patches do help than being a sloppy bandage after rush releases.

 

[Stasi]

I didn't realise steam did one of those replay/year in review summaries. I play mostly pirated games and manually add the launchers as a non-steam game which it obviously can't pick up. As a result though my "what you were playing" looks pretty kino

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

If you have a Bluetooth controller, you can play any GBA title on it comfortably. If you are using touch inputs, then stick to turn-based RPGs.

I went ahead and bought a MagSafe mount for my Switch Pro controller and it works great for what I want.

I’ll probably play RE3 OG since I’ve never played and completed that game. And will throw on some MAME roms as well.

 

[Judge Dredd]

The art work and boxes is the main appeal of physical for me. I love how many games in the 3rd/4th gen used hand drawn illustrations, Super famicom games have some of the prettiest box art's out there.
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Old game and old anime art is fantastic. Even the OG zelda art has a tone that has been replicated.

Secondarily, you get the lot sales, defunct office space with leftover shit, or abandoned storage units get sold in bulk, and people paw through it and occasionally find something good to flip.

That's how the Nintendo Playstation was found iirc.


I want to ask about old physical media and merch. Was listening to an old episode of GiantBomb, and they were making fun of a Call of Duty card game that was announced. They claimed it was real time, not turn based. I wonder if any prototypes exist of that.

 

[Jason_Cruiser]

Old game and old anime art is fantastic. Even the OG zelda art has a tone that has been replicated.

Same with the manuals. Japanese games especially are full of original full colour illustrations. The DQ manuals are great because of how explanations/tips are turned into accompanying visual gags.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Same with the manuals. Japanese games especially are full of original full colour illustrations. The DQ manuals are great because of how explanations/tips are turned into accompanying visual gags.

Up until 2000 that's similar to how a lot of American manuals were. They weren't all like that--a lot of the video game ones were basically a page of backstory, the controls, and warnings not to fry your system with static electricity...but some had more than that. For Pokémon, for instance, you had zero excuses on getting through Viridian Forest because the manual had full maps up to Brock.

On a different note, anyone have good ideas on Super Mario World hacks? I just want to do stuff like have Yoshi visit the Ghost Houses and Castles, but I browse Romhacking and all I see are graphical changes, autistic bullshit, and kaizo/troll hacks.

 

[Billy_Sama!]

Same with the manuals. Japanese games especially are full of original full colour illustrations. The DQ manuals are great because of how explanations/tips are turned into accompanying visual gags.
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As a Sega Genesis appreciator, the Genesis manuals are so lacking compared to the Japanese Mega Drive manuals with the art and color.

 

[Jason_Cruiser]

As a Sega Genesis appreciator, the Genesis manuals are so lacking compared to the Japanese Mega Drive manuals with the art and color.

Europe got it the worse. Our manuals were B&W, with no illustrations; with only a few screenshots. Text was kept to minimum because our manuals were made with 5-8 languages in mind to save on localization costs. If they were even cheaper they'd put every language on the same page. It's laughable how bad Europe got it back then.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Ugh.

The Xbox One X I bought for old titles has totally died, either the gpu or the HDMI out. I grabbed a cheap One S to replace it, and that one won’t recognize game DVDs, but will play DVD and Blu-Ray movies. No idea if game Blus work, as I have no Xbox One discs.

It reminds me of my time in retail, when we’d get one pallet of original Xbox consoles shipped in every week and have two pallets to ship back defective.

I suppose the upside is that I can cannibalize the X for the red laser to fix the S.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Ugh.

The Xbox One X I bought for old titles has totally died, either the gpu or the HDMI out. I grabbed a cheap One S to replace it, and that one won’t recognize game DVDs, but will play DVD and Blu-Ray movies. No idea if game Blus work, as I have no Xbox One discs.

It reminds me of my time in retail, when we’d get one pallet of original Xbox consoles shipped in every week and have two pallets to ship back defective.

I suppose the upside is that I can cannibalize the X for the red laser to fix the S.

You know, your computer IS an Xbox.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Europe got it the worse. Our manuals were B&W, with no illustrations; with only a few screenshots. Text was kept to minimum because our manuals were made with 5-8 languages in mind to save on localization costs. If they were even cheaper they'd put every language on the same page. It's laughable how bad Europe got it back then.

Europeans have tried to explain (cope?) but everything about computer and video games kind of sucked when it came to Europe. For the consoles, up until the early 2000s, they might get a few releases that were in Japan that the U.S. never got (Terranigma comes to mind), but in general the exclusives were nothing to write home about, games arrived late or not at all, you had the whole 50 MHz/letterboxing thing going on, you had absurd censorship like Contra becoming Probotector. Kids on the NES in America had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game back in December 1990, in November 1991 Europeans got it as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles II: The Arcade Game. The cope usually is "yeah, but we got ZX Spectrum titles like 'Wet Willy' and 'Gentleman Egg', so it wasn't that bad".