# Retro games & emulation



## spudmunkey (Jan 6, 2020)

I've seen a fair amount of mention of old-school games in the "Games that should get remade" and "What game are you playing" threads, but no topic focusing just on them. I also though it could be an appropriate place to talk about _how_ people are playing them, including new "compatible" consoles like the Analogue NT (and similar) and even emulation.



To start it all off, I've been playing emulated old-school NES, SNES, Genesis etc games on my PCs for 20 years. I've been getting into it a little more lately. i've been binging a lot of SNES Drunk's videos lately about games that were never released in the US, and so many look like so much fun. About 2 weeks ago, I just finished Mega man VII on NES, which signified me going through every mega man NES game, in order, and beating each of them without using save states, for the first time in my life. I had MM3 on NES as a kid, but never beat it...untill recently.

I've thought about picking up a couple of the "official" mini consoles from Nintendo and Sega...but there's just not enough games on them, and then with multiple systems, it's a bunch more USB and HDMI cables to manage, multiple controllers, etc.

I see a metric shit-tonne of, what I assume are, just raspberry pi in cases with retroarch on Ebay, etc...but I know the Pi can struggle with quite a lot of games/consoles.

Short of buying a whole PC, is there something out there, hardware and software, that makes the most seamless, high-performance emulation console? The "seamless" aspect is really what I'm looking for. To look as much like a purposefully-designed, refined, retail product, with minimal futzing around with expeimenting with multiple emulators, switching controller settings, etc etc.


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## DudeManBrother (Jan 7, 2020)

I quickly found a tutorial for reflashing the little mini retro NES that came out a couple years ago. It maybe took an hour to download all the games/box art and go through them. I ended up loading maybe 100 games into the system, but have another 300+ saved and can add them in minutes if I were so inclined. It loads and plays exactly like the stock 30 game console did. 




It won’t play all the other consoles games, as the 2 button controller is limited, but you could easily get sega, ps, and snes games to work on one of the mini ps or snes retro consoles. There is probably even an aftermarket controller for the mini nes that has enough buttons to load those now that I’m thinking about it... hmmm might have to look into that myself


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## Choop (Jan 7, 2020)

Modding an older console is an option also--an old xbox or a wii could make a good retro game station for not a lot of money. I had considered using a wii for a while since it has the classic controller which is a pretty nice perk.


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## NotDonVito (Jan 7, 2020)

I picked up a Wii model 2 for like $10 recently with controllers and everything. Don't have much use for it since I've got a Wii U, so I'll probably be modding it soon.

I have modded a Playstation Classic, totally recommend that system for the cost, but also it's more powerful than the other mini consoles. You can run anything from Atari up to Dreamcast on them(although some of the more technical Dreamcast games like UT99 won't run). I've seen some places selling them as low as $20 new. All you need to unlock it is a USB stick. Basically the program(autobleem) lets you access the emulator on the system and load your own PSX ROMS, but then you can also put a retroarch folder on the drive to play other games. The retroarch program comes with a shit ton of emulators pre-installed, everything from SNES to shit like 3DO and Jaguar.

The only problem I had with PS Classic is that you have to use one of the controller ports for your USB stick, so if you want to play 2 player games, you need a splitter. The system conveniently comes with 2 controllers, good quality ones too. Although they lack analog sticks, so like N64 games need something else plugged in.


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## SamSam (Jan 8, 2020)

2nd the PS Classic, it's a great emulation platform


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## M3CHK1LLA (Jan 8, 2020)

guess im old, but i enjoy playing the retro games on the orig consoles with the orig controller in my hands.

the only thing i would change is adding an extension cable to the controllers so i don't have to be 3ft from the tv lol


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## SamSam (Jan 8, 2020)

I agree, although that can quickly become rather pricey and using modern televisions is another hassle.


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## Spinedriver (Jan 27, 2020)

spudmunkey said:


> I've seen a fair amount of mention of old-school games in the "Games that should get remade" and "What game are you playing" threads, but no topic focusing just on them. I also though it could be an appropriate place to talk about _how_ people are playing them, including new "compatible" consoles like the Analogue NT (and similar) and even emulation.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Honestly, I find that the Retroarch image runs quite nicely, it just depends on what you're trying to play. All 16 bit systems run perfectly, it's just that when it comes to N64, Dreamcast, etc.. where it starts to choke. Now that they've come out with the Raspberry Pi 4 with a better processor and more memory, perhaps it'll run emulation a bit better than the old one.


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## experiment_one (Feb 11, 2020)

I would highly recommend one of the newer Pi 4B+ models with retroarch installed on it. I've set some up for friends of mine and have seen more games run without frame drops compared to the older Rasberry Pi 3B+. Setting it up isn't too different from installing it on one of the NES/SNES shitboxes. 


Spinedriver said:


> Honestly, I find that the Retroarch image runs quite nicely, it just depends on what you're trying to play. All 16 bit systems run perfectly, it's just that when it comes to N64, Dreamcast, etc.. where it starts to choke. Now that they've come out with the Raspberry Pi 4 with a better processor and more memory, perhaps it'll run emulation a bit better than the old one.



I think this would be the way to go. The extra graphics punch and RAM finally loosen up the bottlenecks that were on earlier versions of the pi.


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## WarMachine (Feb 18, 2020)

Pick up a Dell optiplex 3010 on eBay anywhere from 50-80 bucks. Gets you emulating up to the gamecube/Wii with the dedicated GPU and leaves u with upgrade options, if you want to (and you will lol). You can download a program called Batocera that acts like its own OS on the internal HDD or a flash drive if you don't want to have it take over as an OS. It comes preinstalled with RetroArch on the majority of the emulators. It also has Kodi built in as well. Something to think about. Also, if you decide to keep windows on it, you could pick up a gt 1030 for less than 100 bucks or if you can go the extra on some cash pick up a gtx 1650. Either can get you up to 1080p and up, plus you could start throwing some past and current PC games on there as well. I did this last March and couldnt be happier. Good enough for me to sell off my PS4 about 4 months or longer ago. A majority of its games and Xbox 1 games are on there as well. Most playing at a higher quality than on the consoles. Plus if you get the SFF version it looks like a console lol.


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## NotDonVito (Apr 28, 2020)

Holy god damn fuck. So I came into this shitty Intel atom mini pc recently. It’s completely unusable as an actual computer, so I decided to turn it into a game console. Just a heads up for anyone looking into these, this specific line of Atom machines(from companies like beelink, chuwi, minis forum, ect..), do not have Linux compatible WiFi OR Ethernet. I have never come across a computer where I couldn’t use Linux over and Ethernet connection. So Lakka and Batocera are almost completely unusable as permanent plug and play interfaces. Batocera won’t install without a network, it’s previous fork Recalbox doesn’t seem to have installation options at all, and I can’t figure out how to get roms onto Lakka since the official documentation only has instructions for transferring files over a shared network, which this POS isn’t on. Retro arch is out of the picture too because on a non Pi system you apparently have to run it over an existing OS(Windows or Debian for example). I’d rather not do that for the sake of performance and having to boot into a desktop environment beforehand.

TLDR don’t buy a cheap atom machine for emulation.

BTW, if anyone knows how to transfer files to Lakka offline please let me know. I understand how to scan the file directories off an external USB or SD card. I played Castlevania and Megaman X6 off of a USB last night, but I would like to transfer these ISO files to the primary storage where Lakka is installed. (it’s a fork of retro arch btw)


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## NotDonVito (Jun 15, 2020)

Got my Wii homebrewed a few weeks ago. There's a google doc file that's got everything that was released on the Wii shop, so I've got all the good 1st party N64 games(and they're not emulated jank), lots of SNES games, some PC Engine stuff. There's even a few decent Wiiware games like Cave Story and Megaman 9/10. It also plays Gamecube and Wii ISO's natively. Wii games are a bit of a pain as most Wii ISO launchers require USB(which costs more per GB than SD), but the Gamecube launcher can play games off an SD card just fine.

So most of this isn't emulation per-say, but there are some emulators for the system. The Nintendo ones(Gameboy/GBA/SNES/NES) all work great, but I prefer playing the Virtual Console versions of games if it's availible. Unfortunately Nintendo didn't release any GB or GBA games for the OG Wii shop, so you have to use an emulator in that case.

Every other emulator like the various PC's(MSX, C64, ect..) and "newer" stuff like DS and PS1 run like garbage. Real shame too, I really wanted to play PS1, but only a small amount of games are supported.

edit: Here's Simpsons Hit & Run running in "HD" off an SD card. Played with a Wii classic controller.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ID5SU81XHGlFlhanAwzB1Crf_FuI7AkF/view?usp=sharing

tbh you can probably do all of this much easier on a PC running Dolphin and get better results, but the goal here is to have a plug and play machine I can setup at a TV area


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## broj15 (Jun 16, 2020)

Does anyone have any suggestions for a controller that can be used with emulators for Android phone - google pixel 2 to be specific? Currently using My Boy! For gba stuff & retroarch for everything else. 

The touch screen controls work well enough for rpg's & other turn based games with lots of menus, but just wouldn't cut it for platformers or other input heavy games. I just wanna play some metroidvanias & the MegaMan Zero games.


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## Choop (Jun 16, 2020)

broj15 said:


> Does anyone have any suggestions for a controller that can be used with emulators for Android phone - google pixel 2 to be specific? Currently using My Boy! For gba stuff & retroarch for everything else.
> 
> The touch screen controls work well enough for rpg's & other turn based games with lots of menus, but just wouldn't cut it for platformers or other input heavy games. I just wanna play some metroidvanias & the MegaMan Zero games.



I imagine the 8BitDo SN30 should work--it'd be what I would get for an emulation controller.

https://www.8bitdo.com/sn30-pro-g-classic-or-sn30-pro-sn/

They have several models of wireless controllers!


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## TedEH (Jun 16, 2020)

I've got the 8bitdo Zero paired to my phone (which is also a Pixel 2), and it works fine for this purpose. It makes mobile gaming bearable.


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## StevenC (Jun 17, 2020)

DudeManBrother said:


> I quickly found a tutorial for reflashing the little mini retro NES that came out a couple years ago. It maybe took an hour to download all the games/box art and go through them. I ended up loading maybe 100 games into the system, but have another 300+ saved and can add them in minutes if I were so inclined. It loads and plays exactly like the stock 30 game console did.
> View attachment 76255
> View attachment 76256
> 
> ...


The Wii Classic controller should work since the Minis use Wii controller connections.


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## spudmunkey (Sep 4, 2020)

I've been trying to use an old Acer Nettop for the last little while (because I already had it), but at 2GB Ram, a windows, and a 1.3GHz processor...it just ain't cutting it.

I just recently got a Raspberry Pi 4 delivered this morning. Won't have the SD card until next week, but trying to wrap my head around the software.

Even when I look at "beginners guides", they still seem like one step beyond what I can get my brain to "click". 

I've probably watched 2-3 days-worth of videos on it, but I still feel like I'm one step removed.

Not really looking for help, just venting. Ha!


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## Demiurge (Sep 5, 2020)

I build a Raspberry Pi 3 for someone a couple years back, and I remember having to follow the step-by-step carefully because winging-it didn't work out. I used this: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/

The most frustrating part was getting the disk image-type ROMS to show up correct. IIRC I had one where the .cue file had the image name in lower case where the image was in upper case and it didn't work- something stupid like that.

Then the person I built it for just uses it to play Gameboy games.


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## wankerness (Sep 8, 2020)

So, Nintendo is doing a limited-time release of an HD collection of Super Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, and Mario Galaxy. I'm REALLY hyped for this! I've been wanting to play Mario 64 again for a while, but the awfulness of the display on the N64, the looseness of the emulated Mario 64 on Wii-U, and the ungodly touch controls of Mario 64 DS all put me off in a big way. Mario Sunshine I've also thought about, but that one put me off cause I didn't really want to buy another copy (I sold it a long time ago to make a fast buck since they were paying a whole 30 bucks for it at gamestop or something way back when GC was still a current system). Mario Galaxy was the only one I might have played, and this will just make it all the better, since I find wiimotes to be annoying and the controls to that game to not really seem to require it anyway, unlike Skyward Sword. Pretty much was just aiming for gimmicks with picking up star fragments (seems like that could be eliminated) and shaking the wiimote to do a spin attack (just map it to a button!).

Apparently it's already selling out everywhere (for the physical version), so I just ordered it to be a bandwagon jumper. I figure digital's slightly more convenient, but that it will be nice to have it, especially cause I'll probably be able to resell it at a profit somewhere way down the line if I ever want to.

A lot of people are whining that the digital version is also advertised as limited-time only. I don't really get why Nintendo'd do that, but whatever. Not going to stop me!!


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## p0ke (Sep 29, 2020)

I've messed around with emulators for the better part of 20 years. The first emulator stuff I played was A Link to the Past for the SNES, which I got on a floppy disk from one of my dad's friends. I went "WTF, there's no Zelda game for PC", but then inserted the floppy and found ZSNES.EXE and the rom file on there.
I already had a game controller that had basically the same layout as a SNES controller (some Logitech pad, I believe it was nicknamed "Batman pad") and managed to get that working with it, and that's basically the first time I got to play Zelda properly. It had some glitches still, for example there were some layer problems so the dark areas were pitch black (that got fixed sometime later) and the audio was pretty bad. But still playable.
Fast forward a little bit and I figured out how to acquire more roms, and soon I had basically all SNES games running.

These days SNES emulators are basically feature perfect and have filters that make the games look good even in HD and on quite modest hardware (probably for like 10 years already... ). I'm running mine on an Android TV box, with wireless Xbox 360 controllers (I also have a SNES -> USB adapter but I prefer wireless) and it works very nicely. It just works out of the box too, I didn't even have to configure the controllers.

PS1 emulation has been pretty near perfect for some time too, and using graphics plugin filters the games even look much better than they originally did - same with N64 games, with a few exceptions. Back when I had a modded original Xbox, it was able to run both of those emulators, and I even beat FFVII, Zelda: OT and Mario 64 on it  I haven't tried PS1 emulation on the Android TV yet, but I'm pretty sure it'll work too.


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## TedEH (Sep 29, 2020)

I never played a lot of PS1 games, but I know they had some kind of janky projection math for textures that made things look really weird. I assume emulators could (do?) fix this and end up looking a lot better than the PS1 originally did.


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## p0ke (Oct 1, 2020)

TedEH said:


> I never played a lot of PS1 games, but I know they had some kind of janky projection math for textures that made things look really weird. I assume emulators could (do?) fix this and end up looking a lot better than the PS1 originally did.



I don't know, the PS1 was my first console and I played the fuck out of it until the PS2 came out, and I didn't notice anything weird. 
Could be an NTSC thing though? A friend of mine had some NTSC games and their colors were at least all wrong on his PAL PS1 (he had a modchip so he could run copies and different region games etc)...

Anyway, the main thing emulators do is that they scale the games to HD with some kind of interpolation effects that round out the otherwise sharp edged polygons and textures. And they can also add effect like bump maps and stuff that makes everything have more depth. Maybe in the future they'll even be able to add ray tracing and other cool things to old games


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## TedEH (Oct 1, 2020)

p0ke said:


> I played the fuck out of it until the PS2 came out, and I didn't notice anything weird.


I can imagine it would be harder to notice on an old TV and some games covered it up really well (or avoided the problem altogether), but the texture mapping on the original playstation was not perspective-correct, as I understand it. The result is that textures look sort of wobbly. I had noticed it a long time ago but had no idea why.

You can see what that looks like here: (Although this example is exaggerated on purpose)


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## p0ke (Oct 1, 2020)

TedEH said:


> You can see what that looks like here:



Ah, now that I saw that example, I do recall seeing a little bit of that. Nothing that extreme though, and I didn't play many games where that kind of thing would be noticeable anyway. Racing games mainly had that kind of perspective (I didn't play FPS:s etc back then), and I recall the cars looking a bit wobbly even in Gran Turismo, though it was hidden quite well.
Also, yeah, I had a 14" CRT TV that didn't even have a composite or scart input, I had to use an RF modulator to plug the PS1 into the antenna connector  The picture was so bad, I probably wouldn't have noticed it anyway  I got a better TV just in time for the PS2.


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## bostjan (Oct 1, 2020)

I'm using a RPi 3. I can emulate NES, SNES, Atari 2600, PS1, Sega Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, and Gameboy just fine, and it works really well with Doom and Wolfenstein or whatever. I did have to install a fan on it, because it was overheating after 15-20 minutes, even with very simple 8 bit emulation.

Even though the Pi is super cheap, by the time you get a fan and a power supply, an SD card, a fan, a screen, etc. etc., it can get pretty expensive, like over $100. 

I'm very happy with my device. I run mine off of a battery and it has a small TFT screen that switches off when you plug in an HDMI cable.


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## p0ke (Oct 6, 2020)

Inspired by this thread, I downloaded ePSXe yesterday and played some of the ps1 games I ripped before getting rid of them.

Nightmare Creatures used to scare the shit out of me as a kid (I only played the demo, now I have the full game) - I died two times on the first werewolf and game overed on the second one  Guess I'll have to dig up the gamepads and try again soon...


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## wankerness (Oct 13, 2020)

Haha, nightmare creatures. I never played it, but I definitely remember the large ads in all the videogame magazines of the time for it. Looked pretty janky, even at the time. 

I have only ever played one game on PSX emulator - Silent Hill 1. It was actually a really smooth experience, and that was way back around 2003. I guess that system was easy to emulate for whatever reason. The N64 emulators today are still crappier than the PS1 ones were almost 20 years ago.


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## p0ke (Oct 24, 2020)

wankerness said:


> Haha, nightmare creatures. I never played it, but I definitely remember the large ads in all the videogame magazines of the time for it. Looked pretty janky, even at the time.
> 
> I have only ever played one game on PSX emulator - Silent Hill 1. It was actually a really smooth experience, and that was way back around 2003. I guess that system was easy to emulate for whatever reason. The N64 emulators today are still crappier than the PS1 ones were almost 20 years ago.



Yeah, Nightmare Creatures definitely hasn't aged well graphics wise. I don't recall it looking bad back in the day though. It did nail the atmosphere though, I don't recall ever being as scared playing any other game 

Yeah PSX emulators run basically all games perfectly these days. N64 emus run well too but I recall needing separate hacks for pretty much every game and some just won't work.

Another thing I always found weird was that SNES emus always ran better than NES emus - maybe there just wasn't as much interest in developing said emulators? Or maybe on the NES everything was hardcoded against the cpu clock and that's harder to emulate? Idk...


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## alinas (Sep 5, 2021)

I love retro-inspired games.. Super mario bros was the game I loved so much.
https://retrobowlgame.com


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## c7spheres (Sep 5, 2021)

I loved my Atari Lynx when I was younger, but then I sold it all to help fund an ART SGX2000. My freind got one a few years ago and it was total nostalgia. Gates of Zendoncon, Electro Cop, and Slime World were my favorites. Before that I had an 8-bit NES. I thought about getting another but don't want to detract from guitar. If I got one the next thing I know a month will have gone by and I wouldn't have touched my guitar. I'd like to check out the SGX again for nostalgia too.


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## bostjan (Sep 28, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> I loved my Atari Lynx when I was younger, but then I sold it all to help fund an ART SGX2000. My freind got one a few years ago and it was total nostalgia. Gates of Zendoncon, Electro Cop, and Slime World were my favorites. Before that I had an 8-bit NES. I thought about getting another but don't want to detract from guitar. If I got one the next thing I know a month will have gone by and I wouldn't have touched my guitar. I'd like to check out the SGX again for nostalgia too.


I'm a little late to reply, but I just saw this.

I bought a Sega Game Gear when I was a kid. I was super close to getting the Atari Lynx instead, but the main thing that stopped me was that the demo Lynx at the store was broken, and I didn't recognize any of the games. My neighbour and my best friend at the time (2 different people) each had a Sega Master System, so I was at least somewhat familiar with the game library for Game Gear (the GG was 100% compatible with the SMS if you had a cartridge adapter). But, IIRC, the Lynx was technically superior.

It was like 2003-4, I think, and I saw some big box store still had NOS Game Gears for sale, so I purchased another one and relived my childhood memories, and then, recently, my oldest son purchased a used one off of eBay and got into it. My Portable RPi emulator could potentially function as a GG system, since it has a similarly-sized screen (plus it can run much longer off of a LiPo rechargeable battery than my original GG could last off 6 AA batteries). Most retro games for TV function just fine with the small screen, but the characters are much easier to see when the graphics are proportioned for a portable system.


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## Crungy (Sep 28, 2021)

I was starting to collect old NES stuff because I really enjoy the old hardware but now the space required and finicky carts or decks has become loathsome.

I'm a fan of Batocera for emulation as a "seamless" package. I run that on an HP desktop with modest specs and it runs N64 and older great. I have not tried PS1/Dreamcast/etc on it.

I also have an NES mini and used Hackchi on it to add games. A more specific use with NES only but it's a fun and compact little device that is HD.

Another device I got recently was a handheld that looks like an SNES/SF controller with one analog stick. I updated the firmware to a Retroarch package and it's a nice portable. Not the strongest hardware so it's best suited for anything less demanding than N64.


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## thrsher (Feb 13, 2022)

whats everyone setup these days for retro gamming? looking to put something together, mostly for 8-16 bit. maybe a couple of Ps1/2 games. looking for recommendations


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## Crungy (Feb 13, 2022)

Batocera/Retroarch is my favorite if you don't want to use multiple separate emulators. I mostly play all of the old Nintendo/Sega/Turbografx stuff, not so much with PS1/2 or Dreamcast. 

Gzdoom is awesome for modded versions of Doom and there's a lot of cool stuff out there. My favorite one recently mods Doom into a first person Castlevania that is done really well.


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## narad (Feb 13, 2022)

No one else is rocking a MiSTer here? It's killer for NeoGeo stuff, and probably PS1 will be working by the time I next get a vacation. I never really got into emulators past SNES generation as things started to get buggier than I cared to troubleshoot through, so it'll be great going through the old PS1 library.


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## thrsher (Feb 13, 2022)

narad said:


> No one else is rocking a MiSTer here? It's killer for NeoGeo stuff, and probably PS1 will be working by the time I next get a vacation. I never really got into emulators past SNES generation as things started to get buggier than I cared to troubleshoot through, so it'll be great going through the old PS1 library.


i was just reading about MISTER from another forum a frequent.


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## narad (Feb 13, 2022)

thrsher said:


> i was just reading about MISTER from another forum a frequent.



I've had it for months. It's awesome. I wanted a dedicated emu machine anyway, so it actually was a reasonable solution purely from a cost pov, but nailing all the titles basically perfectly (even if inconsistencies were often negligible and nothing I would pass a A/B on). Setting it up's a bit of a pain in the ass, and it's going to top out at PS1/Saturn since there's supposedly too much logic on the N64 to reproduce in the current FPGA that MiSTer uses.

Just checked -- they have core sound working on the PS1 and beginning CD sound, should only be a couple of weeks now :O


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## TedEH (Feb 13, 2022)

thrsher said:


> whats everyone setup these days for retro gamming?


It's not for everyone, but I've taken to collecting and refurbishing old consoles instead of using emulation. A couple o' times, when I told people I was doing this, I either got stupidly good deals, or just free stuff given to me 'cause some seem to value this stuff a lot, and some think it's just garbage so they happily give it away.

It's honestly starting feel a bit like I'm hoarding vintage game garbage, hah. So far I've got at least 1 each working console from each generation from the major companies (Big N, Sony, and MS). Some in multiples, some missing parts or not working.



narad said:


> No one else is rocking a MiSTer here?


What's the advantage over something like this? I get the impression some believe that FPGA grants better "accuracy" - but wouldn't this still come down to how well the original hardware is understood, and how well the person making the emulator can understand and implement it?


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## spudmunkey (Feb 13, 2022)

Anyone using an Nvidia Shield?


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## thrsher (Feb 13, 2022)

spudmunkey said:


> Anyone using an Nvidia Shield?


With all the equipment I own, I have yet to find a reason to get one


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## Choop (Feb 13, 2022)

TedEH said:


> What's the advantage over something like this? I get the impression some believe that FPGA grants better "accuracy" - but wouldn't this still come down to how well the original hardware is understood, and how well the person making the emulator can understand and implement it?



It emulates the game more closely by also emulating the original hardware, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it'd really make for the average person. Kinda neat though. Possibly more useful for people wanting to emulate arcade stuff more closely?


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## narad (Feb 13, 2022)

TedEH said:


> What's the advantage over something like this? I get the impression some believe that FPGA grants better "accuracy" - but wouldn't this still come down to how well the original hardware is understood, and how well the person making the emulator can understand and implement it?



Of course an imperfect core introduces errors in the same way an imperfect emulator does, but it's more about the nature of how things are computed between the two. In the emulator space, the logic of the original consoles is forced into a sequential processing paradigm, and since this deviates from the parallel nature of the original consoles, it can introduce errors that would be really tricky to ever get 100%. Yet the biggest noticeable differences to me are color representation and sound (the sound could be due to this difference, I have trouble understanding how color could). 

I can't remember if this video talks about it. Sadly this guy puts out so many in depth comparisons I can't remember which ones are most helpful for people who don't care about the latest core progress:




But yea, there's also some differences in terms of how the video is typically rendered, so if you have a bunch of retro consoles maybe you also have some of the dedicated hardware solutions for displaying them via HDMI or something on a modern TV. That's basically built in with MiSTer, so I feel like I paid for the dedicated gaming rig with the more advanced I/O you'd want with actual hardware, and the improvements over emulators was basically free.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Feb 13, 2022)

I do play some games on my laptop from time to time. Generally, I stick to NES, SNES, GBC/GBA, Sega, and PS/PS2. For October, I spent a week or so getting through Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the 8th or 9th time. I was also working through A Link to the Past, but stopped, though I plan to pick it back up at some point in the future. I think I was on the 3rd... diamond or whatever it is.


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## Tree (Feb 13, 2022)

In this day and age it's hard to beat Retroarch unless you're looking for some more fine tuning IME.

Someone just made a version of it available on the Xbox Marketplace that doesn't require Dev Mode access, so now you don't have to hop out of retail mode to emulate, which is dope as hell. I've been running up to N64/PS1 era no problems on an OG Xbox One. I'll have to test Dreamcast/ReDream soon when I get my new SSD formatted. I doubt it would be much of an upgrade in terms of performance, but I'm curious to see if I can get my One S to handle Gamecube, as I never have my Wii or Wii U connected.

The Series S and X are supposed to be impeccable up to, and including PS2. I'd love to get my hands on a Series X, as I can't commit to digital. Plus I'd rather just use my discs for emulation rather than ROM/ISO backups.


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## thrsher (Feb 14, 2022)

right now im looking at launchbox with retroarch. looking at stuff from arcadepunks.com


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

thrsher said:


> right now im looking at launchbox with retroarch. looking at stuff from arcadepunks.com


Are you using a pc right now for this or are you looking to get something specifically for this?


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## Crungy (Feb 16, 2022)

I've never bought a graphics card, ever lol then again, the last "serious" pc gaming I did was probably during the Duke 3d/Shadow Warrior/Blood era.


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

Blood was such a great game!


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## thrsher (Feb 16, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> Are you using a pc right now for this or are you looking to get something specifically for this?


I haven't made a final decision yet. Leaning towards getting a mini PC for it but would consider nshield right now I'm just downloading an 8TB package to my NAS.


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## TedEH (Feb 16, 2022)

Saw some news that big N is shutting down the Wii U + 3DS shops. I guess it was inevitable, but it's not great news for the retro enthusiast + preservation crowd. There's a handful of games on those stores that aren't really (legally) accessible anywhere else.


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

thrsher said:


> I haven't made a final decision yet. Leaning towards getting a mini PC for it but would consider nshield right now I'm just downloading an 8TB package to my NAS.


If you don't plan on going past say PS2 or even WiiU, a used Optiplex and a GT1030 will do that job in spades, and not break the bank in the process. And that will cover upscaling to HD on a lot of games as well. But if you're content with native resolution on the 3D games, a used Optiplex 3010 would be the way to go. If you want a little more power, (and unfortunately a bigger pc) an Optiplex 990 and GPU is awesome. I bought my son one for Christmas on ebay shipped to the door for 150 bucks, came with a 500gb HDD and 8 gigs of ram. We got him a GTX1650 OC for it and it hangs with my Ryzen 5 3600 + GTX1650 build i made when COVID hit.

EDIT: Also, @Crungy is right on with Batocera if you want to make it just a dedicated gaming console. I did that with an old 3010 i have that i plan on putting in an arcade build im going to do this spring and its awesome. Comes with Kodi built in also, so you get the games and movies all in one setup. If you want to stick with Windows, then Launchbox/BigBox is the way to go.


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> For October, I spent a week or so getting through Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the 8th or 9th time. I was also working through A Link to the Past, but stopped, though I plan to pick it back up at some point in the future. I think I was on the 3rd... diamond or whatever it is.


You're good people my dude.


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## thrsher (Feb 16, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> If you don't plan on going past say PS2 or even WiiU, a used Optiplex and a GT1030 will do that job in spades, and not break the bank in the process. And that will cover upscaling to HD on a lot of games as well. But if you're content with native resolution on the 3D games, a used Optiplex 3010 would be the way to go. If you want a little more power, (and unfortunately a bigger pc) an Optiplex 990 and GPU is awesome. I bought my son one for Christmas on ebay shipped to the door for 150 bucks, came with a 500gb HDD and 8 gigs of ram. We got him a GTX1650 OC for it and it hangs with my Ryzen 5 3600 + GTX1650 build i made when COVID hit.
> 
> EDIT: Also, @Crungy is right on with Batocera if you want to make it just a dedicated gaming console. I did that with an old 3010 i have that i plan on putting in an arcade build im going to do this spring and its awesome. Comes with Kodi built in also, so you get the games and movies all in one setup. If you want to stick with Windows, then Launchbox/BigBox is the way to go.


Yeah, def not going to venture past ps2 stuff. I was leaning towards picking up something like this for it Limited-time deal: New Intel 4 Cores 8 Thread i5-8279U Processor（up to 4.1Ghz）,Win11 Pro Beelink Mini pc with 16G DDR4 RAM/500GB NVMe M.2 SSD, Support 4K HD Dual HDMI Display, WiFi, BT5.0, 4 USB3.0, Gigabit Ethernet


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

thrsher said:


> Yeah, def not going to venture past ps2 stuff. I was leaning towards picking up something like this for it Limited-time deal: New Intel 4 Cores 8 Thread i5-8279U Processor（up to 4.1Ghz）,Win11 Pro Beelink Mini pc with 16G DDR4 RAM/500GB NVMe M.2 SSD, Support 4K HD Dual HDMI Display, WiFi, BT5.0, 4 USB3.0, Gigabit Ethernet



That's not a bad price for what it is. Are you wanting to try to stick with as small a form factor as you can?


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## Choop (Feb 16, 2022)

I think as far as mini PC setups, it may be better to go with something that has an AMD Ryzen APU if that is an option -- the graphics performance tends to be better than the Intel on-chip gpu stuff.

Edit: Just checked Amazon, and it looks like everybody else knows because I can't find a comparably priced one at all lol. At the prices the mini PC's are going for, I'd just build a setup with a Ryzen 5700G or something. The Optiplex+older GPU is a great inexpensive option if you don't mind having a larger form factor. There are even ones that are slimmer, that you could install a slim GPU into.


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## Demiurge (Feb 16, 2022)

A few years back, I built an RPi for a friend as a retro system. I was planning on making one for myself if it turned out well; it did but I thought it was kind of tedious & limiting and never got around to it. Now I'm shopping mini PCs because it just seems easier and the price points aren't too far apart.


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

Choop said:


> I think as far as mini PC setups, it may be better to go with something that has an AMD Ryzen APU if that is an option -- the graphics performance tends to be better than the Intel on-chip gpu stuff.
> 
> Edit: Just checked Amazon, and it looks like everybody else knows because I can't find a comparably priced one at all lol. At the prices the mini PC's are going for, I'd just build a setup with a Ryzen 5700G or something. The Optiplex+older GPU is a great inexpensive option if you don't mind having a larger form factor. There are even ones that are slimmer, that you could install a slim GPU into.


Lenovo ThinkCentre's are another great alternative to the SFF setups as well. I really like the look of them too. Can't remember for sure, but the M92P or 93P? are sff and i BELIEVE they can fit a TI version GPU unless i'm mistaken. Almost pulled the trigger on one of these a few years ago lol.

EDIT: A great place to check out some of what we are mentioning is a dude on YouTube, ETAPRIME. He does awesome reviews and builds and pre-built pc's just for emulation and PC gaming. That's where i got the idea for doing the 3010 SFF a few years ago.


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## LostTheTone (Feb 16, 2022)

It feels a bit weird to me that anyone would want to buy general purpose PC hardware for emulation purposes. Each to their own I guess, but my experience has generally been that old systems aren't resource intensive enough to make much odds, and modern systems just need the same stuff as a regular gaming PC. I guess getting the best bang for your buck is different, but if that's where you're at then personally I think you shouldn't even consider small form factor. It always costs more. 

I definitely fall down on the side of MiSTer FPGA emulation - As others have mentioned it does some exciting things that are important, at least to me. Sega Saturn emulators are notoriously trash, and they really struggle with multi-disk games like Shining Force 3 and Panza Dragoon Saga. And, well, those are the only old games I give a crap about.


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## thrsher (Feb 16, 2022)

alot of great recommendations, i appreciate it. i would like to stick to small form factor. i already have too much PC equipment in my house as it. 80 TB nas, gigabit switches, firewall, router. plex/roon server. UPS. i probably wont even really play alot of stuff past snes/genesis. prob a couple of ps1/ps2 games at most.


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## LostTheTone (Feb 16, 2022)

thrsher said:


> alot of great recommendations, i appreciate it. i would like to stick to small form factor. i already have too much PC equipment in my house as it. 80 TB nas, gigabit switches, firewall, router. plex/roon server. UPS. i probably wont even really play alot of stuff past snes/genesis. prob a couple of ps1/ps2 games at most.



Personally I would just get a Pi or ComputeStick or something. Something that's not just small, but properly tiny. A Pi will happily run old school nintendo and sega games, and costs what $30?. If you aren't going to be using the extra power, there really isn't much reason to have more power on tap. 

Or go the other way and chip an original Xbox. That's proper retro - Using an old console to run older console emulators


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## bostjan (Feb 16, 2022)

Demiurge said:


> A few years back, I built an RPi for a friend as a retro system. I was planning on making one for myself if it turned out well; it did but I thought it was kind of tedious & limiting and never got around to it. Now I'm shopping mini PCs because it just seems easier and the price points aren't too far apart.



RPis are simply impossible to obtain right now.

Depending on what you are emulating, though, if you can find a $5 Pi Zero (MAP), it's difficult to justify a $500 mini PC vs a $40 Pi setup. But the Pi Zero isn't going to emulate anything more demanding than SNES/Genesis.

I have a couple of Pi-based handheld retro systems. They get hot, they don't have a ton of processing power, and they used to be dirt cheap. I emulate Atari2600, GameBoy, NES, Game Gear, SNES, Genesis/Nomad, MAME, C64, and PlayStation (1). N64 games usually run poorly, but can be doable. I was wanting to upgrade to Pi4s, but the universe didn't like my plans.

What about the process was tedious?


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## thrsher (Feb 16, 2022)

LostTheTone said:


> Personally I would just get a Pi or ComputeStick or something. Something that's not just small, but properly tiny. A Pi will happily run old school nintendo and sega games, and costs what $30?. If you aren't going to be using the extra power, there really isn't much reason to have more power on tap.
> 
> Or go the other way and chip an original Xbox. That's proper retro - Using an old console to run older console emulators


given the option, id rather have the the extra power to have the option to play some other things should the need arise. i also always seem to repurpose things all the time. right now i have a plex server with 10tb of videos. im not really doing 4k at the moment but the pc im using is maxing its resources right now so i could see myself needed to move that over at some point to better hardware


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## LostTheTone (Feb 16, 2022)

thrsher said:


> given the option, id rather have the the extra power to have the option to play some other things should the need arise. i also always seem to repurpose things all the time. right now i have a plex server with 10tb of videos. im not really doing 4k at the moment but the pc im using is maxing its resources right now so i could see myself needed to move that over at some point to better hardware



I do feel you on that - My Plex server is my old gaming PC that slowly got filled with hard drives, and would still be my everyday gaming PC if my employers hadn't bought me this rather good G3 gaming laptop as my work device. If you are having struggles with horsepower on your server, just trade some space for time and optimize your videos overnight so you never need to transcode on the fly. I have been using Plex for maybe 8 years, and I have never managed to get live transcoding working to consistently deliver stutter free performance 

Anyway, yes having some random bits of computer laying around will probably be useful. Much like you, I like to keep stuff and find fun/stupid things to do with them. 

To me though an SFF box would be a bit unexciting; something like a pre-owned Surface Pro or similar would be more interesting. I'm not just saying that apropos of nothing btw - I had an SP2 then an SP4 as my daily driver device back in my old job where I had a couple of days per week where I travelled for 6 to 8 hours in a day. They aren't necessarily the most powerful devices, but they are whole systems and they have more power than people think. Certainly ample for emulation, and for indie games too. And they have an integrated touch screen, so you plonk it down and play wherever, but they are also pretty good at being a tablet too. 

YMMV of course


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

Also if you decide on something that you wouldn't play much ps2 with and want good probability and super sff, look into some android based streaming units. NOT a firestick lol but there are plenty of android based setups out there around 50 bucks even new on Amazon that will get you up to a minimum of psp. If I didn't have my 3010 with the gpu lying around I would definitely use that for my cabinet build. But I'm like how you mentioned earlier, I like finding new ways to use old toys that are collecting dust.



don't let the picture size fool you, it's just a hair bigger than the actual Pi4 itself.


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## Crungy (Feb 16, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> A great place to check out some of what we are mentioning is a dude on YouTube, ETAPRIME. He does awesome reviews and builds and pre-built pc's just for emulation and PC gaming.



He's awesome! That's how I got into Batocera. I had an HP desktop around with no harddrive not getting any use until I saw this video. Super easy to set up.


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## Demiurge (Feb 16, 2022)

bostjan said:


> RPis are simply impossible to obtain right now.
> 
> Depending on what you are emulating, though, if you can find a $5 Pi Zero (MAP), it's difficult to justify a $500 mini PC vs a $40 Pi setup. But the Pi Zero isn't going to emulate anything more demanding than SNES/Genesis.
> 
> ...



I was thinking along the lines of the mini PCs in the under $200 range. Nothing world-beating spec-wise but could run emulators competently with the benefit of having a PC environment for some extra functionality. 

The complaint of tedium with the RPI is probably more about me being a baby. I thought that setting everything up was going to be a drag & drop experience which it wasn't; perhaps I found the most instructions for the most inelegant way of doing things and followed it.


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## LostTheTone (Feb 16, 2022)

Demiurge said:


> The complaint of tedium with the RPI is probably more about me being a baby. I thought that setting everything up was going to be a drag & drop experience which it wasn't; perhaps I found the most instructions for the most inelegant way of doing things and followed it.



Welcome to Linux club. 

Don't you just love it when you want to install a basic program, and the instructions written in 2021 are "Oh it's so simple, you just open up your terminal, and you type in an apt-get to the repository and use the correct arguments and then it'll be installed, and you can run it from your command line". A quality, accessible operating system you got there


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## thrsher (Feb 16, 2022)

LostTheTone said:


> I do feel you on that - My Plex server is my old gaming PC that slowly got filled with hard drives, and would still be my everyday gaming PC if my employers hadn't bought me this rather good G3 gaming laptop as my work device. If you are having struggles with horsepower on your server, just trade some space for time and optimize your videos overnight so you never need to transcode on the fly. I have been using Plex for maybe 8 years, and I have never managed to get live transcoding working to consistently deliver stutter free performance
> 
> Anyway, yes having some random bits of computer laying around will probably be useful. Much like you, I like to keep stuff and find fun/stupid things to do with them.
> 
> ...


man, i would love a surface pro, i prob could convince my job to swing it too if i really pressed. im a total noob to plex. point me to something that can understand optimizing files. currently i just ripped all my dvds and my friends(about 1200 dvds) with MAKEMKV. all standard rips which is fine. then i go to the library and grab stuff. i have an HD drive so i can rip blue ray/4k with it but i know nothing/understand anything in regards to encoding. completely over me.


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## bostjan (Feb 16, 2022)

LostTheTone said:


> Welcome to Linux club.
> 
> Don't you just love it when you want to install a basic program, and the instructions written in 2021 are "Oh it's so simple, you just open up your terminal, and you type in an apt-get to the repository and use the correct arguments and then it'll be installed, and you can run it from your command line". A quality, accessible operating system you got there


I mean, if you are using the most minimal version of Linux, that's 100% accurate. In fairness, though, the RPi set up for retro gaming is going to be using an OS that's even less user friendly if you want to install anything other than retro games.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Feb 16, 2022)

LostTheTone said:


> Welcome to Linux club.
> 
> Don't you just love it when you want to install a basic program, and the instructions written in 2021 are "Oh it's so simple, you just open up your terminal, and you type in an apt-get to the repository and use the correct arguments and then it'll be installed, and you can run it from your command line". A quality, accessible operating system you got there


My experience with Linux, aside from the occasional frustrating issue, has been much more enjoyable than you are implying. Trying to troubleshoot an issue on Microsoft products, on the other hand, is a goddamn nightmare.

EDIT: I should note that I am referring to a full Linux install (Mint, Manjaro, Ubuntu, etc), but I have had to do Linux Server stuff from the command line. It was a rewiring my brain sort of scenario, but using man pages and help were quite beneficial.


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## LostTheTone (Feb 16, 2022)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> My experience with Linux, aside from the occasional frustrating issue, has been much more enjoyable than you are implying. Trying to troubleshoot an issue on Microsoft products, on the other hand, is a goddamn nightmare.



I'm not saying that Windows is better - My mandatory windows 11 update now means my wireless headphones flatly won't work and I genuinely can't find any way to interact with it under the hood, it's either a driver fix from MS or they'll never work with this laptop again. 

But, for all that, every Linux distro I have used has had arcane and obtuse problems that could possibly be fixed by a professional developer, but which are effectively unsolvable to me and the official support is provided by a hobbyist developer who doesn't answer e-mails. 

And while I did exaggerate a bit... It is depressingly common that you need to do something esoteric just to install a program. Sure, if the package is in your distros first party repo, no problem. And no problem if the developer thought to compile a native readable package for your distro. But if they didn't then you are either taking a trip to the command line, or you are manually adding the repo to your package installer utility before you do anything else. Whatever you wanna say about Windows; the universal "download the installer, click the installer" paradigm is valuable.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Feb 16, 2022)

LostTheTone said:


> I'm not saying that Windows is better - My mandatory windows 11 update now means my wireless headphones flatly won't work and I genuinely can't find any way to interact with it under the hood, it's either a driver fix from MS or they'll never work with this laptop again.
> 
> But, for all that, every Linux distro I have used has had arcane and obtuse problems that could possibly be fixed by a professional developer, but which are effectively unsolvable to me and the official support is provided by a hobbyist developer who doesn't answer e-mails.
> 
> And while I did exaggerate a bit... It is depressingly common that you need to do something esoteric just to install a program. Sure, if the package is in your distros first party repo, no problem. And no problem if the developer thought to compile a native readable package for your distro. But if they didn't then you are either taking a trip to the command line, or you are manually adding the repo to your package installer utility before you do anything else. Whatever you wanna say about Windows; the universal "download the installer, click the installer" paradigm is valuable.


Download the virus, install the virus is also valuable to people who want your data, which seems more of an issue Windows suffers from. The online forums for Linux distros vs that of the official Windows forum is like Sid Vicious demolishing a jobber, with the latter attempting to leave on a stretcher, if only Sid will allow him.


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## Crungy (Feb 16, 2022)

Well there's an analogy I didn't see coming


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## StevenC (Feb 16, 2022)

TedEH said:


> Saw some news that big N is shutting down the Wii U + 3DS shops. I guess it was inevitable, but it's not great news for the retro enthusiast + preservation crowd. There's a handful of games on those stores that aren't really (legally) accessible anywhere else.


Fusion 

For real, if Nintendo doesn't announce GBA for NSO at E3 with Fusion, Zero Mission, and Mother 3 I will be super disappointed.


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## TedEH (Feb 16, 2022)

I ended up grabbing a Wii U pretty recently - just in time. Grabbed the Metroids, Amazing Mirror, and Minish Cap while I still can.


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## WarMachine (Feb 16, 2022)

thrsher said:


> man, i would love a surface pro, i prob could convince my job to swing it too if i really pressed. im a total noob to plex. point me to something that can understand optimizing files. currently i just ripped all my dvds and my friends(about 1200 dvds) with MAKEMKV. all standard rips which is fine. then i go to the library and grab stuff. i have an HD drive so i can rip blue ray/4k with it but i know nothing/understand anything in regards to encoding. completely over me.


This might be right up your alley dude, and not a bad price at all for 269


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## Hollowway (Feb 16, 2022)

So these emulators you guys are talking about - are these the modern version of MAME? It’s been ages since I did any retro gaming, but if I were to I’d want to do the old uprights from the ‘80s, like Joust, Dig-Dug, Burgertime, etc. MAME was my jam back in the day, with an X Arcade controller. But I have zero idea what’s up these days.


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## thrsher (Feb 17, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> This might be right up your alley dude, and not a bad price at all for 269



this looks exactly like what i need! thank you


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## narad (Feb 20, 2022)

Got around to building the unstable nightly build of the PSX MiSTer core...







If you don't need any emulation past PSX/Saturn, highly recommend MiSTer - it's awesome!


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## WarMachine (Feb 20, 2022)

narad said:


> Got around to building the unstable nightly build of the PSX MiSTer core...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


*Everyone* should have SOTN.


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## thrsher (Feb 20, 2022)

SOTN GOAT


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## Crungy (Feb 20, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> *Everyone* should have SOTN.


I've still yet to play SOTN and Rondo of Blood.


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## thrsher (Feb 20, 2022)

Crungy said:


> I've still yet to play SOTN and Rondo of Blood.


missing out


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## WarMachine (Feb 20, 2022)

Crungy said:


> I've still yet to play SOTN and Rondo of Blood.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Feb 20, 2022)

Bro, get on it!


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Feb 20, 2022)

Yeah the soundtrack alone on SoTN is worth the play.


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## narad (Feb 21, 2022)

I will say I don't remember the voice acting being anywhere near this bad. Amazing game and atmosphere though. I'm doing me best not to actually get sucked into playing it through when Elden Ring / Gran Turismo 7 / and Triangle Strategy are all about to drop the same week as starting a new job... but damn, the music.


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## SamSam (Feb 21, 2022)

Hollowway said:


> So these emulators you guys are talking about - are these the modern version of MAME? It’s been ages since I did any retro gaming, but if I were to I’d want to do the old uprights from the ‘80s, like Joust, Dig-Dug, Burgertime, etc. MAME was my jam back in the day, with an X Arcade controller. But I have zero idea what’s up these days.



Check out retroarch it's great


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## SamSam (Feb 21, 2022)

Anyone tried the super console x stuff?

Reviews seem pretty positive


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## thrsher (Feb 21, 2022)

narad said:


> I will say I don't remember the voice acting being anywhere near this bad. Amazing game and atmosphere though. I'm doing me best not to actually get sucked into playing it through when Elden Ring / Gran Turismo 7 / and Triangle Strategy are all about to drop the same week as starting a new job... but damn, the music.


which version are you playing? there are variations of the voicing


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## narad (Feb 21, 2022)

thrsher said:


> which version are you playing? there are variations of the voicing



PSX NTSC. Probably how I played it the first time, too.


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## wankerness (Feb 23, 2022)

Believe me, the voiceacting was always terrible. My friends and I would always quote the "MISERABLE PILE OF SECRETS" or "YOU STEAL MEN'S SOULS, AND MAKE THEM YOUR SLAVES!" stuff at each other back in high school when the PSX version was the only one in town.

They changed it in the SOTN/Rondo of Blood re-release (I think to use the PSP voices, cause the version of SOTN there had extra content) but I can't remember how it sounded in the new version. I think it sounded like it was intentionally awful, but I was very put off by it being different and don't really remember it.


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## Demiurge (Feb 23, 2022)

^I'm playing on the PSP version currently. The new voice acting is kind of bland and unmemorable except for the "nose demon" familiar that attempts to crack wise and is ultra-cheesy.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Feb 23, 2022)

I prefer the PSX version, because I loved Dracula's voice acting in a Hammer/Amicus/direct to video sort of way.


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## Lax (Feb 24, 2022)

I did this for my wife's sister birthday :


Temporary screen and it has a raspberry inside


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## WarMachine (Feb 25, 2022)

Lax said:


> I did this for my wife's sister birthday :
> View attachment 103726
> 
> Temporary screen and it has a raspberry inside


Thats fucking awesome dude! And DBZ on the side FTW. I'm going to build one this spring or summer at the latest and throw my old optiplex in it. I'll be able to take it up to as far as Wii U and some LIGHT PS3.


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## wheresthefbomb (Mar 6, 2022)

I completely gave up the first time I tried to get this running in DOSBox. Last weekend I spent all Sunday educating myself about how to run the emulator and finally got this ancient beast running. Already onto the sequel. My first video game love.


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## ElRay (Mar 6, 2022)

wheresthefbomb said:


> I completely gave up the first time I tried to get this running in DOSBox. Last weekend I spent all Sunday educating myself about how to run the emulator and finally got this ancient beast running. Already onto the sequel. My first video game love.


I totally forgot about this whole series. I especially loved Geneforge - that's the one where you could create monsters and have a pack of minions to fight aside you.


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## wheresthefbomb (Mar 6, 2022)

ElRay said:


> I totally forgot about this whole series. I especially loved Geneforge - that's the one where you could create monsters and have a pack of minions to fight aside you.


Yes! They remade them all a couple times, including the third remake of Geneforge that came out just in the last couple years. The original ones really get that childhood nostalgia though.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Mar 6, 2022)

Playing through Breath of Fire 3 on PSone. It’s got me considering buying a PSone mini classic and buying a usb card to use it as an emulator system. The disc for BoF3 was 100$.


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## ElRay (Mar 6, 2022)

wheresthefbomb said:


> Yes! They remade them all a couple times, including the third remake of Geneforge that came out just in the last couple years. The original ones really get that childhood nostalgia though.


I just DL'ed and played the "new" version far longer than I should have this afternoon.


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