Retro gaming

[JD50]

This might have been discussed here, but how do you guys compare using something like an everdrive to using the real cart? I have a decent collection but I'm kind of over it at this point, but I still like playing the games on the real hardware with a real controller and CRT TV. If it's pretty similar I'd consider selling a lot of the games that I don't have a sentimental attachment to.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I have the Everdrive N8 and it works pretty good (I also have approx 140 NES carts, too). I am only missing a couple more that I would like to own, but the ones left have been really inflated in price. The only issues I think are that it supposedly doesn't work with the Hi-Def NES mod by Kevtris+GameTech USA.

Speaking of which, the first ebay auctions for the first NES toploaders modded with the Hi-Def NES mod have ended/sold. A second batch looks like it is up as well.

It also looks like the Analog NT that were ordered with the HDMI are shipping (well the first 400 I believe as that was how many boards Kevtris sent, but possibly one of them might be bad according to Kevtris (8 of them tested bad, but he could only account for 7 of the bad ones as of last Saturday, not sure if he found it since then).

 

[Jubassi]

should check out the emulator forums to find the best one

 

[CZroe]

should check out the emulator forums to find the best one

Thanks for pretending to have something to contribute so that you can share the link in your signature. Bye bye.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Some updates on Everdrive and HiDef-NES kit. GametechUS has posted a video of him using the Everdrive N8 with the kit, but he had to use a much older version of the software (a version 3), but it works (and he played Lagrange Point, which is a VRC7 audio chip game which has the highest quality audio in a NES game, really on par with SNES game audio, and in some respects even better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb2fiA-IvNw). The maker of the Everdrive has stated he is working on fixing the issues with later versions of the software so that all the additional fixes and support of the later versions would also work on systems that use the HiDef-NES kit.

Analogue NT has posted some additional information. It looks like now you get either RGB OR HDMI, not both (well, technically the HDMI is done all digital). They seem to have not had enough room in the system to have both the RGB board and the HDMI boards. They will support switching between the two if you ship them the console back for the change. They also announced that the next batch would be the last for a while (possibly ever) due to CPU/PPU part shortages (since they are using original CPUs and PPUs from NES systems and do not make those chips). Their stock of broken NES systems will have been used up at that point and they do not want to destroy otherwise working NES units to strip the CPU/PPU.

This kind of sucks if you ask me about the HDMI or RGB. Kevtris's kit was designed to work in conjunction with the RGB mods out there, and allow normal output over the analog outs when a HDMI cable is not connected to the board. In fact Kevtris's videos on the HiDef NES even show an Analogue NT board being used with the RGB board installed as well as his board installed at the same time, however, it is not in a case (which leads me to believe it is a space issue). You would have thought for a device like this that Analogue would have been working closer with Kevtris on the board dimensions and placement requirements months ago when the prototypes kits were being worked on and designed the case to have the space needed for both boards.

 

[Ichinisan]

Went through a $2 bin at the flea market and found a few things.

1. A Lootcrate exclusive 10 Doh figure (just the game cartridge part of it. no arms, legs, or zapper). Dr. Who parody of Dr. Mario.

It actually copies the screw arrangement of some NES carts...but 3-screw carts should have the hanger tabs at the top end



2. Zelda 4 Link's Awakening for Game Boy

I hadn't seen it the day before, but I pounced on it because it's one of my favorite games of all time. The kid at the register remarked "why was this in the $2 bin? Oh. I see why." I hadn't even noticed the end of the cartridge had the plastic modified so it might fit into a GB Micro or Nintendo DS (maybe some curious person didn't realize that would never work). They had disassembled the game and replaced the screw with one that was too big, so it probably wouldn't even fit most Game Boy systems. I removed the screw and the PCB inside is perfect. Not counterfeit. Not pirate. The modification to the plastic only affects the back side, which I can easily replace with another since I have gamebit screwdrivers.

(my pics)

It works.

Whoever tampered with it put the wrong screw in it; an oversized phillips-head screw which sticks out too far. The tip was poking through the game's label, so I wasn't going to screw it in deeper. I had to remove the screw so I could try the game without gouging scratches in my Super Game Boy.

If someone thought this would allow it to work in a GB Micro or Nintendo DS, he/she would be wrong.

Inside is legit.

 

[Ichinisan]

3. "32 in 1 (B)" (or "32-1") pirate multicart for Game Boy

I also hadn't seen this one the day before.

The grip area says only "GAME" instead of "nintendo GAME BOY." The label (and in-game menu) indicates it's version B. Each version is probably just a different collection of games.
It's really just 6 games repeated multiple times with alternate names throughout the menu. The first 6 entries in the menu have descriptive non-misleading titles, but it gets progressively worse as you read down through the list. "BOMB DICK." LOL!

It copied Nintendo's cartridge style and security screw. Strange because the legit Zelda cart came with the wrong screw and the pirate cart came with the "right" one

Yeah. It's really only 6 games...

Konami
Tiny Toon Adventures: Montana's Movie Madness
Seems like a good game. I really liked the SNES Tiny Toons game and this one has similarities.

Konami
Castlevania: The Adventure
Probably a good game.

Majesco/Morning Star Multimedia
Super Breakout
This kind of game usually gets boring pretty quickly...especially when you have to use a directional pad to control the paddle.

Majesco/Romstar
Torpedo Range
I think this had a copyright date of "1998" on it (or maybe that was Super Breakout?). It appears to have an SRAM+battery save option, which probably can't work because this pirate cart has no battery. Not my kind of game though.

Infogrames/Pony Canyon
Bubble Ghost
Pretty good game with catchy music. I had already played this one before.

Infogrames/Tecmo
Bomb Jack
Seems dumb.

01. TINY TOON      07. RABBIT STORY  13. ASTUTE BUNNY   19. HARE CYCLE     25. DAFFY BUNNY    31. RARROT & HARE
02. SUPER BREAKOUT 08. POUND BLOCK   14. COLOR ALLEYWAY 20. DASH CHECKERED 26. FLICK BEAD     32. EQUAL STRIKE
03. TORPEDO RANGE  09. SEA BATTLE    15. OFFING WAR     21. OCEANIC KRIEG  27. SEA HUNTER     --
04. CASTLEVANIA    10. THE WHIPER    16. LASH CAVALIER  22. LAM MONSTER    28. CASTLE WARRIOR --
05. BUBBLE GHOST   11. ADVANCED GATE 17. SPIRIT BLOWER  23. BUBBLE BLOWER  29. BLOWER GHOST   --
06. BOMB JACK      12. MANIAC BOY    18. SKIP JACK      24. BOUND KID      30. BOMB DICK      --

- I'm pretty sure # 10 should be "THE WHIPPER."
- I'm pretty sure # 31 should be "CARROT & HARE."

On the menu, the Select button jumps ahead one page. It appears to be from "All Color" and shows "32-1(B)" at the top of the game select menu screen.

The PCB inside is much smaller than a typical GB game and has 2 globtop chips. No SRAM battery...which is interesting because it seems "Torpedo Range" is supposed to have SRAM+battery save. The circuit board is so thin, it's very translucent.

 

[Protoman25]

Is Bomb Jack like Mighty Bomb Jack on the Famicom/NES? After watching Arino play it on GCCX I bought a copy and loved it.

Also Bomb Dick. That must be the sequel :awe:

 

[nakedfrog]

Konami
Castlevania: The Adventure
Probably a good game.

You'd hope so, but no... got it when it came out, it was exciting to have portable Castlevania, but not a particularly good game.

 

[Ichinisan]

Anyone else with an HDMI Analogue NT or Hi-Def NES that can do a little bit of testing?

I've encountered some strange audio glitches with Duck Hunt and a strange video glitch with Ninja Gaiden.

 

[Stg-Flame]

It's usually a toss up for me. I still have all my old consoles dating back to the Atari and leading up to the PS3/360 generation and most of them are still connected, but when I want ease of gaming, I generally just boot up an emulator. I have emulators on my PC, phone, and PSP, but none of them feel right. I have cables that allow me to connect original controllers to my phone, but it still doesn't feel right if I'm not actively playing on an older TV. My new TV just stretches the screen in weird ways and with games like Secret of Evermore, even the audio is off on some parts.

Generally speaking though, I tend to play them on either my phone with the virtual controller (on-screen buttons) or the PC using a PS2 controller because I would rather not put extra wear and tear on my games. Especially the ones that are getting harder and harder to find.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Anyone else with an HDMI Analogue NT or Hi-Def NES that can do a little bit of testing?

I've encountered some strange audio glitches with Duck Hunt and a strange video glitch with Ninja Gaiden.

I havn't tried playing Duck Hunt with my Analogue NT because the light gun really requires a CRT, but I am connected to a Plasma. I suspect that it would fail using HDMI anyway due to the nature of how the light gun works vs HDMI (i.e. the frame draws can't be pre-empted mid draw and then draw a blanking frame followed by a hitbox frame for each of the targets on the screen). With the typical 20-40ms input delay, the game is already past the target that it believes the white hitbox is being displayed on the TV by at least 1-2 frames (TV would need less than 16ms lag between input/processing delay and draw time for the frame being display on the screen for it to work properly).

As for Ninga Gaiden, what is the glitch? I was never really good at the game, so unless it is within the first 2 levels or so, I doubt I will be able to replicate. I could see if I can get my cousin to play it (he beats all 3 of them routinely).

 

[Ichinisan]

I havn't tried playing Duck Hunt with my Analogue NT because the light gun really requires a CRT, but I am connected to a Plasma. I suspect that it would fail using HDMI anyway due to the nature of how the light gun works vs HDMI (i.e. the frame draws can't be pre-empted mid draw and then draw a blanking frame followed by a hitbox frame for each of the targets on the screen). With the typical 20-40ms input delay, the game is already past the target that it believes the white hitbox is being displayed on the TV by at least 1-2 frames (TV would need less than 16ms lag between input/processing delay and draw time for the frame being display on the screen for it to work properly).

As for Ninga Gaiden, what is the glitch? I was never really good at the game, so unless it is within the first 2 levels or so, I doubt I will be able to replicate. I could see if I can get my cousin to play it (he beats all 3 of them routinely).

You can start Duck Hunt by pressing start on controller #1. You don't need to have a zapper connected. Of course, you can't shoot ducks -- but you don't need to shoot ducks to test this. The dog should bark 3 times as he jumps into the grass, but barks only once when using HDMI.

With the composite output connected to a CRT simultaneously and HDMI connected to another TV, you can actually shoot the ducks on the CRT (where they appear as negative silhouettes).

Ninja Gaiden is difficult to test because that picture glitch happens during one of the cut scenes at the end of the game.

 

[Ichinisan]

Oh. My.

It was so overwhelming for a poor person like me to see this. I couldn't watch it all. I can't even begin to imagine how much it all cost him.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Sorry, I still havn't tried out Duckhunt, but will when I get a chance in the next day or two.

I finally bit the bullet though and bought SNES Super Mario RPG on ebay. I have given up on trying to find it locally via yard sales, flee market, etc... I hope the copy I bought is as good as the pictures lead me to believe and that it actually works. It is one of the few games I wish I had bought years ago when it first came out, but never did (I rented it 2-3 times to beat it).

I am just glad I own most of the SNES games I ever want (most of the more rare ones too, like EVO, Dracula X, Metal Marines, Chrono Trigger (pretty much every Square game, except Mario RPG until now), Mega Man X (2, and 3), Ogre Battle, etc). These games just seem to be going up in price...

 

[Fallen Kell]

Finally got around to testing Duck Hunt on the Analog NT. I can confirm that the dog only barks one time. I tested with both the Super Mario Bros+Duck Hunt cart, and the Super Mario Bros+Duck Hunt+World Class Track Meet cart, both game A and game B (1 duck, and 2 ducks at the same time). I did not test using different in game audio circuit options (i.e. enabling the various chips).

Edit:
Ok I just tried looking at the various audio chip settings that can be enabled and was watching what was happening via the audio viewer. It looks like when the dog barks it is making a change on the noise channel to play the saved sample audio (I believe that is how they did the dog bark effect), and it just happens too fast. From my memory, there are not too many games that used sample effects in the audio because of the space requirements.

 

[Ichinisan]

Finally got around to testing Duck Hunt on the Analog NT. I can confirm that the dog only barks one time. I tested with both the Super Mario Bros+Duck Hunt cart, and the Super Mario Bros+Duck Hunt+World Class Track Meet cart, both game A and game B (1 duck, and 2 ducks at the same time). I did not test using different in game audio circuit options (i.e. enabling the various chips).

Edit:
Ok I just tried looking at the various audio chip settings that can be enabled and was watching what was happening via the audio viewer. It looks like when the dog barks it is making a change on the noise channel to play the saved sample audio (I believe that is how they did the dog bark effect), and it just happens too fast. From my memory, there are not too many games that used sample effects in the audio because of the space requirements.

Cool. I hope it's something Kevtris can fix with a firmware update.

Duck Hunt is an early game. I would expect game developers to be less willing to waste ROM data on sound samples versus a newer game when ROM sizes were bigger (and cost-per-kilobit got lower).

 

[Ichinisan]

I finally bit the bullet though and bought SNES Super Mario RPG on ebay. I have given up on trying to find it locally via yard sales, flee market, etc... I hope the copy I bought is as good as the pictures lead me to believe and that it actually works.

Have you played through it yet? Someone sent one to my brother to be fixed. It appears that someone deliberately cut the traces on the board leading to the contacts!

It is one of the few games I wish I had bought years ago when it first came out, but never did (I rented it 2-3 times to beat it).

Made me think of something...

My family was dirt poor growing up. Super Mario RPG was released when I was staying with a friend in a low-income apartment complex (where there were gang shootings almost every night). I had won 1-year of free game rentals playing in the Donkey Kong Country competition at Blockbuster Video, I rented Super Mario RPG. Initially, I had no interest in purchasing it since I could barely afford anything. I played it while staying the night at my friend's place. For some reason, my friend had a whiney episode, throwing a fit and getting pissed-off that my brother and I wanted to play the rented game instead of doing other things. I told him I only get 2 rentals per-month and we had to make the most of it. One of his arguments was "Why does it matter? You know you're going to buy it anyway." Apparently, he resented the fact that I had a Super Nintendo and some great first-party games for it (though he had no idea the amount of effort my brother and I had to go through to get it).

Well, my brother and I bought the game without wasting another rental on it. It was the first time we ever bought a game after renting it. We hid it from our friend for a while because I didn't want to validate his argument!

The next time I bought a game after renting it was Tetris Attack in 1996. Blockbuster Video had a promotion where you get a free rental if you rent Tetris Attack, so it didn't make any sense to rent any other game. If I recall correctly, you also got some N64 pre-release promotional materials. There might have been a card with a chart for arranging your own Tetris Attack tournaments. I rented Tetris Attack 2 or 3 times in 1996. I think Earthworm Jim 2 and Revolution X were some of the free rentals I got. I completed both of those, but I spent way more time playing Tetris Attack. It was absolutely amazing and is still my favorite SNES game. Of course, I ended up buying that one new.

 

[Chiropteran]

I've been playing the NES Classic Mini. Is there anything different from play on the original NES due to the emulation used?

 

[Ichinisan]

I've been playing the NES Classic Mini. Is there anything different from play on the original NES due to the emulation used?

There are some inaccuracies. The sound isn't quite right for any of the games. I believe the screen-melt effect is some kind of filter to reduce flickering and minimize the chances of triggering an epileptic seizure, but it also adds latency. The latency makes Punch Out!! nearly un-beatable when you reach the end of the game, even if you enable Game Mode on your TV to minimize the latency added by the TV's image processing. I think the only way it's possible to beat Punch Out!! is to anticipate the opponent's moves instead of reacting to them.

I bought my NES Classic Edition at midnight. Took it home and beat Ninja Gaiden that very night (11/11, early AM). Latency made it a bit more difficult than it should have been. They actually did fix the ending to Ninja Gaiden. On the Wii Virtual Console version, the castle is still standing after all the pieces fall.

 

[Chiropteran]

Oh, interesting. Punch Out did seem harder than I remember, but I thought it was just my age screwing me up.

Haven't even messed with my TV settings though, maybe game-mode will help.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yeah, I need to remember to enable game mode on my TV (I forget half the time when I play anymore).

 

[Fallen Kell]

Have you played through it yet? Someone sent one to my brother to be fixed. It appears that someone deliberately cut the traces on the board leading to the contacts!

I played about 30-45 minutes into it. It seems to be good.

The next time I bought a game after renting it was Tetris Attack in 1996. Blockbuster Video had a promotion where you get a free rental if you rent Tetris Attack, so it didn't make any sense to rent any other game. If I recall correctly, you also got some N64 pre-release promotional materials. There might have been a card with a chart for arranging your own Tetris Attack tournaments. I rented Tetris Attack 2 or 3 times in 1996. I think Earthworm Jim 2 and Revolution X were some of the free rentals I got. I completed both of those, but I spent way more time playing Tetris Attack. It was absolutely amazing and is still my favorite SNES game. Of course, I ended up buying that one new.

I will have to look up some youtube videos of Tetris Attack. It sounds pretty good (I just never remember playing it or seeing it).

 

[Ichinisan]

I will have to look up some youtube videos of Tetris Attack. It sounds pretty good (I just never remember playing it or seeing it).

Developed by Team Battleclash of Intelligent Systems (Famicom Wars, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, ...) and produced by Gunpei Yokoi. The SNES version is definitely under-appreciated as it was released so late in the system's life (just before N64 was released). The Japanese version is called "Panel de Pon" and features cutesy fairies. The USA/European release was re-skinned with Yoshi's Island characters. It was re-skinned again for N64 and released as "Pokémon Puzzle League." The default tile graphics on the N64 game are awful and difficult to distinguish, but you can switch back to the standard TA/PdP shapes and colors. The music in PPL N64 was bland and the backgrounds were static. Pretty much the opposite of the colorful/animated SNES version.

I recorded myself playing Tetris Attack (SNES) for a contest on NintendoAge forums:

I actually excluded myself from the competition so I wouldn't spoil the fun for the others

 

[Fallen Kell]

I can't believe I had never played Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island until today. It is a REALLY good game. I still can't get over how I missed this gem back in the day.