General Emulation Discussion

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

Most impressive thing is the screen, that's lovely.

Ironically that’s why I avoided these. It’s hardware limited to 30hz I believe, which leads to noticeable tearing when playing NES games on it.

Star Lord wrote: »

Recently put Retroarch on a PS3, much to the delight of my brother (who I gifted it to)
I was going to do the same with my Jasper 360, only to realize that they never figured a way to soft mod it, so that's a no go. Does anyone even still do the mod chips in those, or would it be simpler and more cost effective to just do a Pi3 based mini-retroarch server?

I’d say you’d be aswell going the Pi route. The Pi community is so much more active and vibrant than the near non existent 360 homebrew scene these days, so you’ll likely get better support, ports, etc. Jaspers are pretty long in the tooth these days too, you might put a fair bit of work into configuring everything, only for it to rrod before long.

Some of the new Odroid boxes look tasty spec wise, might make a superior alternative to a Pi before long.

Cake of Tremendous Power wrote: »

Anyone keeping an eye on the Nvidia Navi? $100 and great specs compared to the latest pi offerings

All I can find is AMD Navi (gpu) stuff, any info on the Nvidia one?

So I’ve spent some time investigating emulation on my Nvidia Shield. I’ve got RetroArch running the usual candidates, with lovely shaders on all cores, overlays for the handheld systems, runahead to handle latency, and it all works and plays beautifully with an Xbox One controller.

I’ve dedicated emulators then for N64, PS1, Saturn, and Dreamcast. Barring the Saturn one, they’re all also hugely impressive. I’ve just finished a few rounds of Border Down, and it looks plays pretty much perfect. Played some Einhander before that for PS1, and with internal resolution set to x2, the game looks really lovely. Saturn emulation on Shield is kinda ok, not quite there yet though. That said, you need a lot more power than the shield has to get what I’d consider playable/satisfactory Saturn emulation.

Dolphin also isn’t really worth bothering with, probably because of its accuracy, the Shield just can’t manage it outside of a handful of games. All in all though, you won’t get a better emulation experience than the Shield outside of spending double/treble on a pc.

It’s such a tiny little device, perfect for a bedroom setup. I’ve a 256GB thumb drive for emulation content, and an 8TB external drive for a Kodi library connected in to it, can’t really ask for more. Next time they’re reduced in price, I’d strongly recommend anyone interested to pick one up

^^ Christ that’s some difference. What I love about it is that it doesn’t change the feeling of the game, all it’s doing is removing some very rough edges.

Relikk wrote: »

Interested to see how the Mode 7 stages on Super Castlevania IV look now.

Hi-res mode 7 with msu1 soundtrack, it’s a real what-if Nintendo hadn’t skipped the 32bit war thing...

Classy little yokey bob for emulation, would sit wonderfully under the tv too

Mr.Fantastic wrote: »

Was thinking of making a retropi with a 3 B+, would this be a better shout?

If I could get it cheap enough?

It'd annihilate the Pi to be fair, far more capable. You could run more modern games, run the nice modern retroarch shaders so it'll look lovely on a modern tv, etc. The Pi is fine, but it's pure bare bones, no frills, vanilla emulation. Looks fairly cack on modern tv's too. For the price though, it's good value.

Star Lord wrote: »

Not sure I'd want to go back to the hand cramps from the OG GameBoy tbh!

If it were GBA/SP or even Micro styled, and played GBA/GBC/GBA games, then I'd be on for giving it a try for definite.

I think the original GBA styling offers the best comfort, for me anyway. Even the SP bothers me before long. This seems a lovely option for a Pi Zero, but again, 'the claw' being a real possibility. Personally I think the best option for handheld retro gaming is a modded Switch.

And a SWEET little Mini Megadrive

The RetroArch Disc Project:

Looks preliminary at the mo, but will be a very, very cool feature for those who like to use original discs. Obviously shown here on a laptop which isn't ideal, but I imagine using this feature on something with a proper/nice interface where you put the disc in and it boots seamlessly will be the goal (Launchbox hopefully)