General Arcade & Retro Chat' Special Championship Edition

sniper_samurai · 18-05-2020 2:36am

Steyr 556 wrote: »

Ah ok thanks, you don’t recall the make of converter by any chance?

I don't, it was a cheap Chinese unit bought off Amazon. Even if I did remember it probably wouldn't help much.

Inviere · 18-05-2020 7:13am

Dr Bob wrote: »

Ther Hard drive died on my old MAME machine(of course with my..ahem.. legally held roms) so been building a new one , with window 10 on it rather than a decripit unpatched windows 7 ,
I'd forgotten how messy Mame setups can be , especially if you're like me , and want to throw on a load of effects to make up for the LCD screen.
(also using a junker of a PC with a small drive , so no mad Hyperspin builds and Laserdisk games)
The current Mamedevs have gone down the 'accuracy at all costs' route , and seem to actively want to discourage people from , using it to play games .
So I'm using Arcade64 (which is a continuation of the old MameuiFX port , which is more about actually running games at full speed than focusing on accurately emulating a Bulgarian tissue vending machine's bios screen) . mGalaxy is my frontend (its no Hyperspin , but I've always liked the feel of it)

If it's a non-crt screen you're using Bob, you should have a stab at RetroArch with the MAME core. RetroArch has it's own shader options, independent of MAME, and it's very very easy to set up and get going. I use it instead of the standalone MAME, & can vouch for it.

Cherry on top then is to have the frontend of your choice handling game selection etc.

Inviere · 18-05-2020 4:20pm

I'm quite proud of this actually

Ok, full disclosure....some save states were used. However, only on the overworld map, and only then because the game doesn't save your lives or powerups. I'm happy with that, the last time I got all exits was well over 20 years ago, so I'm glad to see I still know the difference between A and B on a controller! o1s1n....you're up, there's no excuses if old timers like me can do it!

o1s1n · 18-05-2020 4:24pm

Fair play! I actually dug out my SMW cart when I saw you were doing this and decided I'd join ya and polish off the last few exits. (Think I'd gotten up to 92 or 93)

Cart save had wiped unfortunately. Nearly ate my fist.

Thinking about it though, it might be more straightforward just to start again and find each exit methodically from the beginning, rather than working backwards like I'd been doing and trying to find the missing ones.

Inviere · 18-05-2020 4:32pm

o1s1n wrote: »

Cart save had wiped unfortunately. Nearly ate my fist.

Awww sake

Battery time!

Thinking about it though, it might be more straightforward just to start again and find each exit methodically from the beginning, rather than working backwards like I'd been doing and trying to find the missing ones.

That's exactly how I did it, because not all levels signify there's two exits on the overworld map...ghosthouses for example, so it's best to fully complete each world before moving onto the next. I was stuck at 94 levels there, and had to look up a list of secret exits....turned out I hadn't missed any, but the Star Road levels count as two...one standard exit which doesn't progress you, and the secret exit which does....make sure to finish the levels both ways! As soon as I redid Star Road, I just went back to the first ghost house then to save the game, reloaded, and that was it, *96

Retr0gamer · 18-05-2020 4:37pm

Two stumped me. One was the back door for bowsers castle which was actually kind of badly designed and unfair and the first ghost house which was quite difficult to find.

Inviere · 18-05-2020 4:38pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Two stumped me. One was the back door for bowsers castle which was actually kind of badly designed and unfair and the first ghost house which was quite difficult to find.

Yeah I was on 94 levels, & figured the two ways of playing through the final castle must count as two exits...turns out neither do! The final level isn't counted.

Tom Mann Centuria · 19-05-2020 5:19pm

No interest in Antstream at all, and I'd be amazed if it lasts (who knows) but if anyone wants a three week free trial. Says it's 3 customers only but I'm sure you could still use it.

http://www.antstream.com

Code is: 3FreeOn3IE

Presume it's if you have never used it before, and they'll probably still want your cc details, so don't forget to cancel.

Andrew76 · 21-05-2020 8:50am

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

No interest in Antstream at all, and I'd be amazed if it lasts (who knows) but if anyone wants a three week free trial. Says it's 3 customers only but I'm sure you could still use it.

www.antstream.com

Code is: 3FreeOn3IE

Presume it's if you have never used it before, and they'll probably still want your cc details, so don't forget to cancel.

Never heard of it but that link isn’t working for me?

Tom Mann Centuria · 21-05-2020 9:02am

Andrew76 wrote: »

Never heard of it but that link isn’t working for me?

For whatever reason boards doesn't seem to like that link, but copy and paste it into a browser it works.

Edit: link fixed

sniper_samurai · 21-05-2020 9:49am

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

For whatever reason boards doesn't seem to like that link, but copy and paste it into a browser it works.

I find boards goes wonky with urls unless the http:// is added manually.

Tom Mann Centuria · 21-05-2020 9:55am

sniper_samurai wrote: »

I find boards goes wonky with urls unless the http:// is added manually.

Done, seems to work. Thanks.

Awful lot of filler on Antstream. I never bothered with it, think it's trying to fill a gap that either doesn't need filling or is too small to ever be viable.

An awful lot of Spectrum, C64 and 2600 games, which are really only going to appeal to tiny few people who probably already have all the games for those systems anyway.

But 3 free weeks for people to have a look for themselves....

o1s1n · 21-05-2020 1:43pm

Really impressive arcade1up mod

(you do look like a bit of an eejit playing it though!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67EmoFzjxhg

Skerries · 21-05-2020 8:08pm

Game Chasers are trying to set up a barcade

rubadub · 21-05-2020 11:21pm

o1s1n wrote: »

100% nostalgia! I'd almost put it in the same camp at vinyl. Most of the vinyl hype is fairly sketchy as people are buying new records mastered from digital recordings anyway.

Some will talk about vinyl being the way it was intended to sound. But I was reading an interesting article before about the physical limitations of vinyl, the resulting album was sometimes VERY different from how the producer would have like it to sound. I read they would press it and play it on the crappiest models of record players out there, and if it skipped too much they would have to alter the sound to reduce the chance of it skipping.

I wondered if they still do that today, are the vinyls made from an altered digital track to overcome its limitations.

This article talks about it, its not the one I originally found.
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-great-but-its-not-better-than-cds

Vinyl is physically limited by the fact that records have to be capable of being played without skipping or causing distortion. That both limits the dynamic range — the difference between the loudest and softest note — and the range of pitches (or "frequencies") you can hear.

If notes get too low in pitch, that means less audio can fit in a given amount of vinyl. If notes are too high, the stylus has difficulty tracking them, causing distortion. So engineers mastering for vinyl often cut back on extreme high or low ends, using a variety of methods, all of which alter the music.

For example, one common cause of high pitches in recordings is "sibilance," or the hiss-y sound produced by pronouncing certain consonants, notably "s" or "z"s, in a quick, sharp way (ex.: "zip," "shack," "sap"). This creates enough problems for engineers working in vinyl that they often have to "de-ess" recordings, either by making the pronunciation less sibilant through editing or by straight-up asking vocalists to pronounce lyrics differently.

rubadub · 22-05-2020 9:58pm

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/05/22/gamegan-research-pacman-anniversary/

40 Years on, PAC-MAN Recreated with AI by NVIDIA Researchers
GameGAN, a generative adversarial network trained on 50,000 PAC-MAN episodes, produces a fully functional version of the dot-munching classic without an underlying game engine.

Nerdkiller1991 · 23-05-2020 1:21am

By Retronauts 10 year rule, the discontinuation of the Original Xbox's online service is now over a decade old, and wouldn't you know it, someone has taken the opportunity to resurrect the old beast.

KeRbDoG · 23-05-2020 3:54pm

Also a few days ago it seems the source code for the original Xbox kernel/OS was leaked .

...and in other news, "Surf Champ" The (Irish) surfing simulator 35 years ahead of its time that sank without a trace - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/52682338

Tom Mann Centuria · 24-05-2020 9:29pm

Hacked an old DSi the kids no longer used today, doesn't really add much, but kept me out of mischief for a while, there's are a couple of emulators on it which worked with mixed results (being kind), but gba works OK so far, so that's a bonus, and it frees up an old flashcart for another DS I suppose.

Going to have a go at a 3ds tomorrow that the kids have disowned, again not sure if there's much value in doing it, or if there is any emulation that is even passable, but I'm a sucker for following instructions

Retr0gamer · 24-05-2020 9:33pm

Some fan translations on 3DS so worth hacking one for. The untranslated pheonix Wright games and Beyond Labyrinth.

megaten · 25-05-2020 10:49am

3DS is a fairly closed system even as consoles go so its worth hacking sorely to ensure access to anything you might want further down the line.

Retr0gamer · 25-05-2020 1:22pm

DLC is a major reason to hack it.

Once those servers shut down you won't be able to get that DLC.

So I've been updating all my games with DLC.

However a lot of games, like the Fire Emblem games, you need to progress a good bit into the game to access the DLC because DLC has to be bought in game in 3DS games, it cant be bought outside in the standard shop.

So in order to get the DLC for those games I have to play a good chunk of them and at the moment I really don't have the time to be playing them just because I want to get DLC for them.

Tom Mann Centuria · 25-05-2020 1:53pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

DLC is a major reason to hack it.

Once those servers shut down you won't be able to get that DLC.

So I've been updating all my games with DLC.

However a lot of games, like the Fire Emblem games, you need to progress a good bit into the game to access the DLC because DLC has to be bought in game in 3DS games, it cant be bought outside in the standard shop.

So in order to get the DLC for those games I have to play a good chunk of them and at the moment I really don't have the time to be playing them just because I want to get DLC for them.

Just finished the process, very straightforward, bit of putting sd cards in and out but they were excellent instructions to follow. Amazing I can use an acekard from the dark ages again (that I haven't been able to use in anything newer than my lite) for ds games in the 3ds.

I did think of the DLC aspect, just need to scour the interweb for sites now, have a couple of good ones so far.

Inviere · 26-05-2020 7:26am

Retr0gamer wrote: »

DLC is a major reason to hack it.

Once those servers shut down you won't be able to get that DLC.

I've always been of the belief that if they take servers offline, leaving no way to legitimately pay for additional content...then it's fair game to download it elsewhere.

Jack burton · 26-05-2020 2:43pm

Just read that the Rage is closing the current location.

Continuing to trade online though and another shop location in the future.

DaveyDave · 26-05-2020 2:49pm

Jack burton wrote: »

Just read that the Rage is closing the current location.

Continuing to trade online though and another shop location in the future.

Just saw that there. Going to miss the old shop, I'd always lock my bike or park the car in Drury St so always nearby for a browse. Hopefully they find themselves a similar location, would be good if they found something a bit bigger.

Placed an order there, some games I haven't played before. I'll be interested to see what they can fulfill and how much of it is complete.

DinoRex · 27-05-2020 1:05pm

Currently dismantling an old internet café.

Would anyone have any use for a full token mechanism? I have a few of them.

sniper_samurai · 01-06-2020 3:45pm

The Core Grafx Mini starts shipping from Amazon UK and Amazon Italy from Friday for anyone who still has one ordered.

sniper_samurai · 03-06-2020 10:43am

Anyone have any interest in this?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21278895/sega-game-gear-micro-games-list-price-magnifying-glass

Screen seems a bit too small to play imo. Wonder if these will get a western release.

o1s1n · 03-06-2020 11:32am

sniper_samurai wrote: »

Anyone have any interest in this?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21278895/sega-game-gear-micro-games-list-price-magnifying-glass

Screen seems a bit too small to play imo. Wonder if these will get a western release.

I really hope that's not the big 'revolutionary' announcement they're meant to be having this week....!

General Arcade & Retro Chat' Special Championship Edition

Comments