RetroN5: Hands on first look

[Ozzy_98]

For me it's interesting, but it would serve no role. While I just got back into collecting about 6 months ago (When I got a new house and had room to bust out the old collection), I've remained in emulation for the last 14 years (Dalnet, represent!). After building Mame cabs and HTPCs with emulators built into them more than a few times, and tweaking emulators and using console -> PC adapters, there is nothing the retroN does for me I can't already do. Heck I had saved states on my snes long before I owned a PC, thank you game saver! And since I always used 3rd party controllers or "different" 1st party controllers on systems if I had a chance (nes advantage, yay!), that's not an advantage to me. I have emulators for the majority of my game play, and the collection for the nostalgia.

However, setting up an emulator so it works on your T, looks good, with controllers from the original system, can be a bit of work for most people. Doing it for 3-4 different emulators can be a real pain for many people, and when they see a goodnes torrent of roms, they can be overwhelming (Da faq? What don't any of these [b] roms work!) And if you want to have a frontend that has all your roms, you're looking at a LOT of work (Or you can be cheap and torrent hyperspin and look just like everyone else)

This console shouldn't replace owning the real consoles if you're a collector. If you want to play games that you own, it's great, saves you like 5 power adapters. If you want to play any games out there, like all of them, you'd really need to look at emulation. And don't think because it's hardware, the Retron5 has some magic advantage, I've seen people play that card. There's no special ASICs on this that I've heard of, so it's just a PC or close to it. I even highly doubt they wrote their emulator code from scratch. And it is behind the curve vs emulators at least Windows based ones (Android emulators seem to have taken a few steps back...). Rewind abilities would be GREAT, and I've not heard how well Top Gear 3000 plays, assuming they have support for it.

Over all, it's neat, and for some people it'd be great, but it's nothing I've not been able to do for 8+ years. It's not an emulation box, it's a clone system. If you have no use for a retroN 3, the 5 only adds better video and saved states for you (Ok a few other tweaks).

[Satoshi_Matrix]

It's not an emulation box, it's a clone system.

The Retron5 is really in a new category of it's own. It is an emulation box, but relies on hardware to achieve the emulation rather than software. It's not a clone system in the traditional sense either, because it doesn't rely on reverse engineered hardware at all. It's really in this new space where it is an emulation machine unquestionably, but it also requires the original carts, and is unique. If/when it gets hacked to support ROMs directly from the SD card, the Retron5 will no longer be unique.

[Tanooki]

You and Satoshi_Matrix seem to prop up the Retron5 and dismiss any legitimate criticism or discussion any chance you get. Are you both paid by Hyperkin to do this or are you both just delusional? Or just condescending and elitist?

No I'm not paid, but you appear to be a pretty big prick with a chip on your shoulder about it. Satoshi laid it out well so I don't need to do a re-run on that. I'm just fed up with the misinformation, that's it. And to call it basically useless because it isn't wide open to be used as a ROM dumping tool for piracy and open to run whatever roms through SD card or the USB port in the back is just dumb. If they wanted to make the console version of the R4 for the DS they could have, and then would have been promptly been getting abused by the NOA lawyer pool.

Look I'm sure it will get busted open and sooner than later, but that's for hackers to do, not hyperkin as they open themselves up for an attack. I could care less if it is cracked or not. It's an emulator that uses hardware(carts) and does something useful and fun with it, so what's the problem really? All I want is the truth, that's it, and I don't defend their practices in the delays or not buying their own coding team enough games to make it better out of the box for 1.0 as the stuff that version wont' run is highly unacceptable. Damn thing ate my FF6A save 3 times which I'm not happy about.


Ozzy I'm curious about TG3000 too and I've been on the look out for it. I grabbed a Micro Machine cart over the weekend to see if that would work, initially it didn't, but an updated firmware I've got has it going with just very minor graphics issues but not on the gameplay parts where you drive.

[Gameguy]

I think there's a degree of separation between a bootleg copy of a rare Famicom game and outright flash carts and direct ROM support. It isn't contradictory at all.

What difference? Either they want to cut down on piracy or they don't, and just because something can run flash carts or direct ROMs doesn't mean that those options will be used for piracy. Maybe it's just easier to use an SD card full of ROMs than having to sort through all of your old games, clean them, and transfer them individually. I mean once you update the firmware often enough to make it compatible with all the games you own. Unless you don't have many games, which would make me question why someone would spend $140 to get one.

The argument that "every emulator does this stuff so it's no big deal" doesn't hold water because those emulators rely on software for the game inputs. The RetroN5 relies on hardware. There's quite a large difference in how that actually works and is thus far more complex. The feats Hyperkin is making with the RetroN5 are impressive, and if they keep up the pace the RetroN5 will eventually be the best clone console on the market.

What's the difference with the end result? The reason the hardware inputs exist is to get the ROM transferred from the actual game cartridge, once that's transferred it's all software that runs it. Either way the games won't be fully accurate compared to using original legit hardware, what's really the difference? What's so beneficial about using original cartridges over ROMs in an emulation device?

Yeah I'm sure this will happen, but I sincerely hope this doesn't happen any time soon. Not because I'm against the idea, but the moment this happens is the moment there will start to be a battle with the custom firmware of piracy vs the official firmware Hyperkin makes to continue to better the compatibility.

If it happens too soon, then RetrOn5 owners will be forced to choose between direct ROM support from the hackers or better compatibility with real carts. I'm fine with custom firmware as I do infact agree that direct ROM support would be a nice little bonus feature, but I'm not at all interested in it at the expense of actual cart support. As I've said repeatedly, if direct ROM support is more important than cart support, then buy an Ouya.

It's not even about piracy, just ease of use. I'm sure if custom firmware becomes available most people will switch over to it. Those who don't either aren't comfortable with using unofficial software or aren't familiar with how this console actually works.

The only criticisms I dismiss of the Retron5 are invalid ones, such as the claim that the Retron5 is shit because it doesn't work with everything out of the box and Hyperkin should have never launched the system until it was 100% compatible with everything. As I've explained, this was an impossible goal for any company to achieve as there are tens of thousands of games that unlike emulation, have unique quarks when you deal with the original carts. I'm also accepting of this fact because hey look - Hyperkin is actively working to improve the Retron5 all the time.

They advertised this as eventually being compatible with 100% of all games. I know not to expect full compatibility right away because there's always bugs that can slip through, but I would have expected it to at least be compatible with most games at the time of release. Couldn't they at least get a collector with a large collection try this out beforehand for testing? I'm also not saying it's shit on it's own, but compared to what else is available I just don't see a real benefit to owning this above other alternatives, especially at $140.

A bit off topic to this quote, but I would take your impressions on this much better if you actually used one first hand. You can't be sure it works as well as advertised until you have one and have experienced everything that comes with it, including the firmware updates that are apparently tied up with some type of DRM which complicates the process. I know it's not your fault for not having one yet, you're trying your best to get yours.

Also just looking at the reviews from Amazon, the reviews are mixed but most of them are just one star. These reviews are complaining about hardware quality like defective controllers or entirely dying within a few hours of use.

The Retron5 is really in a new category of it's own. It is an emulation box, but relies on hardware to achieve the emulation rather than software. It's not a clone system in the traditional sense either, because it doesn't rely on reverse engineered hardware at all. It's really in this new space where it is an emulation machine unquestionably, but it also requires the original carts, and is unique. If/when it gets hacked to support ROMs directly from the SD card, the Retron5 will no longer be unique.

As I understand it, the hardware part is what's needed to recognize and dump the games from the cartridge. The actual playing of the games is all software emulation. All forms of software emulation is run on some type of hardware so I can't see how else this is unique.

Tread lightly friend, I got verbally eviscerated for asking the same question, blocked and treated like a troll, and most certainly don't ask if you are talking to teenagers!

Yeah, I'll try my best to stay as polite as possible. After seeing stardust4ever getting chased off the site because of this thread I decided to participate in it again.

Man, everyone here hates my guts.

Later, dudes...

PS - Unsubscribed.

I wonder why posters are leaving Digital Press?

I get why he took things a bit too far, the way he was treated with his serious comments and his opinion of the Retron5 beforehand. Like how Tanooki responded to my post, I must be too shallow or dense to understand it, or maybe impatient, ignorant, and/or lazy as he replied to someone else. That must be why I don't feel I need to buy it at $140 US. At least Satoshi_Matrix seems to be responding to posts respectfully now.

[GarrettCRW]

The Retron5 is an emulation box, but it isn't a piracy box. There is no way to play anything you don't legitimately own on the Retron5. Multi-carts and Flash carts do not operate on the Retron5, and there is no way to play ROMs directly either.

Then why the hell does the system download part/all of a game's ROM when you decide to play it? There's really no need for it, even as an emulation box. You can be certain that the eventual custom firmware will add Retrode-like abilities and support for playing games off the SD slot. As it stands, the only things I'm curious about that haven't been addressed are FDS compatibility, support for Famicom expansion audio, and support for the FM synth chip in Master System mode.

[mercuryshadow09]

I wonder why posters are leaving Digital Press?

Because of the way they get treated by regular members, if Satohi_Matrix wants to get all butt hurt over a sarcastic question that's fine but why be a dick about it and make accusations of attack?

[Ed Oscuro]

The Retron 5 topic hasn't been too active at Shmups lately, but the last I saw (it has been a while, I'll give you that!) the delays were unavoidable and related to customs. Not sure I'd ding them on that one.

Playing from an SD card would be interesting (though I'd rather have the option to back up ROMs TO an SD card, if it was only one or the other - obviously both functions would be even better from a consumer standpoint), but while I'm usually finding myself anti-DRM and the like, I don't think Hyperkin had any obligation to support a feature with this use. It's not original to the hardware, could earn the ire of some industry groups, and is just something else to worry about in the program. I hope that other groups / manufacturers will implement something more flexible.

The more interesting question, in my mind, is why they have opted for such a seemingly ridiculous and convoluted firmware update scheme. I suppose it makes sense that they want to prevent their program from leaking out to the 'net to be shipped by pirates making cheap clones of the Retron (lol), and it really doesn't seem like a deal breaker to me. But it does highlight the fragile nature of this kind of box, both on the hardware and software side. It highlights that the emulators aren't perfect yet, and it also highlights that if Hyperkin goes under or stops supporting the device, third party support might not be straightforward (unless that just means people will share firmwares).

My problems with the Retron 5 are mostly untouchable by well-intentioned design tweaks or firmware updates. The controller design seems really interesting - but we'll have to see some tests on how fast that wireless perform. Using cartridge slots to play original media seems great - but if they don't update save data to the game cartridge, you'll be tethered to your Retron (and no, a Hyperkin-branded Nomad or similar wouldn't fix this, unless they're going to allow you to move those saves around - at that point they might as well cave to GameGuy's suggestion of playing games from SD card). The design is appropriately funky - but apparently a system flat-out died during one routine demo. What's this, a raft of cheap trash floating over on a pile of lashed-together barrels from the Orient? Why, could it be..?

[Az]

My apologies for a long, rambling post.

The things I've listed were problems on the RetroN5. Like every other clone that's released the first thing people do is start trying out a thousand different carts to find out what works and what doesn't. Everything that I listed that was either a problem or a shortcoming was only stated because I had never read of anyone confirming that info when discussing this system. Me writing about time spent with games that work fine or system aspects that perform as advertised is useless, boring, empty information that anyone automatically assumes anyway. When I grab 10 carts off my shelf and decide to play them I know exactly what I'll be getting on the original systems. I know they'll work, I know my saves will work, I know how they sound and act. With this (as all clones) it's a complete crapshoot and if something is fucked you're left scratching your head. If you don't have another real system to try it on, then is it my cart? Is my RetroN5 actually defective? Or is it a simple software issue across the board that can be duplicated by others? That's why I mention those things.

There are a few issues that bother me overall.

Like mentioned by others, I doubt Hyperkin had someone write new emulators from scratch, so they have to be based on something preexisting. They didn't invent their own cheat code database. They didn't invent their own header database, it's obviously pulled from somewhere else. I am not a noob when it comes to cart dumping, I own dozens of flavors of copiers and have released over 2 dozen undumped games over the past few years to the public. Unless you've got a legitimate one of a kind undumped game or there is some type of error, you're own dumped ROM image will be recognized by any ROM editing program even if it's a counterfeit cart of a commercial release.

I've got a few GBA bootlegs and all of them were labeled as "unknown cart". I can dump these same games with my own equipment, the title headers are still there, and with an auditing tool they will be recognized as what they actually are and labeled correctly. Sometimes they will be labeled as a pirate release, or as a hacked issue so EEPROM or flash save games are changed to be SRAM, but they're still there. Seems like you'd have to intentionally remove these headers from your database? These same games still dump and still work on my RetroN5, so they've accomplished nothing in fighting the good fight against piracy, only inconvenienced me because I can't use cheat codes and my gavesaves will be all mislabeled and janky. It's a small issue, but an issue.

The wonky SRAM issue is a real legitimate complaint. It's extremely shitty that the SRAM issues exist on legit, real carts. The backup save issue, that you could transfer your saves to the internal memory and vice versa was a big selling point. Yet there are so many issues, even after the current updates, that will just completely erase the saves on your original carts. Nowhere in any documentation by Hyperkin or in the system itself is it stated that the save thing on some systems or games is currently a mess and that there's a good chance your save will be deleted or corrupted. No warnings that the software is still buggy and will make you lose all your precious save games. That's pretty shitty any way you look at it. If the feature is currently fucked up and you know it is then why not gray that option out? Or why not give a warning message to proceed at your own caution? They make a warning label pop up when trying to play a game is listed as "unknown cart" saying that it may not work correctly, and you can choose to proceed or not. Why not do this? Advertising that something works when it actually (and I hesitate to use this term) damages your property is a pretty shit thing, even if it's fixed down the road. Fixing it on the next update won't bring the dozen or so saves I've completely lost without any warning that it might happen.

I get that counterfeit cart compatibility is a non-issue for Hyperkin, along with support for extremely rare mappers used by tons of unlicensed FC/NES games. Few people own these and few people care, I understand. But from a hardware perspective I don't understand why the machine doesn't even detect that these carts are inserted. I get that these games not supported by the software anyway, but why doesn't the machine even recognize the cart is physically inserted? Again, not a complaint or whine because I neither expected them to work nor was it ever implied they would, just a head scratcher from a hardware tinkerer perspective.

This isn't really a complaint against the system but more just a wishful thinking for an (AFAIK) extremely easy to implement feature. The unit ships with almost 2 gigs of on board memory. An SD cart is required to be inserted at all times if you plan on using cheat codes. Game save SRAM, savestates, and snapshots are teeny tiny file sizes so 2 gigs is flat out overkill, and even if memory constraints are tight you can direct the system to save these items directly to the SD card. I don't care that you can't use it to dump carts, I have plenty of hardware to do that. But with that much HD space what is their logic or what could be the hardware limitation behind having the ROM image delete itself once you remove the cart? They could still require the carts to be inserted to play, but maybe keep your last 5 games stored in memory so you don't have to do the dumping process every time. Hell, even if it was just as temporary as losing it when the unit powers off it would be better than what it is. Again, not a complaint just wishful thinking.

The more interesting question, in my mind, is why they have opted for such a seemingly ridiculous and convoluted firmware update scheme.

I mentioned before, the huge system-affecting update is open game for anyone to host and openly encouraged by Hyperkin for end users to share, but the tiny updates that tweak small things are security concerns? Even if those tiny updates are somehow tied to your specific machine somehow (as stated in their manual) it's obvious the huge system-wide OS update isn't, which (to me) says all one would have to do if they had hacked firmware would be to somehow roll it into that type of update and you're good to go.

[Gameguy]

This isn't really a complaint against the system but more just a wishful thinking for an (AFAIK) extremely easy to implement feature. The unit ships with almost 2 gigs of on board memory. An SD cart is required to be inserted at all times if you plan on using cheat codes. Game save SRAM, savestates, and snapshots are teeny tiny file sizes so 2 gigs is flat out overkill, and even if memory constraints are tight you can direct the system to save these items directly to the SD card. I don't care that you can't use it to dump carts, I have plenty of hardware to do that. But with that much HD space what is their logic or what could be the hardware limitation behind having the ROM image delete itself once you remove the cart? They could still require the carts to be inserted to play, but maybe keep your last 5 games stored in memory so you don't have to do the dumping process every time. Hell, even if it was just as temporary as losing it when the unit powers off it would be better than what it is. Again, not a complaint just wishful thinking.

First, I'm glad to see you're still sticking around this thread . Second, is this seriously true? I assumed the games would be dumped to an internal memory where they could always be played easily at any time, once they were initially dumped to the console. If they're actually being deleted once the cartridge is removed, I really don't see how this is convenient at all. This doesn't help my opinion of the console.

[Ed Oscuro]

Thanks for that detailed breakdown of the issues Az - a lot better than my courtside analysis.

So actually that means that a review that I read at the beginning of the month was right - the system is actually deleting game saves off original carts. That's not just inconvenient - it's awful.

[Leo_A]

Then why the hell does the system download part/all of a game's ROM when you decide to play it? There's really no need for it, even as an emulation box.

That has puzzled me since it first became known when this thread was started. Seems like they're just making their job harder since they have to emulate things like the Super FX processor where as with a conventional setup, they'd only have to emulate each console itself.

A few seemed to think that the fact that it was emulation was the answer for why they've gone down this route, but I don't see the connection on why because it's emulation based, continuously communicating with the cartridge like the actual hardware somehow isn't practical.

I don't think anyone in the community really knows why they went down this route.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Gamerguy, you're confused about so many things. Let me address all that you said.

What difference? Either they want to cut down on piracy or they don't.

As Tanooki reported, the latest firmware update auto-detects mappers 0-4. That's NROM, SxROM [MMC1] UNROM, CNROM, and TxROM [MMC3/6]. Those five mappers account for over 90% of the total NES and Famicom library. Having full support for those mappers in 100% of all situations will allow homebrew games that don't have detectable rom headers to function properly. That is Hyperkin's aim - to properly support NES homebrew. Through their various fixes this will also allow at least some pirates to also work, but that is not their aim. It's just a side effect of the improvements.

and just because something can run flash carts or direct ROMs doesn't mean that those options will be used for piracy. Maybe it's just easier to use an SD card full of ROMs than having to sort through all of your old games, clean them, and transfer them individually. I mean once you update the firmware often enough to make it compatible with all the games you own. Unless you don't have many games, which would make me question why someone would spend $140 to get one.

Yup, and that's the legal loophole that allows flashcarts and modchips to be sold in the first place. I'm not saying you're wrong, but let's be honest here - most people who buy flashcarts and modchips use them as easy access tools for piracy, myself included. Everything you say is true, flashcarts are indeed an easier, more convenient way finding games you want to play than looking through shelves filled with old carts, but that's not the primary draw for most people when those flashcarts mean you can play games like Summer Carnival '92 and Little Samson without burning a hole in your wallet.

If you don't have a large game collection of physical carts, buying the RetroN5 would be rather silly, unless you plan to then actively start to collect. People buy $20 Famiclones like the Neo-Fami to start NES collections, so there might be somebody that buys a Retron5 to start collecting games for every format it can run. I don't really understand that guy, but hey, it probably does happen. I would again say to someone who wants to go digital rather than physical to buy an Ouya instead of the Retron5.

What's the difference with the end result? The reason the hardware inputs exist is to get the ROM transferred from the actual game cartridge, once that's transferred it's all software that runs it. Either way the games won't be fully accurate compared to using original legit hardware, what's really the difference? What's so beneficial about using original cartridges over ROMs in an emulation device?

It's the phenomenon of retro gamer psychosis that tells them phsycial media = better experience than pure emulation. Why the retro gamer says "Virtual Console? I'd rather play on my CRT and original system and cart". It isn't rational, but that doesn't matter at all. Even being self aware of the psychosis doesn't diminish it's power. The Retron5 also has the secondary benefit of making collections of carts relevant in a world filled with things like the Nintendo Virtual Console/e-shop and the Ouya. You might conclude "that's stupid", but you'd be be totally missing the point.

It's not even about piracy, just ease of use. I'm sure if custom firmware becomes available most people will switch over to it. Those who don't either aren't comfortable with using unofficial software or aren't familiar with how this console actually works.

You...must not have properly read my post. The reason Hyperkin isn't doing that is because it's all about piracy. I agree with you that if the Retron5 had direct rom support that would aid the ease of use of the system and would be a nice little bonus feature. But no, you're completely wrong to think that only people who wouldn't do CFW are those who prefer to keep things legit or those who don't know how anything works. I specifically cited myself as an example of someone who has an intimate knowledge of the Retron5 yet wouldn't want CFW for a long time, and even gave you a clear reason why. I'm not alone in that either.

They advertised this as eventually being compatible with 100% of all games.

No, they didn't. They merely said 100% compatibility was their goal and that firmware updates were the means of achieving that.

Couldn't they at least get a collector with a large collection try this out beforehand for testing?

They did. Hyperkin had a rather large network of beta testers, complete with their own private forum. But even so, they required public feedback to grow the beta tester field.

I'm also not saying it's shit on it's own, but compared to what else is available I just don't see a real benefit to owning this above other alternatives, especially at $140.

Compared to what alternatives? The Ouya? The attachment to the physical carts. The original hardware? HDMI and savestates and the ability to use non-native controllers like the Genesis controller on the GBA.

A bit off topic to this quote, but I would take your impressions on this much better if you actually used one first hand. You can't be sure it works as well as advertised until you have one and have experienced everything that comes with it, including the firmware updates that are apparently tied up with some type of DRM which complicates the process. I know it's not your fault for not having one yet, you're trying your best to get yours.

This is why I've been careful not to make any comments that would require an opinion based on personal assessment, such as quality of the controller and things like that. Everything I've said about the RetroN5 is based on documented facts, not opinions of others or my own.

Also just looking at the reviews from Amazon, the reviews are mixed but most of them are just one star. These reviews are complaining about hardware quality like defective controllers or entirely dying within a few hours of use.

amazon reviews. How many of those people do you really think are qualified to review anything? I bought a chainsaw recently and looked at amazon reviews of found a number of people who attempted to put the chain on backwards and injuries themselves, blaming their stupidity on the chainsaw itself and telling others not to buy it.

Just like Hyperkin's facebook page, I'm sure the majority of the negative comments on amazon are written by impatient or ignorant people. I'm not saying that all reviews of the Retron5 are inaccurate, but you need to take amazon reviews with a giant grain of salt.

As I understand it, the hardware part is what's needed to recognize and dump the games from the cartridge. The actual playing of the games is all software emulation. All forms of software emulation is run on some type of hardware so I can't see how else this is unique.

That's right, but then there's that retro gamer psychosis again.

Yeah, I'll try my best to stay as polite as possible. After seeing stardust4ever getting chased off the site because of this thread I decided to participate in it again.

Stardust is an idiot who we all grew tired of with his neverending exhausting comments of stupidity. For months I've taken the time to answer his comments politely even when others clearly grew tired of him, but his latest posts about the RetroN5 were nothing more than lies to slander the thing, and that's what I won't tolerate and the reason I finally decided to block his idiotic comments from even appearing.

If we "chased" him off DP, then good riddance, but let's be clear: if he did leave, he left on his own accord and the only one to blame for him being "chased" from here is himself. In the end he turned out to be no better than MyTurnToPlay, one of the biggest trolls I've ever seen on any forum.

Then why the hell does the system download part/all of a game's ROM when you decide to play it? There's really no need for it, even as an emulation box. You can be certain that the eventual custom firmware will add Retrode-like abilities and support for playing games off the SD slot. As it stands, the only things I'm curious about that haven't been addressed are FDS compatibility, support for Famicom expansion audio, and support for the FM synth chip in Master System mode.

The RetroN5 dumps the cartridge to ROM before running it to allow it access to savestates, virtual sram and non-native controller inputs. That is the need for it, as you put it.

FDS support does not work. It results in error 01 - no disk detected. This is because the dumped FDS bios does not interact with the FDS itself as it would on the real hardware.

The Retron5 does fully support all Famicom expansion audio.
The Retron5 does fully support all YM2413 Sega Mark III and Master System games programmed with FM audio. It does not, however, allow those games to boot with their PSG sound at all. They will always be in FM on the Retron5, at least for now, pending further firmware changes.

[Leo_A]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but let's be honest here - most people who buy flashcarts and modchips use them as easy access tools for piracy, myself included.

For the Nintendo and Sega consoles, but homebrew development is certainly a major reason behind their development and popularity on the popular pre-crash consoles and the Atari 7800 (Which for anyone that loves the Golden Age of arcade gaming, I definitely recommend giving this system a second look someday thanks to the likes of PacManPlus).

No, they didn't. They merely said 100% compatibility was their goal and that firmware updates were the means of achieving that.

Almost wish they had never said that. It instantly was interpreted as a promise of 100% compatibility by quite a few people.

Stardust is an idiot who we all grew tired of with his neverending exhausting comments of stupidity. For months I've taken the time to answer his comments politely even when others clearly grew tired of him, but his latest posts about the RetroN5 were nothing more than lies to slander the thing, and that's what I won't tolerate and the reason I finally decided to block his idiotic comments from even appearing.

If we "chased" him off DP, then good riddance, but let's be clear: if he did leave, he left on his own accord and the only one to blame for him being "chased" from here is himself. In the end he turned out to be no better than MyTurnToPlay, one of the biggest trolls I've ever seen on any forum.

His trolling in the AtariAge Retron 5 thread has provided similar comments as around here such as this one from the other day.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/209...etc/?p=3014732

He definitely has created this problem himself.

The RetroN5 dumps the cartridge to ROM before running it to allow it access to savestates, virtual sram and non-native controller inputs. That is the need for it, as you put it.

Perhaps with save states, but definitily not controller inputs. There's no significance on where the game data is residing. The rom dump isn't being modified on the fly by the Retron 5 when using something like a Genesis pad to control a NES game. It's essentially doing via the emulator program what you've done via hardware with your SuperNes SuperPad modification to use Y and B for NES games.

There's absolutely no importance here that the game data has been dumped to SD rather than being read directly.

[Tanooki]

Like how Tanooki responded to my post, I must be too shallow or dense to understand it, or maybe impatient, ignorant, and/or lazy as he replied to someone else. That must be why I don't feel I need to buy it at $140 US. At least Satoshi_Matrix seems to be responding to posts respectfully now.

I respond that way now because being a broken record player gets old. I'm also fed up with modern entitlement and instant gratification culture as well and I keep seeing all these halftruths, some lies, mixed with legit complaints thrown in and it just repeatedly stirs the pot so I got over being nice.


Garrett: I asked about the famicom expansion audio, and I was told that it is coded in there and works. I just don't have a copy of CV3(JP) to try it. I'm keeping an eye out for a cheap copy of it since I already have the US release.


Yes the system erases the game in memory once the cart is removed and the game is turned off. This was proven using a sneaky trick with a Honeybee(only works with it) where someone locked a Famicom game into one, into the NES cart it went, loaded 100%, then the game (not the honeybee) was removed and it still worked. The system stores save states, hot saves it does when you go the menu, and it saves screen shots you take, and then any save games applicable carts make and that I think is it.


Just a little something else to put out there. Another firmware public release is pending anytime now. I got yet another build overnight, and he says overall 99% of games will boot up and play on the system via CRC check or their new mapper0-4 auto detection routine. The saving problem on the GBA has been squashed except for the write from retron back to cart on EEPROM saves only. They're also working now on adding pirate famicom/nes multicarts, he added my Supervision 115in1 overnight, it works, glitchy, as it's a WIP but it is up and 100% detected(not listed as unknown.) Also some of my bootlegs are picking up now too like my famiclone of Crisis Force, and also the retrozone DK Original Edition picks up and plays now too.

They never once stated they were eventually going to be 100% running it all, they were shooting to get as close to that as possible and it's getting quite close. Camerica games are working on my build too like Micro Machines as well.

[Tanooki]

As for stardust he's calming down and cooled off. Yes over at NA he is saying we chased him off over the R5, but aside from that he did make an apology for his behavior about it too so I just consider it a dead issue as he's being cool again.

[Ozzy_98]

Then why the hell does the system download part/all of a game's ROM when you decide to play it? There's really no need for it, even as an emulation box.

I think they're doing it for their special shaders and to just speed things up in general. From what I've seen it's just dumping the chr roms if there is one, so the console has faster local access rather than checking the slower old as hell chips.

Course legit tech info on the thing is lacking, and what I do hear keeps getting conflicted by later reports.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

another day, another massive reply post.

Playing from an SD card would be interesting (though I'd rather have the option to back up ROMs TO an SD card, if it was only one or the other - obviously both functions would be even better from a consumer standpoint), but while I'm usually finding myself anti-DRM and the like, I don't think Hyperkin had any obligation to support a feature with this use. It's not original to the hardware, could earn the ire of some industry groups, and is just something else to worry about in the program. I hope that other groups / manufacturers will implement something more flexible.

Right. Hyperkin is under no obligation to directly support ROMs just because some people in the retro gaming community would want that. I actually somewhat admire them to sticking to their guns and refusing to do this. Their stubbornness reminds me of Nintendo in recent years.

The more interesting question, in my mind, is why they have opted for such a seemingly ridiculous and convoluted firmware update scheme.

I really get the impression that Hyperkin doesn't know what they're doing when it comes to firmware updates. Hell, the url to even get to the firmware updates isn't anywhere on the official RetroN5 site, and that's truly baffling. I get that Hyperkin is a small company with limited resources, but man some of the things they do make them seem like amateurs rather than professionals.

Like mentioned by others, I doubt Hyperkin had someone write new emulators from scratch, so they have to be based on something preexisting.

This is unknown, one way or the other. To presume knowledge that is unknown is a sign of self delusion.

I've got a few GBA bootlegs and all of them were labeled as "unknown cart". I can dump these same games with my own equipment, the title headers are still there, and with an auditing tool they will be recognized as what they actually are and labeled correctly. Sometimes they will be labeled as a pirate release, or as a hacked issue so EEPROM or flash save games are changed to be SRAM, but they're still there. Seems like you'd have to intentionally remove these headers from your database? These same games still dump and still work on my RetroN5, so they've accomplished nothing in fighting the good fight against piracy, only inconvenienced me because I can't use cheat codes and my gavesaves will be all mislabeled and janky. It's a small issue, but an issue.

I get that counterfeit cart compatibility is a non-issue for Hyperkin, along with support for extremely rare mappers used by tons of unlicensed FC/NES games. Few people own these and few people care, I understand. But from a hardware perspective I don't understand why the machine doesn't even detect that these carts are inserted. I get that these games not supported by the software anyway, but why doesn't the machine even recognize the cart is physically inserted? Again, not a complaint or whine because I neither expected them to work nor was it ever implied they would, just a head scratcher from a hardware tinkerer perspective.

Purely speculation, but I suspect both of the "Unknown Cart" and "No Cartridge Detected" errors are generic messages that pop up even in situations where they aren't 100% accurate. Game has any sort of header issue whatsoever? throw up Unknown Cartridge. System doesn't know what to do with the rom dump of something it can't properly read? better to just claim that there's nothing inserted. In either case these issues can and will be ironed out with future firmware updates, of that I am certain.

The wonky SRAM issue is a real legitimate complaint. It's extremely shitty that the SRAM issues exist on legit, real carts. The backup save issue, that you could transfer your saves to the internal memory and vice versa was a big selling point. Yet there are so many issues, even after the current updates, that will just completely erase the saves on your original carts. Nowhere in any documentation by Hyperkin or in the system itself is it stated that the save thing on some systems or games is currently a mess and that there's a good chance your save will be deleted or corrupted. No warnings that the software is still buggy and will make you lose all your precious save games. That's pretty shitty any way you look at it. If the feature is currently fucked up and you know it is then why not gray that option out? Or why not give a warning message to proceed at your own caution? They make a warning label pop up when trying to play a game is listed as "unknown cart" saying that it may not work correctly, and you can choose to proceed or not. Why not do this? Advertising that something works when it actually (and I hesitate to use this term) damages your property is a pretty shit thing, even if it's fixed down the road. Fixing it on the next update won't bring the dozen or so saves I've completely lost without any warning that it might happen.

the SRAM issues are regrettable, but Hyperkin is working on fixing all this. I'm confinent that in time these issues will vanish. In the meantime yeah, it does suck, but that's the risk you take as an early adopter. It isn't an excuse, but keep in mind Hyperkin is a tiny company staffed by people who seem to be winging many aspects. Maybe your expectations were too high to begin with? Again, obviously this is squarely Hyperkin's own fault and their mess, but they are taking steps to fix it, which is why I'm far less critical of them than I would otherwise be.

The unit ships with almost 2 gigs of on board memory. An SD cart is required to be inserted at all times if you plan on using cheat codes. Game save SRAM, savestates, and snapshots are teeny tiny file sizes so 2 gigs is flat out overkill, and even if memory constraints are tight you can direct the system to save these items directly to the SD card. I don't care that you can't use it to dump carts, I have plenty of hardware to do that. But with that much HD space what is their logic or what could be the hardware limitation behind having the ROM image delete itself once you remove the cart? They could still require the carts to be inserted to play, but maybe keep your last 5 games stored in memory so you don't have to do the dumping process every time. Hell, even if it was just as temporary as losing it when the unit powers off it would be better than what it is. Again, not a complaint just wishful thinking.

You're totally right about this. When it was first reveled that the Retron5 would have built-in flash storage for savestates and sram, I thought oh okay, so they'll have maybe 30 MB or so, since savestates are typically only around 60 KB. Whey they revieled the storage was going to be over a gigabyte, it really made me wonder if Hyperkin was planning something else for the flash memory storage, but then along with the storage announcement came the confirmation that if you want to do anything else you need to use an external SD card.

This totally reminded me of the original Xbox having a 10GB harddrive, with the only things users could do with that massive amount of console storage at the time being moving save files (again, at most, a few megabytes) or rip audio CDs. The bulk of that storage was inaccessible to the end user.

But with Hyperkin's firmware updates, maybe they will eventually let users do everything you mentioned with the storage. There are PS3 games that you can install to the harddrive but still requires the disc in the tray. There's no reason at all the same couldn't apply to 256Mb GBA games like Mother 3 on the RetroN5 that still require the cart inserted, but will actually run directly off the flash memory without the need to redump it every time you play.

But this is a distant thing that takes a backseat to the priority of getting everything to work as it is.

I assumed the games would be dumped to an internal memory where they could always be played easily at any time, once they were initially dumped to the console. If they're actually being deleted once the cartridge is removed, I really don't see how this is convenient at all.

That's your own fault for not paying attention. Yes, rom dumps only last so long as you have the cart inserted into the system, then the temporary storage is deleted. But its hardly an issue. based on all coverage I've seen, games for every system but GBA dump within 1-10 seconds, and GBA around 20-40 seconds depending on the size. And Hyperkin has said that they're developing a means to allow you to jump in and start playing GBA games even before they're fully dumped, so even the 20-40 second wait will be reduced or eliminated completely.

Seems like they're just making their job harder since they have to emulate things like the Super FX processor where as with a conventional setup, they'd only have to emulate each console itself.

Because the RetroN5 has features that could demand things not possible from the original co-processors, such as the use of savestates. For example, say you're playing Star Fox and encounter a boss, and then hit savestate so if you die you can restart. The Super FX chip would be doing calculations to render the positions of the polygons and all the other background calculations. If the user suddenly hit load state, then the chip would have to stop what its doing and recalculate what it was doing before.

This could result in crashes, glitches, or slow response times. By having the Retron5 emulation do everything, this becomes a non-issue. There's your reason.

For the Nintendo and Sega consoles, but homebrew development is certainly a major reason behind their development and popularity on the popular pre-crash consoles and the Atari 7800 (Which for anyone that loves the Golden Age of arcade gaming, I definitely recommend giving this system a second look someday thanks to the likes of PacManPlus).

Oh yeah, absolutely. PacMan 4K for example is without a doubt my favorite 2600 game. It's so much better than the official version it really needs to be seen to be believed that it's even possible to run on the 2600.

[about 100% compatibility] Almost wish they had never said that. It instantly was interpreted as a promise of 100% compatibility by quite a few people.

Well, in my view, if people interpreted that as a promise of 100% compatibility, then that's their own stupidity. Game companies choose their words very carefully when making announcements like that, just as politicians do. A political candidate that says their goal is to create job growth doesn't mean that they will vs a political candidate that says they will create job growth. The subtle difference means a whole lot.

[QUOTE=Leo_A;2003444]
[Stardust] is trolling in the AtariAge Retron 5 thread has provided similar comments as around here such as this one from the other day.
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/209...etc/?p=3014732
He definitely has created this problem himself.

As for stardust he's calming down and cooled off. Yes over at NA he is saying we chased him off over the R5, but aside from that he did make an apology for his behavior about it too so I just consider it a dead issue as he's being cool again.

Stardust, if you're reading this, you need to do two things if you want this community and myself to forgive you:

1. Own up to what you did and apologize HERE. Doing so on NA amounts to a hill of beans for actions done on this community.
2. Never troll again. If you've got an opinion to share, then share it; but don't start making up lies to slander what you don't like. That's unacceptable, childish behavior I'd expect from a 10 year old on a Pokemon thread or something.

Do those things and I'll unblock you and respect you again. The choice is yours.

Perhaps with save states, but definitily not controller inputs. There's no significance on where the game data is residing. The rom dump isn't being modified on the fly by the Retron 5 when using something like a Genesis pad to control a NES game. It's essentially doing via the emulator program what you've done via hardware with your SuperNes SuperPad modification to use Y and B for NES games.

Good point, but my point was just that there are several reasons why the RetroN5 dumps the cartridge to ROM before running it rather than directly running the cart as the original hardware would.

I think they're doing it for their special shaders and to just speed things up in general. From what I've seen it's just dumping the chr roms if there is one, so the console has faster local access rather than checking the slower old as hell chips.

And those reasons too. Thanks for adding them.

I asked about the famicom expansion audio, and I was told that it is coded in there and works. I just don't have a copy of CV3(JP) to try it. I'm keeping an eye out for a cheap copy of it since I already have the US release.

I've seen it on youtube vids and I've got a copy myself along with other Famicom games with expansion audio. FYI, don't expect to ever find Akumajou Densetsu "cheap". Even in Japan the game has had a surge in price over the last 10 years. I bought my copy in the early 2000s CIB and the price for a cart only copy domestically in Japan is what I paid for my copy back then. Internationally and plus shipping, you'd be lucky to find a cart only copy these days for less than $50.

Still. Akumajou Densetsu is a superior game to Castlevania 3, and not just because of the VRC6 audio. Akumajou Densetsu is also a more fair game, as the difficulty for the North American version was increased for some reason. As well, the NES cart has censorship of blood and nudity, and although it uses the MMC5 board, Castlevania 3 does not actually use any of the features of Nintendo's most advanced mapper. Castlevania 3 exists only to showcase wasted potential.

Just a little something else to put out there. Another firmware public release is pending anytime now. I got yet another build overnight, and he says overall 99% of games will boot up and play on the system via CRC check or their new mapper0-4 auto detection routine. The saving problem on the GBA has been squashed except for the write from retron back to cart on EEPROM saves only. They're also working now on adding pirate famicom/nes multicarts, he added my Supervision 115in1 overnight, it works, glitchy, as it's a WIP but it is up and 100% detected(not listed as unknown.) Also some of my bootlegs are picking up now too like my famiclone of Crisis Force, and also the retrozone DK Original Edition picks up and plays now too.

They never once stated they were eventually going to be 100% running it all, they were shooting to get as close to that as possible and it's getting quite close. Camerica games are working on my build too like Micro Machines as well.

Thank you so much for the updates Tanooki. If it wasn't for your updates, everything would be doom and gloom around here. The R5 has so much potential and Hyperkin's continued actions to improve it make me want the thing even more.

But frustratingly, it now might be friggin August before I get mine. Hyperkin has begun to ship the preorder units to where I preordered mine, but I'm apparently in the "middle" of their preorders, so it could be some time still before I get my system. I'm hoping there might be a bunch of cancellations though, as the retailer still hasn't increase the price from $99 to $139, which they'll do once each order is ready to ship.

[Az]

System doesn't know what to do with the rom dump of something it can't properly read? better to just claim that there's nothing inserted.

That's the thing though, from a technical standpoint I don't understand why it behaves that way. On the carts I have that are not recognized (FC, GB, GBA) the system does nothing but stand idle when they're inserted. It doesn't skip, stutter, pause, throw an error, or attempt to do anything even at all, even if you sat and removed/inserted the cart a hundred times. It doesn't attempt to do anything. In fact, when it was sitting there idle doing nothing with a problem FC cart I inserted a SNES cart in the other slot (which according to Hyperkin is a big no-no) and it dumped and booted the SNES game.

All the cart slots are hot all the time, so there has to be a specific technical reason behind the system not even seeing those particular carts inserted.

Which is another point; I just don't see how it's healthy to be jamming and removing carts into slots that have voltage running to them at all times. We've been told by every manufacturer for the past 35 years to never do this lest our carts be ruined or saves lost, and some systems even went as far as to have physical locks so you couldn't remove the cart while the system was on. Was this just an old wives tale perpetrated by companies over the years?

Maybe your expectations were too high to begin with?

Expecting it to do something that's listed on the box, the manual, and the software frontend itself and then it not working is a disappointment. Having it damage my carts by permanently deleting my saves is a crock of shit. Expecting it to not permanently delete my 30 year old save data without warning, even after multiple updates, is not an outlandish expectation. Because of this I'm now leery about putting any cart with SRAM in it regardless of updates or not.

This is unknown, one way or the other. To presume knowledge that is unknown is a sign of self delusion.

In either case these issues can and will be ironed out with future firmware updates, of that I am certain.

Sheesh. So let me get this straight; because I doubt a tiny company like Hyperkin programmed their own Android-based emulators for over a half dozen consoles from scratch I'm self delusional, yet you have either a crystal ball or an inside line to the company where you know for a fact what problems will be addressed by future updates?

[sonicfan]

I just don't see how it's healthy to be jamming and removing carts into slots that have voltage running to them at all times. We've been told by every manufacturer for the past 35 years to never do this lest our carts be ruined or saves lost, and some systems even went as far as to have physical locks so you couldn't remove the cart while the system was on. Was this just an old wives tale perpetrated by companies over the years?

I'm with you all the way. This is definitely a big no-no.

[Tanooki]

The system as I had it explained to me dumps the entire game into the NAND storage temporarily, it's not just part of the game, it is all of it. I suppose if someone gets around to hacking the thing since it is Android based, you could just recode the 'erase once turned off' bit of code and it would be a straight up cart dumper that you could in turn via the mini USB port in back or SD card start tossing games around all over the place with no effort involved. This is what I was told was why the firmware is done that way and why they don't do direct ROM support, they don't want it to be on the level of the R4, the PS1 emulators around 2000, and other entities that Nintendo and Sony have stomped out of existence legally or at least bankrupting them with legal hoops and injunctions against selling until the court time is over as it would finish them off.

The emulators unless I was told a story because of the tech's bosses laying down the hammer due to NDAs is that they made them themselves, but everything they did was based off public resources from other emulators that are open to use such ways to random bits of shared public information on nesdev and other places that cover all the tech junk. I know they went over the fceu open source mapper stuffs as I handed that to the tech a couple nights ago and in return the Supervision 115in1 now is kind of up and running but needs work. That fceu source pile has a crap load of mappers for bootlegs and multicarts from asia.

The "UNKNOWN CART" language is a general term and kind of misleading as it's a catch all. Sometimes if you don't have a good seat on the cart or it's dirty you can get unknown cart. When it legit isn't working because there is no CRC32 on file for it, you'll get that. Also now with the test builds it will say this too if the game has to be picked up from the auto-mapper routine for mapper0-4 on NES games. That's the reason that message pops up, and it could be better saying why it's unknown like 'failed to read game' and 'game not in database' would be more helpful from a buyer side of things.

The SRAM issue is fixed, and the FLASH save is fixed too, EEPROM is 1/2 working but they're still needing to fix the write save from retron->cart for EEPROM games on GBA. I was told the SRAM saves for other games from NES through SNES and GB/GBC are working fine now unless there's some random bizarre bug that got by or on a particular game.

The storage on the thing is 1.2GB, and I believe some of that is reserved for the firmware, but don't hold me to that. It's like how the old WiiU had it's system files on that small storage it had gobbling up a good bit rendering the basic white model useless if you wanted to download most full size disc games. I'm thinking the storage size is probably to be over the top if someone out there buys it and owns like a 1000 games and wants all their saves on it along with a heap of save states and pictures. It would be hard, but I could see gobbling up a lot of it but for most people it'll go unused.

Downloading is slow to the system, but not for long. The lead tech has a routine being worked up. The largest GBA game can take over a minute to load up (Kingdom Hearts is one.) But they found a way to load the essential parts of the ROM to get it to boot and while it's going through starting screens on the game it will be continually loading the game in the background to the R5. This supposedly will allow the games to load up in a fraction of the time.

Satoshi anything is possible. I got Crisis Force w/book, Madoora no Tsubasa, and Parodius in the mail today for $60 shipped from Japan. I'll just keep my eyes out for it. I know and am familiar with the differences between the two, so in time I will get it. That time maybe this week or next month but it's on my to do list.

You're welcome for the updates. Here's the deal. Since I got the thing somehow I've made friends with the main R5 tech, apparently he's a new zelander living in HK who has been studying Chinese for a while and now works for Hyperkin, so the people working on it are english natives (queens english or americans) from what I gather. A nice guy, guessing from some of his references and gaming favorites (like XCOM and owning an Amiga) he's probably late 20s into mid 30s in age, friendly, knowledgable, and when he's not coding loves to shoot the shit with friendly people with similar interests. I hear enough from him about stuff that it gets my temper going when people start ripping on this dudes work as him and others are like working 8-12 hours a day looking at when he's online and I talk to him (12hr diff, he's on when it's night and morning for me, but not all day long, so it's a long shift.) He's tired of taking shit because he's doing what he can and enjoys what he has been able to pull off and he's being given freedom to do some interesting stuff on his own whims now that the internal build compatibility is in the 99% about range. He's taking a lot of this onto himself to get stuff going the biggest complainers and critics are going off on with homebrew, pirates, bootlegs, multicarts, slow long load times, and even looking to add features like a on/off switch for turbo (speedy) mode for gamers into that who requested it kindly. He clearly likes his job and the system and I can see why given the hardware that is in there, it can pull off quite a lot and he's just OCD(I think) enough if just one thing here or there is wrong, he has stopped and fixed stuff while I've talked to him so he's clearly determined and he's earned my respect along with the team. Even under not the great circumstances and limited resources(physical carts which he gets in more often) to figure stuff out, he's pulled off a lot since the first update on the 6th.

Again if anyone wants the latest test build that'll back up what I'm saying about the fixes I'm allowed to pass it on, he just wants anything piratey reported to him with the CRC32 numbers off the diagnostics panel that's enabled in return.