RetroN5: Hands on first look

[Ozzy_98]

I heard the system eats your saves and can damage the internal battery. It's so bad the games now carry warnings. What, you thought I was talking RetroN? No, nes. That's why we have a hold reset button message on newer Zelda carts and not older ones. People complaining about same shit, just different decades.



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.

When did you last change your batteries ? And did you back up your saves? If the batteries are still the originals, who knows when they'll go, I first had nes ones start dying 10 years ago, so they're a time bomb waiting to go off. If you've backed up your saves, then your argument is all about a minor inconvenience.


I'm not sure where the "always power to the cart slot" came from, but it'd be childs play for it to detect a cart is inserted and then apply power, so I'd bet if it is always powered on, that's how they do it.

This isn't an emulation box, we have those already. This box is for people who want to play their gen carts with a snes controller on an HD TV without a PC and controller adapters or own a quality scaler. To me, it's a neat item, but I have no use for it. If the wireless controllers were designed better than maybe I'd be interested, but they suck so I'm sticking to a PC running a custom MameWAH setup.

I don't get why some people are so down-right angry about the system though. Shouldn't they be bashing $500 nes systems stuck in ugly aluminum blocks? Or at least bash it for not playing Atari games.

[RPG_Fanatic]

My Retron 5 just came in the mail today and it did wipe out all of my game saves on my SNES and Genesis games which kind of sucks but I guess it just makes me start over. But I do like the system, the games do look really nice on my HDTV which is the only TV I have in my game room.

[Gameguy]

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.
I personally like physical cartridges and discs, but I prefer to play games on authentic hardware whenever possible. That way you get a completely authentic experience with how the games play, you don't have to worry about incompatibility issues or improper speeds or sounds. I've seen people post videos of Genesis games on youtube with everyone in the comments complaining about how horrible the music is. Only I've played the same games on my console and the music was nowhere near that bad, it was a problem with the emulation. Only few people would realize this was the problem with it, instead they assume the music was just poor quality because it was the Sega Genesis instead of the SNES.

The whole problem I have with physical carts with this Retron5 is that the console plays games through emulation. Emulation is emulation, you don't need a physical cartridge to play a game through emulation. A physical cartridge in this case doesn't make the game play any better.


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.
I meant that piracy wasn't the reason why I would specifically be wanting direct ROM support, for me it's more of an issue concerning ease of use. Of course people would be using that feature for piracy, that's just not the main reason why I would consider that feature useful.


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.
Not just the Ouya or original hardware. There's also PCs for emulation, which you can output HDMI and use controllers with various adapters, savestates, cheats, and other add ons. Any adapters should cost less than $140. Or you can use modded consoles to play emulated games as well.

Personally, I've never bothered to use savestates when I did use emulation, same with cheat codes beyond the odd time messing around. If this Retron5 could record video of playthroughs I could see this beneficial to youtubers, but instead it just captures screenshots. These emulator enhanced features aren't things I ever used.


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.
My main reasoning was that documented facts aren't always correct. I had a new boxed pair of cheap computer speakers, the specifications on the box stated that they were rated at 200 watts. There is no way that these basic computer speakers were 200 watts when they just use a basic 3.5mm plug(they're really cheap/flimsy computer speakers). You can't be sure that whatever is documented is actually true without verifying it first hand.


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.
I must not have noticed all that, to me he didn't seem that bad(until the last few posts, which still weren't the worst I've seen here). He wasn't as bad as MyTurnToPlay, nowhere near that bad. In one post he mentioned he was glad he cancelled his preorder after hearing about some of the issues people were having with it right after launch, and you went off on him for it. That didn't sound like a troll post to me, no more than any other post sharing an opinion on the forum.


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.

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.

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.
They pretty much did promise 100% compatibility. I'll post their "product features" as listed from their website.


◦Multiple System Compatibility: The RetroN 5 allows you to play your favorite NES, SNES, Super Famicom, Genesis, Mega Drive, Famicom, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and GBA cartridges on one system. You can also play Master System games with the use of the Power Base Converter.*
◦Graphical User Interface (GUI): A brand new GUI Menu that gives access to features and the ability to customize your entire gaming experience on the screen.
◦HDMI Output: The HDMI output will upconvert the signal to your HDTV with a maximum output resolution of 720p.
◦Save/Load States: Save or load your games at any point during gameplay, with 10 save slots for each game.
◦Video Enhancement: Customize your video settings with the variety of different filter and shader effects, including scanlines.
◦Audio Enhancement: Utilizing Audio Interpolation, the RetroN 5 will produce a smoother, crisper sound output.
◦Cheats: Pre-built cheats that can be accessed at any point during gameplay for most games.
◦Bluetooth Wireless Controller: Utilizing Bluetooth technology, this controller has a range of up to 30 feet and features a microswitch directional pad, two programmable macro buttons, and a Home button for quick-in game access to features.
◦Original Controller Ports: 2 original controller ports (6 total) for each platform
◦100% Compatibility: The RetroN 5 will play both PAL and NTSC cartridges. CIC lockout chips and FX chips are no longer going to be an issue, as we aim to achieve 100% compatibility with all cartridges.
*Power Base Converter sold separately.
100% Compatibility is listed exactly the same way as HDMI Output or Bluetooth Wireless Controller, there's no asterisk or fine print saying it's a future goal or ambition if they can get around to it. Maybe they just wrote it poorly. There is an asterisk mentioning there's no Power Base Converter included. It does say "aim to achieve" but you can't blame people interpreting that as a promise. There's no "through firmware updates" at the end of that sentence, and the beginning doesn't list "High Compatibility". 100% Compatibility is listed as an included feature.

[GarrettCRW]

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.

I'm pretty sure that you don't need the console to download ROMs in order to use non-native controllers or savestates, and obviously the handling of SRAM on the system was flawed as originally intended, as the thing has been deleting game saves off carts. The result is that a popular (if finicky) add-on to the Famicom is broken, and may remain as such. That's a pretty big pile of fail.

[Leo_A]

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.

It was 8 gigs, wasn't it?

But don't forget about all the DLC and the patches that the original Xbox got (not to mention Xbox Live Arcade with 20 or so games like Ms. Pac-Man). Never been sure on my original Xbox just how close I am to filling it up since it doesn't provide that detail (It just says something like 50,000+ blocks available as I recall and I've never gotten it under whatever the threshold was for it to start diminishing).

But I bet between all the patches for games like RalliSport Challenge 2 (At a time when they tended to be more than just bug fixes and often included free extra content and new features), the DLC expansions like Project Gotham Racing 2's booster packs with new cities and cars, Halo 2's map packs, Links 2004's golf courses, and whatever else I downloaded, that I at least filled up 4 or 5 gigs on my HDD with DLC. Then add several hundred MB's for game saves for my large collection and a gig or two of music that I've ripped to it, and I bet I'm closing in on running out of space.

[Tanooki]

My Retron 5 just came in the mail today and it did wipe out all of my game saves on my SNES and Genesis games which kind of sucks but I guess it just makes me start over. But I do like the system, the games do look really nice on my HDTV which is the only TV I have in my game room.

Seriously if you have 1.31 firmware on there and this happened to everything, you got to write the Retron Tech. He's currently trying to completely squash this issue as it's random and needs more data from people to support tracking it down.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005440995949 <-tech contact info

[Az]

I found (at least on the few games I tried) Genesis games that require the mode button to be held down on a 6 button controller don't require that. They'll work like normal even even if you don't hold it down.

SMS games that require a SMS controller to work on a Genesis no longer require that, at least from what I tried. They all worked with a 6 button pad.

For SMS games with FM sound will boot with PSG sound if the system detects it as an unknown cart.

I noticed today that strangely enough it will not let you assign the mode button on a 6 button Genesis pad to do anything as a OS hotkey, say for example mode+start returning you to the main menu. You also can't assign the mode button to do anything in another system. I was looking forward to using that pad on SNES games, but I won't be able to play anything that requires the select button because there's nothing available to assign it to, and the OS won't let you remap the SNES start and select buttons.

Then I looked and saw that the NES and GBA side are set up the same way because you cannot remap the select button to anything on a Genesis pad. I'm hard pressed to think of any SNES games but I can think of several NES and GBA games that use select quite a bit.


I'm not sure where the "always power to the cart slot" came from

It came from my multi-meter. All cart slots have full power at all times. Turn your Genesis on with no cartridge in, jam a cart in and play for a few minutes, rip it out, jam another one in and hit reset. Electrically you're doing the same thing to your carts when playing on a RetroN5.


I heard the system eats your saves and can damage the internal battery. It's so bad the games now carry warnings..[] People complaining about same shit, just different decades.

Unfortunately Hyperkin couldn't be bothered to spring for the stickers. Or warning anyone.


When did you last change your batteries ? And did you back up your saves? If the batteries are still the originals, who knows when they'll go...[] If you've backed up your saves, then your argument is all about a minor inconvenience.

I never backed up the SMS saves because I know of no device that exists which does such a thing. Some games had never had their batteries changed. What relevance does that have to the console not working as advertised or intended by deleting them without warning? My computer's HDD will eventually die but that doesn't make it OK for my wife to waltz in and format it. If she did, she's being a dick, regardless of whether or not I have my important data backed up. If my saves are deleted because I don't follow Nintendo's suggestion to hold the reset button in when turning my NES off or if I was too lazy to change a 30 year old coin cell battery then the blame falls squarely on me. Saves being deleted by inserting the cart into a system that claims it's compatible (and will even back up said saves for safekeeping) is not my fault.

[Tanooki]

Hey AZ two things...
1) I forwarded your concern to the tech about the MODE button being omitted and also if it would be possible to remap select and start. I do agree having to go for select sucks since you have to take your thumb off the d-pad to do so.
2) Are you in on the beta testing of this thing? If you like I could send you the latest. I saw you mentioned SMS and there's a lot of fixes for it including adding SMS game pad support.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

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?

I'm simply saying that Hyperkin has already taken several steps to fix all sorts of problems with the RetroN5 and continues to do so. Simply projecting what from where they are now, firmweare updates will continue to fix problems. This is why I feel that eventually these sram concerns will be a thing of the past.


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.

This is what I suspected. The emulation of the Retron5 is based on open source code, but the actual construction of the emulators was done by Hyperkin, making the emulators their own, unique for anything else on Android even if the foundations are the same.




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.[/quoted]

Aimed at Az, but good to know.

[QUOTE=Tanooki;2003477]
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.

So in other words, this is exactly like playing Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal in Pokemon Stadium 2 on the N64 back in the day.


[QUOTE=Tanooki;2003477] anything is possible.
I suppose, but it's not likely you'll find Akumajou Densetsu for less than its market value. That's all I'm saying. Some things are worth paying more than you would initially think for though.




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.

I definitely do want in on beta testing. As I've said before, I have a massive collection of games for all systems including many bootlegs, repros and oddities. Whenever it is Hyperkin actually sends me what I ordered, I want in.



I personally like physical cartridges and discs, but I prefer to play games on authentic hardware whenever possible. That way you get a completely authentic experience with how the games play, you don't have to worry about incompatibility issues or improper speeds or sounds. I've seen people post videos of Genesis games on youtube with everyone in the comments complaining about how horrible the music is. Only I've played the same games on my console and the music was nowhere near that bad, it was a problem with the emulation. Only few people would realize this was the problem with it, instead they assume the music was just poor quality because it was the Sega Genesis instead of the SNES.

The whole problem I have with physical carts with this Retron5 is that the console plays games through emulation. Emulation is emulation, you don't need a physical cartridge to play a game through emulation. A physical cartridge in this case doesn't make the game play any better.

This is another psychosis that you bring up. Come hell or high water, some people refuse to accept any sort of clone regardless of any other factor. I know people who will never want the RetroN5 no matter how good the compatibility and emulation is simply on the basis that it isn't the original hardware. Just like the physical vs intangible debate, it's all in ones head at that point, and hey, that's fine. The RetroN5 is not for everyone just as the original hardware is not for everyone.




My main reasoning was that documented facts aren't always correct. I had a new boxed pair of cheap computer speakers, the specifications on the box stated that they were rated at 200 watts. There is no way that these basic computer speakers were 200 watts when they just use a basic 3.5mm plug(they're really cheap/flimsy computer speakers). You can't be sure that whatever is documented is actually true without verifying it first hand.

When I say "documented facts" I mean things that have been verified and confirmed by other people already, and there is no possibly way to dispute those facts. I'm not assuming anything.



I must not have noticed all that, to me he didn't seem that bad(until the last few posts, which still weren't the worst I've seen here). He wasn't as bad as MyTurnToPlay, nowhere near that bad. In one post he mentioned he was glad he cancelled his preorder after hearing about some of the issues people were having with it right after launch, and you went off on him for it. That didn't sound like a troll post to me, no more than any other post sharing an opinion on the forum.


Uh.... for the record, I've gone back and found his post and my post. This is what he said:


Screw it. I just sent a message to Stone Age Gamer to cancel my Retron5 preorder. I've decided homebrews are more important to me than save states...


and here's my direct reply "going off on him":

Even though you were going to get a free controller? Well alright dude, that's your choice.

I'm still looking forward to mine when it arrives so I can tear into it. There are a lot of unanswered questions I still have, like exactly what the hardware is powering the RetroN5. Even if I don't use it much, I suspect there could be hacking potential to turn it into a pseudo Ouya.

Besides, I need to definitively answer the question of which emulation is superior - that of the Retron5 or that of the Ouya.


But maybe that post isn't what you're talking about. Maybe its the one where he said the Retron5 was in "firmware hell".

I responded,:

Uh. "firmware update hell"? Would you rather.....they not frequently correct bugs and fix reported problems? It kinda seems like you're saying the equivalent to "Oh no! They're making the product better every couple of days! How awful!"

He went on to say:

Worse still, as of right now, new updates are coming to Retron5 every couple days, and since the updates are not automatic like with consoles, they require shuffling the SD card back and forth between the PC. That is super annoying, and so much stuff is still broken despite fixing many of the day one issues, that I would rather not invest in this piece of tech until they get the bugs ironed out.

And in a truly Microsoft-like fashion, every time Hyperkin patches a fix for one thing, two other things get broken.

There is no truth whatsoever to this statement. When I and others pointed this out, that's when he turned tail and ran. He wasn't a vicious troll like MyTurnToPlay I'll give him that, but a troll is a troll.


[QUOTE=Gameguy;2003496]
They pretty much did promise 100% compatibility. I'll post their "product features" as listed from their website.

100% Compatibility is listed exactly the same way as HDMI Output or Bluetooth Wireless Controller, there's no asterisk or fine print saying it's a future goal or ambition if they can get around to it. Maybe they just wrote it poorly. There is an asterisk mentioning there's no Power Base Converter included. It does say "aim to achieve" but you can't blame people interpreting that as a promise. There's no "through firmware updates" at the end of that sentence, and the beginning doesn't list "High Compatibility". 100% Compatibility is listed as an included feature.


You're right, that is poorly worded. Tanooki maybe you can tell Hyperkin that they need to fix that to be less misleading. The last bulletpoint should read something like:

◦We aim for 100% Compatibility*: The RetroN 5 will play both PAL and NTSC cartridges. CIC lockout chips and FX chips are no longer going to be an issue, as we aim to achieve 100% compatibility with all cartridges.*Future compatibility added through firmware updates.

Something like that.



It was 8 gigs, wasn't it?

But don't forget about all the DLC and the patches that the original Xbox got (not to mention Xbox Live Arcade with 20 or so games like Ms. Pac-Man). Never been sure on my original Xbox just how close I am to filling it up since it doesn't provide that detail (It just says something like 50,000+ blocks available as I recall and I've never gotten it under whatever the threshold was for it to start diminishing).

But I bet between all the patches for games like RalliSport Challenge 2 (At a time when they tended to be more than just bug fixes and often included free extra content and new features), the DLC expansions like Project Gotham Racing 2's booster packs with new cities and cars, Halo 2's map packs, Links 2004's golf courses, and whatever else I downloaded, that I at least filled up 4 or 5 gigs on my HDD with DLC. Then add several hundred MB's for game saves for my large collection and a gig or two of music that I've ripped to it, and I bet I'm closing in on running out of space.


It was 10 GB formatted to 8 GB on launch models, and then 10 GB on the others. you've overestimating the size and importance of DLC, XBLA and patches and such on the original Xbox. There was very little of that, and of what there was, there was again only ~several hundred MB worth of that kind of thing for most games. There were a handful of exceptions, but my point wasn't that Microsoft didn't ever use the harddrive for anything, its that the didn't allow the end user to do anything much with it until custom firmware came and changed everything. This is exactly how the 1.2GB storage of the Retron5 is.

[Ozzy_98]

What relevance does that have to the console not working as advertised or intended by deleting them without warning? My computer's HDD will eventually die but that doesn't make it OK for my wife to waltz in and format it. If she did, she's being a dick, regardless of whether or not I have my important data backed up. If my saves are deleted because I don't follow Nintendo's suggestion to hold the reset button in when turning my NES off or if I was too lazy to change a 30 year old coin cell battery then the blame falls squarely on me. Saves being deleted by inserting the cart into a system that claims it's compatible (and will even back up said saves for safekeeping) is not my fault. Because the nes was doing the exact same thing. If anything, randomly deleting your saves would make it more like playing on the original hardware. But that's besides the point, I'm saying you're complain about the saves like it's something major, but have you taken steps to prevent it? You make it sound like this system is the spawn of the devil that killed your mother and knocked up your father. Lots and lots and lots of things you buy have issues at first, but it doesn't mean it's false advertisement.

Did people act this way when Nes-on-a-chips first came out and didn't work with all games?

[Tanooki]

Firmware 1.4 just came out hours ago today. This is the build I've been messing with minus the multicart/pirate tooling they've been doing the last couple days I imagine. I'd update it to check against mine, but I need the diagnostics panel to report CRCs on my carts.

That firmware should put to bed almost every legitimate case of complaining about games not working. It's at retron5.com but a direct link is here: http://retron5.in/node/6

Here's a full list of all the updates to this release and the past too. http://retron5.in/node/5 As you can see a lot has been done to add features, controllers and other junk on top of a heap of fixes. Also the excellent auto-detection scheme for mapper0-4 is in place here and early stuff I'm seeing from a few comments is that a lot of broken stuff isn't broken anymore. If you have the system, put this on there and enjoy it finally for what many felt it should be out of the box weeks ago.

[Az]

I'm saying you're complain about the saves like it's something major, but have you taken steps to prevent it??

Inconvenience or being something major is relative. To me, losing my own game saves is a big deal, to others it's probably nothing. To me, a stranger's house burning down on the other side if down is completely irrelevant, to him it's a big deal.

Ignore for a moment the whole fact that a selling point of this console is that it will back up your saves for safe keeping. What could I have done to prevent this console from deleting my saves? Ignore everything written on the box, manual, and frontend and assume it will delete my saves? Don't play anything with SRAM on it until I've trawled through Internet forums and verified that another user running the exact same firmware and has the exact same game revision has played it without issue? That's insane. If I buy a new VCR and it eats the first tape I put in it, it's a shitty VCR, and it's not somehow my fault for assuming the VCR would work as it should.


You make it sound like this system is the spawn of the devil that killed your mother and knocked up your father.

Therein lines the issue. There's a big difference between stating a fact (game X doesn't work) and an opinion (the console sucks because game X doesn't work). The only opinion I've leveled that has anything to do with the console itself is that I thought the firmware update process could be easier. Nowhere have I said the console was garbage, I wasted my money, I regret purchasing it, others shouldn't buy it, you're stupid if you buy it... nothing. Big difference between, "lost my game saves, don't lose yours" versus "lost my game saves, don't buy this POS".

Every issue that I've spoke about was not to hear my own lips flap but because I had never read or heard anyone mention it before. When an unopinionated fact is stated that could be viewed as derogatory against the console (X doesn't work, Y's incompatible, Z happens when it's not supposed do) some people seem to be interpreting that as a personal affront against them and rush to defend or minimize the issue. Are we not free to objectively discuss what does or doesn't work?

If I were to pop in right now and say, "I found Master Fighter III is incompatible" it seems people are unable to just say, "Hmm... I didn't know that." Instead there's a rush to either apologize with "OMG It'll be fixed in the future! They're working 24/7!", minimize it "Who owns that game anyway?!?", or outright dismiss it "How dare you expect that to work!!!"

[PizzaKat]

Inconvenience or being something major is relative. To me, losing my own game saves is a big deal, to others it's probably nothing. To me, a stranger's house burning down on the other side if down is completely irrelevant, to him it's a big deal.

Ignore for a moment the whole fact that a selling point of this console is that it will back up your saves for safe keeping. What could I have done to prevent this console from deleting my saves? Ignore everything written on the box, manual, and frontend and assume it will delete my saves? Don't play anything with SRAM on it until I've trawled through Internet forums and verified that another user running the exact same firmware and has the exact same game revision has played it without issue? That's insane. If I buy a new VCR and it eats the first tape I put in it, it's a shitty VCR, and it's not somehow my fault for assuming the VCR would work as it should.



Therein lines the issue. There's a big difference between stating a fact (game X doesn't work) and an opinion (the console sucks because game X doesn't work). The only opinion I've leveled that has anything to do with the console itself is that I thought the firmware update process could be easier. Nowhere have I said the console was garbage, I wasted my money, I regret purchasing it, others shouldn't buy it, you're stupid if you buy it... nothing. Big difference between, "lost my game saves, don't lose yours" versus "lost my game saves, don't buy this POS".

Every issue that I've spoke about was not to hear my own lips flap but because I had never read or heard anyone mention it before. When an unopinionated fact is stated that could be viewed as derogatory against the console (X doesn't work, Y's incompatible, Z happens when it's not supposed do) some people seem to be interpreting that as a personal affront against them and rush to defend or minimize the issue. Are we not free to objectively discuss what does or doesn't work?

If I were to pop in right now and say, "I found Master Fighter III is incompatible" it seems people are unable to just say, "Hmm... I didn't know that." Instead there's a rush to either apologize with "OMG It'll be fixed in the future! They're working 24/7!", minimize it "Who owns that game anyway?!?", or outright dismiss it "How dare you expect that to work!!!"

lol well said.

[Tanooki]

News flash, there are no ways to prevent the loss of game saves in previous versions of the firmware on the R5 other than NOT using those games in the system, or at the least, never writing save data back to the cartridge and just keeping the data on the system itself. The damn hot mess is a HUGE inconvenience and cost me a lot of hours of work and re-done work on FF6A and it tanked my 1987 era Zelda save file too which sucks. Somehow it's now a 4 heart 000 LINK record with no progress.

This is just too much drama and making more out of what AZ there is saying. He is right, the firmware process is one step too much. You should just be able to download them right off the website and pop the SD card in your box once, that's it. I get not having wifi or a jack on it as that's more cash and hassle. There's enough R5 trolls around spitting out pure fantasy to get attention and AZ isn't one of them.

I actually asked the tech about that one, and it appears the main webmaster of Hyperkin welcomes their abusive mouths or at least freedom of speech as the tech like myself would ban the people who keep trolling all the positive posts on there as it is a select bunch of pinheads stirring the pot. The thing is the bitching crossed way passed just being out of control on that facebook site and a few other popped up places around for communal trolling.

The R5 isn't perfect, 1.0-1.31 were having enough issues and incrimentally improved but still wasn't really acceptable if you need it more or less all to work. 1.4 is really the first step into making things right. It's at the point now singular games and quirky junk can finally be ferreted out and things can be added to make the overall usage a better thing and that's why I like this new update because they will always when they get new batches of systems in from overseas start uploading the newest app/firmware files before they go out so less people will have to suffer and may not even need to update the firmware depending on things.

[Ozzy_98]

Az, first please don't think that I'm defending the box or that I even like it. I've been bashing it for a long time. It's an emulator box that makes you dump your own roms. EVERY. TIME. YOU. PLAY. But hey, we give you free wireless controllers. Shaped like a brick. It's biggest appeal is to people who wrongly claim emulators are not as good as consoles, but can't actually point out games they have issues with on emulators, because they haven't used them since nestical. Or never figured them out and just decided they suck. So I dislike the ugly console with the high-end price tag, when 90% of it's functionality I have with my phone + hdmi adapter + controller.

It just seems like you're venomously attacking this thing, like it should have been perfect from the gate and any issues is a major sin where they should be burnt at the stake. If that's not how you're meaning it to sound, then I think everyone needs to take a step back. Anytime you get a new piece of hardware, or software, you really should test it out. If your RetronN ate more than 2-3 saves, then you're a dipshit; should have stopped at 1, maybe 2 to test if it was a glitch. Just look at how many PC games can mess up your systems. Pool of Radiance: RoMD for example, when it uninstalled, took windows with it. You take a chance with any clone system, or even using games in dirty systems. It sounds like you're stating the "lost my game saves, don't buy this POS".


That's insane. If I buy a new VCR and it eats the first tape I put in it, it's a shitty VCR, and it's not somehow my fault for assuming the VCR would work as it should. Was the tape stretched? Maybe the rollers on the tape were sticky from not being used. You can not blame the VCR for eating the first tape, that's bad troubleshooting.


If I were to pop in right now and say, "I found Master Fighter III is incompatible" it seems people are unable to just say, "Hmm... I didn't know that." Instead there's a rush to either apologize with "OMG It'll be fixed in the future! They're working 24/7!", minimize it "Who owns that game anyway?!?", or outright dismiss it "How dare you expect that to work!!!" That's not how I'd see it. From what I'm seeing, you would say "The manual says 100% compatibility. Should I ignore what the manual says and assume all my games will work on it??!" So what people are arguing with you about is stuff you may not be trying to say. I really think people are miss reading everyone's posts and stances on this thing.

BTW, if the cart ports ARE powered on all the time, it shouldn't hurt the ROMs, and the mappers I would think are too simple to be damaged by it. Only thing I would think that would be damaged would be SRAM.

[Leo_A]

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. It was 8 gigs, wasn't it?

But don't forget about all the DLC and the patches that the original Xbox got (not to mention Xbox Live Arcade with 20 or so games like Ms. Pac-Man). It was 10 GB formatted to 8 GB on launch models, and then 10 GB on the others. you've overestimating the size and importance of DLC,

Actually, I believe that most got 8 gig HDD's with 10 gig HDD's introduced late in production when they became cheaper that were formatted for only 8 gigs. Not that it matters one way or another, but that's how I remember it at least.

I wasn't saying anything about its importance (Although it was for me such as for several hundred MB's of expansion content for PGR2), just that it was there.

[Gameguy]

This is another psychosis that you bring up. Come hell or high water, some people refuse to accept any sort of clone regardless of any other factor. I know people who will never want the RetroN5 no matter how good the compatibility and emulation is simply on the basis that it isn't the original hardware. Just like the physical vs intangible debate, it's all in ones head at that point, and hey, that's fine. The RetroN5 is not for everyone just as the original hardware is not for everyone.
For me, I already have original hardware which is still reliable so I wouldn't need to buy another clone. Plus most of my systems I've found for $10 or less, or $30 at the most. I don't see a need to buy clone systems for actual use, and not for that much money. I don't have any HD television sets so the HDMI output isn't useful, I'd rather hook up my systems to a standard CRT and keep on using light gun games. Plus, I collect games. I still want original cartridges and hardware, it's my hobby so I want originals.

Emulation can be useful, if you can take an entire library of games with you on a portable system without needing a backpack full of cartridges, it's a big benefit. Or just playing a bunch of games over at a friends' house without having to bring everything you own with you. I just don't see as big of a benefit as this with the Retron5. Especially with this having to dump games every time you want to play them, why you can't just keep the games stored on your console with such a large amount of internal storage included I don't understand. It just adds load times to cartridge games which I can see getting annoying pretty fast.


But maybe that post isn't what you're talking about. Maybe its the one where he said the Retron5 was in "firmware hell".
I'll just post what I was referring to below.


This arrived today, haven't updated anything so it's whatever stock firmware it shipped with.

Every cart on every system is listed as "unknown cart", out of about 30 games tested so far on every cart slot. GBA games take an extremely long time to dump compared to other systems.

The Famicom port doesn't recognize anything, by anything I mean it doesn't even detect a cartridge is inserted. Grabbed 10 random Famicom carts and the system didn't even tell I had anything inserted. The best thing I ever managed to get was a cart slot power error "have you inserted a SNES cart backwards?" message on a Power Rangers game. At this point I'm convinced the system is destined to be returned to Hyperkin or Newegg for warranty work. Has anyone else's system acted like this? I don't see a firmware update doing anything to remedy this particular problem.

Unlicensed MD games without the TMSS routine work, but unlicensed games with copy protection don't work, so I guess their emulator doesn't have these routines programmed in.

The manual doesn't explicitly state it so are they saying it's OK to hotswap carts? I don't see how this could be a healthy practice especially for games with battery backup.

It's posts like these that make me glad I cancelled my preorder when I did. I feel for anyone who gets stuck with a "lemon." Hopefully whomever you ordered from will accept returns.

Your comments are as exhausting as ever, stardust.
He was saying he was glad he cancelled his preorder after hearing the various problems other people were experiencing(in reply to someone else), and that's what you said to him. Originally he cancelled his preorder after hearing the cost would be increased by 40% after it was already paid for, most people would understandably be upset for an increase like that(after it's been paid for). You were just surprised he would want to cancel his order since he was offered a free controller as compensation. I would be upset the same way so I don't get your surprised reaction, as if he was just complaining about the price increase for no reason.

Really the negative views prior to release expressed by him and other people in this thread aren't that extreme, just think back to all the negative opinions people had with the 3DS coming out, or the Wii, or the Wii U, or any number of newer consoles. Plenty of people said the same types of things, his views with the problems or potential issues with this aren't any more extreme.

With that comment about the firmware updates creating two problems for every one it fixed, I'm interpreting that more like everytime a problem gets fixed through firmware updates, two more problems or incompatibilities get discovered and brought to light. It may be a slight exaggeration in response to the constant firmware updates, but I'm not taking that comment as though it's a slanderous lie.



You're right, that is poorly worded. Tanooki maybe you can tell Hyperkin that they need to fix that to be less misleading. The last bulletpoint should read something like:

◦We aim for 100% Compatibility*: The RetroN 5 will play both PAL and NTSC cartridges. CIC lockout chips and FX chips are no longer going to be an issue, as we aim to achieve 100% compatibility with all cartridges.*Future compatibility added through firmware updates.

Something like that.
It would help if it was changed as you've suggested. It's not just because of the main site, several reviewers made note of this in their reviews(I'm sure because it was listed there) so plenty of customers expected it to be true at time of purchase. It's a bit late to change it now without any more complaints about it, people already preordered and bought the unit because of these expectations. Same with expecting the save features to work properly out of the box.


Because the nes was doing the exact same thing. If anything, randomly deleting your saves would make it more like playing on the original hardware.
I don't remember losing any saves using original hardware, besides a few Gameboy games I removed from the system without turning off at all first. I keep my carts and consoles clean and don't have problems with them. These consoles are mostly over 20 years old by now as well.


News flash, there are no ways to prevent the loss of game saves in previous versions of the firmware on the R5 other than NOT using those games in the system, or at the least, never writing save data back to the cartridge and just keeping the data on the system itself.

The R5 isn't perfect, 1.0-1.31 were having enough issues and incrimentally improved but still wasn't really acceptable if you need it more or less all to work. 1.4 is really the first step into making things right.
Yet they released it anyway with that early firmware. I'll just post what I posted when I first got back into this thread.

So the system was released unfinished? Just trying to confirm the overall situation with this thing as a whole.
I'm going with yes. It's sounding like the console is improving compared to how it was at release, but it really should have been this way before it made it's way to customers. Not just with overall game compatibility, but with the whole saving issues.


Was the tape stretched? Maybe the rollers on the tape were sticky from not being used. You can not blame the VCR for eating the first tape, that's bad troubleshooting.
You can if the tape was known to be working properly when used in other VCRs. I'm going to be assuming his games were known to be working properly with other consoles. And usually when VCRs eat tapes, it is because of the VCR rather than the tapes. When belts start to go bad tapes start to get eaten. Or when other parts like gears break in newer VCRs(poor quality VCRs have poor quality parts). Plus when tapes are sticky they usually don't play at all, the VCR just stops as if it got to the end of the spool.


BTW, if the cart ports ARE powered on all the time, it shouldn't hurt the ROMs, and the mappers I would think are too simple to be damaged by it. Only thing I would think that would be damaged would be SRAM.
There is a chance the ROM chips could be damaged when plugged into a system already powered on, it's a slight chance but it can still happen. It's the same with static electricity and handling computer parts.

[Tanooki]

They had no choice but to release it with the firmware it had, so no, it wasn't unfinished. To expect a tiny company like that to buy up probably like 10000 video games over different regions for 10 systems and test that all out up front is just comedy gold. They did what they could with the resources at hand and why is this double standard not slapped on almost all the video game makers on modern systems who shove out guineapigware and slap patches out after the fact when people bitch? It's the same thing, completed system, buggy software.

[Ozzy_98]

I don't remember losing any saves using original hardware, besides a few Gameboy games I removed from the system without turning off at all first. I keep my carts and consoles clean and don't have problems with them. These consoles are mostly over 20 years old by now as well.
Only nes titles were affected, and it is still pretty rare. But sell a million copies of Zelda and everyone reseting without power, and you'll get a whole lot of complaints about it. That's why later Zelda carts had the warning about holding reset, but the first ones didn't. My understanding of the issue is when the power fades on the nes, the CPU in a nut shell goes berserk and can do all sorts of random writes, and has a chance to corrupt a save. The larger the save data, more chance of it being hit. You also have to worry about the memory mapper doing the same thing, since it's the gateway to the SRAM. I've played Zelda a LOT on nes, so I've had this happen more than it should have, most of the time you're safe not holding the reset. But take your save games, and try power cycling the nes 100 times without the reset button held. Chances are fairly good the saves are gone or damaged.




I'm going with yes. It's sounding like the console is improving compared to how it was at release, but it really should have been this way before it made it's way to customers. Not just with overall game compatibility, but with the whole saving issues. They didn't see the saves erased in their testing else it wouldn't have been released.



You can if the tape was known to be working properly when used in other VCRs. I work with a lot of networking devices, and we have items called SFPs, they plug into a router or firewall, then you plug the cable into it. So you can have one port on a device that can take single-mode fiber, multi-mode, or copper wires. SFPs are (Generally) compatible between vendors. We have one SFP for Gig/Multimode that works fine in 3 out of 4 devices (A Cisco, a Juniper, and one out of two Fortigates). We have another brand SFP that works in all four. Is the first SFP to blame? Or the Fortigate that doesn't like the SFP the bad device that didn't follow spec? I've seen techs burnt way too many times by the "Well it works here, so my card is good and the router is bad" thought process.

I'll freely admit cause of my background I'm a bit biased, but you shouldn't be trusting your data (saves) to new, 3rd party devices without testing it first. This applies to anything, be it a Retron5, game axe, yobo junk, or even a "new" nes that for all you know has a short in it. Most people are not in that mind set though, so don't over think my comments.



Plus when tapes are sticky they usually don't play at all, the VCR just stops as if it got to the end of the spool. Depends on how think the tape is, and if it's already been stretched. I've had a few tapes snap over the years.


There is a chance the ROM chips could be damaged when plugged into a system already powered on, it's a slight chance but it can still happen. It's the same with static electricity and handling computer parts. We're agreeing here, but for ROM chips it's very slight. The nes voltage will be at max 9 volts, while static is many times stronger. ROM chips are much more resistant to static than a CPU, SRAM, PROMs, and the like, cause there's not much in them to overload. SRAM I would think is most susceptible.

[Gameguy]

They had no choice but to release it with the firmware it had, so no, it wasn't unfinished. To expect a tiny company like that to buy up probably like 10000 video games over different regions for 10 systems and test that all out up front is just comedy gold. They did what they could with the resources at hand and why is this double standard not slapped on almost all the video game makers on modern systems who shove out guineapigware and slap patches out after the fact when people bitch? It's the same thing, completed system, buggy software.
I'm going to focus more on the saving issues for now rather than the compatibility issues, I'll address this below. I do feel the same way with patches for current gen games, I complain just as much about them. It's why I like watching Two Best Friends Play, I remember them choosing to play a game without updating it to give the "intended experience" as the developers chose to release the game.


They didn't see the saves erased in their testing else it wouldn't have been released.
I mostly meant the feature to write saves back to the cartridges, at launch this just didn't work. At least the various reviews I've seen or read from launch say that none of the games could have the saves transferred back properly, either not at all or corrupted, or erasing other saves in the process. Don't tell me they never had a single saving game available to them to try this feature out.

Strangely, this feature wasn't even mentioned on their website under features. Yet 100% compatibility is listed as a feature. Weird how they prioritize what features they choose to list. They mention savestates but nothing about transferring saves from or to cartridges at all.


I work with a lot of networking devices, and we have items called SFPs, they plug into a router or firewall, then you plug the cable into it. So you can have one port on a device that can take single-mode fiber, multi-mode, or copper wires. SFPs are (Generally) compatible between vendors. We have one SFP for Gig/Multimode that works fine in 3 out of 4 devices (A Cisco, a Juniper, and one out of two Fortigates). We have another brand SFP that works in all four. Is the first SFP to blame? Or the Fortigate that doesn't like the SFP the bad device that didn't follow spec? I've seen techs burnt way too many times by the "Well it works here, so my card is good and the router is bad" thought process.

I'll freely admit cause of my background I'm a bit biased, but you shouldn't be trusting your data (saves) to new, 3rd party devices without testing it first. This applies to anything, be it a Retron5, game axe, yobo junk, or even a "new" nes that for all you know has a short in it. Most people are not in that mind set though, so don't over think my comments.
It's a bit different with VHS tapes and game cartridges as those are standardized formats, there shouldn't be any compatibility issues. There are more issues with dual layer DVDs and compatibilities with early players than with VHS tapes and players. With sticky tapes, the stickiness prevents the tape from physically moving through the machine, most machines would just stop and eject the tape when it can't advance. The games are all designed to be compatible with original standard console hardware, if a clone or emulator is designed properly it should match the original hardware with compatibility.

The issues you've mentioned caused by an NES console with a short in it would count as a defective console, I'm not sure if you'd want to count the clone systems having the same issues due to the same reason(they're all defective). I do have the same mindset though, to be cautious of any 3rd party device rather than assuming it would just be fine. It's another reason why I just tend to avoid most of them.


Depends on how think the tape is, and if it's already been stretched. I've had a few tapes snap over the years.
Personally I check tapes before I play them, if a tape is starting to mold or is damaged, crinkled, or badly worn I won't attempt to play it. Not unless it's rare or one of a kind and needs to be preserved, though this hasn't actually come up for me yet. Playing damaged tapes can dirty up or damage the video heads so it's not worth the risk. Cheaply made tapes tend to have the problems with breaking down or oxide coming off. I've played several tapes manufactured around 1980 that still play fine so it's not necessarily an age issue, it could be storage issues, as well as some manufacturers made tapes much better than others. If a tape plays through properly in one VCR, it should still play properly in another VCR unless the machine is defective in some way.

Main point is I'm the same way with games, if a game is dirty or has corroded contacts I won't try it out in a console. I'll make sure to clean it first and test it out in a known working console to verify that it's working. If I can't get a game to boot I'll try it in another console before considering it as defective. I'll only use a known working game when testing out a newly acquired console. I'm sure it's the same with how Az tests things, he seems like he's not new to consoles and knows what he's doing.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

[about being fed up with stardust]

He was saying he was glad he cancelled his preorder after hearing the various problems other people were experiencing(in reply to someone else), and that's what you said to him.

Uh, I said a little more than his comments were exhausting. Right after that, I said

"He's running the 1.0 firmware, which is severely outdated now. I suspect that his famicom games are simply dirty, but even if there is a problem, thats a problem with his one Retron5. Assuming the carts aren't at fault, once he gets it exchanged, the problems will go away."

Stardust was making it seem like the issues Az were having were on the newest firmware, and on all systems. If the end user can't be bothered to update their firmware if there is firmware released that fixes problems, than that's the end user's fault, not the company that produced the product, either it be a tiny company like Hyperkin or a mega corporation like Sony.



Originally he cancelled his preorder after hearing the cost would be increased by 40% after it was already paid for, most people would understandably be upset for an increase like that(after it's been paid for). You were just surprised he would want to cancel his order since he was offered a free controller as compensation. I would be upset the same way so I don't get your surprised reaction, as if he was just complaining about the price increase for no reason.

Whoa whoa whoa. I had preordered and paid for mine last year as well. I can assure you, I was quite displeased by the announcement of the price increase, as this same new price increase effects my order as well, but unlike Stardust, I was not offered a free additional controller. I have to pay $139 plus shipping plus Hyperkin's delays plus delays associated with being in Canada where Hyperkin's delays are 10x worse than delays in the US. (screw "June" 6, I'll be lucky if my order makes August 6!) Since I have it far worse than stardust, I was surprised he would turn his nose up at his preorder that came with the additional controller to offset the price increase when I get no such thing.

But even to that I said something to the effect of "well, that's your choice if you want to make it".


just think back to all the negative opinions people had with the 3DS coming out, or the Wii, or the Wii U, or any number of newer consoles. Plenty of people said the same types of things, his views with the problems or potential issues with this aren't any more extreme.

Did those people complain about issues well after there were firmware updates that fixed those issues? That's what stardust was doing, and why I got fed up with him.

It's one thing to make legitimate complaints about something, but the keyword there is legitimate.



With that comment about the firmware updates creating two problems for every one it fixed, I'm interpreting that more like everytime a problem gets fixed through firmware updates, two more problems or incompatibilities get discovered and brought to light. It may be a slight exaggeration in response to the constant firmware updates, but I'm not taking that comment as though it's a slanderous lie.


That isn't what he said and I'm sure it wasn't what he meant, either. And even if that was what he said and meant, the discovery of more incompatible games, especially early on is not Hyperkin's fault. Hyperkin's system was suddenly thrust into the world of tens of thousands of existing games and it isn't initially known what is incompatible in the first place by virtue of the sheer volume of content worldwide and much games differ from one to the next when you're talking about real hardware. Stardust was making it seem like the frequent firmware updates which he dubbed "firmware hell" was creating additional problems rather than the reality of the situation being that the many firmware updates were nothing but a slew of positive changes. As I originally said to his "firmware hell" comment, it kinda seems like he was saying the equivalent to "Oh no! They're making the product better every couple of days! How awful!"



It would help if it was changed as you've suggested. It's not just because of the main site, several reviewers made note of this in their reviews(I'm sure because it was listed there) so plenty of customers expected it to be true at time of purchase. It's a bit late to change it now without any more complaints about it, people already preordered and bought the unit because of these expectations. Same with expecting the save features to work properly out of the box.


I don't remember losing any saves using original hardware, besides a few Gameboy games I removed from the system without turning off at all first. I keep my carts and consoles clean and don't have problems with them. These consoles are mostly over 20 years old by now as well.


Yet they released it anyway with that early firmware.

I agree that the situation sucks, and Hyperkin should have put some sort of disclaimer in place. They fucked up. According to Tanooki and others though, the situation has been remedied, so you can only be legitimately angry with Hyperkin before, not currently.

As to the fact that they released early firmware....yes, but then they also released updated firmware within a few days, and have continued to do so about once a week.

1.0 firmware will always have missing features. I dunno. I see what you're saying and that the situation did indeed suck and it would have been better if these problems were already ironed out for the time of release, but Hyperkin fixing the issues so quickly is really something to be commended, given the size of the company.

[Ozzy_98]

I mostly meant the feature to write saves back to the cartridges, at launch this just didn't work. At least the various reviews I've seen or read from launch say that none of the games could have the saves transferred back properly, either not at all or corrupted, or erasing other saves in the process. Don't tell me they never had a single saving game available to them to try this feature out.

Most of the time something like this happens they had it working, and tested it. Then another change down the road breaks it, but since it's not related to the save file procedure, they never check it. I'd bet it's some crap like they "open" the file, but the procedure that closes it was no longer called and ended up corrupting the file. Course I've never messed with game saves on any console, so I'm not even sure they work that way.


It's another reason why I just tend to avoid most of them. And they're all ugly too



Personally I check tapes before I play them, if a tape is starting to mold or is damaged, crinkled, or badly worn I won't attempt to play it. Not unless it's rare or one of a kind and needs to be preserved, though this hasn't actually come up for me yet. Playing damaged tapes can dirty up or damage the video heads so it's not worth the risk. Cheaply made tapes tend to have the problems with breaking down or oxide coming off. I've played several tapes manufactured around 1980 that still play fine so it's not necessarily an age issue, it could be storage issues, as well as some manufacturers made tapes much better than others. If a tape plays through properly in one VCR, it should still play properly in another VCR unless the machine is defective in some way. For normal old T-120s should be fine, if the tape is also made correctly. But I've ran across some crap tapes too. My copy of Pops Ghostly turned brittle and actually started to chip. I've had one VCR, it's stop must have been much higher, cause playing it on my "good" VCR it played fine, played on a new one, it pulled apart. Spliced the tape, played fine in the good VCR. First time in the new one, broke in another place. But no other tape (Even other action max tapes) broke. So I'm blaming both the VCR and the tape.


Side note I'm just rambling on now, half forgot what we're talking about :P

But why don't people bash the system for legit points? It's an ugly thing that looks like a hovercraft. And the controllers are designed to cause hand cramps.

[Az]

For those that haven't saw it in a video or whatever, when a cart with SRAM is inserted into the system it pops up a message saying that game save information has been found and it automatically copies it to the internal memory (or SD card, your preference). It then uses this "virtual" game save once emulation starts, nothing is written on the fly to your cartridge in real time. As you play the game it uses this virtual save indefinitely and your cart save stays the way it was originally until you choose the "copy to game cartridge" option from the menu.

Apparently the system uses the header pulled from the cart referenced to it's internal database for more than just name display or file name generation. As I mentioned before you can get SMS games with FM sound to play in PSG mode if the cart is detected as unknown. From what I can tell the system doesn't actually check the cartridge for SRAM, but cross references the header to it's database to see if it has SRAM.

The end result is that if a cart is unknown then it doesn't import your saves to the system and doesn't allow you to copy a save to the cart. The game will still work but you'll be starting from scratch. Game saving will work as normal within the game but unless I looked at it wrong it doesn't generate a "unknown_cart9888.sav", instead your game save is just the savestate automatically generated by the console.

It's hard to nail down the exact cause of an unknown cart; it could be dirty pins, it could be that you have a slight variation on the cart build that is not in their database, the emulator programming itself could be the culprit (as evidenced by software updates drastically eliminating this ailment), or it could just be a random instance that you can't duplicate consistently. I even had one game (Miracle Warriors - SMS) show up with the correct title yet still wasn't treated like it had SRAM, leaving me to think that was an instance of an error in their database leaving the game not flagged as having SRAM.

The point of all this is that in past instances the majority of games that were showing up as unknown were the one's the system deleted the SRAM on. Not all, but some. So if you've got an RPG that's showing up as unknown, best not contine it until it shows up correctly.

Tanooki, could you verify this with the tech? I ask because if that's how it works then hopefully there will be a way for the end user to add games manually to their database later on down the road. Their header database has to come from existing sources, and they've obviously culled some headers in the process. Since storage size for this database isn't an issue I would hope at some point they would just include all headers rather than just known good dumps.

I'm sure that in real life the number of people with say, a GBA Pokemon bootleg far outweigh the number of users with the Japanese Famicom version of Castlevania III, so it would make more sense to try and get something like that to work correctly than something only a tiny handful of users own.

[Tanooki]

AZ: It's the weekend there so they're off from what I can see because I never saw the guy this morning which is Saturday in Hong Kong where their office is with the coders.

I can shed a little light on it owning one. The database is the primary lookup table, and yes that database appears to definitely also let the system know if it should use save, and what kind (sram, eeprom, flash) for whatever game along with the mapper(nes), lo/hi rom (snes), and so on. When a game is not known or found in the database legitimately or due to a bad read perhaps due to a dirty game (tarnish to just dust) as it is finicky at times I've noticed. When the game can't be detected the system will attempt to run it raw. WIth the NES there is the 0-4 auto mapper detector looking directly at the game, so it is capable of doing this and not just using a database. Now when it's not detected there is one primary problem, saving is screwed. Since it won't know what's on board, it won't know to make a save or what kind of save. I've verified this one on my own with GBA games I have that can't be in the database which are the 300 game run of Qwak and then DQM Caravan Heart Eng-Trans on a cart as both say it can't pull the save data, so therefore even though the games run 100%, it can't also write a save back. Interesting enough though I have noticed with older stuff, I don't think it matters. When I've on earlier firmware had a NES game that didn't want to be seen but would run, on the internal storage it will create and unknowngame12345.sav file, and it should use this to pick up the save again as long as the game is continuing to be unknown, the key is having a match. If the game then a revision later is seen I doubt it'll see the virtual saved tied to the formerly unknown game.

I'm sure the database is existing sources. There are resources online for all the various games that are public for whatever header info they use that's either hardcoded in like SNES games and their CRCs to the NES and the shitty .NES format Marat cooked up. I know they keep adding stuff for the NES side since that's a hard one, but the others the data is out there I'd think for those devices so perhaps it's a matter of a legit bug in something either in the code or a bad read/dump from the slot. I agree they should just throw anything that'll stick to the wall with headers as it probably would work as a nice catch all for the 8bit Nintendo junk, but I could also see the system being too stupid to pick the right one and cause more problems than solutions.

[Gameguy]

Whoa whoa whoa. I had preordered and paid for mine last year as well. I can assure you, I was quite displeased by the announcement of the price increase, as this same new price increase effects my order as well, but unlike Stardust, I was not offered a free additional controller. I have to pay $139 plus shipping plus Hyperkin's delays plus delays associated with being in Canada where Hyperkin's delays are 10x worse than delays in the US. (screw "June" 6, I'll be lucky if my order makes August 6!) Since I have it far worse than stardust, I was surprised he would turn his nose up at his preorder that came with the additional controller to offset the price increase when I get no such thing.
Some people would be more bothered by this than others, it is the type of thing I would have cancelled an order over as well. I don't really get the purpose of preorders anyway as they just seem to be a way for companies to earn interest with your money for free, if after several delays they suddenly say they won't honor it unless you agree to pay 40% more, I'd probably avoid doing business with them entirely. The free controller would be nice, but I play games by myself so it would mostly be useless, especially as I'd rather play with better made controllers which are compatible with the system anyway.

You chose to suck up your displeasure and just pay the extra money anyway. I'm sure plenty of people would have done the same, and several would have been fed up enough to cancel it. Maybe you have more disposable income than Stardust or others, or are just more forgiving than most including myself. I'm not that forgiving with this type of thing.


I agree that the situation sucks, and Hyperkin should have put some sort of disclaimer in place. They fucked up. According to Tanooki and others though, the situation has been remedied, so you can only be legitimately angry with Hyperkin before, not currently.

As to the fact that they released early firmware....yes, but then they also released updated firmware within a few days, and have continued to do so about once a week.

1.0 firmware will always have missing features. I dunno. I see what you're saying and that the situation did indeed suck and it would have been better if these problems were already ironed out for the time of release, but Hyperkin fixing the issues so quickly is really something to be commended, given the size of the company.
It's good they're able to fix things so quickly, but with everything being fixable so quickly it makes me question why they couldn't have just spent more time on it to get it right the first time. Again, more for the transferring of saves back to carts as an example. It's not really just a minor glitch that was missed, it just wasn't finished. I'll just post a brief part of a review as an example below, even though the review as a whole isn't really that negative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arcF1vY_3ck&t=4m54s

As for the game compatibility issues, if they would have made flash carts compatible they would have had an easier time testing out games for compatibility issues than relying on the public for beta testing after officially releasing it. They could have removed flash cart compatibility afterwards if they insisted on disallowing them.


For normal old T-120s should be fine, if the tape is also made correctly. But I've ran across some crap tapes too. My copy of Pops Ghostly turned brittle and actually started to chip. I've had one VCR, it's stop must have been much higher, cause playing it on my "good" VCR it played fine, played on a new one, it pulled apart. Spliced the tape, played fine in the good VCR. First time in the new one, broke in another place. But no other tape (Even other action max tapes) broke. So I'm blaming both the VCR and the tape.
I'm curious, what are the makes and models of the VCRs you used? Or at least the makes/brands? It sounds like the tape broke when it was rewound in that cheap VCR. Earlier VHS machines rewound tapes more slowly and had less problems with this, then companies started making quick rewind features to rewind tapes more quickly. The better machines would slow down when it got close to the end, the lousy ones just kept at full speed until it hit the end which is when it would stop. Of course this would break fragile tapes. Or did I misunderstand what you meant by "stop"?

[Atarileaf]

Don't know if this has been answered but does anyone know if the NES vaus controller works on the Retron 5 in conjunction with the nes Arkanoid cart?

[Ozzy_98]

I'm curious, what are the makes and models of the VCRs you used? Or at least the makes/brands? It sounds like the tape broke when it was rewound in that cheap VCR. Earlier VHS machines rewound tapes more slowly and had less problems with this, then companies started making quick rewind features to rewind tapes more quickly. The better machines would slow down when it got close to the end, the lousy ones just kept at full speed until it hit the end which is when it would stop. Of course this would break fragile tapes. Or did I misunderstand what you meant by "stop"?

That was a good 10-14 years ago. The "new" one was used from a coworker, and had a jog dial on it. It wasn't too old when he gave it to me, because he found a cheap better one that he used with his amiga and genlock. I used this new VCR to play my dad's elvis VHS collection fine while I backed them up to other tapes (The two VCRs together removed that copy protection bs where everything was green), and it worked just fine there. I pop in my action max tapes and they ripped in like 5 mins. Around the rip I remember the tape was brittle and slightly stretched, like it was pulling it then hit a spot that decided to break vs stretch.


As for the game compatibility issues, if they would have made flash carts compatible they would have had an easier time testing out games for compatibility issues than relying on the public for beta testing after officially releasing it. They could have removed flash cart compatibility afterwards if they insisted on disallowing them. I'm sure they used roms for their testing and disabled the functionality of it in other builds, or at least hid it well. It could be something as simple as "Look for a text file named PiratesRule! on the cart, if so, enter flash cart mode". Or they dumped the roms directly into the system. Wonder if there's any inputs or expansion slots on the board.

[treismac]

Don't know if this has been answered but does anyone know if the NES vaus controller works on the Retron 5 in conjunction with the nes Arkanoid cart?

I am pretty sure that Pat the NES Punk sad that it did not work in his Retron 5 review on his YouTube channel.

[InsaneDavid]

I am pretty sure that Pat the NES Punk sad that it did not work in his Retron 5 review on his YouTube channel.

According to his video the game doesn't work right period and the jumbled mess that it displays doesn't support the Vaus controller.

[Tanooki]

Don't know if this has been answered but does anyone know if the NES vaus controller works on the Retron 5 in conjunction with the nes Arkanoid cart?

Currently it does not detect it, I have one. I think it was a week or two ago I brought it up to the tech and showed him what it was online. He said that it would be a cinch to add it to the system, but he'd need to get hyperkin to order one and have it sent to the office to do so and that was on the list. The power pad was also another and that was mailed to them so I imagine when the time allows that will get added as well. At that rate I had asked about other stuff, and he said if they get the accessory for whatever the system is, they'd add it.

Pat's video like any of them at this rate are patently useless because they're based off old broken firmware which 1.4 is leagues beyond. Arkanoid along with DK Classic and a few others were quirky CNROM carts that were bugged. This was something I brought up to him, he said he heard rumors some games failed but I brought it to the guy and he had it fixed up as you can see in the history file on retron5.com's page for past updates. Arkanoid, DK Classics and other CNROM titles that failed are 100% ok now. That was the same point when I brought up the vaus controller as I always plug that thing in when I play the game and it didn't detect either on both ports.

[Atarileaf]

Thanks, I'm a big Arkanoid fan and getting the vaus working will go a long way in helping decide to get one of these things.

[Gameguy]

Pat's video like any of them at this rate are patently useless because they're based off old broken firmware which 1.4 is leagues beyond.
The reason why I posted his review in my last post was because of the discussion relating to the launch of the system, specifically to my view that it was allowed to be released unfinished. Pat was sent the console for the purpose of being reviewed, that's the firmware they felt was suitable for the review process.

A bit of a weird coincidence how right after I post a link to that review someone asks in the next post if the vaus controller works with the console, when this was answered in the review. Just odd with the timing as the question wasn't asked earlier in the thread or much later. Hopefully the issue with the controller will be corrected soon.

[Atarileaf]

A bit of a weird coincidence how right after I post a link to that review someone asks in the next post if the vaus controller works with the console, when this was answered in the review. Just odd with the timing as the question wasn't asked earlier in the thread or much later. Hopefully the issue with the controller will be corrected soon.

It's not a conspiracy. I didn't watch the video nor have I waded through the novel sized posts you people have been posting. I simply asked a question.

[Tanooki]

I'm not picking on your posting of the Pat video. I'm just pointing out anything made beyond a couple days ago is useless and inaccurate for the most part and therefore has no value other than to mislead people as your common person won't bother checking dates.

I hope the controller is detected soon, probably should bug the guy about it tomorrow night when they'd be back at work as it's a day later there. I still don't feel it was released unfinished, at least no more unfinished than nearly 100% of the games that hit the console market these days and for the PC going back a good 10years or so before consoles had hard drives. Your gripe though I do 100% believe in with every single system on a chip console and handheld ever on the market as they're all wrong in varying degrees and can't be fixed (and won't with those who get new versions.)

[Sega Warrior]

Hey can you have the Retron tech fix American Gladiators for Sega Genesis. It loads but will not recognize the controls on the create a name screen. You cannot go any further on the game without it. Thanks!

[Gameguy]

It's not a conspiracy. I didn't watch the video nor have I waded through the novel sized posts you people have been posting. I simply asked a question.
I'm not bothered by it or anything, I just thought it was weird with the timing. It's like hoping to find something for years before breaking down and buying it online for full price, only to find it the next day at a thrift store for dirt cheap. That type of thing.

[Tanooki]

I'm talking to the tech again, bringing up some peoples feelings that Tyson lags, no vaus, and American Gladiators GEN not having controls that work.

[Nesmaster]

I have to say they are (currently) impressing me with the work they are putting into updating their product. They've done more in a couple weeks than I honestly ever expected Hyperkin themselves to fix. I give them credit for that.

Still annoyed with the added delay on my Kickstarter unit, but that June 6th launch was a fairly soft one from what I gather. Hopefully they have the faulty tech more sorted out by the second batch, I don't want a DOA or one with sloppy pins.

[stardust4ever]

I'm talking to the tech again, bringing up some peoples feelings that Tyson lags, no vaus, and American Gladiators GEN not having controls that work.Tanooki, it is possible the D3 or D4 pins may not even be connected. If so, none of the accessory controllers will ever be made to work.

Simple way to test for a connection without opening the console (somebody please confirm that the D3/D4 NES inputs are actually connected):

With the console plugged in and turned on, connect a multimeter (DC volts setting) between GND and VCC on the player 2 controller port (you'll need to consult an NES pinout diagram). You need to test player 2 (right side) since many clones only connect the player 2 accessory pins and leave player 1 pins open. No licensed game ever utilized D3/D4 on the Player 1 controller port, and the dual lightgun compatible Chiller was the only unlicensed game to do so. The voltage between GND and VCC should read 5V. Next test between D3/D4 and ground. On a real NES, the data inputs should read +5V with nothing connected. This is due to pullup resistors inside the console. If you get a nonzero reading, that's a good sign as it means there's something connected there. If the reading is zero, check the volts between D3/D4 and VCC next. If the reading is still zero volts to both VCC and GND, then the accessory pins D3 and D4 are disconnected (floating). It is entirely possible that if the Retron5 was designed without accessory controllers in mind, these connections may have been omitted entirely. If that is the case, then no amount of firmware updating will ever allow the Vaus or Powerpad to function. :puppydogeyes:

SNES mouse works effortlessly on Retron5 because it used the same 5 pins the stock controllers did. The Mouse uses the last four unused bits (SNES controller sends 16 bits but only 12 are used for buttons) to identify itself as connected, and games that read the Mouse request additional bits from the controller to read position data. Totally doable because it uses the same data line.

[Tanooki]

I really doubt they're disconnected. The tech told me that any accessory they can pick up locally there in Hong Kong or anything Hyperkin sends them from the US they can and will add to the system and they have been given a power pad already so I don't see the company sending them junk they can't add as a mean tease.

I don't have a multimeter so someone else would have to check that one but it would be weird of them to send the coders stuff it wouldn't work with.

You reminded me I really want to get Mario Paint back, a nice shape one too with all the parts. It's relaxing at times, flyswatter is fun, and I think my 2 year old would have fun scribbling with it.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Is the Vaus controller even supported by any NES emulator?

I mean, if the Retron guys can figure out how it works then maybe they can contribute that code to emulation projects or something.

[Sega Warrior]

I'm talking to the tech again, bringing up some peoples feelings that Tyson lags, no vaus, and American Gladiators GEN not having controls that work.

Thanks man!

[treismac]

I'm talking to the tech again, bringing up some peoples feelings that Tyson lags...

Not to be a crt elitist, but isn't lag, however slight, the price you pay for hdmi gaming? My experience is that with 99% of games slight lag isn't a huge factor. Fighting Iron Mike on Punch-Out!! falls squarely in the 1%.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

That isn't a problem with the RetroN5 and similar devices because emulation removes the problem of native resolutions.

See, when it comes to retro gaming, input lag on HDTVs is caused by the scaling buffering necessary to display the game on the screen. Unlike CRTs, HDTVs have native resolutions, typically 1080p (1920x1080) 720p (1280x720) and 480p (640×480).

Being generous and counting overscan (a relic of the fact that CRTs were so wildly different from one to the next) the NTSC NES has a native resolution of 256x224.

To display that on a 1080p tv, the tv has to scale the NES signal approximately 3.616 times. In other words, it has to interpret the crazy tiny resolution the NES is producing and calculate how to convert this into a native resolution and display it as normal. This is why there is a delay.

Witht he Retron5 though, its emulation, and the Retron5 itself natively runs at 720p. There is thus no input lag unless you run the system through an HDMI splitter.

[calgon]

That isn't a problem with the RetroN5 and similar devices because emulation removes the problem of native resolutions.

See, when it comes to retro gaming, input lag on HDTVs is caused by the scaling buffering necessary to display the game on the screen. Unlike CRTs, HDTVs have native resolutions, typically 1080p (1920x1080) 720p (1280x720) and 480p (640×480).

Being generous and counting overscan (a relic of the fact that CRTs were so wildly different from one to the next) the NTSC NES has a native resolution of 256x224.

To display that on a 1080p tv, the tv has to scale the NES signal approximately 3.616 times. In other words, it has to interpret the crazy tiny resolution the NES is producing and calculate how to convert this into a native resolution and display it as normal. This is why there is a delay.

Witht he Retron5 though, its emulation, and the Retron5 itself natively runs at 720p. There is thus no input lag unless you run the system through an HDMI splitter.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense now.

[stardust4ever]

Not to be a crt elitist, but isn't lag, however slight, the price you pay for hdmi gaming? My experience is that with 99% of games slight lag isn't a huge factor. Fighting Iron Mike on Punch-Out!! falls squarely in the 1%.
Fighters, Bullet hell SHMUPs, and arcade-type games once you reach the faster higher difficulty stages are all affected.

The problem is some gamers are playing on laggy HDTVs and blaming the Retron5. Many budget HDTV models do not have low-latency game modes and since manufacturers do not yet publish latency ratings, buying an HDTV from a department store is a crap shoot if you get a good set or not. I now strictly use a 1080p 23" ASUS monitor in my bedroom to play HD game consoles. It sits on top of a corner computer desk. I also have a 19" CRT in the monitor bay for playing retro games. PC monitors are genrally smaller than HDTV and have poor or no audio, but most PC monitors have zero overscan and ultra low latency. Some models you need to use a switch or pass-through device to send the audio to a separate speaker system.

Anyone experiencing issues with Punch out or other games, I urge you to plug the Retron5 into a 1080p PC monitor using a wired retro controller and see if your lag issues disappear. If so, it's your HDTV lagging and not the Retron.

[Tanooki]

Whatever the case all I know is that even the same tv can get a different rating sometimes due to better quality parts going to differing stores. What you get at Best Buy isnt' what you get at Walmart, Target or KMart.

This is my new tv from March. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009LG6AW6/?tag=dislag-20
The vizio E291-A1i(i=internet wifi.) IT has a 25ms rating on it, and the best non-monitor is at 17ms at the site and costs triple for a smaller size by a few inches on a Sony with an added lag killing processor. I bought it at best buy and I know from my experiences of shitty lag on a Samsung LED TV that tricked me a couple years back, I know this one is solid just like the tv that got cracked before it. I can handle shooter, overly sensitive music games like Gitaroo Man, and other classic 2D twitchy games from the 80s/90s not made for such things great on it. Yes the Retron 5 is emulated, yes it thanks to that doesn't have the re-sampling lag an OEM system has going through a new TV, but all these TVs have some form of lag, but my experience is if you can get a set under 30ms you should be solid.

[Leo_A]

That isn't a problem with the RetroN5 and similar devices because emulation removes the problem of native resolutions.

Witht he Retron5 though, its emulation, and the Retron5 itself natively runs at 720p. There is thus no input lag unless you run the system through an HDMI splitter.

Upscaling is still happening, it's just happening at the Retron 5 end instead of the HDTV end. And since so many HDTV's these days have a 1080p native resolution, it's frequently still happening at the HDTV end as well.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

The difference is that 720p is a native resolution of HDTVs. The RetroN5 doesn't upscale anything; it natively runs all of its emulators at 1280x720. 1080p tvs also have 720p modes and so you aren't upscaling to 1080p, you're just using the 720p mode. The result of this is that input lag on retro consoles is eliminated once you move to emulation, one of the key advantages over the original hardware of everything the Retron5 does.

This same advantage is present in the Ouya as well.

[Leo_A]

The difference is that 720p is a native resolution of HDTVs.

Only some HDTV's.

Anything else with a different native resolution like 1080i or 1080p has to process the Retron 5's 720p output to adapt it for the set's native resolution by sending it through its internal scaling chip.


1080p tvs also have 720p modes and so you aren't upscaling to 1080p, you're just using the 720p mode.

This isn't accurate, modern HDTV's have a fixed native resolution. Anything that doesn't match it, such as 720p for a 1080p tv and vice versa, must scale the signal to match.

You're only bypassing the HDTV's scaling chip with the Ouya or Retron 5 if it's a 720p native set. And even then, only if your set allows you to disable all post processing of the signal being sent to it (Such as a "game mode" setting). And even there, the Retron 5 itself is still processing the image since it can't render something like a SuperNes game in 720p and that comes at a penalty like any image processing does.

[stardust4ever]

No such thing as a 720p set either. Most "720p" sets use 1366x768 LCD displays with overscan so you still deal with scaling. A few 1080p sets also apply overscan to non-1080 sources also. It's the 2010s and overscan was largely an analog issue; why do we still have this problem with consumer sets???

Say what you will, but by and large PC monitors have the lowest lag compared to HDTVs, and manufacturers of monitors know this which is why they are starting to publish lag ratings for monitors now. No overscan and sub 1-frame latencies.

The gunfight minigame on Kirby's Adventure is a good way to check lag. Your opponent draws their weapon and you have to press A button before they fire. It displays your reaction time in 1/100 seconds onscreen. Granted your brain has a certain level of processing lag between when your eyes see the stimulus and when your thumb reacts. This reaction speed may vary slightly per individual but should be fairly consistent for a mentally prepared gamer. Whatever, a single video frame is 1/60 sec or 0.0167 so unless they are polling multiple times there is rounding error factored in. On NES with a CRT, I consistently get about 0.13 reaction speed and rarely hit 0.11. When I played the minigame on Wii-U NES Remix 2 using the Gamepad, I kept hitting 0.16 and losing the end boss. It took me several tries to hit the 0.15 required to win. The display lag of the Wii-U gamepad has been measured at 16.67ms, or one NTSC frame. Add one additional frame of lag to the display buffer of the emulator which totals to 0.033 and you're looking at the 0.03 difference I get between CRT and Wii-U, meaning the difference between winning the minigame or not.

[Tanooki]

Anyone here want an unused open boxed Retron5? Someone over at NintendoAge finally got one in the mail but decided they'd rather have Zelda junk or something. If you have an account there maybe this is the chance to get one instead of putting up with delays. I know Satoshi is banned, but someone could work as a go between on that one. :P

[Tanooki]

Hey FYI I'll be around a bit more. An hour or two ago I was banned from NintendoAge for making a comment about someone indirectly but clearly obvious who it was. He's the maker of a nice game, and I enjoyed it, but said that I could never trust sucha person with my name or home address to buy a copy of it that just went back into stock. Because of that I got banned because it was considering thread crapping, slandering, and verbally assaulting a 'trusted member' and seller on the site.

For years he's publicly attempted to repeatedly humiliate me on that website straight up calling me stupid, mocking my intelligence, soft name calling, snarking on anything I say so I look dumb. No one would do shit about it up until recently when we were both required to FOE(full visual block) of each other. I had no idea he was missing, for all I knew with there 'were am I' thread going on it was another of those joke threads. Whatever the case is, because I called an internet harassers behavior into question on trusting buying an item I got the boot after 4 years.

The point of this is if anyone from NA who co-posts here cares to let people know I will no longer be capable of assisting anyone on that site with forwarding any needs they had with the Retron5 being repaired for bugs. I can continue to do that here where things are less tight about calling out issues. I doubt it's a temp ban since I've had no mail stating otherwise and I'm in some way not surprised really since I'm not a collector and clash often over that fact.

[nusilver]

Hey FYI I'll be around a bit more. An hour or two ago I was banned from NintendoAge for making a comment about someone indirectly but clearly obvious who it was. He's the maker of a nice game, and I enjoyed it, but said that I could never trust sucha person with my name or home address to buy a copy of it that just went back into stock. Because of that I got banned because it was considering thread crapping, slandering, and verbally assaulting a 'trusted member' and seller on the site.

For years he's publicly attempted to repeatedly humiliate me on that website straight up calling me stupid, mocking my intelligence, soft name calling, snarking on anything I say so I look dumb. No one would do shit about it up until recently when we were both required to FOE(full visual block) of each other. I had no idea he was missing, for all I knew with there 'were am I' thread going on it was another of those joke threads. Whatever the case is, because I called an internet harassers behavior into question on trusting buying an item I got the boot after 4 years.

The point of this is if anyone from NA who co-posts here cares to let people know I will no longer be capable of assisting anyone on that site with forwarding any needs they had with the Retron5 being repaired for bugs. I can continue to do that here where things are less tight about calling out issues. I doubt it's a temp ban since I've had no mail stating otherwise and I'm in some way not surprised really since I'm not a collector and clash often over that fact.

I don't know what it is with those people. Alas. I want to bring this back on topic since I got my Retron 5 today. I updated it to 1.4, tested a few games, and am mostly happy with it -- however, it deleted my completed save game from my Mother 3 repro (this one: http://store.retroquestgames.com/other.html#!/~/product/category=5904008&id=26682452), so I'm not super happy about that. I thought this was fixed in 1.4? Or at least I'd read otherwise somewhere... maybe NA. Otherwise, the only problem I've run into is that it wouldn't load my save game from Secret of Mana.

In any case... I have no idea whether they read their Facebook messages, but if you can pass the word along, it's much appreciated! I'm digging the system quite a bit, otherwise. Which is a surprise, for me, because it's Hyperkin.

[dra600n]

Hey FYI I'll be around a bit more. An hour or two ago I was banned from NintendoAge for making a comment about someone indirectly but clearly obvious who it was. He's the maker of a nice game, and I enjoyed it, but said that I could never trust sucha person with my name or home address to buy a copy of it that just went back into stock. Because of that I got banned because it was considering thread crapping, slandering, and verbally assaulting a 'trusted member' and seller on the site.

For years he's publicly attempted to repeatedly humiliate me on that website straight up calling me stupid, mocking my intelligence, soft name calling, snarking on anything I say so I look dumb. No one would do shit about it up until recently when we were both required to FOE(full visual block) of each other. I had no idea he was missing, for all I knew with there 'were am I' thread going on it was another of those joke threads. Whatever the case is, because I called an internet harassers behavior into question on trusting buying an item I got the boot after 4 years.

The point of this is if anyone from NA who co-posts here cares to let people know I will no longer be capable of assisting anyone on that site with forwarding any needs they had with the Retron5 being repaired for bugs. I can continue to do that here where things are less tight about calling out issues. I doubt it's a temp ban since I've had no mail stating otherwise and I'm in some way not surprised really since I'm not a collector and clash often over that fact.

You really don't know when to let things go, do you? You were banned prior because of your negative attitude and antagonizing posts towards so many people in the past, and yet you didn't learn. Now you wanna bring the drama here? Seriously dude, grow up. Maybe it was mandatory for you to foe me, but I certainly wasn't forced to foe you. Maybe one day you'll open your eyes and see what a real douche you are. It's pretty sad that I got over 2 dozen text messages about your shitty post when I haven't visited NA in about a month because of your general disregard for common sense and common decency towards others. Your trust issues are misplaced, and it's sad you can't see that as I've never said anything to you on that level to earn that sort of slander from you. You're toxic to every forum you post on.

It's also nice to see you place DP in 2nd place to NA, and openly broadcast that. It's nice to see a slight bit of honesty from you for once.

[ThreeGenGaming]

Hey FYI I'll be around a bit more. An hour or two ago I was banned from NintendoAge for making a comment about someone indirectly but clearly obvious who it was. He's the maker of a nice game, and I enjoyed it, but said that I could never trust sucha person with my name or home address to buy a copy of it that just went back into stock. Because of that I got banned because it was considering thread crapping, slandering, and verbally assaulting a 'trusted member' and seller on the site.

For years he's publicly attempted to repeatedly humiliate me on that website straight up calling me stupid, mocking my intelligence, soft name calling, snarking on anything I say so I look dumb. No one would do shit about it up until recently when we were both required to FOE(full visual block) of each other. I had no idea he was missing, for all I knew with there 'were am I' thread going on it was another of those joke threads. Whatever the case is, because I called an internet harassers behavior into question on trusting buying an item I got the boot after 4 years.

The point of this is if anyone from NA who co-posts here cares to let people know I will no longer be capable of assisting anyone on that site with forwarding any needs they had with the Retron5 being repaired for bugs. I can continue to do that here where things are less tight about calling out issues. I doubt it's a temp ban since I've had no mail stating otherwise and I'm in some way not surprised really since I'm not a collector and clash often over that fact.


You were banned for Slandering a highly respected member and homebrewer of Nintendoage in a thread that had something to do with his business. Please don't try to act innocent and only post your side of the story. You and This member of Nintendoage had problems, but you have had some very snarky remarks to him yourself, so don't act like you're the victim here. You're as much of an aggressor as anyone else was, and even more-so for trying to slander this person on a thread that may affect his business. I've never seen him post in your FS/FO thread calling you out of being untrustworthy or afraid to give you his address becasue you might harm him. The internet is a large place, but running to other forums and whining are NOT going to solve your problems.

Good Day Sir.

[Leo_A]

Edit: Never mind, found my answer. :)

[Tanooki]

I didn't slander anyone. What I said, the little I said in that thread was the truth. I don't trust him so if I wanted the game I'd have to get it from another source because I can't trust him with my real name and address. That's not slander. Slander by definition is putting forth lies. He has harassed me for the better part of 3 years on there trolling me publicly and privately with insults and snotty comments. I find it amusing someone who is that abusive of multiple members would be considered highly respected. It kind of shows the core value there of protecting friends and developers over doing what's right. I don't appreciate the innocence act either.

You can try and defend the behavior, that's fine, whatever makes you feel better about yourself. It is what it is.

News flash I did NOT post a word in his for sale or for thread post. It was a random post by a random person in the brewery section of the board. There was no threadcrapping done in the least bit with what I said, it's just a convenient excuse to do what was done and nothing more than that. I have had snarky comments towards him too, and in every single case it was retaliatory, never instigating.

I was told both parties were required to FOE, so if that is the case and it wasn't, then I was lied to by the staff which says a heap to me.

That's it, and done, if you want to carry this on make another thread as it's unfair to the R5 owners and I wish I had made a stand alone.




Nusilver -- I can talk to him and pass that along. I've had a similar issue. Does the MOther 3 cart when you start it detect correctly or come up as an unknown game? If it shows up as unknown it won't know how to handle the save data going back to the cart and usually it shouldn't even pull it either. That's probably what caused it. The only other save issue I know of currently is EEPROM data can be read but can not be written back to the games.

[dra600n]

I didn't slander anyone. What I said, the little I said in that thread was the truth. I don't trust him so if I wanted the game I'd have to get it from another source because I can't trust him with my real name and address. That's not slander. Slander by definition is putting forth lies. He has harassed me for the better part of 3 years on there trolling me publicly and privately with insults and snotty comments. I find it amusing someone who is that abusive of multiple members would be considered highly respected. It kind of shows the core value there of protecting friends and developers over doing what's right. I don't appreciate the innocence act either.

You can try and defend the behavior, that's fine, whatever makes you feel better about yourself. It is what it is.

News flash I did NOT post a word in his for sale or for thread post. It was a random post by a random person in the brewery section of the board. There was no threadcrapping done in the least bit with what I said, it's just a convenient excuse to do what was done and nothing more than that. I have had snarky comments towards him too, and in every single case it was retaliatory, never instigating.

I was told both parties were required to FOE, so if that is the case and it wasn't, then I was lied to by the staff which says a heap to me.

That's it, and done, if you want to carry this on make another thread as it's unfair to the R5 owners and I wish I had made a stand alone.


This right there is slander. If calling you out on your bullshit is harassment, then so be it. It's sad that you think you're really that much of a priority or that high up on my list of things to put effort into. But you're right, you've never said anything negative to me. I guess someone else logged into your account and told me to kill myself and the world would be a better place without me. You have such a selective, and blind sight on things because you truly think you're above others. All you do is play the victim card.

Sorry, you don't get to say when something is done. You want to spread nonsense and backward lies, you get to deal with the repercussions.

[ThreeGenGaming]

[QUOTE=Tanooki;2004016] Slander by definition is putting forth lies.

News flash I did NOT post a word in his for sale or for thread post. It was a random post by a random person in the brewery section of the board.

Do I need to screencap? I mean, it's not hard to do. Just because that "random" member posted about another member (the one you slandered), I'm sure you felt like you had to say something about it. Like you ALWAYS do. You were on "FOE" and you probably believed that the member you posted about wouldn't see it. Just because you talk down about someone in another thread doesn't change that you talked down about that member. It was worse that you did it in a thread that linked directly to his business though.

[Tanooki]

You two are amazing that's for sure. If it makes you feel better to incorrectly label what I said as slander that's fine. Go ahead. Arguing with you two is pointless as you're never wrong. 3Gen do whatever you like, funny you also banned from the site want to play it all pious. If you have an original copy of the post I made, please do share it as it doesn't change a thing. I didn't care if he saw it or not, it didn't even cross my mind. I just said what I thought, nothing more or less, it's not like I had some ultimate evil calculated plot going there. I also did include in that small post that I thought it was a good game and fun when I played it, so it's not like I was saying the issue was with the company or product just the person due to history.

I told you to go kill yourself adam after you had been being a complete shit off and on to me for awhile. I'm not going to deny it there's no reason to.


And what repercussions are there exactly? Being banned from a site that wasn't exactly happy I was on there in the first place is hardly a repercussion. It's if anything more of a relief to them as it's over and done with.

[ThreeGenGaming]

it's only a matter of time before you're banned from here too, just like Midway and then NA :)

[Pikointeractive]

Dragoon and threegengames

if you are not providing any sort of information about the topic of this thread, please leave. And don't sign up here just to stir the pot.

Threegengames you were banned form NA from your bad behavior, do you want DP to be another place that bans you?

Dragoon I know mods have given you a lot of chances when you get all violent on people. Honestly if you are going to conduct a legit business, let things go, It looks extremely bad that a business owner is fighting over a comment/post. Not everyone is going to like you or agree with you every time. You have to be professional.

It is a bit surprising that you both hated each other and talked crap about each other, then now you are all buddy buddy.


Carry on with RETRON 5 Topic please.

[Tanooki]

Good troll, really. :cheers: Guess what NA isn't the center of the video gaming forum world. If I ended up banned here there's lots of things more to do than piss time getting into pointless battles on an internet forum. It's done and over and it matters not anymore. It's a dead matter. Time to move on and it's really just that simple. Congrats on the win, it's a huge accomplishment.

[Tanooki]

On topic I was told earlier some new stuff with the next release of the R5. Mega Man X currently doesn't work on 1.4 or before properly and it has been repaired. Also I had brought up some peoples issues like Tales of Phantasia not working, they have an original cartridge of that and will look into the differences on it and a patched ROM so that will work on the system too. American Gladiators on Genesis doesn't work and now that's on the list of things to repair as well, possibly in the next release too.

[dra600n]

Dragoon and threegengames

if you are not providing any sort of information about the topic of this thread, please leave. And don't sign up here just to stir the pot.

Threegengames you were banned form NA from your bad behavior, do you want DP to be another place that bans you?

Dragoon I know mods have given you a lot of chances when you get all violent on people. Honestly if you are going to conduct a legit business, let things go, It looks extremely bad that a business owner is fighting over a comment/post. Not everyone is going to like you or agree with you every time. You have to be professional.

It is a bit surprising that you both hated each other and talked crap about each other, then now you are all buddy buddy.


Carry on with RETRON 5 Topic please.

First off, you have no business in this side conversation, and second, you know absolutely nothing that goes on between the mods on any forums and myself, do please don't act like you're "in the know" about things that you truly don't. I've had an account on here longer than on NA. I'm not going to let some jackwagon, who has a personal vendetta that can't let things go, go around spreading misinformation about myself or my business.

And seriously, are you 2 really that horrible with observations?

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/member.php?32115-3GenGames

I have no idea who "ThreeGenGaming" is, so again, please don't speak up before actually knowing what's going on and making assumptions about who I'm "buddy buddy" with.

[portnoyd]

#22: No matter how cool a 'duder' you are with the the revolving door that is the NA mod squad, go against the grain for a second and they will kick you the fuck out.

Seriously Tanooki, you'll learn in time, they did you a favor. If it's any consolation, this dra600n chap will probably end up banned in time for something as equally as stupid. It's happened to so many people, the odds are against survival, lol.

[Bronty-2]

we don't ban people lightly port. Just when they aren't productive members. You are a perfect example. I don't know what the hell happened to make you go from normal to bitter about everything a few years back, but I hope you figure it out. You used to be a funny guy with a smart wit.

[Atarileaf]

Christ this Nintendoage trolling is annoying. Take it to PM's. Like a bunch of kids pulling moms skirt to tell on their sibling. Retron 5 please. :roll:

[portnoyd]

we don't ban people lightly port. Just when they aren't productive members. You are a perfect example.

Oh, you mean like the ban I have? The ban that doesn't exist? The how I'm not banned from NA for some goddamn reason? I mean, ffs, I asked to be banned 5 years ago and you goobers didn't do it. I am not a productive member? No shit, because I haven't posted on NA in 4 fucking years.

Btw, have you heard the good news? Mike from NintendoPlayer wrote a very nice piece on VGA. (http://www.nintendoplayer.com/feature/vga/) A quick cursory look on NA sees no thread devoted to it, which shouldn't come as a shock since the likes of you, rarebucky and other profiteers are going to be hard pressed to counter this one.

Regarding my hate to hate hate affair with NA, as I said in the Thomasson thread, I sees bullshit, I call it out. And NA, holy fuck, is the game collecting mecca of bullshit.

I absolutely love how I mention NA here and it brings you guys out of the woodwork. You've made barely 10 posts here since the last time I drew you and your goons out of your hole. I will definitely have to try this again with something much more inflammatory. Am I a wizard? Have I always been a wizard? Port casts Summon Dumbass VGA Supporter. Dumbass VGA Supporter does 1,000 damage to game collecting's credibility. Port casts Brainwashed NA Member. Funny, I don't see Qixmaster here.

Hey, btw, nice of you to mention Greg Martin when he died, well after you bled him dry of the artwork he had. Would have been nice if he could have interacted with the community before he died. But... can't let anyone else get a piece of your action. That's the NA way.

[Nesmaster]

Hey FYI I'll be around a bit more. An hour or two ago I was banned from NintendoAge for making a comment about someone indirectly but clearly obvious who it was. He's the maker of a nice game, and I enjoyed it, but said that I could never trust sucha person with my name or home address to buy a copy of it that just went back into stock. Because of that I got banned because it was considering thread crapping, slandering, and verbally assaulting a 'trusted member' and seller on the site.

For years he's publicly attempted to repeatedly humiliate me on that website straight up calling me stupid, mocking my intelligence, soft name calling, snarking on anything I say so I look dumb. No one would do shit about it up until recently when we were both required to FOE(full visual block) of each other. I had no idea he was missing, for all I knew with there 'were am I' thread going on it was another of those joke threads. Whatever the case is, because I called an internet harassers behavior into question on trusting buying an item I got the boot after 4 years.

The point of this is if anyone from NA who co-posts here cares to let people know I will no longer be capable of assisting anyone on that site with forwarding any needs they had with the Retron5 being repaired for bugs. I can continue to do that here where things are less tight about calling out issues. I doubt it's a temp ban since I've had no mail stating otherwise and I'm in some way not surprised really since I'm not a collector and clash often over that fact.

That sucks, I looked forward to your opinions/comments on things over there. Guess I will have to watch DP more often again, I just wish it was as active as it once was.

[GarrettCRW]

It's amazing how fast the NA idiots run to an already messy-ass thread when someone slags them. Of course, that Nintendo Player article will shut them the fuck up nicely.

[Bronty-2]

Oh, you mean like the ban I have? The ban that doesn't exist? The how I'm not banned from NA for some goddamn reason? I mean, ffs, I asked to be banned 5 years ago and you goobers didn't do it. I am not a productive member? No shit, because I haven't posted on NA in 4 fucking years.

Btw, have you heard the good news? Mike from NintendoPlayer wrote a very nice piece on VGA. (http://www.nintendoplayer.com/feature/vga/) A quick cursory look on NA sees no thread devoted to it, which shouldn't come as a shock since the likes of you, rarebucky and other profiteers are going to be hard pressed to counter this one.

Regarding my hate to hate hate affair with NA, as I said in the Thomasson thread, I sees bullshit, I call it out. And NA, holy fuck, is the game collecting mecca of bullshit.

I absolutely love how I mention NA here and it brings you guys out of the woodwork. You've made barely 10 posts here since the last time I drew you and your goons out of your hole. I will definitely have to try this again with something much more inflammatory. Am I a wizard? Have I always been a wizard? Port casts Summon Dumbass VGA Supporter. Dumbass VGA Supporter does 1,000 damage to game collecting's credibility. Port casts Brainwashed NA Member. Funny, I don't see Qixmaster here.

Hey, btw, nice of you to mention Greg Martin when he died, well after you bled him dry of the artwork he had. Would have been nice if he could have interacted with the community before he died. But... can't let anyone else get a piece of your action. That's the NA way.

Do you have any idea what a monumental asshole you are? Bringing dead people into an internet debate? If you had any less class you'd be living in a cardboard box. FWIW you are WRONG. But you never let that stop you, do you?

[Tanooki]

The amount of views in the thread that was locked about my ban, and then the asking and comments, and I've had 4 members write me on ebay about it too so far. If I was that negative and non-productive there wouldn't be a single question or dust up over it at all.

It is what it is, this is not a thread meant for this. We get it, you need to protect the hand that feeds the site and I'm clearly not a donator, financial source, nor a game maker either so that doesn't put me in the same light as being a productive, positive and valued member as I'm not a contributor in that respect.


Port wow, tell us how you really feel. That's quite a bit there.


Nesmaster I'm here, and I'm sure there are other active classic gaming boards around with decent traffic where people can freely talk about old games and not have to worry about things so much. I'll keep posting any information anyone has to the tech I've made friends to so that more updates can be made to improve the system.

[portnoyd]

Do you have any idea what a monumental asshole you are? Bringing dead people into an internet debate? If you had any less class you'd be living in a cardboard box. FWIW you are WRONG. But you never let that stop you, do you?

I called it, Garrett. He'd use the 'for shame, he's dead' response, being as he literally has no other defense. You owe me a $1, pay up.

Care to explain why you waited to make a post about Martin until AFTER HE DIED?