RetroN5: Hands on first look

[Satoshi_Matrix]

This is a new page, so let's leave the NA drama on page 39.

NA guys, please take your drama and remove it from DP. Clutter up your own forum with it if you want, but be considerate - the majority of us here already have a rather low opinion of NA and especially its mods to begin with, so fanning the flames isn't helping your cause. None of the us want off-topic crap here. If you don't have anything to say about the RetroN5, then leave.

[GarrettCRW]

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?


If portnoyd is a monumental asshole, Bronty, you're a fucking galaxy-sized black hole of an asshole. You and little army of idiots bled a man for his video game art (which was a side business for him), and didn't even manage to get the details on his career in animation correct when he died.

[Tanooki]

Look Satoshi there is right. This is a thread for the positive and constructive further use and development of improvements on the R5 which was once about it coming and all the junk about it's pre-hype stuff. There's no need for NA drama in here and trying to protect the site, it's rep and members here. Make another thread and carry it forward as the discussion of any issue is good, just not in here and this thread shouldn't be monopolized by it.

[stardust4ever]

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.If you want I can block quote your relavant posts over to NintendoAge.

Seems like there should have been a warning but it looks like this wasn't your first run-in with the mods either.

[Tanooki]

Do whatever you feel is necessary but don't get yourself banned for doing it as it's just not worth it. Odds are the thread would be deleted or at least locked and the posts edited so the discussion doesn't pick back up again as they don't want the dust up. Even if it were allowed to stay I couldn't defend my posts and they'd just get picked apart by whoever feels a need to throw their positive or negative two cents into it.

I know what I wrote, I know it wasn't what it's being made to be and neither do others who saw it before it was modified and that's all that matters. It's a message board for colletors into video games, think about that for awhile, it's not and should not be the center of anyone's world. At this rate I just feel a little poorly for anyone who was finding use in the R5 thread over there since I was handing over useful information and reports that the company won't take through their facebook page, but if they come here problem solved, and this site could use more good people.

[Oddzball]

Damn, I registered here just to say I'm sorry you got banned Tanooki. Heck I was shocked 3Gen got banned too. We may not agree on the Retron 5 being a good product, but in my mind you were one of the most productive posters on NA. It's a shame really.

[stardust4ever]

Do whatever you feel is necessary but don't get yourself banned for doing it as it's just not worth it. No, I was referring to reposting your Retron5 updates. I'm not gonna copy/paste anything that got someone banned from a forum I participate in as it would just get me in hot water.

While I did try to backtrack the mod edits by viewing Google's web cache of the page, currently only the first two posts are indexed. When it does get refreshed, it will only reveal the mod edits:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:B_S_4gMIH_oJ:nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm%3Fcatid%3D22%26threadid%3D129858+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


Damn, I registered here just to say I'm sorry you got banned Tanooki. Heck I was shocked 3Gen got banned too. We may not agree on the Retron 5 being a good product, but in my mind you were one of the most productive posters on NA. It's a shame really.3GenGames is not currently banned, or if he was, the ban was only temporary. It does appear he is inactive however, last activity was May 24th.
http://www.nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Users.Home&User=3GenGames

[Satoshi_Matrix]

digitalpress is a much better community, anyway.

[Oddzball]

No, I was referring to reposting your Retron5 updates. I'm not gonna copy/paste anything that got someone banned from a forum I participate in as it would just get me in hot water.

While I did try to backtrack the mod edits by viewing Google's web cache of the page, currently only the first two posts are indexed. When it does get refreshed, it will only reveal the mod edits:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:B_S_4gMIH_oJ:nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm%3Fcatid%3D22%26threadid%3D129858+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

3GenGames is not currently banned, or if he was, the ban was only temporary. It does appear he is inactive however, last activity was May 24th.
http://www.nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Users.Home&User=3GenGames


THat was when he was banned I think. He must not have gone back.

[Tanooki]

Thanks oddzball. I know we didn't but I really appreciated the conversation as it was good. I hope you stick around. You'll find quickly this place maybe smaller but in many ways a polar opposite and you won't have to fear stepping on collectors toes who want to protect their assets, just an overall more chill and fun environment. I got popped and it's over with, but you should stick around it is a nicer community here and you'd be an asset as your head is on straight.

stardust, gotcha, just wasn't sure and I am doing like three things at once here when I wrote that between tv, this, and talking with my wife. :P Feel free to share the R5 stuff as you wish. It would only benefit people who own the device and you can encourage them to sign up here if they have new information they'd like to share to get repaired as I really don't feel a need to go back to my pre-reg days of reading as a lurker.

[nusilver]

Hey Tanooki, thanks for the reply. Yeah, it doesn't recognize my Mother 3 repro, which I suspect might be part of the reason it erased my save. I've sent them a message with the link to the cart on FB, but haven't heard back.

I've since discovered the system doesn't seem to want to write saves back to carts, either. I played a bit of LTTP 1.0 earlier, saved, then went through the write save to cart process. It seemed to work, but nothing was on the cart when I stuck it in my Retro Duo Portable.

Having said all that, it did recognize both my FF5 and Star Fox 2 repros, which was unexpected.

In any case... I'm gonna go back tens of pages and see what everyone's been saying. I really thought that by app version 1.4 these problems would be fixed (the seemingly random save erasing and not writing to recognized carts.)

[Tanooki]

The hyperkin account won't reply, it's just a new posting thing and I'm surprised few have caught onto that like all the people being trolls on there growling bout being ignored. The Hyperkin Tech account is it -- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005440995949

I've told him about the cart and where it came from. A real M3 game works just fine, so something has to be up with the save type it is using according to him. He's looking to disable for that specific game any save import/exporting until it can be sorted out so no one else loses their progress.

1.4 was supposed to correct the saves being lost, but that was I think specifically for recognized games. Games that pop up as unknown it won't know how to properly handle save because it's not on file in the database as to what it uses so you get foul ups. That's basically my understanding of it, and it's the same reason why my 2 non-licensed games (Qwak homebrew and bootleg DWM Caravan Hearts in english) don't work as it will either not copy the save over or it won't copy back as it's unknown (I forget which without checking again.)

[Tanooki]

About your Link to the Past issue.

Did you save only IN game? I know it's weird, but it only saves in game within the confines of the system. You have to go to the second menu option and click on 'copy save to cart' otherwise the new updated save data will not be on your cartridge.

In reverse, if you then play Zelda more on another box, then come back, you'll find your newer save not showing up either because you need to copy save to retron. Only the first time a game goes in the system will it copy existing data to the R5 by default (option can be turned off in the menu.)

[nusilver]

About your Link to the Past issue.

Did you save only IN game? I know it's weird, but it only saves in game within the confines of the system. You have to go to the second menu option and click on 'copy save to cart' otherwise the new updated save data will not be on your cartridge.

In reverse, if you then play Zelda more on another box, then come back, you'll find your newer save not showing up either because you need to copy save to retron. Only the first time a game goes in the system will it copy existing data to the R5 by default (option can be turned off in the menu.)

Dude, you're on fire! Thanks for all this. I actually reached out to the tech guy too, so we'll see what happens.

Yeah, I'm doing exactly what you'd think should be done with Zelda. I'll save in game (hit select, then save and quit.) then go to main menu, write save to cart. Load the cart on other hardware, no save is present. I'm gonna get back out of bed now and test the function on my greatest hits version. See what happens. The think is, LTTP is definitely recognized, so I'm not sure why this isn't working properly on my 1.0 cart.

ALSO - something I forgot to mention earlier (but which I have mentioned to the rep): Mother 3 drops frames during the "charge at dragos" moment in the beginning - a significant amount, actually. I'm gonna go check to see how it handle my Japanese cart, which is legit. The problem is... I've been going to bed much earlier lately since I'm supposed to start taking better care of myself. It's hard to wake up at 6 and then stretch and go running before work when you're up past midnight. Haha. But I got new hardware today, so naturally, I have other priorities.

ALSO ALSO - did someone need some testing on Mega Man X2 and X3? Because I've got 'em both.

Anyway - thanks! I'll report back on the other Zelda and Mother carts shortly.

[Sega Warrior]

So what is the update on firmware 1.5? Have we got a list of bug fixes yet?

[Tanooki]

I don't see a 1.5 on their website. It's still on 1.4 since the 26th of last month, and on their site it does have a change log of everything.


Nusilver, you got me confused, no idea why Zelda would do that since you're doing it right. As far as Mother dropping frames I'm not sure. I do know that Mother a legit copy uses a different board and has FLASH chips for saving as well. Maybe the cheap chinese board just isn't handling itself like it should and due to the wrong type of save that was used against the real one, that is why the thing is having the save failure because you're writing one type back to a chip that is expecting another.

X2 and X3 supposedly work perfectly, I got rid of both as I didn't like them at least a year ago or I'd have been curious and looked too as I started on chipped SNES games when I got it to see how things worked.

[RoryDropkick]

I asked Retron Tech if they could send me beta firmware updates whenever there was one and they seemed to be ok with it. Let's see how that goes. In other news, the system is still chugging along quite well for me. I'm going to try to find some more SMS games to test out the FM music, hopefully I can find Rastan and Vigilante.

[nusilver]

I don't see a 1.5 on their website. It's still on 1.4 since the 26th of last month, and on their site it does have a change log of everything.


Nusilver, you got me confused, no idea why Zelda would do that since you're doing it right. As far as Mother dropping frames I'm not sure. I do know that Mother a legit copy uses a different board and has FLASH chips for saving as well. Maybe the cheap chinese board just isn't handling itself like it should and due to the wrong type of save that was used against the real one, that is why the thing is having the save failure because you're writing one type back to a chip that is expecting another.

X2 and X3 supposedly work perfectly, I got rid of both as I didn't like them at least a year ago or I'd have been curious and looked too as I started on chipped SNES games when I got it to see how things worked.

Interestingly enough, I discovered last night that it DOES write back to the cart, but only in the 2nd and 3rd slot. No idea what THAT is about.

And interestingly enough, my repro doesn't use a Chinese board -- it uses one of the Pokemon games. I can't recall which. Ruby or Emerald. Anyway. I don't expect it to be resolved any time soon.

[Tanooki]

I believe I read somewhere that any SMS game that has FM coded into it will default to that when run in the R5 unlike on real hardware which is kind of cool.

That really is screwy about Zelda, you should totally report that as it makes no sense at all. Also I had figured yours was a copy from retroquest and those were using new boards when they were first made as I got one back then and those were not repurposed pokemon boards. I'm not sure what to make of that.

[SpasticFuctard]

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?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZClHAxaCs1E/TbdUoCuKcJI/AAAAAAAAR1Q/wkjs7GbVxUs/s1600/the_bet_trading_places.jpg

[Qixmaster]

Port casts Brainwashed NA Member. Funny, I don't see Qixmaster here.


Hi Dave,

I read digital press daily. sorry for not logging on for a LONG time. I hope you've been well. I'm actually really surprised the internet didn't break when you posted my name.

it's been too long.

smoochies
Josh

[nusilver]

I believe I read somewhere that any SMS game that has FM coded into it will default to that when run in the R5 unlike on real hardware which is kind of cool.

That really is screwy about Zelda, you should totally report that as it makes no sense at all. Also I had figured yours was a copy from retroquest and those were using new boards when they were first made as I got one back then and those were not repurposed pokemon boards. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Yeah, it's nuts. Retron Téch and I talked about it a bit, but there wasn't much resolved from it. More of a "just so you know."

Here's my mother 3 repro's board (on the left) - came from Retroquest. I'm curious what yours looks like! I've since replaced the horrible label. I'm not crazy, right? That's an original Nintendo board, the same one used in Pokemon emerald? Mine was like, order number 60 or so.

Hey Satoshi, you get your system yet?

7539

[Ryaan1234]

Hi Dave,

I read digital press daily. sorry for not logging on for a LONG time. I hope you've been well. I'm actually really surprised the internet didn't break when you posted my name.

it's been too long.

smoochies
Josh


Port dictated this message to me, as he is currently extremely busy:



Dear Sir or Madam Qixperson,

Yada yada thank you for validating my wizard skills. Has Bronty owned up the question I asked him? Hope all is well duder and/or mang. Talk to you again in another 3 years.

Very truly yours
Port

(Signed) Port Noyd

[Tanooki]

The game I had was retroquest too. Former owner Piko gifted me a copy for a lot of off and on work I was doing for him on the development of his stuff with Piko Interactive. The one on the left looks just like what I remember the board looking like. I'm not entirely certain the board itself was a chop shopped Emerald board. As I recall he had found a source out of china that printed new boards and threw their own chips and button cell battery on there. Perhaps it was a stolen board but what I remember was that they were supposed to be new parts with a re-writable chip on it to do with as you wish (ie: put Mother 3 on it.)

I do know annoyingly in more recent years some chinese pirates have started to brand their boards with Nintendo on them with a faux product code to dupe people who caught on to other ways of detecting fakes. The one thing those turds haven't managed to circumvent from what I remember is getting the things to boot on a DS or DSLite because they seem to have some piracy checker against fake GBA and DS titles where it just won't boot. I think that's why Pokemon games tend to take a good hit in value with the GBA stuff that has a battery in it because they're so convincing now on ebay it's too high of a gamble so it suppresses the values.



By the way since all the NA drama squad popped in, I'm not sure if Satoshi saw it or anyone else here, but as of 2 days ago someone posted over at NA a retron 5 for sale they got from amazon and decided they'd not want and would rather trade for zelda junk or cash. I know he's questionably banned there too so someone would have to be a middle man on that.

[The Dord]

digitalpress is a much better community, anyway.

We just need a little bit more of an active moderation here and then I'd agree with you 100%.

[Atarileaf]

My local gamestore is bragging that their retron 5 systems are "only" $199 Cdn. Not that I'm getting one but aren't there some online canadian sources for these things that would be cheaper?

[Tanooki]

No, not unless you can get an American to send you one to save a few bucks after shipping and the potential of getting screwed by the customs office. They know it so they're playing pricing games until it's all over freely. I hate stores that do it, it's just slimy.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

My local gamestore is bragging that their retron 5 systems are "only" $199 Cdn. Not that I'm getting one but aren't there some online canadian sources for these things that would be cheaper?

Where are you at? Because my local game stores don't have it at all, and the Toronto based store I preordered mine from expects to ship mine in *!^&ing August.

[Az]

Is there a way to revert back to a factory install or install an outdated firmware?

Kept getting an error 1022 when updating to the newest update and got it to install after downloading the file again. Now the MD slot is screwed, carts are often not even seen as being inserted, every cart is listed as unknown and absolutely none of them will play. I don't know if it's a physical problem with the slot or some type of software error.

One thing I found really strange was this: I could put a MD cart in and it would say "no cart inserted". Follow that by putting an SNES cart in and it would give me a "2 carts inserted" error, but when I removed the SNES cart it would still say "no cart inserted". That makes me think it's a software error rather than the MD slot being physically messed up.

[Atarileaf]

Where are you at? Because my local game stores don't have it at all, and the Toronto based store I preordered mine from expects to ship mine in *!^&ing August.

In Windsor, the store is called "Game Cycle"

[Tanooki]

I'm not on my laptop so I can't dig really well for it, but the retron5 page does have a link to the use of the pinhole on the back to do a hard reset of the system to factory settings. I know it has been brought up on various websites so if you google it I'm sure it would pop up with the link back to the R5 site with the steps and images on how to do it.

Unless you have a bent pin I am thinking you're right about the whole software over hardware issue. One thing is certain i really dont want to get back into Genesis but man have I been itching to play Dune 2 and Star Control again for quite awhile, Castlevania and Turtles as well. Im trying to scale back my stuff and that's adding more to the pile.

[nusilver]

So, I've been really impressed with the Retron 5 overall, but one thing is a major bummer for me: the timing is apparently off during battles in Mother 3, because I can't hit a combo anymore except by accident (I've played through the game 2-3 times now, so it's not that I don't know what I'm doing.) Maybe this'll get fixed in an update, maybe not. Either way, I know there's a cheat code for the game to guarantee you get 16-hit combos every time, which I was hoping to use to get around this issue - again, I've finished the game multiple times already, so don't feel bad about cheating -- but since a) the game shows up as unknown cartridge and b) there's apparently not a gba cheats xml available yet (not that I could find on the site, anyway), I can't try this yet anyway. Oh well. I just tested about 50 Famicom and NES games, and the only one that didn't work was Fantasy Zone (Famicom.)

Off to a movie!

[Az]

Unless you have a bent pin

T'was the culprit. Last game played before everything went haywire was a FC game, inspection of the slot had a pin (B10 or so) lifted up about 1/8 inch above the rest. Gently pressed it back down and all is well again.

[Tanooki]

Hah weird kind of glitches like a closed circuit great though that it is fixed.

[Sega Warrior]

I don't see a 1.5 on their website. It's still on 1.4 since the 26th of last month, and on their site it does have a change log of everything.


Nusilver, you got me confused, no idea why Zelda would do that since you're doing it right. As far as Mother dropping frames I'm not sure. I do know that Mother a legit copy uses a different board and has FLASH chips for saving as well. Maybe the cheap chinese board just isn't handling itself like it should and due to the wrong type of save that was used against the real one, that is why the thing is having the save failure because you're writing one type back to a chip that is expecting another.

X2 and X3 supposedly work perfectly, I got rid of both as I didn't like them at least a year ago or I'd have been curious and looked too as I started on chipped SNES games when I got it to see how things worked.

I don't see one either, but I was asking because some of you apparently speak to Hyperkin on a regular basis so I thought you might have the latest. I thought they were trying to get to 100% compatibility.

[stardust4ever]

T'was the culprit. Last game played before everything went haywire was a FC game, inspection of the slot had a pin (B10 or so) lifted up about 1/8 inch above the rest. Gently pressed it back down and all is well again.

Sucks those bent pins again.

Tanooki, feel free to report when you get 1.5 firmware working. I kind of volunteered to quote any new Retron info from your over to the NA thread if that's okay.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

be wary of trolls that will ban you because oh no, you're being reasonable and not carrying a pitch fork to burn the R5.

[Tanooki]

Well there are some reasonable people over at NA still as the place shifts more into the controlling side of things. You can paste whatever you like and encourage them to join here where they won't be bugged as a minority.

I haven't seen the tech in a couple days, not sure what's up.

[nusilver]

Well there are some reasonable people over at NA still as the place shifts more into the controlling side of things. You can paste whatever you like and encourage them to join here where they won't be bugged as a minority.

I haven't seen the tech in a couple days, not sure what's up.

I haven't, either.

[Tanooki]

I'll keep an eye out, the last time he was still in a good mood, great really as they were going to knock off and go out and get wasted on drinks watching world cup, so maybe that's going well still. :P

[tomm1313]

i joined over here just to follow the R5 thread. Loving mine. Thanks for all your work Tanooki in working with them and getting the system better.

that find a mapper automapper was nice.


any chance we might see an "advanced" mode where we can pick the mapper and name the game so it will use that all the time. Might help them build their database to.

[ibain]

Still loving my Retron 5.

Been playing Bahamut Lagoon all weekend! It's working great now.

One cool "feature" is that even after the most current update, is that the Retron 5 considers my fake Pokemon sapphire game to be an unknown cartridge. I hope they don't change that in future updates so fake games are easy to recognize. Anyone else notice this with fake Pokemon cartridges?

[Tanooki]

Glad to see you come over, hopefully more people from over there fed up with the story telling and games will get fed up and seek alternative sites.

As far as advanced mode goes, that's a hell of an idea and maybe it could be done but I have not heard of it as a choice. I think they might expand the auto selector from beyond 0-4 though.


ibain, that's normal for it because the R5 if it doesn't auto-check like on the NES side of things has all the games in a massive CRC check database. A fraud pokemon game would not have the same CRC as a legit copy they'd have on file so it does what you just said. The down side is usually when they fail the test you can't import let alone export a save back to the cartridge. It sucks for good games that just don't have a CRC file on there one way or the other, but it's a great help when dealing with frauds like you said. My legit homebrew Team17 made game of Qwak for GBA isn't detected so the battery backed score saving is out, and also my english patched DQM Caravan Heart is useless too due to the save issue.

[Az]

Anyone else notice this with fake Pokemon cartridges?

I tried about 10 different GBA boots and like you, all were seen as "unknown cart" but most still played.

I've gotta say after playing with this on a few different size LCD/plasma TVs and getting used to the bright, crisp picture it was hard to go back to my original systems on the older CRT. I even caught myself preferring to play some games using a filter or two, which is something that I've never had a taste for in the past.

If we could just map that pesky select button to the mode button so the Sega arcade pad joy could be spread around more....

[ibain]

I also wish they would come out with a wireless controller with a D pad.

[stardust4ever]

i joined over here just to follow the R5 thread. Loving mine. Thanks for all your work Tanooki in working with them and getting the system better.

that find a mapper automapper was nice.


any chance we might see an "advanced" mode where we can pick the mapper and name the game so it will use that all the time. Might help them build their database to.Gracenotes (formerly CDDB) does a wonderful job of allowing users manually entering CD track info into the database. They've got literally millions of CDs indexed.

If only Retron5 had networking capabilities, users could use the "Advanced" option to simply type in the game name, header info, special chips, or save type (if applicable). Then the Retron5 could submit the game data to be reviewed by Hyperkin and added into the next update. Nearly all ROM variants, homebrews, repros, hacks, pirates, imports, you name it could be added, quickly exhausting the supply of "unknown" or nonworking games.

[nusilver]

Gracenotes (formerly CDDB) does a wonderful job of allowing users manually entering CD track info into the database. They've got literally millions of CDs indexed.

If only Retron5 had networking capabilities, users could use the "Advanced" option to simply type in the game name, header info, special chips, or save type (if applicable). Then the Retron5 could submit the game data to be reviewed by Hyperkin and added into the next update. Nearly all ROM variants, homebrews, repros, hacks, pirates, imports, you name it could be added, quickly exhausting the supply of "unknown" or nonworking games.

The company is called Gracenote. I worked there for 5 years running their games division under their former owner, Sony :)

[tomm1313]

Gracenotes (formerly CDDB) does a wonderful job of allowing users manually entering CD track info into the database. They've got literally millions of CDs indexed.

If only Retron5 had networking capabilities, users could use the "Advanced" option to simply type in the game name, header info, special chips, or save type (if applicable). Then the Retron5 could submit the game data to be reviewed by Hyperkin and added into the next update. Nearly all ROM variants, homebrews, repros, hacks, pirates, imports, you name it could be added, quickly exhausting the supply of "unknown" or nonworking games.

well they do force you do put a file on an SD card to update. Maybe that file could include game info for games that people added via an advanced mode. you get multiple ones and they know its legit and can add to the patch.

[Tanooki]

I tried about 10 different GBA boots and like you, all were seen as "unknown cart" but most still played.

I've gotta say after playing with this on a few different size LCD/plasma TVs and getting used to the bright, crisp picture it was hard to go back to my original systems on the older CRT. I even caught myself preferring to play some games using a filter or two, which is something that I've never had a taste for in the past.

If we could just map that pesky select button to the mode button so the Sega arcade pad joy could be spread around more....

Your wish is my indirect command. I took your request to the Tech and last week he added the MODE button as something you can map. He also has added the ability to remap select and start as well if I recall right as they can get annoying being well out of reach for NES stuff.

I feel similar about the R5 too, not with the visual filters though the lqx one is pretty decent but I love the audio processing upgrades.

[Az]

not with the visual filters though the lqx one is pretty decent

Lqx is the only one I can handle, anything beyond that is just too blurry for my tastes.

[nusilver]

Had anyone successfully gotten cheats working on Unknown Cartridges?

I wanted to add the 16-hit combo cheat for my Mother 3 repro, since the timing seems off during battle and I can't do combos anymore like I can on Nintendo hardware, so I created a GBA cheat XML based on one of the other ones, then added the CRC because it appears to be listed in the name of the save file in the system. Unfortunately, no cheats show up when I boot the game.

Anyway, I've asked Téch, but wanted to throw it out here, too, since he has stopped replying to my questions/comments.

[Tanooki]

AZ: Same here 100%. I can't stand how blotchy and round the stuff gets as it just looks terrible in various levels of crappiness depending how the original game drew its art.

WARNING -- GBA SAVE ISSUE RETURNS: I put in my copy of Circle of the Moon to hear that awesome title audio and see what it would look like in play on my system using the 1.4 firmware. It claimed to have copied the save, yet when I went in the game showed none. Suspicious, I put the game back into my GB Micro, and it was gone. GRRRRRR! I had just got it to where you can attempt the eternal hallway and it's all gone. Not sure if I want to restart this one again as I've got other stuff including FF6A still.

SRAM SAVES ARE BEING EATEN AGAIN! I've written the tech about it.

FLASH style saves are OK. EEPROM will READ but not WRITE as it's not done yet/enabled. SRAM is playing russian roulette with GBA games.

[Tanooki]

This is something I was unaware of, SNES Mouse support goes beyond games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV703lViSpk

Watch that! You can use it to navigate the entire R5 menu itself and not just to draw in Mario Paint.

[treismac]

It's well enough that Hyperkin is still working towards the elusive 100% compatibility goal post the RetroN 5 release, but they really out to have ironed out the game/battery save flaws before letting the bird out of the nest. Not to rub any salt into any fresh wounds, but I'd be really pissed if I lost any game saves on a game I worked hard at achieving. Hopefully by the time there is a decent price drop all of those issues will be sorted out.

[stardust4ever]

Man, sucks about the saves. I don't see why it should delete the save from the original carts. It is possible to read the RAM without writing to it or erasing it. <br /><br />Another side effect, is the Retron5 hotplugging carts into a bus that's presumably always powered on. Hotplugging carts is unlikely to permanently damage either the console or the carts, but the electrical snafu that intermittently results during the hotplug operation can easily corrupt the volatile SRAM memory even with a fresh battery. It is always recommended to power off the console before changing carts, something the current Retron5 doesn't do.

[omegadevil]

Hello eveyone,

I'm new here and wanted to know how do you know when the Retron 5 controller is fully charged? I've had it charging on the cord for about 4 hours while I played but all the lights keep blinking and it hasn't stopped yet. I also wanted to know if anyone had issues with cheats on Genesis/Mega Drive carts. Every time I try to use a cheat on a Genesis/MD cart I get a red screen and have to load a save to get the game to run the cheats. Is this normal? I have my R5 updated to v1.4 and the newest cheat update. Any info provided would be appreciated

[stardust4ever]

I wouldn't worry about the controller charger. Charge times vary wildly across devices. Leave it plugged up overnight if you want. Contrary to what some people may tell you, all consumer devices that utilize Li-Ion batteries have a protection circuit that prevents overcharging. The old adage about "don't leave electronics on the charger" applies mainly to older Ni-Cad devices using a trickle charge circuit.

[tomm1313]

well they do force you do put a file on an SD card to update. Maybe that file could include game info for games that people added via an advanced mode. you get multiple ones and they know its legit and can add to the patch.

I took the ideas that stardust and myself put on about the "advanced mode" and it writing back to the SD card so they increase the DB and they said it is planned already and in the works to mark the mappers for a game yourself.

[Tanooki]

Hey guys AZ and other Genesis people in particular surprise, new build. Since this is more pro-feelings on this and I got a nod to share this I'm going to drop the link straight here.

http://retron5.in/?src=182be0c5cdcd5072bb1864cdee4d3d6e

Current changes:
Fixed corrupt text in GBA Phantasy Star Collection
Fixed NES mapper 159 games
Fixed SNES Megaman X/Rockman X
Fixed Genesis American Gladiators
The MODE button on Genesis 6-button controllers is now supported
START/SELECT may now be configured via the button mapping


UPDATES to come -- They're in test to drop the BOOT time of the system to .5seconds so you can just basically press the power button and use it, no more 5 second hold time (finally!) It's in internal test, should go public testing he says in a few days.

My kid is bumbling around earlier this morning so I can't just get the SD card and slip it in there to update mine to try it out, so knock yourselves out.

[ibain]

The quick boot time is awesome news!

[nusilver]

So, I heard back from Téch about creating cheats for Unknown Cartridges, and he confirmed I did it exactly the correct way, but that GBA cheats just aren't currently supported. Good to know!

Much more importantly - what this tells me is that the CRC is saved in the filename of your SRAM save on the Retron 5, meaning it's not beyond reasoning that users could start submitting CRCs to Hyperkin to add to firmware updates. Wouldn't that mean they wouldn't need to get hold of every cart in existence to get compatibility?

By the way, I've now tested the system with about 50 NES/Famicom games and 70 SNES/Super Famicom games. All of them worked with the exception of 1 Famicom game. I haven't gotten to test GBA/GBC/GB yet, other than Mother 3, which I know I can't stop talking about.

[Tanooki]

Well that's pretty good if it's down to 1 game whatever that is.

I'm talking with him too currently and I brought up your CRC idea, he had it already but for whatever reason it's just not there but he liked the idea. If it's the company perhaps that makes sense, but even from a private build standpoint it could solve a lot of problems.


If anyone here has GBA games that lose their saves at all that have the SRAM type, please log what game it is and how/when it happened? Did you put the game in before/after/during the boot process? Did it supposedly copy over OK saying as much? The issue is there but consistency isn't so it's a problem.

The future looks to eventually add the fast loading of bigger games, EEPROM save copy to cart added, single game issues cleaned up, and more accessories as they get them. It's looking pretty good overall.

[T]

I still have not received my unit that I preordered for $99 from amazon.

Has anyone received their amazon unit yet?

If so, how much did you pay for it?

[T]

also,

I live I Illinois not Canada....

[omegadevil]

I wouldn't worry about the controller charger. Charge times vary wildly across devices. Leave it plugged up overnight if you want. Contrary to what some people may tell you, all consumer devices that utilize Li-Ion batteries have a protection circuit that prevents overcharging. The old adage about "don't leave electronics on the charger" applies mainly to older Ni-Cad devices using a trickle charge circuit.

Thanks for the info. I just wanted to make sure I didn't have a busted controller. It would be nice if there was a way to tell how much charge is left on the controller like the PS3 controller when you press the PS button or even use a PS3 controller with the Retron.

No word on the Genesis cheats red screen situation? Could someone contact the Retron Tech reguarding this issue.


I still have not received my unit that I pre ordered for $99 from amazon.

Has anyone received their amazon unit yet?

If so, how much did you pay for it?

I got my gray unit from amazon on June 12th and paid $76.19. I pre ordered when it was first made available at $99. I assume you pre ordered a black unit since you haven't received it yet. I read on some forums that black units were being shipped out to customers from amazon. Hope you get yours soon as it's nice to play the classics on a big screen.

[Az]

No word on the Genesis cheats red screen situation? Could someone contact the Retron Tech reguarding this issue.

Red screen is a checksum error thrown up by the Genesis, it'll do the same thing on a real console if you use cheats and do not enable a "master code". I assume this behaves like a real console does so you've either got to enable the "master code" when first booting the game, or don't turn any cheats on until after the game screen has booted (same as a real Game Genie).

[omegadevil]

Red screen is a checksum error thrown up by the Genesis, it'll do the same thing on a real console if you use cheats and do not enable a "master code". I assume this behaves like a real console does so you've either got to enable the "master code" when first booting the game, or don't turn any cheats on until after the game screen has booted (same as a real Game Genie).

Thanks for the info. Thought there might be something wrong with my unit, bad firmware or cheats not working correctly.

[stardust4ever]

Red screen is a checksum error thrown up by the Genesis, it'll do the same thing on a real console if you use cheats and do not enable a "master code". I assume this behaves like a real console does so you've either got to enable the "master code" when first booting the game, or don't turn any cheats on until after the game screen has booted (same as a real Game Genie).I have used a real Game Genie on a real Genesis many times and never experienced this symtom. It's not like the later Action Replay / Game Shark devices which edited RAM instead of ROM, and required an "M" or "Always On" code for each game.

[Tanooki]

Anyone with the R5 have some freetime and a decent library of games, time to waste, or accessories to screw with?

The tech confirmed to me that the SNES Mouse worked out of the box with Firmware 1.0 and that they added more easter eggs to the system with a smile but would not say what leaving them to be discovered.

I think we were issued a challenge and I'd love to know what they cooked up.

So far we know the vaus controller is out, for now, until he gets one mailed to him or found locally to add it. And we know they snuck the SNES mouse from launch to work the menus a bit like a computer. I do know if you stick that horrible Deadly Towers game it jokes on you for it. It will say 'we recommend another game' with a frowny face before you click to load it.


I don't keep accessories around, my limits are the zapper and an ascii pad(snes) I got on Sunday which is awesome but that's really it. It would be interesting if the power pad got added like he talked about, or if one of those other weirdo accessories from the vibrating jacket to the zapper (pranking for putting in there?) were in it.

[BoscoTheMan82]

I Just bought a black Retron 5 from my local game store. Upgraded to the newest firmware and the only game that doesn't run is Fantasy Zone 2 for Famicom. This game uses mapper 67 which must not be in the firmware yet.

[Az]

I have used a real Game Genie on a real Genesis many times and never experienced this symptom.

Not all games do it. If you look at a Genesis code list and it has a master code, you've got to put the master code in otherwise the game fails a checksum routine when booting and often results in a frozen red screen. On a real machine if you don't want to waste one of your available code lines you can flip the FX switch down until the game boots to the title screen then flip it back up. SFII'.SCE pops into my head as a game that does that, Contra Hardcorps too I think.

Those same games will often fail the checksum routine if you hard patch the ROM (manually via hex edit or IPS) then try and boot it in an emulator.

I noticed with these updates Famicom oddities seem to be making big strides. Family Kid (Somari) works great, Master Fighter III plays with garbled graphics, a several multi-game pirates dump and boot to the game selection screens. Impressive stuff being that out of the box the system didn't even detect them being inserted.

One thing puzzles me about the console; I fully recognize that the return on investment just isn't there since virtually nobody cares but it seems it would be a (relatively) small thing to implement 32x support. Unfortunately the cart slot isn't wide enough to physically accept them so we'll never see that.

[Leo_A]

Hopefully down the road, 32X support will be realized with a Retron 5 follow-up. With it not requiring any specialized hardware, it's one of the more realistic additions that they could make.

[nusilver]

I Just bought a black Retron 5 from my local game store. Upgraded to the newest firmware and the only game that doesn't run is Fantasy Zone 2 for Famicom. This game uses mapper 67 which must not be in the firmware yet.

Right. I've tested about 120 games and the only legit cart I have had problems with so far is Fantasy Zone 1 for Famicom.

[stardust4ever]

Hopefully down the road, 32X support will be realized with a Retron 5 follow-up. With it not requiring any specialized hardware, it's one of the more realistic additions that they could make. The Retrode dumps 32X games flawlessly or so I hear, with the 32X attached. Since the Retron5 dumps games prior to emulating them, it seems simple enough to add 32X game support if the 32X is used as a pass-through like they did with SMS.

Maybe the 32X is a pain to emulate, I dunno. Setting one up with an original console and the RGB video dongle is a bigger pain IMO. I looked into the 32X library and compared to the Genesis library, it didn't seem like there are enough good games to be worth arsing around with.

[Leo_A]

I'm quite sure that if they ever implemented 32X support in a future Retron console, you'd simply plug the 32X cartridge directly into the Genesis cartridge slot of the Retron clone.