RetroN5: Hands on first look

[stardust4ever]

I just want to say that I have been working with Hyperkin a bit with the R5. So far they seem to be taking compatibility and some other issues very seriously. I brought my major issues with the system a few weeks ago and a developer messaged me on Skype the other day saying that they believe they have fixed this issue. Since I don't know for sure if the issue is fixed I can't comment on what the issue is/was. However this issue I believed would be an issue that would have turned many customers off, so if it is indeed corrected that is very good news. Its honestly the biggest issue I had with the system.I know you've got an NDA and you're talking in riddles right now. Whatever it was, I hope it has something to do with being able to load games not in the database, ie homebrews.


It's good to hear that Hyperkin is committed to making sure that the RetroN5 is a quality system.

Hey, how much of an annoyance, if at all, is the side-placed controller ports? I understand that Hyperkin has had to cram a good bit into the R5's shell, but the placement of the ports still irks me. Perhaps it won't be an issue with the NES & SNES controllers, but the Genesis DB-9 controller ports could cause problems not being front and center, just like they did with the 2600. There's a lot bigger issues than controller placement. I find it inconvenient to plug controllers into the back of my Atari 2600, but I do it. I also have to get off my butt and walk over to the system to hit select/reset switches. The side controller ports are nothing on the retron5 compared to other more pertinent things like homebrew support. Truth be told I'll probably be using the wireless controller more often on this system to make it convenient to access things like home menu, etc. Also I prefer clicky arcade controls over leafswitches, so I have a hunch I'll like the tactille microswitches in side the R5 controller. I also have large man hands so size is no problem there.

[StoneAgeGamer]

Are you referring to the limitation that you can only have one game inserted into the system at a time? because Hyperkin said that and I speculated it might be possible for them to fix that several pages ago. You also mentioned that you found that to be a big issue that might turn off some people. Or are you talking about something else?

No I am not talking about that.

[StoneAgeGamer]

It's good to hear that Hyperkin is committed to making sure that the RetroN5 is a quality system.

Hey, how much of an annoyance, if at all, is the side-placed controller ports? I understand that Hyperkin has had to cram a good bit into the R5's shell, but the placement of the ports still irks me. Perhaps it won't be an issue with the NES & SNES controllers, but the Genesis DB-9 controller ports could cause problems not being front and center, just like they did with the 2600.

I would prefer them on the front, but to me not a deal breaker for them to be on the side.

[StoneAgeGamer]

I know you've got an NDA and you're talking in riddles right now. Whatever it was, I hope it has something to do with being able to load games not in the database, ie homebrews.

I don't have an home-brews for the system it supports, but I have seen the system say "Unrecognized Cartridge" before and it still gave you the option to attempt to run anyways. So I am not sure if homebrews will be much of an issue, but I can't tell you for sure.

[stardust4ever]

No I am not talking about that.
Homebrews or games otherwise not in the "database" will be loaded anyway? :wink 2:

StoneAge, you might as well fess up; gamers are going to play 20 questions until the truth squeezes out like a tube of old mayonnaise...
:oops:


I don't have an home-brews for the system it supports, but I have seen the system say "Unrecognized Cartridge" before and it still gave you the option to attempt to run anyways. So I am not sure if homebrews will be much of an issue, but I can't tell you for sure.That is good news! I love you, man...
\\^_^/:hail::love::cheers::band::snuggle:

[Tanooki]

Well said Tanooki! \\^_^/

Man, you really came out of your shell there. I remember you from NA. LOL on the repros from the far east.

Yeah and if I posted that over there I'd be strung up by the hangmans noose for sure with that kind of fury. That's what I would post if there was a fair and even handling of things that wouldn't get one banned or read but not write privileges for not agreeing with the pack. It's all warez, it's just depending who you steal from it's ok to peddle and promote. Homebrew is fine, what PikoInteractive does with lost releases is fine too, but the rest is just selective theft. As far as bubble bobble 2 and samson (lickle) goes, they caught on, because it wasn't until those games really cracked $200-300+ respectively that the Japanese or importers figured they could do well on those one way or the other.

Arkanoid you're right if you collect to store and not play it is a job, enjoyable for some, not for others, but it's kind of defeating the purpose of what's there since they were designed to be played and not just stared at externally. I don't argue it, it's pointless, but in fairness it bugs me because I worked on games for a couple years over a decade ago back when the PS2 and GC were the new kids on the block. I think the thing is, people here are more gamers, there they're more collectors, and there will always be more people who buy to play than shelve an item to just have it, and those types would rather drop $20-30 on a like for like copy with new parts (like infinite lives boards) than a $600 hole in the wallet for an original old game. There has been a lot of times I'd have loved to ask the bootleggers over there to do a Samson for me but that wouldn't go over well, and the nicest answer probably would be to buy a powerpak(not an everdrive) to support Bunnyboy. I had one, the saving on it drove me nuts so I sold it. :P Gamers are equally responsible if not more for the price problems as collectors are because the gamer is in it for the fun of the game itself and is likely to do less research and they'll think $30 is a going rate on a SMB3 cart when it's like 1/2 that but they'll be happy paying to play it so it harms the informed. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and getting more so with Nintendo game buying.


BB Hood: I said probably. The only reason I said that was after I paid what I did on that one and distributed the map all the copies that have gone up since haven't sold for even $100 where they used to sell for quite a bit on ebay. Collector's won't shill for a PDF I know, but it still is a related deal and if it's easily had only the most die hard of Faria fans or NES collectors will pay up. It just seems to relate unless it's dumb luck the price tanked.


Stoneagegamer: That's great news, if it was that annoying for a gamer and businessman yourself who can regularly deal with consumer complaints you'd know best and if they nailed it, good. And it's very good they're taking their comments of shooting for compatibility seriously if they're really digging into it up until the last moment. I'm curious how that unrecognized game, try and run it anyways, setup will work out. I've got a Supervision 115in1 cart and then the retrozone Gradius II and DK Original Edition games and I'm curious if they'd run or not.

[stardust4ever]

Some simple heuristics will get the discrete and most common MMC chips working. That's 98% of US games right there and many homebrews and repros are based on common mappers. I still invision compatability issues with some NES homebrews using newvhardware like say the INL Streamers multicart, or the new RetroUSB UNROM boards with flash based game saves. Probably Action 52, Cheetahmen 2, Caltron 6-in-1, or Maxi-15 will likely not work either. I also doubt obscure Famicom games with one-off mappers like Lagrange Point's VRC7 will ever work. I have tried (and failed) to get working dumps of Xmas2013 and Study Hall using the CopyNES USB installed on my NES. I don't know if they're bad dumps or if FCEU just isn't compatible with the modified UNROM mapper they use. The cycle perfect "BS" series of emulators I can't be arsed to mess with since the author decided to use proprietary formats that need conversion, since he couldn't be bothered with support for standard iNES headers or SNES SMC file formats.

[Tanooki]

Stuff using those retrozone carts use a proprietary version of the MMC4 chip for their unique UNROM board I think I saw written over at NA. Due to that, your standard dumping methods supposedly won't work for homebrews using that. I'm not certain what they have if it's the same or not on the clearly warez stuff like the VRC hack of Gradius 2 or Donkey Kong Orig Ed. If someone can't hack up a way to do it and share with Hyperkin it probably won't happen because there's no way bunny is going to give them the information they need as it's competition with the HDMI NES he's cooking up, and the Hyperkin will cost less too due to its emulation/cart dump design.

I agree with bsnes aka higen though to a point, don't understand what byuu was thinking on that, let alone jumping multisystem in the first place. Bsnes was accurate and while it could be slow a decent modern computer could run the stuff right, but damn once he went multi-system the bloat took it into the crapper. I've tried using higen but I can't even get 60fps on chipped games at all on this i5core 2410-M laptop with 6GB of ram and a intel hd 3000 chip. I don't mind using the clean .sfc format because those old smc super magicard headers suck. Dropping .NES format headers is asinine though as they're fine.

[stardust4ever]

Stuff using those retrozone carts use a proprietary version of the MMC4 chip for their unique UNROM board I think I saw written over at NA. Due to that, your standard dumping methods supposedly won't work for homebrews using that. I'm not certain what they have if it's the same or not on the clearly warez stuff like the VRC hack of Gradius 2 or Donkey Kong Orig Ed. If someone can't hack up a way to do it and share with Hyperkin it probably won't happen because there's no way bunny is going to give them the information they need as it's competition with the HDMI NES he's cooking up, and the Hyperkin will cost less too due to its emulation/cart dump design.

I agree with bsnes aka higen though to a point, don't understand what byuu was thinking on that, let alone jumping multisystem in the first place. Bsnes was accurate and while it could be slow a decent modern computer could run the stuff right, but damn once he went multi-system the bloat took it into the crapper. I've tried using higen but I can't even get 60fps on chipped games at all on this i5core 2410-M laptop with 6GB of ram and a intel hd 3000 chip. I don't mind using the clean .sfc format because those old smc super magicard headers suck. Dropping .NES format headers is asinine though as they're fine.So even though it says "UNROM" on the board, it is not? The demo ROMs for Study Hall and Xmas2013 are iNES mapper #2, 128kbytes (UNROM). If would take a lot of effort to completely change up the mapper used by the game between demo and cart release. The RetroUSB UNROM boards (Study Hall, Battle Kid, and recent Xmas carts if you omit the blinky LEDs) contain naught but 4 discrete 74xxx logic chips, a RAM (CHR), a single Flash ROM (PRG), and an 8-pin PIC microcontroller (CiClone 2). No FPGA, no CR2032 battery, all discrete logic. I would scan the chips on board but I'm already far off topic. My guess is that one of the sectors of the PRG Flash ROM is rewritten to save game data on games that support it. I don't know if current emulators support the newer on cart flash saves since Mapper #2 does not officially support it (NOR flash did not exist in the 1980s, or if it did, it wasn't used in NES games).

I have successfully dumped my RetroUSB DK "PIE" Foundry cart. It uses a standard Repropak board and is pure 100% CNROM, same exact mapper DK Classics uses. The ROM is nearly identical to the public dump of the "DK Complete Edition" ROM leaked by Nintendo. Brian made some very minor edit to prevent the game displaying garbled graphics on the Cement stage on some NES systems. This was due to the fact the original ROM as released by Nintendo contains bus conflicts which are ignored by the official VC emulator but cause problems in a small percentage of NES consoles.

Attempts at dumping other RetroUSB boards have been largely unsuccessful. Mr Gimmick repro does not work with the FME-Sunsoft mapper (game reboots ad-infinitum shortly after the title screen), NWC displays a corrupt title screen and does not work at all, and I've attempted every mapper known to man with SMB2j (the only Lost Levels repro I know of with level select code). Some of the older repros said MMC3 on the board, but the FPGA could have been programmed for any mapper under the sun. I honestly believe Brian hacked most of his repro mappers to be very difficult to dump or emulate, so chances of any NES RetroUSB carts other than DK "Pie" Foundry ever working with Retron5 or any other emulation based clone are slim to none. Of course they will all happily boot on his HDMI-NES, when it comes out. I plan on getting one as well.

Finally yeah on BSNES being pretty much useless since I couldn't run iNES or SMC formatted ROMs on it and couldn't be arsed to download his conversion tools and apply them to every ROM I wanted to play. Stupid. Even modern flashcarts support multiple ROM formats. For instance Super Everdrive plays SMC with or without 512 byte header and ED64 supports V64 and Z64 byte orders.

[Tanooki]

I might be off on the MMC but I remember it being brought up when someone else discussed doing what you attempted. It is regardless, abnormal, so taking it at face value you won't get the results. As you figured it, the stuff is unique and it just won't happen outside of DKOE as that already is what it is other than the little fix. I'm quite curious what they did with their warezy releases of Gradius and Kid Dracula to get those going not on a VRC chip.

I know it's almost like borderline arrogance or conceit with how bsnes and especialy higan responds to roms, but considering you need some heavy hardware to get the chipped stuff to run due to all the added bloat going multi-system it isn't worth the effort, but bsnes's last release is fantastic. And I'm not sure why you think there isn't easy conversion tools, it came packaged with snespurify.exe which you run, select the directory, and at the click of a button it converts all the roms in a directory to .sfc files. I use it anytime I buy a new SNES game.

[stardust4ever]

I might be off on the MMC but I remember it being brought up when someone else discussed doing what you attempted. It is regardless, abnormal, so taking it at face value you won't get the results. As you figured it, the stuff is unique and it just won't happen outside of DKOE as that already is what it is other than the little fix. I'm quite curious what they did with their warezy releases of Gradius and Kid Dracula to get those going not on a VRC chip.

I know it's almost like borderline arrogance or conceit with how bsnes and especialy higan responds to roms, but considering you need some heavy hardware to get the chipped stuff to run due to all the added bloat going multi-system it isn't worth the effort, but bsnes's last release is fantastic. And I'm not sure why you think there isn't easy conversion tools, it came packaged with snespurify.exe which you run, select the directory, and at the click of a button it converts all the roms in a directory to .sfc files. I use it anytime I buy a new SNES game.Maybe I didn't play around enough with it. I think I spent ten minutes trying to get it to work with NES and SNES ROMs, then said screw it. Honestly, SNES9x and FCEU are good enough to play 99% of commercial and even homebrew ROMs. The fancy cycle perfect emulators are only necessary IMO if you need to verify whether hacks and other stuff runs on real hardware. Honestly, for that purpose, there are plenty of flash carts readily available for testing purposes.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I know I've gone way off track in the past myself, but c'mon guys...can't we all voluntarily agree to stick to the topic of the RetroN5? If you guys want to discuss other things, make another thread for that. Here I think we should only be talking about the RetroN5 and things related to that.

[Tanooki]

I know, even said the other day a request to a mod/admin to break the posts to another thread as it was a good conversation, but in the time Ive still been replying.

[StoneAgeGamer]

Been playing a lot of Genesis games and they look and sound great. Streets of Rage sounds amazing as it should, graphics are crisp and clean like the other systems I have played.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Do you have any Japanese MegaDrive games? There was a post a while ago of someone wanting to know if the Retron5 will fit megaDrive carts. I think it probably will (it would really be stupid of Hyperkin if it didn't) but I'd like you to confirm.

[StoneAgeGamer]

Do you have any Japanese MegaDrive games? There was a post a while ago of someone wanting to know if the Retron5 will fit megaDrive carts. I think it probably will (it would really be stupid of Hyperkin if it didn't) but I'd like you to confirm.

I probably do somewhere, but who knows where? From looking at the slot there appears to be enough room and I think Hyperkin has already stated that it does.

[NESter]

I probably do somewhere, but who knows where? From looking at the slot there appears to be enough room and I think Hyperkin has already stated that it does.

I think the deal-breaker for a lot of enthusiasts (and, for me, perhaps a deciding factor in whether I should get a Retrozone HDMI NES) is going to be the accuracy of the NES sound. Does anything sound off, and would you be willing to a do a quick comparison between Retro 5 and real NES music? Or is there a big fat NDA preventing you from telling us that?

[treismac]

I find it (just a bit) strange that more than a few retro gamers on forums are weighing the RetroN5 against Bunnyboy's hdmi NES. One plays NES and Famicom games and the other plays those plus a few other systems. If all you want is the ability to rock NES games hdmi ( yeah, I know, it has the hi score feature too), grab the hdmi NES. If you want to play/emulate other games for other systems too (and other repective features), go R5. While they're similar, they are distinct enough to merit the consideration of separate purchases.

Anyway...

[DeputyMoniker]

Let's talk about this some more, guys.

[NESter]

I find it (just a bit) strange that more than a few retro gamers on forums are weighing the RetroN5 against Bunnyboy's hdmi NES. One plays NES and Famicom games and the other plays those plus a few other systems. If all you want is the ability to rock NES games hdmi ( yeah, I know, it has the hi score feature too), grab the hdmi NES. If you want to play/emulate other games for other systems too (and other repective features), go R5. While they're similar, they are distinct enough to merit the consideration of separate purchases.

Anyway...

I'm definitely considering both. But I'd definitely hold off on buying the HDMI NES for a while if I knew how good Retron 5's NES emulation was, because the NES functionality is what I'm looking forward to above else.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I think the deal-breaker for a lot of enthusiasts (and, for me, perhaps a deciding factor in whether I should get a Retrozone HDMI NES) is going to be the accuracy of the NES sound. Does anything sound off, and would you be willing to a do a quick comparison between Retro 5 and real NES music? Or is there a big fat NDA preventing you from telling us that?

The overwhelming probability is that you have nothing at all to worry about. You are worried about the effects of reversed duty cycles from bad NOAC based clones. The RetroN5 is an Android based emulation box. The NES emulator the RetroN5 runs is almost certain to be based on the Android version of FCEUX, just like the Ouya. I would be incredibly surprised if this wasn't the case.

[treismac]

I'm definitely considering both. But I'd definitely hold off on buying the HDMI NES for a while if I knew how good Retron 5's NES emulation was, because the NES functionality is what I'm looking forward to above else.

The price difference might well be enough to where someone who only wants to play NES games would still go with the R5. Is there a price quote for the hdmi NES yet? Well over $100 I would imagine.

[NESter]

The overwhelming probability is that you have nothing at all to worry about. You are worried about the effehttp://www.digitpress.com/forum/images/smilies/2003_ass.gifcts of reversed duty cycles from bad NOAC based clones. The RetroN5 is an Android based emulation box. The NES emulator the RetroN5 runs is almost certain to be based on the Android version of FCEUX, just like the Ouya. I would be incredibly surprised if this wasn't the case.

I hope you're right. There are probably some uber-2A03-geeks that would say even FCEUX falls short of hardware accuracy, but it's always sounded perfect to me. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have confirmation from someone who's played around with the Retron, eh? :-D

[Tanooki]

Last year after repeated requests bunny said that 'hopefully' the hdmi nes will be $150 or less. Things change and that was like last Fall so I have no idea if that changed since. $150 for a 'new' FPGA NES with that scoreboard thing and 4 controller ports isn't such a bad thing, but to the average consumer if both sat on a shelf side by side 'looks' aside the Retron would win out being maybe $50 less and running more than just NES stuff. One thing people fail to realize is these are gaming boards or at NA collecting then gamer boards and reality is different for them than the retail guy who doesn't give a crap.

[stardust4ever]

I find it (just a bit) strange that more than a few retro gamers on forums are weighing the RetroN5 against Bunnyboy's hdmi NES. One plays NES and Famicom games and the other plays those plus a few other systems. If all you want is the ability to rock NES games hdmi ( yeah, I know, it has the hi score feature too), grab the hdmi NES. If you want to play/emulate other games for other systems too (and other repective features), go R5. While they're similar, they are distinct enough to merit the consideration of separate purchases.

Anyway...Back on topic again, even though the derail was partially my fault.

Due to Mapper hell, there are a great number of modern NES homebrews as well as obscure one-off unlicensed, famicom, and pirate games that will not work with Retron5, especially RetroUSB's newer "UNROM" games that use flash. Even if the Retron5 is updated to detect common mappers for unknown games through heuristics, it still won't be able to dump games that aren't compatible with or have added functionality compared to existing iNES mappers. I can assure you that both consoles are on my radar. Combining save states with cheats, at least for me there's a lot of otherwise inaccessible NES games (for instance the entire Megaman series b/c I can't play them worth sh!t) that will be playable with enhancements on the Retron. I may even repurchase Megaman 2. I'm pretty sure I could lick this game and others with just infinite health + save states. :rockets:

Brian's HDMI NES will be a cycle perfect NES clone with 100% compatibility with all current and future games. If someone finds a bug, rest assured Brian cares enough about quality that he will patch it via firmware update. I imagine Hyperkin may not be bothered to add mapper support for some obscure famicom or homebrew mapper that only half a dozen gamers worldwide give a flying flip about. Brian will as he specifically caters to the hardcore NES crowd.


Last year after repeated requests bunny said that 'hopefully' the hdmi nes will be $150 or less. Things change and that was like last Fall so I have no idea if that changed since. $150 for a 'new' FPGA NES with that scoreboard thing and 4 controller ports isn't such a bad thing, but to the average consumer if both sat on a shelf side by side 'looks' aside the Retron would win out being maybe $50 less and running more than just NES stuff. One thing people fail to realize is these are gaming boards or at NA collecting then gamer boards and reality is different for them than the retail guy who doesn't give a crap.I'm guessing $150-$160 for the HDMI NES. Brian did quote $150, but the profit margin depends on how many he sells. If he sells only a hundred or so, he'll go broke; if he sells ten thousand or more, he'll have an early retirement. Also, more HDMI emulation clones will likely follow in the coming years, so chances are someday if production ceases, the HDMI NES will be far more valuable than the Retron5 (& up) as a collector's item. Of course that's not why I'm buying it as I intend to use it. Scoreboard is just the icing on the cake. Even if I'm not a competitive gamer, I can still look at the scoreboard and say, "I'm in the top 50% of scores, so I'm not quite as bad as I thought." I hope the HDMI NES is successful because that will open the door for more people to produce FPGA clones for other systems. Brian already has stated that he's not interested in doing the SNES or N64. IMHO, the N64 is in dire need of an HDMI facelift, more than any other console, except perhaps the Atari VCS (which looks like ass if it even displays at all on modern HD sets). Back to the point, I was blown away by how beautiful the graphics were when I emulated Mario 64 for the first time at 1280x1024 and could see every single brick in Peach's Castle. Assuming FPGA chips continue to become faster and cheaper, an HDMI N64 would be a God-send. 100Mhz+ FPGAs are probably right around the corner. N64 FPGA would totally be doable with an external RAM chip, especially with DIP switch settings for massive overclocking built right into the console. Combine that with built save states and a Game Shark / debugger that won't crash and brick itself. I'd pay $200 easy for such a console. Also Hyperkin is planning an announcement at e3 regarding the N64 system. I hope and pray it's a new clone console or preferably a new add-on dongle for the Retron5. Even if it's only 720p, it would look light years better than the blurry graphics in the original hardware. Just look how gorgeous the N64 Virtual Console games were on Wii at 480p. It gave me upgraded graphics and a far more comfortable controller to boot. I'd gladly pay for such an experience with retro carts on new hardware.

[StoneAgeGamer]

I think the deal-breaker for a lot of enthusiasts (and, for me, perhaps a deciding factor in whether I should get a Retrozone HDMI NES) is going to be the accuracy of the NES sound. Does anything sound off, and would you be willing to a do a quick comparison between Retro 5 and real NES music? Or is there a big fat NDA preventing you from telling us that?

I have stated before the sound and video of the R5 is its best attributes. I am sure there are some RGB/HDMI mods that look really good, but this is the best I have seen some of these classics look on modern TVs. This is of course only an opinion, I am not as anal about sound as others, but from my experience and everyone here at SAG that has used it was that it looks and sounds good.

[stardust4ever]

I have stated before the sound and video of the R5 is its best attributes. I am sure there are some RGB/HDMI mods that look really good, but this is the best I have seen some of these classics look on modern TVs. This is of course only an opinion, I am not as anal about sound as others, but from my experience and everyone here at SAG that has used it was that it looks and sounds good.The fact that it's an emulator, the waves will be shaped properly for the most part with no glaring omissions, however sound will probably be sampled at 44100Hz or 48000Hz or some other rate, rather the NES's native 1.79Mhz digital clock pulses which are meticulously shaped into an analog waveform by resistor ladders and analog low-pass filters. This won't matter since humans cannot hear sounds above 18-20kHz and the sample rate will be adequate to reproduce the full audible range. Also, the waveforms on the original systems usually have some form of analog distortion. The squares and Rectangles aren't perfect waveforms when viewed on an oscilloscope. NES triangle waves have certain harmonics created by high frequency ripples, that may not be accurately reproduced if the the emulator waveforms are too perfect. This often means emulators can generate a cleaner sounding tone with less distortion compared to the original system. There is also no analog noise floor or AC line buzz since there are no analog circuits and everything is reproduced digitally. That's definitely the case with the official Wii VC emulators since some of the unintentional harmonics (due to high frequency distortion) and low level noise associated with the original system are missing. It is often difficult to emulate the exact analog distortion and noise patterns often associated with vintage systems. Whether a cleaner noise free sound is desirable or not is up to the gamer's personal preference, but I believe most casual users would probably prefer a cleaner sound, just as composite video or RF artifacts are undesirable on HD video displays. I know my Model 1 Genesis sounds a bit grungy (it sounds as if it's entire audio output were passed through a hard rock guitar pedal), especially through the RF connection, so I would welcome a cleaner less distorted sound than the stock Genesis console. I would imagine having cleaner A/V than the original systems in question is part of the appeal of playing them on an HD console. To sum it up, the sound and video on an HD emulator will not be identical to the original console; they will look and sound better. Personally, I don't consider the elimination of A/V noise and distortion to be a bug. If you want an exact reproduction, buy one of those expensive HD upscalers to use with the original analog 240p hardware instead.

[treismac]

..., I was blown away by how beautiful the graphics were when I emulated Mario 64 for the first time at 1280x1024 and could see every single brick in Peach's Castle.

The "bricks," the "bricks," always with the bricks. ;)

[stardust4ever]

The "bricks," the "bricks," always with the bricks. ;)Yes, being able to play current gen console games on a PC in high definition was pretty mind-blowing in 1999. 3D gaming was still fairly new at the time. Nobody gives a flip in 2014 but firing up M64 in the HLE emulator for the first time 15 years ago and watching the opening sequence with the flying Likatu cam in HD was absolutely breathtaking to say the least.

[Tanooki]

Stardust got you there as it really was stunning as was wave race.

[Dire 51]

I probably do somewhere, but who knows where? From looking at the slot there appears to be enough room and I think Hyperkin has already stated that it does.
A little late coming back, but I did get a confirmation from Hyperkin a week or so ago: "To answer your question, the RetroN 5 will be able to play Japanese Mega Drive cartridges."

[Drclaw411]

A little late coming back, but I did get a confirmation from Hyperkin a week or so ago: "To answer your question, the RetroN 5 will be able to play Japanese Mega Drive cartridges."

Since it dumps roms, I'm wondering if it will fix this problem...

On the original snes, my Star Fox has some video issues. The game plays fine, but there are clear purple line blurs on the screen while it's happening. If the R5 just dumps the rom, would that eliminate this problem?

[NESter]

I have stated before the sound and video of the R5 is its best attributes. I am sure there are some RGB/HDMI mods that look really good, but this is the best I have seen some of these classics look on modern TVs. This is of course only an opinion, I am not as anal about sound as others, but from my experience and everyone here at SAG that has used it was that it looks and sounds good.

Sweet. Thanks for putting my fears to rest!


The fact that it's an emulator, the waves will be shaped properly for the most part with no glaring omissions, however sound will probably be sampled at 44100Hz or 48000Hz or some other rate, rather the NES's native 1.79Mhz digital clock pulses which are meticulously shaped into an analog waveform by resistor ladders and analog low-pass filters. This won't matter since humans cannot hear sounds above 18-20kHz and the sample rate will be adequate to reproduce the full audible range. Also, the waveforms on the original systems usually have some form of analog distortion. The squares and Rectangles aren't perfect waveforms when viewed on an oscilloscope. NES triangle waves have certain harmonics created by high frequency ripples, that may not be accurately reproduced if the the emulator waveforms are too perfect. This often means emulators can generate a cleaner sounding tone with less distortion compared to the original system. There is also no analog noise floor or AC line buzz since there are no analog circuits and everything is reproduced digitally. That's definitely the case with the official Wii VC emulators since some of the unintentional harmonics (due to high frequency distortion) and low level noise associated with the original system are missing. It is often difficult to emulate the exact analog distortion and noise patterns often associated with vintage systems. Whether a cleaner noise free sound is desirable or not is up to the gamer's personal preference, but I believe most casual users would probably prefer a cleaner sound, just as composite video or RF artifacts are undesirable on HD video displays. I know my Model 1 Genesis sounds a bit grungy (it sounds as if it's entire audio output were passed through a hard rock guitar pedal), especially through the RF connection, so I would welcome a cleaner less distorted sound than the stock Genesis console. I would imagine having cleaner A/V than the original systems in question is part of the appeal of playing them on an HD console. To sum it up, the sound and video on an HD emulator will not be identical to the original console; they will look and sound better. Personally, I don't consider the elimination of A/V noise and distortion to be a bug. If you want an exact reproduction, buy one of those expensive HD upscalers to use with the original analog 240p hardware instead.

Interesting. You seem to know an awful lot about the NES' sound hardware. Do you know of any emulators that have tried to reproduce the AC line buzz or analog noise? I don't think its something I'd ever miss, but you're right that its definitely part of the original experience.


Yes, being able to play current gen console games on a PC in high definition was pretty mind-blowing in 1999. 3D gaming was still fairly new at the time. Nobody gives a flip in 2014 but firing up M64 in the HLE emulator for the first time 15 years ago and watching the opening sequence with the flying Likatu cam in HD was absolutely breathtaking to say the least.

There were N64 emus that could even make it that far into the game without crashing in 1999? Incredible, even more so if you were able to play the whole game. 15 years on and N64 emulation is still not at the same level as NES or SNES. I just don't mess with it, because there doesn't seem to be any one emulator and plugin set that can run any commercial ROM, and that's ridiculous considering this console almost two decades old now. I can't even run Conker's BFD on my should-be-more-than-adequate PC without encountering framerate issues or missing/late texture updates.


Since it dumps roms, I'm wondering if it will fix this problem...

On the original snes, my Star Fox has some video issues. The game plays fine, but there are clear purple line blurs on the screen while it's happening. If the R5 just dumps the rom, would that eliminate this problem?

Since it's an emulator sending a high quality video signal to your TV, there shouldn't be any artifacts or screen interference that isn't already part of the game.

[stardust4ever]

@NESster: The PC I was using I had custom built in 1999. I had upgraded from 128Mb to 256Mb of RAM, but other than that it was 100% 1999 parts. 400Mhz Celeron and an AGP ATI All-In-Wonder with 16Mb of vedeo RAM. It may have been 2000 or 2001 or later when I ran the Emulator but the N64 was definitely in it's Twilight years at the time. The emulator still ran at full peed despite my outdated PC. I did not own an N64 at the time but remembered my buddies played it a lot in High School. Anyway the only ROMs I remembered getting to work on it were Mario64 and MarioKart. I don't remember the name of the EMU but it had an auto-configuration for the Adaptoid in it. Both games had a variety of graphical isses but they were playable using a real controller with the Adaptoid.

As for the NES sound, I don't know how close the Retron5 will be to the original. As long as the rectangles, triangles, and other channels are proportional and play at the correct pitch and volume, I'm good. The analog noise floor is something no emulator emulates correctly, but it's only noticable during silent moments with the volume turned up on the original NES. Wii's Virtual Console omits the high frequency ripples in the NES triangle waves but most other emulators I've used reproduce this effect to varying degrees. Even stock the NES sound was surprizing clean for an 8-bit console, definitely less noisy than the gut-wrenching aidio/visual from the TIA chip on the Atari 2600/7800, and NES is even clearer sound than the Sega Genesis Model 1 (Genesis model 1 gets the cleanest sound output from the 1/8" minijack set to volume 5 and outputted directly to a HiFi sound system - the DIN jack mono A/V and RF sound is somewhat distorted with the RF being the worse of the two). I actually prefer the raw chip synths of the Genesis over MIDI synths of the SNES but it depends on the musical style. SNES is far better for orchestral sound but that is another topic completely. 1st party games seemed to bring out the best out of the soundchips of both 16-bit systems. Zelda, SMRPG, Yoshi's Island, as well all the Sonics have some of the best music IMO on their respective 16-bit platforms.

Another issue I'd like to bring up regarding video is that many games had graphical artifacts native to their own hardware. I remember when SMB3 came out on Virtual Console people complained the game had buggy graphical artifacts on the edge of the screen which did not appear back in the day on their original hardware. Fact is, it did but overscan covered it up. SMB3 featured diagonal scrolling despite the fact the NES was only designed with horizontal or vertical scrolling in mind, not both. Every screen is mirrored either horizontally or vertically in the PPU RAM and a vertical offset is specified every frame while a horizontal offset can be specified every scanline. This was used in some advanced games for faux parallax scrolling effects, but in SMB3 levels where the stage was taller than one screen and permitted diagonal scrolling, a single tile of BGM graphics would wrap around between the right and left hand edges of the screen causing between 1-7 pixels of sprite tearing on the far left edge. Vintage CRTs typically hid the artifacts in their overscan regions, so the artifacts were output by the NES hardware but not displayed on most screens. Modern HDTVs display these edge artifacts in Wii VC emulator and will also display them the Retron5. Once again casual gamers and people who don't know any better are gonna gripe about these graphical glitches/artifacts in the games when played back on the Wii VC or the Retron5, despite the fact they have always been there, even on original hardware. Just like on a real N64, you can see through the walls when the cam gets stuck behind them, an emulator will do the same thing. Any game that truly pushed beyond the boundaries of any hardware platform is going to have some sort of artifacts or frame rate or other limitations. If an emulator reflects this it is not bad or glitchy emulation, but accurate emulation. Any emulators that attempt to patch up these native artifacts in a particular game are only gonna break something in a different game. And I certainly hope we are beyond the dark ages of inaccurate emulators, which rather than attempt to improve overall accuracy, would routinely release game specific patches to get problem games to work. That's so 1990s... Anyone actually still use Nesticle or UltraHLE? Didn't think so! :p

[Tanooki]

UltraHLE came out in 1999 and it was mind blowing out of nowhere at the time. I was on IRC at the time neck deep into the whole emulation thing on the NES more than I'd want to admit with things, and when it dropped people flipped out. People split into two camps of warez that shit, and the others who would ban people on sight for asking for N64 games (which is ultimately what happened for a good stretch) as it was straight up warez and Nintendo was and always have been dicks about piracy. The unique thing with this is that it's a high level emulation program, it doesn't shoot for accuracy in the least bit and uses any cheat in the book to halfassedly get things going at amazing speeds on hardware that should just suck hard with it and in general not function at all. In that year I was rolling with a Celeron 466 machine with not that much ram and a middle of the road video card and I could play Mario, Wave Race, Zelda, Bomberman and some others in high resolution (640x480) visuals and the audio was pretty damn stable and sounding right too.

It's a cheat though when you go that way you throw a lot under the bus with assumptions on how stuff works and you throw variables at the wall and see what sticks or not on what functions. It only had that one release yet a community popped up that kept updating the initialization files for it as it allowed more and more games that didn't work in the stock release to work and in some cases be fully playable.

You can read up on the technical info of it at the original emulators release site which is amazingly still online.
http://www.emuunlim.com/UltraHLE/main.htm

[Zap!]

So what's the word? I haven't posted here in over a week, so I'm a little behind. Is there any word of an official release date, since we're so close to April now?

[stardust4ever]

UltraHLE came out in 1999 and it was mind blowing out of nowhere at the time.Yep, that's probably what I had. My top of the line ATI video card was no doubt what allowed me to play it at 1280x1024 without slowing to a crawl.

January 29th 1999

Epsilon and RealityMan proudly bring to you what will no
doubt be one of the emulation releases of 1999....

UltraHLE - The worlds first Nintendo 64 Emulator
with support for real commercial games.

The goal of UltraHLE is not to run as many titles as possible.
It is to run the best titles as well as possible. Now you can
play some of the biggest titles released for the Nintendo 64.....

...... Super Mario 64 ......
...... Mario Kart ......
...... Zelda: Ocarina of Time ......
...... and many more ......

Check the Compatibility List for your favorite title and also take
a look at the download page for system requirements.

UltraHLE makes full use of Glide enabled graphics card to
give you smooth, clear and sharp graphics and with a minimum
requirement of a Pentium II running at 233Mhz with 32 Mb Ram,
many of you will be able to enjoy using this emulator.

And when we say smooth, we mean it. On a Pentium II 350Mhz
you can get _30fps_ in Super Mario and Mario Kart most of the
time, even when sound is disabled.

Now, thats realtime performance......Sounds about right for 1999, the year I graduated high school and moved off to college! :evil laugh:

[stardust4ever]

So what's the word? I haven't posted here in over a week, so I'm a little behind. Is there any word of an official release date, since we're so close to April now?Back on topic, I heard some ranting online that there was another delay, but here's hoping that it's just disgruntled fanboys blowing smoke outta their butts.:onfire:

I'm not cancelling my preorder with Stone Age Game anytime soon (especially since I redeemed a fat coupon code), but as the old saying goes, "Third strike you're out!" If Hyperkin delays this again, they've really "screwed the pooch" with a lot of gamers, so to speak.

[Tupin]

Pretty much my reaction to this, replace "OP" with "Hyperkin:"

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1393/02/1393029125877.png

That said, I will buy one of these ASAP.

[NESter]

Yep, that's probably what I had. My top of the line ATI video card was no doubt what allowed me to play it at 1280x1024 without slowing to a crawl.
Sounds about right for 1999, the year I graduated high school and moved off to college! :evil laugh:


UltraHLE came out in 1999 and it was mind blowing out of nowhere at the time. I was on IRC at the time neck deep into the whole emulation thing on the NES more than I'd want to admit with things, and when it dropped people flipped out. People split into two camps of warez that shit, and the others who would ban people on sight for asking for N64 games (which is ultimately what happened for a good stretch) as it was straight up warez and Nintendo was and always have been dicks about piracy. The unique thing with this is that it's a high level emulation program, it doesn't shoot for accuracy in the least bit and uses any cheat in the book to halfassedly get things going at amazing speeds on hardware that should just suck hard with it and in general not function at all. In that year I was rolling with a Celeron 466 machine with not that much ram and a middle of the road video card and I could play Mario, Wave Race, Zelda, Bomberman and some others in high resolution (640x480) visuals and the audio was pretty damn stable and sounding right too.

It's a cheat though when you go that way you throw a lot under the bus with assumptions on how stuff works and you throw variables at the wall and see what sticks or not on what functions. It only had that one release yet a community popped up that kept updating the initialization files for it as it allowed more and more games that didn't work in the stock release to work and in some cases be fully playable.

You can read up on the technical info of it at the original emulators release site which is amazingly still online.
http://www.emuunlim.com/UltraHLE/main.htm

You guys are really blowing my mind with all of this. I remember struggling with all
the alleged N64 emulators that we're floating around the web in 97, and early 98, which was probably before I had a real N64, and I couldn't get Super
Mario 64.v64 to boot no matter what. Since 64 emulation is still far from perfect, I assumed all these years that the most popular games weren't playable till sometime in the early 2000s, or that at least you'd have needed a superpowered PC to play Ocarina of Time. In 1999 emulators like Genecyst and ZSNES were still impressive, so Ultra HLE must have been mind-blowing indeed!


That's so 1990s... Anyone actually still use Nesticle or UltraHLE? Didn't think so! :p

I don't remember Bloodlust releasing patches for specific games, but I think the team behind Dolphin does that. At least, certain revisions seem to work better with certain Wii games than others.

Actually, I'd kill for Sardu (or whoever) to release a new version of Nesticle. :)
It'd probably have to be recoded from the ground up, but it was always the most emulator to use because of its "view graphics table"
function. You could actually edit the graphics mid-gameplay and save to the ROM
(assuming there was a VROM for the emu to write to)! Sardu was a genius.

[stardust4ever]

You guys are really blowing my mind with all of this. I remember struggling with all
the alleged N64 emulators that we're floating around the web in 97, and early 98, which was probably before I had a real N64, and I couldn't get Super
Mario 64.v64 to boot no matter what. Since 64 emulation is still far from perfect, I assumed all these years that the most popular games weren't playable till sometime in the early 2000s, or that at least you'd have needed a superpowered PC to play Ocarina of Time. In 1999 emulators like Genecyst and ZSNES were still impressive, so Ultra HLE must have been mind-blowing indeed!Irregardless of what anybody thinks about the N64 low resolution polygons and textures, they still look good in HD, even today...

If the alluded N64 announcement by Hyperkin has anything to do with a Retron5 add-on, I will be one happy camper! :cool:

Hyperkin, if you're reading this, here's some inspiration for you:
http://www.stoneagegamer.com/images/detailed/16/Retrode-N64-plugin.jpg


I don't remember Bloodlust releasing patches for specific games, but I think the team behind Dolphin does that. At least, certain revisions seem to work better with certain Wii games than others.

Actually, I'd kill for Sardu (or whoever) to release a new version of Nesticle. :)
It'd probably have to be recoded from the ground up, but it was always the most emulator to use because of its "view graphics table"
function. You could actually edit the graphics mid-gameplay and save to the ROM
(assuming there was a VROM for the emu to write to)! Sardu was a genius.Ah, yes, some of the earliest ROM hacking was done with Nesticle. I remember DOS-based Genecyst and ZSNES too. They'd probably still run under DOXbox in Windows 8. What's funny was one particular version of the Genecyst EXE was exactly 666,666 bytes, and the cursor had blood dripping off it.

[Niku-Sama]

zsnes was my fave, they made a windows version but I never liked it much, dos version was so much better

[NESter]

Irregardless of what anybody thinks about the N64 low resolution polygons and textures, they still look good in HD, even today...

If the alluded N64 announcement by Hyperkin has anything to do with a Retron5 add-on, I will be one happy camper!

If Hyperkin is smart, they'll have included an expansion port somewhere on the system. :)


Ah yes, some of the earliest ROM hacking was done with Nesticle. I remember DOS-based Genecyst and ZSNES too. They'd probably still run under DOXbox in Windows 8. What's funny was one particular version of the Genecyst EXE was exactly 666,666 bytes, and the cursor had blood dripping off it.

666,666 bytes? LOL I'm sure that was intentional on Bloodlust's part. And yeah, most early ROM hacking was done with Nesticle. Programs like Tile Layer Pro were useful if you needed to copy a sprite and paste it somewhere else, and later apps that let you import your own NES-friendly graphics into the game were definitely cool, but in
my mind NES ROM hacking never got easier and more instantly gratifying than with Nesticle.

Instead of being forced to face this

http://i.imgur.com/WqY83Dt.jpg

and either re-arrange it, or edit it by trial and error, guessing blindly which parts of the logo you were working on, you could easily locate whichever tile needed editing in Nesticle simply by poking "holes" in them one by one until something on the screen changed. Any tile set could be edited as long as it was currently in memory, and although it was still a trial and error process, it was far less time consuming, particularly in games with complex, disorganized graphics tables. The only weaknesses were the game you wanted to hack had to have a VROM, and you couldn't copy and paste tile data. The latter is something that would definitely be needed if anyone ever decided to integrate CHR editing in an emulator.

Man, now I'm feeling nostalgic for all the funny and weird ROM hacks we used to play in the old days of the NES scene. Stuff like Atario Bros., and the Carnage series. Anyone else think back fondly on those days, or were a part of that scene?



zsnes was my fave, they made a windows version but I never liked it much, dos version was so much better

Yeah, not only was the DOS version of ZSNES cooler looking, it's still more stable too. As a whole I find old DOS programs are incredibly stable. Even in DOSBox I don't think I can remember ever having a program crash on me.

[Tanooki]

Actually, I'd kill for Sardu (or whoever) to release a new version of Nesticle. :)
It'd probably have to be recoded from the ground up, but it was always the most emulator to use because of its "view graphics table"
function. You could actually edit the graphics mid-gameplay and save to the ROM
(assuming there was a VROM for the emu to write to)! Sardu was a genius.

Believe it or not he's kind of a really horrible person, or at least was back in the 00s. Around the time he quit working on that immaturely themed emulator he got hired by Electronic Arts and worked on a few projects. I was around him at an E3 early in that decade in the Nintendo booth and that guy is one walking egomaniac and not all that bright either. He can code sure, but it was discovered back in the 90s that he didn't actually code the emulator but stole the code from another pay emulator and then tweaked it and threw his lame front end on it to take credit for the work. Once he got found out by hackers/coders looking over the program he got super butthurt over it, went into denial mode and closed up shop. The guy who stole from Marat invented iNES and the .NES format and that wouldn't surprise me if it were still supported since he can get a few bucks off it if he's lucky.

[NESter]

Believe it or not he's kind of a really horrible person, or at least was back in the 00s.

I can believe that. As much I loved Genecyst and Nesticle, even as as teenager I thought that only an immature person could come up with names like "Nesticle" and "Genecyst" for their emulators, and have a company mascot (shown in the "About" screen in certain releases of Nesticle) called "Shitman". :roll:


Around the time he quit working on that immaturely themed emulator he got hired by Electronic Arts and worked on a few projects. I was around him at an E3 early in that decade in the Nintendo booth and that guy is one walking egomaniac and not all that bright either. He can code sure, but it was discovered back in the 90s that he didn't actually code the emulator but stole the code from another pay emulator and then tweaked it and threw his lame front end on it to take credit for the work. Once he got found out by hackers/coders looking over the program he got super butthurt over it, went into denial mode and closed up shop. The guy who stole from Marat invented iNES and the .NES format and that wouldn't surprise me if it were still supported since he can get a few bucks off it if he's lucky.

I don't know...he may be an a-hole but of all the things to hold against Sardu, I don't think stealing from Marat Fayzullin should be one of them. True that the guy invented the NES format, but 1) he was charging people to use his emulator at a time when the legality of such an action was a very gray area. In fact, the makers of Bleem! were forced to discontinue their product just a few years later, so isn't Marat lucky to have made any money from all his work instead of being sued or issued a Cease and Desist by Nintendo? 2) ....someone was bound to steal from him eventually. Nesticle really popularized NES emulation and made it accessible to your average person who couldn't afford to give Marat $40 just to see if they could run Zelda II on their PC. I don't mean to sound ungrateful or to understate his contributions to NES emulation; he and the Japanese guy behind Pasofami really are the ones that started it all. But I'm glad Sardu brought NES emulation to the masses, even if he did steal some code from Marat. And I don't know how much of it could have been Marat's because, for one thing, IIRC Nesticle was being updated much more regularly than iNES, with compatibility issues being fixed with every new release, and also, I think the release of Genecyst showed that Sardu could definitely code an emulator from scratch (were there any Genesis emulators before his? I could be wrong, but I think he was first).

EDIT: And, according to Zophar of Zophar's Domain, that's not how it went down at all. (http://patpend.net/articles/zd/article2.html) Nesticle was accused of being an iNES rip-off, but read the article if you want to know what is more likely to be the true story of why Nesticle was discontinued. I mean, if you can't trust the guy who founded the premiere emu site to give it to you straight, who can you? ;) At least, I don't know what Zophar would gain by not honestly reporting the details of what happened between Mindrape and Sardu.

[stardust4ever]

^^Nice backstory Nester! :D Yeah emulation has always been gray area, but outside of officially sanctioned emulation (Wii Virtual Console for instance), charging for an emulator to play pirated (or homebrew) ROMs just seems like a dick move, espevially during a time period when legal homebrew or PD ROMs were non-existant. I stil need to read up on the history of the iNES format a bit. Sure it's outdated and has a few quirks, but it works and there are still a few unallocated mappers available for future use. A number of people tried to push the Unif or whatever it was called format which used board descriptions instead of headers and had other additional features that iNES did not support, but all hope for a more unified format appears to have died out. It would also have been much more difficult to support on flash carts due to the variable header size. At any rate I believe iNES is here to stay for some time yet. And I wasn't trying to diss Nesticle but it does serve an important place in history for better or worse.

Homebrews, hacks, repros, ect, and even the Upcoming Retron5 would have been impossible without software like Nesticle laying the groundwork for future retro development. Cheers... :cheers:

[Tanooki]

NESter I'm not holding it against Sardu -- it was factually proven that he took an older version of iNES at the time where the source was leaked online (ie: stolen) and then used it to copycat all that into Nesticle. From there he added his crappy front end with all the immature potty humor to it, added his other little filters and tweaks and pretended it was his. Once he got caught, the whining went into overdrive trying to deny it and when backed into a corner, he quit.

So yes, he's a thieving asshole.

Marat charging for iNES sucked, I won't argue that, but I will argue that it was legal. The nerd if anything knew his processors and coded for stuff so he created that entirely on his own. Emulators aren't illegal unless you use stolen documentation from whatever you're emulating to create it. If you legally reverse engineer it, you're fine, and that's what he did so he had every right to charge for it as a 'tool' which is what it was. bleem! got busted as they were using Sony tech in there and they found out and ate them alive over it, later the company slightly revive itself on the Dreamcast with a couple of single PS1 game running emulator on a disc releases (boot bleem, then pop in PS1 game) but at that point they did their own stuff so it was fine but no one cared so it failed anyway. Sardu did bring more NES emulation to the masses as his stolen code was popped over into DOS mode and he cleaned up Marat's shitty audio core so he had a solid emulator for DOS that ran fast, but it was theft in the end and he got what he had coming. The core of the original releases of Nesticle were just iNES with a coat of paint over it, the reason why nesticle kept releasing was that he stole the source, got it up and running, ironed out some bugs and then started tweaking as he learned things going forward off Marats work. It's kind of like the bleem thing I noted, he stole other peoples work to get a start, but then did his own thing after but in the end once caught few cared anymore and moved elsewhere and he just closed up and quit (like bleem!)

I know of Zophar's Domain, I used to know Zophar who doesn't even run it anymore and worked with his biggest competitor Dave of Dave's Video Gaming Classics at the time (which was the #1 site in size/hits to ZD which was #2). Him and Sardu were online buddies so I take that story with a grain of salt. Long ago in those circles I went by VmprHntrD on irc efnet in #emu. Members of that area were pretty pissed at that guy and went about crushing the guy publicly embarrassing him over the theft despite no one in there liking Marat or his pay emulation tactics (as many would steal it, then distribute it when it got updated -- hypocrisy is fun isn't it?) I guess the difference is Marat was a dick up front, Sardu lied and continued to until he got hung out to dry then ran for it. Zophar is actually lying with truths mixed in to defend his friend on his public forum he had there on that site and he didn't get along with MindRape, which I knew and considered an online associate at the time in the 90s. He was right MindRape didn't like Sardu, but it was entirely about embarrassing someone he hated and when he found out the dude was a thief so he got pleasure out of making an ass out of him about the stolen code. I got into emulation in late 1995, eventually was one of the ops for #emu for a good many years as well as partnered up with some release groups among other things and even if you check gamefaqs you'll find under that nick I have the .NES header format doc up there too in the NES system faq section.

[stardust4ever]

I know of Zophar's Domain, I used to know Zophar who doesn't even run it anymore... I guess that explains why the resources on the website haven't been updated in years.:sob:

As for Nesticle, :deadhorse:

[Drclaw411]

Power Base Mini is back in stock at Stone Age Gamer

[stardust4ever]

Power Base Mini is back in stock at Stone Age GamerWhich is great news, but mine is currently bundled with me Retron5 preorder, so I have the option to wait or by a spare and attempt to resell it later. I'll prolly just wait... :p

[Zap!]

So they've released a pic of the box, but no release day, despite April being four days away...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t31.0-8/q82/s720x720/1622332_658489147519518_474542589_o.jpg

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I suspect it will be released towards the end of the month or the beginning of May. Same with Retro-Bit's Super Retro Trio.

[c0ldb33r]

God almighty those controllers look terrible :(

[stardust4ever]

So they've released a pic of the box, but no release day, despite April being four days away...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t31.0-8/q82/s720x720/1622332_658489147519518_474542589_o.jpg
What gives? I thought I was getting a gray console with purple trim (like the SNES, sort of). Is it me or does the console on the box look a bit too white?

[StoneAgeGamer]

God almighty those controllers look terrible :(

The controllers are not terrible, they are actually pretty good, but that's just my opinion. For most casual players my guess is that they will work just fine. Sure plenty of people won't like them just because they are different, but after playing with them for awhile you get used to the differences. I could play most games just as good on the wireless controller as a could with original controllers.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

God almighty those controllers look terrible :(

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130218085354/mlp/images/0/02/Here_we_go_again.jpg

[c0ldb33r]

The controllers are not terrible, they are actually pretty good, but that's just my opinion. For most casual players my guess is that they will work just fine. Sure plenty of people won't like them just because they are different, but after playing with them for awhile you get used to the differences. I could play most games just as good on the wireless controller as a could with original controllers.
Fair enough. I should have been more clear with my answer.

I should have said that they look like they'd be terrible. If they're actually good, then I'm very happy to hear that. I like the idea of not having to keep switching out the original controllers when I want to change systems.

I searched the thread and didn't see the answer, and searched google and didn't see an answer.

Will this puppy work with everdrive/powerpak?

I'm hoping for a retron 6 that includes PC Engine support :D

[BlastProcessing402]

I searched the thread and didn't see the answer, and searched google and didn't see an answer.

Will this puppy work with everdrive/powerpak?


Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe not, as this is not a system on a chip or clone hardware or anything of that sort but rather playing games by emulator. It's not playing directly off the carts but dumping them into memory first, so if anything you'd probably just see the the flash cart's menus, if that much, and never be able to load a game.

[Tanooki]

Stock they shouldn't work. Hyperkin is emulating and it will support any legitimate 'period' game but they will take submissions from homebrew makers and the sort to have their stuff supported. I'm not sure they ever said if they'd allow them or not, but I'd think not since there's a clear piracy angle going on there with it. Crudely put Retron5 acts like a common NES emulator using the iNES header format to see what it needs to do to fire up the game properly and everdrives don't have headers, they're empty shells basically set up to boot other peoples stuff. I know bunny said his powerpak wouldn't work and I doubt he'd want it or any of his custom retrozone stuff going since he's got that hdmi nes to sell whenever it pops up.

[Drclaw411]

Stock they shouldn't work. Hyperkin is emulating and it will support any legitimate 'period' game but they will take submissions from homebrew makers and the sort to have their stuff supported. I'm not sure they ever said if they'd allow them or not, but I'd think not since there's a clear piracy angle going on there with it. Crudely put Retron5 acts like a common NES emulator using the iNES header format to see what it needs to do to fire up the game properly and everdrives don't have headers, they're empty shells basically set up to boot other peoples stuff. I know bunny said his powerpak wouldn't work and I doubt he'd want it or any of his custom retrozone stuff going since he's got that hdmi nes to sell whenever it pops up.

Not sure where the submission thing is coming from. I'm fairly positive that I've read from people who are beta testing the system that most homebrews and hacks have been working, although not 100% of them.

[treismac]

Not sure where the submission thing is coming from. I'm fairly positive that I've read from people who are beta testing the system that most homebrews and hacks have been working, although not 100% of them.

Hmmm... Is there a legitimate source for this submission process talk that is bouncing across NA and DP?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Will this puppy work with everdrive/powerpak?

Its currently unknown. Hyperkin hasn't said one way or the other. If nobody else reports on flashcart compatibility before I get my review system, I'll let you guys know how the RetroN5 reacts to flashcarts.


It's not playing directly off the carts but dumping them into memory first, so if anything you'd probably just see the the flash cart's menus, if that much, and never be able to load a game.

This is what is speculated, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's what the results will be. Until either Hyperkin officially makes an announcement or I [or another retro game reviewer] runs the system through a stress test, this speculation is just that - speculation.


While I personally feel the RetroN5 probably won't support flashcarts (at least, not until hackers unleash that potential in the very hackable android framework), I think its important to separate speculation and inferring based on snippets from actual facts.

[stardust4ever]

I'm curious as to how the Retron5 is supposed to run SNES SA-1 games (SMRPG, Kirby Super Star, DreamLand 3) and Sega Virtua processor (Virtua Racing). Those games are notoriously difficult to dump yet Hyperkin claims they work. While we are at it, anybody own VR7 Lagrange Point for Famicom? Somehow I doubt that one works either. Also I'd love to see someone cram an original NWC in there, LOL that's one beastly mapper...

[Atarileaf]

I have a question that could probably only be answered by someone who's had hands on experience with both systems but I bought an Ouya recently and am loving it for emulation, in fact it emulates MORE systems than the Retron 5 but my question is - if someone already has an ouya is the retron 5 still worth getting and if so, why? I honestly want to know because even though I have an ouya, I haven't ruled out the retron 5 but wanted to make sure there's a compelling reason to do so.By my username you can tell I'm a huge atari fan so being able to emulate my 2600 collection at 1080p without dragging the system and all those games in the living room is a huge plus for me and unfortunately it's not a system the retron emulates.ON ANOTHER SUBJECT, WHY IS THE MESSAGEBOARD MESSING UP MY PARAGRAPH BREAKS AND JAMMING EVERYTHING TOGETHER?

[Leo_A]

The software has been doing some odd things for the past day for me as well. [Edit: I see my paragraphs are intact, but I got two errors after hitting post just now]

I suppose the big advantage over the Ouya are the native controller ports. Unless you buy adapters that may or may not be available, you can't use original controllers on the Ouya. On the Retron 5, you have three pairs of original controller ports by default at no extra expense and with no setup or compatibility hassles.

In practical terms, I can't think of much else the Retron 5 has going for it over the Ouya. But the rumored addition of N64 support in next year's model would be an advantage since judging by Satoshi's video on YouTube, N64 Ouya emulation is in its infancy. If playing N64 titles appeals to you (Which after watching you on YouTube and reading your post for years would kind of surprise me), a future Retron 6 might be a better proposition come late this year or 2015 if done well and if homebrewers don't make strides in that area on the Ouya before then.

[StoneAgeGamer]

I'm curious as to how the Retron5 is supposed to run SNES SA-1 games (SMRPG, Kirby Super Star, DreamLand 3) and Sega Virtua processor (Virtua Racing). Those games are notoriously difficult to dump yet Hyperkin claims they work. While we are at it, anybody own VR7 Lagrange Point for Famicom? Somehow I doubt that one works either. Also I'd love to see someone cram an original NWC in there, LOL that's one beastly mapper...

Not sure about SA-1, but I would assume they work, haven't tried them. As for the SVP, yes it does work. Apparently Hyperkin had to make a special hardware and software change just to get Virtua Racing to work, but it should work on the release system.

[stardust4ever]

I have a question that could probably only be answered by someone who's had hands on experience with both systems but I bought an Ouya recently and am loving it for emulation, in fact it emulates MORE systems than the Retron 5 but my question is - if someone already has an ouya is the retron 5 still worth getting and if so, why? I honestly want to know because even though I have an ouya, I haven't ruled out the retron 5 but wanted to make sure there's a compelling reason to do so.By my username you can tell I'm a huge atari fan so being able to emulate my 2600 collection at 1080p without dragging the system and all those games in the living room is a huge plus for me and unfortunately it's not a system the retron emulates.ON ANOTHER SUBJECT, WHY IS THE MESSAGEBOARD MESSING UP MY PARAGRAPH BREAKS AND JAMMING EVERYTHING TOGETHER?IMHO, messing with ROMs can be a PITA, but others will invariably pipe in and say the same about getting 30yr old carts to work.

Honestly, I've primarily been using my Ouya as intented, to play indie games. I did download all the emulators initially, but never really used them as I couldn't be arsed into loading ROMs on it due to the fugly process of connecting it to PC prior to the mass storage update. Another thing to point out, sadly, is that Ouya's mass storage driver update last fall broke compatability with the Retrode. Before, emulators had to supply their own mass storage drivers to work with USB, but when Ouya updated their OS to support mass storage, they included support for NTFS and FAT32 but supidly forgot to add FAT16. The Retrode uses FAT so when plugged in, Ouya throws an error saying "Unsupported Device" and disables it. Now even the joypad ports on Retrode cannot be used anymore. I recently aquired a Retrode + N64 plugin and was a little bummed out it doesn't work on Ouya anymore like it did in the YT videos. All those vids on Youtube showing Ouya happily running with a Retrode, game cart, and joypad plugged in? Those were posted in June of 2013 BEFORE the fall mass storage driver update. Retrode compatability issues aside, Ouya is an excellent emulation console, and the USB storage update makes it eaier than ever to load ROMs on it. That said, as someone who has a nice assortment of retro consoles, I prefer playing the original carts. So I use the Ouya for playing indie games and original hardware for retro games.

My consoles aren't getting any younger, so I'm really looking forward to using the Retron5 to reduce the amount of clutter and reduce wear and tear on my original systems. With Retron5, I don't have to unpack my Famicom, NES, SNES Genesis, whatever and put it up afterwords every time I want to play a cart from another system. As for homebrew/repro/whatever compatability, I still have old faithful when I need it. Retron5 will complement, not replace my old game consoles. Also there are options like controller remapping, save backup (back up your savegame to the Retron5 before replcing the battery), built in cheats system where you don't have to use Google to look up the codes for your favorite game, save states, screenshot capture (though I'm still a little peeved they used lossy Jpeg instead of PNG), crisp HD display with loads of options, etc...

While both Retron5 and Ouya are $99 game consoles for budget minded consumers, the simularities end there. Retron5 supports carts only and cannot load ROMs (unless someone later hacks the firmware, which I believe has a good possibility of occuring down the road), and Ouya cannot load cartridges, however it does allow people to download ROMs as well as modern games. The two consoles are mutually exclusive in what they are capable of and I think it's safe to say that if you are trying to decide to choose one console, you will miss out on most of what the other has to offer.

[Atarileaf]

If playing N64 titles appeals to you (Which after watching you on YouTube and reading your post for years would kind of surprise me), a future Retron 6 might be a better proposition come late this year or 2015 if done well and if homebrewers don't make strides in that area on the Ouya before then.I have Robotron 64 :DBut you're right, I'm not a huge N64 fan. I did notice the N64 emulator on ouya chug a little big with goldeneye, just as a trial. Might have been a bad rom though. Otherwise the ouya has run everything I've thrown at it. No atari 7800 emulator yet, tried side-loading one but it's not ready for prime time. Thanks for the reply :)PS - Ouya is also awesome as an XBMC box

[Leo_A]

I actually believe I've seen you mention that one before, so my mistake. :)

Fine underrated game, wish more of those late 90's remakes of classic arcade games were as well done as that.

[NESter]

So the Ouya kinda sucks at N64 emulation then? I was sort of thinking about getting one just for that purpose.

[Zap!]

I hope I don't come across as an jerk for asking this again, but why is there no date yet with April (the company's release date for months) two days away? I am sorry for being that guy, but I really don't think it's an unreasonable question, especially since I pre-ordered. Hell, even if they say April 30th, that's fine. But for Heaven's sake, say something.

[Leo_A]

So the Ouya kinda sucks at N64 emulation then? I was sort of thinking about getting one just for that purpose.

My impression is that it's hit or miss with a lot of potential. Hopefully they capitalize on that unlike what I understand the situation was with Wii64 for the Wii's Homebrew Channel where after a promising start, the authors stopped short of the finish line and left people with an intriguing might've been instead of a truly useful program.

Unless some recent developments have occurred, I think you'd be making a mistake at this time.

[treismac]

No atari 7800 emulator [on the Ouya] yet, tried side-loading one but it's not ready for prime time.

This really, really needs to be fixed. For what it's worth, right now when I have to feed my 7800 emulation fix I use Wii7800 on Wiibrew, which does a fine job.

[T2KFreeker]

So the Ouya kinda sucks at N64 emulation then? I was sort of thinking about getting one just for that purpose.


Uhm, no. The emulator still needs work though. It's like any other emulation program when it first starts out, it works, but needs to have the kinks worked out.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I'm curious as to how the Retron5 is supposed to run SNES SA-1 games (SMRPG, Kirby Super Star, DreamLand 3) and Sega Virtua processor (Virtua Racing). Those games are notoriously difficult to dump yet Hyperkin claims they work. While we are at it, anybody own VR7 Lagrange Point for Famicom?

I've got it. I'll test all the chips you spoke of when I get mine.



I have a question that could probably only be answered by someone who's had hands on experience with both systems but I bought an Ouya recently and am loving it for emulation, in fact it emulates MORE systems than the Retron 5 but my question is - if someone already has an ouya is the retron 5 still worth getting and if so, why? I honestly want to know because even though I have an ouya, I haven't ruled out the retron 5 but wanted to make sure there's a compelling reason to do so.


Practical reasons? If you already have an Ouya, there is no practical reason to buy the Retron5. As you said, the Ouya does far, far more than the Retron5 ever will. (don't forget, in addition to all the emulators it has over the Retron5, it also has 800+ games developed for the Ouya, plus multimedia apps)

So then it comes down to your attachment to physical media, and the size of your collection. Though unconfirmed, it is speculated that the RetroN5 will not work with flash carts, and as a result will only be useful to people with a sizable collection of original cartridges. If that's you, and you find yourself wanting to insert your cartridge rather than booting a rom, then and only then is there a reason to have the RetroN5.

I'm buying one because I do have a sizable collection, but also because I'm curious about it. It's very possible that after my review, I'm going to sell off a good number of my physical carts like EarthBound. My actual attachment to the physical cartridges of my childhood just isn't what it once was.




I suppose the big advantage over the Ouya are the native controller ports. Unless you buy adapters that may or may not be available, you can't use original controllers on the Ouya. On the Retron 5, you have three pairs of original controller ports by default at no extra expense and with no setup or compatibility hassles.

While it's true the Ouya doesn't have native support for retro game controllers like the RetroN5, that's a very minor thing to fix. The Ouya is crazy open source, so you can literally use any USB controller for PC/360/PS3 or controller adapter you want. Most often, I use a $15 SNES to USB adapter to use a real SNES controller with the various emulators.

You could get a series of adapters to use whatever you want on USB. They make adapters for pretty much everything, even Vectrex controllers. Or you could just use a PS3 controller, or the original Ouya pad. Neither are really bad choices.





In practical terms, I can't think of much else the Retron 5 has going for it over the Ouya. But the rumored addition of N64 support in next year's model would be an advantage since judging by Satoshi's video on YouTube, N64 Ouya emulation is its infancy. If playing N64 titles appeals to you (Which after watching you on YouTube and reading your post for years would kind of surprise me), a future Retron 6 might be a better proposition come late this year or 2015 if done well and if homebrewers don't make strides in that area on the Ouya before then.

The N64 emulation on Ouya has improved since I last made videos on it. PS1 emulation as well. There's even a beta Dreamcast emulator for Ouya now. The thing about N64 emulation is that it differs depending on the game you want to play. Some games that were completely unplayable a few months ago have done a 180 and are now fully playable and better than on the real hardware, such as the almighty Doom 64. Other games are buggy, while others still play just fine. I'm sure that a year from now the N64 emulation will be much, much better. The thing to keep in mind about the Ouya is that none of the emulators are static. They all have periodic upgdates. For example, the MegaDrive emulation recently got upgraded for analog stick sensitivity adjustment for After Burner which actually used an analog stick on the real MegaDrive hardware.



So the Ouya kinda sucks at N64 emulation then? I was sort of thinking about getting one just for that purpose.
It depends on what you want to run. Some games run perfect, some are okay with some glitches, some are unplayable. I wouldn't recommend buying an Ouya solely to play N64 emulation. There's so much more it can do and far better, from a bunch of free awesome retro inspired games to multimedia apps to some paid but totally awesome games, and then of course the emulators. i think the Ouya is a pretty awesome little box, and certainly much more established than any of the other microconsoles out there. The rumored Tegra 4 Ouya will probably be able to handle N64 emulation better, but don't count out the current Ouya just yet. Development is constant on that thing.



I hope I don't come across as an jerk for asking this again, but why is there no date yet with April (the company's release date for months) two days away? I am sorry for being that guy, but I really don't think it's an unreasonable question, especially since I pre-ordered. Hell, even if they say April 30th, that's fine. But for Heaven's sake, say something.

It's fucking Hyperkin. They're a tiny company first and foremost, and a lot of the time they do they don't seem to have any idea what they're doing. I would suggest following their facebook page. That seems to be where they post info.



This really, really needs to be fixed. For what it's worth, right now when I have to feed my 7800 emulation fix I use Wii7800 on Wiibrew, which does a fine job.

Oh, I guess I never noticed. I'm sure one will crop up eventually, but the 7800 community is tiny. Are you sure 7800 support isn't in RetroArch?