RetroN5: Hands on first look

[Little Miss Gloom]

Well -- that's my point. If the GBA is going to be hooked into the system, the system may as well be charging it. If I'm using the GBA, I may as well be playing the game on its native screen.

[leatherrebel5150]

I have I questioned that has not been addressed, or at least I have not seen it. I see that the Retron 5 can move a save file to and from the cart so you can save your game. But many games from back in the day had specific save points, such as using the phone in Earthbound in order to save. If I use a savestate will it load that file to the game so that in theory I could take the cart to my SNES and start my Earthbound file in the middle of a cave rather than at the phone booth?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I have I questioned that has not been addressed, or at least I have not seen it. I see that the Retron 5 can move a save file to and from the cart so you can save your game. But many games from back in the day had specific save points, such as using the phone in Earthbound in order to save. If I use a savestate will it load that file to the game so that in theory I could take the cart to my SNES and start my Earthbound file in the middle of a cave rather than at the phone booth?

You're asking several questions in one. I don't know any definitive answers for all of them, but I can sort out some of them.

First, you're confusing savestates with sram.

Savestates are instantaneous snapshots that can be created at any point the user desires. Savestates will resume you exactly where you made the save, and can be made at any point of any game. The timer will be where it was when you made the save, hell, even the exact note of the background music will be the same when you resume. Savestates are something emulators and special devices offer. They're not normally a feature in any game, especially not retro ones.

On the other hand, SRAM saves are your traditional saves that were made to save files on the cartridge itself. This is the kind of thing that occurs when you find a specific save file, like a phone in EarthBound.

Hyperkin has said the RetroN5 will automatically pluck the SRAM save if there is one from the cartridge when you play, but its still unclear if the Retron5 permanently stores SRAM data or if this is erased along with the ROM itself once the cartridge is removed.

Because the user can use savestates to get around the game, this means the old battery backed SRAM is largely unnecessary, and Hyperkin has even touted this as a "feature" where people who have cartridges with dead batteries can still save their progress.

From the IGN video, it appears the RetroN5 automatically creates an temporary savestate of where you were playing last when you remove the game. The Ouya's emulators do the same thing, and so does the Wii Virtual Console.

It is currently unknown if the RetroN5 will allow users to upload SRAM saves back to the cartridge, if this happens automatically, or if it doesn't happen at all. Could be any one of those answers.

The long and short of it is that on a device such as this, SRAM is made largely obsolete by savestates. They're far more useful to the point some gamers consider the use of them cheating. About to face the final boss with 0 lives left? Just savestate. Even if you lose, just hit load state and then try again. That's the idea behind them.

[Leo_A]

Most of the Wii Virtual Console has this suspend state feature (A more apt term for it), but it wasn't universal. Neo Geo and Nintendo 64 downloads lacked that capability.

Also can't swear to it for the entire arcade range due to the use of different emulators although I think my Super Hang-On download has that capability. Also don't remember if Pitstop II, my sole C64 download, has it implemented but I imagine it does. No clue about Japan's MSX offerings.

It is currently unknown if the RetroN5 will allow users to upload SRAM saves back to the cartridge, if this happens automatically, or if it doesn't happen at all. Could be any one of those answers.

It was confirmed months ago and has been reiterated several times since that saves could be uploaded back onto the original cartridge.



There really isn't much with the official feature set for this device that remains a mystery. The only things that remain to be seen for ourselves essentially is how well implemented the entire deal is. They've shown off the options and menus for this device plenty along with discussing the features.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Oh, my mistake. Then, that opens up a whole can of worms:

Is that something that's manually controlled or happens automatically? If it's manually controlled, then does that mean that sram can be saved to an SD card and then shared remotely with other people just as save files for systems like the PSP can be shared?

Also, I wonder if you can have multiple sram saves of the same game at a time. For example, say you're playing Super Mario World on the Retron5 and it backs up your sram. What would happen if you put a buddy's copy of Super Mario World in and he's at a different place in progression? Does it override your earlier sram saves? Can you transfer sram from one cart to another?

There's still so many questions about the RetorN5 that I think when I make my review, I'm going to have to dedicate an entire video just to FAQs.

[Leo_A]

The option they've demonstrated is manually controlled. I suppose there could be a setting buried somewhere though that you could select to enable it to do it automatically each time the save data on the SD card is updated, but they haven't shown such a thing yet if it exists and we've had plenty of looks at the Retron 5's menus. And that it's a manual option also confirms that the Retron 5 retains this data afterwards since there would no purpose for such manual options if it didn't.

And logically, that means that saves should also be able to be copied and distributed. I don't see any reason why Hyperkin would take any steps to prevent such a thing like tagging each save dump with a unique identifier that ties it to that Retron 5. And unless they wrap this save information up with something proprietary, it should also allow commonality with saves from other emulators as well.

As for multiple saves for a single title on the same Retron 5, that's something I haven't seen mentioned so that remains to be seen. And as that video shows, no chance of accidentally overwriting anything. You must manually select to dump the save as well as manually select to upload it back. Unless you get carts mixed up, there's no worries there when using a cartridge in someone else's Retron 5 or vice versa. Just don't dump the onboard save to SD card (Unless you can have multiple saves for the same title) or select to overwrite the onboard save with your own.

And the Retron 5 has no way to tell two identical carts apart. If both copies are of the same revision, you'll undoubtedly be able to copy a save between two cartridges.

[sonicfan]

I guess we can safely assume now nothing bad will happen is you have all cartridges plugged all at once at star up ( see around 9:30)

[Satoshi_Matrix]

It's good to see that, and I've been saying this for many months now. There's no way that inserting multiple carts will "damage" the Retron5. All that will happen is you'll get an error message. Called it, and I was right. Because you just know that people will try to do that even if they are warned not to.

Also, I don't intended to come across as racist, but wow is that guy black in the way he speaks. It's almost B movie parody level.

[PizzaKat]

Lol. This guy made it entertaining.

[Zap!]

It's good to see that, and I've been saying this for many months now. There's no way that inserting multiple carts will "damage" the Retron5. All that will happen is you'll get an error message. Called it, and I was right. Because you just know that people will try to do that even if they are warned not to.

Also, I don't intended to come across as racist, but wow is that guy black in the way he speaks. It's almost B movie parody level.

I wouldn't say he speaks "black", but it's just that he talks extremely ghetto. The reason I don't generalize it is because here in NYC, many white kids talk the same way.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

My apologizes. "Ghetto" then. I just didn't want to offend anyone.

But c'mon, that's gotta be a character voice. Nobody REALLY talks that way on a day to day basis, right....?

[stardust4ever]

My apologizes. "Ghetto" then. I just didn't want to offend anyone.

But c'mon, that's gotta be a character voice. Nobody REALLY talks that way on a day to day basis, right....?

I've known a lot of people of color. Noone I've ever known personally fit the hollywood stereotype quite like that Retron5 reviewer, although during high school, I knew a couple white guys with that same flamboyant personality. Just like over the years, I've known some dumb brunettes and smart blondes in real life. Ditto for mild-tempered redheads.

FTR, it's easier for a person to change their hair color to match their personality type. Skin color and gender, you're stuck with, sans permanent bodily alterations. RIP Michael Jackson, born a black man; died a white woman. *Drops Mic*

[stardust4ever]

GameSpot just released their review video...

A bit more detailed than previous vids but doesn't go into details about what works and what doesn't. We now know that you can load unrecognised games for some systems. NES/Famicom is yet unconfirmed, but 16-bit homebrew/repros appears to be a possibility. Sonic and Knuckles appeared to have trouble dumping in lock on mode with Sonic 2 & 3. Hopefully they fix this in firmware updates. Also be forewarned, it appears rewriting saves to SA-1 games may not work. Retron5 failed to write back the SMRPG save to the cart. So for now I wouldn't advise using it as a backup for chipped RPG games if you have cherished save file on it. Sadly, Retrode won't work with SA-1 games either so your best option is still to replace the battery before you start a new save.

[Leo_A]

Wish they'd of mentioned if that now useless save slot for Link to the Past on their Retron 5 still was functional on real hardware.

The video pretty much confirms what everyone suspected all along about that gamepad (Not that I put much stock in GameSpot, they can't even keep basic facts straight like the nonsense about past clones also being emulation based).

Hope nobody gets their hopes up for firmware updates on this. Just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean it's going to happen. I just can't picture Hyperkin releasing software updates, but perhaps this feature will create a way for a skilled hacker to gain access so the community can drive updates itself.

Hadn't really thought about it until watching this review, but it would be neat someday down the line as hardware improves to see multiplayer for Game Boy games. I doubt this has enough horsepower to run multiple instances of the same emulator simultaneously (Particular GBA games), but maybe someday we'd be able to enjoy at least two player multiplayer. That would be a real selling point and a feature addition that would be legitimately useful for many (Where as it's difficult to see how much of what folks like ourselves discuss in threads such as this one actually being a legitimately useful addition for the bulk of their audience).

I've said it all along, but I hope this is the launching pad for a revolution in clone systems.

[stardust4ever]

In order to run multiplayer gameboy, you'll need at minimum either two video outputs or a port for a link cable. Remember, emulators don't have cycle accurate timings (the emu runs all the necessary calculations for the entire frame as quickly as possible, then records the result to a frame buffer, which all computations needs to be finished in less than 1/60 sec) nor does it access the cart bus once it's done dumping the software, so it would be difficult to interface an emulator with real hardware. The Game Boy Player did so because it had the GBA chipset embedded in it, which sent I/O to the Game Cube, along with special interrupts to suspend the hardware when Z-Trigger is pressed. Another issue is that some GBA games use download play with one cart, which I believe requires a BIOS in order to work. The Game Boy flash screen is a result of the BIOS loading. Retron5 and GBA-on-a-chip clones bypass this BIOS so I'm not sure download games would be possible without it. And let's face it, how many gamers keep spare copies of their games just for a rare chance at multiplayer???

[Leo_A]

No, you wouldn't.

There's absolutely no reason why an emulation based system that dumps the contents of a cartridge couldn't run multiple instances of the same emulator simultaneously and split the screen multiple ways all with a single copy of a game. You essentially just need enough horsepower to handle running more than one program at once.

The average living room HDTV that this was developed for in mind is more than big enough where even splitting the screen four ways and maintaining the proper aspect ratio for each, we'd still have a screen area far larger than most any of us ever had back in the late 1990's on a system like the Nintendo 64 with games like Mario Kart 64 when playing multiplayer. For instance, four GBA screens sharing the 16:9 area on the tv would have a 13.5:9 combined aspect ratio. More of the screen would be used than a 4:3/12:9 console game on this would even use.

At the very least, two person multiplayer seems reachable and reasonable in a later revision. I wouldn't be surprised if the workload of their Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulator was using well under 50% of the system resources right now.

Hopefully it's something someone aims for someday down the road.

[stardust4ever]

No, you wouldn't.

There's absolutely no reason why an emulation based system that dumps the contents of a cartridge couldn't run multiple instances of the same emulator simultaneously and split the screen multiple ways all with a single copy of a game. You essentially just need enough horsepower to handle running more than one program at once.

The average living room HDTV that this was developed for in mind is more than big enough where even splitting the screen four ways and maintaining the proper aspect ratio for each, we'd still have a screen area far larger than most any of us ever had back in the late 1990's on a system like the Nintendo 64 with games like Mario Kart 64 when playing multiplayer. For instance, four GBA screens sharing the 16:9 area on the tv would have a 13.5:9 combined aspect ratio. More of the screen would be used than a 4:3/12:9 console game on this would even use.

At the very least, two person multiplayer seems reachable and reasonable in a later revision. I wouldn't be surprised if the workload of their Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulator was using well under 50% of the system resources right now.

Hopefully it's something someone aims for someday down the road.

Do current emulators support this? Didn't think so. As far as I'm aware, you need two PCs and a laggy network.

[Tanooki]

Some years ago there was a Windows based Gameboy emulator that would run multiple iterations of the same game in parallel windows which was a real turn on to pokemon fanboys because they could pull all sorts of crap with battles and trading. And I remember some fighting games that were 2P worked out alright too.

[JSoup]

Do current emulators support this? Didn't think so.

The reason for this isn't due to hardware, it's due to demand. More people were interested in playing online than local, so most emulators are geared for that. ZSNES used to use a version of battle.net to connect to other players.

[Leo_A]

Do current emulators support this? Didn't think so. As far as I'm aware, you need two PCs and a laggy network.

Sorry, but not only do I doubt that it's something daunting to accomplish, I'm confident it would be a useful feature.

Hopefully the day when someone like Hyperkin realizes that their GBA emulator is utilizing only a fraction of the horsepower of their hardware, their programmers will implement such a feature. Even just two person multiplayer would be such a welcome feature and breath new life into games like Mario Kart Super Circuit.

But that's getting ahead of things a bit here, I suppose.