RetroN5: Hands on first look

[Satoshi_Matrix]

All I have to say about that is: lol RetroArch. That thing is such a mess. At least on Ouya it is. but whatever. Not gonna pay that any attention. Emulators are open source. I'm not certain these guys have any right to be angry or more importantly, that anyone but them should care about this in the slightest.


I've had some time this afternoon with 2.0 beta 6 and like I see for the most part.


Since it would seem like Hyperkin is actually listening, there are still some issues I'd like fixed and additional features added.

I'll be as specific as possible so that these changes can be made swiftly.



Clock Speed Adjustments

Allow the user to adjust the speed of the emulated CPU of each console. Some games have slowdown when played at the default clockspeed while other games are much too difficult when played at the default clockspeed.

Add in an option to adjust each of the emulated CPUs: the 2A03, 5A22, 68000, SMS Z80, 4Mhz GB Z80, 8Mhz GBC Z80 and ARM7TDMI.
Allow users to adjust the speed as a percentage:

50% (half speed)
75% (three quarters speed)
100% (default normal speed)
110%
125%
150%
200% (double normal speed)
and finally let the last option be a user defined speed up to 400% (four times normal speed). Make three columns (hundreds, tens, ones) and let the user define their own values by pressing up or down on the d-pad to insert a value between 001 through 400.

Place a disclaimer that adjusting CPU clock speed can cause games to glitch or crash, and different games on the same console have different tolerances to clock speed manipulation. If Hyperkin wants to look at an emulator that does this perfectly, look at MasterBoy - a GameBoy/Color/SMS/GameGear emulator for PSP. The Z80 clockspeed adjustment there works flawlessly.


GameBoy Advance-enhanced GameBoy Color games

Towards the end of its life, several of the final GameBoy Color games produced had additional content unlockable when played on a GameBoy Advance. The Retron5 currently runs GBC games without the option to play them with the GBA emulator core, so none of these enhanced features can be accessed. PLease change this by adding the option to run GBC games on the GBA core.

In Game Specific Settings of Beta 6, there is a toggle for Hardware type from Auto, GB, CGB (this should be renamed GBC for clarity), and finally SGB. Please add in GBA here so when selected GBC games run through the GBA core and can thus have their additional extra features.


Super GameBoy Enhanced Sound

For a few games such as Donkey Kong '94, the Super GameBoy worked in conjunction with the Super Nintendo hardware to provide additional sound. For example, in Donkey Kong '94, Pauline would scream for help in a voice clip not present if you play the game on any other format. The Latest build does have SGB support and even has the SGB borders (a nice touch for those who want them), but the audio still does not play.


Misc changes:

When playing a game, the "Game Menu", including "Game Specific Settings" should be entirely incorporated in with the menu that first pops up called the "In-Game Menu". It is clunky to navigate these three different menus when you just want to adjust something when you play.

Leave the "Game Menu" from the main menu untouched, but duplicate the functions it has with the "In-Game menu" where there currently is the options like load state, save state, etc.



I will list additional change requests in the future, but for now I'm going to leave it at this.

[Kitsune Sniper]

All I have to say about that is: lol RetroArch. That thing is such a mess. At least on Ouya it is. but whatever. Not gonna pay that any attention. Emulators are open source. I'm not certain these guys have any right to be angry or more importantly, that anyone but them should care about this in the slightest.

...

The fact that this is your take on this is incredibly disappointing.

[RoryDropkick]

Yeah good luck with those fools and their 'appears to be the same' claims. I'm curious to see if they get ignored or not. I wouldn't be surprised if they used some of their work as a basis for their own, but going by the time I've talked with the guy over the last couple months he doesn't sound like a code thief to me that had no idea what he's doing other than jacking code and taking credit for it.

What you have here most likely is a derivative piece of work, kind of like where you can go so far making a copy of a popular item, but not so closely it's stealing. Or better yet, the classic Nintendo vs Tengen lawsuit where Tengen smoked them for breaking their 10NES chip open and making a work around chip to defeat it to sell games. They reverse engineered the code and made their own, which is what this thing is doing from what I've gathered.

If it's just the credit they are wanting, Hyperkin may as well just give credit where credit is due I suppose. Better than having people get huffy over this whole thing.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

The emulation scene is just as incestuous as the clone scene in general with NOACs being copied by everyone with the same design flaws.

I believe that once the dust settles, the Ouya and Retron5's emulators will be equal because they'll be based on the same cores.

[Tanooki]

Um, you don't understand. Even if it is a derivative work, they can't legally use the source code for anything because:

A - The source code license requires anyone who makes a modified / derivative version to release its modified source code, and
B - The emulators and their source code are not licensed for commercial use.

Hyperkin should not have done this, PERIOD. Don't try to defend them. They should have known better than to do this.

See the thing is i don't care about those senseless pet project faux copyrights they put on stuff and never have. If they did jack their code, good, it clearly works. If they took it and reverse engineered it into what we use, that's even a hell of a lot better. You can only code an emulator for an old video game system only so many ways in a certain language before you bump into someone bitching they got ripped off. My take and Satoshi's on it seems to overlap. If they like I can paypal some cash for them to buy a nice cheese with their whine. If they want credit, they should get it, only if it's proven they did rip their code line for line or damn near enough to still count. If not, they need to shut it and stop complaining until they can post some irrefutable side by side visual proof.

[Pikkon]

They did not reverse engineer as the source code is freely available,all they did was port it over to run on there device but at the same time with out the authors consent.

Plain and simple there making money off of other people's work.

[clobber]

See the thing is i don't care about those senseless pet project faux copyrights they put on stuff and never have. If they did jack their code, good, it clearly works. If they took it and reverse engineered it into what we use, that's even a hell of a lot better. You can only code an emulator for an old video game system only so many ways in a certain language before you bump into someone bitching they got ripped off. My take and Satoshi's on it seems to overlap. If they like I can paypal some cash for them to buy a nice cheese with their whine. If they want credit, they should get it, only if it's proven they did rip their code line for line or damn near enough to still count. If not, they need to shut it and stop complaining until they can post some irrefutable side by side visual proof.

You're so ignorant and self-entitled my head hurts. Not that it matters to a douchebag as yourself, but your "irrefutable side by side visual proof" was linked in the Nintendo Life article right in this album: http://imgur.com/a/T6W4e

What Hyperkin did is take code from existing emulators they cannot legally use without also releasing their modified source code to, the GPL-licensed ones such as VBA or FCEUmm. They are also using emulators they cannot legally use PERIOD - non-commercial ones such as SNES9x. These are facts.

Since you're simply a neanderthal user that isn't capable of comprehending an ounce of this information, do the world a favor and sit this one out. You have nothing relevant to add to the conversation here and I had to register an account because your comments are so misled and vile.

[Tanooki]

If you say so kid. Whatever floats your boat. You don't know me in the least bit and if you knew people who do they'd be laughing at you for saying that first line there. I'm about the least self entitled person. Being entitled is one thing. Not giving a damn is another, and that is what I am, someone who doesn't give a damn in the least bit. I just laugh at it and have since the 90s with emulators where people slap their you can't use this code talk except for x y and z reasons and it always gets aped by someone and nearly not a damn thing has ever been done about it. A good recent example, Neo GeoX and it using swiped emulators. All the complaining there did nothing to shut that down either, ultimately they supposedly blew the terms of the contract and SNK went after them.

Edited out half my post, I have my reasons.

[Gameguy]

It's kind of funny if they actually stole the code. The console was released unfinished, not able to perform all the functions as advertised at the time of release(transferring saves), yet the main parts working were what they stole from other people unrelated to the company.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Why are we even discussing this?

If they're using code based on other emulators
If they're using code they wrote from scratch

Who frippin' cares!? The Retron5 experience is at least 50% with the hardware, with the UI, with the controller, etc. The basis of the emulation should not be important to anyone except for the creators. If what they claim is true then THEY should take it up with hyperkin. The rest of us should pay this issue absolutely no mind at all. It bloody shouldn't matter. The Retron5 UI is its own identity.

[Kitsune Sniper]

See the thing is i don't care about those senseless pet project faux copyrights they put on stuff and never have. If they did jack their code, good, it clearly works. If they took it and reverse engineered it into what we use, that's even a hell of a lot better. You can only code an emulator for an old video game system only so many ways in a certain language before you bump into someone bitching they got ripped off. My take and Satoshi's on it seems to overlap. If they like I can paypal some cash for them to buy a nice cheese with their whine. If they want credit, they should get it, only if it's proven they did rip their code line for line or damn near enough to still count. If not, they need to shut it and stop complaining until they can post some irrefutable side by side visual proof.

Remember kids, stealing is all right because Tanooki says so.

[Tanooki]

Hah wow...again as I said, I didn't care. I didn't say it was right. I know more what's going on now than I did before and alls well will end well and that's that. Satoshi is right, half the experience is the hardware itself. Let me put this to you. Those comparison images are a lot of fluff compared to substance. They don't show code side by side, they show similarites in how the code functions. As I said before, you can only code something only so many ways to efficiently function as needed, and some stuff can really just be coded a specific way or it won't work within the confines of hardware/operating system. When the time is right considering the blow up, an answer will appear.

[Gameguy]

Remember kids, stealing is all right because Tanooki says so.

So does Satoshi_Matrix apparently.

Why are we even discussing this?

If they're using code based on other emulators
If they're using code they wrote from scratch

Who frippin' cares!? The Retron5 experience is at least 50% with the hardware, with the UI, with the controller, etc. The basis of the emulation should not be important to anyone except for the creators. If what they claim is true then THEY should take it up with hyperkin. The rest of us should pay this issue absolutely no mind at all. It bloody shouldn't matter. The Retron5 UI is its own identity.

I wonder if he'd care if someone stole stuff from his website/s without giving credit.

Oh wait, I don't have to wonder.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224...rio/?p=2989401

It's kinda funny to see people who promote my stuff without me lifting a finger, but I had intended to share my content with you guys once I had it all done. I even contemplated keeping them all as private videos until I was finished. I guess I should have done that. I put considerable effort into making my content as detailed as possible, and when people don't credit me that really brothers me.

I guess it doesn't matter unless it's his work.

[clobber]

Hah wow...again as I said, I didn't care. I didn't say it was right. I know more what's going on now than I did before and alls well will end well and that's that. Satoshi is right, half the experience is the hardware itself. Let me put this to you. Those comparison images are a lot of fluff compared to substance. They don't show code side by side, they show similarites in how the code functions. As I said before, you can only code something only so many ways to efficiently function as needed, and some stuff can really just be coded a specific way or it won't work within the confines of hardware/operating system. When the time is right considering the blow up, an answer will appear.

Hahaha oh wow, my sides. You really are this stupid?

> They don't show code side by side

No, there is actually code side-by-side. You just cannot understand it, assembly might as well be hieroglyphs to you.

> you can only code something only so many ways to efficiently function as needed

Ignoring that 80% of the code in the SNES emulator alone was a MATCH, along with matching function calls, code structures and strings in other emulators profiled.

By all means, keep talking out of your ass and making yourself look stupid. This is fun for me

https://twitter.com/FioraAeterna/sta...90355591196673

[clobber]

So does Satoshi_Matrix apparently.


I wonder if he'd care if someone stole stuff from his website/s without giving credit.

Oh wait, I don't have to wonder.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224...rio/?p=2989401



I guess it doesn't matter unless it's his work.

nice work outing Satoshi_Matrix as a hypocrite. I'm not surprised to find a user only caring about copyright when its convenient for them.

[JSoup]

Why are we even discussing this?

Because it's a RetroN5 related topic and this is a RetroN5 thread.

You have an amazingly irritating habit of trying to control what people do or do not talk about, man. Particularly so when it's a thread this large. Just let the discussion flow and it'll taper off if you don't stir the pot.

[Pikkon]

The thing is these guys don't understand,if the authors go after hyperkin over the retron 5 which will most likely happen there's a good chance hyperkin will pull the plug and then guess what.

No more firmware updates.

[Kitsune Sniper]

The thing is these guys don't understand,if the authors go after hyperkin over the retron 5 which will most likely happen there's a good chance hyperkin will pull the plug and then guess what.

No more firmware updates.

They could replace the offending code, release the changed source code as required by the GPL, and maybe switch to a different SNES core.

But nah, that's too much work.

[Tanooki]

Clobber you're amusing I'll give you that. All you seem to be able to do is insult me like a child, and then go on about stuff. To be straight with you, I know the situation all too well, but I was requested to no longer discuss it as a personal request. I know in general what was done and wasn't and at this rate until something is done about the entire matter I feel obliged not to answer if you're right or wrong in this case and to what degree.

Either way troll away have fun with it. If your barbs or the rest actually were at all worth getting angry over I'd be responding in an entirely different way. Have your fun, this will come to a conclusion eventually. I will say at least at this point, I agree with you on Satoshi being a hypocrite just as much as Jsoup there pointing out his habit to try and dominate and mold all conversations/reviews around him to his liking regardless of the reality of the situation or not.

Pikkon that is definitely a concern of mine too and has been for awhile. I don't see them at the least as kitsune said replacing code, but the rest I see no reason why not to either considering the terms of GPL.

[RoryDropkick]

Clobber you're amusing I'll give you that. All you seem to be able to do is insult me like a child, and then go on about stuff. To be straight with you, I know the situation all too well, but I was requested to no longer discuss it as a personal request. I know in general what was done and wasn't and at this rate until something is done about the entire matter I feel obliged not to answer if you're right or wrong in this case and to what degree.

Either way troll away have fun with it. If your barbs or the rest actually were at all worth getting angry over I'd be responding in an entirely different way. Have your fun, this will come to a conclusion eventually. I will say at least at this point, I agree with you on Satoshi being a hypocrite just as much as Jsoup there pointing out his habit to try and dominate and mold all conversations/reviews around him to his liking regardless of the reality of the situation or not.

Pikkon that is definitely a concern of mine too and has been for awhile. I don't see them at the least as kitsune said replacing code, but the rest I see no reason why not to either considering the terms of GPL.

Well said.