RetroN5: Hands on first look

[GarrettCRW]

Except that they developed their emulators to play illegally dumped ROMs. Let's NEVER forget that point when we're in here adopting this high and mighty tone.

The VCR could be used to pirate material, but was no less legal. Besides, stealing from someone you deem to be a thief is still wrong.

[macdude22]

It would be more of a burn on anyone who still wants one if it got shut down. .

So you're saying I should hold onto my unopened Retron 5 until the market explodes and I can retire at 31 rich beyond my wildest dreams. Good. Good.

[Market Man]

wow, can we please let this non-issue die on the vine already? Unless you're directly involved in retroarch, you have no reason to care. As I said a few pages back, this isn't even worth discussing.

Citizens, I return! Majestically I sweep in from above with my money cape billowing and arms outstretched with triumphant fists, knuckles eager to smash idiocy and hypocrisy! Fists hungry to plunge into the colonic depths of unseemly criminal scum.

This thread is 95% useless back and forth banter of two individuals curiously invested in a product designed to be one thing: A fucking money grab at the height of retrogame mania. That's 50+ pages of shill that would have been called on (and squished) much sooner had this transpired during DP's prime. I find that sort of conversation boring and actually a little aggravating, so when I get a sniff of some controversy and underhanded behavior, my nipples get excited!

But if you don't want us to talk about that, can we talk about how you might be a thief, Satoshi? Is that why you hang around here all the time because you've burned so many people on other forum haunts? It's certainly understandable that you'd crawl here and make yourself at home with a belligerent Nintendo Age reject.

Whoever these unfortunate people are, know that the sensible alternative to getting your wallet reamed is to make an emulation box of your own, without the arbitrary limitations!

[dra600n]

Except that they developed their emulators to play illegally dumped ROMs. Let's NEVER forget that point when we're in here adopting this high and mighty tone.

I doubt the authors of emulators do so with the sole intent of playing games for free, as it takes an abundant knowledge of learning the hardware in and out, but more for the knowledge of how everything works and possibly for development for their own projects on a specific console (I'm not saying that this is their sole purpose either, because I'm sure it's both reasons, plus several others). The majority of emulation users is for the reason to play games for free, though :P

[JSoup]

This thread was meant to discuss the system and since it has been out has been all about shared experiences, helping with issues, and technical (upgrade) releases.

No, it's not. The topic was meant for shadowkn55 to share his view on the Retron5 before it was released, Satoshi turned it to an R5 humpfest. Maybe a new thread is needed for shared experiences, helping with issues, and technical (upgrade) releases.

[badinsults]

Except that they developed their emulators to play illegally dumped ROMs. Let's NEVER forget that point when we're in here adopting this high and mighty tone.

You really have no idea.

Go ask someone like byuu if the sole intent of making his super accurate emulator was to play games illegally. If that was true, why did he go through the efforts of buying every single US and Japanese SNES game?


In general, emulator authors make the emulators out of genuine curiosity of how the hardware works, and as a means of doing preservation. Do you really think that they would put restrictive licenses on their programs if all they wanted out of it was to play games that they don't own? Through their beligerance, Hyperkin is essentially alienating the very people who made their product possible, and the least they can do is to fully adhere to the software licenses that the code is under.

[Tanooki]

Tanooki wants us to ignore the issue because he's tight with Hyperkin, and unlike SegaAges, he doesn't have the integrity to call them on their bullshit.

Messiah essentially got shamed out of existence when it was discovered that the NEX used the same standard NOAC architecture for their system. Now, there's no reason to do the same with Hyperkin, but they do deserve to pay a price for ripping off developers who have provided software for non-commercial purposes, to say nothing of their decision to not disclose any of this (or of the Android usage) until pressured. Ethics matter, and there's been a HUGE breach here.

Why is it a few of you think it's so cute to put words in my mouth eh? I'm not tight with them, hell I'm annoyed at them at the moment because my replacement system was a scuffed up refurb that was DOA with a system error. I'm just friends with the tech, not the company. I just don't give a damn about the license violations and that's it. Whenever I have a working one back, it does what I want, and that's really all I give a damn about at all. Looking into it more like some conspiracy theorist on a mission is nuts. It has nothing to do with integrity as I don't work for them and I really don't care if they use someones emulator as it's not my problem and I'm not the one that'll have to lawyer up over it. I also did say the tech did want it out there from the beginning and the company wouldn't allow it, so actually I kind of did throw them under the bus on that one a little. I'd be lying if I said I'd be thrilled if someone puts a guide so easy a kid could do it showing how to load other stuff on it as it's just ripe for being busted open. I did see a proof of concept video on youtube by retron labo that has FF7 (ps1), JJ & Jeff (TG16), and MAME going and that's interesting to me.

"I got what I want, so fuck everyone else."

I don't care about their situation as I'm not legally involved. It's funny though a year or two ago I'd have felt differently but certain elements of old Nintendo era gaming has turned me pretty sour to much of it. I'm currently selling off various games I'd never have a month ago as I want to put it towards a laptop.

No, it's not. The topic was meant for shadowkn55 to share his view on the Retron5 before it was released, Satoshi turned it to an R5 humpfest. Maybe a new thread is needed for shared experiences, helping with issues, and technical (upgrade) releases.

I jumped in on it later after it converted into discussing the hardware as I had(have) one, so if that's needed then Satoshi there instead of whining just needs to make one and the users who have one can explore that and this can be the primary thread for a huge catch all of everything on the whole.

[BTR]

The Retron5 could have been a way for people to use emulation and real hardware in a legal and (not perfect, but quite good) best of both words approach.

no RGB modding & no region modding of consoles and/or region adapters
no expensive scalers or decade old CRTs
not having multiple systems hooked to one TV
but also
no hunting after out-of-print Retrode2 devices and expensive adapters to do "legal" dumping
no gray area downloads of roms to feed to emulators (downloading roms of games you legally purchased falls under fair use? in every country? undeniably?)
no USB adapters for controllers to use emulators

I think the above makes clear that I care much about legal aspects. As it appeares now, Hyperkin didn't care so much about these aspects. Therefore I don't want to support their products.

[Market Man's Crotch]

I find that sort of conversation boring and actually a little aggravating, so when I get a sniff of some controversy and underhanded behavior, my nipples get excited!

Jeepers, Market Man! Do I have competition?

[Cryog]

Sega SG 1000 roms games works fine with the .ips patch "hack".



SG 1000 Zaxxon

[Satoshi_Matrix]

has any one figured out what's up with the cheat files on Genesis/MegaDrive games not working?

[Market Man]

has any one figured out what's up with the cheat files on Genesis/MegaDrive games not working?

Hay just want to remind everyone that you're a thief and a liar.

[JSoup]

Have him try these:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/b5k...s_for_Retron_5

They're patches i've fixed (or created on a select few) myself for the Retron 5 specifically. Make sure bare minimum he's on 2.0 Beta 3 or higher. Also no, the file names of the patches do not need to match with the cartridge name at all, you could call them whatever you want and i've fixed, created, or applied many patches that have proven that. Also just have him keep the header option off on Super Famicom/SNES games when using those patches, I strip the header of the match SNES rom before I make any patch to keep it simple. Headers are an old fossil left over from the earlier days of cartridge dumping and really not necessary anymore and all games are dumped onto the Retron 5 without the header anyway.

I passed this on to the guy and he's ecstatic, thank you kindly.
How exactly do you make a patch "Retron ready" so to speak? It seemed strange to me that any would need to be specifically set up for R5 use, working on what little I know of patch application.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

[comment removed due to better judgement prevailing]

[JSoup]

Can we stop with the personal attacks, everyone? We can easily have two different R5 related discussions here while still remaining civil.

Edit: Remainder of post removed at request.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

actually, you're right. I should not instigate the troll. this is hardly an appropriate place to voice my anger at NA's awful elitism anyway.

I've removed my comment. please also remove yours. personal attacks need simply be ignored.

[R9delta]

I passed this on to the guy and he's ecstatic, thank you kindly.
How exactly do you make a patch "Retron ready" so to speak? It seemed strange to me that any would need to be specifically set up for R5 use, working on what little I know of patch application.

There's several reasons why a patch may need to be made "Retron ready". One example being that when SNES emulation was in it's prime (popularity wise) most of the roms that were uploaded to the internet was with what's called a "header" embedded into them. A header is just a set of information that's used by the copier that dumped the rom in the first place. When the Retron 5 dumps roms from the cartridge it dumps them without a header...which is what it should be doing as there's no reason for headers anymore these days. The problem with that is that most older translation patches were made based on roms that have that header there. The Retron 5 may have the option to fake the rom dump having a header but in my experience half the time that option does not work correctly...and prior to Update 2.0 beta 3, that option wasn't available anyway.

Another simpler reason that a patch may need to be redone is that maybe a specific patch is written for a different version of the same game than what you or your friend have. Let's say your friend is trying to use a translation for Tactics Ogre. Well the primary problem with that is that the patch is written for v1.2 of the game...your friend has version 1.0. Hence the patch will just black screen or crash if you try it. A patch will only work on the SPECIFIC rom it's written for. If your cartridge does not match it EXACTLY, it will not work. So it's not so much as making a patch "Retron ready" as it is making a patch for the version you have if one is not out there.

The only reason there's a need for any of this is because you're restricted to cartridges. On an emulator that lets you load roms of your choosing..if a patch doesn't work on a rom you've got, well then you just need to go download the one it does work on or download a pre-patched rom. Simple solution to a simple problem. In the Retron 5's case if the patch doesn't work on what you've got then, well you're screwed, or you buy the cartridge/rom the patch was written for, or you do what I'm doing and just fix the patches to work with what you have.

Anyway making a patch is simple, it's just taking one rom and another and making comparison file between the two that converts from one to the other. If you'd like to see how it's done (it's a 5 minute process for most games) I've posted a video on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmc6Bu3LsD4

There's no voice over or annotations as I'm lazy but i've linked and described exactly what I did in the description. If you have any questions you can reach me on the forum that's linked in the description as I won't be on here often.

[Leo_A]

Sega SG 1000 roms games works fine with the .ips patch "hack".



SG 1000 Zaxxon

I'm not familiar with the capabilities of the Genesis emulator that they've borrowed, but if 32X games are compatible, has anyone tried that with this workaround?

It probably wouldn't happen, but I'd love to see the Retron 5's follow-up someday offer 32X support. Not support for the 32X peripheral itself, but direct support.

[Market Man's Crotch]

Hay just want to remind everyone that you're a thief and a liar.

Well, you're not always so truthful yourself, Market Man. Just the other day you said you'd take me out in the park, and you never did!

[Market Man]

Patience, my pendulous pet.