RetroDuo NES/SNES Clone Official Thread. Castlevania III, StarFox WORK, SMRPG WARNING

[Diosoth]

Alright, we got a red&gold one. Let me know if you guys have specific questions about stuff and how I can test it. I don't have tons of games though.

I've noticed that the NES slot on this thing is way too tight, games pretty much have to be wiggled into and out of the thing, and two pins are already popping up. Pushing them back down seems to make the games go in much better so it's probably them causing the problem. Is this common? Any fix? Sorry if it's been covered but I didn't feel like reading 9 pages to see right this moment.

I have a red/gold. The NES slot is tight but I have no bent pins in it yet.

I opened it. The motherboard has a revision date of 5/23/2008.

[ooXxXoo]

Any of you with the newer Retro Duo models are willing to take an internal picture of the motherboard?...Thanks!
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[Battlehork]

So... in my endless quest to defeat my television's composite input artifacting, I replaced my stereo receiver. While my main motivation was to get digital audio from the new consoles, I also wanted one that performed video upscaling.

I went with the Harman Kardon AVR-247, and found a good deal on a factory refurbished model. After testing the audio, the first thing that I hooked up to it was the Duo. Upscaling to 480p over HDMI, the composite input looked great... for a few seconds. The beautiful uncorrupted image would float from the bottom to the top of the screen, then flicker and go blank for a few seconds, and it would loop, on both NES and SNES. Same thing with S-Video.

When I tried the component output, I got a stable image, but the top third was all wavy. The receiver has an A and B output mode, but neither seemed to make a difference on either input.

I got my N64 to output a stable upscaled image with S-Video, but it was black every other frame. I suppose it's kinda like a stereoscopic effect, but still...

Dreamcast over S-Video was fine.

This leads me to believe that the RD is outputting in an odd video format. I know that the NES had off-screen overscan areas, so maybe it's emulating that. I'm wondering if there's any kind of device I can run the signal through to do away with it. A "VGA box" might work, and Yobo makes one that's ~$50 shipped on Amazon.

I'm beginning to wonder if doing a component mod to my RD would be a better option. Has anybody written up an easy-to-follow guide yet? I'm sure that I could do it, but I'll need more than just a schematic.

Some scaler chips do not support the 240p resolution used by old game systems. The N64 and Dreamcast are outputting 480i, so those work fine. Whereas the Genesis, SNES, NES etc. actually output 240p. I have a Yamaha receiver that won't scale from those systems either.

[NayusDante]

I tried my PS2 over component, playing PS1 stuff. Same problem...

[Insaneclown]

I have the FCPLUS 3 slot.

[Battlehork]

I tried my PS2 over component, playing PS1 stuff. Same problem...

PS1 games are also 240p, for the most part.

[genesisguy]

I've never tried one of these, and I'm not trying to be a wise ass but why not just buy an old SNES or NES? I guess they cost more, but really they aren't THAT expensive if you find one at a thrift or garage sale.

[Sonicwolf]

I've never tried one of these, and I'm not trying to be a wise ass but why not just buy an old SNES or NES? I guess they cost more, but really they aren't THAT expensive if you find one at a thrift or garage sale.

Both the NES and the SNES are old systems. Old electronics tend to become faulty and unreliable over time. The Nintendo Entertainment System could be considered one of the most irritating systems ever for faultiness. Its a chore just to get games running on the damned thing.

The new clone systems are made to save space and have your old favorites playable on a (for the most part) more reliable, new piece of electronics without relying on emulation or other alternative digital forms.

[Diosoth]

I've never tried one of these, and I'm not trying to be a wise ass but why not just buy an old SNES or NES? I guess they cost more, but really they aren't THAT expensive if you find one at a thrift or garage sale.

They're small and compact, for one. They lack the NES10 chip and can take Super Famicom games without cartridge slot modificaton. And not eveyrone has a thrify store or garage sale to find such things.

I've listed mine for sale with 9 games in the sale section if anyone's been looking into one.

[genesisguy]

Ok, I see the space saving and the famicom option. But, I've got two SNES consoles that both work perfectly and my NES after replacing the pin connector works better than it did when I was kid. Maybe I'm just odd, but part of the fun of playing the old games is on the old consoles.

[Diosoth]

Ok, I see the space saving and the famicom option. But, I've got two SNES consoles that both work perfectly and my NES after replacing the pin connector works better than it did when I was kid. Maybe I'm just odd, but part of the fun of playing the old games is on the old consoles.

It boils down to personal choice. Some people don't own the original consoles and, like me, live in areas where people often want a fortune for them. A lack of thrift stores, game stores that charge between $40-$75 for the console because it's "retro", etc.

The Retro Duo is about 6 1/2" wide x 7" deep x less than 2" tall. Real space saver. It's also regarded as one of the better clone systems, being that it runs games that the Yobo stuff can't. Clone systems like this save shelf space, are cheaper, but aren't perfect. Never buy one expecting 100% compatibility. The Retro Dup is also the only one with s-video output(another nice feature of the modern clone hardware is standard RCA outputs, none of that proprietary stuff that consoles STILL force upon us).

It's also nice that it has SNES control inputs. You can use old controllers(because the ones packed in with the RD are rather awful, to be honest).

They can also be a novelty item to collectors.

And, unfortunately, vintage hardware isn't guaranteed to last forever. Pin connectors aside, other components can fail. My old SNES as a child eventually fried, outputting a grayscale picture. A call to Nintendo at the time actually left the phone rep admitting that it was a known problem with the system(a video chip goes bad), but this was after they stopped servicing SNES consoles. You can take care of it but it's always a possibility. A fresh supply of new compatible hardware isn't a bad thing.

[IceDrake]

Hi everyone, this is my first post.

I never owned an NES or SNES when I was young. I had a Genesis when I was about 4-5 but had 7 games (5 of which were Sonic. In fact I didn't even get those until years later). I didn't get into gaming until I got a N64 and I was too young to have known about a lot of classic retro games on the Genesis, NES, and SNES.

I've been playing ROMs of games at college since I leave my newer consoles at home. As a result, I've gotten into retro gaming. I was looking at prices of the SNES on ebay and found the Retro Duo.

Would this be a worthwhile purchase for me? I believe almost all the games I'm interested in would work.

[NayusDante]

Go for it. I'd try to get a decent SNES controller, but it's an excellent little machine for that kind of situation. Just hunt the thrifts around wherever it is you are to find cheap games.

[Chemdawg]

Hi everyone, this is my first post.

I never owned an NES or SNES when I was young. I had a Genesis when I was about 4-5 but had 7 games (5 of which were Sonic. In fact I didn't even get those until years later). I didn't get into gaming until I got a N64 and I was too young to have known about a lot of classic retro games on the Genesis, NES, and SNES.

I've been playing ROMs of games at college since I leave my newer consoles at home. As a result, I've gotten into retro gaming. I was looking at prices of the SNES on ebay and found the Retro Duo.

Would this be a worthwhile purchase for me? I believe almost all the games I'm interested in would work.

I recently got back into retro games kind of like you it sounds. Like you said I checked on ebay and found this machine, read some reviews on it and it looked good. So I got it, it works great plays all the games I have and have never had a problem with it. though the controls do kinda suck, but i picked up some regular snes controllers at a local thrift store for like $.99 so not a big deal. I personally think its a great option to gettin a reg snes or nes on ebay, because first off its cheaper pretty much than either the snes or nes, atleast ones that still work, plus any snes or nes that you get that still works already has (x) numbers of years on it so it may just stop working who knows when, the retro duo is a brand new machine oppossed to one that is over 10years old. also a great thing about it is that its small probably will save you a lot of space compared to the bulky nes or snes.

[IceDrake]

Thanks. I think I will order one next month (want to be home when it gets here). Just have to decide which color scheme to go with.

[Diosoth]

Zelda II. Retro Duo vs Gamecube edition.

I'll assume the emulator on Zelda Collector's Edition is at least 90% accurate to NES hardware. Both pictures taken on the same TV, same lighting conditions.

Gamecube edition
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/j...gamecubez2.jpg

Retro Duo
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/j...h/retduoz2.jpg

The RD color is brighter, appearing more washed out. However, the Gamecube edition seems a bit dark to me, perhaps more than it should be.

The RD has a decent sound volume, though. The Gamecube is pretty silent and I have to crank the volume up.

[kai123]

I just bought one of these on ebay and after I did I noticed a listing for a RetroDuo v2. Any idea if this is an updated version? It looks identical to the others and provided zero info if there was a difference.

[Darth_Aeon]

Just bought a Retro Duo (in the SWEET red and gold finish) and I want to track down the three Ultima games for the NES. Can anyone confirm compatibility?

[XianXi]

These look pretty cool. I might pick one up.

[andrew_77751]

version 2 is for the power switch , they must have re designed the switch to become better than version 1?