Retrocomputing / Retrogaming

[Slime_Punk]

That's pretty interesting. I never really notice lag on Retropie setups (or even in Retroarch most of the time), not to mention any of the mini / classic systems running RA / Rearmed PSX, but I also might just have a severe lag deficit

I will say though, emulating the official Genesis pack on Switch / PC is a nightmare of hellish lag proportions. I'm not sure how those official ports are so bad (don't get me started on the Sonic collection for Ps2), but dear lord. It's like nobody could figure out how to make it anything like the original.

Semi-related, but I've been wanting to pick up an FPGA for random projects / educational value but they're all so expensive

 

[wards]

That's pretty interesting. I never really notice lag on Retropie setups (or even in Retroarch most of the time), not to mention any of the mini / classic systems running RA / Rearmed PSX, but I also might just have a severe lag deficit

I will say though, emulating the official Genesis pack on Switch / PC is a nightmare of hellish lag proportions. I'm not sure how those official ports are so bad (don't get me started on the Sonic collection for Ps2), but dear lord. It's like nobody could figure out how to make it anything like the original.

Semi-related, but I've been wanting to pick up an FPGA for random projects / educational value but they're all so expensive

I’m very sensitive to the lag from the controller on software emulation, it feels off to me unfortunately. One of the things I like about the misterFPGA is that you don’t need to mess around with configurations and settings for the old computer cores like Amiga and Atari ST.

 

[Princess Viola]

Yeah for me, emulation is more than good enough at this point and I don't notice any lag when playing, even when using my Bluetooth controller (which I know inherently has more lag VS plugging it in and using it wired but I literally don't notice any, even when not playing retro games) so like investing in that kind of expensive stuff like an FPGA just ain't anything I'm interested in tbh.

I really gotta grab a Raspberry Pi to make a Retropie set up, I know the Pi 5 recently came out but I think it got rid of native support for composite out and I really don't wanna bother with like an HDMI to composite adapter to plug it into my CRT. Also I'd wanna grab one of those Retroflag cases and they're only for the Pi 4 so I mean...

 

[Misery]

I’m very sensitive to the lag from the controller on software emulation, it feels off to me unfortunately. One of the things I like about the misterFPGA is that you don’t need to mess around with configurations and settings for the old computer cores like Amiga and Atari ST.

This is interesting to me... I use emulation a lot, particularly for arcade & Atari games, but I've never noticed all that much in the way of input lag. And I'm generally extremely sensitive to it... the genres of games I'm best at are bullet hell and fighting games, and the tiniest bit of lag gets you exploded in those. So usually I notice anything (and it drives me crazy when it happens). Every now and then certain specific games can get a bit weird with emulation but that doesnt happen very often.

My problem is instead usually when something just doesnt freaking work right. Like the rom I'd mentioned earlier in the thread, the FF hack, progress through that ended when the emulator (not the rom) just abruptly started refusing to load. I still havent figured out what in the world happened and it still wont work.

 

[wards]

This is interesting to me... I use emulation a lot, particularly for arcade & Atari games, but I've never noticed all that much in the way of input lag. And I'm generally extremely sensitive to it... the genres of games I'm best at are bullet hell and fighting games, and the tiniest bit of lag gets you exploded in those. So usually I notice anything (and it drives me crazy when it happens). Every now and then certain specific games can get a bit weird with emulation but that doesnt happen very often.

My problem is instead usually when something just doesnt freaking work right. Like the rom I'd mentioned earlier in the thread, the FF hack, progress through that ended when the emulator (not the rom) just abruptly started refusing to load. I still havent figured out what in the world happened and it still wont work.

It’s a bit of a special interest for me lol, you can buy a tv latency tester for misterFPGA and got my OLED tv settings dialled in to 2.85ms of latency and use original controllers that can be used directly to the core so no software emulation in between them..

I will see if I can get that rom hack working in mine when I get chance

 

[Misery]

So I've been playing Final Fantasy Legend on the Gameboy recently (also known as the first game in the SaGa series, it had it's name changed to be an FF entry in the west). This being something I had as a kid, but I never finished it back then.

Playing it again... oh yeah, I see why I hadnt finished it. Usually when I think of JRPGs I associate them with being far too easy, primarily because most of the Final Fantasy series (and a lot of Square games in general) requires like, next to no effort to beat (except for the very first, which IS actually hard) and that series was much of my exposure to the genre growing up. But this? This isnt even a FF game, not that I knew that as a kid. And it's bloody difficult. Plus the weird mechanics... I've seen a lot of RPGs since then but none that play like this. I gotta say, anyone who disliked things like Zelda's weapon breaking mechanics would probably not like this. Everything breaks or has other weird limitations. And the game doesnt tell you what anything does. Is that super expensive weapon there better than this other one? Only one way to find out! And even if it is great, well, 50 uses, that's all ya get...

I gotta say though, playing this as an adult, with a much better understanding of this sort of thing (after playing like 500 roguelikes), I am having a blast with it. This is pretty much what I'd always wanted out of this genre. The actual gameplay stays interesting all the way through, with constantly escalating difficulty (though it spikes hard at certain points, it's not a smooth curve) and complexity. My only complaints so far are that the bosses are super easy... normal encounters are plenty challenging, so that was surprising to me, and also the game's inventory system is irritating to the point of being ridiculous. Though I think that's sorta excused by its age, they were kinda all like that at the time.

I gotta find more stuff like this after I finish this one. I'm getting near the end of it.

 

[Misery]

"The bosses in this game are too easy"

wow yeah I shouldnt have said that. Got to this guy, and the game is like "so, you think they're too easy then, eh? THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS" and then this guy just goes berserk and wrecks everyone. I barely won, after hitting him multiple times with an Excalibur sword (which is as strong as it sounds), every spell ever, and a literal nuke. Which sorta mildly annoyed him.

End of the fight, most of the party is nearly dead, one member IS dead, and this game is really weird about character death. Each character has three lives, and then that's it. Done. They cant be revived, ever.

Not many fights in RPGs that I find genuinely memorable, but this guy is one of them. An ultra-strong boss in a game I grew up with and could never beat? Yeah, didnt expect that. Though winning here isnt as satisfying as the victory against Suzaku in the previous area. That was probably the single most utterly irritating thing I've ever seen in this genre. THAT guy finally, FINALLY going down was sooooooo satisfying.

At this point in the game the difficulty has spiked heavily and every single encounter needs to be done carefully. Since the game is so weird about items and spells and everything, healing isnt easy.

On a side note, I ran into this:

The whole room is just full of dead children. Whole room. Lots of them.

This is a NINTENDO game. Nintendo! Back then, Nintendo was notorious for not allowing things like ACTUAL death to happen in their games. Its why characters in FF6 for instance would "swoon" when defeated. And then here's just this pile of dead kids out of nowhere.

Even more ridiculous, that room is where you get the nuke. After finding a journal entry about how they all starved to death.

Like, what the heck.

 

[Ghostinthemachine]

I completely forgot about it until today when I went for another browse, a website I've had bookmarked for more than a decade. You'll be surprised at some of the stuff you can find in here, all free.

My Abandonware: because old video games were better

Database of 28790 abandonware games free. One of the most complete video games museum. Take a trip down Memory Lane now! Warning: whole weekends can be lost.

www.myabandonware.com

@Outdated this is fantastic thank you for putting this up I'm going to have a look and see if I can find DI Interactive F16 fighting falcon on it for win95 I haven't played it in years along with a load of other flight sims,thank you

 

[Outdated]

.... see if I can find DI Interactive F16 fighting falcon on it for win95....

Enjoy the nostalgia.

iF-16

Remember iF-16, an old video game from 1997? Download it and play again on MyAbandonware.

www.myabandonware.com

 

[Ghostinthemachine]

Enjoy the nostalgia.

iF-16

Remember iF-16, an old video game from 1997? Download it and play again on MyAbandonware.

www.myabandonware.com

Fantastic thank you so much

 

[Angular Chap]

So I've been playing around with ZX81 emulation (my physical ZX81 has a fried ULA.)

I wrote a program using the emulator, converted it to audio, recorded it to a physical cassette tape on a physical tape recorder, played the tape back and got the emulator to read the audio from the tape and successfully run the program. It took a few tries and a bit of fiddling, but it was fun to get something working using a combination of emulation and physical audio equipment from the 80s!

 

[Slime_Punk]

^ This makes me want to turn my Pi clone into a BASIC machine

 

[Angular Chap]

^ This makes me want to turn my Pi clone into a BASIC machine

I would like to do something like that, I was thinking I could put a Pi or something in a ZX81 case and use an emulator, some code to use the GPIO pins with the native keyboard and use a small USB sound card for audio in/out for tape recorders. Probably use a 3D printed case and aftermarket keyboard out of respect for the original hardware though, rather than taking a dremel to a ZX81 case!

Also, speaking of BASIC, I remember using Yabasic on the PS2, it was on the demo disk that came with the console and was officially supported. Today I learned that Sony did this with the PAL consoles so that the PS2 could be considered a home computer to bypass EU import taxes!