sdelfin

@Sketcz You must do what you think is best. I'll not try to sell you on switching other than to say that I've been very happy and am glad I did it. I'll also just say that I was already doing enough faffing with Windows that faffing about elsewhere was more appealing to me. It just seemed more futile doing that on Windows, but that's just me.

I developed a high sensitivity to light a while back which comes and goes now, so I know what you mean about bright white backgrounds. On all my computers, I use programs or features to reduce the blue light generally. Yes, that gives things a yellowish or reddish hue, but I'm fine with that. On Windows, the program I knew was called f.lux. Beyond that, if you ever move away from that old version of Word, you should take a look at LibreOffice which is multiplatform. I just checked and there is an option to change the colors. That's a good thing to know if there's ever any issue with your set up.

Good to know you understand the revulsion I felt toward Widows 8. What a terrible error in judgement that was.

@Sketcz second message....

I think I understand what you're describing in terms of folders. Sounds like you want to be able to move them arbitrarily and have them stay there rather than snap to a grid. The weakness of Linux is also it's strength, and that's choice. Choice makes it hard to start, but having the choices is wonderful when you really need it(so that interface changes don't have to feel like doom). I tested a few different file managers on a couple of systems today. At first, I wasn't finding that manual placement, even in file managers search results claimed had that. Anyway, I switched to the computer I'm on right now and I was able to change the sorting in the file manager to manual and drag files and folders wherever I wanted. If that's what you need, it is doable. It's going to depend on the specific file manager. In this case, I'm on Mint with the Cinnamon desktop which happens to be what I recommend to beginners with good results in the past. The default file manager which allows manual placement is called Nemo. I experienced some regressions with Mint on some of my other systems, unfortunately, but I'd still recommend it as a starting point because it seems to work well for most people the vast majority of the time. My issues included networking issues(specifically WPA2 passkey verification), and some audio glitches, and maybe one or two others. They seem to be hardware specific(third and fourth-gen Intel systems in my case). Instead of working out the problems, I decided to just try other distros since that would likely be faster. I recently started running Mageia on one system which worked better. It's probably not too difficult for a beginner, but the support for it will be less than Ubuntu and Mint. Mint actually didn't work for me when I got started because of third-gen Intel being too recent for it, so I got started on OpenSUSE and did fine. Loved it. But Mint is easier to start with. If you have more questions, immediately or down the line, feel free to ask. I'm not an expert(I only got to the command line when necessary and mostly copy and paste for that), but I've been happily using various Linux distros for almost 12 years. I can at least provide the perspective of a regular user who just wants a stable and functional OS with an interface that works the way I like.

@Sketcz Windows 8 was the final straw for me with Windows. Before that, I had some major issues with Windows 7. They were enough to plant the seed that I should consider changing OS. Windows 7 was always annoying with how it handled OS updates in my opinion. That seems to have gotten worse. But beyond annoying, for whatever reason, Win7 updates were breaking my install. I'd just get a black screen. So I had to restore the system back to working order and then I disabled auto updates.....and then it still did it. I later found out that the auto update setting didn't matter, but there was a secret setting buried somewhere that actually disabled auto updates. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed.

I had a laptop that started to fail around this time of year in 2012. It was right around the time Win8 was rolling out. I purchased a replacement on black Friday to get a deal. I don't recall if I had the option for Win7 or Win8, but I ended up with Win8. I had heard reports before its release that it wasn't well received in testing, yet Microsoft insisted they knew better and changed nothing. I thought "how bad could it be?" I hated that OS and interface so much. I had an open mind and tons of patience, but the interface made no sense to me, probably irritating me in the same way a grid of folders bothers you. The OS constantly got in my way and made simple things take way too long. I at least wanted a choice to have the old interface back. What Microsoft communicated to me was I could not trust them with interface design. That's when I committed to changing, but I wasn't ready to do it then. A friend of mine had a spare copy of Win7 that he gave me and I "upgraded" to Win7 and stayed on that for several months to at least make the computer usable. After a few days of Win8 upon receiving the laptop, I didn't touch it for a few weeks until I had that Win7 DVD in hand.

@N64-ROX When I committed, and I use that word intentionally, to switching to Linux, I had reached my limit with Windows. My rage post would be directed to that. Even the "good" Windows versions like 7 caused me so many headaches. When I switched, I was determined to be patient and give it time because I really wanted it to work. I actually got off to a rough start because my hardware at the time was quite new and a lot of the popular distros didn't have the updated kernel my hardware needed which led to some bizarre problems. It was not a great way to start that journey. I eventually tried out enough distros and found one(OpenSUSE) that actually worked. Once that happened, I was very happy with everything. I mean that in a literal sense, like using the computer made me happy. Linux just felt right to me, even as a newb. It only took a few months for me to abandon my dual-boot setup.

WINE is weird. I've had it working many times and it has worked great. Just this past summer, I installed a bunch of games on the laptop I'm currently using without issue. Just recently, the option to run Windows exe files has disappeared, and they now open in a file-compression program I like. I don't know why or how that file-association issue developed. I can't say I run into issues like that too much. I have seen them, and other issues, but not often, so my Linux experience has been very good on the whole. I had many problems with Windows, so I still consider myself way ahead. But as far as that WINE issue, I recently bought the Batman Arkham games on sale from GOG and decided to try out Lutris which I had heard a lot about. The Lutris page had a specific script for that game, which installed successfully with a version of Proton. You can also install stuff without a script which I haven't tried yet, but it may be better than just installing WINE from the distribution repository or following the instructions on the WINE page, both of which I have done successfully. I also recall a program called PlayOnLinux which seemed to simplify dealing with WINE. I haven't used that one in a while, but it worked well. I should take a look at that again, but opted for Lutris this particular time. At the end of the day, it depends how happy you are on Windows. I was very unhappy, so I was more willing to deal with issues and push through. The nice this was, when I dealt with each issue, things just made a lot more sense to me and I felt like I was moving forward, so I've been very happy, but I acknowledge that the issues you've had, along with others, are real, though not universal.

The Saturn had its issues in the market, but it was a fun system to own when it was current. For me it was the system I owned at a time in my life when I was most into video games. It may have been a flop compared to expectations and what Sega needed it to be, but it had a very good library. It was funny that by the end of the Saturn's life I had swung back from the 3D craze to a new appreciation for 2D games. Games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and King of Fighters '97 were a big part of that. It was truly impressive to see that level of 2D gaming at home on my TV at the time. Of course, that could be said for many 3D games too. There was something special about those games. Another favorite of mine was Virtual On. I was not familiar with that game from the arcades, but saw it in a Saturn commercial and thought it looked cool despite not knowing much about it. I picked it up based on that and ended up loving the game. Another great memory of the Saturn was getting two new games right as I had a week off from school. The two games were Fighters Megamix(Japanese copy) and Dragon Force. I had the best week ever with those two.

I've said this many times before. And this is not a knock on Sony or its marketing. The PS1 wasn't really $100 cheaper at their launch prices. It had no game. Most people would need a game if they weren't planning to play demos. Games were about $50 where I was. A memory card would not be required, but would be highly recommended. Without the card, it would be $350. $370 or so with the card. The Saturn came with a game for a bit and didn't require external memory for saving. With that said, Sony's approach was better because people could choose their first game. Plus, it was better optics and psychology having the system priced at $300.

@Sketcz Thanks for replying. It refreshed my memory of a few things as I recall some of that. I haven't thought about TOC files in quite a while. Luckily, I never spent much time on that, perhaps because I was already willing to work with the command line. But that is very annoying when you have those issues with file formats that don't need to be that way. I never dealt with any of the emulators that had that other limitation on iso files and would need a disc or virtual drive, but I have been aware of one or two of those. I've never liked that concept. My recollection is hazy, but I think some of that nonsense is why I gravitated toward and persevered with the command line and then Retroarch a couple of years later. In fact, I think the reason I switched to the command line was because I was using a GUI frontend with MAME and MESS and I could not figure out how to load PCE CD with it, if it was even possible with that frontend. I think it was a limitation of it because it was a more complicated command to pass through than it would have been for a HuCard. It was a process to get to this point for sure. For me it was even more interesting because I had decided to switch to Linux shortly after I started learning the various emulators, so I had a lot of things to figure out all at once.

No surprise about that last part. It seems there are a lot of rude people connected to this scene(that applies to Linux as well), including various people who work on the software. I've always steered clear of various forums and such because of that. That's why I did my best in my original reply to find the right tone to not come across as defensive or condescending because I know that's too common with this sort of thing.

The solution you ended up with sounds pretty good at least. I probably would have gotten the TerraOnion if I hadn't found the solutions I did, as it seemed to be well put together. I do have some PCE hardware, so it would have been of interest to me under different circumstances.

@Sketcz I'll do my best not to evangelize too much about Retroarch because it's fine if people don't like it. But for as to why I like it and use it, it simply did a number of important things much better than the standalone emulators I had access to at the time. Specifically, it was better at all things display related. It had better scaling options, better frame rate handling(fixed stutters that were common with other software), better scanline overlays, etc. The unified interface was also a huge plus. When I switched, I had already migrated from Windows to Linux which may have limited my access to some emulators, but every single one that I had used was inferior to Retroarch in some major ways, even if they were simpler to use. Before I switched, I was mostly using command-line MAME, MESS, and Mednafen. MAME was the best of those, and the only thing close to Retroarch in terms of results. To be clear, I'm not even a command-line guy, but that route made the most sense at the time so that's what I ended up doing. I know Retroarch seems complex at first. I felt the same. I also laugh looking back at my trouble because you don't need to know much to actually get started. I've rarely had to do much fiddling with it, and have had little trouble getting and keeping things working. I've helped other people get started with it too with good results. It's even easier now that I switched to the AppImage version(no installs). I approached emulation like a project(same as when I switched to Linux). That's why I took the time to learn the MAME command line when things weren't quite right otherwise. When I figured that out, learning the same for Mednafen wasn't intimidating. When I decided to see what all the hype was about with RA, I figured if I could do the command line with those, I could figure RA out no problem and I was right. I'm glad I did too.

But the main reason I replied is to ask what the issue is with PC Engine CD emulation? Is it that the standalone emulators you know don't support it or that it's difficult to set up? I had PC Engine CD working in MESS(which is part of MAME now it seems) and Mednafen. I spent a good bit of time getting the CD games to work in those about a decade back and it felt like quite the accomplishment when I got the commands right. I also had PCE CD working in one or two Linux-based handheld systems(non Retroarch). Of course, it works fine in Retroarch, and I don't mean to be snarky saying that. I'm genuinely curious what the issue is with PCE CD.

@amishpyrate You didn't make it up. Though the figure I found was 24 hours rather than 30. Still, the reality is a far cry from what was claimed on standard AA batteries. I found the reference in a Verge article from June.

@Mario500 SoC is System on a chip. If you don't know the term, it's like a CPU but with more components integrated into the package. Mobile phone processors are considered SoCs.

From the pictures, the mini case looks very well done. There are the color differences for the power button and front fascia, but it still looks good. Gamecube is already fairly small, but his custom version does look like a decent amount of downsizing.

It makes no sense to take a racing game and turning it into a kart racing game. At best, you can stick a kart mode into a Wipeout game as a bonus. The point of kart racers is to take cartoony characters people already know and like, and put them into a racing game. For a Wipeout Kart, they'd have to create their own characters. It makes no sense.

For those that don't know, there's a version of Simon's theme within Castlevania Bloodlines. I forget if it's used in game, or if it's just included in the sound test.

It's funny how the Genesis/Mega Drive is judged as having "bad" sound. That reputation largely comes from western games and the GEMS sound driver. Now, GEMS had some merit and probably didn't have to produce bad results. I think a lot of that came to developers not prioritizing sound in those days for those games. Many Japanese developers did prioritize sound and there were a lot of composers there that knew how to work with FM programming. People forget that in the 1980s, FM sound was considered a premium feature and arcade games overwhelmingly used it. The chip in the MD was good, though not as good as those typically used in arcades, but the results could still be excellent. One of the biggest issues it had was the DAC used for sample playback which led to a lot of scratchy playback. It was originally intended for percussion samples. I can think of dozens and dozens of MD games with good-to-great soundtracks off the top of my head and I do enjoy the style of game music the MD was good at producing.

Both the MD sound chip and the SNES sound chip were good in their own ways, but also had their own limitations. Both could produce good and bad results. In the case of the SNES, the chip was capable and interesting, but was held back by technical limitations of the time(ROM and RAM size, etc). PCM audio was definitely the next step, just as optical media was. It may have been a bit early for them to go with all PCM given the cart sizes of that early period, but much like the MD there are still many games with excellent sound.

I'm not familiar with this channel, but it sounds like an unfortunate situation. It also sounds needless. One thing I've noticed for some time, most of this year and perhaps even much of last year, is that Youtube has been broken in a lot of ways. I've run into many problems and have heard of more from others. Meanwhile, they can't be bothered to add some very basic featured to the mobile app. So I can't say I'm surprised that whatever is wrong at Youtube would manifest in this way, an automated channel deletion. I hope there is some possibility for a real resolution to this.

@GhaleonUnlimited Thank you so much. I appreciate the reply, both the amount of information and the quality of it. I have looked at comparisons of the games, so I can tell you that the original 16-bit look does appeal to me and has some charm to it, so that's not an issue, even if the 32-bit versions do look quite nice too. Good to hear a player-oriented take on it. I'll keep these things in mind for when I finally do try out Lunar, which I fully intend to do.

@GhaleonUnlimited There is an "ignore" button at the bottom of posts to ignore a user.

I'm not the biggest RPG fan, but I do appreciate some. Phantasy Star 4 has always been my favorite. I have also praised it for having a "brisk" pace. It's both the game that moves fast, but also the story. I love it. I have tried some of the popular 16-bit RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 and they didn't really do much for me. To be fair, there have been times when I have revisited games and ended up liking them much more at a different time, so I intend to go back to both of those to give them another chance. But Phantasy Star 4 grabbed me immediately.

I'll have to make a note on Terranigma. I also haven't played the Lunar games, but have always intended to give them a look. I like hearing that they are fast and straightforward. I'm curious what your thoughts are on Lunar in terms of the original versions compared to the 32-bit remakes.

@slider1983 All the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games on Steam are showing up for me, so maybe it's a glitch or something like that.

@slider1983 It's a bit of both when it comes to Working Designs. Many people appreciate their efforts in bringing games over in English. Some like their quirky translations. Some of their games might have even been translated in a pretty straightforward manner without taking liberties. On the flip side, there are many critics who took issue with how many liberties they took with the translations. Plus, they did make some games harder, some unreasonably so. Sometimes that was intentional, and sometimes it was programming errors which is pretty amazing that wasn't caught during testing. So Working Designs' reputation is a bit of a mixed bag.

I've said it before, but I love this project. It's a great idea. You can't preserve everything like this, but this makes a lot of sense. It's a specific type of collection. It's a lot of prominent game characters with a lot of Nintendo characters, along with various other things like Mappy, Mega Man, Street Fighter, and others. It's cool to be able to archive these physical items with digital scans, and for people to be able to print them for themselves if they have or have access to 3D printing. It could also be a nice thing for young kids to have as small toys, especially if they're already into Nintendo characters or the others. When I was little, some of my favorite toys were small plastic or rubber figurines that look similar to these. I would have loved to have video game characters to play with back then.

Congrats to Mr. Talida for doing so much and finishing the project.

"We are not rich people" Yet, the Lamborghini. Even if it was rented or borrowed for the sake of appearance, it's terrible marketing. What appearance was the Lambo supposed to communicate? Being rich and successful. This is a joke.

Yesterday, someone pointed out in the previous article on this that they could charge the full amount any time they wanted. How amusing that it only took a matter of hours. I also wish I could say that this was an unexpected development in this saga, but this seems par for the course.

Let's just pretend this is not a full-on scam and there are actual intentions to release a product. The unforced errors and red flags are undeniable. To charge the full amount now, even if by mistake, is the sign of a project that is run so poorly that expecting it to succeed seems overly optimistic. It doesn't look good either way. But, as I said, that was pretend. It has all the signs of a legitimate scam. And if that bothers him/them, well that's because they've presented it the way they have.

I can vouch for Dogyuun. It is excellent. I love Grind Stormer as well. They're probably my two favorite Toaplan shmups, probably because they're hard, but not punishing. Both are realistically beatable with a moderate amount of persistence and don't require the same level of expertise as Tatsujin/Truxon 1 and 2. Having played it extensively, the port of Grind Stormer is better than it gets credit for and surprisingly faithful considering the hardware. The first impression is a bit weak due to the color reduction and the worst sprite flicker in the game happening at the end of the first stage. But the arcade version is the better way to play it for sure.

Also, kudos to @Damo for the sub-heading on this post.

It looks very good so far. Not only does it look good in stills, the character animation is surprisingly smooth. I'm curious about their custom mapper and what it allows. It sounds like it's adding sound capability, among many other things it probably does. I'm sure it helps with the scrolling and probably the way to text window operates. You can see from the graphics it still has color limitations you'd expect since the NES is not the PC Engine, Genesis, or SNES, but the art is very well planned and the color choices are very good. It's clear there's a lot of effort going into it and the developers have enthusiasm for this project.

Edit: The Kickstarter page provides some detail on what the mapper does. There's expansion audio, FMV capability, vastly increased data storage, and a clever palette-switching ability. They also go into some detail on their process of porting to the PC which will be enhanced with widescreen, but will remain NES authentic in most ways. It's worth reading about it on their page for those interested in all that.

@-wc- I found your re-assessment, the stuff about falling apart "under light scrutiny", up above quite amusing, in the best way possible. I like your style here.

When I saw these comments, the thing that came to mind was Castlevania: Rondo of Blood which I believe was not translated either. But it made a lot of sense to do that. There's not a ton of story needed for the game.

Now, the main reason for my reply. I agree about the physical vs. digital debate. Whenever that discussion comes up, I always make the distinction between video content(movies, shows), where I do prefer physical, and video games where digital makes a lot more sense. This is due to the nature of gaming now, with patches and DLC a major part of the equation. There will definitely be games on physical media that will be problematic in the future because the physical version is an early and broken version of the game. There are other downsides to physical as well. Still, there are some resourceful people that might come up with solutions to those problems. I do wonder if Switch cards will have the kind of longevity of prior consoles. To be fair, there are reports of Saturn games being prone to disc rot, so old systems aren't always perfect.

My favorite approach to digital distribution is GOG. As long as I have the installer files, I own the games. I do like Steam as well and have had no issues with it.

@DasMiez The smugness is only because of people who are wrong insisting they know better. For example, the previous person's argument completely falls apart on point number one. Why? Because they assumed the input lag does not even exist using frame advance, when it absolutely does. There's no processing advantage whatsoever. That's the entire foundation of their position and it's a false premise. As for your argument, it is totally irrelevant. People say emulation adds lag, and I pointed out it can remove it. That's true.

You may want to check again how cycle accurate these FPGA cores are at the moment. Just recently on this site, an FPGA developer spoke about how his cores use hacks because they have to in order to work. I have no problem with that, just to be clear. But that's beside the point. People keep pushing this notion of emulation adding lag, which is true, but incomplete and misleading. I detailed how it can be subtracted after the fact. This is common knowledge as the feature has been around for at least six years. You do know that, right? Software emulation literally can provide next-frame response. Plug an FPGA into an LCD TV, and that's the best you can get.

Call me smug or whatever you want, yet you are no better. I already laid out in detail what my position is because of the persistent myths out there, and I detailed the procedure. You could go and verify it yourself because I know for a fact that it's correct. So you're just as smug and just as insolent. Except there's one difference. I'm right on this and everything you said here doesn't apply.

Edit: any perceived smugness comes from people talking at me instead of to me, with assertions that I have a "lack of understanding" while the entire basis for their claims is totally incorrect. Or they bring up things that are simply irrelevant to what I have posted such as different devices will have different lag, which only requires an easy change to the RunAhead setting to compensate and get next-frame response. The only thing I'm arguing is that lag can be removed in software emulation and I provided actual specifics on how that works in my previous points. The fact that people bring up totally unrelated things and seemingly don't verify what I have said, which is common knowledge now, I think speaks volumes.

@ParadoxFawkes the sprint works, but the speed difference is not as noticeable as in the original. Obviously, the feel of this version is very different, but it's an interesting exercise in porting the game without cropping the viewable area.

@slider1983 typically the Japanese art was better, at least in my opinion. But there's no question the Golden Axe 2 box art was better for the western version. That was typically the case when Boris Vallejo, the famous fantasy painter, or his wife Julie Bell, who was also excellent at that, were involved. Not all their concepts were the best, but their execution was never a weak point. The western Golden Axe 2 has always been one of my favorite game covers.

I got a very late PSP 3000. While the battery may not have held a charge very well, especially compared to the Nintendo portables, it also clearly had a significant parasitic draw when fully turned off. After running into that problem twice(the first time I thought it was my mistake, but it wasn't), I simply got into the habit of pulling the battery out of the system every time I turned it off. I'll have to check for any bloat on mine, though I suspect being stored outside the system probably helps. It's a shame that aftermarket lithium batteries are typically poor and that official ones are often overpriced.

This reminds me of the Coleco Chameleon fiasco in that the case design seemed to be the top priority. Much like that scam, there's a lot of focus on showing something sometime in the future to quiet the haters. That demonstration never happened for the Chameleon. If they're salty about people calling this a scam, that's on them for raising several red flags so far and doing a pitiful job in dispelling those concerns with their recent videos. The time constraint on their pre orders does them no favors in seeming legitimate. The remedy from their end is simple. If this is legitimate, prove it.

As other have said very well, if you don't want your stuff used and forked, then don't make it open source in the first place. It was made available and the license was apparently followed, so there's really nothing more that needs saying. It reminds me of some drama within the emulation community a while back that sort of briefly came back into focus recently. And it might actually be a case of both sides having problems, but it was very clear that a developer had no idea how such software licenses worked in a similar way to this one.

I haven't commented on this much if I have at all. Others noticed the red flags before I did, partly because I don't keep up with FPGA development so had no real frame of reference for what was possible with regard to the Dreamcast, but it was looking like a scam pretty early on in this process. I'm no PCB expert, but their board did look suspiciously barren. I trust the more technical comments referenced in the article. I remember enjoying reading what Kevtris had to say during the saga of the Coleco Chameleon. I had the good luck to be able to follow that on forums in real time. I saw the events unfold as clever people easily identified the hidden SNES Jr. under a Jaguar shell at the toy show and how it only took a short time for people to identify a strange, if I recall correctly, video capture board being presented as their prototype PCB. The whole thing was riveting and I think I read well over 10,000 forum posts over a few weeks as it was happening. We also have the much less spectacular failure of the Intellivision Amico, because both of Atari's main console competitors of the early '80s needed to be resurrected for scams, because why not. And then there's the Smach Z, which had its own marketing woes. For those not familiar with the Smach Z, think of the Steam Deck, but non existent.

Edit: I forgot to watch the marketing video, the one with the totally real blond woman, before posting. Wow. It is "a unique console in the world". I guess technically that's a phrase despite it not communicating anything. If you weren't leaning "scam" before....

It's amusing that the guy thought buyers would not notice. Even if the CD-Rs looked real, it would just be a matter of time before someone found out. Gamers are a resourceful bunch. I remember when the Coleco Chameleon fiasco was playing out in real time, people correctly identified the hidden SNES Jr. under another shell based on the port layout, and others correctly identified a video capture card or something like that which was claimed to be their prototype board, and it only took a short time despite the limited resources available(a photo or two that didn't show much).

Aside from the idea that an official game-repro company would sell CD-Rs, which doesn't make sense for what they purport to be about, the bigger problem is that they concealed the fact. A lot of these CEO types, whether the company is big or small, think they see money in some ideas like this, yet fail to consider the PR cost. I guess that's because it's long-term thinking that seems to be in short supply in that world. Even if they make a larger amount of money up front, the price paid later from the revelations is higher. I think about the Unity game engine and how the company committed a massive PR blunder that damaged their brand considerably. CEOs are supposed(lol) to have good judgement, but we see many examples where they clearly don't know what they're doing.

"Good enough" can be good or bad depending on the context. It depends on what the standard is. For example, the old Working Designs Sega CD and Saturn releases probably would have been well received without the additional inclusions and special manuals, though those did help them stand out. They went to extra mile when "good enough" would have truly been good enough. But when "good enough" is an excuse to cut corners that are detrimental to the core product, then that's when that attitude gets to be a problem.

@Guru_Larry They did at least a couple of articles in late August about Sega's research into peripheral design including motion control. I don't remember it they touched on the modular cable, but it definitely came from interviews and maybe was mentioned in the comments.

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/08/heres-the-hidden-meaning-behind-the-dreamcasts-start-button

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/08/sega-almost-created-a-wii-remote-style-controller-for-dreamcast-and-vr-headset-for-saturn

Kenji Tosaki is the man they cited from other interviews. And your recollection of the peripheral types he mentioned for that modular plug of the Saturn 3D pad is correct. The article links to the full interview at the Dreamcast Junkyard, which I haven't yet read, but they link to another interview over at SegaSaturnShiro which I actually read not long before the article went up here. It was a fascinating interview.

Interviews:
https://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2024/08/an-interview-with-kenji-tosaki-how-sega.html

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2022/06/03/interview-kenji-tosaki-talks-saturn-dreamcast-peripheral-design/

@Daggot I know what you mean regarding older shooters vs. bullet hell. A while back, I gave some bullet hell games a try. I was actually impressed with some of the ways they levelled the playing field a bit that I was not previously aware of, such as the tiny hitbox, respawning in place, and maybe one or two other things. In the end, I came away with more appreciation for them than before from the design standpoint, but I didn't enjoy them much. I think that comes down to a few things. First, while the tiny hitbox is nice, my eyes and brain are trained to only care about the ship as a whole. I could never get a good grasp on where the actual hitbox was. Even though many retro shooters can be more difficult than bullet hell, I don't like being so confined by those giant bullet hell patterns to dodge. I like having the space to move. To me, they feel less like shooters and more like rhythm games.

This one is really good, if you like the signature Konami style of beat-em-up games. I like that it incorporates some ideas of Altered Beast and Golden Axe as well. The music is pretty good too. It is very similar to X-Men in terms of the look and feel, including hitting enemies on the ground which is very satisfying. Konami added grab moves to Metamorphic Force, but I think X-Men is better for not having it since it's very easy to abuse the move even against bosses. Whenever I play it, I try to not use it too much. Aside from that, it's a great game of this type.

It's definitely looking very early in development and needs refinement. I'm sure they know this. Perhaps the talking in the video would reveal more detail. The footage doesn't show a lot in the sense it's one background location. It looks like they're working on the move set. I think the uppercut move and the mounted punches both come from Double Dragon Advance, and others. I hope this develops into something fun and I hope to see how that goes.

I'm going to post this as a bit more reference material for those who want to get cute and tell me how wrong I am without actually knowing what they are talking about regarding emulation, lag measurement within emulators, and lag reduction.

-I just tested frame advance on a mid-range tablet using Bluetooth, just to stack the deck against me. I tested Metroid Fusion in mGBA, so a heavier 2D system compared to some others. Using the frame advance method, I got one frame of lag. I then set RunAhead to TWO frames of reduction which is one too many. While not always obvious with this incorrect setting, it introduced some jitter on scrolling due to how it works. This proves that using frame advance provided the correct measurement for full-speed emulation. There was no additional lag whatsoever at full speed. Bluetooth and the display added nothing in practical terms. If there was any additional lag at full speed, there would not have been any issues with scrolling. And if there was additional lag, it could still be taken out.

-Using frame advance is an established, accepted, and vetted way of measuring input lag in a practical way in this specific use case. Established by whom? Those who developed the RunAhead feature, and the emulator developers that implemented it. I think they have a pretty good idea of what they are talking about. It's been out long enough that if it did not work, that would have been demonstrated long ago. In fact, it has been demonstrated to work.

The DVD aspect of the PS2 no doubt helped significantly, but the strength of the Sony Playstation brand going into that generation was the main factor for the system's early success. Both Sega and Nintendo made things easy for Sony. Sony also was notorious for a bit of hyperbole at various points to keep potential customers from defecting to other consoles while waiting for the new system. But the Dreamcast launched so early that it was somewhat caught between two generations. It was a significant jump over the PS1 and N64 and it had a respectable polygon output compared even to the Model 3 boards, but Sony's market position and that extra time they had allowed them to have much higher potential polygon output, so it was a legitimate reason to wait. That may not have been apparent in the early games, and the Dreamcast may have had superior graphical features and image quality in some ways, but the potential was there and would definitely be realized. I've played Tenchu 3 and Tenchu Fatal Shadows(the real Tenchu 4, in my opinion) on both PS2 and PSP and the cutbacks for the PSP version, which is still a good version, make me think that's what a Dreamcast version might have looked like in a lot of ways.

@no_donatello I've also thought that the long gap between the Japanese and North American launches may have hurt them for the reasons you mention. I think there were some unfortunate issues that would have made that difficult. First, they did need time to build up the hype for the machine, as they did in 1999. I do recall reports at the time that they had difficulty producing enough units stemming from yield issues with the GPU. They may have needed the time to build up a reasonable stock for the NA launch. I sometimes wonder if they should have tried to launch in NA first, as that is the territory that needed it. That might have hurt the brand in Japan. It would have lengthened game development for launch, maybe not by too much for the arcade-style games, since they would have to be localized before the system was available. That's a more minor issue, but it could also have added months to development time. There may also have been the belief then that they had to launch between September and December in NA and that may simply have not been possible if they did launch earlier. It's hard to say for sure without knowing more. I do think the Dreamcast would have still had a very successful NA launch at $250 as SoJ wanted. The guy in charge went rogue as I recall and announced the launch price at $200 at a time when Sega didn't need to bleed more cash than necessary.

@Scollurio There are some tangible benefits to FPGA. Some of it I think is a bit more a psychological thing regarding the accuracy, especially since we now know some cores at least are not yet fully accurate internally. People say it doesn't introduce lag and that is true, but then software emulation can remove the lag using clever workarounds. FPGA may be better with peripherals like original light guns with CRTs. Some people seem to find the tinkering required with FPGA to be easier or less intimidating than the tinkering required with software emulation. There may also be benefits to power consumption when running off a battery, especially compared to x86 handhelds like the Steam Deck.

What we're seeing right now is the same kind of growing pains that software emulation went through in the past as far as the core development. It will likely go a bit faster due to enthusiasm being higher now. There are talented people that work on both software and hardware emulation too. Perhaps the best thing I can say for FPGA existing is that truly accurate cores will preserve the hardware properly including odd behaviors and glitches. There are cases when homebrew and ROM hacks won't work on original hardware due to those quirks. While a small thing, I think preserving the way the hardware truly functioned has some value, if it gets to that point. Emulators can be made hyper accurate under the hood too, but it's probably far less practical to do so due to the CPU requirements.

To be clear, I strongly favor software in this debate. It is my preference. I'm just trying to be fair in pointing out what the FPGA fans often talk about as positives. I agree with you that it's nice that it exists as an option. Retro games are fun, properly set up, either through software or hardware emulation.

@SlCKB0Y I've been anticipating a reply like that. The lack of understanding is entirely on your part. This is exactly the type of myth I am talking about.

To address your points:

1 - it's not eliminating any of that. The lag is there using frame advance when RunAhead is disabled. Enable it correctly, and the lag disappears. You can very much feel it at full speed too.

2 - It's not the opposite at all. Emulators process and display frames. Using frame advance in Retroarch might do it slowly, but it's the same number of frames as it would be in real time(edit for clarity: Retroarch will process frames the same way with frame advance as is does at full speed). That's why the lag is still there using frame advance without RunAhead. The amount of processing power to process frames in real time for the older systems is trivial for many modern-ish CPUs(most of mine are a decade old), in the range of 1-3 percent CPU utilization. This is not an issue.

3 - display lag is largely irrelevant here. This is a huge reach on your part. Plus, display lag would be the same for anything using the same screen, emulation, FPGA, original hardware. It is a non issue.

In your suggestions, you are making the same fundamental mistake as others have. Taki himself did the LED test(and busted a myth doing so, as he intended). Even the original hardware has lag in that method. GBA had two frames in that test. GBA emulation had an additional two frames. That's total lag. The only thing that matters for this discussion is additional lag. If original GBA hardware has two frames of lag with that method, it is essentially zero for the purposes of this discussion because it cannot have more lag than itself and all the games would be made with that in mind. That means emulation has an additional two frames, not four. There's no need to do the LED test because, one, it has already been done, Two, it is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is frames. GBA has two frames of lag? Cool. I can take them out. Response is next frame at full speed. The responsiveness is instant and the performance is consistent if you play through games that way. There's no mistaking it.

As I have already said, all of these assertions are moot. If I were to do your LED test(no need), and if I was unpleasantly surprised(fallacy), I could literally just subtract more lag out of the game. If you know how RunAhead works(do you?), then you know that is possible and you should know it's possible to actually subtract more lag than the emulation has(and as I'm properly set up, there's no additional lag left, further proving there's no "unpleasant surprise" to find). That would of course be bad as it would eliminate visible frames and create a noticeable jitter, but it is also proof of what I have been saying. In fact, that's an experiment I think you should do. You will "discover" that what I have been saying is correct. I know this because I have already done it in a practical application, and others have been doing it for years before I ever bothered to try it. It works, and works extremely well. Remember, I'm not arguing lag doesn't exist, though it's typically very low(1-2 frames most of the time), I'm pointing out it can be removed, which it very much can.

If save states are a priority, then FPGA is not the way to go right now. But it is good to see that feature implemented in more cores for more people to enjoy. Hopefully it works well enough to be incorporated into the stable version. Hopefully they get that sorted on all the cores for which it is feasible. Always good to see such progress.

It's been some years now, but it doesn't feel like all that long ago when we had similar developments on the software side. I remember limited state support in FBA arcade emulation, including limited support for Capcom CPS games(they worked, sometimes). I think Dreamcast didn't have save states for a while either. They're not 100 percent stable last time I checked, but they're good enough.

I don't automatically go for the Game Boy aesthetic, but I do appreciate when it's done well, authentically or not, with strong visual design, and this looks to be one of those cases. It looks very nice. Some of the animation is impressive. There's not much more than a glimpse in the trailer, but the boss with the skeleton hands and ram horns looks really cool. I like what I'm seeing here and it's clear the developer is putting a lot of effort into it.

@Sketcz I believe it's either the video encoder or signal noise. I've heard that some of the board designs introduced a lot of signal noise and that simply taking the lines off the board leads to some improvement. Considering that Sega made mistakes with the audio circuits of some of the revisions, I can believe that. Sega did a lot of things right, but their MD board design wasn't one of their better things.

Apparently, there is an RGB mod for the system for those who want their RGB to be, somehow, different from the stock system. You are correct that the system outputs RGB natively. There's also an S-video mod, which I figured is worth mentioning.

@avcrypt What issues are you referring to and with which emulator? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

@Buizel Ergonomics is definitely one reason I imagine people would give. For those with larger hands, some DS models might be too slim. The controls might also be an issue. I always liked the DS controls, but they might be on the small side for some, and others seem to hate the D-pad. Another reason could be wanting better screen quality than what the original offered at the time. I agree that the appeal to emulate goes down when various gimmicks are involved, though DS seems reasonable enough if hardware like this isn't a problem for these device designers.

That's the thing about gaming on CRTs back then, there were many variables and inconsistencies. There are those who say that the dithering effects didn't blend on the CRTs they had the way it did for others. I recall seeing that happen in some cases, though it probably relies partly on the picture settings as well. There's also the issue of the Genesis having problems with rainbow banding with the lesser video out options. Those rainbow bands were always there, and look a lot like they do in those later pictures. I love the Genesis, but its video output was quite poor for many people. I have no nostalgia for that level of authenticity. I have RGB cables for my Genesis systems and like the output. On emulation, you also get an RGB-quality image and I have my preference for processing and scanlines with that.

@Soupbones I don't know much about this one, but it looks like it's the original Super Volleyball from 1989 that got a port to PC Engine in 1990 and even to the Mega Drive a year later. Power Spike looks to be the second arcade entry in this series.

Great news and this is the right way to do it. Not much point in remastering the game without updating the controls to be more modern. But it also doesn't make sense to revive this game and not have tank controls for those who enjoy that from the original.

I revisited Croc several years ago. I specifically wanted to play an early 3D platformer with D-pad controls(tank style). I was in an odd mood. I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it, but I ended up having a really good time with it. I even enjoyed it a lot more than a much more prominent 3D platformer from the 1990s that I revisited a couple of years later. It helps that I played the PS1 version this last time. I had previously played the Saturn version when it was new and didn't enjoy it, and a big part of that is the camera which is more zoomed in on Saturn and that causes problems. PS1 version was more playable.

I didn't become aware of Toaplan until I became a retro gamer in modern times. It didn't take long for me to see why people like their games so much. In many cases, Toaplan shmups(yes, I said it) are among my favorites. Grind Stormer and Dogyuun were standouts for me. The home versions of Truxton are a lot of fun because I can turn the difficulty down and the red shot isn't near useless. It's nicely made. The sequel is super tough, but it has great visuals and sound, so it's still fun.

@nocdaes I had the Game Gear version back in the day, but never got very far in it then. I revisited it several years ago and ended up enjoying it as well. It was nice to go back and get more value out of a game I played as a kid. There was one stage close to the end I thought was poorly designed, but that happened sometimes in old games. I wonder if I'd still think that. Save states to the rescue in that case. The Garfield sprite looked pretty good on the Game Gear.