Videogame Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Geek Cave: Computers, Tablets, HT, Phones, Games' started by sphinxvc, Oct 9, 2015.

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  1. Jerry

    Jerry Friend

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    Fallout 4 is one of the best games ever. Too bad I aint got my PS2 no more.
     
  2. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Damn animal crossing. I just bought 300k bells worth of turnips.
     
  3. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @JK47 we know that best version of Ghouls 'n Ghost is on the Supergrafx. I actually ordered the Coregrafx version of the PCE mini due to there's more shooting games on that version over the regular PCE Mini (Salamander). I haven't gotten my yet. Also, the PCE Mini default controller doesn't have the Turbo Controllers on top, but the US TG-16 Mini and Coregrafx Mini does come with a Turbo Controller.

    M2's emulation is mixed on the PCE Mini (same as the Genesis/Megadrive Mini), but I'm hopeful that once the hacks are available a basic overclock or emulation change would solve that problem. ATM Lords of Thunder has a little bit too much input lag for some people. Which is a shame because it is one of the better STGs on the CD format for the system. I just wish M2 emulation was top tier because they can make amazing ports (I would know as a STG fan picking up some of their stuff back when I had a Switch and getting their STG releases on PS4).

    However, once the hack is out for the PCE MIni (which will be the same ones for the Genesis/Megadrive MIni), then it should solve some issues + add more Hucard ROMs and CD ROMs (so many STGs I want to load up into an USB stick). Hopefully I can also load up some NES/FC Roms and ATM I should be good to go.

    The R-Type port on the PCE was pretty good for its time, nowadays I prefer to play the arcade version via MAME. Kato and Ken was LOL but more/less it was a f'ing shit game when you are drunk and shirtless. 1943 Kai is one of the few arcade to console ports that I will play because the remix on the PCE was pretty damn good. Very enjoyable port back in the day. Too bad PCE Mini doesn't have Legendary Axe, but at least it has Soilder Blade (one of the most enjoyable STGs on a Hucard). I'm waiting for the hacks so I can load it up with tons of CD STGs (Ai Cho Aniki for real men by men).

    @Scott Kramer Many moons ago I had the first gen PC Engine Duo. Sadly those units are dying off like mad due to crappy CD Lens + caps that must be replaced sooner or later. I had Nexzr, the Macross STG for the CD, YS Book 1 & II, and so much more.
     
  4. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Got one of the Mini Console that I blabbed about, the PC Engine Coregrafx Mini variant.

    This is the best one to get IMO, due to having a few more games that doesn't require to know Japanese, same side as the regular PC Engine, and the included controller has Turbo function (which was not the case as the regular White PC Engine Mini included controller).

    I love the games, I grew up with them. I'm a big fan of Side Scrolling Shooters/STGs/Shooting Games. PC Engine has tons of them, and it is a great system for dorks like me.

    The price is right, and the package works. Just a FYI the default package will not have an AC adapter included, but a simple 5V USB Power Adapter will work.

    Few downsides, the emulation which is handed by M2 is one of their weaker efforts. There's some input lag which is driving me crazy on some games. Also, the CD games sounds is a little muffle for me.

    All in all it does have some weaknesses. But you are most likely getting this for the hacks. So far the unit is already hackable and there's an estimate 4 GB of internal storage of the board. However, it will accept USB Sticks and such so my dream of loading it up with tons of PC Engine CD Games will happen soon via Retroarch (which its PC Engine cores should prefer better than the M2 emulation).
     
  5. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Shit I almost forgot, so I reacquired a MegaSG, which is a FPGA recreation of the Sega Megadrive/Genesis. Now this is my favorite 16-bit era of system, tons of excellent action games and I just love the FM soundchip. After originally selling it I missed playing some 16-bit goodness on a 1080p. Thunder Force STGs, plus the Toaplan ports, and Ex-Ranza and so much more, geez I'm going to jizz a lot tonight thinking about it.

    So because I needed Genesis controllers I reordered the Retro-Bit ones, which are a great recreation of the Sega six button controller from back in the day. When I got the controllers from Amazon, it was actually the Retro-Bit Sega Saturn controllers. >.>

    So I have my MegaSG, which is next to the PC Engine Coregrafx Mini, and I have the latest Jailbreak FW installed on it with all DA Roms, but I can't play it since Amazon send me the wrong controllers, lol. Oh well, I'll wait for Amazon to correct this one....
     
  6. Sqveak

    Sqveak Friend

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    The retro-bit megadrive/genesis controllers on Limited Run Games have Saturn-like shoulder buttons. Are you sure they aren't just those?
     
  7. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    LOL, no. I had the Retrobit Genesis controllers before and I am aware of the shoulder buttons.

    However, what I got from Amazon are the Sega Saturn Controllers and it said so on the box. However, the sticker Amazon put on them is the Genesis one for their inventory. Most likely when they put them in inventory and added their stickers they mixed up the systems. It can happen at times.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2020
  8. Skyline

    Skyline Double-blindly done with this hobby

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    I'm late to the party (as usual), but I recently picked up Nioh for dirt cheap and am really loving it.

    It's filling the hole in my heart left behind since I finished Sekiro.
     
  9. netforce

    netforce MOT: Headphones.com

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    Been playing XCom Chimera Squad lately. Love the XCom games, started with Enemy Unknown and played them all except The Bureau.

    I had played the previous games usually on normal difficulty and would maybe have to restart the campaign once or twice till I got the hang of things.

    Chimera Squad I have been playing on normal difficulty and got around 25 hour so far. No restarting yet but it is without a doubt easier than previous XCom games. Soldiers can't die otherwise its game over. You can restart the encounter at anytime without penalty. The individualized turn based mechanics was easy to grasp. The mechanics of some soldiers to essentially move up their turn and move enemy turn down is easy to exploit. The game really feels a lot closer to a table top RPG like Shadowrun or D&D now.

    There are 3 factions to defeat and so far I have knocked out 2. The game without a doubt feels a lot more fair but some part of me is missing the bullshit RNG screwing me over from the previous games. The writing and voice acting is pretty awful but the game is on sale for only $10 so much inline for a cheap game.

    Overall, I do think it feels like XCom lite. Great for people new to the franchise looking to start off simple.
     
  10. Elmer Danilovich

    Elmer Danilovich MOT:Earmen, HeadAmp, Bricasti; AKA:MShenay

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    Yea I've been seeing mention of Chimera Squad here lately, new Xcom content is always welcome in my book. Tho I don't have much time... I've been diving into Disgaea 5 and more importantly Tales Of Mana...

    I'm happy to say Tales of Mana is EVERYTHING I wanted Seiken Denetsu 3 to be on a modern platform!!!!!
     
  11. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    A post of @rtaylor76 makes me want to post this.

    With the rise of FPGA chips that simulate old video game consoles chip processing we are having more/less a real 1:1 of the hardware without running it in software (emulation). From my experience having stuff running in FPGA provided a better experience depending on the hardware due to no emulation quirks and normally the goal of FPGA based console is just taking an older hardware and make it similar plug-in-play and very important: HDMI. Of course there's the MIster FPGA stuff which run things on a FPGA level and can run different hardware depending on the RAM and other things. Downside with FPGA, cost.

    SNES Emulation is still kind of a crapshoot due to the system uses various chip add-ons for various games. I remember the ZSNES using plenty of hacks to get the games run "100%." Of course they will be at times where a game on an emulation will do something different than on a console. I really can't stand that much of the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom anymore, but I know Super NT can more/less run everything 100% like the system is a 1:1 hardware level to a Super Nintendo.

    Damn, my MegaSG is good stuff. Megadrive is better than SNES as always.
     
  12. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    Thanks @YMO

    I honestly had no idea FPGA could do this kind of hardware emulation. I guess it makes sense as to why it would work that way. I guess I am not that into gameplay to really notice a difference. Playing those old games is more like nostalgia to me.

    I can really see it benefitting arcade consoles. Some of those were proprietary and boards are hard to come by.

    I am just glad to be able to play some of these old games even on an emulator.
     
  13. SineDave

    SineDave Friend

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    I just finished Nioh 2. Great series and tons of replay value. I'd still be playing Dream of the Strong (NG+) but my wife has commandeered our home theater to play Animal Crossing.
     
  14. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    The biggest challenge of FPGA doing arcade consoles is going to be the following two things:

    • Thousands of different arcade hardware, but mostly based on the similar chipsets (68000, Z80, SH3, etc.)
    • Video Sync to a modern Flat TV Screen/Monitor.

    There's so much different arcade hardware with difference specs that it is pretty wild. FPGA requires you to do a 1:1 with the hardware, and with so much different arcade hardware that can be a challenge. However, so many people over the years are aware of how many of these arcade boards works. I think the Mister project they just brought on Neo-Geo, so there's FPGA Neo-Geo which is sweet. More/less the stuff that is going to be FPGA from arcade stuff are going to be the popular stuff from back in the day (Capcom's CPS1 to CPS3, Toaplan/Raizing/Cave 68000 stuff, Konami boards from 80s/early 90s, MIdway MK boards, etc.).

    With that being said, Video Sync is always going to be a big issue here. One thing I love about analog CRTs is that you can go out of spec and they will still work. So while something outputting in 57hz video in theory will not work on a 60hz monitor, for the most part it does due to analog it is ok to be out of spec. This became a huge problem when LCDs/Plasmas/OLED became big because digital monitors can only be in this certain spec only. As we know with digital, if even a little thing is out of spec the video or audio will not work, period.

    When LCD monitors were started to become popular, people were bitching on how terrible to scrolling on many arcade titles when running them on MAME to a LCD monitor. Since LCD monitors are set in a certain 60hz refresh rate, you either have terrible chopping scrolling on plenty of arcade games or terrible screen tearing (in order to make the game play with no input lag). For the longest time people were keeping their CRT Computer Monitors since they did a great job on analog video and weird refresh rates. Lets use the Mortal Kombat games for example. The games are (in)famous arcade boards for running in 54hz video refresh. Almost all the arcade ports to video game consoles will have garbage screen tearing or chopping movement since almost all TVs are running video games at 60hz while the games ran in 54hz. You can also get rid of these issues by speeding up the game by 6hz, but the results is a game that is running too fast.

    The Mister FPGA stuff needs to run the games 1:1 to the hardware, so they must keep the odd refresh rates since the games were made for the arcade environment on professional video monitors. Those who are really into great gaming video will either run the games on a CRT Monitor (Sony PVMs) that they been hoarding for years, or invest in a flat monitor that supports nVidia G-Sync or AMD's Freesync. The G-Sync/Freesync stuff is a major breakthrough because the monitors with communication from the video card can run smooth scrolling video regardless of what is the video refresh rate and FPS I had a G-Sync monitor a few years back and I was using MAME to play my arcade games. Mortal Kombat ran like butter if you are running it correctly on a G-Sync monitor with no input lag. So the game was running perfect 54hz/54 FPS and the monitor was running it smoothly with no screen tearing or chopping scrolling. This tech is not cheap, but Freesync stuff is preferred since the cost is cheaper.

    Of course the G-Sync/Freesync stuff requires to have a nVidia/AMD Card, and Mister doesn't support it I think. However, I think Mister is using something else to get around the video sync issues on running them on a LCD screen.
     
  15. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    The Mister runs at 60 or 59hz regardless of original resolution without speedup or slowdown. There's documentation on that somewhere but everything I run on the 3 tvs with 3 different Misters works perfectly without weird interpolation or shimmering. This includes old arcade games that run at super low hz. Same with the Analogue consoles, have all of them and they run just fine on all the tvs. If you guys have any questions let me know, I have all the fpga consoles and everdrive type devices.
     
  16. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    What arcade hardware is running on your Mister units? I been curious on getting one myself but I'm worried about the weird lower refresh rate shit being fed to a 60hz monitor via HDMI. I'm done with the Sony PVM hunting, flat screens are easier for me.

    Are the MK board hardware is on the Mister? Any of the Sebiu shooting games (Raiden) is on it? Sorry for the dumb questions, I'm really interested since it would be a nice way to play the STGs that I love back in the day (not too sure if the Toaplan 68000 hardware stuff is on it), but there's so many configurations that I'm like WTF I need to pick, lol.

    I presume you have the Neo-Geo stuff running on them, right? I wonder how good is running stuff like Last Resort and Pulstar, NAM-1975 and Neo Drift-Out?

    Also I'm a Mega SG owner, Analogue's redemption over their CMVS mess years back.
     
  17. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    Arcade games are all super old and on this list: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/Arcade-Cores-List

    MK hardware, no.. not yet anyway. They all ran on the same hardware so someone will dump the chips since it's a popular game. None of the shooters you mentioned are on there. But, coming soon ps1 and CPS1 & CPS2 arcade games (Cps1 i tested was really good). I use my ps1 for all those old japanese shooters almost exclusively. From what I read later this year ps1 should be done.

    Neo Geo uses very large ROMs. About 84% of the library will fit onto a 32 megabyte SDRAM module. Another 12% will fit onto a 64 megabyte SDRAM module. The remaining 8 games require a 128 megabyte module. So the ones you mentioned should work on the 32 megabyte module. As far as how good it runs... to me 100% arcade perfect. It's definitely better than mame emulation or anything else I've tried. Cost about $400 or so to get everything going though with case usb adapters and memory. But one neo-geo game costs that much so it's actually a bargain. Plus there's a ton of other cores also.

    Mister also does:
    Sega Genesis and Sega CD (two different cores). I have the MegaSG and the Terraonion SegaCD cart, the mister is identical to both.

    Snes Core = Analogue Super NT + Sd2snes pro

    Has cores for all these other game systems also:
    Sega MS/Game Gear
    TG16/PC engine (no cd support yet but 75% done)
    Gameboy/Color/Advanced
    Atari 2600/5200
    NES and a ton more: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

    One of my favorite options on the Mister is the built in cheats. They're available for most of the systems even Neo-Geo. So you no longer have to do any weird hacks for Mei bounce or blood.
     
  18. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Thanks for the list @neogeosnk, this is coming from a former Neo-Geo CD owner (price was the big reason, but that 1x CD drive drove me nuts a long time ago). I mostly stick to the Action/STGs on the Neo-Geo. Every time I play a SNK game I'm like Wow SNK used to be amazing until they filed for BK...sad days.

    Thanks for the Wiki, the arcade hardware is not surprising that is is mostly the early 80s stuff. Since there's so many arcade hardware to do 1:1 it will take a very long time to get more of the popular ones. It is wise to focus on the stuff that people care about like the CPS stuff. Hell, the CPS1 and CPS2 stuff is what I think about Capcom. That era was my favorite era of Capcom. Miss those pixel graphics and very solid gameplay from most of Capcom's games.

    Shit, this thing can do PS1 sooner or later? Yeah, PS1 actually had a good library of side-scrolling shooters, but the only ones that I really care about honestly is Zanac x Zanac (before Compile went to poop and those guys went off and did Milestone, like those Dreamcast shooting games). Not the biggest fan of the RAM Modules, but you need RAM for a place to store the ROMs. 100% agree that this is cheaper than collecting AES carts, because honestly f**k that. Too many boots, and f**k Neo-Geo Freak for f'ing a lot of things up from back in the day.

    I have my MegaSG and later this week I'm getting my MegaSD. I just loaded a MicroSD Card with tons of Mega CD ISOs and some MD+ stuff on it. Save states is something I need nowadays due to how busy is my life. Also can help me with those longer ass platformers with no save features.

    Mister is great for SNES for me since honestly I'm not a fan of the platform. As someone who more/less played arcade games for most of my life, I'll take the Megadrive for that one.

    No PC Engine CD game support yet, needs to be done sooner or later. Best PC Engine stuff was on the CD format.

    Oh shit, Sharp x68000 is supported. @neogeosnk try the Sharp x68000 core. So many amazing 16-bit computer action games were on the unit. Aquales is one of my favorites on the computer. Mister seems to be worth it just to do 1:1 x68000.

    You know if this site is any good? https://misteraddons.com/ Looking to get something pre-build, just don't have time to build stuff.
     
  19. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    I buy all my stuff from "Pork Chop Express"aka Misteraddons.com. High quality parts and they carry the official Mister Case. I'll check out the x68000. Setting up one of my Misters to do all the older computers like Sharp, Commodore and Amiga. It doesn't take too long to build it, maybe about 30 minutes or so. The most time consuming part of this is the software.
     
  20. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Finished Disco Elysium last night. I have feeling that it was a more profound experience than Planescape Torment. At first I was unsure whether I'll be able to take doing everything through a text dialog screen, but damn... the writing is impeccable.

    Highly recommended for anyone who has really hit rock bottom in their lives.
     

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