youxia

If I may offer some sort of "consolation" to those Atari fans dismayed by this whole trainwreck, well, at least it's not as bad as the Sinclair Vega+ horror show. I - a ZX Spectrum kid through & through - just had a peek at the latest from that debacle and it involves bitter infighting, tax evasion claims, going from 1000 games to 18, convicted criminals, "erotic chatbots" (no, really), backer's refund drives, meetings in champagne bars and so on. But that's on par, shall we say. But, by far the worst and disgraceful thing is that Sir Clive Sinclair himself, who's old, of very frail health and apparently unable to participate in person, has become an object of a pathetic tug-of-war between the shareholders fighting over his vote. And it seems it's not the first time that has happened. Trying to use and manipulate somebody who's infirm and ailing for the advancement of your personal fraudulent scheme is just about as low as you can go. The fact that this person is also a microcomputing legend just adds insult to the injury. At least you don't have to watch your heroes being dragged through the mud, it's "just" the more impersonal brand.

Well, even if for me the machine itself is kind of pointless and overpriced (I'm building my own custom mini PC for retro games), I can see how the "branding" angle can appeal to some Atari fans. However, the massive problem here is the fact that Atari SA has no connection to the old Atari whatsoever, apart from the receipt for the IP. And worse yet, they have worked really hard over the last few years to bring this brand into a disrepute. So, you're not actually supporting the legacy brand in any way but the new tainted one.

This paints a picture of an indie-style garage operation ran by people who are perhaps a bit inexperienced in the big leagues but nonetheless well meaning, enthusiastic and full of novel ideas. I'm afraid the reality is slightly different. You need to look no further than their Wikipedia page to ascertain that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari,_SA It started over 3 decades ago as Infogrames* and grew to be a huge and influential publisher of quality games. Then, around the millenium time they got too big for their shoes (common affliction in the biz at the time) and went on a voracious acquistion spree followed by a $$$ leaking, sell-offs, renaming as Atari and finally a bankruptcy. Their post-bankrupt story is even sadder, and the patterns learned from it are one of the main sources of skepticism and "negativity" here. Even if they want to assure you that they're still a "profitable and respectable stock-listed company". The sort of which goes to E3 and rubs shoulders with the movers and shakers, signs deals right left and center. If only. But, they used to, so there's no excuses about inexperience. Sorry, but there's no passionate engineer manning the boards. It's either some smartphone-engaged unpaid intern (the lame replies) or one of the "execs" in a coke-comedown mood (the angry replies). *as an unrelated aside I wanted to spare a thought for original Infogrames - what the hell happened? I loved this company as a kid, always quirky and original: Captain Blood, North & South, Alone in The dark and so on. How the mighty've fallen...

It's a worrying trend for sure. In fact, plenty of other forums I frequent(ed) are either slowly dying out or turning into "come see this" links repositories. Video Killed The Radio Star, coming for text one too.

Well, just like I was saying - it's a personal call. You say you can adapt quicker on the Mini. For somebody else, Retron or Pi will be just as good. Some of these differences are minuscule, and the only way to prove they really matter would be a series of blind tests, perhaps impossible to conduct. And if you like to use shaders then that's fine, but there would be as many who consider using such inferior filters an anathema. And so it goes, with everybody having different personal preference. Then of course there is the choice of a TV which varies from person to person. How many of those who've heard that Super NT has "zero" lag will then connect it to their supper laggy TV set? I think overall you're misreading me for somebody who's saying that lag is not important, despite me putting enough caveats to the contrary in all my posts. This is not the case, I'm just trying to go a bit deeper and point out that there are numerous psychological factors involved which influence this subject. It reminds me of these audiophile debates or other hobbies I mentioned earlier. And the reason I object in general is because it leads to uninformed, blanket statements such as "Pi is bad for emulation". It's probably same for the Retron here. Because these are "cheap" devices, there's a backlash from those who've spent quite often hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars and need to justify that a little bit. But does it really matter that Retron is not FPGA based? Does it have a poor, very laggy emulation, are any cartridges incompatible? I don't know, but if not, then perhaps it's just "good enough" and for most people there's no need to go the hardcore route.

I will actually inquire about it on Retropie forum when I have a minute, it's a curious thing. It's not just me by the way. And there's very little room to make any sort of mistake since the whole setup and process are so straightforward. Another thing is that, as somebody from PC benchmarking background I saw countless times results from various "authorities" varying wildly, because of so many factors and methods involved. But the crux of the argument was that the Pi is so much worse that Mini, which is not really the case (even if you ignore my test) since as he says and what you underlined yourself, moderate settings "will put you within a frame of the SNES Mini". Is this really a big difference? I find it really amusing, from the armchair psychologist point of view, because these subjects are so, well, subjective. Now, the lag is an indisputable fact of life, but people's tolerance of it varies wildly and is impossible to establish. This is where we enter the "in the mind zone" - nobody can really tell that how much of your alleged "low sensitivity" is caused by the lag itself and how much by reading about it and being generally involved in this topic. It's similar with LordMonkus's "I cannot really feel any difference from my real hardware". I've heard exactly the same from people with inferior systems hooked to inferior displays. So, how do you measure who's "right" here? We could set up some blind tests and all that but even so, it'd be rather silly and most likely inconclusive. Overall there is a very thin line between going in too deep and staying reaonable - I see similar effect in numerous other hobbies of mine, from photography to pro cycling (with PC scene being the worst). People will argue about some only true solutions/ways as if it's a matter of life and death, whereas in reality such things are too often informed by slight discrepancies in perception and heavy bias (especially the one where you spend a lot of dosh on something and then justify it).

Sorry, but I have to question the findings contained in the thread you mention. I don't know what the source is but a) it sounds heavily biased towards the classic b) I don't know what a "default Pi" is, sorry Overall their description of hardware and methods used is rather poor. Their findings point to 2.4 difference but then few sentences later stretch it to 5.4 just by saying that "an average Pi user" might have that. Then later on admit that by using the right settings you can bring it all down to 1 frame difference. Their declarations about the real SNES vs Mini lag are also rather unscientific - one measured on a CRT (by what methods) and other on a Samsung, then the values "taken away"? Sorry, it's just not how you do things. Overall, it's all really just heavily bent to "prove" the Classic/Mini>Pi which makes it hard to take it seriously. Like I mentioned earlier I've done some tests on my Pi recently and measured between 1-3 frames of lag (depending on a game) on SNES. That's on a RPi 3B+ @800 with wired controller and a CRT, with no heavy config tweaks applied. So, there's that. The fact that Pi "is cheap" is completely meaningless. If it does the job, then its price or specifications have no relevance. Of course, there is a problem with the criteria of what constitutes satisfying performance - this will vary wildly between individuals. But, like I said earlier about lag I feel these criteria are often pumped up by people simply caught up in the debate and overall hype. I totally support the drive for "perfect" emulation but there is a level when it is good enough for me to play games on. In my experience Pi does an amazing job here for all the 8-bit and huge chunks of MAME and 16 bit (I'd say most games play full speed, with rare exceptions). Now, is this higan-level? Of course not, but again, do I care that there was some hardly visible glitch or an out of sync beat? No sir, I do not. Problem with these discussions is the inherit bias we all have which comes from variety of sources and informs people's opinions. It's really hard to get rid of that's why all these "comparative" discourses really are kind of pointless. So SNES Mini has a frame or two lag less then Pi (if it does)? Okay, but can it be customized and play zillion other systems for half a price? No. Same goes for FPGA vs emulation, emulation vs original hardware and so on and on. Different strengths and weaknesses, for people with different needs. Like byuu said, we should just try and get along instead of taking endless pot shots at each other. EDIT: I've actually found the source thread later on and I see this is actually the Brunnis/libretro one. So, now it makes much more sense and my comments about "Mini bias" and some parts about methodology were misguided. Context matters! Without other bits it was all fairly incomplete. That leaves the fact that my own benchmark disagrees with his, and I was using the same hardware and the frame "advance feature". Not sure if these two methods differ so much since the latter is also recommended by the Retropie/Arch crew. And my average in Super Mario World was 2 frames.

These discussions make me glad that my "strict" ruleset is fairly limited when it comes to retro gaming (at least compared to some folks). First rule is about CRTs - if I don't have one around, I won't bother with retro games. The other is that I won't emulate anything above ~ PS1 - while it may be impressive there are almost always some glitches present. This hobby would turn into a chore if I was to add any more regulations. I do overall support efforts of accuracy freaks such as byuu or FPGA builders, undoubtedly we should always strive for 100% & 1:1 at the cutting edge But there's no avoiding the fact that sometimes proponents of these solutions leave the domain of reason and step into the zealotry zone. For me the only thing that matters is what happens on the screen, and how it is achieved is much less of a concern. Original, simulated or emulated - whatever. As long as the output is good enough (and I believe the one under aforementioned limit is) I'm cool with any method. As it is, I believe the whole "lag" debacle is vastly exaggerated. Undeniably educating folks why it is a bad thing is much needed and commendable, but as with so many things on the internet it also often escalates into the extremes, where some types will sneer at you if you don't sport the latest "zero" lag solution (even though your modern TV will add some anyway). Meanwhile most gamers won't care a jot for a few frames of lag and it also won't matter much unless you're a speedrunner, 1CC'er or some other kind of Street Fighter. Recently I've done a test using the frame advance feature on my RPi 3, wired pad and a CRT and came up with results ranging between 1-5 delayed frames, differing between systems (MAME the biggest culprit unusrprisingly). This is entirely tolerable for me. My CRT is definitely a plus factor but others might be using more powerful machine, low-latency TV or even the latest tricks like the "lagfix" which libretro have just introduced. So, it's also possible to stay within a reasonable limit. Not everybody has enough time, patience or $$$s to have every system either in original form or the FPGA one, or cares about zero lag or connecting some original peripherials. Emulation is therefore a totally viable solution and should not be demonised.

Whoa, now. I kinda get what you're trying to say but I really wouldn't put the the olden one on the level with this bunch of hucksters. I'm not well versed in the Atari's history, but whatever their failings were - and I'm sure there were plenty - at least they managed to come up with real hardware, quite often iconic, up till the end of the Eighties, perhaps even into early Nineties, depending on how you look at Jaguar. Which, disastrous as it was, at least was trying to do something fresh and advanced. And I'm saying that as a die hard Sinclair/Commodore fanatic. We might've been mocking our Atari friends back in the day but also had certain respect for these machines and definitely all wanted that AvP game. So it's not really fair to compare these olden Atarians to some cynical corporate playas who bought the logo and the papers. And then can't even put a working prototype together and avoid their campaign becoming a farce. And overall probably never even intended to fully go through with this and are just silently praying for a buyout.

Do you really think so? Have a source perhaps, to back it up? I mean, I for one do not "want and embrace it wholeheartedly", so it's already not "every single gamer" . I'm pretty sure there are a few others too. Admittedly I'm not that concerned about the digital vs physical thingy. I miss the boxes, manuals, going to a shop on Friday with some money in my pocket and all that, but it's not the crux. No, it's all about the gargantuan BS that is the lack of ownership which came with the glorious dawn of the digital era. It's one of the saddest things about the Internet and modern times in general, how easily people gave up on this previoulsy unshakeable concept. And for what? To satisfy that nowadays sacred and overbearing need for "convenience"? Right, having to leave the house and meet real people is a great trauma. And sure, we're all oh-so-busy so it's such a time-saviour, time which we can then spend on more important things like mindlessly scrolling through stuff on our phones. But wait - it's so cheap! Is it really, though? Isn't it funny how the industry was bitching for decades about how the brick'n mortar stores are ripping gamers off and are responsible for the high prices, only for these prices to remain the same when that menace was eliminated? In fact it lead to paradoxes in which quite often a steam copy a would be more expensive than a physical one. The glorified 5 buck sales were of course part of the usual "turn their heads early, then crank it up" strategy which is so prevalent everywhere and now these are much rarer. Plus, of course some folk might remember that sales and bargain bins - never mind second hand market - were also part of the old system. Overall, the most maddening thing is that it does not have to be like that. They only do this because most (not "every single one", sorry) gamers went along. In the era when people also gave up on their privacy, like it's also some worthless and antiquated concept, it's perhaps not all that surprising. But, it'd be entirely possible to change that idiotic status quo, which only exists because nobody objects. Well, actually no, some do - like the Australian or European courts which harassed Steam and which is why for example they had to eventually introduce the refund policy (nope, it was not out of goodness of Gaben's heart). If the "gamer" spent less time on fun pursuits such as worrying about SJW's, sending death threats to devs or raising up about BS such as Mass Effect's ending, then perhaps he could organise a bit and demand that the whole DRM con be gotten rid of. Ever heard of CD PRojekt Red? They seem to be doing well for themselves. There are already grumblings about it, the concept of trading digital games is not as outlandish as it was a few years ago. Given more traction it could well succeed. And maybe also look at that little detail about how you lose your entire collection once you breach some nebulous TOS rule. And why on earth not? It's of course the same for books, music or all other media we used to own and do as we please with. It has also nowt to do with streaming services which are a different kettle of fish and could coexist with DRM free model just fine. For the record, this is just a one-off rant, I have no illusions regarding convincing anybody about it via a course of "discussion" on an internet gaming forum. Been there, tried that, yonks ago. But hopefully it will change, one day, even if it takes decades to do so. Stranger things happened.

It's mid-2018, not exactly the dawn of crowdfunding. It's been around for nearly a decade now, there were countless examples of how not to do things. And so, you had one job Atari: just to follow the safe, tried & tested blueprint. But no, instead you've chosen to tick just about every wrong box, from fake presentations to pissing off an influential news site. You just could not make it up. Listening to that guy dodging, evading and generally weaseling his way through this interview was truly excruciatig. I felt like in an episode of The Office...surreal stuff.

That's all great and good but there can't be talk of early football without mentioning ZX Spectrum's Match Day. Quite a classic.

Priceless. I don't usually lol, but they had me at "reputable". I lol'd! It was a pleasant experience. Thanks for the lol, #AtariVCS.

Hello alexkeaton

Another day, another retro-whatever-system. When will this bubble burst?

To keep their paychecks coming for another year or more. Mr Chesnais and his close circle must be doing fairly well for themselves. I guess the fact that you are a soulless ghoul feeding on a nostalgia flavoured corpse is not that relevant when the benjamins are still flowing.

Well, what can I say. I like retro games. I'm not in a rush, it's not about "finishing" something. I've also just started on Atari/Amstrad/ZX Spectrum this way, so that's another +20K in the mix, plus there's most of other pre-PS1 systems on my SD card. Plus I have a script to sort roms "by year" and sometimes switch to this classification, starting at the bottom and watching games evolve. About the unique number, yeah, I'm also curious and for a second thought about taking notes...but nah, too much hassle. Guess we will never know for sure. I'd like to think it's a bit more than a half, though it all depends on a criteria you employ. For example I'm not too keen on educational titles myself.

Yeah, 25700 to be exact But, I don't think there are any duplicates. At least not in the Gamebase set I'm using. There are of course things like 15 3D Tic-Tac-Toe or 57 zillion Boulder Dash versions, which I might - or might not - skip, depending on a mood, but these are from different coders/companies. There are also lots of type-ins or some totally homebrew/scene efforts but quite often these are fun too.

I'm currently playing through the entire collection, every single game. I heartily recommend this method, it's just so much fun (especially combined with Gamebase's Extras & old magazines). Even the alleged "crappy" ones can be quite charming or curious. Plus, you obviously get to discover a %$ton of the, ahem, "jems". I've just started on "A". So here's a few from the "123" directory: 1000 Miglia - old-timey road race. Not the arcade port, more of a "sim". 1985 - The Day After - one of the best Lunar Lander clones I ever played. Super tight controls & nerve wracking gameplay 1917 - Cute homebrew. Russian Revolution as a side shooter. Super short but can be played for hi-score 3D Pinball - Pinball Power - very solid pinball table, good looking too 3-D Skramble - awesome Zaxxon clone 3D Tunnel - you fly in a 2D tunnel. If released today it'd be hailed as a "minimalistic aesthetic and clean design make this an instant indie classic" 4 Soccer Simulators - only tried one and it was fun, you play on a street, around cars and such, just as we did as kids 5 Wochen Im Baloon - Flappy Bird prequel? 64 Nuclear Power Plant - allegedly one of the first c64 games ever. Have fun breaking a nuclear plant

Not sure if this is a good example. Pandora is not on the stock market and it's also an actual product, which at the time of the release filled a particular niche. There was no open-source, pocket-sized, mini PCs with a keyboard back then. One similarity is that perhaps its user base is quite oblivious to any criticism. Which is probably why the new one (Pyra) can get away with its quite ridiculous price - despite the fact that now it actually has competitors.

By Jove, these backers' comments are just the saddest thing...especially the speculector ones. The thirst is real.

Unlike other companies, Bethesda mostly announces games not long before release. I much prefer it this way instead of dissecting & spoiling every single aspect of a game for months on end and delaying it multiple times too. In this case I believe they dropped this highly unimpressive TES 6 "trailer" just to get the press of their back, otherwise it'd be all about "When are you going to..." nagging. And Starfield, well, maybe just excited about 1st really fresh franchise in years. I also strongly hope it will be FO in space - First Person true open world, with emergent gameplay, extremely moddable. TES VI, well, as long as they don't change the formula, another winner for me. I just hope they won't trade the freedom for the modern trend of heavily-scripted "narrative" style. Also, Todd still says that the "tech is not quite there yet". It sounds extremely promising, since I hope he refers to gameplay systems, not gfx. So, a more populated and truly living gameworld with advanced physics and emergence. The Blades is a f2p mobile title, not for me, though apparently there is "Abyss" - an infinite dungeon with roguelike vibes. Intriguing. F76 also little interest in, but since everybody is doing a survival MP kinda games why not...they have the engine, tech franchise, it's understandable. Would rather play this I guess since it's more of a twitch shooter, than the tepid TES Online.

The "CRT look" is perhaps hard to define but in no way subjective. The reality is, we are talking about two vastly different technologies which produce two completely different outputs. If you put them side by side differences will be there and this is a fact, not someting "in the mind". What is subjective though is which one looks "better" or "good enough" or if it "replicates" the other. I mean, you already believe that a CRT monitor look is "unchanged" on your modern TV. If a person makes these calls - well, to each its own. And this strange fixation on scanlines - which are only one element building the image - is quite fascinating. Yes, they're great! But, as I already said they're also great on my laptop, but my laptop does not have a CRT display sporting a CRT-look , so it does not matter. OSSC is a great machine, but it will not reproduce all the other elements - blacks/colours/glow/etc. But again - to you it looks the same as the modern output, so... Do you see now why I said these debates are completely pointless? We may as well be talking about smells vs sounds. I did not mention scanlines in connection to the Dreamcast, it was after the comma. To be clear, I don't mind using the VGA box per se, as long as it's connected to a CRT monitor. But 480i is fine too. Hell, it worked well for thousands back in the day, though I guess we were just a bunch of silly peasants. As for that tired waterfall thing, well, it really is just one particular example. If you've actually read the whole context of my paragraph, you'd see me saying how it depends on a game and how sometimes I'm not a fan of RGB, and how perhaps "all kinds of tricks" could also mean much more than just one or two popular examples (perhaps how they used dithering in majority of microcomputer games and so on). Well, there you go. I thought my first post was fairly neutral, since as I said I'm really, really tired of these arguments. Alas...no rest for the wicked, eh? This is the reason why I don't frequent anymore the usual haunts such as system11 or #upvotemypvm #crtgaming - the overarching narratives have become quite insufferable there, and also very limiting. Especially to people who perhaps would just like to try that CRT lark, dip a toe maybe, but are instead told they need to embark on an epic quest to find some esoteric hardware, everything else is just such a no-no. Funnily enough, I recently had to move overseas and got rid of everything but the RPi. I knew my Euro RGB hat would not work with NTSC so I thought I will give it a rest for a while, but then bought a composite cable on a whim. I mean COMP$HITE 11!1, sorry. Never thought I would actually use it, because as we all know it gives you eye cancer and so on. But then I did, and in the process became a much happier gamer. Before, with my 27" RGB Trinitron, I think I actually spent most of my time poring over the glorious pixels, adjusting countless settings and taking photos - instead of actually gaming. Now, I have some TV called "Monix" and just play games. They look fine too, not as good as RGB, but fine all the same. Especially when you actually play and not have your nose 5 inches from the telly. Sure, I will upgrade again, but for now I'm quite happy with this underdog setup. Hey, perhaps, it is all in the mind, eh? I'll leave you with this personal anecdote. I think it's safe to say I'm done with this subject for a while (perhaps ever)

I see where this is going and I really would rather avoid an x-page argument about this. I've been through this before, with people who swear by their modern setups, and it leads nowhere, we will just waste waste time arguing. Suffice to say, that to me, and to my eyes there definitely is such thing as CRT-look. It's got to do with depth, glow, blacks, and overall organic feel that no modern set, including OLEDS was able to replicate. For me It has nothing to do with nostalgia, autheticity or cost - I'm running an RPi after all, not a very nostalgic piece of kit, and spent enough on RGB stuff and TV sets+transport costs to buy an OSSC and to range OLED. But, if I do not have a CRT, I will not emulate because things just look not good enough. Perhaps one day, when OLED (or some new tech) + some shaders will get even better - but not yet. Scanlines on an OSSC may look great but they do so on my laptop too - yet the overall IQ is not good enough for me, simply because the rest of the panel is not able to replicate the, ahem, CRT-look. As a side note it's quite funny how the scanlines themselves became a modern obsession and a holy grail - if you showed them to a kid in the 90s he would laugh at blocky pixels, segmentation and all that. The devs were more than aware of the prevalence of the RF/composite sets in most of households and pulled all kinds of tricks to make the best of it. That's why to me extreme sharpness and RGB often looks unnatural and sort of "naked", especially on modern panels. That depends on a game of course, but is a real factor. Of course some will argue how this is not true and the devs only catered to the handful of rich folk who had a monitor or an expensive set, but...oh, well Since this is about IQ, I won't also go into the lag issue - but it's impossibvle not to mention when choosing the TV solution. Overall, if you enjoy Dreamcast via VGA, exaggerated/unnatural sharpness and scanlines through OSSC on a modern panel, then that's great - and I mean it - but, I don't. I prefer my old-time CRT-look, no matter how silly it sounds to some. But there really is no point arguing about it. So I will just leave this here for OP to consider. As I said above, this is really the last ticket to the CRT-land: 10-20 years form now it will become a very highly elitist hobby, and 30-40 from now out of reach for most. So why not have fun while it lasts?

I agree that PVMs/BVMs are overhyped, the price-to-value ratio is going quite wild these days. I've just been asked to help with importing one: the guy is willing to spend over 2000$ on it. Way over the top. But, if you can find one with reasonable price - I'd say ~150$? by all means get it, or if you have some friends in hospitals/TV stations/etc it's also worth inquiring about. But, because of all the hype and price inflation it's highly unlikely. The IQ is of course better on a pro monitor than consumer set but nowhere near the factor the owners make it out to be. Truth to be told I'd much rather have a bigger decent consumer one even if the price wasn't a factor - size matters. My advice would be to skip OSSC/Frammeisters and similar HDMI solutions for now (unless you already have them of course since it's still possible to find a decent CRT relatively easy. And things will only get downhill and more difficult from now on, as they die out and prices rise (Trinitrons already are fetching $$$ since the word spread) so it's like last call to enjoy this amazing technology. And as impressive as the modern equivalents are technically, they're still siginificantly off the real thing - that's because even the OLED tech can't replicate the CRT look. Trinitrons are definitely worth seeking out, but by no means the only choice - there are awesome sets from Sanyo, JVC, Philips and other decent brands. It all depends on your location, availabilty, price and generally the "trouble factor". Just get one, even if it's a 21" Philips, and then you can keep the tabs on sources and eventually upgrade if something better becames available. Testing personally first is very much advised if possible, even if it's free or cheap, you will avoid the hassle of lugging it around only to discover something's busted. Trust me, been there, done that You can get a RPi with a 240p Test Suite installed for that. I also recommend playing N64/Dreamcast/Cube/PS2 and so on - basically everything under PS3-gen, on a CRT, that's what they were made for. Gamecube Res Evil remake on a 27+ inch RGB set will blow your mind