Newsdee Posted December 31, 2015 Author Share Posted December 31, 2015 Roms dumped with one unit will refuse to run on another with a message explaining why. I guess they "accidentally" forgot to only allow these ROMs to run, but I'm not complaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Bill, the Genesis side uses .bin extension. Try renaming your SG-1000 ROMs. Also to anyone considering using this as a cart dumper, the ROMs dumped from actual carts appear to be encrypted and won't play in any PC emulator. Further examination with a hex editor pending. I renamed the .sg SG-1000 ROMs to .bin extensions, but it only identified them as Genesis ROMs and then started to black screens, so that doesn't seem to be it. The SG-1000 ROMs must have their own extension. Also, it works fine with .md and other extensions on the Genesis side, so it's not just .bin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 I noticed that the dumps made on the unit were a tiny bit longer than off system dumps. If that's their compromise to prevent 'world destroying piracy of ancient widely available materials' I suppose I can live with that given the units features. Bill - what kind of SD card are you using? I originally had an older one (which was hideously slow) which I swapped out with a Class I UHS3. The load time nos is around 1:20 with 4,569 roms on it, which to me is livable given the scan seems to happen on powerup or card swap. What *is* annoying however is the complete lack of page up/down functionality in the lists... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 I noticed that the dumps made on the unit were a tiny bit longer than off system dumps. If that's their compromise to prevent 'world destroying piracy of ancient widely available materials' I suppose I can live with that given the units features. Bill - what kind of SD card are you using? I originally had an older one (which was hideously slow) which I swapped out with a Class I UHS3. The load time nos is around 1:20 with 4,569 roms on it, which to me is livable given the scan seems to happen on powerup or card swap. What *is* annoying however is the complete lack of page up/down functionality in the lists... I tried two different name brands of 8GB Class 4 SDHC cards. Same result. I was going to try a Class 10, but I don't think that's the issue. I just don't think it's designed to work quickly with an excess ROMs, much like the lack of decent mega-list navigation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Epic Fail for Tengen MS Pacman. Bad dump or Crapulation? Bad dump. I was going to try my cartridge, but just went ahead and tried the ROM I had, and it worked just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 I tried two different name brands of 8GB Class 4 SDHC cards. Same result. I was going to try a Class 10, but I don't think that's the issue. I just don't think it's designed to work quickly with an excess ROMs, much like the lack of decent mega-list navigation. Checking now, the original card I used was class 10 and the wait was a bit on the intolerable side using it. Poking around I see there's a somewhat interesting option to dump the systems game database to XML via SD. Also if you want to use patches my experience says a directory named 'Patch' under the 'RetroFreak' directory seems to be necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Checking now, the original card I used was class 10 and the wait was a bit on the intolerable side using it. Poking around I see there's a somewhat interesting option to dump the systems game database to XML via SD. Also if you want to use patches my experience says a directory named 'Patch' under the 'RetroFreak' directory seems to be necessary. It's not clear how to load in a cheats database either. On the RetroN 5, it's a bit more straightforward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newsdee Posted December 31, 2015 Author Share Posted December 31, 2015 The cheats file must be downloaded from the Cyber Gadget website. Look for a page called "Code" or something like that. Only catch is that the code descriptions are in Japanese :-/ The game DB dump is useful to find out CRC for a given game. Not sure how to generate codes from e.g. ZSNES, though; but I think its in "raw" format (not game genie or action replay). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LiqMat Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Do you guys think AtariAge should get a classic gaming emu console category going. I can only see this segment of the market getting bigger and bigger and to be honest I was just lucky to run into this thread considering it is under Modern Gaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Do you guys think AtariAge should get a classic gaming emu console category going. I can only see this segment of the market getting bigger and bigger and to be honest I was just lucky to run into this thread considering it is under Modern Gaming.Where would you put it? Modern gaming? Emulation? Dedicated systems? All this talk of retro over HDMI convinced me to cash in my Razer coupon and get the successor to the OUYA. As cool as it would be to have a Retro Freak that uses cartridges, I think I'm good with software emulation until an awesome FPGA console comes along. It's neat to read about stuff like this in the meantime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 Bad dump. I was going to try my cartridge, but just went ahead and tried the ROM I had, and it worked just fine. Did you try your copy through a Famicom adapter? I haven't yet loaded any ROMs backdoor. Tengen Ms Pacman is NROM so dumping it should be straightforward. I wonder if the H/V mirroring bit is set incorrect? I'll need to open a Ms Pacman ROM in a hex editor and toggle this bit to see if it behaves strangely on an emulator or flash cart. Many games an incorrect mirror bit will FUBAR the graphics but will remain playable. And yes it is unfortunate the ROMs dumped by the Retro Freak appear to be encrypted. I'm honestly surprised they chose to allow unencrypted ROMs to run. And since you can't arrange them by folder, loading thousands of ROMs onto the thing would be a bad idea. I have fully loaded flash carts for most all my systems anyway, and I arrange them into folders by alphabet keeping the number of ROMs per folder below 250. Also Best Buy had a sale on SD Cards. I got a class 10 "X-Ray proof" 32Gbyte for $12.99. Actually much cheaper than the lower speed/lower capacity cards that weren't on sale so I bought two. 32Gbyte is more than enough data to store full uncompressed No-Intro sets for all my cart consoles 2600, 7800, NES/FC, SNES, N64, SMS, Genesis, 32X, Turbo/PCe, GB/GBC. GBA set is 24Mbytes alone so it won't fit on a card with the others. Not that I'm attempting to stuff all systems on a single card but you get the idea. I'm waiting on Krikzz to announce a GBA Everdrive and Batari to officially release the Harmony Concerto for sale to the public in order to complete my flash cart collection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 1, 2016 Share Posted January 1, 2016 Bad dump. I was going to try my cartridge, but just went ahead and tried the ROM I had, and it worked just fine. According to BunnyBoy on NA, the GoodNES database has the mirroring for this game set wrong. Retro Freak uses this database and set's the mirror flag incorrectly, resulting in glitched playback. They used the info from the GoodNES rom set which has the mirroring wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 I just noticed the Retro Freak Premium has been price dropped $20 from $244.99 to $224.99: http://www.play-asia.com/retro-freak-premium/13/708vvv Standard is still the same price @ $169.99. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotoRacer Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 I just got the standard model last night. I'm anxiously anticipating being able to try it out. It seems like a god send for me. I simple don't have the space to set up all my retro 8 and 16 consoles at once, and have to cycle between them. That and composite looks terrible on a modern screen. I usually use broadcast monitors for my older systems, but it would be nice to be able to play my games while sitting on the sofa. I wonder how long until we get older cd system support, like 3DO or Sega CD with consoles like this. Is it hard to rip games, and do clones work ok? Any significant issue with Rom extensions? Is there a list of ones that work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 Congrats. Not sure about file extension support (file systems are sorted based on extension) but the ROMs the Retro freak dumps to the system appear to be encrypted, so if you plan on using it to dump your games as backups, you'll still need a Retrode or other device. In general, homebrews and repros may work on SNES and Genesis, but are a no-go for NES. This is because Retro Freak uses a database to look up the iNES mapper info for games. As I found out with Ms Pacman (Tengen) if the mapper data for a game in the GoodNES database is absent or incorrect, the game will likely not dump or emulate properly. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godslabrat Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 I wonder if the cart reader shell could be used as a USB cart reader? Kind of a TG-16 version of the Retrode? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotoRacer Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 I wonder if the cart reader shell could be used as a USB cart reader? Kind of a TG-16 version of the Retrode? Give it time. Someone will make a driver for it, guaranteed. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 For what it's worth, I ordered the PDP PS3 Versus Controller: http://amzn.to/1SxWmZY . I'll post a review after it comes. The main complaints with it is with people who don't like how clicky it is, which to me is a plus, so it seems promising. Of course there are lots of reports also of quality control issues, so that could be a thing, but, considering the relatively low price, it's worth a shot. While I don't mind using a PS3 or PS4 pad, I'd prefer something without the extraneous sticks and features like this one doesn't have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotoRacer Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 Dumb question. Does anyone make a original feeling nes USB pad that this recognizes? Or better yet, is there a place that has the controller adapter by itself in stock? Play Asia says out of print. :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 Dumb question. Does anyone make a original feeling nes USB pad that this recognizes? Or better yet, is there a place that has the controller adapter by itself in stock? Play Asia says out of print. :/ There are plenty of USB NES pads on Amazon, like this one, and there's no reason it shouldn't work: http://amzn.to/1S2tqtK There are also USB to NES adapters if you want to go that route that should also work: http://amzn.to/1S2tvh2 Broadly speaking, what I think you want to look for in terms of compatible USB controllers are ones that work on a PC without a driver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenegg Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 I've yet to come across a 3rd party wired NES controller that feels like an original controller. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newsdee Posted January 5, 2016 Author Share Posted January 5, 2016 (edited) The RetroLink USB NES pad does not work with it :-( I think the (better) iBuffalo SNES pad works though, need to try it again to confirm. XBox gamepads (1st and 3rd party) do not work with it. Edited January 5, 2016 by Newsdee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotoRacer Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 The RetroLink USB NES pad does not work with it :-( I think the (better) iBuffalo SNES pad works though, need to try it again to confirm. XBox gamepads (1st and 3rd party) do not work with it. Are you kidding me? Haha, so the controllers I own don't work... yay! I owned an ibuffalo snes controller once. It was nice, but I'm not a fan of playing NES games with SNES controllers. Weird petpeive I know. Really wish I could find one of those controller adapter things that comes with the premium model... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newsdee Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 (edited) Retrolink NES pads have a hardware bug whereby the USB button 1 is always pressed. It's not connected physically but throws off devices which can't remap button assignment. The MiST FPGA has a small hack in the firmware specifically for it (for example). PS3-compatible controllers seems to work, a Royds EX stick and some south american pads (Dynacom) ran fine. I'd guess anything using basic USB HID with the stick/directions mapped to USB analog X/Y axis will work. Edited January 6, 2016 by Newsdee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 The RetroLink USB NES pad does not work with it :-( I think the (better) iBuffalo SNES pad works though, need to try it again to confirm. Those Buffalo SNES USB gamepads are NOICE. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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