Flashback Gold Activision Issues

[Velvis]

I had two issues within a short period of playing time.

 

1) Combat glitched making one player unable to move after about 30 seconds into a game.

 

2) Warlords locked up about 4 games in.

 

Has anyone seen this behavior?

 

 

[KevinMos3]

I just picked one up last night and have seen several issues so far.

 

- Would not turn on at all this morning. Just got a red blinking light. Tried several times and would not work. Thought it was defective, but tried again later and it worked fine.

- Pitfall locked up the console after about 1min 30secs of play (had to turn off console and turn back on).

- Two other times, games have crashed.

- Sound did not work on the console at all earlier today. Turning off and back on resolved this.

- Motorodeo seems to either be the PAL version or using PAL colors (This is inexcusable. How could this make it through playtesting?)

- Frostbite also seems to be the PAL version or using PAL colors (Again, inexcusable).

- Overall, emulation is pretty good, but there's definitely some hiccups and a good bit of lag, even when using wired controllers. For many games, the lag is perfectly acceptable, but it makes others unplayable (anything that requires fast twitch reaction time, like Kaboom!, the challenges in the Swordquest games, and several others). For example, I found Chopper Command extremely difficult due to lag.

 

I think I'm going to return it due to these issues. I don't know if the particular unit I got is defective, but I suspect they are all like this. The lockups, not powering on, and no sound leave me very wary of it lasting for very long. I've collected the Flashback 2, 4, and 6, and was really looking forward to this one, but I may just skip this year and hope things are resolved for next year's releases.

 

I do commend AtGames on the wireless controllers this year though. They work much better than previous years and it's really nice to be able to sit on the couch, playing without wires.

Edited December 9, 2017 by KevinMos3

[AtariLeaf]

I've been concerned about issues like this. The portable I bought last year was riddled with glitches and issues which I returned. Since I'd likely have to buy one of these online through a 3rd party seller and they get to be crazy prices, I'd hate to think a month or so after owning it that it would crap out. I've never been overly impressed with the quality of ATgames stuff to begin with and this isn't helping sway me. Yes there will always be lemons or problems with things like this but for the price I'd have to pay for one I'd want a good warranty and liberal return policy.

[atarifan88]

I bought just the gold deluxe version. Is anyone having issues with the gold edition (not activision)?

[FifthPlayer]

I've only noticed lag with the paddles, but it was also like that on earlier Flashbacks (previously I had the 4). Kaboom suffers from lag, but Chopper Command plays fine for me.

 

I did have one bizarre issue where the ship would not turn right/left in Asteroids with the provided wireless controller, (the other buttons worked). But Asteroids worked fine with a wired controller. I reset the unit and the problem went away.

Edited December 10, 2017 by FifthPlayer

[FifthPlayer]

FWIW, I have the Activision edition.

[atarifan88]

I played the Flashback Gold Deluxe and the only thing i notice was some lag when playing the paddle games. I played for about 2 hours and everything worked fine. No freezing up of any games. I noticed while playing pitfall with the cordless controllers you need to hit the jump button a little earlier than usual. Will have to try out a corded controller to see if it's the same. So far I'm happy with everything. I love the crisp clear screen this thing is outputting to my UHD TV!

[KevinMos3]

I've been concerned about issues like this. The portable I bought last year was riddled with glitches and issues which I returned. Since I'd likely have to buy one of these online through a 3rd party seller and they get to be crazy prices, I'd hate to think a month or so after owning it that it would crap out. I've never been overly impressed with the quality of ATgames stuff to begin with and this isn't helping sway me. Yes there will always be lemons or problems with things like this but for the price I'd have to pay for one I'd want a good warranty and liberal return policy.

 

I LOVE last year's portable. I bought 2 for myself and one for a Christmas gift. I bought the portable again this year, but didn't like it as much as last year's so I returned it.

 

Hopefully, they'll have a good portable again in the future you can pick up without overpaying a re-seller. Then, there's always ppl like me who may have an extra we'd be willing to sell in the future for a reasonable price (I'm not ready to get rid of my extra yet though).

 

I should also note (concerning my issues with this year's Gold HD Activision release), that my TV has as much image processing functions disabled as possible, and I don't notice this lag when using other consoles.

[+sramirez2008]

I returned my Flashback Gold because of the lag on Kaboom. Waiting to see what next year brings.

[atarifan88]

I returned my Flashback Gold because of the lag on Kaboom. Waiting to see what next year brings.

 

Did you have the Activision Edition or the Regular Gold Edition?

[+sramirez2008]

 

Did you have the Activision Edition or the Regular Gold Edition?

 

I had the regular Gold edition.

[KevinMos3]

Update: Yesterday it did the issue with the blinking power light again. Took 3 attempts to boot up.

- After accessing the status screen in Secret Quest, I could no longer use my sword and it would use the sound effect from some other game.

- I checked on the colors again and confirmed that Motorodeo and Frostbite are in fact PAL roms. The colors match what I see if I load the PAL versions in Stella and manually set the display type to NTSC). There could be more, but those are the only ones I've noticed so far. Not sure how this was overlooked on the production models. I'm curious if the regular Gold version also has those PAL roms.

 

The good part: After seeing a post about the TV type being SELECT+UP, I tried other combinations. SELECT+DOWN = in game menu for save states and scanline filter. This should be documented on the included instructions, but I did not see it after reading through the sheet.

 

I'll be returning this one to Gamestop. I ordered another Activision Edition from the Walmart website. It's $10 cheaper but if it exhibits these same problems, it'll be going back too and I'll just wait until next year.

[atarifan88]

Update: Yesterday it did the issue with the blinking power light again. Took 3 attempts to boot up.

- After accessing the status screen in Secret Quest, I could no longer use my sword and it would use the sound effect from some other game.

- I checked on the colors again and confirmed that Motorodeo and Frostbite are in fact PAL roms. The colors match what I see if I load the PAL versions in Stella and manually set the display type to NTSC). There could be more, but those are the only ones I've noticed so far. Not sure how this was overlooked on the production models. I'm curious if the regular Gold version also has those PAL roms.

 

The good part: After seeing a post about the TV type being SELECT+UP, I tried other combinations. SELECT+DOWN = in game menu for save states and scanline filter. This should be documented on the included instructions, but I did not see it after reading through the sheet.

 

I'll be returning this one to Gamestop. I ordered another Activision Edition from the Walmart website. It's $10 cheaper but if it exhibits these same problems, it'll be going back too and I'll just wait until next year.

 

The one you got from Gamestop is the regular Gold Edition correct? I'm puzzled as to why some flashbacks have issues and some do not. I thought maybe it had to do with the version (i.e. Gold vs Activision). But maybe it might have something to do with getting an early production model that didn't get the tweaks that were made by At Games around August/September? I know Bill had tested an early and later model, but I wasn't aware of any issues or glitches he might of had...

[KevinMos3]

The one you got from Gamestop is the regular Gold Edition correct?

 

No. Activision Edition.

[Tanooki]

I've been watching this thread and I'm kind of surprised Bill hasn't added anything to the conversation unlike other threads. The company or him must have some take away on this.

[Bill Loguidice]

I've been watching this thread and I'm kind of surprised Bill hasn't added anything to the conversation unlike other threads. The company or him must have some take away on this.

 

I was not aware of this thread until atarifan88 gave me the heads up, and unfortunately, I was quite ill for the past several days, so had limited interest/ability in being online. I have passed the info in this thread on, however.

 

In theory, the Activision HD should be no different than the Atari HD since they share the same code-base. I don't have a final Activision HD unit myself though to know for sure. I'll let you guys knows what I hear back, but outside of potential perceptible lag with paddle controls, none of the other issues should be present that I'm aware of unless the unit (or a particular batch of units) is defective.

[atarifan88]

 

I was not aware of this thread until atarifan88 gave me the heads up, and unfortunately, I was quite ill for the past several days, so had limited interest/ability in being online. I have passed the info in this thread on, however.

 

In theory, the Activision HD should be no different than the Atari HD since they share the same code-base. I don't have a final Activision HD unit myself though to know for sure. I'll let you guys knows what I hear back, but outside of potential perceptible lag with paddle controls, none of the other issues should be present that I'm aware of unless the unit (or a particular batch of units) is defective.

 

Thanks Bill for passing the word on. Hope you feel better soon!

[Tanooki]

Same here appreciate the reply. I was quite wondering what the deal was with it seeing these comments as they don't jive with a majority of them online. So it really would be you have a few defectives as normal, a run of lemons out of a larger whole, or people are just perceiving things to troll and I don't think people here would be the troll type so something has to be up somewhere with it.

[KevinMos3]

...outside of potential perceptible lag with paddle controls, none of the other issues should be present that I'm aware of unless the unit (or a particular batch of units) is defective.

 

I've returned the 1st Activision Edition unit to Gamestop and received the one from Walmart. Unfortunately, I've not had time to play with this one much yet. However, I did check the 2 games that were using the PAL roms on the other console (Frostbite and Motorodeo), and can confirm that they are indeed using the PAL roms on this as well, so that issue was not limited to a certain run. I won't be able to play with it more until January, but I'll update then whether I experience the same issues with this one or not.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

I've returned the 1st Activision Edition unit to Gamestop and received the one from Walmart. Unfortunately, I've not had time to play with this one much yet. However, I did check the 2 games that were using the PAL roms on the other console (Frostbite and Motorodeo), and can confirm that they are indeed using the PAL roms on this as well, so that issue was not limited to a certain run. I won't be able to play with it more until January, but I'll update then whether I experience the same issues with this one or not.

 

OK, I'll pass that info on.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

I've returned the 1st Activision Edition unit to Gamestop and received the one from Walmart. Unfortunately, I've not had time to play with this one much yet. However, I did check the 2 games that were using the PAL roms on the other console (Frostbite and Motorodeo), and can confirm that they are indeed using the PAL roms on this as well, so that issue was not limited to a certain run. I won't be able to play with it more until January, but I'll update then whether I experience the same issues with this one or not.

 

What's the easiest way for the engineering team to tell the difference between the PAL and NTSC ROMs?

[stlnprfln]

I bought just the gold deluxe version. Is anyone having issues with the gold edition (not activision)?

 

I received the Gold Deluxe version for Christmas and just hooked it up last night. I didn't have a chance to play it so I got on today and the power light kept flashing. I unplugged it several times and still had flashing light and no image on my TV. So I searched here and saw this had happened to others. I went back to my console and tried again but this time I pushed the cord into the console with a lot more force and it finally worked. Maybe it is an issue when you first hook up the adapter and have to push it in hard but since then no issues. The picture and sound are good. No lag with controllers yet but have only played a few games and not used the paddles. I like it so far and I glad I let this be my first Atari flashback system, although I just found out about the Activision edition and am a little bummed I didn't get that one but maybe I got room for two.

[KevinMos3]

What's the easiest way for the engineering team to tell the difference between the PAL and NTSC ROMs?

 

 

I'm sure there are much better answers than what I can give, but for me, it's just being familiar with what the games are supposed to look like. Since the PAL color palette is much different than the NTSC one, it's easy to spot a PAL ROM if you're familiar with the game. Again, I'm sure others can give a much better answer that ppl who aren't familiar with the games can use.

Ex: The water in Frostbite should be dark blue. To someone who's not familiar with the game, that one could more easily be mixed up, since the PAL color on an NTSC system/emulator is a lighter greenish blue. Motorodeo, however, looks very bad with the PAL colors.

 

PAL rom (How it appears on the Flashback 8 HD Activision Edition):

 

NTSC rom:

 

PAL rom (How it appears on the Flashback 8 HD Activision Edition):

 

NTSC rom:

[atarifan88]

I'm more concerned with the lag in the paddles. I don't seem to remember this issue before on the previous flashbacks. I hope this is something that gets fixed for 9 along with the addition of an SD card slot.

[Bill Loguidice]

OK, here is the official statement on using PAL versus NTSC ROMs. I've confirmed that these are in fact the NTSC ROMs, it's just that the emulator renders it with incorrect colors. This and all other emulation quirks will be a non-issue with the 2018 HD products for a very good reason that I can't reveal at this time.