The Official Analogue Pocket Thread!

[sodarun]

10 hours ago, Punisher5.0 said:

PCE CD is here!

 

https://github.com/Mazamars312/openfpga-pcengine-cd

Nice

[Atariboy]

Been gathering TG16/PC Engine CD files in anticipation, but they're almost all multiple track files. The search continues.

[zetastrike]

3 hours ago, Atariboy said:

Been gathering TG16/PC Engine CD files in anticipation, but they're almost all multiple track files. The search continues.

Krikkz has an app that combines multiple bin files into one.  You can find it in the Mega Everdrive Pro downloads section.

[NE146]

I fumbled around a bit but finally got it going. What wasn't quite clear was how to launch games after you get all your ducks in a row (i.e. BIN/CUE correct, and in their folder, and the corresponding correctly-edited JSON for it).

 

Once you launch a turbo cd game, it just brings up the menu again.. you THEN have to launch the appropriate .PCE bios file typically found under the /common folder.  That part wasn't exactly clear but that's how I get it to work, at  least for the moment. Then the turbo cd game will start up.

 

(obligatory Rondo pic)

 

and fwiw, here's how the JSON for it is configured if anyone needs a reference:

 

{
    "instance": {
        "magic": "APF_VER_1",
            "variant_select" : {
                "id" : 300,
                "select" : false
            },
            "data_path": "Akumajou_Dracula",
            "data_slots": [
                {
                "id": 100,
                        "filename": "Akumajou_Dracula.cue"
                },{
                "id": 101,
                        "filename": "Akumajou_Dracula.bin"
                }
            ],
            "memory_writes": [
                
            ]
    }
}

 

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by NE146

[Tanooki]

I know this is probably looking bad, but I had to look up that JSON had something do do with java script.  I have no idea what that is, keep seeing it around all this open fpga junk with the pocket, and it basically seemed like it's some kind of requirement that isn't well explained or put into steps to use, may need some basic java script coding language ability too.  It kind of backed me off bothering to try and load a few things, PCE CDs included seeing that up there.  I can't code, I tried to learn and it was my only D in college or anything near that.  Hell I can't even find a compiler online, set that thing up to compile programs off github and elsewhere I'd like to use -- it makes zero sense to me. 😕

 

Maybe one of those pocket updaters will create a JSON creator eh?

[Pixelboy]

JSON is just a textual data structure, like XML or HTML. The basics of JSON are actually not that difficult to learn, and a JSON reader can be coded in any language that offers a way to open and read a text file (or some kind of text stream or text container object) including Javascript.

 

For instance, if you look at the JSON structure above, you have an "instance" which is a structure that contains several sub-parts:

 

- "magic" is a simple text field, which contains "APF_VER_1".

- "variant_select" is a sub-structure that contains two fields ("id" which is number and "select" which is a boolean (true or false))

- "data_path" is another simple text field that contains "Akumajou_Dracula"

- "data_slots" is an array of sub-items, and each sub-item contains two fields, "id" and "filename" (similar to the "variant_select" field above).

- "memory_writes" appears to be an empty array, but it could contain something.

 

The point of JSON, just like XML, is to describe something in a structured manner, nothing more.

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by Pixelboy

[NE146]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I know this is probably looking bad, but I had to look up that JSON had something do do with java script.  I have no idea what that is, keep seeing it around all this open fpga junk with the pocket, and it basically seemed like it's some kind of requirement that isn't well explained or put into steps to use, may need some basic java script coding language ability too.  It kind of backed me off bothering to try and load a few things, PCE CDs included seeing that up there.  I can't code, I tried to learn and it was my only D in college or anything near that.  Hell I can't even find a compiler online, set that thing up to compile programs off github and elsewhere I'd like to use -- it makes zero sense to me. 😕

 

Maybe one of those pocket updaters will create a JSON creator eh?

There's no coding necessary.. you just take their sample one and put in 1) name of folder 2) name of .BIN and 3) name of .CUE.  But yes it confused me for a few when I first tried it. But as usual, it's super early. They'll probably streamline the Turbo CD stuff as time goes on where it won't be as necessary to do all that manual editing. 

 

 

[Atariboy]

I believe the popular updaters have already automated the process (although the Retrodriven one might need a revision since all it did when I reran the updater after installing the core was delete my sample bin/cue game, leaving behind an empty game folder).

[Atariboy]

On 2/7/2023 at 9:34 PM, Atariboy said:

I believe the popular updaters have already automated the process (although the Retrodriven one might need a revision since all it did when I reran the updater after installing the core was delete my sample bin/cue game, leaving behind an empty game folder).

Just to provide an update, my disappearing games wasn't the fault of RetroDriven's Pocket Updater. My 256 gig Sandisk micro SD card is failing and was the culprit behind the contents of my folders disappearing. So if anyone happens to read my post above this, don't be concerned about running Pocket Updater.

 

Incidentally, not even a deep reformatting or running chkdsk /f via Window's command prompt was able to cure it. So while it tests fine, something isn't right with the card (I've confirmed that it's not the PC's card slot at fault nor my micro SD to SD card adapter).

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Atariboy

[roots.genoa]

Isn't 256GB a bit too much for the Analogue Pocket anyway? I don't remember if it was necessary to format the card in a specific way (FAT32, etc.) but I wouldn't use that big of a SD card for a collection of ROMs (but maybe you have a lot of them, I just don't).

[Atariboy]

The Pocket manual says up to 1 TB, so size isn't an issue. The Pocket supports FAT32 or exFAT, but the TurboGrafx-16 CD/PC Engine CD core doesn't play nicely with the former so exFAT is recommended (There's an issue that Analogue is said to be aware of with OpenFPGA and will be fixing, which was causing playback issues with this particular core on FAT32 formatted cards).

 

Between all the current cores I'm already at 85 gigs or so (Thanks to 50 gigs of TG16 CD/PC Engine CD games). And I'm not even putting every last thing on here. I've yet to bother with Famicom games and PAL NES games on the Pocket. And I only have the Super Famicom, PAL SNES, PC Engine CD, and Megadrive games that interest me on the card rather than going with full import sets (I did go for full sets for the North American libraries). So it all adds up surprisingly quickly and had I gone all-in on the import side or added a bunch of SPC music files, I'd probably be well over 100 gigs now.

 

Going with 256 gigs of memory leaves me plenty of room for growth if something like a Sega CD core becomes a reality. And while I'm confident that I'll never fill it up, I probably would've eventually filled a 128 gig card. So I may as future proof it and pay a little extra for the added space.

 

Granted most of this will go unplayed, but I don't have the time or desire to curate thousands of roms to slim down the collection. Plus if I do discover something like an interesting SNES game that I was previously unaware of, I like that it's already ready to go on my Pocket without the hassle of having to add it to my library.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Atariboy

[dudeguy]

I dont have time to go into a full in depth review but Ive spent maybe a dozen hours with this thing so far and if it werent for the adapters coming to my mailbox someday, Id be selling this thing. not sure if updates can fix the constant problems I am dealing with, the OS just keeps giving me problems, loading the game, button clicks dont always register.

 

I mean when it works it works but I find myself having to click things multiple times in hopes that it works.

 

I think Im one of two people using this to play cartridges so maybe thats why no one else has complained. My GameBoys are far more desireable to play on than the Pocket. besides the save states, the DMG and Pocket display modes, theres not much that keeps me coming back. After the Super NT and Mega SG, I had super high hopes for this thing.

[roots.genoa]

2 hours ago, dudeguy said:

I think Im one of two people using this to play cartridges so maybe thats why no one else has complained.

I also mostly used it with real carts and I have no idea what you're talking about to be honest. What is the problem with the OS? What is the problem with loading the game? Which button doesn't work for you??

[NE146]

Yeah I've had zero problems playing this thing.. it's my #1 most played console for the past several months.

[dudeguy]

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I also mostly used it with real carts and I have no idea what you're talking about to be honest. What is the problem with the OS? What is the problem with loading the game? Which button doesn't work for you??

Ill do a full in depth review when I get back home and can type on my laptop. I still love this thing but I either got a dud or the design of this thing is just janky as all hell. I'll go into detail with the problems next week

[Tanooki]

I'd value that review, and are you dinging it exclusively, or is this an issue that the dock has a hand/heavy hand in?  I've not had a problem with missed presses otherwise I'd be infuriated.  My beef is the shitty firmware having options to edit this or that wholesale grayed out, or others claiming to do what I ask...then forgets it next time its turned on.  Largely for me the dock has been a bitch because of those things mostly exclusive to it, and it's stupid way of not wanting to use many wired controllers and being just vile about wireless/bluetooth.  I want (basically would write demand but can't) answers about them fixing that crap having the nerve to sell that for $100 only moderately functional.  Where's the firmware completion and updates?

[dudeguy]

6 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I'd value that review, and are you dinging it exclusively, or is this an issue that the dock has a hand/heavy hand in?  I've not had a problem with missed presses otherwise I'd be infuriated.  My beef is the shitty firmware having options to edit this or that wholesale grayed out, or others claiming to do what I ask...then forgets it next time its turned on.  Largely for me the dock has been a bitch because of those things mostly exclusive to it, and it's stupid way of not wanting to use many wired controllers and being just vile about wireless/bluetooth.  I want (basically would write demand but can't) answers about them fixing that crap having the nerve to sell that for $100 only moderately functional.  Where's the firmware completion and updates?

I mustve just gotten unlucky then. Or maybe Ive used it longer than others? Ive never used the Dock, dont have it yet. But yeah, pressing the buttons (doesnt matter which) doesnt always register that I pressed it. Or you go to "Play Cartridge" and youre staring at a black screen. "End Cartridge" back out, try it 4 or 5 more times and eventually it works. Or the cartridge works in GB mode only, even though it used to be able to start in GBC mode with the full color. The cartridge connector is too shallow and there's no sides holding the cart in place so if you accidently bump a non-GBA cartridge slightly, it shifts out of place and the game freezes up.

 

Other day I was playing I pressed the Home button and it somehow started doing screenshots over and over. Tried turning the system off but that didnt work and the consoles lacks a hard reset button like where you can stick a needle in it if buttons dont work.

 

Noticed a game started freezing partway through, randomly. never had that happen on a real Game Boy.

 

That said though I havent experienced a ton of issues while playing GBA games. It's mostly just playing GB/GBC carts where I see issues.

 

And yes, my games are clean.

[Tanooki]

@dudeguy For what it is worth, I don't know how long you've had yours, but I've seen some more dated comments to be clear it was GROUP A that there are a few people who claim the buttons aren't machined well or whatever inside pops them up slips or sucks, but they'll get stuck buttons and directions(d-pad) too, so you're not the first.  You not being first is one thing, but also it's an unfortunate minority and I have no idea if it crept into group B and coming some eon later group C either.  It could be a bad batch or random sketch quality control on these it's hard to say.

 

I've never hit the play/end thing not working, that's news to me, but again I wasn't digging for it.  I wasn't digging for the button issue, but coincidentally popped up in something I was reading so I went fishing knowing I had one in B coming.

 

I have though seen that GBC issue, that's shit design on their part with the firmware.  I think it's across the board broken and quite infuriating.  I specifically once it all updated repeatedly out of the box started testing the GB, SGB+borders, GBC hybrid, and GBC mode and saw what you did.  Not everything does as it should.  DMG games seem to be stuck in DMG mode, including BLACK cart hybrid titles.  Also it's not throwing the custom color combos in the GBC firmware either at original B&W games so no better looking Metroid 2, etc either which is shitty, just stupid and shitty.

 

Personally, the stupid cart detection aside which I get too, everything here I'm seeing leads to you getting a lemon.

 

Another crap thing with the dock/firmware I should point out if you ever get one, it doesn't save your screen size/scale settings.  By default GBA games fit correct, and by default the top and bottom 8-10 lines on each are CUT OFF.  You have to tap the scale to the first setting or manually shift H+V size -- yet the piece of crap won't remember those fixes once you power it off which is beyond excuse.

[dudeguy]

32 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

@dudeguy For what it is worth, I don't know how long you've had yours, but I've seen some more dated comments to be clear it was GROUP A that there are a few people who claim the buttons aren't machined well or whatever inside pops them up slips or sucks, but they'll get stuck buttons and directions(d-pad) too, so you're not the first.  You not being first is one thing, but also it's an unfortunate minority and I have no idea if it crept into group B and coming some eon later group C either.  It could be a bad batch or random sketch quality control on these it's hard to say.

 

I've never hit the play/end thing not working, that's news to me, but again I wasn't digging for it.  I wasn't digging for the button issue, but coincidentally popped up in something I was reading so I went fishing knowing I had one in B coming.

 

I have though seen that GBC issue, that's shit design on their part with the firmware.  I think it's across the board broken and quite infuriating.  I specifically once it all updated repeatedly out of the box started testing the GB, SGB+borders, GBC hybrid, and GBC mode and saw what you did.  Not everything does as it should.  DMG games seem to be stuck in DMG mode, including BLACK cart hybrid titles.  Also it's not throwing the custom color combos in the GBC firmware either at original B&W games so no better looking Metroid 2, etc either which is shitty, just stupid and shitty.

 

Personally, the stupid cart detection aside which I get too, everything here I'm seeing leads to you getting a lemon.

 

Another crap thing with the dock/firmware I should point out if you ever get one, it doesn't save your screen size/scale settings.  By default GBA games fit correct, and by default the top and bottom 8-10 lines on each are CUT OFF.  You have to tap the scale to the first setting or manually shift H+V size -- yet the piece of crap won't remember those fixes once you power it off which is beyond excuse.

I was Group B. And I dont expect a replacement or resolution on any of this from Analogue.

 

Again though, at one point I could out my Game and Watch Gallery 2 black cartridge in and Id get it playing in beautiful color mode but lately it seems these black carts only play as if I am playing on a DMG Game Boy. I dont have any transluscent carts with me to see if those are still working or not.

 

Another issue- save states dont want to load up ocassionally. almost wonder if I need to be in the same mode as what I did the save state in. and the library thing, some of the games dont save to the library anymore. and some of them show up as duplicates

 

honestly theres so many problems with this thing, I feel like Im barely scratching the surface. it seems like it does what its supposed to do 75% of the time.

[+GoldLeader]

HMmmmm...Mine plays carts well, what few I've tried, but as for ROMs,  It all seems very touchy.  Since I don't care what name is on the box (as long as they work),  I tried some huge cheapass SD cards and I think I got burned there.  Things work sometimes and then they don't ...Lots of reformatting attempts and wasted time,  but I don't know... :(   Recently bought a smaller (64GB) SanDisk as I've always had good luck with them.  I'll try it and see how it goes.

 

I don't think that "Library" thing has ever worked for me.

[dudeguy]

11 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

HMmmmm...Mine plays carts well, what few I've tried, but as for ROMs,  It all seems very touchy.  Since I don't care what name is on the box (as long as they work),  I tried some huge cheapass SD cards and I think I got burned there.  Things work sometimes and then they don't ...Lots of reformatting attempts and wasted time,  but I don't know... :(   Recently bought a smaller (64GB) SanDisk as I've always had good luck with them.  I'll try it and see how it goes.

 

I don't think that "Library" thing has ever worked for me.

Yeah the Library seems to be in early testing stages at this point but I see it getting better.

 

Kingston is a brand of SD cards I would avoid. I had a MicroSD break in half once when i was taking it out of an Everdrive

[dudeguy]

played Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly for a bit. Seems decent-ish but borderline broken. I usually love the Simpsons games from this era but this one just isnt much fun compared to the console ones. I think the screen is too small in relation to the sprites so enemies come up very quickly and many are hard to beat. Vs the World is kind of the standard I compare Simpsons games against, and this game it aint

[roots.genoa]

5 hours ago, dudeguy said:

Another issue- save states dont want to load up ocassionally. almost wonder if I need to be in the same mode as what I did the save state in.

What would happen to me is loading the latest save (with the button combination) would not work if I resumed playing a game after playing another one, so I guess there's some kind of conflict between both games' saves. But I can still load the save manually (through the menu), and as soon as I make another quick save, loading it works perfectly from then on.

 

Regarding cart detection, I don't remember having any problem except an early firmware bug that launched some games as GBC instead of GB because of a header thing. I'm not sure I fully understand your problem(s), but what puzzles me is if the Pocket can emulate three different systems, how do you think it's supposed to guess which one they should emulate if you don't specify it? I mean a GB game will always run in GB mode unless you force the GBC mode in the options. Maybe they could add an option to always force it, though (if it doesn't already exist). I don't have a lot of GBC games though, but MGS (which is a black cart but a bootleg so maybe not what Tanooki is referring to) runs in GBC mode. Also, I know that GBC color palettes for GB games are not as authentic as the rest, but personally I prefer the original GB look so I never play GB games in GBC mode anyway.

 

So maybe I'm not very picky but I have nothing to complain about, really.

[dudeguy]

1 minute ago, roots.genoa said:

What would happen to me is loading the latest save (with the button combination) would not work if I resumed playing a game after playing another one, so I guess there's some kind of conflict between both games' saves. But I can still load the save manually (through the menu), and as soon as I make another quick save, loading it works perfectly from then on.

 

Regarding cart detection, I don't remember having any problem except an early firmware bug that launched some games as GBC instead of GB because of a header thing. I'm not sure I fully understand your problem(s), but what puzzles me is if the Pocket can emulate three different systems, how do you think it's supposed to guess which one they should emulate if you don't specify it? I mean a GB game will always run in GB mode unless you force the GBC mode in the options. Maybe they could add an option to always force it, though (if it doesn't already exist). I don't have a lot of GBC games though, but MGS (which is a black cart but a bootleg so maybe not what Tanooki is referring to) runs in GBC mode. Also, I know that GBC color palettes for GB games are not as authentic as the rest, but personally I prefer the original GB look so I never play GB games in GBC mode anyway.

 

So maybe I'm not very picky but I have nothing to complain about, really.

Can we trade? Ill give you my shitty broken one for yours 😀

[Tanooki]

@dudeguy I'd agree with that 75% statement between the handheld and the dock too.  It does a lot right, but there's moderately so a lot that is broken, forgets if you power it off, or just still isn't for some mystery not added yet like that Library feature.

I don't get it, it's not normal for them to shovel shit, their last four consoles are clearly a record of care but something went horribly wrong with the software development of AnalogueOS or whatever here as it's a buggy mess, more so on the dock related features.

 

The system does have DMG CGB and AGB modes, sure, the issue is that it works, but doesn't always work.  When you get into what GBC did uniquely, it fails.  It won't colorize the DMG or Black DMG hybrid carts right.  It also won't use the built in pre-set color schematics by the game (or even by the stage in the game) for all the first party PUBLISHED by Nintendo Gameboy games on GBC.  That means Kirby isn't pink, Samus isn't red and yellow, Street Fighter 2 isn't colorized either.  The best you can hope for is setting GBC mode and it doing the default blue/brown/green thing GBC did on old games if you didn't pick another choice by holding some combo of the d-pad and b and/or a buttons.  It's stupid and horrible considering it was a standard feature of the GBC hardware an it's just either not there or broken.

 

At this rate I end up running SGB and GBC games in just black and white because the other choices suck, and really, not happy about it.  The GB Player stock(no swiss) can do these basics correctly, but then again, like Super GB on SNES, a real core is inside those devices.  This is faulty simulation layer over the FPGA core.