General Category > General Discussion
Retron 5 (aka 4)
Ozzy_98:
--- Quote from: wiggy on June 01, 2014, 02:36:20 PM --- That's my chief complaint with newer consoles (spending an hour dicking around until I can actually play a game).
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Very much this. I hate newer games, I generally have to stop playing and do work before I get to kill anything, let alone reach a save point.
--- Quote --- Seems more and more like a Raspberry Pi in a custom enclosure or something similar really would be the way to go over this, since the Retron is really just an emulation box with virtually no on-board storage :-\
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The problem I've had with Pis and androids are the emulators themselves seem to be way behind vs Windows and dedicated Linux emulators. And I'll be the first to say setting up a system so all your systems show up under one common interface is one hell of a project to do (Since I've never FINISHED doing it once) . But it's been fun over the years making different setups in different frontends:
From the arcade cab
to the mini-cab I never got past the mock-up stage before I changed jobs and had no use for it:
to my old setup on the TV many many years ago:
and the setup I made just for my beloved goldbox AD&D games:
But just think of all the fun you could have making your own screen on your own TV, picking games from a list the way you want to play them.
JDavis:
--- Quote from: Blumpkin on June 01, 2014, 06:50:56 AM ---Have any of you guys tried testing any pirated/knock off carts? I have a few GBA carts that are Hong Kong specials and wonder if they'll play.
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Only pirate cart I have is my Famicom Supervision 76-in-1, which doesn't work.
--- Quote from: wiggy on June 01, 2014, 02:36:20 PM ---I don't like that they're losing saves here and there :/ Luckly I have a retrode, so I can back them up before I were to stick it in this mystery machine, but that honestly sounds like WAY too much work just to play a SNES/NES/Genesis game. That's my chief complaint with newer consoles (spending an hour dicking around until I can actually play a game). I sure don't need a retro console to require all that fuss. Seems more and more like a Raspberry Pi in a custom enclosure or something similar really would be the way to go over this, since the Retron is really just an emulation box with virtually no on-board storage :-\
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It seems to me that most of the "lost save files" people are reporting are simply cases where the Retron 5 couldn't import the save files and the person just saw "oh no my saves aren't here they must be wiped" OR the person hadn't played the game in a while and didn't realize the battery was dead. Normally the Retron 5 only writes to the cart's save files when you specifically tell it to (and it warns you that you'll be overwriting what's on the cart when you do this).
The results are in. After testing all my NES games, cleaning the ones that initially didn't work, and testing those again... I've got only 3 NES games that aren't working. Out of 160. That's ignoring that there's no zapper support, though.
Pinball and the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt / World Class Track Meet combo cart aren't detected at all; "No cartridge inserted"
Batman: Return of the Joker gives a really odd error message: "ERROR: Cartridge power fault detected." This seems to normally be triggered by putting a cartridge in backwards (the system specifically thinks you may have put an SNES cart in backwards since it's the only slot that easily allows it), but that's not the case here. No idea what's triggering it.
I did confirm that these games are working fine on an actual NES.
These handful I confirmed as working with some minor issues:
Yoshi pulls up as Unrecognized. It seems to play perfectly fine (played it for about 10 minutes)
Deadly Towers gives a weird message: "We recommend another game" with a big frowny face above it. Not sure if this indicates some known incompatibility or if the folks at Hyperkin just really dislike Deadly Towers. You can select to play the game anyway, and it seemed to work fine.
StarTropics and StarTropics 2 - Zoda's Revenge worked fine, but aren't able to import their save files yet.
So, overall, out of my 369 games for the systems the thing supports, about 94% were correctly recognized, booted and played perfectly fine at a cursory glance, and didn't have any obvious weird incompatibility issues. That remaining approximately 6% comes down to stuff that simply won't work anyway (WarioWare Twisted, for example), stuff that can be fixed with firmware updates (Sonic & Knuckles' lock-on stuff, which they're working on), and probably at least some where my carts are just too damaged or dirty beyond my cleaning techniques.
Ozzy_98:
Everyone dislikes deadly towers. I tried to play through it again not long ago, but got sick of it and gave up.
Since return of the joker is the only us cart with that chip in it, that may be the issue. I know people said Mr. gimmick isn't working too.
UncleBob:
Regarding the "No Zapper Support" - is this because the RetroN only outputs in HDMI, or is it a limitation of the system/emulator that prevents one from using a Zapper with it?
i.e.: If someone had a CRT with HDMI on it, could they play Zapper titles?
JDavis:
I don't think any CRT with HDMI input would work with zapper games anyway. It's not just a "CRT or not" issue, it's a matter of refresh rates and resolutions and such. Quite a number of CRT tvs that came out during the transition to HDTVs don't work with zapper games. And I don't even think HDMI was a thing yet at that time. DVI might have been.
And even then, the Retron 5 doesn't seem to recognize the input from a zapper as far as I can tell. I plugged one in when testing the zapper games, and the screen didn't even flash when I pulled the trigger.