partious

4 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

Does your Sharp CRT support NTSC over composite or s-video?

I'm in Japan so NTSC only. Actually I've had the problem in reverse with PAL GameCube games running in black and white on the TV (people would be surprised how many good old games weren't released in Japan).

7 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

I completely agree with this with a big but! 

 

50hz sucks. As with everything YMMV, but imo it really, really sucks and with things like Everdrives available, getting the ntsc library is easier than it ever was. 

But you need an ntsc console, and you likely need a Sony Trinitron, not just for the quality of the image, but the fact it supports ntsc colour, and you're not just going to get a black and white picture if the tv supports nothing more than PAL60. 

 

If you don't care about 50hz, then yes! just get a CRT and enjoy the game. Also I completely agree that the fetish for RGB on everything is not worth it, and often not how the games where originally meant to look. composite video or s-video from an N64 will look great on a CRT. 

 Luckily I haven't had to think about 50hz or pal for a decade or so, but yes, PAL conversions of retrogames do indeed suck compared to the NTSC originals 

My only advice, and this will be unpopular so I apologize in advance, is not to get fixated on the rgb modded consoles and Trinitron (or even pvm) stuff. 

Over the past few years the hobby of retro gaming has moved away from discussing games to chasing some sort of perfect picture via owning the "ultimate" Sony CRT and never ending tinkering with expensive console hardware mods, all encouraged by YouTube FOMO merchants.

If you can get a Trinitron or pvm cheap then go for it, they are of course very good, but don't buy into the all or nothing idea that anything else is terrible. The important things you actually need here are 1) a CRT TV and 2) a SNES/N64.

Not "this particular CRT" and "a SNES/n64 with these mods and this cable".

I've played lots of retro games on an early 2000s 14 inch Sharp crt over composite in the past decade+ and they were all just fine.

You are correct that the average modern LCD TV will look bad via scart/composite and introduce a lot of lag. All modern screens aren't necessarily bad with old consoles if you have a good external scaler, but those aren't cheap.

I feel like I’ve been hearing the Atari example as a prediction of the coming fall in prices for so long that it should have come true for NES and the like at this stage if it was actually an accurate analysis.

I think it’s more likely that that pre-nes era stuff is just a bit crap in hindsight and that’s the main reason it’s not that popular to collect (I assume, I’ve never checked).

I wonder if we'll see more people settling for high quality reproduction boxes and manuals. The vitriol towards repro boxes online seems to be along the lines of "what if a collector buys one by mistake or an unscrupulous person sells it while claiming it's real?". It's all from the perspective of the collector and their precious investment.

I wonder if at some stage the general mood will swing towards "I would like a box and manual for my loose cart as that experience has a different feel than loading a rom on an everdrive/mister and why exactly should I give a shit about how the proliferation of reproduction cardboard packaging might influence some collector's financial investment?".

I also wonder how much of the retro CIB collecting going on today is based on interest in games and not just financial investment fomo.

A lot of people happen to want to get back into (having previously cashed out on) retro by buying the same few semi obscure shmups and expensive "rare" boxed games.

If you need the CIB original for all the retro games that just happen to be rather expensive in 2022 it's going to cost money, just like getting into any other collector scene infested with dealers/flippers where people buy rare/coveted items to show them off on a shelf/resell for more when the price inflates even more. 

1 hour ago, dataDave said:

 

I would argue that Stunt Race FX has dated a lot better than Ridge Racer has. It's basically Wave Race 64 on wheels.

Ridge Racer has aged like fine wine I always think of Ridge Racer 1 when someone wheels out the “all ps1 games look awful now” comment. I still play it regularly on a crt and I think the art style and graphics are really quite nice. It oozes atmosphere in a way more realistic looking games just don’t. 
As good and content rich as the PSP ones were, I still prefer the first 2 games in terms of aesthetics and just the feel of the gameplay (although having to use a negcon for analogue isn’t ideal). People will still be playing and enjoying Ridge Racer 1 when someone’s making threads like this about whatever realistic racing games are currently popular. Games like Ridge Racer don’t age the way games going for realism do.

I dislike cinematic trailers but I also dislike cinematic games. 

I played this at the Japanese ps4 launch and it was pretty good, still the only Yakuza game I’ve played. No interest in playing a remake, but glad it’s getting localized.

1 hour ago, dumpster said:

Mario Kart, especially 8 is the most boring single player game. The rubber banding and unfair distribution of weapons, generic tracks, same old characters.  Multiplayer is also ruined for the same reasons.  Are you good at Mario Kart? Well every other player will have blue shells now you're in first place so you're probably going to get shot by an unavoidable weapon any minute and end up in last place.

 

Sega All Stars Racing Transformed on Series X runs at 60fps and has amazing deforming tracks and great gameplay, stunts, boosts, action, great music, blue skies, and is so superior to Mario Kart in every way. 

I massively prefer Transformed as a single player game and bought it on 3 platforms (vs only 2 for MK8..) but as a multiplayer game it has none of the accessibility of Mario Kart 8 and their gameplay mechanics aren’t similar at all, so I don’t think the simple comparison of the two as “kart games” really holds up as well as it might if you were comparing Mario kart and something like crash team racing or that pac man kart game on GameCube (which I quite like too). 

The beauty of MK8 is that you can enjoy it with anyone, kids, non gamers etc etc. That doesn’t apply to Transformed at all.  Transformed has a much higher learning curve and less of the randomness that the MK designers obviously put in deliberately.

Surprised nobody noticed the real bombshell in this issue. The guys who made Screamer apparently had Daytona on the PlayStation.

Future generations will be match cutting and scrubbing their way through this gaming masterpiece long after the OP’s beloved blue skies arcade racers are forgotten by all and lost to time.

2 hours ago, ox1973 said:

I have owned, and enjoyed, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4. I still have the PS3 and PS4. When PS5 launched I would have snapped one up - had they been available at the time.

 

Over time, my enthusiasm has gradually subsided, to the point that I'm now just shrugging my shoulders now and thinking 'fuck that'.

 

 

 

This is pretty much me too. Have owned every Sony console, but haven't been able to get a PS5 since launch ( I'm not in the UK where they always seem to have been somewhat easier to get).  I would have impulse bought a ps5 at any stage in the past 2 years if I'd actually seen one for rrp.

I built a gaming PC a couple of months ago but was still planning on getting a ps5 when possible for no particular reason (no interest in most sony exclusives, I just like having a console for the living room as well as a PC and I have a ps4 and not an Xbox one), but this move has sent my interest level to zero.

It's not the money as the increase makes no difference in terms of whether or not I can afford the console, but the announcement just confirmed to me that I don't like something about where Playstation is currently heading.

Also, 2 years of a scalpers paradise followed by an extra kick in the nuts of "oh and now we're raising rrp". I don't need any product enough to begrudgingly buy it despite being annoyed by the actions of the company making it. I'll get a series s or x for the living room instead.

As a follow up to something mentioned earlier, can anyway give an update on how well/poorly mid 90s 3d games like Ridge Racer and Ace Driver run on Mame on the series consoles?

What resolution can dolphin be set to while still running gamecube games (not just the undemanding ones) smoothly. Does it run worse on series s than it would on a PC with equivalent specs (would have thought such a PC would run GameCube pretty much flawlessly).

@PikaStu, what's the issue with the 3D Mame games? Not supported by the retroarch Mame core or do they run but with stutter/slowdown?

I stumbled upon someone who clearly didn't know/care about the gaming side of it selling a boxed/barely used one cheap soon after buying my first for the regular price (which itself was a lot cheaper than the current prices) a couple of years ago. Couldn't resist buying that. I tested it to see if it worked and it's been in the box since. Obviously glad I have a spare now that I see the price and supply situation.

I love the Summer Vacation games but the Shin Chan aspect just kills my interest in this one big time so I never picked it up. Glad it got an English release though, it's a real shame that the rest of the Summer Vacation games are stuck in Japanese, they're really a worthwhile gaming experience.

16 hours ago, SozzlyJoe said:

 

 

The indifferent:

 

Always curious about what 120Hz would bring to the party. In truth, I can't really perceive the difference (30->60 is night and day to me). Maybe this is for the best as I won't have to angst over performance and fidelity modes.

 

 This is surprising to me. As I said above I recently went from a 1080p 60hz monitor to a 1440p 165hz gsync monitor and I think the jump from 60 to 165 hits as hard as 30fps to 60fps for me. 60 feels noticeably smoother than 30 (which is just bad) but 165 is just so buttery smooth and natural looking it's on another level to 60. Currently playing through GTA 5 and the smoothness at 165 just makes it feel like a completely different (better) experience. 

I'm actually shocked by how big an upgrade both 1080p to 1440p and 60hz to 165hz feel like. I've been reading people downplay them both as relatively minor improvements for a few years so I wasn't in any hurry to upgrade my monitor, but now that I have I think they're both massively noticeable improvements (the increased refresh rate in particular is a genuine gamechanger for me). 

13 minutes ago, Fallows said:

The only thing holding me back from getting rid of all my CRTs is the fear of potential regret later on.

I'm sitting here playing this not quite believing what I'm experiencing. After changing those settings I can't believe how good the mister looks on this monitor with the pvm shadow mask/how little lag I can feel (none basically). My whole "LCD sucks for retro games" world has been turned upside down in an evening.

21 minutes ago, Fallows said:

Remember vsync-adjust=2 for practically zero scaler lag, also. Our monitors are compatible.

I definitely feel like I can notice a (positive) difference in responsiveness after changing that. 

OK, I changed  v-integer scaling to 1 and discovered shadow masks and now I take back everything I said on the previous page. It looks stunning now. 

17 minutes ago, Fallows said:

 

I have the exact same monitor as you and it's absolutely blistering at 720p.

 

 

720p will scale from 240p perfectly, as opposed to trying to squash 240p into 1080p four and a half times. I play with CRT effects so integer scaling is essential for perfectly uniform horizontal lines.

 

Are you sure you're not stretching the image?

Looks great. This gives me hope. Can you tell me your settings/link to a guide you'd recommend?

25 minutes ago, Darwock said:

This is pretty old now but I’ve always been interested. What is it about this one that makes it feel so different from the other LEGO games (which do very much follow a template)? Does it have the same level of jank that you usually expect? It’s older so I figure there will actually be more.

I guess the main/only thing that differentiates it is the open world. The story missions are standard Lego game template stuff. 

I think it does a much better job than "serious" open world games of actually making the experience of interacting with the open world at least somewhat entertaining instead of just a slog, but that's more an indictment of the average joyless AAA open world than high praise for this game.

6 minutes ago, Colonel Panic said:

Yeah, that'll scale nicely for you.

 I wasn't very impressed by my brief play with it recently. Definitely felt worse/blurrier than the old 1080p monitor I've been using the mister with for the last couple of years, which I wasn't expecting since the 1440p one is a decent enough gaming monitor.  

9 minutes ago, Colonel Panic said:

For Mister, 1440p is 1440 pixels in height, but the width is 1920 which makes it 4:3, not 16:9, which is why your monitor is freaking out. Neither my TV or any of my monitors will support it either. Same applies for 1440p from the RetroTink 5x.

So is it best to leave it at the default (720p I think..)?