Early Access: Retronauts Episode 62
Added 2016-03-14 14:57:05 +0000 UTCHello! Podcast!
This week's episode, I suspect, will be a fairly divisive one, as it's not about games but rather the process of playing them. I would imagine the handful of people who geek out about this stuff will enjoy the episode, while everyone else may find it interminable. Apologies if you fall into the latter category! And apologies if you fall into the former category, because I'm sure there's lots of misperception and misinformation being bandied about here by mistake; this episode was recorded six or seven months ago, and I've learned a lot about this topic since then and found myself cringing as I edited the episode due to a few of the things my younger self said. In the end, I'm not really sure who this episode was for, honestly. So, uh, please enjoy three middle-aged dudes sitting around talking about how much money they've wasted on 30-year-old game console mods.
This week's guests are Christian Nutt and Frank Cifaldi, making his long-awaited return to the show. Bob ducked out for this episode due to living a more sane existence than the three of us.
Show description:
What's the best way to play old games in these modern times? Jeremy Parish, Frank Cifaldi, and Christian Nutt plummet down the CRT-hunting, 240p-upscaling, console-recapping, and RGB-modding rabbit hole.
Comments
Great episode! I have pretty much the same setup with a bvm 20f1u for lightgun/games that require no lag and a framemeister for general use. One thing that was really discussed was sound emulation. It's minor but the VRC6 audio for pc nes emulators seems a bit quiet and doesn't quite have that nice rich bass sound of the original Akumajo Densetsu cart. Accurate audio is still the main reason why I keep old consoles around. Though I guess considering the problems with Famicom audio between the different revisions, accurate audio is almost as subjective as the color palette issue. Hope you guys don't mind the request, but next time Frank is on, could you have a discussion about Sunsoft music? The episode about Nobuo Uematsu was fantastic and I'd love to hear your thoughts about Naoki Kodaka's work too. Thanks!
Jeremy Hopkins
2016-03-21 02:12:54 +0000 UTCBtw..WHAT was the music in this episode?! It was dope.
Normallyretro
2016-03-19 14:04:45 +0000 UTCExcited for the show! Has there been any update on creating a RSS feed for early shows? Would be nice to download them directly on my phone, unless I'm oblivious to an easy solution that everyone here has been using for months.
Myncy
2016-03-18 15:53:42 +0000 UTCGood stuff. I hope someone finds a way to capture a lot of those rare arcade games as well, such as Outer Zone and Battle Bird.
Normallyretro
2016-03-17 15:59:49 +0000 UTCNever apologise for extreme nerdiness! I found this very fascinating as I also threw all caution, common sense and expense to the wind and bought an XRGB Mini last year. Definitely worth every penny as my RGB converted PC Engines have never looked so good. I would love to to get a PVM, but despite constantly looking on Ebay, Gumtree etc, I have never found one. Annoyingly the convenience store near me has one on the wall as part of its CCTV setup and I am so tempted to ask how much they would take for it!
Mark Paterson
2016-03-17 06:26:20 +0000 UTCAs for my current retrogaming setup: After experimenting with a 20" BVM as well as lots of videoprocessors, switches, splitters, whathaveyou, I finally settled on an emulator solution. My main reasons why I prefer this to original hardware (aside from the nice-to-haves like video quality or playing fan translated games) are: - Failing save batteries: Any game with a save feature won't be playable anymore in the foreseeable future - unless I solder out and replace the batteries in every last cart, only to know that I have to repeat the procedure in a decade or two. You can work around that by getting flash carts like the SD2SNES, play and save your games on there and backup the savefiles, but then you run into compatibility issues, like: Since the SD2SNES won't run Super-FX- or SA-1-games, this problem remains unsolved for games like Super Mario RPG or Yoshi's Island, which both run fine on higan or SNES9X. - Ease and flexibility: Sure, it might be a hassle to setup all your emulators just right, but once you've done it, it's done. I use EmulationStation as a launcher and it automatically loads the right emulator, controller mapping, shader/overlay (I love the DMG-shader for Game Boy) and so on, even the savestate from the last time I quit a game is restored on launch, which is something I've come to love as well and it also helped me overcome my starting-a-game-multiple-times-but-rarely-playing-the-later-parts syndrome. And also I can use the very same Dual Shock 4 Controller for Game Boy, NES and SNES.
Thomas Schypior
2016-03-15 16:39:18 +0000 UTCVery nice! You guys did an awesome job with this episode (as usual)! Just a few points that I think might interest listeners but have not been mentioned: - Yes, the Framemeister is the best available allround videoprocessor for your old consoles, but it has never been a fast performer as it introduces quite a bit of video latency itself, around 20ms, according to the XRGB Wiki: <a href="http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php/XRGB-mini_FRAMEMEISTER" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php/XRGB-mini_FRAMEMEISTER</a>#Does_XRGB_Mini_add_input_lag_.3F . At least for me this was reason enough to go with the older XRGB3 in B1 mode. - There is a new almost lagfree videoprocessor on the horizon, Markus Hiienkari's OSSC. More about it over here: <a href="http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/ossc.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/ossc.html</a> or here: <a href="http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52158" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52158</a> - Speaking of those resources, I feel that Tobias Reich's (aka Fudoh) blog about videoprocessors for retro consoles deserves to be mentioned since there's probably no better resource for this topic: <a href="http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de</a>
Thomas Schypior
2016-03-15 16:32:18 +0000 UTCLast year my work was going to e-waste a couple of 20" Sony BVMs. They let me take them home and now I'm hooked! <a href="http://www.retrorgb.com" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.retrorgb.com</a> has been a great help as I spiral down into the RGB abyss.
NakedBoB Morgan
2016-03-15 15:04:15 +0000 UTC"Shut up, I hate you."
Retronauts
2016-03-14 18:39:24 +0000 UTCAs an artist who has a minor obsession with color accuracy, hearing about how there is no perfect when it comes to NES color palettes was super fascinating, and something I've NEVER heard before. Really cool stuff.
Matt Bixler! Hello!
2016-03-14 17:32:53 +0000 UTCI'm interested to read what the 7-month-wiser version of Jeremy would tell his younger self.
Scott Schneider
2016-03-14 15:32:45 +0000 UTC
