"It's fun for me!"
July 20, 2015 5:16 PM   Subscribe

...why bother? That seems to be a prevailing sentiment when the topic of any sort of big-ticket retro investment is broached online. After all, all of these games can be played through emulation for free; matters of legality aside, why not just load up MAME or RetroArch and call it a day?
The Quest for the Perfect Retro Game Experience
posted by griphus (45 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I get much more geek trapped by efforts to bring that 'real' 8/16-bit look into modern games. CRT Simulation in Super Win the Game (don't miss the early image pair, "What Indie developers think retro games loked like / What retro games actually looked like).

And here is a gallery of some open source CRT shaders with samples.
posted by jepler at 5:43 PM on July 20, 2015 [20 favorites]


I've been living the emulation version of "For lack of a nail" for the past 5 weeks.

I have an old bluetooth Icade controller. It's a cheap ass wooden case with a bluetooth arcade stick/button setup made for the Ipad.

My 3 year old son started to play with the loose controller, so I'm thinking "Hmm, I'll be he'd love to play retro games"

Step 1: Go get raspberry pi. Do a little bit of research, realize that the Raspberry Pi 2 is a better device. Order raspberry pi 2 starter kit from amazon. Spring for same day delivery. Ontrac says it was delivered, no kit. File claim with ontrac, order another. It shows up 2 days later. Amazon later says the package came back to them undelivered.

Step 2: Realize that the bluetooth controller for the Icade stick is non-standard and works with nothing. Discover my USB encoder from 2008 does not work anymore. Learn that I could wire to the GPIO port, but that it's a wiring mess. Decide to work with a 360 controller.

Step 3: Install retropie. Fight with it. Control setups that work, that don't work. End up with 30 config files for random controllers. Discover that the xbox controllers I have all drift.

Step 4: Download a mame rom set, learn the fresh hell that is clrmamepro and trying to run mame roms off of an external drive.

Step 5: Order a xin-mo encoder, mothball the whole thing until it shows up.

Step 6: Wire up to the xin-mo usb encoder when it shows up. Works well. Install Lakka, can't find any docs on how to get an apple emulator running, so I go back to retroarch. Control setups seem okay, but I struggle with hotkeys since there aren't enough buttons. Buy wireless keyboard for 9 dollars.

Step 7: Fight with advmame, mame4all, mame libretro and more. Use Clrmamepro to generate a crapton of different rom versions. Discover that there's a really nasty fucking bug related to running games off of an external usb drive. Something to do with permissions that I still haven't figured out.

Step 8: Finally get one set of roms to partially work. 25% of the roms lock up the whole device, others get stuck into a self-test reboot. Pac man works.

Step 9: Toddler plays pac-man for 30 minutes, seems to enjoy it.

Step 10: Try to use the controller, discover that it's a piece of shit. Wobbly, hard to use, and generally crappy.

Step 11: Fight the urge to purchase a whole arcade panel from ebay.

Overall I think retropie is bad. I am focusing on Mame, which I found to be a fucking mess. It just doesn't work very well at all. The mass of development and forum posts from 2012-2013 make it near impossible to find information about fixing problems with the most recent builds.

Lakka looks nice, but I didn't dig that far into it.

One could say that it's about the journey, which it largely is. But the existing result is frankly, shitty. Retropie is mostly documented, but when it works, it kinda works. The end result isn't worth it in my view. Lakka or some other loose version of these emulators might be better.

If I wanted to focus on NES or whatnot I might be less annoyed.
posted by Lord_Pall at 5:47 PM on July 20, 2015 [9 favorites]


Retro is the last refuge of the scoundrel!
posted by clvrmnky at 5:50 PM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


I came across this Brian Eno quote earlier today that seems apropos.
posted by naju at 5:52 PM on July 20, 2015 [29 favorites]


I would make fun of this, but I left my GameCube at my wife's family home this weekend so it could be with the 4:3 CRT it deserves.

Also, F-Zero GX is still awesome.
posted by selfnoise at 5:55 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Went on a search for an old game called Dungeon Master the other day. All I could find is some java based version with "updated" graphics. I got it but I don't know if I want to have java going.

I'm still looking because I think that game will still be fun.
posted by Trochanter at 6:05 PM on July 20, 2015


I wish I could find it, but there was an article I read many moons ago about how emulating hardware, accurately, takes insane amounts of computing power, and how we still can't accurately capture all the crazy little exceptions in the NES hardware, and we're barely there for the 2600.

Edit: FOUND IT. Though, specifically, it was about the SNES.
posted by SansPoint at 6:15 PM on July 20, 2015


I've built a dual-DAC device and modified MAME to be able to output the raw vectors from emulated games so that we can play ones like Lunar Lander and Asteroids on real XY-monitors at 12-bit resolution rather than emulating the vector artifacts with OpenGL shaders. The inexpensive Vectrex cabinet is just fast enough to be able to render both of them without too much flicker, for the half-scale experience.

The downside is that converting actual CRTs to vector requires actual analog hardware design, rather than just fancy algorithms and nice digital logic.
posted by autopilot at 6:17 PM on July 20, 2015 [4 favorites]


Oh, hey, I didn't realize this article was by Jeremy Parish. If you want to see something awesome, click here.

(Spoiler: Jeremy Parish is attempting to play through every Game Boy game).
posted by selfnoise at 6:20 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Trochanter, have you played through Dungeon Master before? If not, you should, because it's the best. It really holds up. You can download the original DOS version (and the somewhat useful manual) here and here. I've played through it probably half a dozen times. Never bothered w/the Java version; it ran fine in XP for me (I'm sure DOSBox would work well, too) but I haven't tried it w/W7.
posted by cog_nate at 6:30 PM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


If you like Dungeon Master, you really should check out Legend of Grimrock and the far superior (both are great though) sequel. There's a sublime perfection when people take ideas from the past and move them into today.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:37 PM on July 20, 2015 [4 favorites]


cog_nate, yes. I played it on my old atari st. There was a bug on that system though, and the game would hang on one of the very last levels. So I never *quite* finished.

I followed your links and the game works, so thanks a million. Putting the old team back together.

Wu Tse, Daroo, Wuuf the Bikka, and Linflas. Still remember them. Hilarious.


OnTheLastCastle, will check out your suggestions as well. Thanks.
posted by Trochanter at 6:48 PM on July 20, 2015


OK, haha I swear I'm not cheating looking at sites or any other hints. Wu Tse was the son of heaven, Daroo is the wookiee thing, Wuuf is the dog, and Linflas is the elf w/the green vest, right?

I always thought it best to reincarnate vs. resurrect. You get the stat bonuses and will level up anyway.
posted by cog_nate at 6:53 PM on July 20, 2015


Exactly right. They were my guys. (Although I think of Wu Tse as a girl)

Linflas was a bit fragile, (took his bones to the altar of vi many times) but you dance with who brung ya.
posted by Trochanter at 6:55 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


FWIW, I almost always picked Halk, Elijah, Sonya (sp?) and Gothmog.
posted by cog_nate at 6:55 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


I always thought of Wu Tse as a girl, too, but the title was Son of Heaven. I swore the portrait of the character had boobs...
posted by cog_nate at 6:57 PM on July 20, 2015


there was an article I read many moons ago about how emulating hardware, accurately, takes insane amounts of computing power

Ah, dammit! I myself am fine with emulation rather than real console hardware; the $12 USB SNES controller is authentic enough for me. But I just ordered a cheapo Celeron mini-PC with the most basic configuration figuring it would be plenty to emulate these old 25KHz games. Guess we'll see...
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 7:03 PM on July 20, 2015


The Internet Archive Living Room, which lets you emulate games from your browser, is not directly addressed, but his reasons for his misgivings of emulation are on page 4.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:07 PM on July 20, 2015


And here is a gallery of some open source CRT shaders with samples.

Sadly, I don't think any of those filters can reproduce the vaguely reddish-pink blob that persisted in the center of my CRT after I had some fun playing with those magnets......
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:07 PM on July 20, 2015


the title was Son of Heaven

At first I think I misread it as Sun of Heaven, and then I just had it in my mind. (and I'm content -- it's cool that she's female, to me)

You know, memories flooding back: I had all the levels mapped on graph paper.

I did almost my whole first playthrough without realizing there was a bloody compass on level one!
posted by Trochanter at 7:10 PM on July 20, 2015


Joey Buttafoucault: Ah, dammit! I myself am fine with emulation rather than real console hardware; the $12 USB SNES controller is authentic enough for me. But I just ordered a cheapo Celeron mini-PC with the most basic configuration figuring it would be plenty to emulate these old 25KHz games. Guess we'll see...

It'll probably be fine, except for those crazy edge case games.
posted by SansPoint at 7:13 PM on July 20, 2015


Before the "HD Remake" and cloud gaming became things, I've wondered how much money could Sony do by making a "final" version of the PS2, with a built-in 720p HDMI upscaler, usb/memory stick for memory cards, support for PS3 bluetooth controllers, etc. and sell it as a cheaper companion well into the PS3 life.

Still, I'm a sucker for original hardware. I've held off from buying a saturn-style USB pad because I'm afraid I know sooner I'd put the old stuff at work, and would probably do better buying another game to play.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:22 PM on July 20, 2015


cog_nate, Wu Tse does have boobs. No doubt about it. Don't ask me what's going on, I'm just telling you.
posted by Trochanter at 7:29 PM on July 20, 2015


Good to know. It always puzzled me as a kid.
posted by cog_nate at 7:41 PM on July 20, 2015


Apparently the name Wu Tse is taken from a historical Chinese empress who was called the "son of heaven" because women weren't allowed to be recognized as emperor at the time. So - yeah, she's a woman; only her title is male.
posted by wanderingmind at 7:46 PM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


“And I can definitely take comfort in knowing that the NES, as a dead platform, won't require new equipment every couple of years to remain at the bleeding edge of tech the way PC gaming does.”

Except that’s exactly what’s happening here. What about in 10 years when people decide they have to play NES games in 8640p or 16K or whatever we’re calling it? People will be spending $1000 on some NES clone (I know the Analogue NT uses original boards, but it’s still a NES clone) of the future...to play games that were originally no more than 256 × 240 pixels in resolution. This seems like it’s more about buying shiny/fancy gadgets than playing video games.

“Ultimately, there is a basic rule of business: It doesn't matter how many people don't get it. It only matters how many people do.”

That’s right, because you can only make money off the people who get it. I do not get it.
posted by tepidmonkey at 7:50 PM on July 20, 2015


wanderingmind: See? That's why I love metafilter.

(Reminds me, I gotta donate again)
posted by Trochanter at 7:57 PM on July 20, 2015


I've wondered how much money could Sony do by making a "final" version of the PS2, with a built-in 720p HDMI upscaler, usb/memory stick for memory cards, support for PS3 bluetooth controllers, etc. and sell it as a cheaper companion well into the PS3 life.

They did. The original 20 and 60GB "fat" PS3s and a few of the later 80GB models supported all of these features (except that the PS2 memory cards were stored as virtual memory cards on the PS3 hard drive itself rather than on USB sticks).
posted by eschatfische at 8:17 PM on July 20, 2015


I don't really see the issue here HAHAHA

Also flash cartridges are available for most consoles, so you can have your entire library on an SD card, so I no longer need to cover every surface in my home with a cartridge collection, or swap out carts (and have idiotic houseguests BLOW IN THEM ARGGGH) but also 100% hardware accuracy because you're playing the ROMs on the real thing. Also the "living room PC" next to the whole setup has an ArcadeVGA display card in addition to the more modern GTX970, so I can quit out of Witcher 3 and then decide I want to play some ultra-low-latency ShmupMAME on the CRT, and pipe it over without swapping any wires.

Also, this is one of my best friends showing off his swivel mounted setup, whereas I opted for side-by-side displays, because I don't want to get up to switch modes. We take this dork-ass shit very seriously
posted by jake at 8:44 PM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


I have a 14″ CRT TV connected to an original NES and SNES because I’m also not that fond of emulation. The other day I decided to replay the original Zelda, and when I finished the first quest, I realized that...I had never played the second quest. After my dad and I each finished the first quest in like 1994 or whatever, he immediately went out to buy a Super Nintendo and A Link to the Past which we switched to right away. Until last week, I had never gotten around to playing essentially the last 50% of Zelda, and it was pretty magical to find new secrets in ancient Hyrule. I even had to draw a map.

Actually I haven’t finished it yet. Would anyone mind describing where Level 7 is in the second quest? I already blew the recorder on every screen, and I only have the blue candle so I can still burn down just one tree without having to leave the screen and come back. Of course I could look it up on Gamefaqs.com but as long as we’re on the topic of authentic gaming experiences, I’d love to find out from a real person (just like Miyamoto and Tezuka envisioned (I’m such a nerd)).
posted by tepidmonkey at 9:10 PM on July 20, 2015


It's Ultima 4.

/throws down mic
posted by Sphinx at 9:12 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Along the lines of what jepler mentioned above, the pixel art in many old games was designed to be viewed on a CRT. These days the whole retro-gaming scene fetishizes the look of low res, sharp-edged artwork, and it can be used to great effect in games like Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery, for instance.

But as Timothy Lottes points out here, these assets were developed on CRT monitors, to be viewed on CRT televisions or arcade boxes, and they took advantage of the phosphor bloom and shadow masking to overcome the limitations of their relatively low resolution. Check out the side-by-side image in that blog post, especially that hand-cranked siren thing the soldier is standing next to. In the pixel-perfect reproduction you see the blocky edges and the obvious dithering, but in the photo of the CRT screen it looks smoothly rendered and conveys a much more convincing sense of the form and depth of the object.

In terms of price, screen space, hardware dimensions, etc. modern flat screens are definitely superior to CRTs -- god, I still have nightmares about the time back in 2006 I helped a buddy move his transitional era widescreen CRT television with about a 40" screen that was about 4 feet deep and must have weighed 650,000 fucking pounds -- but even if you're using the original console hardware, when you play old pixel games that were designed to be seen on CRTs on a modern screen part of the feel of the artwork gets lost in translation.
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 9:32 PM on July 20, 2015 [5 favorites]


Ah, I saw his test videos (Castlevania III with scanlines, Bionic Commando without) when he tweeted about them last night.
posted by JHarris at 9:45 PM on July 20, 2015


Actually I haven’t finished it yet. Would anyone mind describing where Level 7 is in the second quest? I already blew the recorder on every screen, and I only have the blue candle so I can still burn down just one tree without having to leave the screen and come back. Of course I could look it up on Gamefaqs.com but as long as we’re on the topic of authentic gaming experiences, I’d love to find out from a real person (just like Miyamoto and Tezuka envisioned (I’m such a nerd)).

HELL YEAH, let's do this. This is from memory. I DID NOT LOOK IT UP, I have no reason to BS here, I just know Zelda really well and sometimes semi-speedrun it, not competitive level though. But I could walk you through it Counselor's Corner style over the phone, mullet and TV in cubicle and everything, the entire game's map is imprinted on the back of my eyelids.

Let's try this Old Man style

SECRET  IS  IN  THE  TREE  AT  THE  DEAD-END.
🔥👴🔥
posted by jake at 10:39 PM on July 20, 2015 [15 favorites]


I got Grimrock and it's great. It's an entirely worthy DM successor. The same but better, just as it should be.
posted by Trochanter at 12:31 AM on July 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


They did. The original 20 and 60GB "fat" PS3s and a few of the later 80GB models supported all of these features (except that the PS2 memory cards were stored as virtual memory cards on the PS3 hard drive itself rather than on USB sticks).

Ah, yes, but this doesn't address the price point aspect of a late life hw revision.
The PS3 was still a very expensive console for the time it natively ran PS2 games, and as all first versions, it had higher than acceptable failure rates. At a point I argued to convince the owner of the place I was working on to increase the price of the 60GB model (the only one with that ability in this region) because they were very sought after, but eventually gave up because those that appeared were in... questionable conditions.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:11 AM on July 21, 2015


So I was the only one playing NES on a Commodore 64 monitor then?
posted by davros42 at 4:29 AM on July 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Except that’s exactly what’s happening here. What about in 10 years when people decide they have to play NES games in 8640p or 16K or whatever we’re calling it? People will be spending $1000 on some NES clone (I know the Analogue NT uses original boards, but it’s still a NES clone) of the future...to play games that were originally no more than 256 × 240 pixels in resolution. This seems like it’s more about buying shiny/fancy gadgets than playing video games.

Why would you not just hook up your PC to your TV using whatever descendant of HDMI is current and push it that way?
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:03 AM on July 21, 2015


"Huh, I miss playing Gameboy, I wonder if eBay..."

Yes, it does. And in a few days I'll find out if Gargoyle's Quest and Bionic Commando were as tough as I thought they were 25 years ago.
posted by Molesome at 5:23 AM on July 21, 2015


Actually I haven’t finished it yet. Would anyone mind describing where Level 7 is in the second quest? I already blew the recorder on every screen, and I only have the blue candle so I can still burn down just one tree without having to leave the screen and come back. Of course I could look it up on Gamefaqs.com but as long as we’re on the topic of authentic gaming experiences, I’d love to find out from a real person (just like Miyamoto and Tezuka envisioned (I’m such a nerd)).

Like jake, I speedrun Zelda sometimes, and have finished the first quest in an hour several times. Level 7 is amazingly difficult to find, it was the last dungeon I found when I first played through the second quest, so I'm not going to mince words about it. It'll be hard enough to explain where it is with words alone.

When you enter the maze-like part of the green forest from the left, there is one passage that's blocked from connecting with the greater part of the forest by a one-tree wide column. At the top of this column, it widens into two trees. Where it widens, there is a tree you can burn with the candle from one side of the wall, but then you cannot get to its staircase without going around several screens and approaching it from the other side. This is because the candle flame always travels one space before activating, and the path on the left is too narrow for you to launch the flame from far enough away. So you have to burn the tree from the right side, then go around and enter the stair from the left.

The screen in question is one screen left of the screen where Level 8 was in the first quest, and three screens down from where Level 2 was in the first quest.
posted by JHarris at 8:50 AM on July 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


@phatkitten: I bought a special cable for the SNES I bought a couple of months ago. What it does is rewire the basic output to RGB. I live in Europe, so it was an upgrade from the basic SCART cable to this RGB SCART cable (this one).

Now it doesn't really do the fuzzyness of a CRT (you'll have to spend 500 bucks on an upscaler with those features :O ), but it does give you a much better picture than the basic cable, which is fuzzy 'in the wrong way' (it's hard to describe). So it doesn't do the 'blending' which a CRT gives, but it did give me a major, no-lag, clarity benefit so I could finally play Street Fighter II Turbo like it was meant to be played :-) (barring an arcade cabinet, but I'd like to have a girlfriend one of these days ;P).

One day someone WILL create a box which gioves you that CRT blending fuzziness which makes it look great on a flatscreen, with no lag to the system, for an affordable price. Today you have to pick your pricepoint.
posted by MacD at 3:10 PM on July 21, 2015


The real issue with non-CRT monitors is display lag. I can get to Soda Popinski in Punch-Out on my 3DS or an NES hooked up to a CRT before my reflexes become too slow; on my HDTV I can't clear the second fight with Piston Honda.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:59 PM on July 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't think I have ever seen a Dungeon Master discussion where Eye of the Beholder (2) wasn't mentioned, so there we go.

And in a few days I'll find out if Gargoyle's Quest and Bionic Commando were as tough as I thought they were 25 years ago.

Gargoyle's Quest is still tough. That optional boss in Demon's Crest was no pushover either.
posted by ersatz at 8:57 AM on July 22, 2015


Retro gaming is a bit like retro fashion.
You can buy the just-out-fashion devices for cheap, but the older models become increasingly more expensive.
If you have minimal dollars to spend on gaming, like me, the best value is to buy a couple of generations old when the systems and games are at their cheapest, then hang on to them, or sell them a few years later for a profit.
You can buy a couple of DS lites for $60 and play one and stick the other in a draw for spares.
In 10 years you will thank me!
posted by bystander at 12:15 AM on July 27, 2015


Man, Legend of Grimrock is great. It's a tribute to the Dungeon Master paradigm.

I'm in a new area, and in the distance, through a region of darkness, is a metal trellised gate, lit by a single torch. And something is moving behind the gate. I can't tell what it is, but it's got a lot of legs and it's big. Very big. W-a-a-a-y bigger than the giant spiders I've gotten sort of okay at fighting.

I'm tense. I'm even a little frightened. I'm curious. I'm super immersed.

The way this game reveals enemies is fantastic. Maybe it's the grid based gameplay and limited movement scheme but you consistently are saying, "What the hell is that thing!" Or "I just saw the shoulder of something that looks like it fills its entire square!"

Highly recommended game guys. As entertaining as any big budget AAA release.

It's quite beautiful, too. The lighting engine makes the dead simple wall textures have tons of different ways of looking.
posted by Trochanter at 10:35 AM on July 28, 2015


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