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[gryz]

here's a question... does setting up a chain of rgb-component-scart-whatever converters add any noticeable lag for playing games?

 

[televator]

Correct. You'll have to mod it for those. Though after modding they apparently have better RGB than original SNESes because they don't suffer as extensively from that center vertical line issue or audio hum.

However, I heard it was easier to mod certain original big boy SNES because the chip in them produces straight component video... just add component jacks.

 

[CrashPrime]

here's a question... does setting up a chain of rgb-component-scart-whatever converters add any noticeable lag for playing games?

I haven't found anyone testing for lag on the SLG-in-a-box, but here's a Framemeister demonstration. It's pretty close. Remember, going into an HDTV without converting your signal at all will result in pretty bad lag (much worse than these scalers), or no picture at all depending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p89I-HVqU28&t=2m0s

 

[Genesis Knight]

here's a question... does setting up a chain of rgb-component-scart-whatever converters add any noticeable lag for playing games?

Not that I've seen. Most of it depends on your TV, though.

 

[Tain]

With the scalers you'll probably get SOME amount but I doubt it's anything you'll notice. I've heard that the Framemeister has a time measurement for the whole scaling process. That said, some of those boxes have a vsync option, I believe, so I'd assume you'll see at least one frame of lag with vsync on. Wish I had one myself! This lag will be on top of any lag your TV already has when dealing with HD signals. Most HDTVs have a few frames of input lag.

For the RGB to component box, I highly doubt it introduces any given how analog the whole getup seems. I haven't noticed any on my SDTV. I could always do a 60fps camera test, though!

 

[Scavenger]

I wanted to respond to my own post because I couldn't believe this was the price of entry to get this up and running.

After about 4+ hours of research I have found this alternative: SLG-in-a-box

It's about $220 + shipping (which I didn't investigate).

It scales to 640x480,800x600,1024x768,1360x768 ... so not ideal I suppose for 1080p displays (altho I am pretty sure modern TV's do an acceptable job with 720p->1080p.

Apparently the way to get this done is using a $15 SCART RGB.

Still not "cheap" but at under $300 it's an alternative none the less.

What I seem to have figured out is the only way to get the "crt vibe" is to:

1) Get a 300lbs CRT and pray it doesn't die.

2) Use a computer with filters to emulate.

The 2nd option actually can end up producing some pretty favorable results.

CRT Emulation Filters

I'm not entirely convinced of the need for the screen curvature, but the results of using a combination of these magical filters can't be denied. They look pretty convincing.

(click to make bigger)

Interesting read here (the source of a lot of my filtering education) that discusses some of the ins-and-outs of CRT emulation.

In the sub 100 dollar range you can build a DIY RGB to VGA scaler unit. You'll need a sync-strike, a CGA to VGA scaler like the gbs-8220, and for scanlines you can either pick up a SLG3000 or the much cheaper RetroVGA.

Bare minimum without scanlines:
GBS-8220 $32.99 (with free shipping on Ebay)
Sync Strike $36.36 (excl. shipping)

So $69.25 without shipping costs and power adapters, but I cannot imagine it going above $100.

Optional: Scanline generators:
SLG3000 $63.32 (excl. shipping)
or
RetroVGA $20 (shipping $18.86)
or
RetroVGA $32.50 (shipping $18.86)

SLG-in-a-box is just simply the GBS-8220, sync-strike and SLG3000 in a fancy box.

 

[CrashPrime]

Bare minimum without scanlines:
GBS-8220 $32.99 (with free shipping on Ebay)
Sync Strike $36.36 (excl. shipping)

So $69.25 without shipping costs and power adapters, but I cannot imagine it going above $100.

Optional: Scanline generators:
SLG3000 $63.32 (excl. shipping)
or
RetroVGA $20 (shipping $18.86)
or
RetroVGA $32.50 (shipping $18.86)

SLG-in-a-box is just simply the GBS-8220, sync-strike and SLG3000 in a fancy box.

Ahhh ... that's nuts. You seem to be a bit of an expert, so I have a question that I can't find the answer to. Does the SLG3000 or RetroVGA have any sort of kell factor taken into account? I've read that vertical bleeding of scanlines is a big part of accurate looking replication of the effect.

Also, you say the RetroVGA is 20$ or 32.50$ .. what's the difference?

 

[Shadow Hog]

*shrug* I merely bought an S-Video-modded Genesis and called it a day. RGB may be the bee's knees and all, but S-Video seems "good enough". <_<

 

[gryz]

is frame meister hard to find in Tokyo?(Akihabara specifically).. thinking about picking one up in a few weeks

 

[BocoDragon]

*shrug* I merely bought an S-Video-modded Genesis and called it a day. RGB may be the bee's knees and all, but S-Video seems "good enough". <_<

Yeah I agree. The main thing to take away from all this is that composite is shit, and Genesis' composite in particular is really shit. Just as long as you move away from that, you're so much better off.

That said, RGB is a hell of a drug.

 

[dark10x]

*shrug* I merely bought an S-Video-modded Genesis and called it a day. RGB may be the bee's knees and all, but S-Video seems "good enough". <_<

It's less about what cable and system you use and more about your display.

S-video fed through a good scaler will look demonstrably better than s-video directly input into an LCD, for instance. S-video isn't bad, RGB is better. Neither one will produce good results on a flat panel without an external scaler designed for 240p content.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

that is why I still keep my old "flat" CRT TV.

 

[Omegasquash]

that is why I still keep my old "flat" CRT TV.

Yeah, an old 13" flat CRT is what I keep on hand. It's run forever, doesn't take up lots of space and is easy to get out of the way if I need to.

 

[Teknoman]

Went ahead and snagged Ristar, Shadow Dancer, and Landstalker while waiting on the cables+converter.

After watching some Shadow Dancer videos, why dont people talk about that Shinobi game more? It seems like it's got a pretty good soundtrack, and feels faster paced than Revenge. Graphics arent bad at all either.

 

[Tain]

It's definitely good. I don't think it's as good as Revenge or Shinobi III, but it's underrated, yeah.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Went ahead and snagged Ristar, Shadow Dancer, and Landstalker while waiting on the cables+converter.

After watching some Shadow Dancer videos, why dont people talk about that Shinobi game more? It seems like it's got a pretty good soundtrack, and feels faster paced than Revenge. Graphics arent bad at all either.

Shadow Dancer's easily my favorite Shinobi game ever. It's a just fantastic game... it's much more in the style of the original Shinobi, instead of being in the Revenge/Shinobi III style, and that's good, but better, it's improved all around from the original game. Great game! And it does get some attention, at least from Genesis fans.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Yeah, an old 13" flat CRT is what I keep on hand. It's run forever, doesn't take up lots of space and is easy to get out of the way if I need to.

I have a 29". Bulky, takes a lot of space, but definitly a must to retro-gaming.

 

[Genesis Knight]

Shadow Dancer's easily my favorite Shinobi game ever. It's a just fantastic game... it's much more in the style of the original Shinobi, instead of being in the Revenge/Shinobi III style, and that's good, but better, it's improved all around from the original game. Great game! And it does get some attention, at least from Genesis fans.

Damn, you guys mentioned Shadow Dancer. I'll give this thread a few days tops before one of daminmancejin's alts appears out of fucking nowhere.

 

[Ramune]

If Shadow Dancer looks as good as it does on the Vita via PSP's Genesis Collection....I can't get my hands on these "to be discarded" CRTs at work soon enough! D:

 

[gryz]

soo I just bought a model 1 japanese megadrive... according to this guide it's not supposed to have TMSS but it does. anyone know whats going on?


edit:so i found another site indicating that the HAA2510 DOES have TMSS... this is just great. also I now have 4 different genesises (geneses?) sitting in my room. maybe its time to rethink my life.

 

[Teknoman]

I wonder how long www.retrogamingcables.com/ takes to ship from time of purchase...I have my converter, but now i'm still waiting on cables to test it lol.

 

[woodypop]

Saw this billboard on the way to school today. The EMP Museum here in Seattle is having an exhibition called The Art of Video Games, and this is one of its promotional billboards.

I am so giddy over this! I never imagined that Gunstar Heroes would get this kind of larger-than-life public exposure, especially 20 years after its release. So awesome!

 

[Shadow Hog]

Is it the same show that was in DC for several months last year? I really wish I could've gone, but the weekend I was gonna do it - the weekend before it closed up shop - work decided I had to work a weekend shift.

 

[A Black Falcon]

I should mention that I did a thread recently critiquing Rolling Thunder 3. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=523716

 

[Fox Mulder]

I got rocket knight adventures in the mail today and just found out there's been a new game on xbla for years.

Better late than never I suppose.

 

[sixteen-bit]

I got rocket knight adventures in the mail today and just found out there's been a new game on xbla for years.

Better late than never I suppose.

RKA is so bizarre. The original game is far and away the best version released, still yet to be topped.

 

[Gunstarheroes]

Saw this billboard on the way to school today. The EMP Museum here in Seattle is having an exhibition called The Art of Video Games, and this is one of its promotional billboards.

I am so giddy over this! I never imagined that Gunstar Heroes would get this kind of larger-than-life public exposure, especially 20 years after its release. So awesome!

Oh my god i want that billboard in my house, in my yard, anywhere.

 

[A Black Falcon]

RKA is so bizarre. The original game is far and away the best version released, still yet to be topped.

That is probably true, but all three classic RKA games are at least good (and the SNES one's great, very nearly as good as the Genesis original), and the newer 2.5d one's fun to play, it's just too short... but still, none of them are bad.

 

[Genesis Knight]

I wish we knew why the Genesis/SNES versions of Sparkster are so different.

 

[Dave Long]

I agree that while the first one on Genesis is phenomenal, they're all good. I chalk it up to different developers working on all of them. They just had the right group on the first.

 

[Shadow Hog]

I wish we knew why the Genesis/SNES versions of Sparkster are so different.

Konami's just like that, really. Same reason why the Genesis and SNES got completely different versions of games like Turtles in Time/The Hyperstone Heist, Sunset Riders, Contra, Castlevania, Animaniacs... I'd imagine you'd find more situations where Konami made two different games for the two separate platforms than you would situations where they made different versions of the same game (I think Lethal Enforcers is an example of the latter situation).

 

[Apenheul]

Got these games in today:

- Streets of Rage (Not one of my favorite beat 'm ups but a classic nonetheless)
- Fantasy Zone (Game looks cute and all but damn if it doesn't get crazy hard)
- Road Rash II (I love this game)
- Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Had this one already)
- Power Rangers the Movie (very basic beat 'm' up but decent fun with two players on hard)
- Shadow of the Beast (Haven't played this one yet)
- World of Illusion (Enjoyable with 2 players)
- Robocop vs the Terminator (This game is much better than I expected)
- Shadow Dancer (Haven't played this one yet)
- Fantasia (This Mickey Mouse game sucks imo)

 

[sixteen-bit]

I had so much fun with Road Rash II as a kid. The 3DO one was really good too.

 

[alienator]

I got my first Megadrive this week, and being seeing the HIGH DEFINITION GRAPHICS tag on top made me really smile. hooked it up my bravia first and it actually didnt look that horrible, but i switched it to a 80cm crt now and definately looks better.. need to get me a scart cable though.

Now, to most this will sound as blasphemy ofcourse, but i did buy an Everdrive, because,
1. im a demoscener and we are actually working on a megadrive demo as i type this , so i needed a way to watch and check our code (im a pixeler though but i love seeing it on a real machine instead of an emulator)

2.building a gamelibrary now isnt really an option for me, and i seen some prices of cards that would cost me 4-5 times the price of my megadrive alone ;p

so please dont rape me, but i am enjoying the complete romset as an extra bonus. contra hard corps is brilliant, and i love my shmups like thunderforce IV. awesome stuff.

Our team loves doing stuff on exotic weird hardware and i hope u guys will be ready for some ohshi i didnt know a megadrive could do that-moments =) in the near future.

i did the gfx on a wonderswan demo we releasd 7 months ago ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH27BeaIxQ4 ) and i am currently working in the uberweird 3bit mode of the megadrive, but its a blast.

cheers!

 

[IrishNinja]

Goddamn seattle, stop making miamis non existant retro scene look worse
Also, arranged on CL to trade some snes games for quackshot, robocop vs terminator and toejam & earl 2, woo hoo! Got another guy with crap like arnold palmer that im considerinbg just for the cases, heh. Wish someone out here had super fantasy zone to trade though

Ps late to the party but shadow dancer is an unsung classic

 

[Teknoman]

I got my first Megadrive this week, and being seeing the HIGH DEFINITION GRAPHICS tag on top made me really smile. hooked it up my bravia first and it actually didnt look that horrible, but i switched it to a 80cm crt now and definately looks better.. need to get me a scart cable though.

Now, to most this will sound as blasphemy ofcourse, but i did buy an Everdrive, because,
1. im a demoscener and we are actually working on a megadrive demo as i type this , so i needed a way to watch and check our code (im a pixeler though but i love seeing it on a real machine instead of an emulator)

2.building a gamelibrary now isnt really an option for me, and i seen some prices of cards that would cost me 4-5 times the price of my megadrive alone ;p

so please dont rape me, but i am enjoying the complete romset as an extra bonus. contra hard corps is brilliant, and i love my shmups like thunderforce IV. awesome stuff.

Our team loves doing stuff on exotic weird hardware and i hope u guys will be ready for some ohshi i didnt know a megadrive could do that-moments =) in the near future.

i did the gfx on a wonderswan demo we releasd 7 months ago ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH27BeaIxQ4 ) and i am currently working in the uberweird 3bit mode of the megadrive, but its a blast.

cheers!

Looking forward to it. That Star Fox demo just felt strange...but then again there was Virtua Racing.

 

[Gunstarheroes]

Goddamn seattle, stop making miamis non existant retro scene look worse
Also, arranged on CL to trade some snes games for quackshot, robocop vs terminator and toejam & earl 2, woo hoo! Got another guy with crap like arnold palmer that im considerinbg just for the cases, heh. Wish someone out here had super fantasy zone to trade though

Ps late to the party but shadow dancer is an unsung classic

I thought Super Fantasy Zone never came out in america, or are you just looking for a Japanese cart?

 

[Phonomezer]

Saw this billboard on the way to school today. The EMP Museum here in Seattle is having an exhibition called The Art of Video Games, and this is one of its promotional billboards.

I am so giddy over this! I never imagined that Gunstar Heroes would get this kind of larger-than-life public exposure, especially 20 years after its release. So awesome!

I'm jealous.

 

[TheDarkKnight774]

Saw this billboard on the way to school today. The EMP Museum here in Seattle is having an exhibition called The Art of Video Games, and this is one of its promotional billboards.

I am so giddy over this! I never imagined that Gunstar Heroes would get this kind of larger-than-life public exposure, especially 20 years after its release. So awesome!

That's awesome!

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Its...beautiful....

 

[ss_lemonade]

Saw this while driving yesterday. Pretty excited to pay emp a visit asap

 

[Seven Force]

Saw this billboard on the way to school today. The EMP Museum here in Seattle is having an exhibition called The Art of Video Games, and this is one of its promotional billboards.

I am so giddy over this! I never imagined that Gunstar Heroes would get this kind of larger-than-life public exposure, especially 20 years after its release. So awesome!

This is awesome.

 

[sibarraz]

I just bought all the games on steam, having a good time

I want to talk about phantasy star 2, I can't describe how awesome is that game, to think that it was released in the 80's, sega really did an amazing job with their rpg series, it's sad that after the genesis we didn't saw more of those games in a traditional rpg sense

(Also, has lots of moments that are truly shocking, like the ending)

 

[Chinner]

it blows my mind how much cheaper mega-drive games are compared to the snes. makes me wonder if they'll raise in praise someday. can still get the console + games for under a tenner.

 

[Slermy]

it blows my mind how much cheaper mega-drive games are compared to the snes. makes me wonder if they'll raise in praise someday. can still get the console + games for under a tenner.

My guess for this would be a number of factors:

1.) The major Genesis / Mega-Drive classics have been re-released multiple times on various platforms and in various collections.

2.) Due to the use of hard clam-shell cases, more cartridges have survived.

3.) The SNES just gets more love a lot of the time due to the big IPs that are still prevalent today (Metroid, Mario, Donkey Kong).

If you start looking outside the mainstream Genesis / Mega-Drive games, you'll definitely see some pricey ones.

 

[Gunstarheroes]

Man, i'm really excited for PAX East. Hopefully i'll find a few of the games i've been hunting for. In my dreams, someone will have Snatcher <3

 

[Chinner]

My guess for this would be a number of factors:

1.) The major Genesis / Mega-Drive classics have been re-released multiple times on various platforms and in various collections.

2.) Due to the use of hard clam-shell cases, more cartridges have survived.

3.) The SNES just gets more love a lot of the time due to the big IPs that are still prevalent today (Metroid, Mario, Donkey Kong).

If you start looking outside the mainstream Genesis / Mega-Drive games, you'll definitely see some pricey ones.

i reckon it's the hard cases personally. the boxes of the snes are way more visually attractive, but also pretty delicate.

 

[canocha]

Is Double Dragon (cardboard box) rare?

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Is Double Dragon (cardboard box) rare?

Yes, I'd say so.

It was hard for me to find back in 2001 or so when I was heavy into collection Genesis games. No idea what it would go for now.

 

[emb]

I've been enjoying some Genesis the past couple days. It's such a mundane thing to get excited about, but I love the cases. <.< I'm having a tough time getting games into and out of my system though. I think there's some kind of nastiness or displaces connector some where, I definitely have to exert more force than I should. I ought to look into cleaning that I guess, but I'm sure I'd probably screw something up. Oh, and I have a model two with insides exposed (one side has a pretty large opening). I assume this is just an open expansion cover or something? Is it safe to play for long periods of time, you guys think?

I finally sat down yesterday and played through Sonic 2. Fun stuff, I think I liked it even more than the third game. Pretty rough reaching the last boss and start all the way over, but it's definitely a nice sense of urgency that rarely shows up in games with saves (even in fairly easy games like this one).

Now I just started Streets of Rage 2. It's pretty much my introduction to the beat 'em up genre. Movement speed seems a bit slow, but I kinda got used to it. Same goes for hit detection and heights I guess. Anyway, I was only able to get up to around stage 5ish before I ran out, but hopefully next time I'll do better.