Buying retro console hardware/software

Madpanda · May 2012

If your goal is to play gb games using original carts, keep in mind the screen sucks on pretty much every gameboy until the gba, and even with those the second revision is much better.

I picked a gb up for $2 and even inside with good lighting its hard to play without one of those addon lights. I can easily throw it in my gba sp and see perfectly. Or just use a gba player if you have one for gc.

If you really want a boxed gameboy pocket though, look at completed auctions. I don't follow those at all but the price seems about right for a new one.

Stormwatcher · May 2012

Back on topic. I just left my dreamcast (with carry bag, mouse, keyboard, 2 sega VMUs and two generic memory cards plus the VGA box), a bunch of DS games, a mobo with a Core 2 Duo and RAM, and few PS2 and GCN games at a store to be tested and valued... I'm trading it for something else. The dude has a Saturn, black with two original controllers. A nomad and many other less common portables. Also a bunch of new stuff like 3DS and PSP vita. Bear in mind that I'm in a shitty town in Brazil. Just SEEING a Saturn is WOAH, DUDE.

I do think I'm picking the 3DS, if the junk I left get valued high enough. I would have to rely on non legal ways to get games for that pretty Saturn. And I don't wanna do that.

RainbowDespair · May 2012

Yeah, I remember having one of those snake light accessories for my Game Boy. So glad that we don't need stuff like that anymore.

I had forgotten that the GBA had backwards compatibility. I'd definitely recommend a GBA SP over an actual GB/GBC if you have any desire to play the older GB titles.

maximumzero · May 2012

I dunno, I kinda want that GBP just for the hardware. I don't entirely know how many games I'd pick up for it.

But if that's the case I don't know why I want it at all.

Stormwatcher · May 2012

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Yeah, I remember having one of those snake light accessories for my Game Boy. So glad that we don't need stuff like that anymore.

I had forgotten that the GBA had backwards compatibility. I'd definitely recommend a GBA SP over an actual GB/GBC if you have any desire to play the older GB titles.

I wanted the GBA SP for such a long time... But the DS ended up being my first portable. I remember once, when a friend left a Game Gear with me for a while. It had Columns, something else and Dragon Crystal (or is it Crystal Dragon?), a very fun rogue-like. I played Dragon Crystal for ages, with that damn battery guzzler plugged on the wall. I still remember the PA strips about the GBA being dark.

anoffday · May 2012

I had so many accessories for the original GB.

Speaking of Jazz, that really needs to be on gog or steam. I'm hoping it'll show up on gog someday. It's an awesome Sonic clone.

DisruptorX2 · May 2012

Well, the guy mentioned he was a game gear player, and game boy has a better screen than that, so he shouldn't have too many problems.

A more serious problem is the lack of quality, good games on gameboy. Well, not true, anything by Nintendo is amazing, but the third party stuff is heinous. Bad NES ports everywhere. But hey, if you're collecting, go for it. I played the hell out of my gameboy back in the day. I think of have 3 of the original model ones in a box somewhere still.

The gameboy Marios are all top tier.

RockinX · May 2012

DisruptorX2 wrote: »

RockinX wrote:

What? Is it me is the manual is glossy like other SNES games'? When I bought my copy new in 1995 it came with a paper manual and the pages were black and white =/

Yes, its a standard manual, like my manuals for Zelda, Mario, Star Wars, etc. Full color and glossy and whatnot.

Heck, everything about the game seems legit except for the fact that the game itself is half Japanese. I'm not sure it is bootleg, or what is up with it, honestly. I can't imagine there's an official release with an unfinished translation in it. Come to think of it, I think the sticker was there because the game wasn't factory sealed. It had never been opened, and the cart was still in its bag, but the box didn't have the factory wrapping.

I always thought the manual that came with mine was weird because the paper in which it was made was regular instead of glossy, but mine does look legit and the cart's label is as glossy as any other SNES cart. What do you mean it's half Japanese, BTW?

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

DisruptorX2 wrote: »

Well, the guy mentioned he was a game gear player, and game boy has a better screen than that, so he shouldn't have too many problems.

A more serious problem is the lack of quality, good games on gameboy. Well, not true, anything by Nintendo is amazing, but the third party stuff is heinous. Bad NES ports everywhere. But hey, if you're collecting, go for it. I played the hell out of my gameboy back in the day. I think of have 3 of the original model ones in a box somewhere still.

The gameboy Marios are all top tier.

Man, I don't want to start a list war, but there is a lot of great 3rd party stuff on the Gameboy. The problem is that most of it is pretty unknown stuff.

DisruptorX2 · May 2012

RockinX wrote: »

What do you mean it's half Japanese, BTW?

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I thought it was a bootleg, and Sonic wanted to see it, so I posted that pic. Most of the background text is in Japanese, and Vega/Bison/Balrog have their names switched around (Or rather, un-switched around, as I understand it).

As a note, I do have 3 gameboys still, and they are in dire condition. They have extensive wear from being used constantly, and then sitting in my parent's attic for years before being reclaimed. Only one of them is even still grey.

harvest · May 2012

I visited the retro shop that I found out about last week today. It was glorious. Lots of SNES and NES games, not so many Genesis/Megadrive games, a ton of GB/GBA stuff, some Dreamcasts that were tempting, some modern (PS2/Wii/PS3/360) used stuff for good prices, Portal decals on things, big character sprites on the front windows, a fucking sealed copy of Suikoden 2, tons of awesome stuff. In the back room they have set up tables for card/tabletop gaming with a couple arcade cabinets (Do Don Pachi and something else), and a TV for all your gamer otaku anime needs. They had Castle Shikigami 2 set up at a demo station, and a Rock Band 2 stand up machine.

I traded in all my unused Xbox 360 stuff for a couple hundred in store credit. I walked out with a Genesis (came with a cart with 6 games on it, and Street Fighter 2 championship edition), Phantasy Star 2, Sonic 2, and Castlevania Bloodlines. Oh and the first Golden Sun for GBA. Lots of credit left over for me to browse the web a bit and find out what else I should look for Genesis-wise. I didn't really take a close look at their GBA stuff and I'm sure there are some great things in there. Overall a great experience.

Oh and unrelated, but here's a pic of the best PC controller ever (ignore the dust

):

Tamin · May 2012

Awesome. If I were more into That Which We Shall Not Mention, I would pick one up.

I do have a GC->SNES adapter, though. Which is swell for GBA and VC games.

The only problem with it is that, while using the gameboy player, you can't rebind the keys well enough, so it's cumbersome.

Hmm...

That brings up a silly question; one I'm sure the answer to is an obvious, "no. wut? no", but ...

there are translation patches out there for some games; Breath of Fire 2, in particular. Is there any way ... any adapter or pass-through 'patcher' ... to apply those things on the hardware side? Obviously, you can't patch a a cartridge.

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

Tamin wrote: »

Awesome. If I were more into That Which We Shall Not Mention, I would pick one up.

Do you have a Playstation 3? Because any HID controller will work on it. I played Sonic Generations using my Sega Saturn USB controller, for example.

Tamin wrote: »

That brings up a silly question; one I'm sure the answer to is an obvious, "no. wut? no", but ...

there are translation patches out there for some games; Breath of Fire 2, in particular. Is there any way ... any adapter or pass-through 'patcher' ... to apply those things on the hardware side? Obviously, you can't patch a a cartridge.

As for this... I'm actually building something that'll do this. It's not quite what you think, but it'll be an SNES which can apply IPS patches to cartridges in real time as you play them. I've got a conceptual prototype working, I just need to actually build the hardware into a normal SNES case.

It'll likely be a one-of-a-kind sort of deal, though, so that's no use to you. But, you said you can't patch cartridges and that's not true. You CAN patch a cartridge, and I and at least a few other people have done it before. To do it all legally, you need to buy a device capable of dumping your cart onto your PC - Retrode is the cheapest, easiest way to do this today. Once you've made an image of your cart, you apply the patch to the image, then, using an eeprom burner, burn the image back onto an eeprom, and solder the chip onto your cart. I've made a Secret of Mana 2 english cart, a Monster World IV english cart, and an Adventure Island 4 english cart. Total cost of the Retrode and eeprom burner is less than $150, and it's pretty much a one-time cost.

harvest · May 2012

And that's how we learned that TSR is actually a wizard.

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

harvest wrote: »

And that's how we learned that TSR is actually a wizard.

Not a wizard, a computer scientist with a dremel and carpentry skills.

But my Translation SNES, as I'm calling it, skirts a very grey area. While I'm sure it's not illegal or anything like that, discussing it at length would probably violate the TOS here on these boards. When it's all done (and there's no ETA) I'll see if I can post some pictures with mod permission. Right now, with all the shit laid out on a table, it works but is slow to turn on. You pop in a cartridge - I used Final Fantasy V - and select which IPS patch to apply from a menu at power on, and then bam - the game plays with that patch applied. It still saves to the cart and everything, and if you turn off the game and put it into a normal SNES, your save is still available (albeit with the language reverted to the way the game was pre-patch).

Tamin · May 2012

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

Tamin wrote: »

Awesome. If I were more into That Which We Shall Not Mention, I would pick one up.

Do you have a Playstation 3? Because any HID controller will work on it. I played Sonic Generations using my Sega Saturn USB controller, for example.

Tamin wrote: »

That brings up a silly question; one I'm sure the answer to is an obvious, "no. wut? no", but ...

there are translation patches out there for some games; Breath of Fire 2, in particular. Is there any way ... any adapter or pass-through 'patcher' ... to apply those things on the hardware side? Obviously, you can't patch a a cartridge.

As for this... I'm actually building something that'll do this. It's not quite what you think, but it'll be an SNES which can apply IPS patches to cartridges in real time as you play them. I've got a conceptual prototype working, I just need to actually build the hardware into a normal SNES case.

It'll likely be a one-of-a-kind sort of deal, though, so that's no use to you. But, you said you can't patch cartridges and that's not true. You CAN patch a cartridge, and I and at least a few other people have done it before. To do it all legally, you need to buy a device capable of dumping your cart onto your PC - Retrode is the cheapest, easiest way to do this today. Once you've made an image of your cart, you apply the patch to the image, then, using an eeprom burner, burn the image back onto an eeprom, and solder the chip onto your cart. I've made a Secret of Mana 2 english cart, a Monster World IV english cart, and an Adventure Island 4 english cart. Total cost of the Retrode and eeprom burner is less than $150, and it's pretty much a one-time cost.

Awesome.

When I say "patch" I'm not at all thinking in terms of soldering chips. I have absolutely no skill with soldering things; the last time I tried to use a soldering pen it blew up when I plugged it in. It was the strangest thing.

I was thinking more along the lines (and, again, this is incredibly naive) of a "translation cart", where you apply the IPS patch to a game-genie like device, then you plug the cartridge into the 'patcher', and then plug it into the SNES / NES / whatnot and it substitutes things in correctly. But, yeah definitely get permission when it's done - that's something I'd love to see.

edits: for some reason my ability to put together sentences has taken a drastic down-turn over the past few days.

maximumzero · May 2012

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

Do you have a Playstation 3? Because any HID controller will work on it. I played Sonic Generations using my Sega Saturn USB controller, for example.

You mean the classic stages right? I can't imagine controlling modern Sonic with a D-Pad. (Unless there's a USB version of the 3D controller out there I don't know of.)

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

maximumzero wrote: »

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

Do you have a Playstation 3? Because any HID controller will work on it. I played Sonic Generations using my Sega Saturn USB controller, for example.

You mean the classic stages right? I can't imagine controlling modern Sonic with a D-Pad. (Unless there's a USB version of the 3D controller out there I don't know of.)

No, both. You can play modern Sonic with the d-pad, and it's not as bad as you'd think.

Madpanda · May 2012

I have no idea how you could blow up a soldering pen by plugging it in unless it was faulty to begin with.

Soldering just takes practice. I had never done it before picking up that electronics book, 2 months later I built a supergun and was replacing snes batteries. I could have done it in less time but I had to research it and be comfortable enough to take on a job that size.

http://mightyohm.com/blog/2011/04/soldering-is-easy-comic-book/

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

Madpanda wrote: »

I have no idea how you could blow up a soldering pen by plugging it in unless it was faulty to begin with.

Soldering just takes practice. I had never done it before picking up that electronics book, 2 months later I built a supergun and was replacing snes batteries. I could have done it in less time but I had to research it and be comfortable enough to take on a job that size.

http://mightyohm.com/blog/2011/04/soldering-is-easy-comic-book/

You can blow up one of those butane soldering pens easily enough if you get the canister hot enough, say by letting the rosin just run down your pen onto the canister. You'd have to be excessively messy, though.

maximumzero · May 2012

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

maximumzero wrote: »

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

Do you have a Playstation 3? Because any HID controller will work on it. I played Sonic Generations using my Sega Saturn USB controller, for example.

You mean the classic stages right? I can't imagine controlling modern Sonic with a D-Pad. (Unless there's a USB version of the 3D controller out there I don't know of.)

No, both. You can play modern Sonic with the d-pad, and it's not as bad as you'd think.

I dunno man, I tried playing Sonic Colors with the Wii Remote only and it wasn't pretty.

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

maximumzero wrote: »

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

maximumzero wrote: »

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

Do you have a Playstation 3? Because any HID controller will work on it. I played Sonic Generations using my Sega Saturn USB controller, for example.

You mean the classic stages right? I can't imagine controlling modern Sonic with a D-Pad. (Unless there's a USB version of the 3D controller out there I don't know of.)

No, both. You can play modern Sonic with the d-pad, and it's not as bad as you'd think.

I dunno man, I tried playing Sonic Colors with the Wii Remote only and it wasn't pretty.

Thats because you don't always have access to the quick step in the wii version. Having full access to the quick step makes Sonic much easier to control with a d-pad. You rarely have to turn, and when you do, you can simply drift to give yourself the perfect arc.

Tamin · May 2012

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

Madpanda wrote: »

I have no idea how you could blow up a soldering pen by plugging it in unless it was faulty to begin with.

Soldering just takes practice. I had never done it before picking up that electronics book, 2 months later I built a supergun and was replacing snes batteries. I could have done it in less time but I had to research it and be comfortable enough to take on a job that size.

http://mightyohm.com/blog/2011/04/soldering-is-easy-comic-book/

You can blow up one of those butane soldering pens easily enough if you get the canister hot enough, say by letting the rosin just run down your pen onto the canister. You'd have to be excessively messy, though.

It must have been faulty. Just some cheap thing I bought at radioshack when I had the urge to look into the field.

I'll be reading that "comic". Thanks!

RockinX · May 2012

DisruptorX2 wrote: »

RockinX wrote: »

What do you mean it's half Japanese, BTW?

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I thought it was a bootleg, and Sonic wanted to see it, so I posted that pic. Most of the background text is in Japanese, and Vega/Bison/Balrog have their names switched around (Or rather, un-switched around, as I understand it).

As a note, I do have 3 gameboys still, and they are in dire condition. They have extensive wear from being used constantly, and then sitting in my parent's attic for years before being reclaimed. Only one of them is even still grey.

Sorry, but having the game in Japanese is a bad signal because there's no reason for it to be like that. I'm not sure why my manual is made of paper and black and white, but the game is in English.

Hotandnerdy · May 2012

irn wrote: »

I've had a lot of luck on craigslist. I would try there.

....or garage sales!

harvest · May 2012

What should I expect to pay for a Sega CD? It's a hard item to search for on Ebay, maybe I should put a WTB on Craigslist? Still, I don't know how much I should expect to pay.

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

harvest wrote: »

What should I expect to pay for a Sega CD? It's a hard item to search for on Ebay, maybe I should put a WTB on Craigslist? Still, I don't know how much I should expect to pay.

I wouldn't pay much more than about $50 for a sega cd.

EDIT: If you're feeling lucky... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Two-Broken-Sega-CD-Consoles-/190670542473?pt=Video_Games&hash=item2c64d99689

two "broken" sega CDs. the problem they're describing is almost assuredly a blown fuse, which is an $0.08 fix. You could roll the dice on that, fix the sega CDs, then turn around and sell the spare, essentially getting a Sega CD for free.

Of course, there is a slight chance it's not a blown fuse.

DisruptorX2 · May 2012

You know the sega cd doubles as a CD player. So you could buy the CDX, strap it to your belt, plug in some earplugs, and be the coolest kid on the block.

I think I might buy one at some point in the future, though, for reals. But I definitely wanted to check out the much cheaper standard system beforehand. I played through a few games, and it seems to be working well. Though, and I only noticed this after a while, the power button on the Genesis is loose. How annoying.

harvest · May 2012

@TheSonicRetard yeah I saw that listing and the thing that turns me off is that it doesn't come with any cables. Doesn't it need a power cord and its own AV cable? Or is that the 32x? Or am I totally misremembering...

DisruptorX2 · May 2012

CD requires its own adapter. Plus the Genesis console and all of the Genesis accessories.

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

harvest wrote: »

@TheSonicRetard yeah I saw that listing and the thing that turns me off is that it doesn't come with any cables. Doesn't it need a power cord and its own AV cable? Or is that the 32x? Or am I totally misremembering...

It needs a power cable, but you can buy a universal AC adaptor from radio shack for like $10. The Sega CD uses the Genesis' video out, but if you want stereo sound on a model 1, you need to run an audio mixing cable from the genesis to the Sega CD. Do you have a model 1, or model 2 genesis?

harvest · May 2012

I think it's a model 2 genesis. It's just black without the red stripe, and smaller than I remember the older genesis being.

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

harvest wrote: »

I think it's a model 2 genesis. It's just black without the red stripe, and smaller than I remember the older genesis being.

That's a little vague. Does it have a volume knob and a headphone jack?

harvest · May 2012

Yeah it's a model 2, I looked it up on Wikipedia.

And while we're talking about it, is there a way to get stereo out from the Genesis model 2? My TV reports that it's working in Mono mode when I turn the Genesis on. And can I get composite AV/Stereo, or S-Video?

harvest · May 2012

Cool, this Playtech power adapter I bought from an Ebay seller just committed suicide. It made a loud zzzzzoooootttt sound and the smell was awful, and now the SNES won't turn on. I have no way of telling if it's actually the power adapter or the SNES that's broken, but I hope to god it isn't the console.

And I found and ordered a Genesis composite+stereo AV cable from a seller on Amazon for like $8. I have seen a couple of youtube videos of peoples' Genesis consoles that have been modded with s-video and that's something I think I'd like to try.

maximumzero · May 2012

Did you guys see the youtube video where the guy made his own Sega Neptune out of a 32X and a Model 2 Genesis?

Madpanda · May 2012

This is a good place to get 3rd party power supplies

http://www.retrogamecave.com/

They are working on a 3 in one to support the genesis model 1 + scd + 32x which I will pick up once its out. They have one for model 2 + scd + 32x.

For composite/svideo cables, anything the systems usually use I would recommend racketboy.com cables. They are quite durable and I use them myself for gc/n64.

Svideo modded genesis is decent but i'd say not worth the effort if you are just using a lcd, plasmas are supposed to be decent for retro stuff

For roughly what it cost me to get a s-video genesis I got a rgb->component convertor and a genesis scart rgb cable, which look better than s-video and doesn't require modding.

Heres some really good info on it.

http://www.chrismcovell.com/gotRGB/index.html

Please keep in mind for best results you will want a crt tv with component (can get on craigslist for cheap or free). You can get the same benefits on modern displays but you need an expensive scalar (google xrgb frame miester).

TheSonicRetard · May 2012

I can't recommend enough that people not use RGB, Component, or even S-video with their Sega Genesis. Genesis games were not built with that sort of image clarity in mind, and those types of cables and mods break many visual effects in several games. Genesis games were built with a CRT tv with either NTSC color bleed or Pal color bleed in mind. The games were actually designed with the inadequacies of that type of TV in mind, and take advantage of perceived defects in the image quality to produce more colors, transparencies, and even hide palette swaps. Unless you played a genesis back when it was still alive, you'll have no idea what a Genesis game is supposed to look like if you're only used to emulation, or re-releases on XBLA or the Wii's VC. People often complain about how "grainy" the Genesis looks, or how it can't do transparencies, but back in 1993, on our CRT, the Genesis looked like it was pumping out as many colors as the SNES at times, and there were transparencies all over the place. This is because of dithering - a trick only possible on a CRT with color bleed. The idea is that you alternate pixel colors every space, and rely on the the innacuracy of the CRT screen to have the color "bleed over" from one pixel to the other. The end result is that colors from one pixel perfectly blend with the pixels directly next to it, and it creates a new color which is exactly half of each pixel surrounding it.

Developers used this trick to create smooth blends and even transparencies (by creating vertical bands). When you play a genesis game with RGB, Component, or S-Video, this effect is completely broken, and your genesis game looks like a shitload of random pixels, and transparency effects don't work at all. Here's a few screenshots to show what I mean:

this is Hard Drivin' via RGB:

see how the track is just a mesh of pixels? Sure it's sharp looking, but it doesn't look correct. This is Hard Drivin' via Composite:

Much better. The image is a bit fuzzier, but considering the 224-line resolution of the genesis, it's not like it really matters. The big driving point is how the track becomes transparent. This is an effect that is actually used in tons of Genesis games.

Here's another example from Socket:

Over RBG, notice how the tube on the left hand side is nothing more than vertical white stripes. Notice how the gradient in the background is made up of 7 distinct colors.

over composite, so much better. The gradient is now made up of 11 distinct colors, and the tube on the left has become transparent. Even better, the transparent tube is showing 3 additional colors for the background gradient, making the total background colors bump up to 14 colors, double that of RGB.

This is a great article on why color bleed is so important, and why super sharp images are terrible for old games: http://www.bogost.com/games/a_television_simulator.shtml

Madpanda · May 2012

Its a matter of preference. I can defiantly see in some areas were composite would be better, that socket screenshot really shows it off.

I prefer the sharpness though, for instance that first hard driving shot. I was pretty young when I had a genesis so I really remember the games more than the specifics of the graphics.

edit: i brought this up because someone mentioned s-video modding a genesis.

dragonsama · May 2012

TheSonicRetard wrote: »

The game gear is basically a portable Sega Master System with a slightly updated VDP that has a larger palette. Master System games will even run on the system unmodified, just with the pins switched around for game gear input.

That larger palette, however, means that game gear software not written for the SMS can't be played normally on an SMS. Now, there is a whole project out there committed to converting exclusively game gear games into master system images, which you can build a homemade cart for, but the opposite remains appealing: there are essentially updated SMS titles out there that you can only play on a small, fuzzy screen. The game gear got several titles that the SMS did not, like Sonic Triple Trouble and Tail's Sky Patrol. Those games are worth playing, even on a big screen (since I'm obviously a-ok with playing SMS games. it's my favorite system all-time). There are even GG exclusive entries to longrunning series, like Fantasy Zone Gear and Panzer Dragoon Mini. I have these games, and I've played them on my game gear, but I would love to play an entire series of games on real hardware on the same screen.

If this project goes smoothly, I'm considering doing the same thing to a Neo Geo Pocket Color.

I would so buy both a GG and the NGPC consoles if you made them. I have been trying to get a GG for a while and everyone I find has a messed up screen or no sound. and I love my NGPC but being able to play the games without having to sit directly next to a lamp would be nice.

Taya wrote: »

The copy of Tiny Toons that I bought yesterday does not work no matter what I do.

This game is important because it's the very first video game that I ever finished.

I have a copy of Super Dodge ball for GBA that is the same way. if you find a way for raising carts form the dead let me know.

Penny Arcade

Buying retro console hardware/software

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