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Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
That might be the route I go if I end up doing this, then. Being able to play American Hucard games on a Japanese system seems ideal, and not having to ever swap it out would be nice.
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
It comes in handy for me in that, even though I have a Japanese Duo, I can run the US System Card instead and get all-English menus. Not that the Japanese one is that hard to navigate, but still, it's nice.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
(It's also a shame nobody's hacked the Turbografx-16 Mini so you can add games, but with such a low product run, I can hardly blame a lack of enthusiasm from the hacking community.)
It's not that. It doesn't have a reset button so there's no safe way to get it into a writable mode.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Do you need the "interface unit" to use the CD drive, or is there like a cable hookup I could use instead? I kind of think the interface unit is ugly, and I don't want a Duo, all of which are ugly imo lol

For example - assuming the system itself works, would I be able to use this? Nobody buy that because I might lol
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I'll have to defer to someone else on that front, no idea. I'd wager it does need it, though.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Yeah, probably, now that I look closer at it, there's no other way to connect the PC Engine and the CD module. Oh well!
 

ASandoval

Old Man Gamer
(he/him)
Just popping in to say I recently attempted my first console mod (adding composite video input to the Atari 2600) and reporting that it went... poorly. This is partially because the board I was using is in very poor condition (and in fact a non-related piece literally snapped off the board after years of decay - and this console it should be noted was working just a day before attempting the mod despite that!) Hoping to try again soon once another 2600 comes across my path, hopefully in better starting condition.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Got a Mini HDMI converter cable for my Retroid so I could play it on my TV as well.

Good news; it works and it makes the text on games designed for a larger screen than the Retroid itself much clearer.

Downside is that it puts so much dithering and artifacts on the screen that it makes every game look like a bad photoshop of itself.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
Got a Mini HDMI converter cable for my Retroid so I could play it on my TV as well.

Good news; it works and it makes the text on games designed for a larger screen than the Retroid itself much clearer.

Downside is that it puts so much dithering and artifacts on the screen that it makes every game look like a bad photoshop of itself.
I've found that it works pretty decently on a 16" portable monitor (and with a second controller plugged in--retains the portability for a nice 2-player experience you can bring with you) but I haven't done extensive trials on a big-screen TV.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Yeah, when I was a kid we had this enormous wooden entertainment center that went from the floor to the ceiling, had room for up to a 32 inch CRT, a slide out panel for CDs/VHSs, a door with a glass window where my dad kept all his audiophile equipment that I was told not to touch when I was a kid, and a drawer under the TV that we basically used as a junk drawer. It took up most of the wall it was up against. In the basement, we had one of those console TVs sitting on the floor that you turned on my turning the volume up, with just a RF input, which is where I played videogames through the N64 era.

Now my wife and I have a very wide, low, black wooden basically platform, mostly filled with my wife's DVDs, where I have to figure out where to put all my systems next to our enormous 70 inch 4k HDTV. It is fascinating how much that has changed just in my lifetime (I'm in my 30s).
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
I will admit that I occasionally get annoyed at having to get up and walk across the living room on my stupid legs to turn on my Super NT. Yes, it's supposed to be like a SNES, but it was made last year! Give me some way to turn it on remotely.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I for one welcomed our thinner, lighter, sharper LCD overlords. I know people romanticize them, but realistically, I think we all knew CRTs were a pain in the ass, and I'm quite happy to leave their ponderous bulk and power sucking design in the past where they belong. A fourteen inch CRT set for the sake of nostalgia and compatibility with older consoles is fine, but anything larger than 20 inches and I am out.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry

Phantoon: I thought it was common knowledge that CRTs use significantly more energy than LCD and other television models. Just in case, I did a quick Google search, and this study seems to verify that.

Research conducted by E Source, an energy efficiency and technology company, in 2011 compared a 55-inch of each style for five hours in active, or “on,” mode. The CRT set used a staggering 400 watts (W) followed distantly by the plasma and LCD sets at 165 W and finally by the LED at 155 W. The data also revealed that the same televisions in standby mode (when the television is turned off, but still plugged in and drawing some power) for 19 hours a day, the CRT drew 8 W compared to the LCD drawing .4 W. And a 25-inch CRT used more power than a 35-inch LCD at 95 W and 65 W respectively.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
That's true, but nobody I know ever had a 55 inch CRT. They were much, much smaller. Whereas now the sky is the limit, and the bigger TVs are comparable in power consumption. I'll bet if you compared electrical consumption now with then there will be very little difference.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
On the one hand, 50 inch CRTs could double as shelving all on their own.

On the other hand, nothing else about them was a good idea
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Nobody in the UK would've had one, it'd take up a large portion of a room. I think I got to 30 inches at my most extravagant
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
We had one which cost at least twice what a 50 inch tv costs now, without adjusting for inflation, and was about the size of a small couch
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Well, that depends on how much you enjoy them.

I'm not a fan myself, but I won't tell you you're wrong if you feel differently.
 

muteKi

Geno Cidecity
I'm of the belief that dpi on modern lcd tvs has gotten to a point where old stuff looks as good as it did on older (crt) tvs. This post brought to you by the dreamcast composite out gang
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I do suspect that with OLED tech and high enough resolution coupled with CRT filters, it's close enough for most people. I'd consider getting an OLED, but the 4:3 aspect ratio of so much content I consume plus using it as a monitor makes the burn-in/uneven wear problem terrifying to me.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
It turns out that the 21 inch Panasonic CRT that we put in the garage ten years or so ago still works fine. Good news!
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I haven't seen them all of course, but every CRT filter I've seen on various systems and on various HDTVs/monitors looks absolutely terrible to me. I'm glad I have a 20 inch CRT for when I'm feeling like I want a "classic" experience.
 

Ludendorkk

(he/him)
I haven't seen them all of course, but every CRT filter I've seen on various systems and on various HDTVs/monitors looks absolutely terrible to me. I'm glad I have a 20 inch CRT for when I'm feeling like I want a "classic" experience.

Yeah this is how I feel, LCDs really just can't replicate the effect properly due to the difference in how the technology works. I do like some of the "dot matrix" type filters though
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I’m not sure if this is a setting I accidentally bungled (accidentally reset the Retroarchs settings and spent a good long while trying to get it back the way I liked) or something else, but it’s taking me a longer time than before to create and load savestates on my Retroid. It used to be instant, and now there’s a good five second delay before it’ll load or save anything.

Anyone know why?

EDIT!

AHA! Buried unintuitively, several menus deep was an option where nothing about its name would suggest "speed up writing and loading save states" (Threaded Tasks), which I had turned off.
 
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MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
I will admit that I occasionally get annoyed at having to get up and walk across the living room on my stupid legs to turn on my Super NT. Yes, it's supposed to be like a SNES, but it was made last year! Give me some way to turn it on remotely.
I don't know if the Super Nt retains its power state once it loses electricity, but if it does: smart outlet. I had one for my MiSTer for a while, you could just yell at the thing to turn it on.
 
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