The High Definition Retrogaming Thread (Including CRT/BVM/PVM Chatter)

[lincolnic]

Does anyone have any experience using alternate controllers with a Super NT? I've been playing with my original SNES controllers since I got the NT about a week and a half ago, but it's becoming clear that they're no longer a great fit for my full-grown adult hands. My right hand is fine, but something about the positioning of the D-pad is making the RSI in my left thumb act up in a worrisome way.

I know 8bitDo makes a wireless adapter, has anyone used it? I'm using the NT primarily for kaizo Super Mario World romhacks, so input lag is a bit of a sticking point, but at the very least I know that something like a PS4 controller or SN30 Pro+ doesn't make my hand hurt.

 

[Daikaiju]

I'm posting the DQ Zenithia trilogy DS games in the trading thread. Also Glory of Heracles. All have their cases and manuals.
Would dearly love suggestions for pricing.

 

[ShakeWell]

This seems like a weird thread for that, but I feel like all of those are pretty expensive now?

 

[Sarge]

Personally, I check PriceCharting to get a sort of baseline on what a game is selling for. It's not perfect, but it does give a pretty decent ballpark figure for what to expect from the aggregated eBay bids. Right now, it lists them CIB at:

DQ4 - $150
DQ5 - $230
DQ6 - $160
Heracles - $12

One of these things is not like the other, haha!

 

[Daikaiju]

CRIPES

 

[Daikaiju]

I want a to get a good price, but at the same time I don't want to gouge the forum.

 

[Sarge]

You could always figure out how much eBay takes from the cut, then drop it to that price. I don't buy much on forums, but they're almost always under the eBay asking price. I definitely understand not wanting to try extracting the absolute max value!

(I guess if it were me, I'd probably take 20% off the top, but I've never actually sold stuff on a board, so I don't know if that lines up with what others do.)

 

[Daikaiju]

Argh. I do not have the skills for this.

 

[Sarge]

You can always just ask someone to make an offer. I think folks here that were interested would be reasonable.

 

[Daikaiju]

Right. Let's go with that

 

[Kirin]

Finally had a moment to unbox my impulse-bought barely-second-hand SuperNT (thanks lincolnic!) and it is a pretty sweet little kit. Zero hassle to just plug it in and go. Used my original SNES controllers and popped in Mario World, my partner and I did two-player turns up to Vanilla Dome. Good times, and looks flawless on a big flatscreen. (Though we have some household disagreement on smoothing .)

Anyway, my old cart collection will keep me happy with this thing for a while, but sadly my partner's original carts are lost to time and garage sales. Curious if anyone here has done the jailbreak process on one of these and whether there's anything to watch out for that I wouldn't get from googling up a random tutorial or whatever. Probably won't get around to doing it for a while, but there's a good chance I'll want to eventually.

 

[lincolnic]

Finally had a moment to unbox my impulse-bought barely-second-hand SuperNT (thanks lincolnic!) and it is a pretty sweet little kit. Zero hassle to just plug it in and go. Used my original SNES controllers and popped in Mario World, my partner and I did two-player turns up to Vanilla Dome. Good times, and looks flawless on a big flatscreen. (Though we have some household disagreement on smoothing .)

Anyway, my old cart collection will keep me happy with this thing for a while, but sadly my partner's original carts are lost to time and garage sales. Curious if anyone here has done the jailbreak process on one of these and whether there's anything to watch out for that I wouldn't get from googling up a random tutorial or whatever. Probably won't get around to doing it for a while, but there's a good chance I'll want to eventually.

Glad it's working out for you! Jailbreaking it is super painless, you just have to format an SD card as FAT32 and make sure the .bin firmware file is the only file on there. Pop the card into your NT, turn it on, the LED will turn red while it updates the firmware. When it's done (should be 2-3 minutes) it'll reboot and you're good to go.

After that, you just have to remove the .bin file and set up the SNES and SAVES folders on your SD card as instructed on the jailbreak site.

The only thing that's not obvious is that if you're running a game off the SD card, it won't actually save when the cartridge would normally save -- you have to return to the console menu after that (by pressing Down + Select) for the save to take. Does that make sense?

 

[Kirin]

Does that make sense?

Uh, kind of? Obviously it doesn't have a cart to save to. I expect it'll make more sense when I've seen the jailbreak FW's menus. As I said, I probably won't dig into this for a bit, but thanks for the general info!

 

[ShakeWell]

Yeah, what Lincolnic said. It's easy, and it's designed such that even if you did accidentally do something bad, doing the same process with the official firmware will restore it. But the menu also tells you about the saving stuff until you tell it to stop, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. It's really easy.

 

[lincolnic]

Uh, kind of? Obviously it doesn't have a cart to save to. I expect it'll make more sense when I've seen the jailbreak FW's menus. As I said, I probably won't dig into this for a bit, but thanks for the general info!

Yeah, what Lincolnic said. It's easy, and it's designed such that even if you did accidentally do something bad, doing the same process with the official firmware will restore it. But the menu also tells you about the saving stuff until you tell it to stop, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. It's really easy.

Yeah, what ShakeWell said. When you go to load something off the SD card, it actually pops up with a warning message telling you that you need to open the Down + Select console menu for your save to take effect. Once you do it for the first time it'll make more sense.

Actually I think I can illustrate this a little better. Since you were playing SMW, let's use that:

On a console, you'd just hit "Continue and save" and it'd write your save to the cartridge. Playing from the SD slot, you still hit "Continue and save", and after that you just have to press Down + Select to write that save back to your SD card (I'm not sure if that's technically what it's doing, but that's how I think of it).

I should point out that this is not a save state, it'll only save your progress when the game otherwise normally would. If you want access to save states on the Super NT, you'll need an FXPAK Pro (formerly known as SD2SNES).

On the subject of the Super NT, I'd posted a little while ago asking if anyone had used the 8bitDo Retro Receiver with it -- in case anyone else was curious, I ended up getting one last week and it's been fantastic. With an SN30 Pro+, I haven't noticed any lag at all. I haven't tried a PS4 controller yet but I expect it'll feel the same. I'm so happy I can keep playing without wrecking my hands on the original SNES controller.

 

[Sarge]

It sounds pretty similar to the process in MiSTer: if you have autosaving enabled, bringing up the MiSTer's menu will write the save to the SD card. Basically, the in-game save is temporary until you open the menu to make sure it goes to the SD card.

 

[lincolnic]

I didn't realize the MiSTer also worked like that, but yeah, exactly!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I didn't realize the MiSTer also worked like that, but yeah, exactly!

Really? After all the times you've seen me do that after finishing a level?

 

[lincolnic]

Really? After all the times you've seen me do that after finishing a level?

You never explained what you were doing! I don't know how a thing I don't own works!

 

[lincolnic]

Can someone walk me through how to use the CopySNES function on a jailbroken Super NT? I've tried it with my Super Mario World and Super Metroid cartridges, but both times when I try to play the ROM it spits out I just get a black screen.

My process: insert cartridge, turn on NT. Go to CopySNES. It reads the info, I type in the name, hit okay, it makes a rip of the ROM and a .srm file. Then I try to open the ROM and get nothing. What am I doing wrong here?

Follow-up question I just remembered: the ROMs it does rip are .sfc files, my carts are American. Shouldn't they be .smc? Or does that not matter?

 

[Sarge]

I know as far as file type, SFC is the commonly-used extension now. SMC files are left over from the Super Magicom copier.

As far as the dump, I'm not entirely sure. Is the game running correctly otherwise when not trying to dump? Every time I try to dump carts with a Retrode, they have to be super duper clean.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I have definitely had carts not dump correctly for me in the past. When in doubt, get some Q-tips and some Windex and clean the contacts of the cartridge, then make sure that it works when playing directly off the cart before ripping.

 

[ArugulaZ]

Can a PVM also be an LCD monitor, or is the term reserved strictly for CRT monitors? Because years ago, I picked up this off-brand LCD monitor with BNC and S-Video ports on the bottom, and research suggested that this strange anomaly was in fact a security monitor. What I know with absolute certainty is that it gave me the best damn picture I've ever gotten from a Sega Saturn, using one of the S-video ports. It wasn't quite pixel perfect clarity, but it was startlingly close.

 

[lincolnic]

I know as far as file type, SFC is the commonly-used extension now. SMC files are left over from the Super Magicom copier.

As far as the dump, I'm not entirely sure. Is the game running correctly otherwise when not trying to dump? Every time I try to dump carts with a Retrode, they have to be super duper clean.

I have definitely had carts not dump correctly for me in the past. When in doubt, get some Q-tips and some Windex and clean the contacts of the cartridge, then make sure that it works when playing directly off the cart before ripping.

Yeah, the cartridges themselves work fine. I guess I'll try cleaning them again. But I'm not missing a step or anything like that?

ETA: thanks for the file type info, Sarge -- nice to learn a bit. I haven't really thought about ROMs in a long time!

 

[ShakeWell]

Can a PVM also be an LCD monitor, or is the term reserved strictly for CRT monitors? Because years ago, I picked up this off-brand LCD monitor with BNC and S-Video ports on the bottom, and research suggested that this strange anomaly was in fact a security monitor. What I know with absolute certainty is that it gave me the best damn picture I've ever gotten from a Sega Saturn, using one of the S-video ports. It wasn't quite pixel perfect clarity, but it was startlingly close.

By-and-large, in the classic gaming community, "PVM" or "BVM" means a professional CRT, though technically, I supposed an LCD could be a "professional video monitor" or "broadcast video monitor," yes.

 

[Ixo]

Why in the heck are 12" or smaller VGA color monitors so scarce?

 

[Mightyblue]

Issue is that VGA was mostly standardized around 640x480x16, which looks really tiny on monitors that small (yes, there's other display modes for VGA, but that's the one that remains the standard to this day). So most monitors that small were monochrome or CGA/EGA rather than VGA or later DVI.

 

[Ixo]

I am the biggest sucker for tiny CRTs. One rummage sale and a whole dollar later...

Not sure which console I'll leave paired with it; they both compliment it so well! The Wii would be less adapter mess to contend with...

 

[Klatrymadon]

The smaller the better! What a great score. All the Wii virtual console/wiiware stuff will look lovely on that - give it some Gradius Rebirth!

 

[Ludendorkk]

Looks like the perfect companion for a PSOne