We have a thread about retro-clone consoles somewhere, right?

[Purple]

I was just talking to a friend who was wondering if anyone had a solution for playing games on physical hardware when all the original consoles fail and I KNOW somewhere on here there's a really extensive thread about all those things like the Retro Duo and NT mini and whatever the hell else, but I can't find it so...

A- Someone want to just gimme a link?

or

B- Someone want to just start listing stuff with pros and cons?

In this particular case she's just kinda "ooh, is there something I can play Genesis games on with like a USB hitbox on an HDTV?"

 

[Phantoon]

Erm, I post in a load of these threads and even I'm not sure what the best one would be. So... is it essential that she plays original cartridges or not? That would probably be the first differentiator.
If she wants to use original cartridges, then the Analogue consoles can be recommended. Incredibly high compatibility with their console, plays well with HDTV, no lag. They're amazing products. They can also be jail broken to play other consoles' ROMs, but will struggle with certain things like SNES special chips. However, availability is iffy, they're expensive, and if you aren't American I believe the shopping is exorbitant.
Still playing cartridges, a cheap option is an emulator console like the Super Retro Trio / Retron 5. They'll play more than one type of cartridges, such as NES, Super NES, Mega Drive/ Genesis, which is cool, and are hugely cheaper than Analogue. The quality is not comparable however; some games may not work and I don't think they play well with things like the Everdrive.

If she doesn't want to use cartridges, there's the Raspberry Pi 4. Works up to PS1 and can do some N64 / Dreamcast but it's not guaranteed to work on all games from the latter consoles (somebody who has a Pi and knows what they're talking about please butt in here). They're relatively cheap to set up, but I believe they're technically a little tricky to set up.
Then there's the MiSTer (which I have). More expensive than the Pi to set up, and won't do PS One, N64, Saturn or Dreamcast at all (currently) but what it runs it runs incredibly well with generally a very high degree of accuracy. With the more mature cores, if it works on the console it'll work here. It's fairly easy to set up now, and you can choose how impressive you want it to be (there are add on boards which are optional), but the cost of the DE10-Nano and the memory module (pretty much essential) is more than the Pi.

Finally there's handheld consoles like the RG351 / Retroid Pocket series. Won't play on a TV (unless one had a TV out I've forgotten) but will play roughly what a Pi will, work out of the box and are cheap. However, to get the most out of them you may require custom firmware, which is a faff.

I'm by no means the expert here, but that's how I see it.

 

[madhair60]

imo Pi 3 B+ with RetroPie is enough for everything up to and including PS1. Cheap, easy, works with basically any USB or wireless controller.

 

[Phantoon]

How easy is it to set up? Pi4 looked like a faff, but it was early days when I last looked into it.

 

[madhair60]

I found it pretty simple, RetroPie instructions are quite clear except for one sticking point - adding roms to the thing is easy (put them on your custom USB, plug custom USB into Pi), but it's not obvious at all that they copy to the Pi itself, and aren't running from the USB stick. You need to wait until they finish copying (there's no progress bar, christ knows why), then simply remove the stick and they'll appear in your rom list. So basically - it's really easy but there's this one weird unclear bit.

The only faff in my experience is if you start arsing around with parameters and stuff without being careful you can shit it all up, but the solution there is to just... not do that.

Edit: You can also buy kits for Pi 3B+ that make it simplicity itself. This is the one I have, I paid about £20 less than this so I guess shop around. (Also obviously this is a UK one, sorry)

 

[ASandoval]

My Super NT came in, and my initial thought was to sell it down the line and use the funds to build a MiSTer, but honestly as someone who also built a Pi, I kind of love the simplicity of it? Like I still want to build a mister, but it is so nice to not have to deal with the controller and video settings for the different systems. I did jailbreak it, but even that was extremely painless and not as fiddly as my experience with Rom boxes and emulators.

 

[Phantoon]

if you start arsing around with parameters and stuff without being careful you can shit it all up

Off topic but this is the most British thing posted in this forum, innit

 

[Beowulf]

I was just talking to a friend who was wondering if anyone had a solution for playing games on physical hardware when all the original consoles fail and I KNOW somewhere on here there's a really extensive thread about all those things like the Retro Duo and NT mini and whatever the hell else, but I can't find it so...

A- Someone want to just gimme a link?

or

B- Someone want to just start listing stuff with pros and cons?

In this particular case she's just kinda "ooh, is there something I can play Genesis games on with like a USB hitbox on an HDTV?"

The Retrogaming Hardware thread is what you were originally looking for, btw. I'm a big fan of the handheld emulator devices (particularly the Abernic RG350) but I had also built a Lakka box years ago. Emulation on an old PC or Raspberry Pi is just dandy once you get it working.

 

[madhair60]

I have an RG351P and it is a delight.

 

[Purple]

Erm, I post in a load of these threads and even I'm not sure what the best one would be. So... is it essential that she plays original cartridges or not? That would probably be the first differentiator.
If she wants to use original cartridges, then the Analogue consoles can be recommended. Incredibly high compatibility with their console, plays well with HDTV, no lag. They're amazing products. They can also be jail broken to play other consoles' ROMs, but will struggle with certain things like SNES special chips. However, availability is iffy, they're expensive, and if you aren't American I believe the shopping is exorbitant.
Still playing cartridges, a cheap option is an emulator console like the Super Retro Trio / Retron 5. They'll play more than one type of cartridges, such as NES, Super NES, Mega Drive/ Genesis, which is cool, and are hugely cheaper than Analogue. The quality is not comparable however; some games may not work and I don't think they play well with things like the Everdrive.

OK so I know the deal with the Retro* consoles is they are secretly cart-rippers sitting next to an emulation box, but what's the story with Analog's stuff?

And you know, by extension, is anyone out there actually trying to clone old hardware in an accurate enough way that anything that'll work in the original console is going to be fully compatible?

 

[Phantoon]

OK so I know the deal with the Retro* consoles is they are secretly cart-rippers sitting next to an emulation box, but what's the story with Analog's stuff?

And you know, by extension, is anyone out there actually trying to clone old hardware in an accurate enough way that anything that'll work in the original console is going to be fully compatible?

Yes! Both Analogue and the MiSTer project replicate the actual hardware using FPGAs. They aren't emulation per se. Analogue's consoles are as close to the original as you can reasonably get. The Neo Geo port on MiSTer came about from somebody's work using FPGAs to replace dead obsolete parts on real hardware, so a lot of the work was done already.

 

[ShakeWell]

And you know, by extension, is anyone out there actually trying to clone old hardware in an accurate enough way that anything that'll work in the original console is going to be fully compatible?

I believe the Analogue Super Nt was tested with every single North American retail game, and all of them play properly. If your friend is looking for a thing to play their physical games on, depending on the platform I'd say Analogue's stuff is the way to go, though at this point for NES, the RetroUSB AVS is going to be the best bet, price-wise (designed by BunnyBoy of RetroUSB, it also uses FPGA, includes 4 controller ports, slots for Famicom and NES, etc, etc).

If slotting actual carts in isn't as much of a concern, I'd recommend building a MiSTer. There's a thread here. All of us who post regularly in that thread are more than happy to help you/your friend out. You can get devices to use your actual controllers from most systems using the SNAC-adapter board, you can use the I/O board to play on a CRT, etc. Again, if using actual carts isn't a concern. Also, right now, it goes up to Sega CD on the console side and CPS2 on the arcade side (and 486 on the PC side), and it's not likely to get much further past there. Someone's working on a PS1 core, which I hope bears fruit, but it seems like anything beyond that is using too much of the FPGA's horsepower. If that's in your wheelhouse, check the thread, I'd say.

 

[Sarge]

Agree that the Super Nt / Mega Sg is a great way to go for real carts. I've read enough good stuff about the AVS that I'd take it over the exorbitantly-priced Analogue product, though.

MiSTer is excellent. I've been really happy I finally dove in. I think PSX might actually happen, and there's also work on a Saturn core that I'm much more skeptical about ever achieving full accuracy.

 

[Yimothy]

Back around the start of the year I got myself a MiSTer because the Analogue Mega SG went out of stock right as I was about to buy one. Well, heaven help me, they’re back in stock and I just bought one. Didn’t splurge on the cart adapter set though, so if anyone’s got a game gear adapter they don’t want I’d be interested.

Their Super NES is back in stock too, though I’m less interested in those.

 

[ThornGhost]

The MiSTer is a great great device especially if you're more like me where the majority of fun you get out of any emulation box is setting it up rather than playing games. There's so much to tinker with and learn. For instance, I recently upgraded mine with a...power switch.

 

[Yimothy]

they’re back in stock and I just bought one

So my Mega SG arrived today, less than eight days since I placed my order. Which it’d want to for what they charge for international shipping. Anyways, I hooked it up and so far it’s basically doing what I want: running SMS and Mega Drive games from the cart. My Soleil save was there from last time I played it. Coming from the MiSTer it seems both better and worse - I like being able to play from original carts, and it’s a very neat little object with a fairly good menu system that seems pretty versatile.

I do find the interface kind of odd in places. For example, the horizontal resolutions have eight or ten pixels added on each side to the base resolution, for some reason, meaning that if you want 320 horizontal mode to display at 4x and 256 mode to display at 5x, you have to set it to 1360 instead of 1280. It makes it harder to figure out. It does have a little thing that pops up when you hit an integer multiple to say you’re on one, which is good.

I have maybe been spoiled by the MiSTer, even though that device is in many ways way more unintuitive and frustrating. It does have better scan lines, though (bearing in mind I haven’t used a real CRT in many a long year and my idea of what constitutes “better” for scanlines is just what I think looks nicer, not what’s more accurate). The Mega SG’s scanlines are thoroughly, inexplicably bad, though there are several sliders to tweak which might make them better if I can figure them out. Supposedly the scan lines look better at 720p, but if I use 720 my TV will scale it up to 1080 and I’m trying to avoid that.

Also putting me offside and not at all the console’s fault is that I’ve run out of HDMI ports on my telly. I have a little switch box I got ages ago, and I plugged the MiSTer and the SG into it, but it only gives me a picture from the SG while the MiSTer is turned on. Presumably it’s drawing power from the inputs and the SG isn’t giving it enough. I’d like a switch that has an actual physical switch in it that I could move to physically disconnect one input from the output and connect the other one instead, but they don’t seem to exist.

I’m hoping the SG will grow on me. I think I’m kind of annoyed at myself for buying such a ridiculous extravagance, especially since I already have a MiSTer and a retrode (which lets me use ROMs I dumped myself on the MiSTer). Once I get over that I’ll probably enjoy it more. There’s also the option of jailbreaking it, but given I have the MiSTer and the retrode already I don’t think there’s much I’ll gain from that. The point of having this thing for me is to run carts through it, not to load an SD card with ROMs. Speaking of the SD card, though, the SG uses full sized cards. Do they even make them any more? I have a million of those adapter things to use micro cards with it so it doesn’t matter (might stick an empty one in to fill the hole in the side of the console, come to think of it), but that seemed pretty odd.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I'm pretty sure I have a dirt-cheap HMDI switch that simply swaps a physical contact - there are definitely no electronics in it. I actually use it to strip CEC from the HDMI cable I have connected to my MiSTer. If I don't, then my TV loses the ability for consoles to control which input is active, which I find pretty annoying. I think Porkchop is making a batch of cables that will do the same thing, if anyone is having the same issue. As for my lack of HDMI ports, it's currently being solved by a 3-port switcher that gets its power from a USB port on my TV. The only issue with it is that I need to turn the TV on before changing consoles, otherwise it tends to get pretty mixed up. I've always been someone who turned the console on before the TV, so that's taking a bit of getting used to, but I'm sure I'll survive. I suppose I could always get a dedicated power brick for the thing if it bothers me too much...

 

[Sarge]

Yeah, I was looking for physical switchers the other day, and pretty nonplussed that they aren't terribly common. Almost all my prior switchers are actual physical switches. Some of the cheap ones you find use the power from the HDMI itself, which can cause issues.

 

[Phantoon]

Yeah, I've used electronic switchers for a very long time and they are generally a huge pain in the neck. Sometimes they work, often they don't.

 

[Yimothy]

The Mega SG’s scanlines are thoroughly, inexplicably bad

I have to retract this statement: I had my settings wrong. I had another play with this and the scanlines are fine. I think what happened was I didn’t have integer scaling on when I was trying them before. I had set the SG to integer scale, first thing I did, but I must have neglected to save the settings and reset or something before I tried scan lines. With integer scaling they are not bad, though in my opinion the customisation could be better. You can change how many lines they apply to, but two at a time. So for mega drive games, where I have it set to a 4x vertical multiple, I can have each row made of one active pixel and three scanline pixels, or three active pixels and one scanline pixel, but not two and two. On SMS with a 5x vertical multiplication, I get two active and three blank or four active and one blank, neither of which look good to me. It’d be much better if it just let you choose how many pixels wide the scanlines should be, but they seem to get applied symmetrically at the top and bottom of each row. I’m guessing it’s because they have to work with non-integer scaling as well, but given how bad they look without integer scaling I think it’d be better to make them more controllable when it’s on.

Anyways. I found a mechanical HDMI switch box: the Simplecom CM340. It’s got four inputs on back and four chunky, clicky buttons on the front. Press a button and that input is connected and the others disconnected. It uses no power and does nothing to the signal. I love it (I also love the name of the company that made it, though I know nothing about their other products). It’s pretty much the exact size of the Mega SG, too, so I currently have the console sitting on top of it. I might rearrange because that makes the buttons on the switch box a little hard to push.

Looking online, it seems there aren’t many mechanical HDMI switches out there. I found a video on YouTube someone made about this one that claims it’s the only one. If so then it’s lucky for me that it’s made by an Australian company and I was able to get one from a shop ten minutes’ drive from my house (and for a much lower price than listed on the company’s website). Apparently a mechanical switch is not compatible with the HDMI standard or something.

 

[Kirin]

Nice find! I gotta remember to bookmark that once I'm back on my personal computer...

 

[Yimothy]

I found a mechanical HDMI switch box: the Simplecom CM340. It’s got four inputs on back and four chunky, clicky buttons on the front. Press a button and that input is connected and the others disconnected. It uses no power and does nothing to the signal. I love it

Sadly, I have to revise my view of this product. I thought it was working perfectly, but tonight I couldn’t get a picture from the Mega SG on input 2 or the PS3 on input 3 unless the MiSTer plugged in to input 1 was turned on. Or I pulled the cable out of slot one. When I switched input 3 to my XB360, that was able to give a picture with the MiSTer off, but it also was supplying power to the MiSTer itself - the lights came on and the fan spun, though there was no picture on the TV. This is pretty frustrating.

It seems like the mechanical switch only actually disconnects some of the pins, but has others joined together across all the inputs. At a minimum, it looks like pin 18 (+5V) is cross-wired, which would be how the MiSTer is getting power from the 360. I’m not sure if that would also cause the Mega SG picture to not display when the MiSTer is off or if it’s something else. There’s talk on the MiSTer forum about getting hdmi adapters without pin 13 (CEC) connected fixing some issues. Maybe it’s that?

I spent a little while trying to modify an HDMI cable to disconnect pin 18. I tried putting electrical tape over it, and I tried poking the connector to bend it out of contact, but I couldn’t get either to work - the fan would always spin when I turned on the 360. There are also several other pins that could be causing the problem. Eventually I just plugged the MiSTer directly into the TV and moved my Switch’s cable over to the switch box. It’s not how I want to have my cables set up (though I can’t explain why I don’t want it this way), but everything seems to be working now.

 

[Beowulf]

Has anyone looked at the Retroid Pocket 2+ upgrade mod? $65 seems like a pretty reasonable price for what it's promising, but I'm concerned I'll botch the switch and end up with a useless brick.

 

[muteKi]

There’s talk on the MiSTer forum about getting hdmi adapters without pin 13 (CEC) connected fixing some issues. Maybe it’s that?

Pretty likely IMO, though I'm hardly an expert on these sorts of things

 

[Phantoon]

Has anyone looked at the Retroid Pocket 2+ upgrade mod? $65 seems like a pretty reasonable price for what it's promising, but I'm concerned I'll botch the switch and end up with a useless brick.

I don't have a Retroid Pocket 2 so I was looking at the 2+. The mod doesn't look too horrible, and Taki Udon has a video on how to do it. You even get to use the old PCB as a TV connected console!

I want to hang fire on it until Retro Game Corps has given it the once over - plenty of channels have said various emulation handhelds are incredible right as I can see the framerate chug...

 

[ArugulaZ]

Where does the Genesis Mini, Super NES Classic, Neo-Geo Mini, et al fit into this?

 

[Phantoon]

They're really good, SNES Classic being the best of the bunch, but hard to get now. On UK Amazon you're looking at over £200 for those and that's just insane. For that much you should get something else.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I have the NES/SNES/Genesis minis and they're all very good. I've also heard the TG-16 mini is great, maybe the best of the bunch. Now that I have a MiSTer, though, they don't see a lot of use. I really like the interface on the Nintendo-made ones, it's clean, functional and attractive.

 

[ArugulaZ]

I got in on the official mini-consoles early, and in the case of the Super NES Classic, got it for a quite reasonable forty-five-ish dollars on ShopGoodwill. I've got other ways of playing the oldies, like a modded Xbox and a Raspberry Pi 3, but I find that whenever I buy one of these doodads, I obsess over it for about two weeks, then forget it ever existed. It's the main reason I won't step up to the more expensive systems... my short attention span just won't justify the cost.

 

[Phantoon]

I love my mini consoles and play with them regularly. I will say that my RG351V gets a lot of play because it's just so disgustingly convenient (and pretty amazing art what it does)