Retro games and emulation - Discuss retro shit in case you're stuck in the past or a hipster

[Samuel Fuller]

I legit got a Saturn a few months ago for $40 from a pawn shop and bought one of the carts (got a chinese knock-off one Saroo, I think it's called on amazon) for $90 or so you can stick in the back and play the ISO's off a SD card in the back. (it's also the memory expansion cart too so you can play all the fighting games with it) Also lets you play burned discs.

I've heard there is some issues with the loading speeds using it but I've not noticed it much. Me and a buddy played through a few of the beat em ups on it a couple weeks ago and had a good time.

Looks like shit on a plasma / LCD tv though.

Saturn had pretty shitty video output, as I recall. Nowhere near as clean as PS1.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Saturn had pretty shitty video output, as I recall. Nowhere near as clean as PS1.

The video output wasn't the issue. It had an option to upgrade to S-Video instead of using the yellow cable from the composite hookup.

The real issue was that whatever animated videos they had were compressed more than the PS1 games, so they had that "garbled block/spots" look to them.

That, and the PS1 excelled more in 3D than the saturn did. Even arcade ports of Sega games looked worse on the Saturn (e.g. Virtua Fighter 2. ShunDi's stage in the arcade is a raft floating on water. The Saturn version is just both fighters on a wooden plank on concrete with the river being further away from them)

 

[Never Scored]

That, and the PS1 excelled more in 3D than the saturn did. Even arcade ports of Sega games looked worse on the Saturn (e.g. Virtua Fighter 2. ShunDi's stage in the arcade is a raft floating on water. The Saturn version is just both fighters on a wooden plank on concrete with the river being further away from them)

There's some weird technical shit about how Saturn renders 3D. I want to say it renders polygons as squares instead of triangles like most systems and so it was hard to port 3D game graphically?

 

[Samuel Fuller]

There's some weird technical shit about how Saturn renders 3D. I want to say it renders polygons as squares instead of triangles like most systems and so it was hard to port 3D game graphically?

Yes, it used quadrangles instead of triangles, when everything else including SEGA’s arcade boards used triangles.

Saturn 3D was so fucky that SEGA had trouble porting its own arcade games to their own home system!

 

[Two Dollars]

Another M64 update, this time for the compatibility list. Here are the highlights:

• The number of games with issues has been reduced from 47 to 36. Strangely, the distinction between major and minor issues has been removed, but the per-game details are still there so it doesn’t really matter.
• All first-party games have been completely fixed, except DK64 which still fails the vine swing test. Based on what I know about it, this will likely be one of the very last things to get fixed.
• Several of Rare’s games have been completely fixed, but a few still have issues (most notably, Perfect Dark).
• Only one game is still stated to have major FPS issues (Rugrats in Paris).
• The seven games that previously had crashing issues… still do. Sorry, Star Wars fans.
• Suspiciously, eight NTSC games aren’t on the compatibility list at all, including both Goemon games.

The crashes are still a problem, but other than that I think it looks good so far. Personally, the only games I’m still holding out for are Hydro Thunder, Namco Museum 64, and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. And maybe Bomberman 64, but if I play that today, it’ll probably be through the recomp.

ETA: One more highlight: Buck Bumble and Extreme-G 2 have been fixed. Given that these are launch titles for the system, it would be concerning if they didn’t work perfectly on day 1.

 

[Baraka Obama]

got a chinese knock-off one Saroo, I think it's called on amazon

SAROO is a chinese open source project. It's not a knockoff.

I've heard there is some issues with the loading speeds using it but I've not noticed it much.

I thought they fixed all of the too fast loading speed issues? I haven't had time to play with the SAROO I got a couple weeks ago yet though.

Saturn had pretty shitty video output, as I recall. Nowhere near as clean as PS1.

It has insanely good composite video output. PS1 it varies by model, but the Saturn composite beats composite on all of them. And you may actually want to use composite on Saturn due to how common the dither transparency is.

 

[Two Dollars]

Another M64 update, this time for the compatibility list. Here are the highlights:

• The number of games with issues has been reduced from 47 to 36. Strangely, the distinction between major and minor issues has been removed, but the per-game details are still there so it doesn’t really matter.
• All first-party games have been completely fixed, except DK64 which still fails the vine swing test. Based on what I know about it, this will likely be one of the very last things to get fixed.
• Several of Rare’s games have been completely fixed, but a few still have issues (most notably, Perfect Dark).
• Only one game is still stated to have major FPS issues (Rugrats in Paris).
• The seven games that previously had crashing issues… still do. Sorry, Star Wars fans.
• Suspiciously, eight NTSC games aren’t on the compatibility list at all, including both Goemon games.

The crashes are still a problem, but other than that I think it looks good so far. Personally, the only games I’m still holding out for are Hydro Thunder, Namco Museum 64, and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. And maybe Bomberman 64, but if I play that today, it’ll probably be through the recomp.

ETA: One more highlight: Buck Bumble and Extreme-G 2 have been fixed. Given that these are launch titles for the system, it would be concerning if they didn’t work perfectly on day 1.

I spoke too soon! The compatibility list has been updated again, and now only 16 games are known to have issues. The only Rare games left are DK64 (vine swing), Jet Force Gemini, and Perfect Dark.

• 6 games still crash (Battle for Naboo was fixed)
• 8 games still have low FPS
• Namco Museum 64 still has visual issues
• DK64 still fails the vine swing but probably works fine otherwise
• 8 games are still missing from the list, so their compatibility is unknown

 

[Samuel Fuller]

I spoke too soon! The compatibility list has been updated again, and now only 16 games are known to have issues. The only Rare games left are DK64 (vine swing), Jet Force Gemini, and Perfect Dark.

• 6 games still crash (Battle for Naboo was fixed)
• 8 games still have low FPS
• Namco Museum 64 still has visual issues
• DK64 still fails the vine swing but probably works fine otherwise
• 8 games are still missing from the list, so their compatibility is unknown

I would consider incompatibility with Jet Force Gemini to be a plus, and low frame rates just means an authentic experience for the N12fps!

 

[PC Troone Copenseethe]

Is there anybody in the thread who owned a Sega Saturn back in the day? I was posting about Panzer Dragoon Saga in the JRPG Thread (it's a great game btw!) and it had me vaguely interested in what it was like since like 70-80% of the library was locked behind Japan. I feel like I lucked out since most of the more popular foreign entries are getting translated more often now than ever.

Still have my Model 2 Saturn tucked away safely. Along with an 8 player multitap and 3D Analogue pad. I have a copy of Dragon Force that's my Saturn crown jewel. The best part is, I bought it for £15 from a guy I worked with.

I'm sure I still have Marvel Super Heroes as well. I'd have to dig them all out again.

 

[Thiletonomics]

I'm not sure if The Sims 3 counts as being a retro game yet, but someone created a performance patch for the game, and people have said that it makes the game a lot smoother to play.

What it does:
Loading speed

Script type index (MonoTypeEHashProbe): the game's script engine looks up "what type is this object?" millions of times while a save loads, using a slow internal table. This patch builds a smarter index for that table and keeps it up to date. It is the single biggest win in this mod and where most of the 18-min-to-4-min load time improvement comes from. SimulatorStageProfiler is a small helper this index relies on, leave both on or both off.

Package index warm-up (PackageIndexWarmup): while you're still at the main menu, a background task pre-reads the table-of-contents of your Mods packages into Windows' file cache, so the game doesn't wait on the disk for them later. Costs nothing visible, helps most on hard drives.

Short-wait tuning (ShortWaitSpin): when game threads hand work to each other they often wait "just a moment". Windows turns that into a much longer sleep than intended. This makes very short waits snappier.

Memory headroom (Error 12, out-of-memory crashes)

The Sims 3 has 4 GB of address space no matter how much RAM you have.
What you see in Task Manager is not that. The gap between how much *RAM* your game is using vs how much virtual address space (VAS) it allocates can be several hundred megabytes. That is why your game might crash even if it doesn't look like it should in Task Manager. Once VAS reaches 4GB, it's game over. When that runs out you get Error 12 on saving or crashes. These three patches reclaim address space:

STBL Text-table slimming (StblBucketLayoutTuning): the game reserves a wildly oversized memory layout for every localized-text table it loads (10,000+ of them in a big save). This patch right-sizes that layout. Measured saving: about 290 MB, the text itself byte-identical.

Thread stack diet (ThreadStackDiet): the game creates ~150 worker threads and Windows reserves 1 MB of address space for each, though they use a fraction of it. Now threads get a 0.5 MB reservation instead: ~70 MB back.

Arena growth tuning (AllocatorArenaTuning): the game's internal memory arenas grow in big 16 MB steps; this changes them to grow in smaller steps so less space sits reserved but unused. The game might still reserve more of the smaller arenas, though.

Smoothness

Text lookup cache (LocalizedStringCache): every tooltip, moodlet and UI label triggers a search through all those text tables. This caches the answers. If you ever see a wrong or blank text label, turn this off and please report it.

Type-check cache (MonoIsinstCache): scripts constantly ask "is this object a kind of X?". The answers never change, so this remembers them.

 

[big pauper]

There's some weird technical shit about how Saturn renders 3D. I want to say it renders polygons as squares instead of triangles like most systems and so it was hard to port 3D game graphically?

it has two processors and a co-processor that share caches and like 5 different memory banks that you have to juggle data around on some whack ass bus. the ps1 is a single cpu with a vram chip. the saturn is waaaay more powerful but i doubt anyone used it to a fraction of full effect, because it was 10 years before paralleized processing even began to broach the mainstream and 3d rendering was in its infancy. in reality it was just flat out worse

 

[PC Troone Copenseethe]

it has two processors and a co-processor that share caches and like 5 different memory banks that you have to juggle data around on some whack ass bus. the ps1 is a single cpu with a vram chip. the saturn is waaaay more powerful but i doubt anyone used it to a fraction of full effect, because it was 10 years before paralleized processing even began to broach the mainstream and 3d rendering was in its infancy. in reality it was just flat out worse

The fact the 3D hardware was basically shoehorned in at the last minute didn't help either. It was supposed to be a 2D powerhouse, but when Sony showed off what the PS1 was capable of, Sega shit the bed.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Sega shit the bed.

Seems to be the one thing they are really good at doing, especially these days

 

[X Prime]

Well of course; their main customer demo is autists (as evidenced by the Sonic series), they are not known for continence.

 

[Enig]

The fact the 3D hardware was basically shoehorned in at the last minute didn't help either. It was supposed to be a 2D powerhouse, but when Sony showed off what the PS1 was capable of, Sega shit the bed.

Nah it's even worse, the hardware was only a single CPU and VDP at first but when they saw what the PS1 was rumored to be they shit their pants and used their CEO's nepo baby son over at Hitachi to argue for them to get double of both in the system which lead to the clown mess with two VDPs that both suck at 3D.

 

[White Slaad]

I'm interested in playing some old RPGs, and am thinking of giving the Might and Magic series a spin (if me pointing out that it's retro makes your bones ache, sorry). What's the best way to approach the series? I've determined to start with M&M3 and have a raw GoG install: are there any vital patches or better ways to play it?

 

[Samuel Fuller]

I'm interested in playing some old RPGs, and am thinking of giving the Might and Magic series a spin (if me pointing out that it's retro makes your bones ache, sorry). What's the best way to approach the series? I've determined to start with M&M3 and have a raw GoG install: are there any vital patches or better ways to play it?

Go all the way back if you are going to act like a grandstanding faggot. Start with the first game or fuck yourself.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

Nah it's even worse, the hardware was only a single CPU and VDP at first but when they saw what the PS1 was rumored to be they shit their pants and used their CEO's nepo baby son over at Hitachi to argue for them to get double of both in the system which lead to the clown mess with two VDPs that both suck at 3D.

And that was all thanks to the civil war between the Arcade and Home divisions in SEGA Japan and leadership's idiocy in thinking the best strategy was to keep home consoles 2D to try to drive gamers to the arcade for their 3D games.

SEGA has always been a suicidally stupid company. They just got a few lucky breaks through their history, and still managed to squander every single one of those.

That said, when Sony started demoing the PlayStation's capabilities at trade shows, EVERYONE shit themselves. It literally did things nobody believed were possible on consumer-level tech at the time. The video cubes demo and the T-Rex demo were nuclear bombs in the tech world. If you weren't there first-hand, look up the press coverage from 1994.

 

[Großmann]

Found Xenogears out in the wild the other day. Clocked 6 hours so far and it holds up pretty well.



Xenogears fan excited to play Xenogears for the first time.

 

[DocAwe]

Got my SSO.

Getting started is kind of a pain until you get the hang of it.
I've got all my NEO•GEO games loaded up and they feel good.
Played SotN for a few hours and other than the controller it was great.