Can't wait to try it out! I didn't even know they were shipping them. I pre-ordered it last year!
Edit: well, I'm not impressed by the picture quality. It does display over HDMI but its not impressive at all on a big screen. Curious though in that it didn't recognize the yoshi's island hack as a Nintendo game and a message appeared asking me if I wanted to continue to load this game... I wonder if it has all the Snes and other consoles games listed in a registry and adjusts its video output accordingly. I'll run some comparisons tomorrow.
Markfrizb wrote:
Curious though in that it didn't recognize the yoshi's island hack as a Nintendo game and a message appeared asking me if I wanted to continue to load this game... I wonder if it has all the Snes and other consoles games listed in a registry and adjusts its video output accordingly.
Evidence suggests that the Retron 5 does indeed use a database to recognize games and decide how to dump/play them. This means it absolutely sucks for playing hacks and homebrews. Firmware updates can include information about new games, but I simply don't see them wanting to do this very often, specially for hacks. Also, since it just uses emulators, the Rotron 5 would be a pretty lame development machine anyway (i.e. closer to ZSNES than to a real SNES).
The Retron 5 is also incompatible with Flash carts (PowerPaks, Everdrives, etc.), because it doesn't use the cartridges during gameplay, it just dumps the games and fires up the appropriate emulator. This makes it impossible to load new games though the cart's menu, so you're pretty much stuck to playing retail games that the maintainers of the Retron 5 want you to play.
The Retron 5 looks cool and all, but these are serious deal breakers for me... I mean, the thing is an emulator that can't even load ROMs right!
And there is a very noticeable lag from controls to action on the screen.
The picture is very bright and crisp but too crisp... To the point of being too blocky. Some pixel smoothing or blending would make it look better IMO...
Pic is on my 42" NEC monitor.
The blocky one is from retron5 hdmi (bottom pic)
Other pic is from snes console with RGB
I'm sure a smaller monitor would probably look better also...
The RGB SNES looks so much better! Doesn't the Retron 5 offer any filtering options?
I've read reviews mentioning filters. But I imagine that antialiased edges that are just a few degrees off from horizontal or vertical, such as the side of Cranky's sign, trip up filters that are designed for hard edges between large areas of the same color. What does xBRZ do to that world map?
There is a scan line generator as an option...
I'll have to look for other filters
I took some better pics with tripod this time
Top pic is rgb
I think the rgb pic is better in that it blends the pixels more-- softens the look but the hdmi does have crisper colors...
DKC is probably the worst game to "test" on that system. The graphics in that game are absolutely disgusting/horrible (IMO -- I've hated that game for years because of it. I really don't like "pre-rendered" (so-to-speak) 3D on 2D consoles), and the mish-mash of colours and pre-anti-aliased edges make sharpness difficult to discern.
That said, the top picture (from your NEC) has too much red tint in comparison to the Retron 5 -- however, what Nintendo/Rare actually intended visually is what matters, so for all I know that's how it really should look. Or your NEC is just turning up the red too much when hooked up to a native SNES + RGB cable.
Something more amusing would be, say, blargg's palette demo for the NES/Famicom, or if there's some kind of palette test/generator ROM for the SNES/SFC (maybe the Nintendo console test ROMs?) then that'd be worth trying too.
The one game I always use for general "visual testing" because it looks stunning is Actraiser, specifically the first fighting stage, or alternately Gradius 3. I know what it looks like on a SNES/SFC with an RGB hookup + RGB monitor, and I still have my Nintendo Power magazines which show the graphics (also in RGB, and with scanlines) as well.
IMO, that Retron 5 device looks purely, plain and simple, as a "convenience" device, as in "it supports lots of consoles and carts, does HDMI for easily hooking up to present-day TVs", but everything I keep seeing/reading seems to indicate wonky features where the driving force of the developers/inventors was "make it work on present TV sets" -- almost as if the dudes who made it weren't even around in classic console days and think that visual differences (like the ones you show in pictures) are an improvement.
And no, I don't like scanlines on non-scanline displays (i.e. LCDs); they look fine on CRTs, but the "fake scanline" look through software/whatever looks like total shit.
The visual quality of the results are disappointing (to me); if the SNES/SFC looks like that then I'm totally afraid to know what the NES/Famicom output looks like.
So yeah, I see this thing as purely a convenience device, and I think that's cool + great, but classic consoles are exactly why I own a small 13" CRT Sony WEGA monitor with composite + RF hookups...
Markfrizb wrote:
And there is a very noticeable lag from controls to action on the screen.
Pic is on my 42" NEC monitor.
I understand you said monitor.
but are you 100% sure it's in "just scan" or "game" mode for the input# you're using?
HDMI lag is a real thing, and it is annoying have to base purchasing decisions around it.
I'll check my monitor settings and get back. I also have the snes test cartridge I'll run in it soon too
Quote:
DKC is probably the worst game to "test" on that system. The graphics in that game are absolutely disgusting/horrible (IMO -- I've hated that game for years because of it. I really don't like "pre-rendered" (so-to-speak) 3D on 2D consoles), and the mish-mash of colours and pre-anti-aliased edges make sharpness difficult to discern.
To be honest on the SNES it's ok, although it sure hasn't aged as well as "real" 2D games, it's still ok. Look at the GB or GBC or pirate Famicom downscaled graphics from Donkey Kong Country, now THOSE are absolutely horrendous.
Since this is emulation based, I wonder if some of the hacks that won't run on real HW will run on this beast.
Anyone have any suggestions of what I could try?
I agree with the earlier post... It's a good unit for a test station for the various carts, but for playing the games, I'm sticking with old faithful
Hacks would probably say unknown cart. If you want hacks, play an emulator on a Raspberry Pi.
Bregalad wrote:
To be honest on the SNES it's ok, although it sure hasn't aged as well as "real" 2D games, it's still ok.
I really like the DKC games on the SNES, they are certainly among my favorites for the system, but I have to agree that the graphics haven't aged very well. It would be interesting if a competent pixel artist hacked one of those games to use actual 2D graphics instead of the pre-rendered 3D stuff.
Markfrizb wrote:
I agree with the earlier post... It's a good unit for a test station for the various carts, but for playing the games, I'm sticking with old faithful
Shouldn't that be the other way around? Why would you test stuff on a console that can barely recognize carts? As I see it, the only advantages of the Retron 5 are the slots for different types of carts (meaning you don't need to have a bunch of retro consoles plugged in) and the HDMI output, which make it pretty convenient for playing games in your living room. Unless the cart you want to play is a homebrew, bootleg, or any other kind of obscure cart.
I wonder if the art style of DKC is why Yoshi's Island was delayed. I remember an article in Nintendo Power stating it was delayed for a graphical overhaul, to provide the hand-drawn look with which we're familiar. Perhaps that was Nintendo's fallback in case the market didn't take to Advanced Computer Modeling.
tepples wrote:
I wonder if the art style of DKC is why Yoshi's Island was delayed. I remember an article in Nintendo Power stating it was delayed for a graphical overhaul, to provide the hand-drawn look with which we're familiar. Perhaps that was Nintendo's fallback in case the market didn't take to Advanced Computer Modeling.
But ultimately didn't the market eat up the ACM? I know I was excited.
A lot of Mario RPG was ACM style as well. Another very memorable game.
I know it's wikipedia, that quotes this (how reliable is this source?):
"When Shigeru Miyamoto first demonstrated the game to Nintendo's marketing department, it was rejected because it had Mario-related graphics rather than the waxy, pre-rendered graphics of Donkey Kong Country"
Kent, Steven. "The "Next" Generation (part 2)". The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing. p. 518. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4.
So ultimately Miyamoto in one of his few butthurt moments, took every chance to hate on DKC. Although since then as of the "Iwata Asks" stuff he's relented.
That's probably why I've heard that Yoshi's Island graphics are made like they are, to counter DKC graphics (also honestly it's like the only thing that would look colorful enough in mode 0, which has four scroll planes but uses 2bpp graphics).
Has anybody tested the sound from the Retron 5? If it's anything like Mega Drive emulators, expect the sound to be way off.
Audio enhancements are pretty unimpressive imo. I got this thing as a gift, my report is the edge connectors won't last the test of time like their original counterparts. A lot of people are reporting bent pins already within 3-4 days. I built some passthrough carts so I can insert a cart one time and just put my games into the piggybacked edge connector. It's working out pretty well, I gotta do the SNES and Famicom still but other than that the NES and Genesis slots have a layer of protection from poor quality of Hyperkin's choices in the slot. Strange as they pushed the release date up to fix issues with the edge connector pins and they still seem to remain. A lot of RMAs and generally frustrated customers. The Genesis slot is particularly tight, I can see that slot being a huge source of discomfort for consumers who've not worked around this.
The video filters are like any emulator and I find that I prefer to just keep them off as well as their enhanced audio. The colours are inaccurate, as is the sound. Licensed game compatibility is not 100% like they touted and hack games are slowly getting some support. The only use i have for this thing is really convenience on my desk. I have 17 consoles over by my entertainment centre but sometimes I just want to sit at my computer and jam in some carts, so we'll see how it works in that capacity as I begin to put this thing through some full game plays. I don't think save game importing to the cart works either though the last firmware upgrade may have fixed this.
Also pull your games out from the side too. Pulling from the top will just add to the stress of cart extraction.