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Kempo posted:In other news I just now received my £2.90 ebay Gdemu, and I can confirm it is unfortunately just ten boxes that say "little prince".
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Jan 22, 2020 17:04
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Kempo posted:Can anyone recommend any NES or Megadrive games that would be really easy for an almost-5-year-old to work on his hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills? My son is autistic and I'm hoping to start getting him into some really forgiving games to help his development. I had MC Kids for NES around that age, and while I never got past the first 3 worlds as a kid (it does get harder as the game progresses), I had a hell of a fun time trying
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Jan 22, 2020 17:28
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Bonobos posted:This sounds amazing and is unfortunately beyond my skill level. Guessing their isn’t a tutorial for this sort of thing... The fastio setup I have running isn't really meant to be setup for others to use. The pc I'm using has been heavily hacked apart and I don't recommend going this path as it's more "what stupid poo poo can flyboi pull off?" Realistically you can have a decent build using a computer, switchresx and either a jvs-pac 2 or jpac for jamma cabs so you don't destroy the original wiring.
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Jan 22, 2020 18:25
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Kempo posted:Can anyone recommend any NES or Megadrive games that would be really easy for an almost-5-year-old to work on his hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills? My son is autistic and I'm hoping to start getting him into some really forgiving games to help his development. Sorry it's not retro, but my 7yo son (also on the spectrum) got into Yoshi's Crafted World. I haven't played the older Yoshi games so maybe someone else can chime in if they are similar?
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Jan 22, 2020 19:13
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Bank posted:I haven't played the older Yoshi games You can't just casually drop that in a retro games thread. If you haven't played Yoshi's Island, you haven't played video games at all.
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Jan 22, 2020 19:28
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Bank posted:Sorry it's not retro, but my 7yo son (also on the spectrum) got into Yoshi's Crafted World. I haven't played the older Yoshi games so maybe someone else can chime in if they are similar? Crafted World is a lot like Yoshi's Island and Woolly World stylistically, but the other Yoshi games are not good. Also, I picture a five year old having trouble with the coordination on the controls there. It's not something that they couldn't overcome, it's just not what I'd throw at them for one of their first games.
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Jan 22, 2020 19:48
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Kempo posted:Can anyone recommend any NES or Megadrive games that would be really easy for an almost-5-year-old to work on his hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills? My son is autistic and I'm hoping to start getting him into some really forgiving games to help his development. Megadrive is the Genesis, right? Barney's Hide and Seek is the most forgiving videogame I've ever seen. You can just mash in one direction, get nothing, and still receive praise. IIRC either direction works, even. Get yourself some hugs. edit: Speedrunning interest The game received attention from the speedrunning community due to its unique self-playing feature. Put simply, the game will beat itself even if given no input by the player, however some elements of randomness make it so it won't take the same time on every playthrough. This prompted the creation of a speedrunning category called "Any% No Controller", in which players do not touch the controller, and instead wait for the game to play itself to completion.[9] Inconsistencies in the hardware seem to make it so the world record of 9 minutes and 9 seconds (as of January 2020) can only be achieved via a physical console, and not on an emulator.[10] 
Chunderbucket fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jan 22, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 19:58
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For reference I remember getting stuck in Yoshi's Island when I was seven. It was during the giant plant boss.
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Jan 22, 2020 20:15
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Chunderbucket posted:edit: I am now wondering if it'd be a good idea to have one runner (playing a different game) have a 'race' with this game - people would get to see two speedruns for the price of one!
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Jan 22, 2020 20:23
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Teenage Fansub posted:You can't just casually drop that in a retro games thread. I haven't played Chrono Trigger either 
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Jan 22, 2020 20:27
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Bank posted:I haven't played Chrono Trigger either It's pretty good but not as good as most say. It was incredible for its the but it's been surpassed.
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Jan 22, 2020 20:35
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punk rebel ecks posted:It's pretty good
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Jan 22, 2020 20:44
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Teenage Fansub posted:You can't just casually drop that in a retro games thread. Sorry, Yoshi's Island is a certified Stinker
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Jan 22, 2020 20:56
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Bank posted:Sorry it's not retro, but my 7yo son (also on the spectrum) got into Yoshi's Crafted World. I haven't played the older Yoshi games so maybe someone else can chime in if they are similar? Gameplay is a bit different in that everything in the older Yoshi games takes place on a 2D plane, rather than having to aim in a sorta-3D space to hit targets in the foreground and background. (Personally I think the gameplay in Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Wooly World is much better than in Crafted World, but I don't know if your son will think the same if he's used to Crafted World's free aiming.) Yoshi's Island is a classic that's still fun, but I don't think it has all of the easy-mode affordances of the newer games, and there's a mechanic involving a loudly-crying baby that some people find to be grating. Wooly World is a great game that does have similar easy-mode affordances as Crafted World and is the closest to Crafted World visually, but you'll need a 3DS or Wii U to play it.
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Jan 22, 2020 20:58
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A new Super Mario Bros world record has been obtained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wR8x5b_ExM From what I understand it's not even full miliseconds, it's a new record by "frame rules" but no matter how many videos I watch on the subject I have no idea what that means. The streamer said it's pretty much impossible to improve on this run (literally everything worked perfectly for him in his favor) so he's basically done with the game. The only other thing I am confused about is in one stage he intentionally touched the top of the flag pole. In another stage he did the glitch where you can touch the bottom of the flagpole and skip the flag dropping animation. Why do it in one stage and not the other? And why sometimes is the bullet bill required to do it and other times it's not?
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Jan 22, 2020 21:12
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The Milkman posted:Sorry, Yoshi's Island is a certified Stinker 
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Jan 22, 2020 21:16
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:A new Super Mario Bros world record has been obtained Nah this one is only an improvement in the last stage, which isn't subject to frame rules. (Frame Rule: SMB only moves on to the next level once every 21 frames, starting from power on, so if you don't save enough time to push into a sooner check on a given level you don't save any time at all). There are a couple things one could do to improve on this run but they're at the mostly theoretical level at this point. Flagpoll glitch (where you jump through the block) is black magic and what you see there is what you get. If you're not playing a level where it can be done hitting the top is faster than anywhere else. Pre-this-record but a breakdown of what's going on: https://youtu.be/4CgC2g43smA
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Jan 22, 2020 21:24
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Blotto_Otter posted:Gameplay is a bit different in that everything in the older Yoshi games takes place on a 2D plane, rather than having to aim in a sorta-3D space to hit targets in the foreground and background. (Personally I think the gameplay in Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Wooly World is much better than in Crafted World, but I don't know if your son will think the same if he's used to Crafted World's free aiming.) Yoshi's Island is a classic that's still fun, but I don't think it has all of the easy-mode affordances of the newer games, and there's a mechanic involving a loudly-crying baby that some people find to be grating. Wooly World is a great game that does have similar easy-mode affordances as Crafted World and is the closest to Crafted World visually, but you'll need a 3DS or Wii U to play it. The easy mode makes the Wii U and Switch games easy as hell, so perfect for a kid. Also, co-op mode on those is fun to play with them. My kid loves playing iPad games solo, but I swear she just won't play anything alone on a console. She always wants to play with me. Which I love sometimes, but it's like... come on, I can only play through games like Yoshi's Crafted World so much. Anyway, if OP has a Switch, I would recommend Boy Boy + Boy Girl
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Jan 22, 2020 22:14
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ItBreathes posted:Nah this one is only an improvement in the last stage, which isn't subject to frame rules. (Frame Rule: SMB only moves on to the next level once every 21 frames, starting from power on, so if you don't save enough time to push into a sooner check on a given level you don't save any time at all). There are a couple things one could do to improve on this run but they're at the mostly theoretical level at this point. Interesting, thank you! So every approximately half second the game checks if you beat the stage? Why? Why doesn't it just go onto the next stage when you walk in the castle door? Why does it have to keep checking?
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Jan 22, 2020 22:45
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It's got to check sometime to know if you did it or not, checking as soon as he enters would require checking every frame. Why it only does it every 21 frames is a good question, probably overcoming some limitation of the base NES hardware, possibly just because. No one really knows.
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Jan 22, 2020 23:00
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ItBreathes posted:It's got to check sometime to know if you did it or not, checking as soon as he enters would require checking every frame. Why it only does it every 21 frames is a good question, probably overcoming some limitation of the base NES hardware, possibly just because. No one really knows. I guess I know nothing about programming (true) but why can't it be linear, like "touched flagpole, proceed to next level" . It seems crazy that it needs to be checked three times per second. Is it checking everything else three times a second? Number of coins, power ups received, etc? Chumbawumba4ever97 fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jan 22, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 23:24
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In regards to the DAYTONAAAAAAAA from a page or two back, I didn't see anyone here post about this interview with Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (and also the guy that does FFXIV's music) that I spotted elsewhere on the forums. It's a nice read! It has links to lots of videos of the guy just jammin' out!
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Jan 22, 2020 23:28
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Mitsuyoshi is an absolute blessing and I'm very glad that Soken was a Sega kid
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Jan 22, 2020 23:34
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:I guess I know nothing about programming (true) but why can't it be linear, like "touched flagpole, proceed to next level" . It seems crazy that it needs to be checked three times per second. Is it checking everything else three times a second? Number of coins, power ups received, etc? I don't know much about the NES specifically, but with hardware that old, you have one CPU with one thread doing pretty everything. So in one second, that CPU is repeatedly drawing the screen, playing music, playing sfx, moving enemies around, and moving Mario himself. So to me, it's a wonder it has time to check on what thing(s) Mario is touching THREE TIMES every second. If I was doing all of that stuff, I'd be lucky if I remembered to look at the flagpole three times an hour.
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Jan 22, 2020 23:36
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Wow, to me that sounds like it's even more taxing on the system. Like pressing F5 on a website over and over and one again. Interesting!
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Jan 22, 2020 23:42
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:I guess I know nothing about programming (true) but why can't it be linear, like "touched flagpole, proceed to next level" . It seems crazy that it needs to be checked three times per second. Is it checking everything twice a second? Number of coins, power ups received, etc? We're rapidly leaving the extent of my programming knowledge as well, but basically 'If X', in this case touching the flagpole, needs to have a piece of code running to evaluate if X is true or not, that is, there is no intrinsic understanding of touching the flagpole, it has to be specifically coded for (along with everything else). The could put this check in the main game loop (the code block that checks for inputs, moves sprites, checks collision, etc, every single frame), but since touching the flagpole isn't a very common occurrence, so it would be unnecessary processor overhead, and the NES isn't a very powerful system to begin with. So instead they start a timer and every 21 frames they run the code loop that checks if a flagpole was touched or not, and if it is they halt the main game loop and start loading the next level. It's worth noting that 21 frames is a very long time as far as these things go, most things are checked every frame, or 1/60th of a second. The glitch where you clip into the flagpole block requires multiple inputs and cessation of inputs for somewhere between 1-3 frames each, depending on, well voodoo really, like I said, the flagpole glitch is magic. You can also get Mario to get up to full speed slightly faster at the start of a level by inputting multiple single frame inputs at the start of a level. E: for more info on the speedrun itself, here's a video from speedrun explainer SummoningSalt where he breaks down all the tricks used in the run from the last time Kosmic got WR. Fantastic Foreskin fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jan 23, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 23:46
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:I guess I know nothing about programming (true) but why can't it be linear, like "touched flagpole, proceed to next level" . It seems crazy that it needs to be checked three times per second. Is it checking everything else three times a second? Number of coins, power ups received, etc? There's almost definitely some system outside of the player control which it has to wait to be clear before it can continue and it only has that opportunity every 21 frames. My guess is the sound routines since touching the flag pole changes the music track and there is a pause that occurs in Super Mario Brothers when that happens.
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Jan 23, 2020 01:09
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:In other news, anyone have experience with the new PocketGo? I've messed with one (I have a coworker who LOVES chinese emu stuff), and it's not very good. The screen is nice, but the build quality is passable at best. The d-pad requires extra hard presses to register in a couple directions, the battery cover doesn't sit flush (one corner sticks up, poking your finger), and the volume control is some weird joke - there's no steps between what is a normal volume and total mute. The step above zero is waaaaay to high. And the software is Linux but only in a technical sense. It's some fork for these low end devices, and only Chinese devs develop for them. It's also a horrible mishmash as they don't really work to customize them to each device. For example, the stock firmware comes with utilities (like a hardware checker) that don't recognize all the buttons, or a wifi config utility (it has no Wifi). The emulation for SNES and below seemed passable, PSX seemed a little rough/glitchy. The big issue for me is screen scaling kind of blows. That's an inevitability for low res screens, but man I hate your options being postage stamp or blurred mess.
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Jan 23, 2020 01:35
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:I guess I know nothing about programming (true) but why can't it be linear, like "touched flagpole, proceed to next level". Within a frame, the PPU spends most of the time scanning out pixels, and some of the time "doing nothing" which is the time that in old CRT televisions the ray tube was scanning back up to the top of the screen. Now, the CPU has to run in lock step with the PPU; during the time that the PPU is "doing nothing" the CPU has to update all the graphics state for the next frame since it can't touch that memory while the PPU is scanning out pixels (or if it does the display looks messed up). The rest of the time the CPU is free to run whatever game logic it needs to run. Unfortunately the NES's CPU is very slow so it can't actually do that much computation within a frame, but it's also quite predictable, and so programmers basically know the exact number of instructions they can run per frame and have to write their code to get everything done within that number. One of the tasks the NES CPU has to do is collision detection. Since the PPU is responsible for actually rendering video frames, the CPU doesn't otherwise "know" when the player sprite collides with some other object on screen. There are game systems with display processors that do tell the CPU this, and the NES technically does have this capability in a very limited way, but for the most part its something the CPU is responsible for and the programmer has to deal with. The basic approach is to take the player's coordinates on the screen and see if they intersect with the hit boxes of the list of objects on the screen--that's how it knows if you've touch the flag pole or gone in the castle door, or whatever. Probably what happened in SMB is that the programmers knew they didn't have enough instructions to do collision detection against all possible objects that could be on the screen for each frame of video, so they did a priority-based check on the objects. Important things, like colliding with enemies are probably checked frequently, while something like the flag pole can be check less often. If that check really is only once every 21 frames, that means the CPU is checking 20 other objects of the same priority in that same "time slot" on different frames, just round-robining through the list of objects with that priority each frame. ExcessBLarg! fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jan 23, 2020 |
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Jan 23, 2020 02:19
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My knowledge on this is tapped out, but to help other theorists I looked it up, the delay for frame rules is on the black screen between levels, so it's not related to collision or such.
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Jan 23, 2020 02:27
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Thanks for the replies explaining it. That makes a lot more sense than whatever I was able to come up with in my head.
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Jan 23, 2020 02:58
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I'm trying to figure out what to do with all my retro consoles. I have the following: 1) NES Classic 2) SNES Classic 3) Genesis Mini 4) PS Classic 5) Original XBOX 6) PSOne 7) Sega Saturn 8) Dreamcast 9) N64 10) PS3 11) Switch running Retroarch 12) W10 HTPC I'm thinking about replacing 1-3 with the Switch and my HTPC since it's basically all emulation anyway. The only reason I wanted the classic consoles was for the controllers, but none of them are wireless and if I have to buy Retrobit stuff, might as well just scrap it and use a frontend on the HTPC. Everything else is a bit more complicated to emulate so I'll keep them, except for the XBox as I don't really have anything from the library I want to play other than Halo, but I can get the Halo collection on PC. I can get rid of the PSOne as it looks like I should be able to stream games from the HTPC to my PS3. I guess it would be subjective, but would you regret getting rid of 1-6? FWIW 5 and 6 are chipped.
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Jan 23, 2020 04:17
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Bank posted:I'm trying to figure out what to do with all my retro consoles. I have the following: I just use my PS3 to play PS1 games nowadays since I don’t have the CRT anymore, and I went PC emulation for anything pre-PlayStation.
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Jan 23, 2020 04:23
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I've found several games where the Xbox version is the best, for the hard drive support if nothing else.
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Jan 23, 2020 04:25
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ExcessBLarg! posted:One of the tasks the NES CPU has to do is collision detection. Since the PPU is responsible for actually rendering video frames, the CPU doesn't otherwise "know" when the player sprite collides with some other object on screen. There are game systems with display processors that do tell the CPU this, and the NES technically does have this capability in a very limited way, but for the most part its something the CPU is responsible for and the programmer has to deal with. The basic approach is to take the player's coordinates on the screen and see if they intersect with the hit boxes of the list of objects on the screen--that's how it knows if you've touch the flag pole or gone in the castle door, or whatever. The thing is collision detection is just about the most trivial of CPU tasks when we're taking about sprites. The calculation is just XORing two registers. Even with the JMPs and BE's eating up extra clock cycles, it still doesn't add up to much and the NES had roughly 60000 clock cycles per frame to work with. Collision detection is definitely not the cause here, especially in SMB where the collision detection routines are actually pretty easy to see how they work and they're very basic. (Collision detection is actually kind of interesting. While it's super easy to tell when two images overlap, all the stuff around it can break it. Weirdly enough we know that they didn't use an even simpler method for doing the end of level calculation in SMB and instead went with sprite collision. It is possible to jump over the flagpole, therefore they're not doing a simple branch if equal on Mario's X position and the end of the stage. Perhaps they were considering more complex level design at an early stage of development, wrote the flag code for that, and then changed their minds...) Sound is a good educated guess because it's a routine that has certain fixed timing that it's dependent on and it likely wouldn't have been by the same programmer as the person who was doing the game code; if your sound programmer says "Yeah, here you go. But make sure you cycle the audio only on frames that are multiples of 21 or it makes horrible screeching noises at you," then you have to work in that limitation. Anything that operates on a cycle could be the cause, though. It could be the rotation of a color palette, or something in the timing clock, or it could be how it loads animation frames. I'm sure whatever the actual cause is, it is weird. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jan 23, 2020 |
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Jan 23, 2020 05:15
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Bank posted:I'm trying to figure out what to do with all my retro consoles. I have the following: I wouldn't dump any actual consoles. Unless you're really hard up for cash its much easier to put them in a closet that try to re-acquire them at some point down the road, even if just for shits and giggles.
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Jan 23, 2020 05:23
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On the subject of the original XboX, are there any good fan mods? The ones I have access to are loud.
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Jan 23, 2020 05:28
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:In other news, anyone have experience with the new PocketGo? I’m gonna do some research but I feel like the RG350 is the better buy. The guy above me said kinda what I was thinking. The RG350 has dual sticks too.
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Jan 23, 2020 05:33
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Bank posted:IThe only reason I wanted the classic consoles was for the controllers, but none of them are wireless and if I have to buy Retrobit stuff, might as well just scrap it and use a frontend on the HTPC. FYI https://shop.8bitdo.com/products/mod-kit-for-snes-classic-controller
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Jan 23, 2020 07:25
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:
Nice, this looks great! I've not heard of this at all, like you say it was all Castle and World of Illusion for me back then. We played some SMB1 last night, it's going to take a while for him to get the concepts of how the characters control. After about ten minutes it was just me playing while he jumped about on his bed declaring he was Mario. We'll give the Megadrive Barney game a go next.
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Jan 23, 2020 10:56
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