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Retro AV Club Thread 2: Classic Gaming Done Right!

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Dating back to 2004 I've had issues with needing to make sure my PS2's AV cable was plugged in extra tight across 4 different PS2s. I think it's just the port design isn't very good.

If you're going to go for anything new, stick with the original since you get better options for homebrew (I have one of my PS2s set up to run games off an SD card via IDE), ideally going for an SCPH-39001 since it has a more reliable laser.

Most slim models also have a redesigned IO/sound chip which was also used for PS1 comatibility and can have some minor compatibility issues mostly in PS1 games but even in some PS2 games (sound issues).
 

KyleCross

Member
You can run PS2 games off SD? I always heard games didn't run at full speed on anything but the proper PS2 hard drive. I modded FreeMcBoot into my PS2 years ago cause my disc drive worried me (it started to refuse to read blue back discs and started making ugly sounds) and I wanted to switch to a HDD but upon hearing about the compatibility issues I gave up.
 
I think maybe if you have a really old slow SD card and a not very good SD to IDE interface it wouldn't be full speed, or maybe if you were for some reason using the USB 1.1 port. Mine is really fast, I used the same thing on a Windows 98 PC and my Xbox; read speeds are great and the seek times are just gone. I think my card is just UHS1 which is not even that fast by SD card standards.

There's the usual compatibility issues with OPL which are slightly annoying but it's still miles better than PCSX2 compatibility.
 

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Edit: separate question, only partially AV Club related: what's the best way to play Starfox 2 on original hardware? I'm not sure I want a flashcart because it would devalue the fun of buying carts for me. I've seen repro carts kicking around but they're overpriced and seem explotative. Any other options?
You can't play it on a flash cart because of the SFX chip. You need to play it on a repro cart because they use another SFX game as a donor to get that chip.
 

dadjumper

Member
You can't play it on a flash cart because of the SFX chip. You need to play it on a repro cart because they use another SFX game as a donor to get that chip.

Ah, yeah, I had heard that people were gutting Yoshi's Island carts to use, but I thought flash carts could emulate it somehow. I guess not!
What are my options then? Pay out the ass for a repro, or flash one myself?
 

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Ah, yeah, I had heard that people were gutting Yoshi's Island carts to use, but I thought flash carts could emulate it somehow. I guess not!
People gutting YI are horrible when there are shitty SFX games they could gut instead.

What are my options then? Pay out the ass for a repro, or flash one myself?
Yep. I'm sure others could help you more since I don't know much about repro carts.
 

dadjumper

Member
Well, my PVM showed up, and I've got this 1chip SuFami...
now I just need the cables!

7Z3rKse.jpg

Gonna hunt around local recycle shops for something to stand it on. Hoping for a little bedside table with a drawer for carts or something
 

Peltz

Member
Ninja Gaiden as well. I remember posting off-screen shots on this forum and folks thought it was Sigma.

Team Ninja? More like Team Wizard.
Very true. I remember playing Ninja Gaiden and thinking "how the heck can next gen consoles possibly top this?"

I should really replay that game. Or black. I just acquired a copy of NGBlack and have never played it.
 
Try JSRF in 480P. Marvelous looking game even in 480i on my CRT, and it's looked amazing on my 360 as well in upscaled progressive. I can only imagine that 480P on a PVM would also produce breathtakingly clean results.

Burnout 3 is also a stupididly impressive game to this day. T-he vibrant colors and clean look of it compared to Revenge/Paradise really shine on a CRT.

There are tons of other games that are impressive too but hard to recommend because either they are reall niche(Colin McRae) or aren't all that impressive gameplay wise(Conker L&R's SP mode). That being said I know a ton that are great looking and fun to play as well :p
 
Very true. I remember playing Ninja Gaiden and thinking "how the heck can next gen consoles possibly top this?"

I should really replay that game. Or black. I just acquired a copy of NGBlack and have never played it.

NGB is great. And you can't spam Intercept, so it's a bit harder than vanilla NG, lol.

Remains my 2nd favorite action game, behind only Bayonetta 1.
 

dubc35

Member
Very true. I remember playing Ninja Gaiden and thinking "how the heck can next gen consoles possibly top this?"

I should really replay that game. Or black. I just acquired a copy of NGBlack and have never played it.

Very true. I remember playing Ninja Gaiden and thinking "how the heck can next gen consoles possibly top this?"

??

Very true indeed.

OT, NGB still looks great in 480p on my plasma.
 

Peltz

Member
I was hoping the 2nd one was an older quote but nope the wording is slightly different:
lol I didn't type that one.

Sorry hit the back button on my phones browser then must've hit post again.

Edit: My bad I guess I did type that one a year ago.

I'm a mess today. Just ignore everything I say. M'kay?
 

Peltz

Member
You should take that phone to the dry cleaners.
Sorry, couldn't resist, I'd be pissed too.

rrr.gif


.
.
.
.

Seriously though, I have perspective on the situation. People in California and Puerto Rico lost their homes. I lost some shirts and pants. It sucks, but it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
 

Yawnny

Member
Well, my PVM showed up, and I've got this 1chip SuFami...
now I just need the cables!

Gonna hunt around local recycle shops for something to stand it on. Hoping for a little bedside table with a drawer for carts or something

Congrats! Which model of PVM? How is the high pitch 15Khz comin' off that thing? (I'm always assessing people's tolerance of it)

I have a PVM 1342Q and may pull the trigger on a 14N2U right away.. really want a 14" PVM as I find that to be the "perfect" size!
 

Brashnir

Member
Well, my PVM showed up, and I've got this 1chip SuFami...
now I just need the cables!



Gonna hunt around local recycle shops for something to stand it on. Hoping for a little bedside table with a drawer for carts or something

I have to ask - why do you have a left-handed guitar and a right-handed guitar right next to each other?
 

Peagles

Member
that picture looks great. congrats!
i need a CRT for 480p content.

Thanks man. Yeh I’d highly recommend! Here at least it’s a lot easier to find a good PC CRT monitor for super cheap.

DOA games on Xbox just look absurdly good in 480p.

I’ve got my Tendak on the way, can’t wait to try Xbox!

I thought I’d just make VGA cables for Xbox, GC, Wii but apparently I’d need to source an NTSC Xbox. Easier just to use my OSSC I think.
 

Peltz

Member
Thanks man. Yeh I’d highly recommend! Here at least it’s a lot easier to find a good PC CRT monitor for super cheap.



I’ve got my Tendak on the way, can’t wait to try Xbox!

I thought I’d just make VGA cables for Xbox, GC, Wii but apparently I’d need to source an NTSC Xbox. Easier just to use my OSSC I think.

What about a Garo?
 

BTails

Member
You can run PS2 games off SD? I always heard games didn't run at full speed on anything but the proper PS2 hard drive. I modded FreeMcBoot into my PS2 years ago cause my disc drive worried me (it started to refuse to read blue back discs and started making ugly sounds) and I wanted to switch to a HDD but upon hearing about the compatibility issues I gave up.

No issues with my SD setup on my original PS2, granted I've only played a handful of games using it.
 
You can run PS2 games off SD? I always heard games didn't run at full speed on anything but the proper PS2 hard drive. I modded FreeMcBoot into my PS2 years ago cause my disc drive worried me (it started to refuse to read blue back discs and started making ugly sounds) and I wanted to switch to a HDD but upon hearing about the compatibility issues I gave up.
you can chain adapters to use an SD card. Less moving parts and heat/noise, but kinda janky.
No issues with my SD setup on my original PS2, granted I've only played a handful of games using it.
I've moved entirely to OPL for PS2 games and have yet to run in to compatibility issues, though I know there are some key titles that don't play nice with OPL. It's still under development so it might be worth checking over on PSX-Scene or whatever.
 
Its contemporaries on other systems look so weak in comparison. DMC3 was a much uglier game for example.
i guess my joke backfired. i was going along with the 2016 receipts post. that was your own quote from 2016. i was testing the memory haha

i wished i played it back then. i was such a sony guy i missed out on the og Xbox.
 
you can chain adapters to use an SD card. Less moving parts and heat/noise, but kinda janky.

I got mine to be so slick. I cut an SD card sized hole in the front vents around the HDD bay, put an SD -> IDE adapter in just the right spot there (held with mounting tape), extension IDE/molex run to the network adapter at the back of the bay.

So now there's just an SD card slot in the front of my PS2.
 
ZellSF over on shmups directed me to these HDMI splitters: http://r.ebay.com/idnbuz

Thought some folks here might be curious. They're cheap enough I bought 2. Here's what he had to say:
ZellSF said:
They have an issue with either DVI or HDMI mode on the OSSC where there will be a pink line on the left side of the screen. That can be a problem on a very limited set of displays (that for some reason require either DVI or HDMI mode and don't have an overscanning mode that would cut it off).

Their advantages however is that they can be passively powered (by a OSSC), have micro USB power supplies (only needed when you start chaining them), adds practically no delay when resyncing, remove HDCP and most importantly they're really cheap.
**
I got mine to be so slick. I cut an SD card sized whole in the front vents around the HDD bay, put an SD -> IDE adapter in just the right spot there (held with mounting tape), extension IDE/molex run to the network adapter at the back of the bay.

So now there's just an SD card slot in the front of my PS2.
Pics please
 

BTails

Member
I got mine to be so slick. I cut an SD card sized hole in the front vents around the HDD bay, put an SD -> IDE adapter in just the right spot there (held with mounting tape), extension IDE/molex run to the network adapter at the back of the bay.

So now there's just an SD card slot in the front of my PS2.

I'm beyond jelly.
 

dubc35

Member
I need to get on the opl/sd/etc train and get my ps1/2 stuff sorted. I have an og psx that the laser seems to be going on, a PSOne that's barely been used, phat ps2, slim ps2, and a Taiwan slim ps2 that's 220v/50Hz with internal PSU that I don't know wtf to do with besides collect dust and harvest parts from should I need to?

I hope I didn't make a post like this before for SpiceOrange to call me out haha.
 
Finally connected my PS2, got a Free McBoot memory card and tried playing some games over the network with a LAN adapter, it works sort of, music cuts off and some games hang in loading, crazy that it works at all.

But reading the comments above, I need a good tutorial on setting up SD to IDE, any good ones out there, would love to have setup like that.
 
Pics please

Maybe later.

I'm beyond jelly.

Bit of background, years ago I got so annoyed of opening up that stupid network adapter that is really hard to open with anything but a nickle (and even then now I don't have any cash ever) to change the rips on my stupid 20GB hard drive and eventually gave up and switched to discs until like earlier this year.

Setting that up again it reminded me of that pain, even with lots of jiggabytes there will always be new translations or something else I want to change, so by having the SD card externally accessible it's just so much smoother.

I know you can add via network or rip on the actual system but the slowness of that turned me off a long time ago.
 

Galdelico

Member
Not really sure this belongs here, In case I'll move my quetion to the most appropriate thread: I'm figuring my ay out of OSSC's optim. modes for my 240p consoles - using this page here as a reference point - but I still can't wrap my head about one thing.

Let's talk about the Mega Drive/Genesis, for example.
If I follow those instructions and set up Line4x in optim. mode for 320x240, what I get - say, with Sonic The Hedgehog - is something like this:

Video
If you take a look at the Sonic intro or the flowers in Green Hill Zone, they all look perfect circles, and Sonic himself it's kinda chunktastic.
This is if I leave the active vertical area in the OSSC set to 240.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, the Mega Drive resolution is 320x224, so when I change the active area to 224 and re-center the screen, I get something like this:

Video (Please forgive the shitty Retron 5 quality)
Then again, the Sonic intro and the flowers now look more slim and slightly oval.

My question is, what's the correct aspect ratio? Is it a game-by-game scenario? I'm curious because some games seem to look too 'wide' with the first setting, while others appear a bit too squeezed up with the latter.

Thanks in advance. ^_-
 

Peltz

Member
Not really sure this belongs here, In case I'll move my quetion to the most appropriate thread: I'm figuring my ay out of OSSC's optim. modes for my 240p consoles - using this page here as a reference point - but I still can't wrap my head about one thing.

Let's talk about the Mega Drive/Genesis, for example.
If I follow those instructions and set up Line4x in optim. mode for 320x240, what I get - say, with Sonic The Hedgehog - is something like this:

Video
If you take a look at the Sonic intro or the flowers in Green Hill Zone, they all look perfect circles, and Sonic himself it's kinda chunktastic.
This is if I leave the active vertical area in the OSSC set to 240.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, the Mega Drive resolution is 320x224, so when I change the active area to 224 and re-center the screen, I get something like this:

Video (Please forgive the shitty Retron 5 quality)
Then again, the Sonic intro and the flowers now look more slim and slightly oval.

My question is, what's the correct aspect ratio? Is it a game-by-game scenario? I'm curious because some games seem to look too 'wide' with the first setting, while others appear a bit too squeezed up with the latter.

Thanks in advance. ^_-
First one looks right to me.
 
Not really sure this belongs here, In case I'll move my quetion to the most appropriate thread: I'm figuring my ay out of OSSC's optim. modes for my 240p consoles - using this page here as a reference point - but I still can't wrap my head about one thing.

Let's talk about the Mega Drive/Genesis, for example.
If I follow those instructions and set up Line4x in optim. mode for 320x240, what I get - say, with Sonic The Hedgehog - is something like this:

Video
If you take a look at the Sonic intro or the flowers in Green Hill Zone, they all look perfect circles, and Sonic himself it's kinda chunktastic.
This is if I leave the active vertical area in the OSSC set to 240.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, the Mega Drive resolution is 320x224, so when I change the active area to 224 and re-center the screen, I get something like this:

Video (Please forgive the shitty Retron 5 quality)
Then again, the Sonic intro and the flowers now look more slim and slightly oval.

My question is, what's the correct aspect ratio? Is it a game-by-game scenario? I'm curious because some games seem to look too 'wide' with the first setting, while others appear a bit too squeezed up with the latter.

Thanks in advance. ^_-
Genesis games are a mix of 256 and 320 wide mode, there may be others as well since I know the Master System has some weird video modes and Genesis is backwards compatible.

I'd strongly recommend just running the horizontal sample rate at the default, which is to take n samples for n pixels of screen wide used and forcing the output to 4:3.
 

KyleCross

Member
Anyone have experience with those SATA modded network adapters for PS2? A big SATA HDD to hold my entire collection sounds like the ideal solution, but I know very little about it.
 

Galdelico

Member
Genesis games are a mix of 256 and 320 wide mode, there may be others as well since I know the Master System has some weird video modes and Genesis is backwards compatible.

I'd strongly recommend just running the horizontal sample rate at the default, which is to take n samples for n pixels of screen wide used and forcing the output to 4:3.

Exactly, two main video modes.
And if I do what you suggest I basically get the ratio which is on show in the first video.

First one looks right to me.

Yeah, that seems the case. Also, I just noticed Sonic Mania uses the same assets with the same proportions (chunkster Sonic, circular flowers etc...).

Thanks guys. ^_-
 

Jinto

Member
Anyone have experience with those SATA modded network adapters for PS2? A big SATA HDD to hold my entire collection sounds like the ideal solution, but I know very little about it.

I picked one up a couple of months ago to use with an old SATA HDD I had lying around. I haven't spent much time with it, besides the initial setup and ripping my games, but so far so good.
 

catabarez

Member
So Analog said they might make a limited run of Super NT's with analog out if there is enough demand. What do we gotta do to make this happen?
 

dadjumper

Member
Congrats! Which model of PVM? How is the high pitch 15Khz comin' off that thing? (I'm always assessing people's tolerance of it)

I have a PVM 1342Q and may pull the trigger on a 14N2U right away.. really want a 14" PVM as I find that to be the "perfect" size!

14M4J, pretty much your stock standard model. Had the same one before I moved.
The hum is noticeable at first but not so bad. I worry my neighbors can hear it, though!

I have to ask - why do you have a left-handed guitar and a right-handed guitar right next to each other?
My girlfriend plays lefty (despite being right handed) so we need both!
 
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