BimP Gaiden: Retro Game Setups and the Japan Experience (Part 1)
This week we change it up a bit with a discussion on the optimal retro gaming setups, upscalers, emulation vs hardware, and the experience on traveling to Japan.
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Really enjoyed those episodes, you should do other “gaiden” episodes about specific retro gaming subjects or game franchises, the flow of the episodes felt much more natural to me than on the other episodes.
You also make me want to get a Vita, I might pull the trigger later in the year..
Anyway been a listener since pretty much the start , it s always very interesting and listening to the soundtracks of the games between segments is great.
Thanks Vince,
Will think about doing some more of them
-Kevin
This might be one of the best and most nostalgic game i ever played. Thanks for the memories you bring me back again! Cheers!
New listener here. Heard about from P1P. Slowly working my way through back episodes. Not nessecarily in any order. Great podcast so far. Reminds me of Retronaughts but a little more nostalgia focused.
Anyway, about the XRGB, I bought one of these last year. I guess the big thing that wasn’t made complerly clear about the upscaler is that most retro systems look like utter crap on HDTVs. In fact some TVs will not even play retro systems at all. This is because older systems in addition to being lower resolution, are also encoded at 15 kHz. A lot of tvs won’t accept that and won’t show any picture or only black and white. A 30 kHz signal is what most HDTVs want. So with this using SVideo you still won’t get as good a picture as you would on a CRT TV for he most part, but you will be able to play your retro games and add scanlines without having to keep a CRT in your house.
The real reson to to spend the money is to get an RGB signal out. An RGB signal on an HDTV like you said will make your picture look the absolute best it can look. Running my Genesis (CDX) her ought this has never made my games look better. Most retro systems can eigther go RGB or be modded for RGB. This is the way to go if you prefer not to use emulators. The only thin is this device is not very user friendly when it comes to choosing the right cables. I had to go through 3 different cables to get my CDX working. And I RGB modded my N64 but have to send it out to get redone to change the sync line to make it compatible with the XRGB. The important thing is you cannot just use a scart cable, which are easier to come by. You need a Japanese 21 pin RGB cable or an adapter to convert Scart to Japan RGB. But when you get the technical details sorted out, oh what a glorious picture you can get. Even with the XRGB with S video, the N64 looks a little crappy, but when you get that clean RGB signal it looks like night and day. The N64 looks crisp and clear.
The other thing I wanted to mention was the discussion of real consoles vs emulators. I prefer real consoles myself, but what got me back I to hooking up my retro consoles was discovering flash carts for retro consoles. Basically they plug into you cart port and have an SD card to load all the games. I have Mega Everdrive and I can fit every Mega Drive and Genesis game on a 32 GB card, and play every game on real hardware without the compromise of emulators. Also less wear and tear on my real cartridges. I realize there is an appeal to collecting actual used games, And I have my fair share, but for me the ability to play every game on real hardware without having to track down and collect is a real benefit. I also have an Everdrive 64. There are various flashcarts for most retro systems now. (Cart based ones that is.) I don’t really feel too bad as these games are far removed from retail. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on flashcarts or if you have even heard of them. Personally with my Mega Everdrive hooked up to my Framemeister it is like retro heaven. You can even use it to play demos and hacks on real hardware, as well as having built in game genie, region free, and ds card saves and save states.