March 28, 2024, 09:34:44 am

Finds (NES)

Started by JC, August 26, 2006, 12:13:07 pm

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Retrospectives

Quote from: MaarioS on July 07, 2018, 04:45:42 am
I believe you can still run emulators "unofficially" on hacked NES/SNES mini and there should be some sort of option to "force PAL". Of course this applies if you are so desperate to do that, even though I'm in PAL region I never played any PAL game in PAL speed in the last 5 years. PAL is atrocious and is the worst system for gaming as games are supposed to play fast


I was just curious since I have no experience from PAL region to what they prefer or not whereas it was officially released in western Europe. As for Poland and eastern Europe I know you had Pegasus/Dendy, which of course is compatible with 60hz machine, or even original FC since no lockout chip or anything existed.

So you prefer playing on Pegasus or original FC? I suppose if grew up with machine like Pegasus it should not be very difficult convert to 60hz, CPU/PPU + Xtal is basically all needed, but since FC had no official release in Poland (or even outside East Asia) you prefer playing on Pegasus right? I just curious to know, because I know most famous Famiclone of Korea = Joy Kid and that basically All, collector have in Korea, more or less. Even existed like over 20+ famiclones (mostly Taiwan re-brands but even domestic produced), many Korean collector play with original FC but still they have Joy Kid especially in their collection for nostalgia values.

Even NES was officially release in Korea uses 60hz as well, NTSC-M, but is more or less compatible with NTSC-J (channel frequency and few minor things differ) is still had no chance to Famiclone market, mainly due to price and the supply of pirated material. Matter of fact is Hyundai Comboy is basically same version as North Armerican NES. Even so much it was even boxed together with American advertisement paper.  :D

VegaVegas

Pegasus/Dendy famiclones are actually NTSC machines that are forced to 50hz, so they play in PAL mode (slow) but they accept all official Famicom carts as well and work completely fine but they play just slow. I still have Pegasus famiclone but I've never played it for over last 5 years. I actually play on official Famicom only as all pirated/official carts play just fine on original FC. Even the compatibility is better as some pirate carts even glitch on famiclones while FC plays them just fine lol

Retrospectives

Interesting. When lived in China there existed Famiclone named Zonic TV Game. These are by far the absolute best quality Famiclone I ever used in my life. Everything from plastic housing (Not sure how they got the mold, but is like total replica of original), and even they used the Microphone controller 2, although not used, it provided AV out natively and also could run 50hz and 60hz because had two X-tal crystal built on board. I even bought a bunch just to take back home to Japan because I like the color design (blue and white).

After that I would say Aaronix when it come build quality, and probably the original Good Boy, then Micro Genius depending on revision (The mid 90:s revisions with SMD chip instead of discrete logic really was not good, but IQ-501 and 502 is good as well. I think Pegasus was a IQ-502 based right?   :D

Yeah, is funny behaviour. I played Gimmick! like Pipe V pirate, and suddenly total graphic became like crazy, and no matter how hard I try, I cleaned with etanol, tried to find trace in PCB or cold solder joint, but then I tried it on original FC and suddenly it worked. Then put back into  Famiclone and it worked again perfectly. No idea, but my guess is some type of voltage drop, but I am not sure what happened.

Most original FC games run fine on SMC-based Famiclone, even the later revision of SMD chip can actually run the FDS without any issue. Some mapper cannot use it though like MMC5, but I can live with that because I prefer original over Famiclone but I just had once in life a big interesting in these non-japanese systems ahaha.  :-[


VegaVegas

There were so many revisions of famiclones here but yes Pegasus IQ-502 by Micro Genius was one of the most popular ones and that is the one I had and have today

Retrospectives

I see, yes. It is a good old quality famiclone, I personally prefer design of that rather than 501, even though 501 is classic on its own. Only problem with IQ-502 was the original D-Pads were too stiff. Would prefer a little movement more but overall is just my preference and is really just to change to another controller/joypad since famiclone much tend to be pin comptaible (with each other, not with the original FC though  :P)

P

I heard Dendy/Pegasus are PAL versions of the Taiwanese Micro Genius IQ-501/IQ-502? They are basically part NTSC Famicom/NES, part PAL NES and part unique. Music pitch is same as NTSC Famicom/NES, speed is like PAL NES, colour emphasis red and green are swapped like on PAL NES (which is why FDS Bubble Bobble has a green screen instead of red on these Famiclones) and finally Micro Genius messed up and swapped the square channels' duty cycle 50% and 25% settings making most original games sound very different. I'm designing my homebrew games so that they will play the same no matter if you have NTSC, PAL or a Micro Genius-based Famiclone. I made settings that you can set manually for each one of these things in the options menu.

Quote from: MaarioS on July 07, 2018, 04:45:42 am
PAL is atrocious and is the worst system for gaming as games are supposed to play fast
Well there is no use if the game plays too fast. It should play at the speed it was designed for. If the game is programmed properly it should not matter what system you play it on. It will always run at the same speed and the music sounds the same. It's just that many developers never bothered to convert the games correctly.

Quote from: RetrospectivesI see. I dont know where I got the memory about PAL. I think speedrunners and such still play at 50hz some of them? Or maybe I just listed to a very bad argument for someone protecting the 50hz hehe. Yeah, 60hz is preferred, but is too bad many of the Europe releases not compatible with 60hz because it would make it more playable to collect them. Or are they work on example NTSC? I know SMB and some game were optimized for PAL and also Mario Classic Serie, the German original, it run too fast on NTSC, but I know there is hack for that game and in Japan it already release Kaette Kita Mario Bros for FDS but still is sad if cannot play childhood games on real system in normal speed.  Cry

Yeah some speedrunners do play on PAL, but generally speedrunners always plays on real hardware, not emulators.
If you want to play both NTSC and PAL NES games correctly there is no way around having both a Famicom (or NTSC NES) and a PAL NES (until the day we build the ultimate Famirepro that has it all that is ;D). Games generally work cross-region (if you take care of the lockout chip) but speed, music pitch and colour emphasis (which not many games use though) will be off. And due to some differences in both systems there are games from both regions that does not work at all in the other one. For example Elite seems to be using the longer screen-update-time (vblank) that the PAL NES offers and will therefore not work on NTSC systems (or Dendy/Pegasus).

The biggest reason why we Europeans don't play so much PAL anymore is part because of the poor PAL conversations but also simply because there are far more NTSC games. Europe was especially starved of RPGs during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras (Final Fantasy VII was the first RPG for most Europeans).

Retrospectives

Quote from: P on July 08, 2018, 04:51:24 am
Yeah some speedrunners do play on PAL, but generally speedrunners always plays on real hardware, not emulators.
If you want to play both NTSC and PAL NES games correctly there is no way around having both a Famicom (or NTSC NES) and a PAL NES (until the day we build the ultimate Famirepro that has it all that is ;D). Games generally work cross-region (if you take care of the lockout chip) but speed, music pitch and colour emphasis (which not many games use though) will be off. And due to some differences in both systems there are games from both regions that does not work at all in the other one. For example Elite seems to be using the longer screen-update-time (vblank) that the PAL NES offers and will therefore not work on NTSC systems (or Dendy/Pegasus).

The biggest reason why we Europeans don't play so much PAL anymore is part because of the poor PAL conversations but also simply because there are far more NTSC games. Europe was especially starved of RPGs during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras (Final Fantasy VII was the first RPG for most Europeans).



I understand, thanks for explaining a little bit further.  :D Yeah, nowaday is possible to get how they were initially planned to be played (as in 60hz) so for me I totally understand reason behind it, especially due to bigger game library. On other hand, people playing much more system now than ever did when they were young, or not even young but young gamer who into retro games also became huge so I guess is a matter of world became more global and people enjoying to play and seek for the best.

For me I never was RPG person (except text based RPG), but overall was very huge around here back in the day, but I always preferring arcade style games, platformer, shooter and fighting to somewhat extent.

But what about collectors in PAL (like SCN), they collect SCN games but prefer play the NTSC version of NES? That was one of my bigger question actually since I have seen in local websites these NES game some are very very expensive even they are PAL. So I guess gamers/collectors collect PAL but play NTSC? A bit confused maybe but I am just curious so excuse my ignorance please.  :-[

VegaVegas

@P you miss the point here. Yes you can optimize games to play on PAL and NTSC just the same and I know this is possible. The reality is that 99% of developers were located in NTSC region and designed games for it and never gave a flying shit about PAL regions and left games as is, meaning they played awful on PAL (entire Europe + Australia + some obscure regions of the world). This applies pretty much for all systems up to PS2. Meaning NTSC is the native system for designing these games and this topic was slammed so many times

fcgamer

If we want to go the historical route, then we should look at it from all angles.  How did the initial royalty even become established as proper kings, queens, etc?  As leaders?  It essentially reminds me of what I thought two or three years ago at my old job, when a new (incapable) manager was put into place at the job, demanding total respect due to her position, despite being incapable, lacking the skills, and only having the position due to sleeping with the company owner, despite being both being married.  Essentially, my thoughts were, "Well who put you in charge?" 

Some folks are natural leaders, some aren't.  Some are good fighters / warriors / business tycoons, some aren't.  Whereas I can see in the olden days of folks taking charge, leading others to prosperity, building up a village or kingdom and then becoming a king / empire / whatever, the idea of the king being appointed by God and the royalty being part of that is quite antiquated in a modern society, I feel. 
   

Quote from: P on July 04, 2018, 07:40:28 am
Well Swedish kings traditionally don't resign like Japanese emperors do, except in rare cases. They continue to reign until they die and their successor will be crowned from then on. When Princess Viktoria was born the system did not allow a female successor so initially she wasn't, and her younger brother born years later became it instead. They eventually changed the rules and she became the new successor and remains that to this day. Apparently the reigning king passed the record this year, and is now the longest reigning king in Swedish history (well older kings died a lot fighting wars of course).

Yeah the motto of the current king is "For Sweden in time" which means that he wishes to fit in as a modern monarch.
Sadly many young Swedes are easily swayed and often don't have much for royalties.They want one of the world's oldest lasting monarchy to end. "It's against democracy" they say, they really just don't get what's important and what is not. :(

Nope no NES Classic Mini. I only have the Super Famicom Classic Mini.
But from what I heard the PAL one is identical to the American one, so the games are NTSC version and runs in 60 Hz. The SNES Classic Mini is probably the same, although it has the SFC look (just like the real PAL SNES). Yeah I don't remember games was slow as a kid, but as I don't have my PAL NES anymore I played the PAL version of those old games for the first time in years when the Wii virtual console came out. Megaman 2 was incredibly slow! I have no memory of that from when I was a kid. This is only an issue with Famicom/NES games that was not properly sped up when released to PAL. Many developers didn't change anything at all leaving music notes sounding totally different (due to the slower clocked APU) and gameplay very slow. I can't say that's part of nostalgia because I don't really remember it, and these games are clearly better when played as they were designed.
Family Bits - Check Progress Below!

https://famicomfamilybits.wordpress.com

L___E___T

 



Love the history conversations, but it would indeed be good to get the thread back on topic :bub:  

I can help by saying I picked up a nice nearly new Gold Zelda NES cart - and also one of these:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/calebpaullus/legend-of-pizza-enamel-pins-and-silver-plated-cart
I quite liked the little Dark Link design.
My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

P

Legend of Pizza? Haha what is this.

Without  trying to continue the off-topic discussion I will just clear up a few things:

I'm not a royalist and of course the Swedish and Japanese monarchs don't have any real power (although giving their positions they of course have some power or influence) or are able to speak out political opinions. Swedish people are very intolerable to corruption, which is a very good thing (one politician bought a chocolate bar with the government's money which caused a large scandal). It is the baseless extremist ideals that I'm against. I believe you need to be moderately patriotic which many elitists in Sweden aren't. Like Retrospective I'm proud we still have a monarch despite being a modern industry country. It doesn't stand for bad history, only people that doesn't know history says things like that, instead of studying history to learn from the past. Kings hasn't always been selected by their blood in Sweden, long ago they where elected in a counsel and could be dismissed if the counsel was unhappy with them.

Quote from: MaarioS on July 08, 2018, 10:05:15 am
@P you miss the point here. Yes you can optimize games to play on PAL and NTSC just the same and I know this is possible. The reality is that 99% of developers were located in NTSC region and designed games for it and never gave a flying shit about PAL regions and left games as is, meaning they played awful on PAL (entire Europe + Australia + some obscure regions of the world). This applies pretty much for all systems up to PS2. Meaning NTSC is the native system for designing these games and this topic was slammed so many times

True! This is surly one reason I hardly play PAL anymore.

Quote from: Retrospectives on July 08, 2018, 06:38:20 am
But what about collectors in PAL (like SCN), they collect SCN games but prefer play the NTSC version of NES? That was one of my bigger question actually since I have seen in local websites these NES game some are very very expensive even they are PAL. So I guess gamers/collectors collect PAL but play NTSC? A bit confused maybe but I am just curious so excuse my ignorance please.  :-[

Yes there are certainly lots of people still collecting PAL games. PAL NES games are very expensive now, probably retro collecting has become big lately and there are not as many PAL games, so low stock and high demand drives prices up. I don't think these people bother with NTSC games though, they buy local things. People like us that collect and play NTSC are the strange ones. :) Then there are maniacs like me that also likes to collect Japanese version of games. ;D

Retrospectives

Quote from: L___E___T on July 09, 2018, 05:35:26 am




Love the history conversations, but it would indeed be good to get the thread back on topic :bub:  

I can help by saying I picked up a nice nearly new Gold Zelda NES cart - and also one of these:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/calebpaullus/legend-of-pizza-enamel-pins-and-silver-plated-cart
I quite liked the little Dark Link design.


Ahahaha if become popular I guess is just a time before someone really make a rom-hack and put into that shell (if mold allow cart to fit inside)  :-[

P: I think same. I am not Royalist per se, but is a legacy worth preserving for sake of why not? They have no political power at all, and according constitution they have no right to even publically speak of political opinion. In many way they are have much less freedom personally than the average Japanese/Swede. But as a historical and cultural legacy I am proud about it, but if someone think different, is up to them. I just know we celebrated 150 year anniversary of relation recently and that was good, so let's continue topic.  :D

Ah I understand. Yes, I was reffering to Sweden auction website and is really crazy prices what they seem to fetch. Really crazy. So in reality is not you who is maniac, but them  :D Just kidding, but I understand your point. Maniac in Japan maybe sit of collection of so much rare proto or content never intended sharing. Is up to them because they bought it with their money, but at same time I feel personally I am not really a "completionist" per se, but rather preservationist so I am glad sharing what I can with community by help to translate and other thing like dumping or just scanning because sooner or later from technical standpoint, we have to preserve these things.

Also since you speak the Japan language then you have no problem reading or sourcing down the game you want, even that is huge plus for many non-japanese speakers so I guess you have very gold situation for yourself. Now just go get a new job so you can stay in here. If that is your wish.  :-[ Now let's back to topic hehe.


VegaVegas

By the way, I think prices differ significantly on different PAL titles. As far as I know prices for almost everything Nintendo related (up to N64) are horrendous, although I believe some popular and common titles still go for up to 10$ (I hope). Overall it's very difficult to talk about prices overall as Europe is divided into million regions and releasing games for different regions/languages is just a nightmare, literally hell on earth. I can throw one of the best examples I can remember so far and I believe Gimmick NES PAL is probably the most expensive game ever created and it was probably only released in Sweden if I remember correctly

P

Yeah other PAL region games sometimes shows up on Swedish auctions as well. The games for NES are usually in English but manuals and such may be in German.

Yes after learning Japanese I felt like playing all my favourite games (and games I never finished) again in Japanese, so I collect old and new games in Japanese. It is, to say at least, a very interesting experience to see all the differences and realize all the misconceptions I had as a kid. And yeah since Japanese games are generally cheaper (except for the shipping costs) I see little reason to buy localized version of games that was originally Japanese anymore. New and old.

Back to topic!
I was fed up about not being able to play and charge Joy-Con at the same time so I finally bought a charge grip. It is a bit heavier since it contains electronics. I thought the original grip also contained some electronics due to the LEDs, but I just noticed the LEDs are not LEDs but small slots with tiny mirrors that reflects the LEDs! *shock* :o

nensondubois



One of the many things Ipicked up recently at a flea market are some interesting things, one of them possibly being the world's rarest baseball videogame.