RetroBlox : Another new Play-Everything "Retro" Console

[SignOfZeta]

I was hoping to get some tech info to share, but the tech info I got isn't sharable. I can say that after being hands-on with the system, it is as slick and responsive as this video shows...

We loaded carts and CDs (even for the new mystery console) and everything worked great. I can never say anything that will satisfy those who think the console is rigged to simulate loading from cart but really loading from ROM, but what I saw satisfied my curiosity.

Also, this talk of the prototype being fake is bogus. They had one slick injection molded shell with battery powered lights as a display piece to show what the finished product looks like, then they had a fully functional prototype in a project box of mostly the same dimensions but without all the fancy finishings. Both of these were at the con where they showed it (prge I think?)... Why Pat said the prototype was an empty box is beyond me... And why people took it as gospel is equally mystifying.


Edit:. Apparently Pat was misquoted as saying the prototype was an empty shell, and critics ran with it.

I guess I'm not in the market for this thing. I skimmed through that slooooooooooooow time buying video and I'm already sick of the whole vibe.

[elmer]

On the positive side, they're showing that they've done a lot more real work than the RetroVGS guys ever did.

But ...

<YAWN> Any new information? ... nope. <BACK-TO-SLEEP>

[GohanX]

That interface looks pretty slick. They have by attention.

[SignOfZeta]

Kinda reminds me of my friends hacked XBox, over a decade ago.

Who buy these things again? The further they get into development the more pointless they seem since...you know, Windows exists and $400 PCs the size of a sandwich are commonplace, redumping your own carts is a waste of electricity since we've all had complete ROM sets for 15 years, etc.

I think people are running out of things to spend their money on, personally.

[Gypsy]

Kinda reminds me of my friends hacked XBox, over a decade ago.

Who buy these things again? The further they get into development the more pointless they seem since...you know, Windows exists and $400 PCs the size of a sandwich are commonplace, redumping your own carts is a waste of electricity since we've all had complete ROM sets for 15 years, etc.

I think people are running out of things to spend their money on, personally.

The same guy that has bought every dumb clone system so far and needs another. Really though, your last line rings true.

[Michirin9801]

Kinda reminds me of my friends hacked XBox, over a decade ago.

Who buy these things again? The further they get into development the more pointless they seem since...you know, Windows exists and $400 PCs the size of a sandwich are commonplace, redumping your own carts is a waste of electricity since we've all had complete ROM sets for 15 years, etc.

I think people are running out of things to spend their money on, personally.

My point from way back in the beginning of this thread exactly...
Like, I've since accepted that this is for the people who want to play using their physical copies of their games but without having to hook up every single console to their TV and have a mess of wires, and have to keep hooking and unhooking everything all the time, but personally, I'm fine just using my hacked Wii to play almost everything that I want, and using my PC for whatever doesn't have a good emulator available for the Wii, such as the X68000 and the PC-98 for example, and honestly, I'd recommend a similar setup for anyone's living room, be it a Wii, Xbox, Raspberry Pi or whatever else you can hook up to your TV and install emulators on, there's nothing more convenient than that...
I get that you guys love your physical copies and stuff, but I'd think the point of having them is playing them on the system they were made for, but eh, your copies, you do what you want with them...

[roflmao]

Yeah, I really don't get the allure to this. It looks like it's going to be relatively pricy, and I think my $35 Raspberry Pi can do everything it can. Granted, it's got a pretty sweet interface, but I've gotten used to what the Pi has, and can change it if I'm so inclined.

[NecroPhile]

You can say that $35 pi is the same thing as soon as it comes with a case, cartridge slot, cd-rom drive, controller, and works right out of the box without you having to fuck around with it.

[elmer]

You can say that $35 pi is the same thing as soon as it comes with a case, cartridge slot, cd-rom drive, controller, and works right out of the box without you having to fuck around with it.

Yep, assuming that the POLYMEGA really does all they claim, and does it legally, I can certainly see some people buying it.

It doesn't make any sense to *me* why people would want to actually go out and buy real old physical games to run on a fake emulated console ... but to each his own.

I assume that their real plan is to be the middleman for digital sales of legal DRM-protected downloads of old games. That seems like the only thing that makes much sense to me.

Again, for people with no technical skills, but with a love for old games, I can see that that might work.


For as long as their POLYMEGA works without breaking, anyway.

That module system looks fragile, and those laptop CD drives don't exactly have a good rep for longevity.

Big manufacturers have large budgets, and teams or companies that they can go to for the experience of making solid consumer products that don't break.

These guys have a 3D printer and a history of software development.

Perhaps they've managed to team-up with someone reputable who has history ... that might change things.

But then, why run a crowdfunding campaign for initial sales?


I guess that we'll find out more during E3 next week. That seems likely to be when they plan their big <yawn> announcement.

[SignOfZeta]

You can say that $35 pi is the same thing as soon as it comes with a case, cartridge slot, cd-rom drive, controller, and works right out of the box without you having to fuck around with it.

I agree totally, but just running Windows emulators is pretty easy and the whole dumping your own carts thing, except for the ability to continue your saves across platforms, is pretty much totally fucking pointless.

We've all been doing this for AGES on PCs for free. It's weird to me that this became an industry (or mostly jank products) so many years later.

[roflmao]

You can say that $35 pi is the same thing as soon as it comes with a case, cartridge slot, cd-rom drive, controller, and works right out of the box without you having to fuck around with it.

Ha!
It does pretty much work right out of the box without having to tinker with it: https://retropie.org.uk/
Chances are good you already have a controller that'll work with it and the cartridge slot/cd drive is essentially meaningless since they're both doing emulation anyway.

[NecroPhile]

You don't have to care about features that don't interest you, but it's patently false to say a $35 pi has the exact same capabilities. 

[roflmao]

You don't have to care about features that don't interest you, but it's patently false to say a $35 pi has the exact same capabilities. 

You're right. A Raspberry Pi 3 is far more capable than a Polymega.

[Gredler]

I like the idea of playing on my CRT for nostalgia, but then taking the game up to the bedroom to play before I go to sleep on my LCD, then going back down to the basement in the morning to continue the nostalgia fest. Or practicing runs on the LCD and then going through and beating it to watch all the glorious credits on the CRT. It's the simple things. Still waiting to hear about online multiplayer though, if they have a way to incorporate that I will be a vehement supporter.

[roflmao]

Still waiting to hear about online multiplayer though, if they have a way to incorporate that I will be a vehement supporter.

Psst. That can also be done with a Raspberry Pi.

[Gredler]

Psst. That can also be done with a Raspberry Pi.

wwwwhat?  I need to research this. How difficult is it, and how well does it work? I think every Raspberry Pi I've encountered has been crippled or setup incorrectly, because I did not see anything like this and the visual quality of the emulation was a mess. Links would be appreciated, thanks!

[sirhcman]

I heard the Polymega can stream your games live to Twitch as well. Might not be for everyone but a nice feature nonetheless

[roflmao]

wwwwhat?  I need to research this. How difficult is it, and how well does it work? I think every Raspberry Pi I've encountered has been crippled or setup incorrectly, because I did not see anything like this and the visual quality of the emulation was a mess. Links would be appreciated, thanks!

Here's the wiki page on it.
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Netplay

I haven't played around with it, but it doesn't look very complicated. Reminds me of getting games online back in the early Windows days.

I don't know how long ago you checked out RetroPie, or what type of Raspberry Pi you were using, but on a Pi3 all the emulators I've tried run flawlessly (minus N64 - some games play fine, some don't). PS1 games run fine on it.

It can even run Dreamcast games, though I haven't installed that emulator yet:

[SignOfZeta]

You're not listening. Nobody is questioning the quality of the emulation because they're more concerned with getting the fucker running. All the power and accuracy in the world is useless if I can't work it myself. See: Linux, Mednafen, or any other "simple" thing that meganerds don't have any issues understanding.

Is it as easy to use as a PC Engine? That's the question. If the answer is "no" then it can rot in a stack of Gamepark 32s for all I care.

[NecroPhile]

Don't bring logic into it, zeta.  The dipshit troll wants to believe a pi is equal or better in every way.

[roflmao]

Setting up a RetroPie is dead simple, though.

1. Go to the RetroPie website and download the image.
2. Put the image on an SD card.
3. Plug SD card into Raspberry Pi and turn Pi on.

You're done. All the most common emulators are already configured and run intuitively with whatever controller you have plugged in.

Adding roms is just as simple.

1. While RetroPie is running plug a USB flash drive into the Pi. It'll automatically create a folder structure on the drive.
2. Plug the flash drive into your computer and copy your roms to it. Put the Turbografx-16 roms in the folder labeled "Turbografx-16" etc.
3. Plug the flash drive back into the Pi and it'll automatically add all the games to the Pi.

That's it. In probably less than an hour you have it ready to go.

There's all sorts of other stuff you can tinker with if you want, but it doesn't take a "meganerd" to get up and running.

[SignOfZeta]

How about CDs?

[roflmao]

How about CDs?

You put the bin/cue or iso files in the folders it creates on the flash drive, just like the roms.

If you're a "meganerd" you can also ftp into the Pi and transfer them that way.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I think the Polymega is a very slick-looking console and it's interface is gorgeous. I'm definitely going to want to play around with it when Null gets his. But there isn't word yet on pricing, and I imagine it won't be cheap. I'm just trying to point out that there's already something out there that's super cheap, easy to set up, and does almost everything this thing does. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Polymega is using Retroarch for its emulation on the backend.

[Gredler]

I don't have a Raspberry Pi, but my friend brought one over to show me and it ran fine but had terrible (I am assumimg were default) graphical settings. The picture was stretched 16x9 for some systems, and all seemed blurry (not point sample scaled). I do want to get one and try it, but haven't taken the money and time to do so yet.

It's hard to argue that hooking this thing up and playing it will be a lot different experience than plugging in a AC, HDMI, a controller, and a cart/cd. The steps to use the Retromegabox will be a lot different for non-pc/emulation enthusiasts.

[SignOfZeta]

How about CDs?

You put the bin/cue or iso files in the folders it creates on the flash drive, just like the roms.

If you're a "meganerd" you can also ftp into the Pi and transfer them that way.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I think the Polymega is a very slick-looking console and it's interface is gorgeous. I'm definitely going to want to play around with it when Null gets his. But there isn't word yet on pricing, and I imagine it won't be cheap. I'm just trying to point out that there's already something out there that's super cheap, easy to set up, and does almost everything this thing does. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Polymega is using Retroarch for its emulation on the backend.

Where do you put the CD BIOS?

Also, how do you get it to fuck right the fuck off with 16:9?

[roflmao]

Where do you put the CD BIOS?

Also, how do you get it to fuck right the fuck off with 16:9?

By default, it plays in 4:3. You have to mess with it to make it 16:9.

You're right, for CD games you do need to add bios so it's not simply plug and play. There's an exhaustive wiki that clearly defines where bios go for each console: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Playstation-1

[roflmao]

Can i call Geek Squad to perform this rocket surgery?

If you do they might call the F.B.I. for the porn they find.

[elmer]

So ... is Neo Geo CD support really their big E3 announcement?

Or can we expect something more interesting later on this week?

[DragonmasterDan]

Even a Dreamcast can play Neo CD games with one of those emulator boot discs, not too surprising.

[SignOfZeta]

The DC doesn't do a very good job of Neo, IIRC. I can't remember.

I do remember the DS ran Neo surprisingly well. So this thing has to be WAY more powerful than the DS, and also more powerful than my 133mhz Pentium 1 with 128MB of RAM which ran every Neo game flawlessley.

Can they can pull this off!?!?

[Gredler]

Can they can pull this off!?!?

I played it, and I've been playing Samurai Showdown 2 on AES A LOT on my CRT, and it felt almost identical playing the CD version through this machine on a LED TV.

[SignOfZeta]

Oh good, I thought Neo Geo emulation had been lost to time or something.

[GohanX]

The DC doesn't do a very good job of Neo, IIRC. I can't remember.

I do remember the DS ran Neo surprisingly well. So this thing has to be WAY more powerful than the DS, and also more powerful than my 133mhz Pentium 1 with 128MB of RAM which ran every Neo game flawlessley.

Can they can pull this off!?!?

The DC didn't do Neo cart emulation very well because of a lack of ram, but the DC had plenty of ram for CD games so the CD versions ran perfectly.

[SignOfZeta]

Now that you mention it...I do remember that.

[DragonmasterDan]

The DC didn't do Neo cart emulation very well because of a lack of ram, but the DC had plenty of ram for CD games so the CD versions ran perfectly.

Yeah, I remember the main problem being the redbook audio level to sound effects levels being a bit off. Beyond that they ran fine.

[elmer]

I'll wake you up next month for the big announcement.

I think they are going to keep with small weekly news updates until the big one in a month.

Well ... not much in the way of Weekly Updates, and over a month has passed.

I imagine it's either  ...

1) They found an investor and don't need to talk to the unwashed masses until they're ready to Kickstart the first manufacturing run.

2) They've found that producing real hardware is a lot more difficult than they expected, and they're either running way behind, or have given up.

I think that the majority of AtariAge would say 100% likelihood on the 2nd, but I'll give your guys the benefit of the doubt and only say 40% chance. 

[turboswimbz]

I'll wake you up next month for the big announcement.

I think they are going to keep with small weekly news updates until the big one in a month.

Well ... not much in the way of Weekly Updates, and over a month has passed.

I imagine it's either  ...

1) They found an investor and don't need to talk to the unwashed masses until they're ready to Kickstart the first manufacturing run.

2) They've found that producing real hardware is a lot more difficult than they expected, and they're either running way behind, or have given up.

I think that the majority of AtariAge would say 100% likelihood on the 2nd, but I'll give your guys the benefit of the doubt and only say 40% chance. 

From their site's FAQ.  It appears they are claiming 1.  But I would lean on two more. 

WHEN IS THE KICKSTARTER?
Kickstarter is a means of crowdfunding the development of a product which is at a prototype phase. Since we announced Polymega, when it was a prototype, we raised enough money from private investors and corporations that we won't need to rely on crowdfunding for development purposes anymore. At this point, we're going to launch a pre-order campaign "when it's done", which may be on a crowdfunding site, or might be through some other means. We plan to be at that point later this fall, and when that happens you'll be able to pre-order the system which will have a target delivery of summer next year.

[SignOfZeta]

You know what Nintendo never does? They don't show us every chip, every decision in the process, come up with levels of ownership, peripherals, etc years before thing comes out or even has a date. They just say, "Look, here is is, it comes out on xx/xx/xx please buy it" with one price in dollars...and you pay with confidence knowing WTF it is. Not this, "Did I tell you I'm writing a screenplay yet?" bullshit.

[esteban]

You know what Nintendo never does? They don't show us every chip, every decision in the process, come up with levels of ownership, peripherals, etc years before thing comes out or even has a date. They just say, "Look, here is is, it comes out on xx/xx/xx please buy it" with one price in dollars...and you pay with confidence knowing WTF it is. Not this, "Did I tell you I'm writing a screenplay yet?" bullshit.

This is true.

I gotta say, Nintendo does what BLOXTOPS can't.

[NecroPhile]

Doesn't that apply to Sony and MS too?  They all have existing products that they'd rather you buy now rather than wait for the next thing that you know you want, so you only get leaked specs and educated guesses.

[Arkhan Asylum]

*un*educated guesses.

[SmaMan]

Doesn't that apply to Sony and MS too?  They all have existing products that they'd rather you buy now rather than wait for the next thing that you know you want, so you only get leaked specs and educated guesses.

I've seen instances of Sony and MS bringing up vague, possibly made-up terms to describe their tech. "Terra-flops" immediately springs to mind.

This is why I never get excited about anything anymore. I've lived through too many Coleco Chameleons. While we do actually have some people with actual industry experience on board this time around, it's vapor as far as I'm concerned... until it comes out.

[o.pwuaioc]

Teraflop has been legitimate since the 90s with Intel.

[Dicer]

The dream is dying or dead, we just haven't had a confirmation yet...

[crazydean]

Doesn't that apply to Sony and MS too?  They all have existing products that they'd rather you buy now rather than wait for the next thing that you know you want, so you only get leaked specs and educated guesses.

I've seen instances of Sony and MS bringing up vague, possibly made-up terms to describe their tech. "Terra-flops" immediately springs to mind.

This is why I never get excited about anything anymore. I've lived through too many Coleco Chameleons. While we do actually have some people with actual industry experience on board this time around, it's vapor as far as I'm concerned... until it comes out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS

[Psycho Punch]

I was going to say that FLOPS/MIPS are pretty useless but considering how everything is floating point matrices in 3D graphics the FLOPS measure is actually pretty useful if console manufacturers are using sensible architectures without dumb bottlenecks between CPU/GPU/RAM like the PS2 EE.

edit; I did not notice this was the RetroBlox thread, how did the discussion get to this

[Arkhan Asylum]

im going to retroflop my foot in someones ass.

[SmaMan]

Teraflop has been legitimate since the 90s with Intel.

I know it's a legitimate term, but that's not the point. You can douse the masses in flops, chipsets, schematics, and technical jargon all you want... but what does that mean?! that's not necessarily going to convince people that this is a console worth getting excited about, and pre-ordering/buying. They want to see what you're doing with all those terms you've come up with.

Bringing this back to the RetroBlox/Polymega, one buzzword has been thrown around a ton without much meaning behind it: hybrid emulation.

[SignOfZeta]

Doesn't that apply to Sony and MS too?  They all have existing products that they'd rather you buy now rather than wait for the next thing that you know you want, so you only get leaked specs and educated guesses.

I didn't write Nintendo/Sony/MS for the same reasoning don't write he/she everytime I refer to someone. It's a waste of time and I don't care who it offends. I don't give a shit if people think I'm a Nintendo fanboy. I've been called a lot worse.

That being said, usually Nintendo does hold surprises back a bit more than the other two but that isn't why I mentioned them. I just wanted to name a decent example.

[NecroPhile]

Uh-oh, zippy's been triggered.