/vr/ - Retro Games

Apparently cartridges can provide controller ports. I had no idea...

>>1657220
>A Console Game should be on a cartridge at least as big as a small book.

Nah, cards were much cooler.

Carts can have/have had load times

>>1657306

Cards are cool too but for my taste they are a bit too efficient. If there are no Cartridges i take a card caus ... you know...

a card is fine too

SFX: rimshot

>>1657323
Yeah, with compression. Isn't that usually a bad sign for the game though? I always interpreted it that way, because I don't really know of any great cart games that have load times.

>>1657220
>There is nothing for the console to be loaded into memory when you pop in (!!!) the pre-loaded memory. You do the loading. You load the Console with a certain Memory that happens to have a game on it.

Quite a lot of cart games do loading actually. They only have very limited space available, so infrequently accessed data is often compressed, usually with a very fast compression scheme to avoid loading times. Frequently accessed graphics is stored on the cart uncompressed since it may be something that can be streamed from the cart on-the-fly easily.

This is to get around memory limitations, both in VRAM and cartridge space.

For example, Sonic games have all the tiles for a level compressed and loaded at the start of a level (or at various checkpoints, scene transitions, etc). From there the level is built out of maps using those tiles. But, Sonics sprites are uncompressed and are loaded into VRAM on-the-fly.
This has the advantage of the main characters animation only taking 1 frame worth of space in VRAM, leaving more for the levels. And also, the HUGE level art is compressed all the time, leaving you with a lot of saved space on the cart. And all those graphics are decompressed during the 1-2 second scene transitions (which are there specifically for this purpose!).

And then there are games which have too much graphics and have to rely on more efficient - but much slower - compressions. Those take longer to decompress, hence the loading scenes in SNES SF Alpha 2.

>>1657220
I agree OP. I pirate all CD-based game cause I feel no value in owning them. Such a crappy media for games. Lurv my carts though.

I miss playing simple arcade games on cartridge.

Let's say you had 30 games. You'd play one for 15 minutes, then pop in another for 15 minutes, and on and on, and by the time you were done with the 30th game you'd be ready to play the 1st one again. So much variety, no cutscenes and no loading, no boring filler; just kick ass arcade action.

Atari had the perfect sized cartridges and they had the best artwork as well.

I own like three physical games and I have to agree. Some games nowadays don't even have a disc release. Like, I get that it's good for the environment and everything but fuck the environment carts are cool as fuck.

The only way this would have been excusable if the games were at least cheaper but that's not even it.

>>1657220

I prefer cartridges, myself. I don't mind paying more for the game due to increased manufacturing costs. In my opinion, it's better than worrying about the condition of the surfaces of my discs, or eventual disc rot. Plus back-up batteries are nice. Granted, you will eventually lose your save data, but it's not really a chore to replay a game if you really like it in the first place.

One thing I don't like is Nintendo DS cards. They don't work like cartridges. They're basically Compact Flash cards, and there are a couple of problems with these: 1.) Save data is written to Flash, and Flash chips have finite lifespans. Once they burn out, there's no replacing them; 2.) Cards have what you call a controller, which allows them to be plugged into computers or devices and be read like hard disk drives. These controllers eventually die, rendering these cards useless.

Unfortunately, Flash memory is present on some cartridges as well. I believe N64 games use Flash chips to store save data, so they'll eventually be rendered unable to save at some point. Again, Flash chips aren't interchangeable like batteries. They're soldered directly onto the board.

>>1657537
>not liking kickass cutscenes

>>1657586
Cutscenes are fine as long as they're very brief and not very frequent, like the ones in Ms Pac-Man. Those last maybe 5 seconds and they give you a chance to catch you breath after some intense action, so they serve a purpose. Anything longer though and I'm skipping it.

>>1657579
Vita cards are the same way, proprietary flash cards.

>>1657603
Have fun playing any game beyond 1991, especially great RPGs like Final Fantasy or Earthbound.

>>1657220
I much prefer Digital than discs.

>>1657617
I've already played most of the good RPGs back in the day. I used to be an RPG fanatic, but I've since outgrown the genre. Now I'm almost exclusively an arcade gamer.

>>1657579
>it's better than worrying about the condition of the surfaces of my discs, or eventual disc rot

Mask roms can suffer from electromigration. EPROMs lose their charge over time. Flash and EEPROMs have limited write cycles (particularly problematic for older consoles, which used older type of roms with less write cycles). Carts with battery backed RAM need the batter changed to prevent leaking. Speaking of leaking, electrolytic caps can leak and corrode carts as well.

And you can't see most of those without opening the cart and dumping the ROM and comparing it to something grabbed from online, to spot any errors.

At least for discs, you can see if they are scratched or not.

>>1657579
>Granted, you will eventually lose your save data, but it's not really a chore to replay a game if you really like it in the first place.
And if battery leaks and corrodes the circuit board then you're fucked, but this happens very rarely and fixing it could be possible.

>One thing I don't like is Nintendo DS cards.
Me too, but because they just to small and fragile.
I attempted to fix 2 of them, NSMB was partial working because of water damage and applying solder on the contacts killed it completely.
Heartgold didn't started because the flash chip died (i guess), and that's might be the reason why i found it on the sidewalk.

>They don't work like cartridges. They're basically Compact Flash cards
wat
A DS card is more like a SD card with (Nintendo's) encryption and a 8bit wide data bus.
A compact flash card is electrically compatible to IDE/ATA.

>Once they burn out, there's no replacing them
Granted if they are proprietary, especially customized and manufactured for the cartridge.

>These controllers eventually die, rendering these cards useless.
Very rare in my opinion, it's more likely that the flash cells go bad.
Especially rare when they only used to read, the purpose of these controllers are to handle the organization of the data and communicate with the host.
They remember where which sector is located on the Flash array, remember which Flash cells are unusable, handle the write/burn process and error checking.

>I believe N64 games use Flash chips to store save data
And you believe the truth, almost.
Some N64 carts use battery backed SRAM, most other use EEPROM.
But all N64 carts are made of special proprietary ICs, the mask roms and SRAM do contain controllers because the data and address share the same physical connection.
Where your classic NES, GB, SNES, MD/Gen carts are made of simple parallel mask roms with a separate address/data bus.

>>1657668
>Mask roms can suffer from electromigration.
2/10 nice bait, almost fell for it

>>1657498
>For example, Sonic games have all the tiles for a level compressed and loaded at the start of a level (or at various checkpoints, scene transitions, etc). From there the level is built out of maps using those tiles. But, Sonics sprites are uncompressed and are loaded into VRAM on-the-fly.
>This has the advantage of the main characters animation only taking 1 frame worth of space in VRAM, leaving more for the levels. And also, the HUGE level art is compressed all the time, leaving you with a lot of saved space on the cart. And all those graphics are decompressed during the 1-2 second scene transitions (which are there specifically for this purpose!).
>And then there are games which have too much graphics and have to rely on more efficient - but much slower - compressions. Those take longer to decompress, hence the loading scenes in SNES SF Alpha 2.


I always wondered about this! I speificaly love a quick start-up. With loading screens while i have already played i can deal with. Waiting for a game to reach the start menu is the worst and all newer consoles and everything with discs does it.

Maybe today cartriges could be faster than ever.

I love the second you turn this tiny but resistant swich to turn on the gameboy and the nintendo logo comes down instantly. This lack of delay is so sexy to me....

Could games with cartridges be this fast? Could a game console start up and be at the title screen waiting for press start input in less then a second or even faster (like instant)?

>>1657668
>Mask roms can suffer from electromigration

Think of it this way: Give me one example of an NES game being rendered inoperable because of this phenomenon, and I'll give you 20 or 30 more examples of disc rot.

A few of my PC and PS1 games that have otherwise been kept in pristine condition no longer work because sectors of data mysteriously corrupted themselves, resulting in cyclic data redundancy errors whenever the discs are read.

Meanwhile my entire NES library still works without any problems.

Apparently this nes game Gimmick! had it's own soundchip.

I remember starfox having some special FX chip.

>>1657767
>Apparently this nes game Gimmick! had it's own soundchip.
No, it hasn't.
It's based on a unreleased NTSC prototype degraded to sound good without the soundchip.
Only the japanese famicom cart has it.
The NES doesn't have a audio input on the cartridge slot by default, but it can be easily modded.

>>1657568
the best part is where companies claim they're "going green" by limiting their release to download only or cutting holes in the disc case or something else that saves them money. i get it, though, that we're generating a lot of what will become trash. many people throw out their games when they malfunction, and sometimes there are incidents like hurricanes that can ruin an entire collection
i think about it and i figure in 100 years, whoever gets all my games is probably not going to care about them and the few things--if any--that don't end up with a collector or something will probably be trashed
but i heard some estimate of the amount of compacted trash we'll likely have produced in 100 years, and it didn't sound like that much, so maybe it's no big deal after all

>>1657728
Have you ever played X-Men 2 on the sega genesis?
The game boots IMMEDIATELY into the first stage, not even a sega logo nor nothing.
Grab an emulator and a rom and try it out.

>>1657984
And doesn't even let you pick your character.

Yeah; who doesn't love blowing on them to gwt them to work?

>>1657728
There was a setting on the DS you could set that would boot into the game automatically. You still had to sit through that seizure warning screen though.

One of the most peculiar cartridges is the ROM cart for King of Fighters '95 on Sega Saturn. This game used the cartridge for all the background graphics while the CD was used for the sprites, making load times much faster.

Most later fighting games used a RAM expansion cart instead, which worked with multiple games instead of just one.

>>1657586
liking cutscenes that have to load.

>>1657579

All must return to nothing in this world. Our games are like ourselves; one day they will grow old and die. All CDs and carts are susceptible. That is why we enjoy them now, while we can.

>>1658590
To be fair, they'll likely outlast us for some time, so I think we can take our time.

>>1658553
I think it stored not just graphics but voice samples there too. And probably some sprites.

The cart is dumped though, so you could check the contents to be sure. One thing is 100% though, it has no executable code in it: Sega had that forbidden in its guidelines. (the Saturn can easily run cart based games, but sega did not allow publishers to use that medium for anything but storage, probably due to piracy concerns)

>>1657984

this was very sexy :3

i hate sitting through this parade of logos, cutscenes and title screens when a game starts.

this was almost perfect, for my taste the game should start a little bit quicker :3

(also the game wasn't that bad, especially since it was made after a cartoon/comic. usually i don't even give most of these games a chance)

>>1657990
Once you die you can pick from a bunch

>>1657298

could there be a SNES cartridge that has n64 Ports to play the game with the n64 analog stick?

could there be a SNES cartridge that has n64 Ports to play the game with the n64 analog stick?

>>1657220
>discs laid on a table with the working side down
please OP..

>>1659047

I was very careful when i put them down! The table was clean.

Besides they are just discs... it's their job to collect scratches and disappoint people....

>>1659047
Both sides are the working side. The label has the data underneath it, and the laser needs to shine through the other side. Better to treat the label side nice really, you can resurface the plastic if it gets too fucked up

>Own 500+ Steam games

PC gaming is very cheap these days with all the bundles and sales and it's really great to save room space. Still it doesn't feel as good as owning a physical copy of the game. I've been more into older games recently as well, played through Wolfenstein 3D + expansions, Doom 1, Doom 2, Heretic, some GB games and I've had tons fun. More fun than with modern games. I'm pretty simple guy and having a simple but tight game in the form of gameplay mechanics is all I need. That's why I probably like older games. It may have also do something about the fact that I used to grow with these games (I'm 30).

>>1657990
>And doesn't even let you pick your character.

It randomly picks one. Reset to get a different character. Doesn't work on emus, though, since they don't emulate the random number generators fine (I think the system polls the currently active scanline from the TV set at the time of boot, or something like that).

Some other games also have random SEGA logos on the Megadrive, and those only display the same 2-3 on emulators too. Eternal Champions does that for sure, every character will smash the SEGA logo differently.

>>1657728
>Could a game console start up and be at the title screen waiting for press start input in less then a second or even faster (like instant)?

They couldn't because then they wouldn't have a chance to display all the important copyright information, introductions, "presented by" and "powered by AMD/INTEL/NVIDIA/CRYENGINE/UNREAL ENGINE 3" screens, and so on.

>>1658232
>Carts: Have to blow them to get them to work sometimes, but this is only when they're extremely dirty.
>Discs: Get dirty and scratched with extreme ease. Cheaper to produce, though this doesn't mean anything to the end user most of the time.
>Digital: Most games nowadays are pretty much locked to the console they were downloaded on, so if your PS4/Xbox360 bites the dust, you have no choice but to pay for it again. You can't sell your game or give it away.

everything will be moving towards digital to save time, money, production costs, and most of all, our planet which is what people care about the least for some reason.

>>1659851
It all boils down to the fact that people don't own their games anymore. You're only paying for a license to play your game for as long as the company wants you to.

>>1659856
You don't own the game even when you buy the physical copy. You're only paying for the right to play it. It's the same for CDs. You own the disc, not the music. You own the cartridge, not the game.

I don't care if cartridge, download or CD. The game is important, not the medium.

>>1659872
You don't own the game, but you own a copy. And you can do anything you want with that copy, because it belongs to you and only to you. You can give it away, lend it to a friend, sell it on eBay or anything.

You can't do that with digitally distributed games.

>>1659879
That's not entirely true. It depends on the country of course, but when you buy a physical there are laws and regulations regarding that, like that movie you buy on dvd is for you and have no right to use outside of family home use etc
it's always been there.

>>1659856
yeah, but its not even a big deal.
you get to play it like you own it.
this shit wouldn't even be a problem if people didn't choose to have so many damn babies or even just a baby. one baby is one too many, because in a world with not enough to go around every new life introduced depreciates all the ones here before it. but people care more about video games than this shit, so we'll just learn this lesson by suffering in the future when we come back in a new body instead of taking care of it now and just getting it over with.

>>1657220
I get ya. I still have many cart systems. From the 2600 on.

My favorite system (because my parents bought it when I was a kid) is the Atari 5200. I was always good at tech stuff as a kid, and could fix the controllers well (I thought I invented the glue aluminium dots to the carbon). My favorite game only needed the direction buttons, Space Dungeon.

Today, there are more controller options. I mainly use the PC Version of the N64's Makopad (pictured). This pad was awesome for the 64. For the 5200, it allows for analog, or digital input. I bought a conversion cable for it. It will plug into the 5200. A start button is wired on. If you need the keypad, you can put a controller in the cable's built in port. I also have an old Wico Stick, that is analog. It looks like a butt-plug, no lie. It works well though. I have rebuilt my own stock controllers that work 100%.


I also have the Atarimax, so I can play all the games for 5200, and A8 conversions.

I have an Intelly, and a Coleco. I think their controllers are shit too. Graphics are close.

The 5200 was the loser of that generation (much like the DC), but it was really a tight console. A little ahead of it's time too. Video games were dead soon after it's release.

Thank the Video Gods that NES put the industry back on track. Amazing machine, they got controllers right! Buttons on top, and not to the side.

The 2600 lived on until 92. It was the shit in it's day, but it became shit fast. It was hard to program. Atari was too cheap to pay for more K on the carts. Only about 25% of the CPU went to intelligence. It boggles me that it ran so long. In South America it was popular long past. Atari never really had another hit console.

>>1659986
stonedfag forgot photo.

>>1659986
>my favorite system is the Atari 5200

>>1657220
Carts rule, I agree there. The Nintendo 3DS and the PS Vita still use custom memory cards, and frankly, I'd like to see this distribution model gain more popularity. Do away with optical discs, remove the clumsy disc readers with their vulnerable moving parts from the gaming machines and replace them with fast solid state drives to mitigate load times and reduce power consumption. You would simply do a one-time installation of the game from the memory card to the SSD, and then you wouldn't have to bother with inserting anything at all. But unlike digital download, you would still hold a physical copy of the game in the form of the memory card.

>>1660002

>>1659041
There could be a genesis cart with saturn/dreamcast or PC game ports to play with an analog stick.

>>1660763
do you have any idea how fucking expensive solid state drives are? Also, do you know how slow ssd drives are compared to the ROM memory they were originally written on?

so if you were to design a ROM console today, how much memory could you pack standard on a cartridge?

are we talking gigabytes?

>>1661578
most references to "flash" memory are actually references to to RAM. You can actually install quite a bit of ram on one of the black microchips it usually comes in, the limitation is the pins, or physical metal connectors.

What your buying when you buy RAM modules for your computer are actually entire circuits, with a circuit bus that allows for over two hundred pins to connect directly to the motherboards circuit bus.

Flash memory only has something like 8 or 16 pins, so even though it has the same amount of ram, it accesses it by reading and writing to the ram much slower.

Also, the kind of ram used in flash storage media is static ram, which allows it to carry a charge after it has been disconnected from the computers power source.

the genius of console games back in the day was knowing that processors would be continually updated and become more and more powerful as time progressed, so they built their hardware configuration around the bus size of the motherboard instead of the processors speed, and used mid ranged processors to make smaller games that didn't require a lot of CPU intensive operations.

Eventually, as the processor started to lag behind, they would include math co-processors on the game itself, until the new processors would inevitably demand bigger bus sizes to shuffle more data to its peripherals and hardware, at which point they would release a new console.

>>1661589
If it weren't for the fact that external storage media and peripherals required a bus to connect to the chipsets, you could probably put everything on one little black chip.

Honestly, I don't know nobody has ever tried building a bus out of fiber optic cable before.

>>1659841
>so if your PS4/Xbox360 bites the dust, you have no choice but to pay for it again.
Pay for the game or pay for the console again? If it's the former that's untrue, at least for Playstation. Anything you buy is tied to your account just like Steam, so if your console dies, you can redownload it on a new one once you've logged in.

>>1659887
What the fuck does that have to do with video games.

>>1659887

yeah, but its not even a big deal.
>It is, maybe not for you but you don't seem to be having any standarts. you are probably fine with whatever.
you get to play it like you own it.
>unless your account get's hacked, the service stopps, the internet get's hijacked by some world-conquering government or the service excludes you for some reason (maybe because a word was communicated which was on some list)
this shit wouldn't even be a problem if people didn't choose to have so many damn babies or even just a baby.
>you are dangerously uninformed
one baby is one too many,
>do you have any idea how huge planet earth is?
because in a world with not enough to go around
>dafuq is wrong with your head?
every new life introduced depreciates all the ones here before it.
>*by an infitesimal small ammount
but people care more about video games than this shit, so we'll just learn this lesson by suffering
>oO you should discuss your suffering with an expert
in the future when we come back in a new body instead of taking care of it now and just getting it over with.

>>1659989

I've used this one fror N64 and it never quite felt right. The original N64-Controller never felt right for long because the analog-stick would become shitty easily. Soon i'll replace my old original N64 Controller with a replacement analog-stick that was modeled after the gamecube.

It doesn't really get talkted about much but i believe the Gamecube controller is superb. You can play Tony Hawk with it like a speedrunner :P

Flash Memory is becoming popular again.

Cartridges will rise again, trust me.

>>1662358
I wish so, but digital distribution is a dream come true for these companies. Only the cost of development and the relatively miniscule cost of serving software and that's it. Not to mention that digital distribution facilitates microtransactions, DLC, and also subscription costs that guarantee some money is always coming in.

Cartridges are dead, It's so sad but so true.

>>1659989
>there are 3rd party companies still producing Nintendo-style N64 controllers
>there are tons of 3rd party companies still producing those weird N64 controllers with the shrunken handles
>but nobody is making N64 controllers with the MakoPad design

>>1662812
Nobody is making gameport controllers with the makopad design either.

>>1662992
Nobodys making such saturn controllers either!

>manufacture cartridge with some flash storage inside
>install commercial PC games to said cartridge
>put a sticker on it
>sell cartridges along with USB peripheral to plug it into for a massive markup

Why has nobody thought of this yet

>>1663446
Waste of money. Easier to put repackaged games on Steam than it is to make a physical product for a drastic increase in unit price, with a negligible increase in product interest.

Cartridges will return one day, just you wait.

>>1663462

>>1662282
He meant you have to buy a new system. In the case of Nintendo, you DO have to buy all the games again, because their ass-backwards policy doesn't follow proper standards.

The bigger issue is that once the servers go down or the game is taken offline, you can't get them re-downloaded. It's already happened with stuff like MvC2 on PSN and Outrun 2 on PS3/360. Eventually it will happen to everything on all online download systems, even Steam.

>>1661559
>do you have any idea how fucking expensive solid state drives are?
70 bucks for 120 Gigs sounds pretty reasonable, plus you can always swap in a bigger unit later. And SSD technology will eventually go down in price, just like all other tech has.

>Also, do you know how slow ssd drives are compared to the ROM memory they were originally written on?
What the hell does this even mean? I've been perfectly happy with the speeds of my SSDs.