My Retron 5 arrived today!

[Markfrizb]

Can't wait to try it out! I didn't even know they were shipping them. I pre-ordered it last year!


Edit: well, I'm not impressed by the picture quality. It does display over HDMI but its not impressive at all on a big screen. Curious though in that it didn't recognize the yoshi's island hack as a Nintendo game and a message appeared asking me if I wanted to continue to load this game... I wonder if it has all the Snes and other consoles games listed in a registry and adjusts its video output accordingly. I'll run some comparisons tomorrow.

[tokumaru]

Curious though in that it didn't recognize the yoshi's island hack as a Nintendo game and a message appeared asking me if I wanted to continue to load this game... I wonder if it has all the Snes and other consoles games listed in a registry and adjusts its video output accordingly.

Evidence suggests that the Retron 5 does indeed use a database to recognize games and decide how to dump/play them. This means it absolutely sucks for playing hacks and homebrews. Firmware updates can include information about new games, but I simply don't see them wanting to do this very often, specially for hacks. Also, since it just uses emulators, the Rotron 5 would be a pretty lame development machine anyway (i.e. closer to ZSNES than to a real SNES).

The Retron 5 is also incompatible with Flash carts (PowerPaks, Everdrives, etc.), because it doesn't use the cartridges during gameplay, it just dumps the games and fires up the appropriate emulator. This makes it impossible to load new games though the cart's menu, so you're pretty much stuck to playing retail games that the maintainers of the Retron 5 want you to play.

The Retron 5 looks cool and all, but these are serious deal breakers for me... I mean, the thing is an emulator that can't even load ROMs right!

[Markfrizb]

And there is a very noticeable lag from controls to action on the screen.

The picture is very bright and crisp but too crisp... To the point of being too blocky. Some pixel smoothing or blending would make it look better IMO...

Pic is on my 42" NEC monitor.
The blocky one is from retron5 hdmi (bottom pic)
Other pic is from snes console with RGB
I'm sure a smaller monitor would probably look better also...

[tokumaru]

The RGB SNES looks so much better! Doesn't the Retron 5 offer any filtering options?

[tepples]

I've read reviews mentioning filters. But I imagine that antialiased edges that are just a few degrees off from horizontal or vertical, such as the side of Cranky's sign, trip up filters that are designed for hard edges between large areas of the same color. What does xBRZ do to that world map?

[Markfrizb]

There is a scan line generator as an option...
I'll have to look for other filters
I took some better pics with tripod this time
Top pic is rgb

I think the rgb pic is better in that it blends the pixels more-- softens the look but the hdmi does have crisper colors...

[koitsu]

DKC is probably the worst game to "test" on that system. The graphics in that game are absolutely disgusting/horrible (IMO -- I've hated that game for years because of it. I really don't like "pre-rendered" (so-to-speak) 3D on 2D consoles), and the mish-mash of colours and pre-anti-aliased edges make sharpness difficult to discern.

That said, the top picture (from your NEC) has too much red tint in comparison to the Retron 5 -- however, what Nintendo/Rare actually intended visually is what matters, so for all I know that's how it really should look. Or your NEC is just turning up the red too much when hooked up to a native SNES + RGB cable.

Something more amusing would be, say, blargg's palette demo for the NES/Famicom, or if there's some kind of palette test/generator ROM for the SNES/SFC (maybe the Nintendo console test ROMs?) then that'd be worth trying too.

The one game I always use for general "visual testing" because it looks stunning is Actraiser, specifically the first fighting stage, or alternately Gradius 3. I know what it looks like on a SNES/SFC with an RGB hookup + RGB monitor, and I still have my Nintendo Power magazines which show the graphics (also in RGB, and with scanlines) as well.

IMO, that Retron 5 device looks purely, plain and simple, as a "convenience" device, as in "it supports lots of consoles and carts, does HDMI for easily hooking up to present-day TVs", but everything I keep seeing/reading seems to indicate wonky features where the driving force of the developers/inventors was "make it work on present TV sets" -- almost as if the dudes who made it weren't even around in classic console days and think that visual differences (like the ones you show in pictures) are an improvement.

And no, I don't like scanlines on non-scanline displays (i.e. LCDs); they look fine on CRTs, but the "fake scanline" look through software/whatever looks like total shit.

The visual quality of the results are disappointing (to me); if the SNES/SFC looks like that then I'm totally afraid to know what the NES/Famicom output looks like.

So yeah, I see this thing as purely a convenience device, and I think that's cool + great, but classic consoles are exactly why I own a small 13" CRT Sony WEGA monitor with composite + RF hookups...

[whicker]

And there is a very noticeable lag from controls to action on the screen.

Pic is on my 42" NEC monitor.

I understand you said monitor.
but are you 100% sure it's in "just scan" or "game" mode for the input# you're using?

HDMI lag is a real thing, and it is annoying have to base purchasing decisions around it.

[Markfrizb]

I'll check my monitor settings and get back. I also have the snes test cartridge I'll run in it soon too

[Bregalad]

DKC is probably the worst game to "test" on that system. The graphics in that game are absolutely disgusting/horrible (IMO -- I've hated that game for years because of it. I really don't like "pre-rendered" (so-to-speak) 3D on 2D consoles), and the mish-mash of colours and pre-anti-aliased edges make sharpness difficult to discern.

To be honest on the SNES it's ok, although it sure hasn't aged as well as "real" 2D games, it's still ok. Look at the GB or GBC or pirate Famicom downscaled graphics from Donkey Kong Country, now THOSE are absolutely horrendous.

[Markfrizb]

Since this is emulation based, I wonder if some of the hacks that won't run on real HW will run on this beast.
Anyone have any suggestions of what I could try?
I agree with the earlier post... It's a good unit for a test station for the various carts, but for playing the games, I'm sticking with old faithful

[tepples]

Hacks would probably say unknown cart. If you want hacks, play an emulator on a Raspberry Pi.

[tokumaru]

To be honest on the SNES it's ok, although it sure hasn't aged as well as "real" 2D games, it's still ok.

I really like the DKC games on the SNES, they are certainly among my favorites for the system, but I have to agree that the graphics haven't aged very well. It would be interesting if a competent pixel artist hacked one of those games to use actual 2D graphics instead of the pre-rendered 3D stuff.

[tokumaru]

I agree with the earlier post... It's a good unit for a test station for the various carts, but for playing the games, I'm sticking with old faithful

Shouldn't that be the other way around? Why would you test stuff on a console that can barely recognize carts? As I see it, the only advantages of the Retron 5 are the slots for different types of carts (meaning you don't need to have a bunch of retro consoles plugged in) and the HDMI output, which make it pretty convenient for playing games in your living room. Unless the cart you want to play is a homebrew, bootleg, or any other kind of obscure cart.

[tepples]

I wonder if the art style of DKC is why Yoshi's Island was delayed. I remember an article in Nintendo Power stating it was delayed for a graphical overhaul, to provide the hand-drawn look with which we're familiar. Perhaps that was Nintendo's fallback in case the market didn't take to Advanced Computer Modeling.