Retro Game Bubble - Will it grow, decline, or finally pop?

[Sikleflaming]

Moving on, though, what point does the differences in experience have to do with driving up the market on games such as Road Runner's Death Valley Rally or Jurassic Park?

I would think it'd make them more sought after, but imo, it's not affecting this bubble either way.

Oh I was never trying to argue that that was a driving force in the market, I agree wholeheartedly that collectors rather than people just trying to play games are far and away the dominant force in the market. All I'm trying to argue is that there are still some games that don't emulate perfectly, and, given that, there is still justification for someone to buy a game for a reason other than collecting (and there the one's the bubble is hurting most). I'm also not trying to imply that's me at all, I collectard what I want to own (honestly too much) and emulate the rest.

https://www.audioauthority.com/product_details/9A60A

The key is to get a VGA --> component transcoder and not a scaler. You don't want to modify the image at all.

Scalers are crap because they'll change the frequency/resolution. So basically, any decent 480p TV with component inputs, a transcoder like that one, and GroovyMAME, and you can play pretty much any game on a CRT at its native resolution and refresh rate.

Does this work on 720p CRTs? I've got a weird Sony something or other that's 720p native but it's still a CRT, and most of the games I play on it I just plug into the VGA and they don't look quite right.

 

[Cernex]

I thought the decline on the collector's market was starting to decline already after the failure to sell Earthbound at the current price (I forget which one) in some of the lastest retro gaming conventions and such.

I mean, sure, it will take longer for some consoles compared to others, but I think the heyday of the bubble is long gone, if you ask me.

 

[bulbousbeard]

Does this work on 720p CRTs? I've got a weird Sony something or other that's 720p native but it's still a CRT, and most of the games I play on it I just plug into the VGA and they don't look quite right.

It depends on the resolution/refresh rate you're running at. If you've got a CRT with a VGA port and it outputs 640x480 or something, that's obviously not going to match an old 15khz game's resolution. You need GroovyMAME/CRTEmudriver to get your PC to output the original resolution/frequency for the games.

Still though, HDTVs won't look as good as a native 480p CRT when it comes to old games regardless. Really, $20 27" Sony TVs are a dime a dozen on Craigslist. The transcoder is more expensive than the TV.

 

[fucked_king]

Not really. SNES, Genesis, and Neo Geo are done deals. If you use a CRT monitor emulation setup with the right software configuration, it's indistinguishable at this point. PS1 and Saturn emulation are still crap, though.

Not that I've been able to spot the difference, but the MAME source still lists the following problems for Neo Geo emulation:

* Fatal Fury 3 crashes during the ending - this doesn't occur if the language is set to Japanese, maybe the English endings are incomplete / buggy?
* Graphical Glitches caused by incorrect timing? - Some raster effects are imperfect (off by a couple of lines)
* 68000 waitstates on ROM region access, determined by jumpers on cart (garou train stage 3 background bug is probably related to this)

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/neogeo.cpp

I think the NeoSD thread also listed a couple differences between emulation and real hardware. Plus later titles like the Knight's Chance and NGEV games (aside from Last Hope) aren't playable at all without real hardware.

 

[MattBlah]

i pretty much chose the Saturn to be my personal console. I can't afford to collect a lot of stuff, so everything I have is either given to me or its very personal or I saved up for it for that reason. I have a humble little Saturn collection but I love all the games and I love the stories behind getting some of the games, particularly thanks to some of you guys here on the forum. I like to make sure they are nice and have spine cards if possible but I sure as hell love playing them. One of my weirder items is the Saturn port of Doom. I knew it was a pile of shit before I even bought it but I couldn't justify not owning one of my favorite games of all time for my chosen console. And believe it or not I enjoy playing it at night sometimes! Especially if I have a friend over.

Yep, this is my Dreamcast. I've never been without a Dreamcast, but I just have the games I play. I only have about 10 games for it, but it's always there. Sometimes I add a game, sometimes I get ride of a game, but it's a console I love to play. I've never collected for it seriously.

 

[bulbousbeard]

Not that I've been able to spot the difference, but the MAME source still lists the following problems for Neo Geo emulation:

* Fatal Fury 3 crashes during the ending - this doesn't occur if the language is set to Japanese, maybe the English endings are incomplete / buggy?
* Graphical Glitches caused by incorrect timing? - Some raster effects are imperfect (off by a couple of lines)
* 68000 waitstates on ROM region access, determined by jumpers on cart (garou train stage 3 background bug is probably related to this)

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/neogeo.cpp

I think the NeoSD thread also listed a couple differences between emulation and real hardware. Plus later titles like the Knight's Chance and NGEV games (aside from Last Hope) aren't playable at all without real hardware.

Any of those problems can be worked around by using a build of MAME with the Neo Geo CPU underclocked.

 

[Sikleflaming]

I thought the decline on the collector's market was starting to decline already after the failure to sell Earthbound at the current price (I forget which one) in some of the lastest retro gaming conventions and such.

I mean, sure, it will take longer for some consoles compared to others, but I think the heyday of the bubble is long gone, if you ask me.

Earthbound has always been one of the most egregious examples of overvaluing something imo. It's super emulatable, it's on the nintendo Eshop, and at any time there's like 5 up on ebay so it's not like it's rare at all, and yet it regularly sells for like $180ish.

It might be an indication of a bubble burst but honestly I think it's more likely that people have just kind of realized that earthbound in particular isn't worth nearly as much as people pay for it

 

[greedostick]

Earthbound has always been one of the most egregious examples of overvaluing something imo. It's super emulatable, it's on the nintendo Eshop, and at any time there's like 5 up on ebay so it's not like it's rare at all, and yet it regularly sells for like $180ish.

It might be an indication of a bubble burst but honestly I think it's more likely that people have just kind of realized that earthbound in particular isn't worth nearly as much as people pay for it

More like 50 loose copies on ebay everyday. Plus uncut/restored is the better version

 

[fucked_king]

Any of those problems can be worked around by using a build of MAME with the Neo Geo CPU underclocked.

Interesting. I would not have expected that to work so well.

Does lowering the clock speed have any other side effects? When I've overclocked CPU speeds in MAME I've had a number of games freeze.