Hello all. t0x1c here (yes, that's right - one and the same of EC fame)! I just dropped by to have a gander at the old CA board here at RG. Still a few familiar names bobbin' to the surface I see (howdy to my old friends and nemesi)!

Amazing how things have changed. What a great following there once was surrounding emulation - for all the good and the bad, it sure was fun. Anyhow, just a shout to wish well all my peeps, the sheepz and the retro-geeks! You guys were all a part of an interesting time.

Retrogaming sure has come alive in new ways. So many collector shops have opened up near me. And the prices for all those old carts and gear just keeps going up and up! Guess we were all just ahead of our time. =P

Got myself one of those highly criticized NeoGeoX Gold units for xMas. Got 'er all modded up and playing whatever I want her to play! Pretty sweet IMHO ... regardless of the trash talk about the NGX unit. So there haters! And my arcade cab The 'Mame-A-Tron' is still fully functioning and the talk of everyone who comes to the house!

Meanwhile we all continue to h4xx0rz all that comes our way to make the world a better place!

Happy new year EmuFolk wherever you may be!

-t0x1cCr33p-

It's a bummer seeing the community turn into what it is nowadays. There's all sorts of smaller groups here and there on other sites revolving around various aspects of emulation (PS2 and PSP/GC and Wii/etc), but there's nothing quite as solid as the retrogaming communities from the late 90s.

Maybe it's just because I'm older now and maybe the communities today are the same as they were then, but I have a real difficult time clicking with any of them and generally just lurk a bit here and there. Whereas I used to love to keep up with all of the dev blogs and forums, now I just grab nightlies from emucr every so often and focus on playing through the backlog of crap I've accumulated over the years.

But man, is it just me or are the widescreen patches for PCSX2 about the coolest damn thing to happen since higher internal resolutions in ePSXe?

Wow - I'm shocked to see a response at all in this ghost town! Cheers!

I know what you mean to some extent. For me there came a time (early 2000's) where the 'emulation community' changed. I tried to come to peace with those changes but found myself not really enjoying it like I had all those years prior. I can't attribute it to the n00bz or the kiddies or anything specific really. I finally grew tired and went completely MIA from my online emu-peeps. I found new pursuits (like geocaching, for instance) and otherwise just went back to playing. At least that never stopped (but now, in addition to Retrogaming, I play Ingress (join the Resistance) avidly and have more consoles and PC's than I know what to do with! But I won't forget the old time emulation crowd. It was really something unique with some strikingly interesting and insightful people.

I haven't ever played much with PSX/PS2 emulation really, I've only dabbled a wee bit. I've heavily used my (physical) collections of those platforms (of which the PS2 is still hooked up and used regularly - most recently to play FinalFantasy games!). I also have an N64 hooked up (I've been playing my old RareWare carts) - N64 emulation was still very poor when I quit following '7#3 sk3n3' come to think of it.

Anyhow, thanks for the nice response! I'll try to remember to check back and see who else (if anyone) comes out to say hello...

Hello there, Tox!! Yeah, there's really not much going on here anymore. We've all moved to Facebook but sometimes post here. Hope all is well!! I rarely game anymore but I watch a lot of people on Youtube battling through old and new games and some surprisingly good hacks!! If you want, I can hook you up with some of the channels I subscribe to. Take care!!

> Hello all. t0x1c here (yes, that's right - one and the same of EC fame)! I
> just dropped by to have a gander at the old CA board here at RG. Still a few
> familiar names bobbin' to the surface I see (howdy to my old friends and
> nemesi)!
>
> Amazing how things have changed. What a great following there once was
> surrounding emulation - for all the good and the bad, it sure was fun. Anyhow,
> just a shout to wish well all my peeps, the sheepz and the retro-geeks! You
> guys were all a part of an interesting time.
>
> Retrogaming sure has come alive in new ways. So many collector shops have
> opened up near me. And the prices for all those old carts and gear just keeps
> going up and up! Guess we were all just ahead of our time. =P
>
> Got myself one of those highly criticized NeoGeoX Gold units for xMas. Got 'er
> all modded up and playing whatever I want her to play! Pretty sweet IMHO ...
> regardless of the trash talk about the NGX unit. So there haters! And my
> arcade cab The 'Mame-A-Tron' is still fully functioning and the talk of everyone
> who comes to the house!
>
> Meanwhile we all continue to h4xx0rz all that comes our way to make the world a
> better place!
>
> Happy new year EmuFolk wherever you may be!
>
> -t0x1cCr33p-
>

Happy New Year!

Glad folks still post around here because I'm probably too old fashion or tinfoil hat to hang out on FB.

I also bought an NGX for Xmas, one year ago, but still haven't unpacked it: it's true that all the hate talk about it put me off and I hesitate to keep it packed and make a few buck selling it later.

I think there would be a lot to talk about about all the emulators developed on Android and iOS: they're all pretty much unuseable using touch screen, but from the moment get a good controller, then the real fun begins!

For playing MAME at home, the iCade mini arcade cabinet works great with an Android tablet and MAME4All. It's very well built and feels pretty close to the real arcade cabinets.

For my long train commutes I got myself a NES30 controller from 8Bitdo which is pure awesomeness when playing DraStic (perfect NDS emulation on most recent phones), NES.emu or Snes9x EX+.

If you own a PS3 with a spare Sixaxis/Dualshock 3 controller, there are also several interesting solutions to attach your phone to the controller, like for example the one shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xclxwQ65qEY

If you have a recent, quad-core or higher phone, you can even check out emulators for more modern platforms like Reicast (DreamCast) or PPSSPP (PSP) which show surprisingly good results.

Emulation is better than ever but the communities have gone away. Smartphones and social media are keeping the n00bs busy, so only devs and tech geeks like us remain.
Even that can go away... there was a big dev community for Gamepark/GPH machines (Linux handhelds, precursors to the NeoGeoX) but it disappeared as devs left for Android/iOS.

From there I've went to retro hardware after I've found a discarded NeoGeo MVS and restored it.
It made me chuckle to send paypal to Razoola to get a Universe BIOS chip :-) (which works great btw).

Nowadays I'm hacking around with FPGAs running clones of old hardware, which is pretty neat in my book as it feels like running the real thing.
(compatibility is worse than emulators, but it's fun to see it progress)



[download a life]

I'm really looking forward to seeing where the FPGA stuff goes over time, but I'm fucking loving that I can play PS2 and PSP games on a $500 laptop while I'm on the road. Crazy how active both PCSX2 and PPSSPP are these days and Dolphin isn't fucking around either (the performance gains in the last year have been incredible).

Shame we never got an Xbox emulator, but I guess that's what happens when there's not much overlap between emu nerds and the target demographic of a bulk of the exclusives (damn shame, because Midtown Madness 3 and Rallisport Challenge 2 are THE SHIT)

I ignored PS2 emulation for long; tried it the other day with FF X and Nocturne, and was blown away at how much I could improve the graphics. The backlog of stuff to do just keeps growing...


[download a life]

> I ignored PS2 emulation for long; tried it the other day with FF X and Nocturne,
> and was blown away at how much I could improve the graphics. The backlog of
> stuff to do just keeps growing...
>
>
> [download a life]
>

Most of the time I don't even bother playing with the hardware renderer and just do everything in software. Even like that, the games look incredible (you can double the internal res, I believe) and the smoother framerate in some games really makes them a lot more playable (hello, GTA).

I don't even have my PS2 hooked up anymore because of how solid the compatibility has gotten.

...and seriously. Widescreen patches are THE SHIT.

Craterface! Hey there old friend! =) good to see you still around. Maybe I should keep peeking in here. Friendface huh? /shudder

You know, I do love emulation and toy with it, but so many things to do and so little time. The NGX kinda brought me back around to toying with emulation for the first time in quite a while (but man, building that adaptor card is difficult). It's a toy, and much better can be had ... But for the price it makes such a diverse system I can use on the tube (as if it were still a CRT) or on the go. Mostly it's just fun to play with!

Speaking of dead scenes (and one that crosses over with emulation frequently), even the console hacking scene is a hollow shell of its former self. Homebrew seems to chug along somewhat - There's still some cool independent development going on for sure!

I have been playing with some fun romhacks. I'd be quite interested an any specific romhacks you recommend... =)

-t0x-