levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Put them in your Retrode, which you can plug in to one of the USB ports.
RetroStone
- Thread starter pmprog
- Start date
rygD
Nihilistic Mystic
Not good enough for me. I will stick with real GBs and my Pandora.
ible
professional vim user
there is a glitch in my forum experience that this thread is always unread, and that rygD posted the last thing to it, despite Eight Bit being the last thing i can read. i feel like it's groundhog's day every time i click on this thread. i have to do something.
[edit] ok that worked. i wasn't able to navigate to the second page for some reason.
[edit] ok that worked. i wasn't able to navigate to the second page for some reason.
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Yeah, it was showing RygD's post as last, but I couldn't see the second page when I tried to last night. Your post seems to have got the forum software out of the doldrums though.
rygD
Nihilistic Mystic
May be my fault. I accidentally triple posted and deleted the last two. Sorry for any inconveniences.
I actually have one of these on order was in the early bird que around 100 will write up my review here when i get it.
[doublepost=1523073452,1523073186][/doublepost]It plays more than just psone games it will do most of what retropie supports .
[doublepost=1523073452,1523073186][/doublepost]It plays more than just psone games it will do most of what retropie supports .
pmprog
DNF (Did Not Finish)
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2011
- Messages
- 4,150
Take it that you're not very impressed then? How does the hardware feel?
ZXDunny
Deep avatar
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 2,585
well, first let's get one thing out the way - this was about £130 for a device that's pretty much a pi3 in a DMG gameboy case. Now, around the web a custom Gameboy with new screen and internals (PiZero usually) runs between £350 to £400 and they're in great demand so this is an absolute steal.
And it's actually very good, but has some flaws. I shall list them:
The case is solid, very well put together and looks pretty great but aesthetically it's a tad short vertically; the original GameBoy was a little taller. As such it feels a tiny bit "top-heavy" such that it would fall forwards out of your hands. The controls are in the same place, so there's not a lot of room for your palms to grip it at the bottom. I would have preferred it to be basically a DMG case, which would have left room for a bigger battery and maybe an analogue stick too. Not that there's anything wrong with the battery - I get 4 to 5 hours even running N64/PS1 games so it's fine. But more would have been nice, and a bigger batter might have given it more heft.
The controls are also fine. The buttons are very good, better than the Pandora's. The DPad however is not. Firstly it is very "clicky" and needs quite a lot of force especially in the left direction. Secondly it's recessed into a cross-shape cutout in the case, which makes diagonals a little tricky until you get used to it. The read-facing shoulder buttons are badly placed - they would be fine if the case were taller as mentioned above, as you wouldn't be clawing your fingers to get to them. But again, you can get used to it (I have).
The software is Ok.. Obviously the creator of the 'Stone has no control over it, but it really lacks polish especially when it comes to actually viewing game lists and terminals etc.
Which brings me to my last gripe: The screen. It's... awesome for gaming, awful (REALLY awful) for maintenance/terminal work. It's a 320x240 LCD connected via Composite. For gaming, that's neat and retro-looking as you get CRT-like artefacts and most older games were created to be viewed on pretty crappy portables so there's no issue. For games that were intended to run on their own LCD display (GBA et al) then text can become a little hard to read. I found text in Ms PacMan Maze Madness virtually impossible to read.
And for maintenance work - RetrorangePi, the distro in question, demands a minimum of a 640x480 display, and so is filtered down to 320x240. That's not a big deal for the main system as you can use a theme with a larger font, but it's hell at the command line.
Fortunately it does have HDMI out, so using that on a nice HD display with a USB keyboard and mouse is the way to get things done.
I actually love it. Obviously it's massively faster than my Pandora, and small quibbles with the form factor and screen aside I've been playing it for about a week non-stop. And it plays everything up to and including N64/PS1 (and loads of Arcades, natch) without even breaking a sweat.
And it's actually very good, but has some flaws. I shall list them:
The case is solid, very well put together and looks pretty great but aesthetically it's a tad short vertically; the original GameBoy was a little taller. As such it feels a tiny bit "top-heavy" such that it would fall forwards out of your hands. The controls are in the same place, so there's not a lot of room for your palms to grip it at the bottom. I would have preferred it to be basically a DMG case, which would have left room for a bigger battery and maybe an analogue stick too. Not that there's anything wrong with the battery - I get 4 to 5 hours even running N64/PS1 games so it's fine. But more would have been nice, and a bigger batter might have given it more heft.
The controls are also fine. The buttons are very good, better than the Pandora's. The DPad however is not. Firstly it is very "clicky" and needs quite a lot of force especially in the left direction. Secondly it's recessed into a cross-shape cutout in the case, which makes diagonals a little tricky until you get used to it. The read-facing shoulder buttons are badly placed - they would be fine if the case were taller as mentioned above, as you wouldn't be clawing your fingers to get to them. But again, you can get used to it (I have).
The software is Ok.. Obviously the creator of the 'Stone has no control over it, but it really lacks polish especially when it comes to actually viewing game lists and terminals etc.
Which brings me to my last gripe: The screen. It's... awesome for gaming, awful (REALLY awful) for maintenance/terminal work. It's a 320x240 LCD connected via Composite. For gaming, that's neat and retro-looking as you get CRT-like artefacts and most older games were created to be viewed on pretty crappy portables so there's no issue. For games that were intended to run on their own LCD display (GBA et al) then text can become a little hard to read. I found text in Ms PacMan Maze Madness virtually impossible to read.
And for maintenance work - RetrorangePi, the distro in question, demands a minimum of a 640x480 display, and so is filtered down to 320x240. That's not a big deal for the main system as you can use a theme with a larger font, but it's hell at the command line.
Fortunately it does have HDMI out, so using that on a nice HD display with a USB keyboard and mouse is the way to get things done.
I actually love it. Obviously it's massively faster than my Pandora, and small quibbles with the form factor and screen aside I've been playing it for about a week non-stop. And it plays everything up to and including N64/PS1 (and loads of Arcades, natch) without even breaking a sweat.
Necroing a post!
I'm looking at picking one of these up this weekend. Based on reviews that I've seen, I would like to see a revision of this that addresses the following:
* Higher resolution screen (640x480 minimum). This should take care of a lot of legibility issues that may arise, as well as provide somewhat better and crisper displays for games.
* Form factor tweak, increasing the length of the device. This would give it more room for some control tweaks.
* Do away with the styling on the front where the controls are. Keep them flush to the top of the case, and keep the D-pad as short as possible from the top of the pad to the nub where it rocks on the PCB to ensure the D-pad doesn't feel 'squishy'. I'm not sure if the case face design was asthetic or merely a design intended to resolve some issues with depth of the screen vs the depth of the controls, but if it is then possibly consider maybe a revision that looks more like a TurboExpress. I don't think any of us will complain if the screen protrudes above the case a little bit. Maybe even could engineer in a slight bit of a tilt towards the user. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboExpress
* Stretch the shoulder buttons on the back into ovoids. This would give more room for the fingers to press the shoulder buttons.
Most of these changes would be cosmetic I feel, except for possibly the screen. But other than that, I'm looking forward to purchasing my Retrostone this Friday!
I'm looking at picking one of these up this weekend. Based on reviews that I've seen, I would like to see a revision of this that addresses the following:
* Higher resolution screen (640x480 minimum). This should take care of a lot of legibility issues that may arise, as well as provide somewhat better and crisper displays for games.
* Form factor tweak, increasing the length of the device. This would give it more room for some control tweaks.
* Do away with the styling on the front where the controls are. Keep them flush to the top of the case, and keep the D-pad as short as possible from the top of the pad to the nub where it rocks on the PCB to ensure the D-pad doesn't feel 'squishy'. I'm not sure if the case face design was asthetic or merely a design intended to resolve some issues with depth of the screen vs the depth of the controls, but if it is then possibly consider maybe a revision that looks more like a TurboExpress. I don't think any of us will complain if the screen protrudes above the case a little bit. Maybe even could engineer in a slight bit of a tilt towards the user. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboExpress
* Stretch the shoulder buttons on the back into ovoids. This would give more room for the fingers to press the shoulder buttons.
Most of these changes would be cosmetic I feel, except for possibly the screen. But other than that, I'm looking forward to purchasing my Retrostone this Friday!
pmprog
DNF (Did Not Finish)
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2011
- Messages
- 4,150
Oooh, nice. I've been looking around a gameboy zeros again after getting a bit frustrated with the ODroid-Go. Do you know when it's due to start?
ZXDunny
Deep avatar
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 2,585
Not yet, but I've raised my concerns with the current build (detailed above, largely) with the creator. I'll post here when the KS gets going.
In the meantime....
These are very, very reasonable - I've a couple of online friends that have them - and nicely priced. Don't worry about the money-off offer, they re-apply it when it runs out.
In the meantime....
These are very, very reasonable - I've a couple of online friends that have them - and nicely priced. Don't worry about the money-off offer, they re-apply it when it runs out.
Chip
[Insert Custom Title Here]
Without owning one, I completely agree with your assessment above. Those issues are why I didn't get one when the kickstarter was active.
It needs to be a bit taller, the rear buttons need to be repositioned, and the dpad needs to be flush. I could live with the QVGA panel, but it should at least be driven digitally. Ideally, they should ditch three of the four USB ports, swap the ethernet for wifi, and make the whole thing a bit thinner. I mean honestly, as unlikely as it is to ever have more than two people playing at once, you could just use a $5 hub if you really needed that functionality. There should be plenty of space for a larger battery in a taller-but-thinner case.
If they address these issues, I'd grab one (even at a higher price) in a heartbeat.
It needs to be a bit taller, the rear buttons need to be repositioned, and the dpad needs to be flush. I could live with the QVGA panel, but it should at least be driven digitally. Ideally, they should ditch three of the four USB ports, swap the ethernet for wifi, and make the whole thing a bit thinner. I mean honestly, as unlikely as it is to ever have more than two people playing at once, you could just use a $5 hub if you really needed that functionality. There should be plenty of space for a larger battery in a taller-but-thinner case.
If they address these issues, I'd grab one (even at a higher price) in a heartbeat.
pmprog
DNF (Did Not Finish)
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2011
- Messages
- 4,150
Must admit, the 6 face buttons look good for me. Might have to get one
Whilst we're accustomed to that now, the old machines it emulates didn't have digital displays, so to me, picking analogue makes sense from that point
ZXDunny
Deep avatar
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 2,585
Indeed, some of the games - the older 8/16 bit stuff - looks excellent. But when you get to later stuff that expects a full PAL resolution, it gets resampled down and becomes unreadable. Higher resolution with composite connection might actually do the trick, IMO.
I've wondered if changing some settings might allow a higher resolution signal be sent through composite, since I've had many things run composite at 640x480 and they were fine, and some with 800x565 (Or close to 800x600) but the actual resolution of the screen itself may not be able to support it. The chip used for composite encoding may only support a 320x200 resolution as well, but I'm going to play with mine a bit to see what I can do with it in that regard. Someone did do a major mod to drive the screen using the HDMI output (Though they lose the port) but that is a far larger modification that I'm not willing to undertake. But if the screen chosen can support at LEAST 640x480, and the signal sent is sufficient to drive that resolution with no effect on gameplay, that would be ideal. There are many Raspberry Pi screens that do this right from the GPIO outputs. I realize this board is not specifically a RPI3 but an H3 variant of OrangePi, but the idea may not be that far off. Hopefully it would be addressed in the new KS. But I don't think I'm going to wait that long.
Similar threads
