The retro thread

[BOOMY]

rise of the robots combo video plz, candy

[Candy Arse]

haha easily done. Would you prefer it on 3DO or Mega Drive?

[mech]

This is amazing.

[Yoshi Sonic]

Everyone knows that the Amiga version is the original. The rest were ports!

[t0mby]

This is amazing.

Fucken hell. Surely if anyone bought RotR they could've sued them? '5 Round bouts are more than just kick and punch' and 'Full 360 degree movement' not forgetting 'The first combat game to use Artificial Intelligence' Mwahahahaha.

[emptyvessel]

Jackpot. Found the YouTube channel of the guy with the awesome retro gaming cabinet:

http://www.youtube.com/user/16bitghost" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He has a series of three videos where he goes through the setup of his system. Short answer to our earlier questions, all the systems are hooked up via a massive rats nest of cable behind the unit. He uses four automated switches by Atlona and they go straight into the TV. He didn't explicitly mention it, but I can't see a specific upscaler in the setup so he's using the inbuilt TV upscaler. Given it's a similar Sony TV to what I've got, I'd be concerned with jaggies and input lag just using a raw TV upscaler.

Power goes through a surge protector designed for a home theatre setup, turning that on turns on all the lighting and all the consoles bar a couple. The lights? Just Christmas lights that he managed to hide with an extra piece of wood as the shelf is home made. Also, the console shelf widths are different, with narrower shelves at the side and wider at the centre.

A couple of the consoles are a bit unique too, the Neo Geo CD is actually a Neo Geo MVS arcade board custom modded and jammed into the NGCD case. The NES is actually a PC in a NES case

The Atlona switches looked interesting as they support automatic switching, but looking at the site they seem to be discontinued and replaced with non-automated ones. Booo.

[Candy Arse]

This guy is now my hero. An amazing setup and I really need a switching solution like this.

[Candy Arse]

Oh wow the picture quality of the old games on his LCD is fucking incredible.

[emptyvessel]

I haven't been through all his videos, but from the way he was talking I assume he's done component/RGB mods on all consoles that support it which would make life nicer on a LCD. However in the 3 part video on the unit itself, he was demonstrating stuff hooked up via S-Video and it looked really good. Maybe a low quality YouTube video hid the jaggies?

[Candy Arse]

EV not sure if we've had this discussion but - what AV switchers do you use? I'm currently trawling Ebay.

[Shaneus]

That dude has a kid? Luckiest kid EVER.

And he chooses to play the 360

[emptyvessel]

Ok, so the switcher I use.

Fortunately I don't have anything set up currently, so I can take photos of it unencumbered by cables.

The switcher is a Joytech one (front view) that I picked up in the PS2/XBox/GC/DC generation from EB Games (I think).

From the back you can see four input sections, each with S-Video, Composite, Optical In and a SCART connector. On the far right I've plugged in one of my Component-to-SCART adaptors (better view here) to give an idea of how it works in practice. The adaptors work fine, although one has the colours on the ports swapped for some ungodly reason (they were cheap from Jaycar)

When I had it properly set up, with a bit of creative wiring you could run two consoles per Input. However I also used a few of these to expand out the number of consoles I could run and make it easier to swap on the fly. They tended to degrade the image a lot though, so I'm not intending on using them in the new setup. In my last place I really only had room for four consoles set up, and they either went through the Joytech switcher or I plugged them in directly to the front ports on the TV.

When I sit down and plan out what consoles I want displayed and connected (8+), I'll have to map out the wiring and see whether this switcher will support it. I get the entertainment unit this weekend and I intend to get the two DVD shelves to go on top of it on Saturday. After that, it'll probably take me a few weeks to get everything set up. I also need to finally move a lot of SNES, N64 and Gameboy game boxes (all in near mint condition, as they're my original purchases) down from my parents place now I have the space to store them.

[emptyvessel]

I've got the entertainment unit now (courtesy of Mech) and have started working out where I want to put my consoles. Having a look at it, it's not going to be as simple as I thought as the unit is long, and as soon as I put the game storage shelves on top of it, it won't be easily movable. Because of that, I need to ensure that each "section" has several power sources and all the video sources located right there, so when I need to swap consoles I just need to plug them in where they go into the entertainment unit, rather than having to run cables along the back of the unit, into the back of the TV stand (which will be impossible once there are more shelves sitting on top.

I also realised that pretty much all the consoles I'll have connected are (currently) composite or S-Video. Which means to provide an input source at each slot in the entertainment unit, I need splitters for both of those. I'm hooking up my XBox and PS2 and putting them in the tv cabinet itself, but I'll also have to add splitters as I want both of them going in one input.

Going to have to draw a diagram and then head to Jaycar for a metric arseload of parts. Cable management is something I'll have to get absolutely perfect first time, as once it's in, it'll be a nightmare to move.

Also, speaking of upscaling for HDTVs, this following site is possible the best reference for all the fancy stuff you can get. If and when my CRT dies, I'll be investing in a good upscaler so I can retro game on a HTDV properly.

http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Candy Arse]

That's a fantastic site.

Check this out - http://video.heraldsun.com.au/224486631 ... ighlights2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jesus.

[emptyvessel]

Have been doing a bit of work every night and over this weekend on the retro room.

More pics and stuff when the room is finished, but here's an almost completed main gameplay and display setup:



Main switchbox underneath the TV, feeding into a "spine" of svid and AV cables encased in conduit. Each section horizontally (ie the four sections) has another four port switcher located on the bottom shelf behind the consoles, so all the consoles jack in there and can be swapped in and out without shifting the unit. Set the main switchbox from 1 to 4, and then the switcher in that section to whatever console you want. A second conduit runs the power, there are individual 4 port powerboards in each section, and they all feed back into a main powerboard. Each board can be turned off and on individually so as not to waste power and overload the single powerpoint ( ) that it runs off.

Every console in the bottom unit (ie not the row with the Virtual Boy) is plugged in and playable with a few switch changes.

Overall it looks awesome. The gaps in the shelves are there waiting for more game boxes to be retrieved from my parents place where they've been in storage. There are a few things I'm not happy about though. The surround cable isn't in conduit so it looks a little rats-nesty, and I calculated the cable lengths to complete precision but it means that I can't easily pull the main switcher out to check things without stuff falling out. I've found the easiest way to do it is to take down the shelf in the tv unit. Also I miscalculated connections and I'm short a pair of sound AV ports for the Gamecube (to be put under the TV) so I'll need a few splitter cables there. Finally, I'd much prefer to have automatic switch boxes in the console unit itself as it's a bit annoying to reach in to change the active console, but I can't find anywhere that does automatic switchers anymore. I thought of soldering my own cable split boxes but wasn't confident that I could do it without degrading the signal further.

Next steps are reconfiguring two Ikea CD towers to display my handhelds, and then work out what the hell to do with all the rest of my stuff (ie loose games, all the other consoles, boxes, peripherals, etc). Had a few ideas about structuring the wardrobe to cover it but now I need to rethink a bit.

Has been a fun exercise though, and I'm loving how it's turned out so-far.

Thanks to Mech as well. The main console unit is one he sold me, and you can't actually buy it anymore so I was rapt when I saw what it was and saw that it would fit two dvd shelves on top of it perfectly. Looks like it was built that way.

[Shaneus]

Looks like that main unit is sagging a little though? Might want to reinforce it at the bottom somehow. Otherwise, great job! _b

[emptyvessel]

I didn't really notice a massive bow in it until I put the shelves on top, and then saw how much of an angle they were on. Used some wood to chock up the center of the beam that runs underneath the unit, and got it pretty much flat according to a spirit level. There's still about half a centimetre of difference between the base of the shelves and the top, but that's probably the best I'll be able to get it.

There's about 30cm of the beam underneath that's supported in the center of the unit with a chock, so it should be ok for the lifetime of this setup.

[Shaneus]

So long as you noticed then! I wasn't sure if you'd picked up on it or not, but it's obvious looking at that pic... it'd never need to be perfect, but it should be better than how it appears in that picture

[emptyvessel]

Pfft. You should have seen it before I chocked it up. There was easily 3cm difference between the bottom of the shelves and the top in terms of horizontal lean.

I think the picture accentuates it a bit, in the flesh it's not inmediately noticeable, and that's when you specifically note that the shelves meet at the top but not quite at the bottom.

Bought some of those adjustable shelves with 6 shelf units on the weekend, and that is now assembled, in the cupboard and holding the rest of my consoles. Hanging on the inside of the doors I also have a mesh sack thing holding the dreamcast keyboard and the NES Athletic World mat (always fun to store), and a door hung shoe holder with the vast majority of my non active controllers in it. Just need a solution for loose games that also allows me to keep all the boxes stored

Pics will come eventually.

[Shaneus]

Wait, that pic is AFTER it's been chocked up? Holy hell. Will obv. trust your judgement, but if you can get it more level than that, it'd be for the greater good.

[emptyvessel]

The photo makes it look more wonky than it is.. Giving it a good going over with the spirit level shows it's only out by a tiny amount. Plus given the amount of chocking underneath it, it's not going to bend anymore so I'm not perturbed.

But hey, if it annoys you remotely I might just unchock it..

[Ben]

Yeah I was going to say it looks like the photo more than anything. Check out the very top right hand side of the cabinet, that looks like it bows the opposite way

[Shaneus]

The photo makes it look more wonky than it is.. Giving it a good going over with the spirit level shows it's only out by a tiny amount. Plus given the amount of chocking underneath it, it's not going to bend anymore so I'm not perturbed.

But hey, if it annoys you remotely I might just unchock it..

Do that, but only so I can see the aftermath

[selfish]

This is amazing.

Proven in focus groups!

[GameHED]

Time Killers is better than that: