Atgames sega flashback 2018 edition is out in the wild.

[Zaphod77]

Now can you get picodrive into the legends flashback?

and unlock NES games?

and just MAYBE FBA roms?

 

[rrifonas]

damn man, freaking BEAST!
great job. this is waayyyy more than what most people should have expected out of this little gadget. great work.
also are you sure the CHD compression doesnt contribute to the jitters with sega cd games? just curious.

I've tried the .bin/.cue combo with similar results in Sonic CD. Retroplayer.ini has an OSD option to display fps, and I confirmed the sound has issues when the framerate drops below 57fps.

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Now can you get picodrive into the legends flashback?

and unlock NES games?

and just MAYBE FBA roms?

Yes, and the console part is it's ready... I have an update with Picodrive and FCEUMM instead of Genesis Plus GX and QuickNES. The arcade part is more complex as the built-in cores seem locked to the games included in the pack. The only way to fix that is replacing MAME 2003 Plus with MAME 2000 core (which is very fast) but several built-in games will break. FBA is possible for CPS2 and Neo Geo games but it is even more complex as you need to add the games to the game list.

The problem with the Legends Flashback is that I've been working with the update 2.3 as base (this update has new emulators and romset) which some guys in Atari Age reported as "semi-broken". But I can add support for Picodrive and FCEUMM in the original firmware.

 

[Zaphod77]

So you cant' just drop in another compile of mame 2003 plus that supports more games?

well i'd still be happy with picodrive as long as it hits full frame in nearly every genesis game, which it should. and is quickness really that bad?

the broken one is the "Capcom" update that is currently available. it doesn't fit on the device. the other one only breaks the artwork if you install it to fix the capcom update brick i think.

but if you can somehow get it to load arcade roms from the sdcard without breaking builtin games that would be awesome.

 

[rrifonas]

So you cant' just drop in another compile of mame 2003 plus that supports more games?

well i'd still be happy with picodrive as long as it hits full frame in nearly every genesis game, which it should. and is quickness really that bad?

the broken one is the "Capcom" update that is currently available. it doesn't fit on the device. the other one only breaks the artwork if you install it to fix the capcom update brick i think.

but if you can somehow get it to load arcade roms from the sdcard without breaking builtin games that would be awesome.

I know that only the bezels are broken, but I've read some complaints about controllers not working - which I didn't have - and it would be bad if this can be an issue.

Regarding the emulators, QuickNES is a good emulator, but I've seen some speed issues testing Super Mario Bros (the whole game gets fast when you press the run button). And it's possible to add the proper MAME 2003 Plus core but it's too slow for almost all games you may want to play. Have in mind this device is more like a Neo Geo Mini and a Raspberry Pi Zero (with less RAM) than a RPi3 or a Super Retrocade.

 

[Zaphod77]

I suspect that the broken controllers are just coincidence. now i'm tempted to actually get that flashback, though the super retrocade is more capable and does take arcade roms. also more expensive i think though. just need to get tengen tetris and nes tetris and lj65 on it.

now if someone will just extract that tetris rom from that gameboy shaped nes retro game player, as its' actually a pretty good new nes/onebus tetris.

Well i got a legends flashback for 35$. seems a fair price. i'd really like the picodrive and fceuu update.

 

[Redcomet_]

make sure you are connecting it directly to power. if you are using the usb port of a pc it is known to have slowdowns.

I have it connected to the power supply that came with the unit, all tho I do have it on a standard power strip

 

[rrifonas]

I suspect that the broken controllers are just coincidence. now i'm tempted to actually get that flashback, though the super retrocade is more capable and does take arcade roms. also more expensive i think though. just need to get tengen tetris and nes tetris and lj65 on it.

now if someone will just extract that tetris rom from that gameboy shaped nes retro game player, as its' actually a pretty good new nes/onebus tetris.

Well i got a legends flashback for 35$. seems a fair price. i'd really like the picodrive and fceuu update.

$35 is a fair price and it has some cool 'licenses' to adquire.
Give me a couple of days to create a 'safe update' for both 1.0 and 2.3 - the update I'm playing with now has a lot of 'debug outputs' to the SD Card, I'm reading the game list from the SD Card and copying to the data partition... it's a completely mess.
And I didn't gave up from Picodrive for Sega CD support yet, unfortunately the emulator is not throwing any error output to troubleshoot. Since the Legends Flashback doesn't have Game Gear games, Picodrive is the best bet...

 

[WD_GASTER2]

too bad we cant tap into logcats to see what may be causing issues. . the lack of uart or a debug port hurts this device a bit.

 

[ebey11]

My 2018 version came with instructions to sync the controller: Hold A and Up for few seconds and turn the controller on. It will blink fast. Now turn the console on and the controller will be sync'd.

Wow, this worked! Thanks so much! I double checked and my instructions definitely don't mention that. In fact, they say "press any button on the controller and it will connect to the console automatically"

 

[Zaphod77]

Well anyone have the 2.3 update? my console plays bad dudes at half speed. every other game i tested so far pretty much works.

does bad dudes work better on 2.3 update?

here's my lore on picodrive sega cd support.

1) need bios file in SYSTEM folder for the system.
2) only understands .cue files. test on PC version of picodrive.

I still suspect it will not work at full speed, but i could be wrong.

i suspect the issue is that the system directory can't be on the sdcard, and that the bios has to be added to the firmware update.

There's only one sega cd game i like anyway, and it plays just fine on my pc. (prince of persia)

 

[dcuk7]

This is handy being able to use Picodrive. My biggest issue with Picodrive is the sound emulation in Sonic games. It's still quite poor even all these years later. Specifically the end of act sign post sound is completely wrong (this is the first thing I check on any new system that emulates or is a clone of the Mega Drive/Genesis). The sound on collecting blue spheres in Sonic 3 are also badly emulated. I feel like Genesis Plus GX is the lesser of two evils in this regard.

@rrifonas Do you know if the SD Card feature of the AtGames UI supports custom box art? Also, did your digging reveal how it decides to sort the games? It isn't by alphabetical order, which is bizarre yet totally an AtGames thing they would do! My best guess seems to be sorting by Date Added!

Great work so far though.

 

[rrifonas]

Well anyone have the 2.3 update? my console plays bad dudes at half speed. every other game i tested so far pretty much works.

does bad dudes work better on 2.3 update?

here's my lore on picodrive sega cd support.

1) need bios file in SYSTEM folder for the system.
2) only understands .cue files. test on PC version of picodrive.

I still suspect it will not work at full speed, but i could be wrong.

i suspect the issue is that the system directory can't be on the sdcard, and that the bios has to be added to the firmware update.

I will take a look and send get back with results. Since I have a backup from the original partitions, I can revert it back to the original firmware to compare. I know that "Edward Randy" and "Joe and Mac Returns" suck in both versions.

EDIT: I tested Bad Dudes and it plays at normal speed with both updates. There are some slowdowns (framerate dropping to 56, 55fps) but nothing significant. Most of the "more demanding" games running with MAME have these framerate drops, except for "Edward Randy" which plays between 51fps and 54fps...

Regarding Sega CD support in Picodrive you are probably right, but Genesis Plus GX can find the BIOS in the same folder as the games, and MAME can do the same with BIOS files. I've tried copying the BIOS in the same directory as the emulator, or a "system" folder on the same partition with no luck.

This is handy being able to use Picodrive. My biggest issue with Picodrive is the sound emulation in Sonic games. It's still quite poor even all these years later. Specifically the end of act sign post sound is completely wrong (this is the first thing I check on any new system that emulates or is a clone of the Mega Drive/Genesis). The sound on collecting blue spheres in Sonic 3 are also badly emulated. I feel like Genesis Plus GX is the lesser of two evils in this regard.

@rrifonas Do you know if the SD Card feature of the AtGames UI supports custom box art? Also, did your digging reveal how it decides to sort the games? It isn't by alphabetical order, which is bizarre yet totally an AtGames thing they would do! My best guess seems to be sorting by Date Added!

Yeah, I know Picodrive has some drawbacks, the idea was to share another option - and add 32x support .
I don't think it's possible to use custom box art, I've only found references to the default box art for SD Card. That would be a nice feature... and I couldn't find how it sorts the files. Sort by date added or date modified makes sense...

 

[Zaphod77]

Bad dudes is NOT normal on my unit. the music played back WAYYYY too slow. please compare with actual arcade video. this is right

it seems i may have to test with my own unit on the other firmware.

Okay installed the update, lost bezels, and bad dudes still crackles and slows down the music, and stutters every second or so. Tries plugging in both controllers. no difference. how do you get the FPS to show?

the music is at least .75 speed on my unit. TO be fair that hardware is a bit of a beast, with a 32 bit main CPU. (and you wonder why your 8 and 16 bit conversions sucked)

and yes i am using the power supply that came with the unit, and the controllers that came with the unit.

this is how it plays on my unit you can hear the crackles and the music slowdown. (sigh, i cant' include the timestamp,. it's 6 minutes.

it would probably play fine if rewind was disabled. i KNOW rewind support eats up CPU.

 

[rrifonas]

@Zaphod77,
Thanks for sharing the comparison, the sound in the second video is awful. My console doesn't sound that bad. I don't have a capture card but the sound seems on par with the with the original.
I enabled the FPS to show changing an internal file. Are you running the version 2.3, right? I can share my 'test' version so you can check the framerate - this version has support for NES games using FCEUMM, Genesis, Sega CD, Master System and Game Gear with Genesis Plus GX. I haven't change the arcade emulators so it will be a good test to compare the FPS between our units. I can also help you to rollback to the stock version if you want. Please send me an private message and I can share the details/instructions.

If it works fine, I will share with everyone.

 

[Zaphod77]

I believe that for two player simultaneous games BOTH controllers MUST be plugged in for best performance. it seems that if the game polls a controller or button that's not there, it causes a performance hit.

 

[Zaphod77]

Ok just tested official firmware 2.6, and official 4 meg sdcard enable update.

if you installed the sdcard update from yesterday, it ruins the update process. it will error out. do not panic, and reset the console. the update will then complete.

it does accept nes games, renamed to .dat. i even ran castlevania 3, and punch out.

Rewind still not disabled on the games that have performance issues. i suspect they will work better with the rewind turned off. but dear gods, that rewind buffer is HUGE. i can rewind minutes into the past with it!

PS. that loading screen is simply the game running unthrottled past the rom check.

 

[FateForWindows]

Bad dudes is NOT normal on my unit. the music played back WAYYYY too slow. please compare with actual arcade video. this is right

Actually that longplay was done in MAME.

 

[Zaphod77]

well, it's correct still. i've played the real arcade, and the music speed is correct.

 

[Redcomet_]

One issue I came across today was that in the middle of the robotnik battle in sonic 1 the game froze on me and i couldn't get out of the game is there anyone else experiencing this

 

[Zaphod77]

I suspect the issue is lack of limits on the rewind buffer. eventually the memory fills up or it and boom. I've noticed that you can rewind back insanely far. I'm not even sure WHAT the limit is.