Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie

[herb_fargus]

@mediamogul I also agree. Abandonware is too grey an area for here. Because assets can still be IP. The only stuff I'd be comfortable with are the sources that are legally licenced and being sold like Segas rompacks or the Daphne games through digital leisure

[BenMcLean]

@herb_fargus said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

@mediamogul I also agree. Abandonware is too grey an area for here. Because assets can still be IP. The only stuff I'd be comfortable with are the sources that are legally licenced and being sold like Segas rompacks or the Daphne games through digital leisure

I must confess that I had to look up what Daphne does.

[mediamogul]

@BenMcLean

I have this thing where I'll hear a theme or piece of music and remember it forever. Yesterday, after not having heard it for thirty odd years, I rendered the entire theme song to ALF in a Bing Crosby-esque series of ba ba ba ba booms until I was threatened with excommunication from my surrounding peers. I can't help but wonder if in another thirty years, my assisted caregiver won't be withholding my Jello cup until I agree to stop singing 'the Laserdisk Song'.

[meleu]

There is guy named Shiru, from Moscow. He made some cool games for NES (and other systems too):
https://shiru.untergrund.net/software.shtml

My favorite one is Zooming Secretary.

[dudleydes]

@BenMcLean I use Chocolate Doom for Heretic, Hexen and Strife. There is a scriptmodule available at the RetroPie-Extra repo but it wasn't working last time I tried as Chocolate Doom was defaulting to the sdl2-branch. According to the Chocolate Doom wiki, this branch should build fine in RetroPie though I haven't tried it myself. Building from the master branch, Chocolate Doom works fine.

[Omnija]

Nes - Homebrew
Buster blade
Alter Ego

GBC - Homebrew
uCity ( aka microcity)

[mediamogul]

@BenMcLean

Super Boss Gaiden is ... a thing.

It also has the distinction of being the first game to ever run on the Nintendo Playstation.

[backstander]

@BenMcLean

Oh, wow. I had no idea that X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse is freeware! I thought the only way to play it was dirty, dirty piracy. Well ... I must see if I can get that working now. :D

Wow, I wasn't aware of that either. I actually purchased X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse from CompUSA's discount bin many years ago. Also, I can remember going to that Liberated Games site back in the day looking for free games. Brings back a lot of memories. I guess it's not around anymore.

If you figure out how to get it working, please post your findings in a new thread and tag me so I can check it out :)

[Omnija]

Dreamcast Port
-Volgarr - which was given permission by the creators to port it.

[BenMcLean]

@backstander said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

If you figure out how to get it working, please post your findings in a new thread and tag me so I can check it out :)

I got it working on the first try, except that all the textures are blurry. This game really needs to have the anti-aliasing on the textures turned off, otherwise everything on the walls is a blur-fest. It should be using Nearest Neighbor or whatever else keeps the pixels sharp on the wall textures. But I couldn't find that in the menus. The setting for anti-aliasing didn't seem to change anything.

Also, I'm not certain how this game is supposed to behave, (never played it before) but I wasn't able to figure out how to get out of the menu level and into the game proper. It could just be me wandering around being stupid causing that, or it could be some code difference. Not sure. I'll have to research it.

Also, I think Quake on Raspberry PI 3 might benefit generally from scaling things down to 720p to get a more consistent framerate. It chugs a little at 1080p, especially when it has to play multiple sound effects. That is bad news for a hardcore game like Quake.

I am also going to get Quake Rally and The Quake Matrix working, which were two rockin Quake mods I remember from back in the day.

[cyperghost]

@meleu +1
Yes Shiru's stuff is fine - his SNES conversion of Donkey Kong is legendary :)

There is also a classic game converted to Genesis for free... Oh Mummy!

[BenMcLean]

I just edited to add some more stuff. I will be adding the homebrews that have been recommended after I have checked that they are legal and that they run on RetroPie.

Also, I need to find where I put my instructions for how to extract "ROM City Rampage" and post that for anyone who owns Retro City Rampage DX on Steam and wants to get the NES prototype ROM extracted just because curiosity.

For actually running Retro City Rampage on the RetroPie, I could be wrong but the PSP port via PPSSPP might actually be your best bet. I'm gonna try that at some point.

[mediamogul]

@BenMcLean

the PSP port via PPSSPP might actually be your best bet.

Don't forget the 486 version through DOSBox. It doesn't have the fantastic chiptunes, but it's an amazing feat of programming that he was able to otherwise get the whole game to fit on a single 1.4 MB floppy. I also have 'Rom City Rampage' on my setup. It's very impressive itself for what it is.

[BenMcLean]

@mediamogul said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Don't forget the 486 version through DOSBox. It doesn't have the fantastic chiptunes, but it's an amazing feat of programming that he was able to otherwise get the whole game to fit on a single 1.4 MB floppy.

Yeah, Retro City Rampage 486 would be the easiest version to run, but the PSP version would have the nice chiptunes and minigames. If it runs at full speed then it would be the most full-featured version to work on RetroPie AFAIK.

[mediamogul]

@BenMcLean

If it runs at full speed then it would be the most full-featured version to work on RetroPie AFAIK.

Very true. If I remember correctly, @edmaul69 has previously confirmed that the PSP version runs very well.

[edmaul69]

@BenMcLean @mediamogul yup. The psp version runs great. Me and my godson play it all the time.

[edmaul69]

@mediamogul speaking of which, i ordered the retro city rampage soundtrack. It was 2 cds plus 5 download codes for 80% off. I paid $7.83 plus shipping for them. They shipped out last week. I have one of the cd's with your name on it when it arrives if you want it.

[edmaul69]

@BenMcLean i use lr-ppsspp to play it.

[mediamogul]

@edmaul69

I have one of the cd's with your name on it when it arrives if you want it.

Wow, really? I would love a copy of that, thank you. Let me know what I'd owe you and we'll work out a PayPal.

[edmaul69]

@mediamogul nothing. I got it dirt cheap. I will arrange shipping with you when it arrives.