It used to be about the games, maaaaan!

Capeman

YES! I just spend like 2 weeks making custom artworks sets and game lists for all my emulators, took too friggin long and wasn't fun. I finally got back to playing it last night and got 3 levels into Ren and Stimpy: the Quest for the Shaven Yak on game gear. Felt good to finally play it again, haha.

Now to finish artwork for Mame and FBA... ugh. At least I never started using Attract Mode, yikes!

mrbwa1

I think it's a mindset for folks. I have been playing Forza Horizon 3 and spent a good 2 hours in the auction house the other day. I won't tell you how much time I put into car designs and paint jobs.... Then I look at the actual Elite painters (or whatever they are called) in the auction house and realize I'm finger painting in comparison!

As for the older games. I find the 2 player games to be more fun than single player most of the time because I can play through them with my kids. Brutal arcade games are pretty fun when you have unlimited quarters to throw at them (Think 1941 Co-op).

meleu

@mercifulhacker same feeling here! :-)
And when I finish some tweak a new one comes from nothing!

I just don't know how, but they keep coming!!

mercifulhacker

What tweaks/hacks are keeping you busy?

I'm currently trying to get the arcade versions of some of my favorite fighting games. Sure, the PS1 version runs fine...but the arcade version is so neat!

After this I plan to start easing in to some over-clocking stuff. See if I can get metal slug to run a little smoother.

obsidianspider

Absolutely. Once I started getting into making things, I found the troubleshooting and problem solving and finding creative solutions to issues even more fun than playing X game. That said, the MAME ROWs that @meleu runs every week get me to check out new games I usually haven't even heard of.

mrbwa1

@mercifulhacker said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

What tweaks/hacks are keeping you busy?

I'm currently trying to get the arcade versions of some of my favorite fighting games. Sure, the PS1 version runs fine...but the arcade version is so neat!

After this I plan to start easing in to some over-clocking stuff. See if I can get metal slug to run a little smoother.

Make sure you have a cooling solution when you ease into Overclocking (with a Pi 3 at least!)

I re-purposed the fan out of an old ATX power supply and direct wired it to a wall wart. It's not pretty and it sure isn't quiet, but it moves some air! (Runs about 50C at full stress on a Pi3 running 1350MHz with a 500 Mhz core&ram OC. I can probably push it to 1400-1450 MHz with this fan, but I didn't notice much difference at 1400MHz before other than overheating even on 8 and 16 bit systems (at 1350MHz i can usually run those without the fan).

meleu

@mercifulhacker said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

What tweaks/hacks are keeping you busy?

Recently a conversation at the "Runcommand System Splashscreens!" thread gave me an idea to automate the creation of launching images for the Carbon theme. To accomplish this task I had to learn about the ImageMagick tools. I've made the script and posted about it here. And then I've got the idea to make a script to generate these images for any theme.

To accomplish this task I'm learning about the xmlstarlet tool. I'm really amazed with this tool, it's f*cking useful when you need to deal with xml files in shell scripts (before knowing it I was used to use sed tricks).

About the gaming... I think most of my real gaming time is spent trying to beat hi-scores for the MAME ROW, as @obsidianspider mentioned. :-)

@mercifulhacker come and join with us! Here is the post for this week: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/7152/mame-row-16

davej

Don't try writing shaders. ;)

I only got into retroarch because someone said Pis couldn't run a simple curved screen only shader and I thought "I bet they can". Then thought "I wonder how good a CRT shader it could run?"

mercifulhacker

@meleu I shall have to check those out! They look like fun. Probably not this week though....got too much third strike to catch up on!

mrbwa1

@davej said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

Don't try writing shaders. ;)

I only got into retroarch because someone said Pis couldn't run a simple curved screen only shader and I thought "I bet they can". Then thought "I wonder how good a CRT shader it could run?"

And your shader is awesome! Well actually, it looks terrible (to me) on my 720p tv out of the box, but I made a custom config that looks good without the curved screen (have a curved screen configuration archived somewhere).

Come to think of it, I DO spent a lot of time tweaking little things on retropie, I am just not smart enough to do the coding stuff that others do, so I try and do what I have experience with and provide support where I can on the forums.

davej

@mrbwa1 said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

And your shader is awesome! Well actually, it looks terrible (to me) on my 720p tv out of the box, but I made a custom config that looks good without the curved screen (have a curved screen configuration archived somewhere).

I think it looks terrible at 720p as well. ;) If you're not using integer scaling it really needs at least 4 times the resolution to give reasonably even looking scan lines.

Come to think of it, I DO spent a lot of time tweaking little things on retropie, I am just not smart enough to do the coding stuff that others do, so I try and do what I have experience with and provide support where I can on the forums.

People helping out where they can is one of the nice things about this project/community.

detron

glad to hear I am not the only one. I do not have a lot of free time, so I am not making programs and scripts, but I still fiddle WAY more than play.

when I do play, it seems to be no more than 20 minutes or so.

Retropie is a distro that motivates learning more, and has a side effect of playing old games

Concat

Problem solving is fun. I always have to have a project on the go to keep me from being bored. Retropie is a great project that feels never ending, so it fits the bill. Especially in winter.

ohmycommodore

My wife always says that I am "project oriented". I think a lot of folks who get into this kind of stuff are.

herb_fargus

Initially when I discovered retropie I was drawn by the idea of an all in one game station as video games were an important aspect of my childhood.

But once I got started (back in the 1.X days) there was much more tweaking required back then I found that to be more enjoyable than the games I played. I spend 99% of my time working on docs or testing or tweaking some othet random thing. Very gratifying to just get things working and help others (who are willing to help themselves) along the way

ebtalk

This to a T. I think I enjoy putting it together more than playing the games.

Where was RetroPie when I was a kid though?

synack

I've followed the emulation scene for awhile and have been able to have my nostalgia satiated for some time, but now it's about the hobby and bringing some memories and happiness to those around me. I think I gave away 4 systems this Christmas, and all of the recipients were amazed with the product that the folks here have put together.

mrbwa1

@mrbwa1 said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

@davej said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

Don't try writing shaders. ;)

I only got into retroarch because someone said Pis couldn't run a simple curved screen only shader and I thought "I bet they can". Then thought "I wonder how good a CRT shader it could run?"

And your shader is awesome! Well actually, it looks terrible (to me) on my 720p tv out of the box, but I made a custom config that looks good without the curved screen (have a curved screen configuration archived somewhere).

Come to think of it, I DO spent a lot of time tweaking little things on retropie, I am just not smart enough to do the coding stuff that others do, so I try and do what I have experience with and provide support where I can on the forums.

I have done interger scaling (I read all your comments back in the day) and I have a half decent config now (I think it's non-scaled). If you would like, I can share it with you to see if it looks okay with you. I could work on a curved 720p config as well if it would help to add those into the shader repo.

PetroRie

Not me but my bro is like that. Man, if he buys a game he spends more time in the options than the game itself. When he saw RetroPie for the first time, I opened up the RGUI menu and I told him "Look, there is your porn quickly go get your lube". I swear I kid you not, when I borrowed him Battlefield 4 on the PS4 he said "Did you know that there is an advanced option for the game?"

Couple years ago I modded his PSP, and I told him do NOT update it... Couple days later comes to me "uhh the games won't load anymore".

On his TV when he's browsing in the menu settings you'll hear an annoying beep. Guess how many times I heard that sound haha. Best part: he has no idea what he's doing lol. Yet he will complain about the most retarded thing ever like "There is an annoying line on screen and I want it gone", he's the only one who sees that line lol.

I used to browse the config files and search the Wiki for what the options are etc. I did tweak some settings and made a backup of those files, whenever I reinstall everything I just copy n paste those files and I'm done with it. I'm still planning to play with the overclocking settings in the future. Going to get a large heatsink like the ones you find on the south bridges of most computer motherboards along with a fitting 5v fan. I've seen them on eBay for a couple bucks. I think those heatsinks (5cm by 5cm) are the best ones to use.

mrbwa1

@PetroRie Not a heat sink guy myself. Spent too much time dabbling with electronics and maybe a bit biased opinion that you would need a good heat pipe setup or a really big heat sink (seems like tour Idea too)

I'm a big fan of airflow (yikes, bad pun there). MY Bare Pi3 @ 1350MHz with the 500Mhz Core and GPU ccan be sufficiently cooled in an open top case by aiming a desk fan at it. Right now, I'm using the backplate and 12v fan from a dead ATX power supply wired to an old 12V wall wart. It's really loud and probably overkill, but keeps everything at about 50C under load. I would think a 5v fan alone with ventilation slots/holes would be sufficient.