it's more fun to emulate

[smbhax]

Found an updated version of psxtract, psxtract-2, which converts dumped PS3 PS Store PS1 games with multiple CD audio tracks correctly: GitHub - has207/psxtract-2: Psxtract by Hykem

[vodselbt]

I saw someone at a work thing with an Anbernic thing he used to emulate 2D and early 3d stuff. I was tempted especially after my Steam Deck turned out to be overkill and too much for my emulation desires. I have a 3DS which is great in some ways. But for early 3D (PS1 and Dreamcast, but maybe also PSP and PS2?) I was thinking a Vita might be in order.

What sorts of platforms would I not be able to play with a 3DS and Vita combo?

[Grandpa]

Can the Vita do Dreamcast? I think at this point most of the ~$150 tier Anbernic handhelds can do Dreamcast with ease.

Personally still kinda eyeballing the Anbernic Cube, since the form factor makes it seem like it’d be OK for DS/3DS in addition to most 4:3 consoles.

But I also got a Deck yesterday and am going to try to install EmuDeck on that, so, who knows. God that thing is big.

[loki]

vita can do dreamcast, but only just. the rgb30 (which is now like £50-60 i think, so a lot cheaper than a pre-owned vita or 3ds nowadays) can do it a lot better. like, i think the only game i’ve tried that wasn’t playable was virtua cop 2.

vita is probably the best way there’ll ever be to play psp games, though. and there are a lot of really cool ports of pc and 00s-era console games. notable ones include sword and fairy, cuphead, sonic mania, simpsons hit and run

and a ~new~ 3ds is great for 2d stuff, but it can only just about manage some ps1 games, and definitely can’t go any further than that.

in my experience, vita and n3ds have both been useless for arcade emulation of any kind, too.

[loki]

i should also add: vita and 3ds console prices have been going up in recent times, so they’re way more expensive than most chinese handhelds now.
so really, any advice pertaining to them should come with the caveat “if you already own one”

[vodselbt]

Yeah I already own a new 3DS. So maybe I should just get an Anbernic thing and call it a day.

[Rudie]

If you want to play Dreamcast and such yeah a modern ambernic there has been like 10 this year but the Cube is cute.

[vodselbt]

Reportedly it can’t play Dreamcast too well, but I picked up a RG35XX Plus for sweet 4:3, early 3D, and GBA gaming.

[alfred]

If you have a 3ds, consider using it to play GBA games. There are rom injectors where you take the actual downloadable GBA games nintendo released in 2011 and overwrite them with any game you want. The 3ds has sort of native GBA support thanks to its CPU. I think it looks and sounds great, the pixel scaling looks really good to me, way better than when the 3ds tries to upscale ds games and gets all grainy.

[Grandpa]

I’ve got the old model RG35XX and I think it’s been my favorite of these things so far. Not the most powerful handheld, but does what I want (99% of old 2D games, Playstation) just fine.

[MintyJuffowup]

I went through airport security and the millennial lady saw my 3ds and asked if I had modded it.

[Grandpa]

Been dabbling (might be generous for how much I’ve played vs. time spent trying to get it all to work) with emulation on the Steam Deck and my conclusion is - nah.

I mean, it does a lot of stuff really well, once you get it going. But it feels like overkill for anything, I dunno. Pre-PS2?

Like, if it’s the one thing you’ve got, then yes absolutely play Game Boy Tetris or Comix Zone or whatever on this thing, by all means.

Anyway, for my part, I could never really get EmuDeck going (I like the big huge ROM packs people have curated for Mister, and EmuDeck opts to ignore all the neatly organized folders in favor of listing every single rom in alphabetical order), but I did install ReDream and spent a little time with the two Dreamcast games I recall playing the most that weren’t Capcom vs. SNK 2, Tech Romancer, Project Justice or Bangai-O - Elemental Gimmick Gear and Sword of the Berserk.

And they played just fine! It just feels like such a roundabout, bolted-on process that…ehhhh…I’m good.

[vodselbt]

Ended up with a RG35XX Plus, which I am loving.

But I’m looking into shaders and color correction stuff in Retroach for the first time. Tell me… which of these looks more accurate to your memory (or objective observation if you have recently seen the hardware) of how the GBA looked?

… or …

The top is “color corrected” using a GBA preset that came installed on the device, and the other is not. Both have a shader applied located in the handheld called lcd1x.gsl. I think the shader looks pretty nice and helps to give things some sharpness while not playing at integer scaling, letting me get pixels that aren’t blurred at a larger image size. Frankly I just don’t remember the colors as the color corrected screenshots show them.

[Grandpa]

Turn the brightness all the way down and shine a Worm Light onto the screen, that will help jog my memory.

[geist]

yeah, the top shots look correct to me. remember the original gba had no backlight; the correction is basically compensating for that, so the colors aren’t blown out.

[Khan]

its definitely the first one but i can boot up unfortunately for me that exact game later on a gba and an sp for comparisons anyway

[vodselbt]

woah! that would be appreciated and super interesting to compare. thanks for offering.

[smbhax]

Have had a bit of a game ROM extraction-o-rama lately:

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (PS2)

Short version: can get working arcade ROMs of just about all the games. Big ones for me were Mappy and Galaxian–this Galaxian sounds AMAZING, with fantastically atmospheric WHOOSHing sounds when your ship fires, whereas all I’d known previously of Galaxian–via PS1 Namco Museum Vol. 1–where typical bleeps and bloops. Jeepers. Also, you get slightly updated ROMs over the ones extractable from Namco’s currently available “Arcade Game Series” for Dig Dug and Galaga.

Long version

Games can be extracted with
– GitHub - arpruss/xsr: extract SR files and convert some stuff to mame zips

In WSL, with the xsr stuff I ran

python3 xsr.py -o extracted NAMCO50.SR
./generate-old-mame.sh
./generate-new-mame.sh

This gave:

“new” (work in current MAME -0.267- except as noted):
dspirit.zip
galaga88.zip
galaxian.zip
mappy.zip
mspacmab.zip
pacman.zip (non-functional–mostly black screen)
pacmania.zip
rallyx.zip
rthunder.zip (spotty sound)
skykid.zip

“old” (work in MAME 0.130 except as noted):
bosco.zip (not past MAME 0.119)
digdug.zip
galaga.zip
polepos1.zip (not past MAME 0.119)
polepos2a.zip
(and duplicates of all the “new”)

Old did indeed not run in current MAME 0.267. The documentation says has to be older than MAME 0.131u3 (2009). 0.130 works for all but Bosconian and Pole Position–those run in MAME 0.119, the last pre-64-bit MAME; they don’t run in MAME 0.120.

(The ROMs from Steam’s Arcade Game Series Dig Dug and Galaga are about half the size of these 50th ROMs, and only work up to MAME 0.119.)

Of the “new” ROMs, they all run in current MAME 0.267, BUT Pac-Man launches but to a mostly blank screen, and Rolling Thunder has very spotty sound (the player’s gun is barely audible, and only occasionally, for instance–which doesn’t seem to be a problem with other ROM versions of Rolling Thunder). Going to MAME 0.149 for instance didn’t help those two; neither did using their “old” ROMs.

Galaxian sounds AMAZING in MAME 0.267; the version in PS1 Namco Museum Vol. 3 never grabbed me and makes just usual bleeps and bloops, but this arcade Galaxian in current MAME’s shooting sound, for instance, has this whole atmospheric WHOOOSHing effect, jeepers. Why doesn’t Galaga sound this cool.

~ ~ ~

Metal Slug Anthology (PS2)

Short version: Arcade ROMs of Slugs 1-4 and X are extractable. (1-3 and X arcade ROMs already easily available via NEOGEO Humble Bundle Collection.)

Long version

Per Metal Slug Anthology · Issue #146 · farmerbb/RED-Project · GitHub , MS 1-4 and X arcade ROMs can be dumped from this disc – doesn’t work for 5 and 6 (original stuff from メタスラコンプリートからのROM抽出 : 発明の友 ):

1. Extract SLUGROM.POD from your image of Metal Slug Anthology.
2. Extract the contents of SLUGROM.POD using podextract by ghoost82. This should result in two folders being extracted, roms and save.
3. Download and extract MSC_extract_v2.zip and copy its contents to the roms folder.
4. Run MSC_extract.bat and wait for the task to finish. This should result in zipped folders of Metal Slug 1-4 and X being created in the same directory.

– GitHub - ghoost82/podextract: Extract Terminal Reality POD and EPD archive files

(wsl: python3 podextract.py -h)

For step 2, in WSL I ran “python3 podextract.py -x slugrom.pod”

(NEOGEO Humble Bundle Collection has had 1-3 and X easily available for a a while, but not 4.)

All of these Anthology-extracted ROMs run in latest MAME (0.267).

~ ~ ~

Taito Legends (PS2)

Short version: very old arcade ROMs of about half the games are extractable; a few run in current MAME but you have to go back to like 2003’s MAME 0.78 for most. There are two Space Invaders ROMs but they’re sound-glitched in MAME, unfortunately. So the game I come closest to caring about out of this is Rastan.

Long version

About half the ROMs extractable with

– Additional Info · Issue #5 · farmerbb/RED-Project · GitHub

Taito Legends for PS2 has all the ROMs and other emulator files in FILES.HDR and FILES.DAT.

Get this (Unixy) package: GitHub - arpruss/taito-legends-ps2-extract

Put FILES.* into the taito/ subdirectory.

Then running taito-2003.sh will extract all the files into taito/extract/* and generate zip files (for mame2003, as that’s what I have on my RPI 3, but they may work on newer versions) for many of the games. Due to DMCA and/or technical reasons, I omitted games that use copy protection chips.

The following seem to all work: bshark.zip colony7.zip contcirc.zip elevator.zip exzisus.zip gladiatr.zip gsword.zip invadpt2.zip jungleh.zip ninjak.zip othunder.zip phoenixt.zip plotting.zip plumppop.zip rastan.zip sitv.zip spacegun.zip thundfox.zip tubeit.zip volfied.zip

Thanks for this. This should probably be split into a separate issue so it is not hidden in this thread.

I had to edit your script a little bit to make it work. taito-2003.sh tries to call taito-extract.sh where it should be calling taito-extract.py

Extracts

bshark.zip Battle Shark
colony7.zip Colony 7
contcirc.zip Continental Circus
elevator.zip Elevator Action
exzisus.zip Exzisus
gladiatr.zip Gladiator
gsword.zip Great Swordsman
invadpt2.zip Space Invaders Part II
jungleh.zip Jungle Hunt
ninjak.zip Ninja Kids
othunder.zip Operation Thunderbolt
phoenixt.zip Phoenix
plumppop.zip Plump Pop
rastan.zip Rastan
sitv.zip Space Invaders TV
spacegun.zip Space Gun
thundfox.zip Thunder Fox
tubeit.zip Tube It
volfied.zip Volfied

(The plotting.zip xml seems to have been removed.)

invadpt2.zip runs in latest MAME (0.267) but with no sound; sitv runs in 0.267 with weird sound/color. jungleh, ninjak, phoenixt seem to run fine in 0.267.

At least all the others run in MAME 0.78 (last 2003 MAME release); the invaders games still have messed up sound. 0.78 has a bewildering proliferation of video-related command-line options; the only way I found to get–potentially–unfiltered pixels and potentially accurate aspect ratio is using 0.78’s “-resolution” command-line option and entering a resolution manually, for instance “-resolution 1440x1080” or whatever. : P

MAME 0.130 runs bshark (control might be kinda messed up), elevator, exzisus, plumppop, rastan. Didn’t try other MAME versions between 0.130 and 0.267.

~ ~ ~

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.20: Space Harrier II (PS2)

You can extract Sega Master System “Space Harrier” and “Space Harrier 3D” ROMs from data on the disc–but these are among many more on the Vol.33 Fantasy Zone Complete Collection disc, extracted the same way–see below.

~ ~ ~

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.33: Fantasy Zone Complete Collection (PS2)

Short version: A Final Burn Neo-compatible (not MAME) ROM of M2’s remake/remix “Fantasy Zone II (System 16)” aka “Fantasy Zone II DX”! = D Plus a ton of Mega Drive, Master System, and Game Gear ROMs of various Phantasy Star, Fantasy Zone, Monster World, Space Harrier, Galaxy Force, Tetris, and a few other games related to other 2500 Series collections that–aside from the Fantasy Zone ones–were apparently left on the disc by mistake, and are not accessible in the PS2 game itself.

(As with the Space Harrier II collection, the PS2 game is still available for purchase from the JP PS3 PS Store.)

Long version

You can extract ROMs, including extra ROMs not available when running the PS2 game itself, apparently accidentally left on the disc from other 2500 Series collections:

– SEGA Ages 2500 game compilations on the PS2 · Issue #110 · farmerbb/RED-Project · GitHub

First, copy the BIN.PAK file off of your disc.

Next, use QuickBMS with this script on the BIN.PAK file.

Use this tool in the extracted BIN.PAK folder to get a bunch of epr-7***.** ROMs. Zip these together as “fantzone1.zip” as they are your Fantasy Zone romset.

For a mostly finished prototype port of Fantasy Zone to the System 16B zip these ROMs as fantznps2:

fz1_s16b.p00
fz1_s16b.scr
fz1_s16b.snd
fz1_s16b_ta.obj

For Fantasy Zone 2 DX (the main reason anyone got this collection) zip these ROMs together as “fantzn2xps2.zip”:

fz2_s16c.p00
fz2_s16c.p01
fz2_s16c.scr
fz2_s16c.snd
fz2_s16c.spr

For Fantasy Zone Time Attack zip these ROMs as “fantznta.zip”:

fz1_s16b.scr
fz1_s16b.snd
fz1_s16b_ta.p00
fz1_s16b_ta.obj

There are also a bunch of miscellaneous console ROMs loose in here and most of them are left over from other Sega Ages 2500 compilations:

sms.bin (Japanese SMS 2.1 bootrom, but offset 0x77 needs to be patched from 00 00 00 to CD 00 C7)
ff.gg
mw2.gg
phantasystaradventure.gg
phantasystargaiden.gg
spaceharrier.gg
wboy.gg
monsterlair.md
flashp.sgd
galaxyforceii.sgd
monsterworld3.sgd
phantasystar2.sgd
phantasystar2_ue.sgd
phantasystar3.sgd
phantasystar3_usa.sgd
ps2tamia.sgd
ps2tanne.sgd
ps2thuye.sgd
ps2tkind.sgd
ps2trudg.sgd
ps2tshil.sgd
ps2tyush.sgd
spaceharrierii.sgd
superfantasyzone.sgd
tetris.sgd
wboy.sgt
fantasyzone1_jue_02.sms
fantasyzone2_j.sms
g_force.sms
galacticprotector_jue.sms
mw1.sms
mw3.sms
opaopa_j.sms
opaopa_ue.sms
phantasystar1_j_01_hira.sms
quartetj.sms
sdi_b.sms
spaceharrier_e.sms
spaceharrier3d_jue.sms
wboy.sms
wboy3.sms

There are a couple of clones for Fantasy Zone on the System 16A, but I don’t know how to extract those as romsets yet.

There are also a couple System E games, but it seems like they can’t be played as their PRG ROMs are decrypted, and to my knowledge, incompatible with every emulator.

fantzone1 runs in current MAME (0.267). The three other zipped ROMs (“time attack” is just a Fantasy Zone 1 mode or something) run in Final Burn Neo. So yep that’s Fantasy Zone II (System 16) (aka “Fantasy Zone II DX”) by M2 extracted and runnable in Final Burn Neo.

QuickBMS: Luigi Auriemma
– and can download the sega ages 2500 script in the all scripts download there
That ROM tool: https://github.com/user-attachments/files/16369504/hsp_fantzone1_tool.zip

The console ROMs I got were

fantasyzone1_jue_02.sms
fantasyzone2_j.sms
flashp.sgd
fz.gg
galacticprojector_jue.sms
galaxyforceii.sgd
g_force.sms
monsterlair.md
monsterworld3.sgd
mw1.sms
mw2.gg
mw3.sms
opaopa_j.sms
opaopa_ue.sms
phantasystar1_j_01_hira.sms
phantasystar2.sgd
phantasystar2_ue_sgd
phantasystar3.sgd
phantasystar3_usa.sgd
ps2tamia.sgd
ps2tanne.sgd
ps2thuye.sgd
ps2tkind.sgd
ps2trudg.sgd
ps2tshil.sgd
ps2tyush.sgd
quartetj.sms
sdi_b.sms
sms.bin
spaceharrier.gg
spaceharrier3d_jue.sms
spaceharrierii.sgd
spaceharrier_e.sms
superfantasyzone.sgd
tetris.sgd
wboy.gg
wboy.sgt
wboy.sms
wboy3.sms

Can run 'em in Mednafen.

.sgd is MD/Genesis. (And of course .gg is Game Gear, .sms is Master System. There were a few other files with “.gg_” that I didn’t bother with; not sure if they were working Game Gear ROMs or what but I don’t care enough about Game Gear to have bothered about 'em, apparently.)

flashp is Flash Point, a more puzzley Tetris clone: at least in the first few stages, there are formations of pre-existing blocks, and you’re trying to clear a line with a flashing block in it; that clears the stage.

g_force is Galaxy Force, an into-the-screen sci-fi shooter.

The “ps2” things are Phantasy Star II spin-off adventures, in Japanese.

Not sure what wboy.sgt is. Tried renaming to sgd but that didn’t work.

So, lots of Sega console Phantasy Star, Monster World, Space Harrier, and Fantasy Zone stuff, with some Galaxy Force and Tetris, mostly. SDI and Quartet are related to Sega Ages 2500 Series Volume 21 I suppose. The SMS games don’t seem to need sms.bin in order to run in Mednafen.

~ ~ ~

Pac-Man Museum+ (PC/Steam)

Short version: JP arcade ROM of Pac-Land! (Censored to replace Ms. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man w/ generic “Pac-Mom” & “Pac-Sis.” : P)

And working arcade ROMs of Pac-Man (already extractable from Steam Arcade Game Series Pac-Man), Pac 'n Pal, and Super Pac-Man (but those last two are bluh games anyway ; D).

Long version

Five of the games are extractable with GitHub - shawngmc/game-extraction-toolbox: Python tools for extracting ROMs from games and investigating files : Pac-Land, Pac-Mania, Pac 'n Pal, Pac-Man, and Super Pac-Man.

From Steam Community :: Guide :: Getting ROMs (legally) from Retro Collections on Steam :

gextoolbox tasks extract --task pacmanmplus --srcdir “path to PAC-MAN MUSEUM+” --destdir “path to output folder”

Yielded

paclandj.zip
pacmania.zip
pacnpal.zip
puckman.zip
superpac.zip

They all run in latest MAME (0.267), but Pac-Mania seems to get stuck at the intro screen after starting a game (loops)–doesn’t do the usual stage select, and screen is upside-down by default. (See Namco Museum 50th Anniversary–beginning of this post–for working Pac-Mania ROM.)

Pac-Land | Pac-Man Wiki | Fandom : supposedly the US arcade version of Pac-Land was sped up 2x over the JP version, and supposedly the Museum+ version is censored to replace Pac-Mom and Baby Pac-Man w/ “Pac-Mom” & “Pac-Sis.” ; P

About the supposed speed diff, interesting that the Pac-Land ROM that extracts from this is the Japanese version–which probably means they went with the slower version for the collection. Has the sped-up US arcade version been written out like Ms. Pac-Man, then?

[smbhax]

The PS3’s emulated PC Engine titles run rather poorly in RPCS3. Well, Salamander does, anyway–haven’t bothered trying my other one, PC Genjin 2. Bit surprising! And of course you can’t use like emulator cheat codes with 'em, or even save state scumming, really, what with save states in RPCS3 still being slow to use and quite unreliable.

Also it runs slightly bordered and blurry, bleh.

So eh yeah I’ll have to stick to actual PCE ROMs in Mednafen. ; )

[Godamn_Milkman]

The tale of BORKUS continues