My Life in Gaming Marathon #5 - Controllers and Cool Gaming Accessories

in 2018 we checked out a vast array of third-party controllers for home consoles among the 20 plus that we tested we found some truly great controllers that could be considered suitable replacements for the real thing but there is also no shortage of awful ridiculous and downright hilarious controllers that we wouldn't even subject a second player to if you're like us the notion that first party accessories are the best bet has been drilled into you from a young age in most cases first party controllers are simply made better and are usually never topped the evolution of official controllers for any given system can actually be quite interesting and sometimes virtually invisible changes can make a big difference of course there's a lot of these to cover so in this episode we're taking a look at the first party controllers from the nes on up to the 16-bit consoles and the neo geo [Music] the original nintendo entertainment system was an absolute phenomenon in north america it seemed like nearly everyone of a certain age group had one or at least knew someone who had one and playing nes for the first time with my cousin when i was i think four years old is maybe my earliest vivid memory and until she handed me this little corded doohickey i had no idea that super mario was a character that i could actually control on a tv screen and life has never been the same since so sure it might be fair to say that i have a bit of a nostalgic bias toward the nes and the original rectangle controller [Music] but of course the nes controller was itself preceded by the original famicom controllers in japan in 1983. while overall similar in design the most obvious difference is that the famicom controllers are hardwired to the rear of the console and rest in little notches on the sides the wires are extremely short only about a foot and a half long minus around nine inches if you consider the run from the rear to the front of the console which means japanese players either sat very close to the tv or had to run the console's power and rf wires across the room it's a design decision that does not hold up very well today only player 1 has start and select buttons but overall the feel is pretty similar to the nes aside from the sharper corners on the d-pad the slightly rounded edges and the ridge that runs around the controller feel nice i wonder if japanese players have nostalgia for a cord running between your fingers player 2 has a microphone which is most famous as your weapon against the rabbit-like pulse voice enemies in the japanese version of the legend of zelda but otherwise this feature was barely used which explains why a mic was not included on the nes controller [Music] now i'm sure that there are a lot of abused nes controllers out there but i've generally found the nes controller to be surprisingly precise given its age the buttons on all of mine still feel super fresh now whether nintendo actually invented the d-pad or control pad as they prefer to call it is a subject of some debate but nintendo inarguably made it the standard that it is today while some may prefer genesis saturn or playstation d-pads nintendo's d-pads tend to be the common high bar that all others are judged by and while the general consensus is that nintendo has stumbled with the switch pro controller d-pad the nes d-pad hangs with the best of them suited for everything from quick dodges and punch out to eight direction aiming and contra the key is the central pivot in the molded plastic of the d-pad which allows for more precise and natural movement versus pressing down buttons on a flat surface i've been through a lot with this controller it's become a universal symbol of gaming this recognized by millions around the world young and old gamer or non-gamer and i've always favored the notion that limitations breed creativity and the simplicity of the nes controller is still one of the most appealing things about the system to me you don't need a bazillion functions for a game to be fun and you can still do a lot with just two buttons pressing up and b to throw sub weapons in castlevania still feels so right to me even when later entries allow you to set them to an extra button the two button layout encouraged nes developers to cut the fat and get to the point which makes it a very approachable console to this day but the iconic rectangle is of course not the only first party controller designed for the nes the nes advantage was released in 1987 and as is obvious from its appearance this is an official arcade style controller for the nes [Music] now i have to be upfront here i only went to the arcade every now and then as a kid and i am absolutely terrible with joysticks they just feel so unnatural to me compared to d-pads so i'm not the right person to judge this controller at all but that said i do love the overall design it has a nice heft and just feels downright sturdy even by nintendo standards the ball top stick doesn't have the micro switches that hardcore arcade fans crave but the buttons do feel quite nice to me at least of note are the turbo toggles they even have speed dials which is a really cool touch the slow toggle button of course simply pauses and unpauses the game rapidly the nes advantage can actually plug into both controller ports optionally so the player switch allows for passing the controller and take turn style multiplayer games while i never use it for serious play since i'm a d-pad man through and through the nes advantage just looks cool and even has a bit of utility as a rudimentary lag testing device thanks to its leds that light up when the a or b buttons are pressed then there's the nes max it's hard to believe but yes this is a first party controller model number nes027 released in 1988. i'm sure this controller has its fan so i'm going to try to go as easy on it as i can there are some forward thinking ideas here like the handlebar shape that wouldn't become standard until the mid 90s or the handle texture that didn't really become a thing on first party controllers again until the ps4 and xbox one but the overall layout is a bit cramped for adult hands [Music] the nes max's claim to infamy is the sliding circle that freely moves around in its 8-way directional input maybe this later served as a sort of inspiration for the 3ds is circle pad but the key differences are that on the nes max the circle does not spring back to the center and also that simply moving the circle around does nothing you have to apply pressure to register input now if you could just simply slide your thumb around i could maybe see the appeal i mean who hasn't had a sore thumb in the morning after an evening of ninja gaiden but it feels like i have to constantly consciously apply pressure for it to be enough you can also simply press the black ring for directional movement but that's no replacement for a proper d-pad and on top of that the distance between the a and b buttons now set at a downward slant is just about 1 16 of an inch wider which might sound like almost nothing but to me it makes rocking my fingers between the buttons feel a fair bit less comfortable turbo buttons are a nice bonus but not enough to make up for my difficulties in using this admirably experimental but woefully imprecise controller so the nes has a fair number of first party controllers but plenty of side controllers not really meant for general use like the zapper power pad or the very rare hands-free controller that was designed for those with limited hand mobility there is one more nes controller we want to talk about here but i think before we get to that it would make sense to talk about the next generation first [Music] the super famicom launched in japan in 1990 and brought with it two standards of controller design that few companies save for nintendo themselves have dared to deviate from since most notably the diamond button layout where the thumb's home position for most action games is over y and b at a natural upward slant in contrast to the famicom and nes but similar to the game boy all four buttons have a slight convex hump secondarily two shoulder buttons were added r and l while nearly all modern games use shoulder buttons and triggers heavily many super famicom games use r and l only for very minor functions if at all when viewed from the side you'll notice a subtle downward slant which when combined with rounded sides makes for one of the most ergonomic yet elegantly simple designs in game controller history the d-pad is slightly larger compared to the nes and famicom and just a bit easier on the thumb like the famicom the super famicom controller is pretty short only about three feet but luckily it is plugged into the front of the console for north america the console was given a divisive redesign the controller however remained much the same aside from a new color scheme a chord more than double the length and an ingenious little tweak that's easy to miss b and a are convex like on the super famicom controller but y and x are concave like nes buttons this gives the tip of your thumb a cozy little nook to rest in on why while rocking the joint of your thumb downwards toward b feels comfy with no hard edges many people consider this to be the ultimate controller for 2d games snes controller responsiveness was a bit of a concern for mine for a while because my original two controllers from 1994 started to feel a bit mushy 12 or so years later on one of them in particular the start button and down on the d-pad were becoming nearly unusable an easy way to test snes controller responsiveness is to use kirby's avalanche or puyo puyo which have input tests in their options menus and you know there are a lot of knockoffs out there but despite the simplicity of the snes controller they never measure up to the real thing for me i spent a lot of money and effort trying to find a used but fresh feeling authentic replacement but no luck so i finally resorted to buying a new inbox late generation controller on ebay about 10 years ago it came in this box with super mario rpg artwork and wow what a difference it was completely worth it it had been years since i'd felt an snes controller that felt so fresh although i've actually now come to question had i ever used an snes controller that did feel this good before in truth this controller might feel so good not just because it was unused before 2008 or whenever i bought it it might be because it is a bit different better perhaps than my original controllers ever felt the distinguishing characteristic of this controller is that it has an engraved nintendo logo instead of the printed super nintendo text well years later i learned that our good friend gamedave was also aware of the greatness of this engraved logo controller and that's because his original console was the smaller snes console which was released in 1997 after the n64 was already out and came with the engraved controller and sure enough upon closer inspection of my controller's box it all makes sense copyright 1997. the model number is also different from sns005 to sns 102 after trying game dave's much to use childhood controller which felt every bit as good as my own engraved controller i realized that these very late snes controllers are just flat out better d-pad and button presses feel just a bit more precise not mushy but not clicky either while they are not that easy to find if you too are tired of looking for a fresh snes controller keep your eye out for the sns 102 with the engraved logo but if you'd like to restore a mushy controller to a better state the only solution really is to buy new rubber contact pads i bought two sets of these from console 5 for less than three dollars each after i took apart my most dire original controller i soon spotted the problem the indentation where the rubber d-pad dots make contact with the circuit board were starting to come loose for this controller i did a full replacement of the rubber pads with new ones the verdict it works perfectly now every button and direction registers effortlessly there's a slightly more clicky sound to the controller since the buttons now have a bit more of a spring back to them it's slightly different from the feel of the engraved controller but not particularly in a way that i would describe as good or bad start and select are black instead of dark gray so it doesn't quite look stock but i guess that's fair since it's not exactly a stock first party controller anymore but for now this will be my solution for snes controllers gone mushy but the real verdict will be in another 20 years to see if the new pads have lasted as long [Music] marry me with my money so with all that said we returned to the final nes controller model nes039 colloquially known as the nes dog bone this was the pack-in controller for the 1993 nes and famicom redesigns which were presented as budget-friendly alternatives to 16-bit consoles [Music] notably this means that the new famicom actually received nes controller ports and regular rectangle controllers do work although zappers do not the famicom and nes dog bones are otherwise identical aside from you guessed it a seriously short cable on the japanese version but it's nonetheless an improvement over the original famicom controller length the new systems often dubbed top loader nes and av famicom are coveted for their reliability and suitability for modding but the dog bones are also sought after on their own for their curved design that no doubt takes after the snes controller the snes dna doesn't stop there either the d-pad seems to be the same molding and texture as the snes d-pad and the slanted start and select buttons make the whole thing feel a bit more 90s here's the thing though i also really won one of these controllers for a long time and like everyone else i looked at them and thought wow how ergonomic compared to the old pointy rectangle but you know i have to be honest after getting the dog bone i just never could feel quite at home with it and it gave me a renewed appreciation for the classic rectangle i unwittingly bought into the hype and saw the dog bone as a solution to a problem i didn't have the deal breaker for me though is the slant and spacing of the a and b buttons sure the game boy has a slant too and you don't see me complain about that but i've recently realized that the real problem is the spacing like the nes max the buttons are again about a sixteenth of an inch farther apart than on the original controller which combined with the slant makes it feel like such an insubstantial part of my thumb rocks over the a button as i hold the b button in action games in contrast game boy buttons have the same spacing as those on the original nes controller so i hate to be a bit of a naysayer here but the dog bone controller is simply not for me i respect those of you who do love it and those of you who hold the nes rectangle in such a way that it digs uncomfortably into your hands but we'll just have to agree to disagree [Music] unlike nintendo who came out of the gate with a nearly perfect controller it took sega a bit longer to find their footing they'd obviously become a real powerhouse in the arcade where each game could be designed around a custom control scheme but at home it was a different beast a control pad design much in the same vein as the famicom made sense but there was one major obstacle nintendo had patented the cross-style directional pad so they'd have to come up with an alternative that wouldn't get them in legal trouble this was not only a problem for sega but for everyone else until it expired in 2005. the control pad included with the sega master system is a fairly close approximation of what the competition had but it differs in some key ways and comes across as a pale imitation for as much as i appreciate the master system and its games the controller doesn't exactly rank as one of my favorite things about it the rectangular size and general layout mimics the nes controller at a glance but the action buttons are spongy and lack tactile resistance it's fine for games like space harrier where you're jamming on one button constantly but with something like alex kidd in miracle world it's much less preferred the omission of expanded functionality buttons in the center like a start and select key was a major detriment too i doubt there's a single master system fan out there who didn't lament the choice to put the pause button on the console itself [Music] obviously the real eye catcher here is the d-pad or as sega like to call it the d button the slightly concave square is ergonomically sound but the lack of defined angles across a sizeable control surface makes it tough to get your bearings at times there is a central pivot but the travel distance is so shallow it may as well not even be there not good the only clear benefit to this style of pad i mean button is the ease of access to diagonals which is good for games that use the dreaded up to jump like lord of the sword early versions of the pad had a removable rubber plug at the center of the d button that once removed could let you screw in a tiny plastic joystick finding one of these in decent condition much less complete is fairly challenging these days of course if a control pad wasn't quite your style then you might be inclined to go with a more familiar tool such as an arcade joystick sega was happy to oblige with the control stick this right here was the second controller i received for christmas along with my master system i mean i thought it was gonna be awesome look at it but something felt off right away and i hated it [Music] now i'm sure you've already noticed what the major problem is with it but i never realized that until years later when i reacquired my childhood control stick from a friend that yep it's backwards i'm not quite sure what sega had in mind by going this way with it i don't know maybe it was a way to appeal to atari fans who are used to using their right hand for character movement and left hand for button presses annoyingly the rounded square head of the stick seems to come loose fairly easily since it's held in place by a screw you might need to open up the whole thing and tighten it from the inside for as difficult as it was to adjust to using this back on 87 it's especially tough to use today because it goes against 35 years of muscle memory sure it's fine for slower paced games but action games forget it however if you're left-handed you might want to give it a try but chances are it's going to feel wrong from what you're used to at this point as well part of the problem with the master system pad is that sega hadn't quite found their identity in the home market just yet but things were about to change big time when their 16-bit follow-up console was on deck they couldn't stress enough that everything was gonna be bigger and better than those puny 8-bit machines and that wasn't just limited graphics and sound either i'd never even considered that you'd ever have much less need more than two action buttons but when i held the genesis 3-button controller for the first time it was a true revelation a step up from the master system in every conceivable way this was no toy it was a big controller for big kids increase in the face buttons surely had to do with sega's desire to port their system 16 arcade games to the console games like golden axe needed a three button control scheme to match the arcade an altered beast being the pack in demonstrated the benefits of the new controller first hand with separate buttons for punch kick and jump surely the additional buttons would come in handy for future developments the buttons i mean triggers are lined up in a slight arch most games have button configurations in their option menus but my preferred layout was to put jump on c and attack on b a could then be assigned to switching magic and less immediate functions the d button has also been hugely improved with a circular or disc based shape with a pronounced up down left and right cross diagonals are still present but recessed to avoid confusion instead of molding a central pivot on the underside of the plastic sega opted instead to put a ball bearing in the rubber membrane since the genesis is backwards compatible with master system games it makes sense that it uses the same de-9 port for controllers and other peripherals but if you didn't have a power based converter then the controller could also be used on a master system console as well although it might be incompatible with a handful of games in the library i'm willing to bet that most people chose the genesis controller to play master system games after this point and i don't blame them in the slightest it's worth mentioning that although the de-9 connector was used on a lot of other consoles and computers at the time that doesn't mean you can just plug it into anything with that style of port it's wired up differently inside and in some cases might damage your console or computer so make sure you do a little research beforehand there were a number of variations of the three button controller that popped up during the course of the system's life span most of the differences are cosmetic but a key difference is that the plastic of the d button was altered to include a central pivot molded into the plastic a definite improvement but since i prefer the coloring of the model 1 controller what i've done is taken various parts of different versions and made what i feel is the best three button pad of course there's also sub variants with longer cores and different textured plastic on the directional button so there might be room for further improvement in the year since i last used it as my primary genesis pad i'm struck by just how much larger the three button controller is than i remember it being it must have been absolutely massive to an 11 year old still this is the iconic genesis controller when people think of the system chances are that this is the controller they associate with it as with the master system sega released an arcade joystick to complement the abundance of arcade ports on the genesis in a similar fashion the arcade power stick marked a sizeable jump in quality from its predecessor [Music] it's solidly built and has a metal underside to give it extra heft the buttons have a striking resemblance to actual arcade buttons and each of these have a dedicated rapid-fire toggle and one main slider that manipulates the rate of button presses making it great for shooters [Music] a first impression would be positive and it complements the genesis aesthetic to a t unfortunately looks can be deceiving the primary downfall of the arcade power stick is that it uses carbon conductive silicon pads to activate movement much like a typical control pad while it's fine in a smaller form factor such as those a joystick has increased travel distance making it less responsive and soft feeling clearly this was a cost saving measure but supposedly the japanese version uses micro switches which would have elevated this to an essential peripheral as it is though it represents one of the more ill-conceived purchases of my childhood the release of street fighter 2 in arcades signaled a major shift in gaming culture upon its release in 1991. the super nes found itself in a unique position to receive the first home port due to the six action buttons on the controller that matched the number of the arcade game although the button layout didn't match exactly it was still incredibly playable in fact it might be blasphemous for some but a four face and two shoulder button layout is actually how i prefer to play the game but i digress the fact is if you wanted to stand a chance in the console scene during the early 90s you had to have a version of street fighter 2. sega knew this but their three buttons put them at a disadvantage sold separately for around 20 sega unleashed the six button control pad alongside the release of street fighter ii special championship edition in 1993. the two rows of three buttons mimicked sf2's layout exactly although the game could be played with a three button pad if you wanted to have a horrible time of course street fighter wasn't the only game to take advantage of the new x y and z buttons but it was primarily a deluge of fighting games that followed in its wake that did nonetheless some non-fighting games did use the extra buttons to expand functionality if you happen to have a 6 button on hand [Music] [Applause] although i personally prefer the comfort of a diamond like layout of four face buttons having six face buttons at your disposal might have meant that the pad was intended to be held in a more arcade-esque manner to give you quicker access to certain button combinations but i just can't do it the circle shape d button has been redesigned with a totally different style of central pivot mechanism almost like an inside out version of the tried and true nub extrusion that nearly everyone had adopted by this point it feels a touch mushier but precise nonetheless of note is that a small handful of games such as golden x2 will not work with the six button in its default state the fix for this is the mode button which will switch the pad into three button mode if held when booting up the game this should cure most incompatibilities although there are exceptions like forgotten worlds [Music] the six button arcade pad model mk1470 is an ultra compact redesign that was included with the budget level genesis 3 console in 1998. not only has the mode button been moved next to start but it also incorporates slow motion and rapid fire functionality the latter of which is an all-or-nothing ordeal making it relatively useless for most games the buttons are closer in size and color to each other but lack any sort of concave or convex surfaces this can make it tougher to differentiate during more hectic moments on the more cramped controller now the d-pad matches the original six button pretty closely which makes it look a bit silly and disproportionate pushing it in a direction is a bit steeper which is nice but it's possible to push the entire thing down in the center where it gives the impression of little to no central pivot it's obvious that these were made on a rock bottom budget which makes sense considering that the genesis 3 retailed for around 50 in 1998. well i personally don't prefer it i've run into several people who consider this controller to be their favorite [Music] but before we put a button on the whole genesis era let's take a quick look at those new retrobit genesis controllers that just came out a little while back i know what you're thinking those aren't first party get them out of here and yeah that's true but these were reportedly made with sega's original molds so i was curious if they could be considered exact replicas or not these were sent over to check out thanks to castlemania games there's two different color variants a normal black and a transparent crystal blue outside of the 10 foot cord there's no obvious giveaways that allude to this being anything other than an official first party controller once in my hands the first thing i noticed was just how good the buttons felt my original is over 20 years old now so i can't even remember what it felt like when it was new you know but in the case of the d-pad well it looks nearly identical and the plastic has that same texture i noticed that pushing down in the center causes the entire thing to sink in which makes it feel closer to the six button arcade pad although not quite as extreme just to make sure it wasn't because of the newer rubber membrane i put that in my original six button and everything was totally fine which leads me to believe that while these pads supposedly use the same moldings there's been some slight alterations here and there either the central plastic post is a touch longer or the well that the pad sits in is slightly deeper sega sure had come a long way since the master system pad and the first six button controller was basically perfect these days the greater capabilities and smaller size make the basic six button pad into what is generally considered to be the go to controller on the genesis and that's something i'd agree with [Music] [Music] the pc engine family of consoles may have been marketed as 16-bit for their 16-bit graphics capabilities but the 8-bit huc-6280 cpu actually has more in common with the famicom and nes when the pc engine was introduced to japan in 1987 minisalt is a worthy upgrade to their famicom and the types of games that are popular on the console do in many ways feel like an extension of what you'd normally see on the famicom but with a wider color palette from that perspective then it makes sense that pc engine manufacturer nec didn't exactly rock the boat when it came to the system's controller design the two button layout along with a d-pad and start and select buttons or rather select and run was similar to what japanese consumers were used to using with platforms like the famicom sega mark iii and msx computer the one and two buttons are virtually identical to the a and b buttons on the famicom nes controllers the controller is wider than nes controller with rounded edges and a slight upward incline at the top that's comfortable to rest your fingers on but something feels missing right where's the turbo and turbo graphics well model pipd001 was succeeded by pipd002 which simply adds three-way turbo switches for buttons one and 2. nec also shipped similar controllers that have different model numbers which match the color schemes used by some of the alternative pc engine models such as the core graphics and core graphics 2. [Music] [Music] i've always been a bit unsure whether auto fire button should be considered cheating but i appreciate that it's practically part of the pc engine's identity turbo is an official function of the system's flagship controller so no guilt in using it the north american turbo graphics controller is for all intents and purposes identical to the japanese turbo toggle controllers aside from the black plastic shell and a bigger controller plug the cord isn't even that much longer than the japanese version the good news is that pc engine controllers can be extended with a pretty standard cord some people refer to it as a macintosh serial connector extension since it was pretty commonly used on those computers both the japanese and turbo graphics plugs are standard den sizes so you can find extensions and converters for both but speaking of the din plugs the most disappointing design flaw of all pc engine and turbo graphics models is that they only have one controller port you need a multitap for even just two players like i said before i appreciate that two button controllers lead to restrained and unbloated game design i feel like i should like the first party pc engine and turbo graphics controllers but there's just something about the d-pad that i've never been able to get totally comfortable with [Music] the disc design is similar to sega's controllers at a glance but it's smaller in size more akin to like an nes d-pad and i've just never been able to feel as in control with this little disc d-pad as i do with an nes genesis or snes d-pad but that's just me i've only been to the pc engine for a few years now so take that with a grain of salt but it does make it one of the very few systems for which i primarily use a third party controller instead the hori fighting commander pc which was not the only six button controller released for the platform the pc engine duo rx which combines the hue card and cd-rom hardware into a single unit shipped with nec's very own six button controller no doubt the overwhelming popularity of street fighter 2 forced their hands so that the pc engine's own version of the game could play like fans expected it to [Music] but outside of that the number of games that can actually utilize more than two face buttons seems to be fairly limited in fact a toggle switch is used to flip the controller back to two-button mode because otherwise you'll have compatibility issues with unsupported games i don't have this controller but corey does and he tells me that while the d-pad is larger it feels like it has a shallow pivot and it's not his favorite japanese controllers have an he system logo on the front which is also on the pc engine system itself as far as we understand nec home electronics was kind of like a separate company under the nec umbrella and the he system logo was licensed out to third parties so they could make official accessories and in some cases this has made it a bit difficult to determine what is truly a first party controller for example here's one that's a bit on the fringes but is still pretty much a first party controller the avenue pad 3 along with a similar 6 button controller called the avenue pad 6 this was made by nec avenue yet again a separate company but one owned by nec the avenue pad 3 doesn't exactly add any new functionality but button 3 can be mapped using a switch to either run or select which makes it so that action functions that might be on either of those buttons can be more comfortably reached during gameplay otherwise the avenue pad 3 is just about what you'd expect from a standard pc engine controller although the one and two buttons are a bit higher up [Music] there are a lot of pc engine and turbo graphics controllers including some joystick controllers but we simply just don't have all of them to show off here today but regardless nec made a plethora of simple but serviceable controllers with built-in rapid-fire functionality that supported the pc engine's excellent library of games and the company's short-lived moment is one of the most successful companies in the japanese video game market [Music] in 1991 while the genesis is doing its best to deliver arcade quality ports at home snk stepped in with the neo geo which literally delivered arcade games at home as long as you could handle the mega shock for the price tag the neo geo was a dream come true for died in the wool arcade fans but what good is the hardware if you don't have a quality joystick to go with it how's in jet black plastic with gray and gold accents the neo geo arcade stick was both robust and high quality symbolic of snk's dedication to the platform but also able to endure an insane amount of wear and tear [Music] this aesthetic of four face buttons a ball head joystick and start and select buttons is pretty subdued but it's the inside that matters and that's where snk really delivers using a square gate micro switch delivers immediate precise and natural feedback the golf between the genesis stick i talked about earlier and this one could be a mile wide the buttons on the other hand well they don't give quite the same impression but they're not bad or anything just a bit loud at first their arrangement might seem a bit weird since they're laid out over a steep arching incline but once you rest your hands on the body of the controller it's completely natural some of the more hardcore fans out there have taken it upon themselves to put in new buttons that are a bit less distracting and match the arcade color scheme for the most part the aes stick remains the de facto standard for neo geo games it's a jack of all trades working for every genre of game on the system there's definitely a reason it's so highly regarded even today but then again that might have more to do with the fact that there weren't any alternatives that is until the more budget-friendly neo-geo cd arrived in 1994 with two brand new controllers in tow [Music] for those that are interested in a more typical console style experience the neo geo cd pad takes the size and layout of a typical control pad and infuses it with a mini thumbstick to add some that spicy arcade flair creating a unique if awkward mashup once again the key is in the micro switches with each movement giving off a satisfying click but it does take a bit to get used to i found that it's at its best with games that allow for 8 direction movement like shooters or overhead running guns like shock troopers the only quirk is in the ordering of the buttons which aren't quite to my preference for diamond styled layouts i prefer two primary buttons to be vertical from each other like y and b on the snes however i do like that the color coding has finally made its way from the arcade cabinet [Music] and then you have the arcade stick pro a more compact colorful joystick that fans have nicknamed the kidney bean due to its pleasant curved shape oh yeah thankfully it retains the micro switches but the top of the joystick itself is a bit curious it's a ball head but the top has a concave groove supposedly this stick was aimed at being more comfortable for run and gun games like metal slug [Music] [Music] the button layout matches the arcade cabinet more closely with a horizontal spread but combined with the proportions of the stick you might find that the palm of your hand hangs off the side this seems to be the biggest complaint with the kidney bean stick it's simply too small and cramped compared to the luxurious real estate of the original there was a time when the arcade stick pro was more common and less expensive than the other options but i'm not so sure that that's the case anymore these days most who are just getting into the neo geo will probably end up with a bean stick since they're more widely available and cheaper than any of the other options out there it's worth noting that the original neo geo hardware uses a standard db15 connector for its controllers this port has since been adapted over the years and nearly all super guns which are specialized hardware for playing arcade pcbs at home on a tv or monitor so over the years a clicky stick has become synonymous with snk hardware whether it be an actual arcade joystick or a mini nub on the neo geo pocket i say that most fans agree that it's a defining aspect of anything that they release which makes it all the more baffling that when snk released a replica of the cd pad alongside the neo geo mini in 2018 lacked any sort of clickiness thankfully a diligent modder who goes by the name of magic trashman had an awesome idea why not take these fresh new controllers and swap out the mushy stick with a clicky micro switch one and while you're at it replace the usbc cable with a db15 so you can use it on original hardware sounds like a great idea in theory but is it as good as the original cd pad [Applause] like the neogeo arcade stick the original cd pad uses a square gate to define and limit the movement of the stick itself if you try to do a complete circle with the stick you'll clearly see that you're confined to square movement however the stick used with the mini pad mod doesn't have any sort of gait at all you can do big wide circles with it all day long but at the cost of stick travel distance and responsiveness it's essentially like an analog stick with digital characteristics at first this might not seem like a big deal but in practice it's simply nowhere near as good as the original it feels way too slippery and ultimately laggy because of how far the stick has to move to engage the micro switch after using it for a while it was manageable but i could never quite get fully used to it the other difference to note is the button layout while hardcore fans might scoff this is exactly what i was looking for finally i can lay my thumb vertically across the a and b buttons perfect for jumping and shooting a metal slug and more it honestly feels great for most games now i wish i could have this button layout with the original thumbstick so while this mod does a good job of loosely emulating the feel of the original pad it's not exactly comparable of course this is no fault of magic trashman's mod itself it's just that the new design of the stick is too far removed from the original to accurately incorporate something closer he did the best he could given the inherent limitations so although i didn't care much for it who knows there might be someone out there who prefers it more than the original over the course of a decade plus nintendo sega and their competitors brought 8-bit gaming to new heights and virtually perfected 2d game design in the 16-bit era and that competition resulted in two of the most popular and enduring button layouts in gaming history the diamond and the six button enough for any game desire to build an engaging game around the next time we visit the subject of first party controllers we'll see how these types of controllers met the needs of 3d gaming and where nintendo sega and newcomers of the gaming market took things from there [Applause] [Music] you know the game boy has a pretty amazing library it hadn't been a priority of mine for a long time but i've really been getting back into it but these cool little carts are kind of a problem with their small size and lack of a top label it's hard to come up with a way to show them off as part of the rest of your collection or to easily access them so that's why i set off on a quest to find a better way to display game boy games [Music] [Applause] see this here is a good example i used to store my game boy games like this for years and it really doesn't do them justice nothing about this makes me want to grab one and play it i decided it just won't do try what are you doing in my house [Music] that's not important look we gotta talk about these game boy games dave i thought you had better ideas than this well okay just relax there hoss why don't you tell me some of the solutions that you've seen for game boy games well the worst are those bins full of game boy games that you see at conventions and stores i just can't be bothered to see if they think good might be hidden in there also another thing i've seen at conventions a lot of vendors will take those big three ring binders they'll put in transparent baseball card sleeves and actually the game boy games will slip right in there yeah and that's good for finding games but they're kind of still hidden away in a binder so that's not what i want to do at home but now last year you were using something that wasn't too bad yeah i found these at target they're really just kitchen drawer inserts for utensils and things like that and it's a good way to just thumb through your games you can kind of see them but it's not displaying the cover art completely yeah and it's a good size but then you told me about people using golf ball display cases to display game boy games yeah i love that idea because you can actually see the cover art on all of the carts yeah but as i looked into that i found that on a lot of units the space between shelves isn't tall enough so i looked into cases for other collectibles like people will collect zippo lighters i don't know that they're almost as tall as a game boy cart so i thought it might be perfect but there's really no extra clearance at the top of most cases so i was afraid it wouldn't work and then you looked into other displays like ones that are made for coin slabs which i didn't even know that was a thing i didn't know people were that hardcore about collecting coins but i guess they are but it doesn't matter because those fancy display cases were super expensive yeah so i thought about a different way instead of searching for what to display i just searched for a cheaper material so i searched amazon for acrylic display and what i found was a bunch of displays for nail polish bottles i don't know for salons or something but i thought that with the space in between steps game boy games would lean back just a bit and it might work out so i ordered one it's kind of crazy how well these things work i ended up with two from amazon but they shipped from different sellers which is why this one has an extra row and this one's a bit wider but they hold the same number of game boy cards 36 without the cases and 30 if you have the cases on but i'm still annoyed that the shelves didn't match yeah i ordered a second one too and i got the same wide and tall mismatched combo your setup works better with two wide ones mine works better with two less wide ones so i brought this one here so we could make a trade right and that's going to match everything up i did manage to find specific listings for the tall and wide versions of the shelves so you don't end up with mismatched ones but there's a huge assortment of these online and you can search up longer ones taller ones even ones that hang on the wall who'd have thunk that nail polish racks would be the perfect solution for these game boy cartridges my wife didn't know game boy advanced games don't really work that well because they're so short but it's not bad if you use some of those third-party cases same goes for ds games if you're a monster and have loose cards yeah you could even display loose umds i guess or vita games in cases i feel like there's all sorts of things you could do with it really hey guys what about game gear games atari lynx games neo geo pocket games what about console games even i'll admit it's nice to have n64 cards that face forward [Music] so we're using it for game boy games but you could use it for any cartridge based collection or pretty much anything really yeah and if you have a relatively small size collection it'd be a great way to display your games in a front-facing fashion and show off that awesome cover art yeah so i'm glad this swap worked out and i'm looking forward to getting home and setting up my own game boy collection with this one yeah that'll be pretty good but make sure next time you visit the game room you kind of you know not just break into my house kind of let me know i can do that yeah it's not it's not that hard okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] when it comes to connecting analog gaming hardware to digital displays the biggest names in town are the framemeister and ossc but now a smaller challenger approaches the retro tink 2x you might be thinking that the retro tank is just a budget alternative to pricier and more robust upscalers and you're right but that's not necessarily the only role it can play let's put the retrotink2x through its paces and see if there's anything it can do beyond what you might expect [Music] [Applause] [Music] retro tank is a series of devices designed by electrical engineer mike chi most of them being add-ons for raspberry pi emulation boxes that allow for 240p analog output but in this episode we're looking at the retro tink 2x which is designed to be a no lag low frills line doubler and analog to digital converter for those who want to play games on their original hardware our unit was provided by castlemania games an online retailer distributing the device the retro tank 2x is powered by usb and outputs via mini hdmi it features composite s-video and component video inputs along with a single pair of stereo inputs so you might have to think about how you'll manage your setup's audio rgb input is not supported by the video hardware you might have noticed the awkward oversized heat sink sitting on top of the chip next to the micro usb port we're told that this is simply a stop gap solution due to the power regulator on the first 100 units running a bit hotter than expected and that all orders moving forward will use a different regulator that dissipates heat more efficiently [Music] the primary function of the retro tank 2x is to take 15 kilohertz analog signals that's 240p and 480i for ntsc regions and convert them to 31khz in other words 480p in the case of interlaced input a bob technique similar to the ossc is used a button on the retro tank allows you to switch between three modes 480p output 480p smooth output or pass-through mode which only converts the signal to digital with no line doubling the other button switches between composite s-video or component if you're on the wrong input the picture will appear in black and white on the surface this makes the retro tank seem pretty limited compared to a lot of the other stuff we've tested for the rgb master class series it doesn't even have rgb after all and 480p output doesn't sound too impressive is any better than just plugging your cables directly into your tv and if your tv doesn't have analog inputs those generic hdmi converter boxes do cost a lot less most generic upscalers on amazon cost under 40 dollars the retro tank 2x is 99 while its most similar competitor the open source scan converter costs around 180 dollars the framemeister tends to go for about 330 or so so the retro tank needs to perform a lot better than the generic scalers to justify the cost but is it cheaper enough than the ossc to be a compelling alternative well the great thing here is that it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other the ossc does not support composite or s-video for instance and the retro tank has some small perks of its own so let's put it to the test if i had to guess the typical customer for the retro tank 2x is interested in playing classic games on original hardware and wants to minimize input lag without the need for a crt they don't want to pay too much but they're willing to spend a little extra to not get a piece of crap and they'd probably also prefer to avoid console mods and dealing with rgb cables in this scenario the retro tank is very likely the absolute best way to connect an unmodified nes with composite video to a modern display i mean keep your expectations in check because composite video is inherently very messy but it's the best you're going to get without looking into nes mods fpga systems emulation or just letting a crt hide some of the composite noise the retro tank is for sure a lot better than generic scalers which almost always improperly interpret 240p as 480i the framemeister handles composite about as well as you could hope but there is a touch more input lag compared to the retro tank while the sega genesis natively supports rgb many aficionados insist that composite is the way to go due to the system's heavy use of dithering in place of true transparency and for the simulation of additional shading this is all very cool but it has to be said that the only reason these illusions are possible is because the quality of genesis composite is especially bad it's so poor that some video decoders can't even lock onto the chroma signal but regardless the retro team gives you a better starting point for minimizing input lag than any generic composite upscaler many tvs and monitors on the market today are indeed quite fast and will often perform much better receiving a 480p signal compared to a console's native 240p or 480i [Music] the jump in quality from composite to s-video is arguably the biggest and most significant in the video realm and especially for american gamers who did not have access to rgb back in the day s video was the premium cable consoles that natively support s video include the commodore 64 snes cdi 3do saturn original playstation nintendo 64. dreamcast ps2 xbox gamecube and wii in addition to some hdmi consoles and a few others although it's certainly not the best or most accessible cable for many systems in terms of consoles for which the best connection without modifications is s video n64 is probably the most popular and i have to say it looks surprisingly good through the retro tape likewise gain component video for the gamecube is a pretty pricey proposition so s video is not a bad choice s video is also useful for dreamcast fans who may not have a good way to use the system's vga output and even for those who do it's a decent connection for the games that do not support vga mode speaking of 3d consoles for these games many people might enjoy the retro tank's smoothing toggle which does not add lag and is not offered by the ossc in the typical 240p games for saturn ps1 or n64 this almost creates the appearance of double vertical resolution making many areas look surprisingly clean in regard to 4edi 3d graphics the smoothing option can also greatly reduce the pixelization that occurs due to the bob d interlacing technique component is of course the best quality connection that you can use on the retro tank and the only one that we can compare directly to the same input on the ossc component is officially supported by ps2 xbox gamecube psp and wii color representation appears a bit different between the retro tink and ossc but we're not going to split hairs over whether it's right or wrong for interlaced games there's certainly an argument that can be made in favor of the retro tank smoothed mode versus the line double and line quadruple modes on the ossc it's almost like a middle ground between the ossc's bob technique and the motion adaptive de-interlacing of the framemeister if you're hoping to use the retrotink as an all-purpose device for connecting to a display that may not have component connections then you should know that 480p input is not supported at all not even in pass-through mode which is definitely an inconvenience while component is not natively supported by any consoles older than the ps2 the popular component cables made by our friends at hd retrovision cleanly convert rgb signals from super nintendo and genesis consoles to the more widely accessible component format adapters sold by hd retrovision also make possible their use with neo geo saturn and playstation 1. not to mention if you had rgb mod consoles to the mix it's possible to use component video with nes and n64 via hd retrovision cables as well and when you consider the various plug-and-play pc engine rgb options with genesis 2 style av ports it's now possible to use component video with a large majority of the popular classic game consoles so if you've just been plugging hd retrovision cables directly into an hdtv then you might think of the retrotink as a way of boosting them for improved compatibility scaling quality and reduced input lag of course the ossc offers the same benefits but with more sizing options note that television compatibility with high-res ossc output modes varies wildly and while we've seen recent tvs often be more tolerant of signals like 960p and 1200p than tvs from just a few years earlier 480p is the overall safest bet for compatibility in addition nes and snes signals tend to cause the most problems but 480p nes and snes from both the ossc and retro tank seems to work well in our testing on a tv that tends to be fussy with the 3x 4x or 5x modes with those consoles when using test patterns there appears to be more visible noise in darker shades on the retro tank compared to the ossc but to be fair it's not nearly as obvious in a typical gameplay scene the ossc is definitely a bit sharper than the retro tank even when both units are outputting 480p but whichever is the victory here is purely up to your own tastes the retro tank's softer image does have the notable benefit of reducing visible jail bars which are often seen in certain flat colors on various consoles such as the sega genesis the ossc does also exhibit some minor edge ringing when examined up close although this could be remedied by dialing and optimized horizontal sampling on a per console and per resolution basis even though the retro tink has a somewhat softer image the genesis transparency and dither blending tricks still don't quite come across the way that you might hope when using high quality cables only composite video oh and by the way if you're in a pal region the retro tank has no problem handling 15 kilohertz signals at 50 hertz we did run into some sound issues that may make you decide to bypass the retro tink for audio while it seems to be fine in a majority of situations we experienced an over modulation problem from time to time first listen to super mario 64 on the ossc [Music] [Music] now here's the retro tink 2x [Music] despite some shortcomings the retro tank mostly performs its intended duties quite well being the fastest and overall best gaming focused analog to digital device that we've tested at the 100 or less price range but before we wrap up here why don't we have a little fun trying the retro tank and a few special case scenarios [Music] many seem to be thinking of the retro tank 2x primarily as a way to quote unquote restore composite and s-video input to the ossc the idea is that you use a simple hdmi to vga converter in conjunction with the 240p or 480i pass-through modes of the retro tank and voila you can add composite and s-video functionality to the oss vga input using any of the scaling modes on offer going beyond the 2x 480p of the retro tank in an interview with retrorgb mike chi explains that he felt adding vga output directly to the board would be a needless expense as the resulting quality would be in theory identical to an optional external converter and no lag would be added this vga adapter was included with our unit and castlemania games offers it as a 10 add-on well it's a compelling idea but what do you think i'm not so sure that sharpening up composite video does any favors you think that maybe s-video would look fine but the cleaner signal makes another problem become apparent check out the wobbly vertical lines on the oss higher res modes we get the same results with composite as video and component using two different vga adapters the problem persists even with optimized sampling modes causing flickering edges the only way that we could find and fix this problem was to simply set the ossc to 2x which kind of defeats the purpose however the ossc does offer scanline settings that the retro tank lacks on its own which goes a long way to making composite video look somewhat presentable i have to admit it's pretty nostalgic if you don't have an ossc you could use a standalone vga scanline generator in this case set the retro tank to 480p output instead of pass through naturally this looks really good when connected to a standard vga computer monitor remove the scan line generator and is overall pretty clean well at least with s video and component anyways sorry composite [Music] unfortunately the retro tank is still not a perfect solution to what we call the chrono cross problem the issue of an extended lapse in sync occurring when a certain few games switch between 240p for gameplay and 480i for menus or titles how quickly the image returns depends on your hdtv we hope that maybe this could be sidestepped by sending the ossc a constant 480p from the retro tank but alas no such luck this is one area where generic scalers tend to actually perform decently since they mishandled 240p as 480i the retrothink can provide a very authentic look for digitizing vhs tapes or laserdiscs and the vertical smoothing option helps soften the interlacing a bit we make no secret of our love for the vhs look and honestly this is pretty great but unfortunately just like with the framemeister the retro tank tends to frequently drop sync whenever the vcr hits some troublesome spots on a poor quality tape i know there are 150 pokemon out there but is there really one more adorable than pikachu i don't think so a lot of people seem to be looking for non-traditional ways to use the retro tank but our tests have led us to believe that it performs its best when it's just used normally the 480p output is a bit soft compared to what the ossc can do but overall it looks quite good on its own and trying to repurpose it to work with different connections or devices has mostly just resulted in extra noise and headaches it's too bad it doesn't have a built-in scan line function but of course more features adds hardware and cost we like the retro tank 2x well enough for its own merits as a fast gaming centric video processor equipped with the most accessible analog connections sold at a lower price than any comparable device that we're aware [Applause] [Music] everyone has their favorite controller right when you think about it the pad joystick remote whatever tends to be one of the console's defining aspects shaping the way you're going to play on that system for the next however many years but what if you don't love it i mean i didn't care for the n64 controller at all and i think that it severely affected my enjoyment of that system so what if you could replace a controller that you dislike with one that you do like on this tips and tweaks we're going to take a look at some controller adapters allow you to use a controller from one console on another [Music] [Applause] [Music] back when the gamecube game boy player released i bought an inexpensive adapter to use a dualshock 2 on the gamecube but as silly as it sounds i found myself not enjoying playing game boy games with a playstation controller i later imported the well-renowned hoary pad instead but as you may know those are pretty expensive these days in testing this adapter again more recently i found that it actually performs really well and could serve as an inexpensive 40 pad alternative if you can still find this one or something similar but in this episode we want to go more in depth on a selection of different adapters that you can actually easily buy today [Music] a while back on tips and tweaks we showed you a mod for putting a vaguely gamecube-esque stick inside an n64 controller the results were a bit mixed and the experience really gave me a newfound appreciation for just how much nuance there really is to the n64 stick's range of movement but in the meantime what if we just used an actual gamecube controller on the n64 thanks to rafnet technologies who provide us with an adapter that does just that this is now a possibility let's first get the analog stick part out of the way how does it perform well a heck of a lot better than the cheap replacement stick we tried before in fact i couldn't find any issues whatsoever with its sensitivity dead zone or directional range many n64 games perhaps most notably super mario 64 feature characters with more degrees of speed than we're used to seeing in many modern games i was very pleased to see that mario's precision movement is kept well intact while using a gamecube controller with a comfortable amount of the styx range dedicated to mario's slower speeds if your gamecube's sticks happen to be in poorer shape then the adapter can toggle a larger dead zone on or off the gamecube to n64 adapter also passes other common sensitivity tests like smash attacks and super smash brothers and the quick spin in the zelda games it's comfortable for power sliding and mario kart 64 smooth turns in f0x and even succeeds in and survives the mario party portrait [Music] but i am never again subjecting my gamecube sticks to that kind of abuse there seems to be no perceptible added input lag none that i can notice anyway raphnet even has its own utility software for n64 flash cards which can not only be used to update the adapter's firmware but can also be used to test button response and the sensitivity of any n64 controller so it gets the basics right but what else can it do when i first plugged it in i was a bit concerned button mapping translates from the n64 controller very literally which is great for a and b but this leaves critical z button functions on the awkward gamecube z button and the x and y buttons do nothing at all but thankfully this is no simple adapter and you aren't stuck with the default button mapping in fact you can easily program your own configuration and save up to four profiles the rafnet website actually has a neat mapping table that lets you choose how each gamecube button stick and analog trigger functions this then generates a code how do you use it well with the game and n64 system turned on hold the start button for several seconds a red light turns on and control to the game is dropped then simply enter the button combination from the website if you like what you've done you can save it now called me crazy but i've got a big soft spot for the n64 controller but i am a big fan of the gamecube controller too sure both controllers have their share of flaws but i really think nintendo was onto something when they ditched the diamond face button layout for a few generations playing any n64 game with another controller requires some special considerations and would take a bit of convincing for me to use a different one so i really thought about it what would i want to do with the gamecube controller on my n64 and i came up with four profiles that i could really see myself using and it was actually really fun first up i'm just calling this one standard it's a baseline profile that maps buttons to more immediately useful locations than the default the n64z button goes to the gamecube's l trigger while x y and z double as alternate inputs for c right c left and c down respectively this doesn't remove the same functionality from the c-stick but simply put c-axis on extra buttons for games where that would feel more natural like for items in zelda the c-stick by the way activates its button presses at a fifty percent tilt and works really well at least as camera control by default analog presses of r and l do not activate but i felt like pressing all the way to the click wasn't ideal so i also set those to activate z and r respectively when pressed to fifty percent but what about this what if i use the same profile with the hori pad the more compact and snes like design just seems like a perfect fit for some of the system's side scrollers even with this lack of a c stick with the simple c button functions for games like kirby 64 being mapped to the x y and z buttons i was really having a blast i have been meaning to replay kirby 64 and i think this is exactly how i'm gonna do it [Music] my second profile is almost exactly like the first but it's designed to automatically invert camera controls rather reverse them to non-inversion back in the n64's day and even through much of the following generation inversion was standard not just for vertical camera controls but also horizontal controls camera controls eventually start to shift toward non-inversion by default i heavily resisted this at first but i decided to suck it up and get used to non-inversion and i'm really glad i did except for the fact that it's now tough to go back a few generations where inversion options aren't guaranteed so let's just map c right to see left and c left to see right same applies to the vertical inversion still seems natural to me in old favorites that i've played to death like super mario 64 but i can see myself actually using this non-inverted profile with some of my n64 games that i haven't played through yet [Music] my third profile mixes things up a bit more what if we could give n64 first-person shooters a modern control scheme on a slightly more modern controller i specifically made this profile for goldeneye in perfect dark but it could easily be tweaked to suit probably most any first person shooter on the system i've always used the default control scheme in both games which involves turning on the stick not strafing which quickly became outdated but control type 1.2 sets the analog stick to amy with movement and strafing set to the c buttons so we can map the analog stick axes to the c stick and the c button to the left stick with movement and strafing set to activate at 50 presses in any direction put z on r r on l and that's all there is to it to be honest i'm a bit weirded out by the result i'm just not used to playing these particular games this way the only downside is that aiming is a bit quick for my taste though that's just how stick amine is designed in the game not a fault of the adapter [Music] and lastly my fourth profile is super game specific you might have noticed that we like to feature mischief makers and n64 related episodes and it's not just because it's a pretty 2d game it's a really fun and extremely unique side scroller by treasure since it requires the d-pad it kind of plays like garbage on a gamecube controller that should in turn make it a perfect fit for the hori pad except that its control scheme relies on heavy use of the c buttons for its admittedly very technical and challenging controls so can we make this work r and l perform equivalent functions and are fairly unimportant in mischief makers so i set them to the hori pads admittedly not so bad z button i set c left l c right to r c up to y and c down to x and you know from a bit of light testing i really think it works i can perform c button dashes without my thumb ever strained from the jump button so it might actually be easier to perform some of the game's more demanding acrobatics i'm admittedly very out of practice at mischief makers so i don't expect to come to a firm conclusion on this one anytime soon [Music] there are a few downsides to using a gamecube controller like for example you'd have to keep an n64 controller with a controller pack on hand to swap for saving in games that require it and there's no rumble functionality the plastic that the adapter is constructed with makes me think of a dollar store kazoo but i don't think it's going to break or anything so for an adapter that i didn't feel a particular need for i have to admit it's actually extremely well thought out really fun to customize and offers a world of possibilities that i never considered beyond just controller preference leading up to the launch of the wii in 2006 i read a news article about a briefcase full of replica controllers for each of the systems that the virtual console was going to support ultimately these replicas were never made available to the public and instead we were stuck using a sideways wii remote or a classic controller designed to work universally with all games on the virtual console while both of these were viable options it wasn't quite what i was looking for once again we have rafnet technologies to thank for a controller adapter that would finally fulfill my long lost dream of using an original sega genesis controller with my wii virtual console games as with the gamecube n64 adapter that tri covered this was provided to us by rafnet technologies this lightweight dongle connects to your wii remote just like any classic controller and provides a standard nine pin input so you can connect a genesis controller of your choosing it supports both three and six button variations of the genesis controller so don't stress out about your favorite style of controller not working according to rafnet specs this adapter has only a three millisecond response time between pressing the input the dongle transcoding the signal and it hitting the wiimote needless to say you're probably not going to notice any lag while using it at least none that's caused by this peripheral but then again specs are just specs so let's put this adapter through its paces and see how it does all right it makes sense to start out with some genesis games right i transferred all of my virtual console against the wii u back during the launch of the system so i'm stuck having to test most games on that system of course there should be zero difference between the two so it shouldn't be an issue everything feels just as you'd expect it to which it should given that this adapter is simply remapping the inputs from a classic controller and assigning them to where they should be on a genesis controller that means that y b and a on a classic controller are mapped to a b and c on a genesis pad for six button games l x and r are mapped to x y and z as you'd expect the plus button serves as start on the classic controller and that is reflected on the genesis controller true to their word if there's any kind of input lag i sure as heck didn't notice doing flips and revenge of shinobi felt right on the money even though you have a small window to hit the c button at the peak of your jump ghouls and ghosts felt tight and responsive too and streets of rage 3 felt great with its true six button control layout if you're a big virtual console enthusiast and kept your vc games on the wii then you are in for a treat combining a real genesis controller and playing on a crt at a native 240p resolution the look and feel is about as authentic of an experience as you can expect from official emulation [Music] the sega master system uses the exact same nine pin controller connection that the genesis did so it would make sense that the master system controller would work just as well right the sms controller is indeed officially supported according to rafnet's site and it works like a charm i tested it on several games like alex kidd the lost stars and one of my favorites secret command but you know you might just want to use a genesis controller with your master system games anyways and not because the controller's directional pad is a million times better as all master system owners know sega annoyingly designed the console with a pause button on the power base itself when playing these games on the virtual console using a sideways wii remote this functionality was rightfully mapped to the plus button unfortunately using a master system controller on the wii remote cuts off this ability and you'll have to unplug the adapter to pause your game however if you opt for a genesis controller instead this functionality is restored you know people who play on real hardware never had it this good so that about covers it right well this adapter makes the genesis controller function as a classic controller so it'll work with everything that the classic controller does so let's have some fun and see how it translates to other platforms [Music] obviously the first test that i went for is with super nes games on virtual console you'll have to use a genesis 6 button controller to even do this as fun as this was to try i found pretty quickly that the button placement can get a bit wonky at times especially with the l and r buttons being mapped to x and z on the genesis controller for instance in f-zero you'll run into some issues when you have to make a sharp turn without taking your finger off the accelerator if you absolutely want to make this work prepare to use the claw hand technique of course playing games on the wii u virtual console you can customize the control however you like so this might open some options for you but in most instances nothing really has the same convenience as some good old-fashioned shoulder buttons this also rings true if you're trying to play game boy advanced games on the wii u vc on the flip side if you're like me then this is the combo you've always wished for as a kid when it comes to street fighter 2. the superior version of the game with the superior controller does it even matter these days with so many ports of the game and countless controller options probably not but it's cool to see what could have been probably the biggest deal breaker is that none of the buttons on the genesis pad have an equal to the sns select button so you're out of luck if you're playing a game that uses it heavily like super metroid if you want to do something really crazy and play some nes or turbo graphics 16 games on a controller with an infinitely inferior d-pad you'll be happy to hear that a master system controller works just fine except you can't start or pause your game without unplugging the adapter first but hey who really wants to use an sms controller on this stuff anyways of course you do get start button functionality back when using a genesis controller but alas still no select what about other eshop games that support the classic controller one of the main things that originally interested me in this adapter was being able to play freedom planet and other retro-inspired games with the genesis controller almost as if they had been originally developed for that platform most of the games that i tried like mighty switch force and mute muds felt right at home with the genesis controller but disappointingly shovel knight isn't fully playable due to using the minus button to access the sub menu the aforementioned freedom planet does feel like it was pretty much made for this controller though finally i tried out some retail games for the genesis controller and it played pretty good with yoshi's woolly world on the wii u and clinoa on the wii unfortunately i don't own a lot of games that support a classic controller without needing an analog stick so that's about where my testing ended refnet's genesis to wii adapter was obviously meant to create an authentic virtual console experience but let's not forget that this adapter will work with any game that supports a classic controller on both wii and wii u whether or not they'll be fully playable depends but i think the true destiny of this adapter is making indie games feel even more like they existed at the time of their inspiration now i'm really curious in trying out rapnes other controller adapters for similar reasons [Music] when i purchased by consolized mds neo geo a while back the only option for an included controller was one of the kidney bean style joysticks i think it's decent but honestly it feels kind of flimsy it wasn't long before i was on the lookout for some alternatives the neogeo cd control pad is okay i love the micro switch mini stick but i found the button layout to be kind of unintuitive the original style joystick while iconic tends to be a bit pricey at times so what other options are there well my search for an alternate controller brought me to tototech.com where i stumbled across a neo geo to playstation controller adapter for about 18 bucks this device seemed like it would fit my needs perfectly not only would it fix my button layout issues it also has some pretty cool extra features i was sure i'd get some use out of connecting to a standard db15 pin input that both the aes and consolized mvs use for its controllers this adapter is pretty lightweight but it's sort of bulky all you need to do is plug in a playstation 1 or 2 controller and you're good to go this adapter enables the use of both the dual shocks left analog stick and the classic directional pad although i found myself using the ladder most of the time there was some instances where i found the analog stick to be the superior choice the way that the neo geos four button layout translates to a playstation pad is a bit different than the neo geo cd pad while that controller puts the a and b button on the bottom row and the c and d button on the top row this adapter maps a to square b to x c to triangle and d to circle i found this setup worked great for most games especially metal slug where shooting and jumping are on square and x exactly the way i like it gameplay felt tight in all instances and if there was any lag i couldn't tell while the neo geo controller only needs four face buttons don't think for a second that the shoulder buttons go to waste there's some cool options here that can significantly change how certain games are played both in terms of convenience and overall gameplay holding down r1 or r2 in conjunction with one of the face buttons will enable one of two levels of rapid fire for that button i found this super useful for shock troopers because it allows your shooting direction to change to whatever direction you're moving without releasing the button normally when you hold down the a button your character will lock their firing direction allowing you to strafe this is handy too but being able to quickly switch between the two styles of play without killing your hand was a game changer for me ninja assault on the other hand well you could say it's more or less broken with rapid fire there's also a slow motion mode you can enable by holding down l2 and pressing select you turn it off by pressing l1 and then select i suppose this is pretty cool but slow motion modes where it's just quickly pausing and unpausing have always been more obnoxious to me than useful of course all this is for naught if you think it's blasphemous to use a control pad with neo geo games as i've said before snk's arcade sticks are the default best way to play but what if you fantasize about using that heavy duty usb arcade stick that you built for street fighter tournament play thanks to a homebrew developer who goes by the name undamned this fantasy is now a reality using his ud usb decoder adapter you can now easily connect the usb game controller to a db15 port several years ago i spent a bunch of time and money customizing a playstation 3 wwe brawl stick with parts by sanwa if i could use the stick for some real arcade games i'd be living the dream my original draw to undam's usb decoder was for its primary intended use letting you enjoy a console fight stick on a super gun which is essentially consolized arcade hardware i had a hunch that the adapter might just work with my neo geo omega from arcade works and after checking with undam to make sure i wouldn't fry the thing it did indeed work alright now we are in business the decoder adapter is powered by the 5 volt pin in the db15 port so all you have to do is plug it in connect your usb controller and turn the system on since the decoder is heavily used in the fighting game community zero input lag was a priority and i'm happy to report that i noticed none due to a different molding size i found that the adapter would only fit loosely in the controller port of my consolized mvs it kept falling out in the neo geo aes's case it wouldn't even reach the pins inside the port thankfully i found a workaround by using a controller extension to chain it through after powering on a solid green light inside the adapter will signal that it's up and running that's really all there is to it on a super gun it's pretty much plug and play but on a neo geo you've got to customize the buttons a little bit since the default button decoding is optimized to account for a 6 button jammer layout you have to reassign your buttons just hold down any three buttons on your controller as you boot the console the green light will begin to flash and you can map any input to any button except for start and select for the neo geo just press whatever buttons in the location you want them from a to d of course you'll need to assign two additional buttons after those first four since the decoder is looking to place six buttons just put those on whatever buttons you're not using now the adapter will not remember your button settings after you cut the power so you'll need to do this every time you boot up it's too bad there isn't a way to save this but it makes sense since the decoder was designed to be used by the fighting game community anyways let's try a couple of usb controllers you no doubt have laying around even though i originally thought it would be worthless especially with the last adapter i talked about the dual shock 3 worked great i found the button customization to be a huge deal on a game by game basis i came up with some pretty decent button layouts most notably putting c on the r1 shoulder button in namm 1975 which allows you to quickly dodge without taking your finger off the fire button oh yeah this game feels awesome using the analog stick too the only minor annoyance with using a dual shock 3 with this adapter is that if you're using a controller that's already synced to your playstation 3 as soon as you unplug the controller or turn off the neo geo it sends a signal to your ps3 and turns it on i also tried a wired xbox 360 pad and it worked perfectly though the d-pad might be less than optimal for a lot of these games my wireless receiver died years ago but i tried using a wireless controller connected via a play and charge kit and i can confirm that this does not work there's also no support for the wii u pro controller although i prefer to use my arcade stick with the decoder undamned is constantly adding support for various controllers and fight sticks with the dualshock 4 and the xbox one controller being added in the future without a doubt the undamned db15 to usb decoder is absolutely awesome if it seems like something you can get some use out of whether it be on your consolized mvs neo geo or super gun then they can be purchased from paradise arcade shop for about 40 dollars be warned though they arrive in batches as undammed makes them and tend to sell out fairly quickly this is just a small sampling of all of the controller adapters out there and all of this doesn't even get into the multitude of methods for adapting console controllers for use on pcs sure there are a lot of crap accessories and adapters out there but also plenty that show great ingenuity in getting around technical limitations providing a more comfortable and customizable gaming experience and even those that help retro classics on modern hardware feel a bit more authentic [Applause] [Music] when i was a kid i knew that buying a new game meant that i'd be stuck with it for months until i had a chance to get another one there were so many games out there and i knew i'd never have a chance to play them all i never could have imagined that one day it would be possible to have every game ever made accessible with emulation using rom files and software on your computer but what if we could load those roms onto our home console so they play and function just like the real thing turns out that this is absolutely possible using a device called a flash cartridge the most popular of which is known as the everdrive [Music] [Applause] [Music] the everdrive is made by igor golibuski who is better known as cricks and is based in ukraine everdrives aren't the first flash carts ever made but these days they seem to be the most commonly used now i have to confess i don't have a ton of experience with flash carts so i'm mostly going to set this episode out because cory on the other hand has been really passionate about everdrives for the past several years and has just a ton of knowledge about what to expect from every model obviously when it comes to any flash cart the elephant in the room is that most people are probably using them to play downloaded roms either just to try them out or maybe as a way to avoid the rapidly rising costs of retro games and this has limited my interest in flash cards because to me playing an authentic cartridge is just as important as playing on the original hardware and i know all too well from experimenting with emulation that having every game available to play on a whim makes it difficult to commit tries views are lying pretty close to mine i view the everdrive as more of an object of convenience and they are especially helpful for the overall production of my life and gaming but if i'm sitting down to play through a game for my own enjoyment i will most likely use the actual cartridges that i own i guess i feel like i appreciate the game more if i paid for it but even i have to admit that there's a lot more to everdrives than playing your typical vanilla rom fan translations special hacks console utilities and even original homebrew games these are all noble pursuits that are made even more impressive by being played on their native hardware not to mention the role that all this can play in game preservation with roms existing for titles that may have only been available through rewritable kiosks or satellite services so honestly there is a lot here that does interest me so cory let's hear it [Music] using an everdrive is simple they're designed on a per console basis to play roms off an sd card that's been inserted into a slot in the pcb plugging the everdrive into the cartridge slot and turning on the system takes you to a simple operating system which lists all the playable round files present on the card from there just choose a game and it will load into the everdrive's memory the console reads the game as if it was the actual cartridge but that's not to say that every game will play 100 perfect you'll run into issues with compatibility and glitches from time to time since the os can be updated on the sd card compatibility may be improved and glitches may be fixed but for all intents and purposes we have the entire game availability of emulation with the authenticity of playing unreal console hardware you can purchase everdrives directly from cricks cricks.com or through stoneage gamer a retailer based out of salem ohio whose online store also offers the option to customize your everdrives with different colored shells labels and sd cards recently a number of knockoffs have begun to pop up on ebay and amazon these have a number of issues with playing games so make sure you buy directly from cricks or through stoneage gamers so that you know you're getting an authentic product they'll actually work as intended in this episode we're going to be focusing on the ever drives that are available for use on home consoles there's also a number of everdrives available for portable consoles but i'll be covering those in a future episode i'm a big master system fan although some might think of the sega master system as one of the least essential consoles it was my first and i will love it forever sure the genesis is capable of playing sms games but because i still have my childhood system i wanted to keep it hooked up i purchased my own master everdrive in early 2016 from stoneage gamer i chose the cheapest shell and label options and if you want this exact version it's about 96 dollars as of the time of this video it uses a standard sized sd card and it will only take about 2 gigabytes to hold everything available for the system in all regions loading games from the sd card can take a little while depending on the size of the game but it's nothing to go crazy over the master everdrive plays your standard cartridges and card games also supported are sg-1000 games but since the color pellets between the systems aren't exact similar colors are used instead i have to admit it's pretty cool to finally be able to play dragon wang [Music] when you select a game from the menu you have three options load and start will immediately load the game into memory and boot it up load will simply load the game into memory but keep you in the menu hex will let you look at the coding for the game the most recent game that you play will remain in the memory of the everdrive so if you find yourself going back to the same game between play sessions just hit the 2 button and select start game and it will boot without having to go through the whole erase and load process due to the similarity of the hardware people have even been able to modify roms so that game gear games are playable on the system this is a pretty cool idea but a lot of them tend to run not so hot hopefully this will be improved in the future the japanese master system the sega mark iii has an fm sound expansion that offers high quality music and sound this option was not made available internationally but the first model of the sega master system actually has the expansion slot on the motherboard thanks to tim worthington the creator of the fantastic nes rgb video mod you can unlock this capability with us systems these fm soundtracks will play back correctly on the master everdrive and will even work if you combine it with a power based mini fm on a sega genesis a device made by db electronics and sold with complete shell as stoneage gamer sometimes the difference in audio is preferable and other times not so much i have a soft spot for the original psg style music for most games but some of the fm soundtracks are pretty great what do you think [Music] do [Music] as expected the master everdrive will also run seamlessly with sega's official power base converter of course for reasons that will be clear much later in this episode this might be redundant if you already own one of the ever drive variants for the sega genesis finally if you want to play some 3d games with your sega scope 3d glasses yes those games will work just fine but remember you'll only be able to see the 3d effect if you're playing on a crt television here's a bonus tip if you're a stickler for file sorting the way that the everdrive reads the fat32 file format on your sd card may cause your games to appear out of alphabetical order i found that running a free program called fat sorter on the card will clear this right up thankfully no other ever drives i'll be talking about in this episode have this same issue but a number of the portable ones do so you've got your master everdrive what would i recommend as a huge fantasy star fan i highly recommend giving the sms power retranslation a shot it corrects a lot of the translation errors and brings all names and locations in line with the japanese version it is extremely well done [Music] when you think of the number one system you'd want to ever drive for i'm guessing that most people would quickly answer the nes with several games rising in price the everdrive n8 might be exactly what you need if you're frustrated with the state of the nes collector's market the n8 is available in two form factors nes and famicom so get the version that matches your hardware i purchased my nes model from stoneage gamer at their booth at cleveland's classic console and arcade gaming show in 2014. it came in a deluxe edition that includes a case and a standard sd card that ran me just over 150 dollars if this seems too expensive you can put together a basic edition for around 118 bucks you can easily load games off a standard sized sd card and if you grab a four gigabyte card then you'll have more than enough to hold every us european and japanese game plus a crazy amount of translations and hacks that exist unlike the master everdrive loading rounds with the n8 is just about instantaneous since it uses the onboard ram you'll have no problem playing most nes and famicom roms just about perfectly if you're playing on a famicom you can fully enjoy games that have sound enhancement chips like akamaju densetsu the overdrive emulates the vrc6 chip and you'll need a famicom or modded nes to take advantage if you're using a top loader you'll have to do some additional modding to the everdrive itself without these the music just sounds weird the n8 will also play famicom disk system games complete with boot up screen this is great if you have a us system and we're interested in giving some of the disc games a shot though as nice as this is the playback isn't perfect you might even run into some games that aren't supported you can boot directly into the last game played by pressing the start button on the main menu pressing select gives you a number of options and information for you to tweak and check out in this option menu you'll find was probably my favorite enhancement save states this is super helpful for some of the more challenging games you have one state per game which overwrites the last save every time you create a new one however these states will persist even if you power off or switch games so you can jump back in at your leisure now this might be blasphemous to some people like try but it was definitely a welcome addition for me when i just needed that extra little push to make it past the frustrating section taking advantage of this feature is easy just bind the save and load inputs to any button combination you want in the ever drives option menu personally i like to set it to down plus select to save and up plus select to load this won't however work on every single game specifically ones with more complex mappers hold up wait a second a mapper if you've been involved in the nes emulation scene then you're probably more than familiar with this term so what the heck is it as nes games got more complex it wasn't long before developers needed more power they would soon add in additional chips to their games to extend the system's capabilities and storage the system uses mappers to map the abilities from the cartridge to the console think of it like this the nes is mega man and he borrows the special powers from whatever cartridge is inserted suddenly special abilities like multi-directional scrolling larger sprites and enhanced audio are now possible there are tons of different mappers used throughout the lifespan of the nes in the everdrive's case if you hope to play every game ever for the system you need to be able to handle all these mappers the n8 handles this through emulation it works pretty well for a majority of games though you'll still find some games that aren't supported but krix is constantly adding more in so if your favorite game isn't supported yet it probably will be eventually for those of you that need a few extra lives or continues there is a built-in game genie if you really want to get crazy this is definitely a handy feature if a little bit unintuitive to figure out you've got to use the select only option when choosing a game this loads the game into the everdrive's memory now you can input the game genie code after this is done press start to load the game and you're set what about games that use a battery backup the everdrive holds saved games and its built in ram and then backs it up to the sd card when you reset or return to the main menu [Music] i had no issues using the n8 on a retro usb avs it simply boots up and works and hey you can even take advantage of the vrc6 emulation [Music] heard that using one in an analog nt does have some known issues these issues will hopefully be worked out in future os updates much like they were with the high def nes early on functionality may also be spotty with clone hardware the everdrive n8 certainly isn't the first flash card that was created to use on the nes there's been several others that we plan to cover in a future episode but if you find yourself with an everdrive here's some cool stuff that i think you might enjoy [Music] if you're fairly new to the turbo graphics 16 pc engine scene then you're surely well aware of just how pricey things are at this point it's absolutely crazy with most of the highly desired titles going for well over 100 if that intimidates you about getting into the system then the turbo everdrive might just help ease your mind i bought my turbo everdrive from stoneage gamer back in 2014 just shortly after i got my pc engine duo r it ran me about 90 since i purchased this a version 2 has been released adding a number of nice if minor additions such as support for populace one of the few games that version one couldn't play unlike the previously mentioned everdrives the turbo edition runs its games off a micro sd card that said you'll need nothing more than a two gigabyte card to hold everything especially since the us library takes up such a small portion of the total space required no this won't work with cd games it's not going to be magically possible to play dracula x round to a blood off an sd card the turbo everdrive will however run just about any hue card game you put on it games load quickly and as far as i can tell run glitch free just as good as the real thing the ability to reset to the title screen was built into most games on the turbo and pc engine just hold start and press select because of this qrik's thoughtfully included a physical reset button to get back to the main menu of the everdrive it's simple and the little red led will notify you when it's accessing the microsd although its cd games had no region protection cue cards did the turbo everdrive will work on both the us turbografx systems and japanese pc engine systems but you'll first have to toggle a little switch to the region of the console it's being used on once you're all booted up and in the menu you can play both japanese and us games so setting the switch is pretty much one and done it'll also work on the japanese exclusive super graphics system and its five exclusive games unfortunately i don't own one so i couldn't try out this functionality directly but we are sure that they will work fine though if you need to get into the cd-rom boot screen and want to leave the ever drive in the system it's possible to easily load the cd-rom bios from the menu the everdrive can function as a substitute for the system 1 2 and 3 expansion cards that are needed to run some of the heavier cd-rom games if you're a duo owner then you have these system cars already built into your system however an issue was recently discovered where booting to the cd-rom interface using an everdrive on a duo duo r duo rx or a pc engine with a super cd-rom 2 attached can cause some conflicts with the console's ram which puts some unwanted wear and tear on the hardware this could potentially lead to premature console or everdrive failure and nobody wants either a developer on the pc engine fx forums named elmer has created a patched rom that you can use to boot to the cd interface and will prevent these issues of course this patched rom will only work correctly on a turbo everdrive version 2. version 1 owners like me are out of luck i just take it out of the system when i want to boot to the cd-rom to be honest the turbo everdrive lacks the frills of the others but it more than makes up for it being a reasonably priced alternative in a sea of super expensive titles if i could add one thing a dream feature would be the ability to back up save games from the internal memory to the sd card a device exists for the pc engine called the nintendo koa bank you can use the backup saves having this functionality incorporated would be incredible since the internal battery backup space is just so tiny if you're new to the turbo graphics 16 scene this everdrive is a no-brainer if you decide to get one why not try out the fan hack of the original mega man is this an exact port [Music] hmm [Music] when i was first investigating everdrives in 2014 i settled on the mega everdrive for the genesis as my first purchase i bought it directly from crix and have gotten an insane amount of use out of it as it offers a number of features and wide compatibility in the last year the product line has been tweaked and refined breaking it down into three different options for consumers the x3 is the most basic and cheapest model available if you just want to play some games without any kind of extra functionality then this one is for you if you're just looking to dip your toe into the pool of flashcards then this is probably a good place to start with the x5 you start to see some basic extra features like the ability to function as a backup ram cart if you're using a sega cd finally we have the x7 which is a newer equivalent to the mega everdrive that i have this one has all the previously mentioned features along with a ton more for a complete breakdown of all the features included with each model stoneagegamer.com and krix.com have a handy chart that contains all the information that you'll need for the purposes of this video stoneage gamer has supplied me with this updated version so i can show some of the newer features although the mega everdrive version 1 used a standard sized sd card the new x series uses a micro sd instead and gives it a much more sleek look if you wanted to fit everything available on the system along with a boatload of rom hacks and tools you'll probably want around an 8 gig card games run great on this thing i've only run into a few incompatibilities like the turbo everdrive you cannot put cd games on this but you can boot directly into the sega cd with none of the worries of the turbo everdrive you can even boot specific biases from different regions and hardware models if you have them on your sd card this is pretty helpful as sega cd games are region protected at the bios level using an in-game menu that can be accessed by pressing down and start together you can quickly save and load states regardless it's definitely not as quick and seamless as it is on the nes everdrive this function can also be kind of glitchy causing audio issues depending on the game you can also use this method to go back to the main ever drive menu so you don't have to get up and reset the system generally hitting the reset button will take you back to the main listing of the everdrive but you can also toggle an option to make it so the reset button only resets the game that you're playing you'll definitely need to enable this if you hope to ever beat x-men because hitting the reset button is required to access the final level of the game that specific function and a few others like game genie codes and region coding are accessed through the main menu of the everdrive home screen since the genesis 1 and 2 have the ability to natively play master system games with an adapter you can also play games for that system on the mega everdrive they run absolutely perfectly you'll just need to use this little button on top of the cart to pause your game the genesis 3 is a different story owners of that system will need to modify the console internally so they can play sms games if you don't do this the mega everdrive will just boot you back to the main menu if you try to play an sms game with it if you've got a 32x attached you can enjoy those games just as well however you'll face the same limitations across hardware revisions as the master system functionality so genesis 1 and 2 you're good to go genesis 3 you gotta mod it speaking of the 32x if you decide you want to keep the add-on connected to your system at all times you're going to run into some pretty severe caveats first off playing genesis games passed through the 32x removes several of the extra functions of the mega everdrive specifically the in-game menu will no longer be accessible so no more saving and loading of save states secondly is they won't be able to play master system games at all of course this was sort of to be expected because even using a power based converter plugged into a 32x won't work either but this was the exact reason i decided to go with a master everdrive in addition to my mega everdrive it was simply more convenient when it comes to choosing your first ever drive you could arguably say that you get the most bang for your buck out of the mega everdrive multiple console support sega cd ram and save states make for a pretty complete package and i didn't even start to get into the plethora of different hacks that are available for the system here's some cool ones you should definitely check out [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i hear ya i hear ya what about the super nintendo well here's where things get interesting you've got several options with a sizable price difference between them which one is the right one for you first up is the super everdrive created by krix i only had access to a super everdrive version 1 but the most recent iteration available is version 2. the functionality is comparable although version 2 has a number of improvements such as game genie implementation it plays roms from a standard sized sc card and has two versions available the first version will run you about 86 bucks which isn't too shabby now isn't it but before you get all giddy and jump on that one think about the games you really want to play on the super nes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] much like the way the nes games were handled snes carts also made use of various special chips within the game cartridges themselves these were used in a ton of different games during the console's lifetime and were a major part of the construction of the console's staple games this essentially means that different games are also all together different hardware pilotwings and super mario kart use the dsp series of chips mega man x2 and 3 use the cx-4 chip super mario rpg and kirby superstar use the sa-1 star fox and stunt race fx use the super fx chip and those are just a smattering of examples now what if i told you that out of everything i just listed the basic everdrive supports none of these chips kind of takes the wind out of your sail doesn't it there's a slightly more expensive version of the super everdrive that supports games that use the dsp 1 2 3 and 4 chip this version will cost you just over a hundred dollars and is absolutely worth the extra money especially if you're a mario kart fan outside of this the setup for the super everdrive falls in line with what we've seen so far the menu is super basic choose a game and go like the master everdrive game loading isn't always immediate there's also no in-game menu or anything crazy like that so if you're looking for the same kind of features as the mega ever drive then you're in for a disappointment if you're interested in a bare bones snes experience then the super everdrive should be right up your alley it's not scary expensive i mean compared to the most of the other ever drives i've talked about so far it actually seems a bit cheaper than you'd probably expect but what if you're looking for something more [Music] [Applause] the sd to snes isn't branded as an everdrive but it was created in a collaboration between acari 01 and krix it's an advanced fpga that includes a plethora of onboard chips that not only increase game compatibility but also allows you to do some of the coolest stuff that any flash car is capable of stoneage gamer sent us this promotional unit for us to cover in this episode it includes a number of additional cosmetic features that i probably wouldn't have gotten myself such as this bright green light pipe the sc to snes loads its games off a standard sized sd card and boots them up pretty much instantaneously everything is accessed through a much nicer looking menu than the super everdrive right away you'll notice that compatibility has been improved although maybe not as much as you might expect you have access to dsp [Music] st010 cx4 and obc one in a pretty cool twist you can also play games that were on the japanese exclusive setela view of course you'll notice that a number of notables are still left off that list most importantly the super fx and sa1 which are due to be added in the future well hopefully because the fpga inside is so incredibly versatile and simply needs to be configured to mimic these chips if and when these games are implemented you'll be able to play them no matter when you purchase your scd-snes you can rest easy knowing that the hardware inside is finalized and will never be updated acari o1 will add these features via future firmware updates of course things didn't always play perfectly and there were a decent number of instances where i'd have some trouble getting games to load it's possible that this could be due to the rom files i was using just as much as it could have been due to some sort of incompatibility with the way that the sc to snes was trying to run the game [Music] like the super everdrive there is no in-game menu so no save states are possible here either there is a pretty handy quit the menu shortcut though for when you just want to change games just hold l r select and press x this is pretty convenient for me when i was trying to capture a wide variety of game footage you may have heard around various parts of the internet something about cd quality music and super nes games well the sd to snes is the key to unlocking this feature and it is amazing [Music] [Applause] [Music] using an expansion ship called the msu-1 it was created by a programmer named bu the unthinkable is now possible on a console that's over 20 years old this chip is capable of adding up to four gigs of storage that the game can access the rom has to be modified to do so but after this is done you can now listen to cd quality sound files during the games [Music] the cd quality music flows immediately and isn't just some superficial playing over the top of the game implementation like you tend to get with custom soundtracks on modern systems instead it reacts as if it was really part of the game for instance you know how when you go to the map screen and link to the past the music becomes slightly quieter now listen to it with the msu-1 audio [Music] pretty neat right in the snes's heyday full motion video was considered to be only achievable using cd-rom technology but using the power of the msu-1 this is now possible on original snes hardware and it's pretty mind-blowing well at least for me check out roadblaster or road avenger if you're a sega cd fan playing on a real snes it looks pretty compressed but seriously how impressive is this of course msu one implementation on games hasn't been perfected but that's understandable considering how young this technology is but it's a great way to visit classics and play them with some cool new features i'm definitely replaying link to the past this way i don't think i'm needed for that i wouldn't want to carry around a heavy sword and shield all day and miss out on home-cooked meals like this well said let's eat oh yeah one thing to keep in mind is that the audio and video files used for msu one hacks are absolutely enormous so do yourself a favor and future proof yourself with at least a 32 gig card okay so price take a deep breath the sd snes will run you around 200 for the most basic edition i totally understand that this might seem too steep for a number of consumers and that's okay the super everdrive does exist as an option for those people but if you want to enjoy some cool exclusive features and bank on the promise of future implementations so you can play some of the system's best games then i'd say that the std snes is a definite must-have here check out some of the cool fan translations and hacks that i got into [Music] after the 16-bit era most consoles moved on to cd technology designing an everdrive for a cd-rom based console is a whole different beast but since nintendo famously stuck with carts of course it would make sense that krix would develop an everdrive for the platform this is the everdrive 64. the everdrive 64 plays its games off a standard sized sd card the games load instantaneously which is actually kind of surprising because n64 games they're several times larger than those of previous systems this is also the reason i'd recommend getting at least a 32 gigabyte card to hold everything there's been multiple revisions of the everdrive 64 with the 2.5 and 3 versions readily available krix has provided us with version 3 so that we can take a deeper look the everdrive 64 version 3 comes in at around 175 bucks while the 2.5 lands at about 107. of course some of the features i mentioned here might not be available in version 2.5 so be sure to check out krix's site to see what you might be missing okay so you know what to expect at this point a nice looking menu with some actual artwork in the background this time in fact you can even customize that image if you'd like you know the rest select the game and go i tried out a ton of games and had no issues with any of them game compatibility is supposedly closer to 100 here than any other everdrive the actual everdrive hardware itself is quite a bit more complex and this isn't just because of more sophisticated games nintendo implemented a chip called the cic which made sure that only approved cartridges and devices worked on the system the cic in the game in the system would talk to each other which allowed the game to boot the everdrive 64 integrates a special chip called the ultra cic which is configured to talk with every console version in every region if you've always wanted to check out games for the japanese exclusive 64 dd now is your chance because they totally work on the average drive 64. well as long as the roms have been converted correctly also included is a built-in clock why well it mainly has to do with the n64 version of animal crossing that was never released in the u.s the japanese version animal forest is now totally playable and functions as it should this clock will also work with the fan translation that has been done for the game and is playable from the upper drive in a totally unexpected move krix has also included a nes emulator yes you can finally fulfill your lifelong dream of playing nes games with the n64 controller can you beat super mario 3 using the analog stick this is kind of a neat thing to play around with but it's not like a full on replacement for the real thing games play a little bit slow and there's a limited number of mappers supported nonetheless this is a pretty cool bonus feature for those without an nes to play on games that use a battery save will function just as they do on other upper drives but since some n64 games use a memory pack to save you'll need to have one inserted into the controller to save your game after doing this the everdrive will take that save file and back it up to the sd card finally if you want to take advantage of some of the fan translations on the n64 and don't really have the extra room on your sd card to carry multiple versions of the same rom there is an auto patching function that will apply the ips file to a rom when you boot it the everdrive 64 while a bit more expensive is a must-have for the nintendo 64 fans out there the games for the system are really getting up there in price so it starts to pay for itself pretty quickly now here's some cool things for you to try out if you have one [Music] so everdrives aren't just about launching roms at the end of the day they're tools companion hardware to your consoles that let you do things you may have never thought possible while still operating within system specifications most everdrives even have a usb port to aid in software development which just goes to show how useful they can be to anyone who wants to get a deeper understanding of how these consoles work and of course everdrives are not the only flashcards out there so we'll be covering some alternatives in a future episode i do have to say that cory's got me pretty curious about all of the possibilities here i don't think i'll ever feel completely comfortable with having every rom ever made at my fingertips but flash carts are undeniably important for game preservation it's amazing to see what you can actually do on a real console and to play old favorites in new ways [Music] [Applause] [Music] flash carts are designed to let you play roms and original hardware rather than through emulation made for those that feel that the real consoles are an important part of the gaming experience in a previous episode i covered the ever drive line of flash cards and highlighted how there's a lot of cool stuff that you can do with this technology beyond simply playing games that well you may or may not own stuff like fan translations fan games and other feats that can push the hardware beyond what you might have thought was possible we originally intended for the everdrive's episode to be about flash carts in general but ultimately decided that it was just too much and that some of these alternatives needed their own episode this time try is going to take a look at the super ufo pro 8 an extremely affordable flash cart for the super nintendo that gets a lot of hate around the internet but once you know how to use it right it may just offer you more than you might expect [Music] [Applause] [Music] a more recent evolution of an older and much larger device to dump super nintendo roms to floppy disks the sd card capable super ufo pro 8 is readily available from places like amazon for around 60 dollars making it even more affordable than the super everdrive and vastly below the premium sd2 snes unfortunately the super ufo is very poorly documented and forum threads have conflicting claims about what it can even do and overall assessments tend to range from it's pretty good to it's totally worthless trash it's a device with plenty of quirks and shortcomings but to the right person this could be the perfect snes flash card like me for example or maybe i shouldn't say it's the perfect snes flash card for me but it's as good a one as currently exists for how i'm interested in using flash cards because for me owning and using my real game cartridges is really important but i can't easily play a lot of my japanese imports without fan-made translation patches so i have to use a device that gives me access to the rom data in such a way that i can patch it and i'm no programmer so the process needs to be pretty easy in the past i've dabbled in patches with the retron 5 but i'd so much prefer to do it on real snes hardware if i could so dumping your own roms patching your own rom dumps transferring saves from and back to real cartridges does that sound cool to you because that sounds pretty cool to me if that doesn't sound cool to you then there's not much reason to get a super ufo over a super everdrive or sd2snes other than cost you'll be perfectly happy as long as you understand the limitations of each and hey i get it the ram on my cart is just the same as most of the dumps that are already flowing around the internet though there are bad dumps out there so the act of dumping the rom inside my own cartridge for my own use may seem needless to a lot of people but i just think it's cool the process can be a little fiddly but once you understand what's going on it's easy but before we get too deep into that the super ufo can of course still be used like a standard flash card download roms put them on the sd card and go for it while loading roms may not be as speedy as other flash cards it plays most games just as well the super ufo even works with pal consoles though it won't boot up with an ntsc cartridge on top you can run ntsc roms however at least the ones i tested when playing a pal console music and sound effects seem to play at the correct speed but the game is otherwise slowed down but as you might guess if you're familiar with the super everdrive situation some of the snes best games include additional processing power inside the cartridges themselves and those just aren't going to work without a more extravagant device like the sd2 snes and even that can't yet simulate super fx games like star fox or yoshi's island or sa-1 chip games like super mario rpg and kirby superstar one of the most compelling things about the super ufo then is they can actually interface with hardware contained within the lockdown cartridge on top to play these games well some of them anyway there's a lot of conflicting information out there as to whether the ufo can actually do this but it can expect limited results but here are a few examples of what you can do with this feature for one you could play the japanese rom of super mario kart while utilizing the dsp-1 chip inside your north american copy and enjoy the original japanese victory animations i even had success in playing fan made mario kart track hacks pilotwings is also dsp1 in the same region switcheroo works here too but could use the dsp1 chip and mario kart to play pilot wings sadly not really as much as i wanted to find some cool example of a game that would work with another cartridge's hardware from the same special chip family it just doesn't seem to work out games designed for capcom cx-4 chip utilized by both mega man x2 and x3 cannot run on the super everdrive but the cx4 hardware in these cartridges do work through the super ufo if you have no cartridge on top then character sprites won't even appear in the game kind of interesting to see how it works right similar to pilot wings and mario kart though anticipate glitchy results if you only own one of the cartridges and hope to play x3 with x2's cartridge hardware or vice versa but the region swap does work if you were so inclined you could use the much less expensive japanese cartridges to play the north american roms in english the fact that it works is just fascinating to me here's an even wilder one if you run a super game boy rom meaning a dump of the software that runs the super game boy while using a super game boy 2 on top of the ufo then you get access to the original super game boy boarders on the super game boy 2 hardware and it works the other way around too i mean there's really no point to this but i think it's a super fascinating demonstration of how the special hardware is being utilized unfortunately i did not have the same success with different releases of super fx games i could not play the japanese version of star fox or stunt race fx with my north american carts but the super fx chip inside both games does correctly pass its processing functions through the ufo if you're playing the rom of that game although there's not much reason to do that aside from the novelty of proving it works when you could just play the same cartridge without the ufo you're sadly unlikely to get yoshi's island working properly which uses the second revision of super fx and i could not find a way to run a rom of the infamously unreleased star fox 2. whether it might be possible to get these to run properly with more intensive rom editing i couldn't say sa-1 chip games which include a few of the best late snes titles are thus far a no-go on all snes flash carts as far as we know including the ufo despite this incompatibility with a handful of heavy hitters you're likely to find that the ufo will play most games without issue everything from the legend of zelda link to the past to the donkey kong country trilogy and almost all of the popular rpgs none of these games use special hardware check wikipedia for a list of super nintendo and super famicom cartridges that contain enhancement chips [Music] for my purposes this has caused very few issues in how i want to use the super ufo because it's mainly for dumping roms of my super famicom games and playing them with the translation patches once i understood what i was doing it was easy to dump and patch my own copies of dragon quest 5 final fantasy 5 and even much larger 32 megabit roms like second dead set 2 3 treasure hunter g wonder project j and a bunch of others one game that i'd like to play the patch for marvelous uses the sa-1 chip so unfortunately that ain't happening without emulator fans of star ocean and tales of fantasia are also out of luck those are the biggest super famicom roms bigger than the ufo's 32 megabit dram size that's basically the size of game that can be loaded into it to actually play and some patches can unfortunately pad out a game's rom size which is causing me problems with the dragon quest 3 remake the patch bumps the ram up from 32 megabits to 48 megabits making the translation unplayable on the super ufo so anyway dump some patches as i said before the ufo is kind of quirky and poorly documented none of its functions are as straightforward as i wish they could be but i have to give big thanks to steve kulov of hd retrovision artemia urbina the creator of the 240p test suite and our go to mod guy voltar because without their expertise and how roms and game hardware actually work this episode would not be possible and the same goes for everyone who has helped us understand so much for all of our hardware focused episodes these guys are the true experts and they gave a lot of their time to help me crack what makes the super ufo tick first be sure your sd card is formatted in fat32 and insert into the super ufo always be sure the console is off when you lock on or remove a game cartridge from the super ufo from the main menu the first thing you'll want to do when dumping your own rom is to go to the lower middle icon to bring up the check menu and choose cart check here you'll see some information on the game cartridge but there are really only two things you need to look at first next to p-rom size ensure that the left number matches the number in brackets hit the b button to cycle through the sizes the brackets number should be the actual rom size while the number on the left is the size that the rom will dump to i can't explain why they aren't automatically equal but whatever you just gotta do it then run a checksum each rom has a small line of code that is generated by the sum of its code which is checked against what the ufo reads from the cart thus confirming if they match for a good dump this will not check out if the dump size is incorrect or any pins are too dirty to make a strong connection this will take several seconds depending on the rom size but it's really important to verify before dumping the rom once you confirm a good check sum return to the main menu and go to the upper right icon the backup menu from here you can move game roms and saves to a variety of locations but for now let's just back up the game cart to the sd card when you're in the directory you want to dump to hit the start button to name your file x deletes b confirms and y cancels out the ufo can only display up to eight characters for a file name so make sure the truncations are something you can recognize now this is important never use lowercase letters for some reason windows refuses to copy ufo dumps if they contain any lowercase letters you can edit the file extension but for now i recommend sticking with the default.ufo hit start to begin the dumping process which takes about 10 seconds for a four megabit game and about 70 seconds for a 32 megabit game oh and if you're having fantasies about dumping game boy roms and saves through the super game boy forget about it the ufo software can dump the super game boy software rom but it has no access to the game boy cartridge slot while i have no experience with other rom dumpers you might want to look into devices like the retro if you're interested in creating dumps for other systems but here's a funny story while i was editing this episode artemia urbina was helping dump some very rare snes prototype roms some of which were undumped he was easily able to dump them with the super ufo while the retro required configuration before he could achieve the same results anyway back at the main menu you can go to the upper left icon to play any game on your sd card 32 megabit games take about 30 seconds to load into the dram but since a lot of these are in japanese let's take the roms back to the computer for patching first of all the ufo dumps have an added 512 byte header to the beginning of the rom dump which you can see in a hex editor this is a harmless and mostly irrelevant string of code that should have no impact on how the game plays and in the early emulation days it was pretty standard for a rom to have an added header however there's really no reason for them nowadays and getting rid of it first makes it a lot easier to apply patches artemia urbina whipped up a simple little program just for ufo files that lets you remove the header and re-save the file with the more standard.sfc extension if you were to compare this scrubbed file to a verified unmodified headerless rom from the internet and you got to be careful because not all of them are perfect but in theory they should check out is completely identical i mean that's kind of neat right that's your very own rom dump you made that instead of lunar ips which i'd used for patching before volta recommended to me a nifty little program called sfc snes rom utility by wasabi you can download this and other utilities as well as patches for a ton of different games from romhacking.net that's the only in-depth repository for fan patches that we're aware of though you might find others not on this side if you search around a lot of these patches are very old and unmaintained and the rules for applying them in a way that works can vary a bit especially when it comes to using them on original hardware as opposed to an emulator environment the wasabi tool made it much easier for me to apply patches in a way that successfully ran on the super ufo simply load your rom with the header already removed click ips patch and then ok choose your patch file and then we'll ask whether it requires a headered rom the reason it has to know is because where the patch is applied in the code would be incorrectly offset if for example the rom has no header but the patch was designed for a rom with a header most patches include a readme file that specifies whether the patch should be applied to a headered or unheaded raw for my games when i didn't know what the patch required i found more success when saying yes header required this makes it so that the wasabi program applies a header required patch correctly even to an unheaded rom you still need to use artemio's tool to remove the header and change the extension before the wasabi utility will even open a ufo rom dump after the new file is created simply rename it something that's 8 characters or less for easy use in the ufo it might sound like a lot of steps but it actually goes quite quickly with this method i got every single one of my super famicom carts with available translation patches working on the super ufo with the exception of the aforementioned dragon quest 3 remake patch due to its file size blow i used a more recent rockman 7 patch which translates some dialogue not in the american version by using a program by bu called beat this is for a newer patch format called bps and some problematic patches might also work with some careful manual tweaking if you're a programming sword you can of course also load up pre-patched roms that you've downloaded most should already follow the ufo's rules but patching your own rom dump is all part of the fun and satisfaction right right i mean i think so and it's cool that it gives you the chance to confirm which cartridge revision you might own well even if you think i'm crazy for doing all this extra work just to use my own rom dumps the ufo's ability to backup save some real cartridges and restore those saves back to the cartridges is likely the more stand out feature for a lot of people in addition to the dram the ufo also has its own sram static ram that's what's used for saves complete with the standard cr2032 battery the snes games use for keeping the save memory active so yeah nothing fancy going on here if you ever need to replace the battery this is simple to do and unlike game cartridge batteries requires no soldering the built-in sram is how saves are actively stored on the unit while you're playing a rom loaded into the ufo but it's only good for one game at a time so be careful to back it up before loading up another game safe backup to the sd card is not an automatic process like it is with the latest everdrives while i was playing through second din set two three i made sd card backups and copied it back to my real cartridge as well just to be extra safe what was kind of neat was that despite my playthrough being of the patched version of the game the saves worked just fine on the original japanese cart at least in this case i think it'll be fun to continue doing that as a habit if nothing else just to make the real cartridges an ongoing part of my experience playing through the translated games at any rate the best use of the sram is as an intermediary for shuffling saves around the backup menu the bottom four choices are for sram there is no option for moving cartridge sram directly to the sd card so you must first move the s ram from the cart to the ufo which just takes a second you can then send the ufo sram to the sd card for safe keeping and of course you can also put it on your computer store it in the cloud and even load it up in an emulator if you want to restore the save after replacing your cartridge battery at some point or you just want to load another set of saves into it simply send the sram from the sd card to the ufo then from the ufo to the cartridge this is of course a lot more complicated than managing saves on everdrive which you usually don't have to really think about that much but i think for a lot of people the ability to interact with the sram on the original cartridges makes it worth the hassle you can also use emulator saves if they're saved as proper uncompressed raw sram files with a little bit of fiddling for the ufo to accept it as sram the file must be padded out with null data to 512 kilobytes up to address 1fff our friend artemio has added this as an automated function in the previously mentioned ufo manager tool and you know i've been wondering it might even be possible to ferry saves to and from the wii virtual console with the homebrew channel but that's a whole other matter instead of potential tools that i'm just not informed enough about yet to be sure it'd work out be warned that might be risky trying to back up saves from games that the super ufo won't run like sa1 chip games the ufo just doesn't know how to properly access these games and it's possible that messing with them could ruin your saves the ufo also offers some token cheap functionality which he calls hyper mode for one this lets you use a save state while playing which you can continue to update and load and can even be retained after turning the system off and backed up to the sd card via the power up menu but it's rather fiddly and doesn't work well with every game so don't necessarily count on it two slow-mo speeds can be activated as well hyper mode offers a game genie top function too x terminator for codes manually activated by holding r and l plus start and gold finger for codes that are just always on in hyper mode i don't want to spend too much time on this feature because to be perfectly honest it doesn't really interest me enough to spend time figuring out where the codes for these cheat systems might even exist there are a few built-in codes which are poorly described and sometimes when loading a game it will let you know that x terminator codes are found assuming you do not want to activate hyper mode and use these codes be sure to hit the y button to skip this message and just play the game as normal so that's about it when it comes to the super ufo pro 8. it's a flawed yet capable device that has fallen victim to a great deal of misinformation much of which could have been avoided with better documentation and a little more thoughtful software design it certainly wouldn't seem like a significant feat to make a more impressive successor and if the everdrive or sd2s and es could just add the lock-on cartridge and rom and save dumping features the ufo would no longer have any advantage other than cost and of course if you want to get really into rom dumping for the sake of long-term game preservation and helping rom dumps get properly verified there are of course much more serious tools out there for that purpose and a special understanding of the hardware is needed to dump more complex cartridges but for now for the price i'm happy enough having chosen the ufo as my own hobbyist rom dumper and romhack playing flashcart for the snes [Applause] [Music] when we released our rgb 200 series episode on the nintendo gamecube in early 2016 hdmi and other video output alternatives were just barely starting to become a reality for the console since then the gamecube landscape has changed a fair bit and we now have a variety of products that have the potential to beat nintendo's official component cables in both price and functionality so let's take a look at a handful of the newest options for getting the most out of your gamecube [Music] [Applause] [Music] as was standard for the time the nintendo gamecube shipped with a set of standard yellow red and white rca cables composite video and stereo sound a basic but commonly available connection the system's analog av out port is capable of s-video and ntsc regions and rgb and pal regions however this port only supports video in the 15 kilohertz range for ntsc regions that's mostly just 480i if you want to ditch interlaced video for progressive output then you're going to need another solution as luck would have it the gamecube launched with a digital av port on the rear of the console this was originally envisioned to allow for hardware such as some sort of 3d glasses or headset alas the full potential of this port was never realized during its day instead nintendo released a set of component cables along with the equivalent d-terminal version in japan which uses special hardware hidden inside the connector to convert the port's digital video to analog ypb pr more commonly referred to as component video component video wasn't yet a widely adopted format due to these cables being sold only through nintendo and the digital outport being removed from later gamecube systems the component cables are relatively rare and have since become a highly desired and valuable commodity since no other device ever used the gamecube's custom digital outport producing a suitably molded third-party connector would be a considerable investment but more crucially someone had to be the first to make sense of the gamecube's digital signals this work was done a few years back by someone going by the name of unseen this was the beginning of the open source gc video project opening the way for anyone to create and sell their own gamecube digital out mods alternatives to the official component cables and hdmi adapters today a number of options exist we've got our hands on a few of the best designed third party options for enhancing your gamecube experience while none of these are exactly inexpensive they do support useful functionality over the official component cables and are also vastly more affordable in this episode we'll be looking at the gchd and the gchd mark ii by eon gaming the kirby by insurrection industries and the gc dual by dan coons along with how they compare to regular gamecube and wii output through upscalers like the open source scan converter and the framemeister the gchd and carby products were provided to us for review while the gc duo was a purchase kit installed by jason of gametech us for european customers gc dual is available for installation through video game perfection where the open source scan converter is also sold it's important to know that all these products are built on the same open source code base originally produced by unseen and for the most part have virtually the same features and picture quality however gc video devices may have firmware tweaks implemented by the manufacturer and will point out the differences when we can first a quick overview of each the 150 gc hd by eon gaming was not the first mod free plug-and-play hdmi device for the gamecube but it was the first to be generally praised by the retrotech community for its safe and secure design not to mention it was widely available through online retailers such as amazon as a mass-produced product the gc hd features a two-prong design to occupy both the analog and digital ports for maximum stability however it is a rather tight fit that requires extra pressure to click into place and we wouldn't want to plug it in and out too many times but we do like the side placement of the hdmi outputs which helps minimize stress on the ports this gchd design is now discontinued in favor of the mark ii model which we'll get to in just a moment the carby by insurrection industries is an attractive smaller hdmi plug and play that features an astounding reproduction of the official nintendo digital connector plug it looks so good and clicks in just right the kirby has an attractive price too costing only 75 dollars while this unit is clear plastic and runs on firmware 2.4a insurrection is currently transitioning over to selling units with 2.4 b along with some additional shell options anyone interested in updating the firmware may do so via the internal jtag connector or by sending the unit to insurrection for service since the kirby only occupies the digital outport it's possible to simultaneously use hdmi alongside s-video and ntsc consoles or rgb on pal consoles as long as the progressive scan mode is not engaged while this does limit you to interlaced output it could be useful if say you wanted to play on a crt while sending a digital signal to an hdmi capture card for a stream instruction also let us borrow their component cable development prototype while this product is hopefully not too far off production prototypes with molded strain relief were not ready in time for this video instruction's plan is to use 75 own coaxial cable with bnc connectors for those with professional equipment but these can be easily and cheaply adapted to rca for standard component connections insurrection is selling their gamecube digital connector parts so that others may use them in their own custom gc video projects i got a gamecube and i was kind of wanting to mod it i was like kind of looking for a good hdmi solution and i just was not really happy with the current method so i kind of set out and started redesigning my own board and then that's kind of where it went from there dan coons is one of the current superstars of the retro modding and open source hardware design community known online as citrus 3000 psi dan has put considerable time into creating hardware based around gc video his flagship design is the gc dual an internal mod that retains stock functionality of the digital outport while adding hdmi output as well as component and rgb to the analog out both being fully capable of 480p a separate adapter can be used for connecting wii component or scart cables to tap into these higher quality analog signals digital and analog output works simultaneously which we found very handy for playing on a crt while capturing hdmi for a stream gc dual is now open source so anybody can make one that they know how much more recently eon gaming has announced a partnership with dan coons to produce what is essentially a plug and play version of the gc dual with additional features the gchd mark ii features a similar design to its predecessor with an easier but still secure fit the second prong is not simply a dummy port it now taps into the analog stereo signal for additional output options the most obvious addition is a wii style av port this port supports wii component cables and we rgb start cables both of which can handle 480p video if your connected device can accept 480p over component or rgb a new 3.5 millimeter jack serves as a dual purpose stereo output and mini toslink output for flexible analog or digital audio independent of the video output dan coons has developed his own branch of the gc video firmware to account for the additional functionality and a few other features eon tells us that they're positioning the gchd mark ii as the ultimate gamecube output solution that they'll never have to top all features and all connections in one device costing the same price as the original product if the firmware is ever desired to be updated the mark ii is much easier to open compared to its predecessor we do have some concerns regarding the build quality and the plastic in general feels much less robust compared to the first gchd nonetheless we've been happy with the device's performance especially for analog video which we'll go over in detail a bit later because the mark ii is expected to replace most of the demand for the gc dual mod dan coons is not planning to continue to offer kits or installation for gc dual but do-it-yourselfers can always create their own gc dual by purchasing pcbs through oash park we really love what all this means for the gamecube scene while the gc hd mark ii covers virtually all possible needs for the gamecube power user in a single device instructions separate hdmi and component solutions allow consumers to pick and choose from our point of view there's no wrong choice here while the gist of gc video operation is the same as what we saw with early mods in our rgb 207 episode let's spend a little time looking at some of the features and functionality common to all gc video products when using hdmi output specifically we're looking at the system menu on the carby here which can be operated by an included infrared remote or trained to work with universal remotes gc video is designed to be inherently free of input lag while digital tvs and monitors will have varying degrees of lag that will impact your experience to some extent gc video provides the lowest possible baseline of latency from the hdmi output always research input lag when shopping for a new tv many are quite fast rgb limited range should match the settings on your display this is the scale that the display uses as a reference point for how all colors should look limited range is the preferred standard in the tv world while computer monitors are likely to favor full range neither is tangibly superior to the other and should look identical as long as your display or capture card settings match if the black levels and the graphics look washed out or dark levels are crushed to black then either your gc video device or your display has a mismatched range setting note that gc video technically operates in a modified dvi mode that can send audio and additional information over an hdmi output enhanced dvi mode must be selected in the menu to use digital audio most displays should accept this mode but if not you'll need to fall back on an external audio solution instead for example with the carbi you can use standard gamecube av cables for audio which is what you have to do with the official component cables anyway this is not possible with the first edition of gchd but with the mark ii you can simply use audio from wii cables or the built-in analog stereo and mini toslink output if for any reason you wish to tweak the picture controls for brightness contrast and saturation are available unlike advanced video processors like the ossc and framemeister we're pretty much looking at 480p output not 720p or 960p or 1080p or 1200p but 480p tends to be handled reasonably well by modern tvs if the source video is high quality 480p is after all the highest native resolutions supported by the gamecube's games so you just have to keep realistic expectations and remember that these games can never look like hd remasters or the dolphin emulator when played on original hardware your preferences for line doubler and scanline settings are stored on a per resolution basis all modes that the gamecube natively uses 240p 480i 480p and their pal equivalents for 480p the line doubler is disabled meaning you cannot double 480p to 960p as you can with the ossc scanlines might be needed in 480p mode if you use the official gameboy player software although you can do much better for game boy games and we'll get to that in just a bit when it comes to 480i line doubling means that each alternating field of 240 lines is doubled creating a flickering effect often called bob d interlacing that approximates the look of interlacing on a crt television if you hate the flicker then turning on scanlines could make a 4adi game look approximately like 240p or you could go even further on the interlacing simulation with alternating scan lines the look of bob d interlacing isn't for everyone but the reason for it is simple it's fast this implementation of bob deaner lacy allows gc video devices to maintain lag free operation with interlaced input but if you just can't tolerate it you can turn off the line doubler for 480i this will send a digital 480i signal to your tv instead which will then perform its own motion adaptive de-interlace the sort of de-interlacing you're probably more used to but it can have visual errors and will be a bit laggier 240p is not particularly common in gamecube games but some compilations of older games do use it and it can be forced through the use of homebrew software keeping the line doubler on to output these games is 480p probably looks better than your tv's own handling of 240p over hdmi if your tv accepts that signal at all the scanline option is pretty much made for 240p since its purpose is to approximate the look of skin line separation that occurs with 240p on crt displays the popular framemeister upscaler has two hdmi inputs which can be interesting when paired with gamecube hdmi output while i've not had much luck getting 240p to work directly through hdmi this way if you leave the line doubler on to send 480p to the framemeister you might be able to do some interesting scaling with a little effort native 480p content is not likely to be improved much by the framemeister but you could get some benefit by passing digital 480i through to the framemeister to let it handle the de-interlacing i don't fully trust the framemeister's color handling with the hdmi inputs but this is certainly worth experimenting with a very minor chroma shift error that manifests with digital and rgb output was corrected with gc video firmware 2.4 b while it can be seen a long test pattern edges we found it to be virtually invisible when looking for an actual game scenario with the carb you might have to crank your volume up just a bit higher than expected a bug in the current base firmware is reducing digital audio levels but a temporary fix is implemented in the custom mark ii branch the change log can be viewed in the news file contained in the gc video github but most of the recent tweaks have minimal tangible impact on features or picture quality so we feel that the average user shouldn't worry too much about updating unless some truly transformative revisions are released homebrew software on wii u is a popular alternative method for playing gamecube games via hdmi although satellite you cannot use real game discs this way this is archive footage from our gamecube rgb 207 episode provided by alex from pause break reviews however the wii u is not considered to scale 480p to 1080p all that well so you might want to experiment with setting the system itself to 480p output but keep in mind that we have not yet tested wii u homebrew for ourselves so our information is limited if you're unsatisfied with how digital 480p looks when coming directly from gc video hdmi output then you might consider pairing one of the analog gc video solutions with an all-purpose gaming video processor such as the open source scan converter the ossc can do pretty much everything that gc video hdmi can do and more most notably for 480p the input can be doubled to 960p output if your tv can accept the signal we really love this crisp look for 480p content but others may prefer a softer scale in addition the ossc can perform 4x output on 480i content and up to 5x on 240p the framemeister is also excellent at handling 240p and does a superb motion adaptive d interlace for 480i the framemeister is considered less good at handling 480p so in that case you're probably better off just sending hdmi directly to your tv from your gc video device rather than routing through a framemeister line doubler settings applied not only to hdmi but also analog output so the line doubler must be disabled if you're connected to a 15 kilohertz device such as a standard definition crt of course there's also the age old question why not just play gamecube games with component cables on a wii this is certainly a decent and affordable way to get better picture quality from gamecube games and it still pretty much counts as original hardware although you're missing out on the game boy player that said wii video output is generally considered to not be as good as gamecube certain later wii hardware revisions do feature better video output than early models but eventually gamecube support was removed from wii consoles altogether and even the better wii systems are not quite as crisp as gamecube when held up under a magnifying glass since the oss 480p 2x mode lets us do some real pixel peeping here the most interesting thing we're seeing is that both the later wii and the gchd mark ii analog output appear to turn in cleaner image quality along certain contrasting color edges although the later wii is indeed still not as sharp as gamecube take a look at the differences in artifacts along the contour of mario's hat which is messiest with official component cables advanced users could probably hide this with per system ossc sampler settings but as it stands here the official gamecube cable fares less well honestly it's pretty hard to see this from a normal viewing distance and is probably mostly only relevant if you have a particular need to capture the best possible image from these consoles and furthermore these issues with official component could very well be masked depending on your connection method when hooked up directly to my older 1080p hdtv these 480p sources are sampled and upscaled in a fairly pleasing way it's pretty much a wash here compared to what we saw with the ossc likewise if you're a crt user expect similar results among analog options but what is surprising is that all available gc video hdmi solutions appear to give us similar color edge artifacts to the official component cables not that the hdmi output is bad we're way over analyzing here but it does seem to mean that the newest analog methods earn a narrow overall win here at least for ossc users and while we've mostly been looking at component cory will explain why in just a bit the mark ii's 480p analog rgb output is also excellent and looks virtually indistinguishable from its component good news if your retro setup revolves around rgb for the gchd mark ii you might be able to use wii component or rgb cables that you already own or you might have to buy an extra set we didn't see any particularly tangible differences between official component monster brain component and a few other brands that we had on hand we're also aware of hd retrovision wii component cables in the works which contain no fancy circuitry but are simply a new high quality option designed to their meticulous standards the mark ii is plug and play with rgb cables built to the proper pal wii cable specifications with no attenuation required which of course is a perfectly valid option for ntsc the cable itself has nothing to do with pal it's just that normally ntsc region wii and gamecube systems don't have rgb in practice minimal analog video noise appeared visible with any wii cable we had on hand to try component or rgb at this early stage of development we observed that the prototype insurrection cable is slightly clipping highlight details and crushing shadows in fact we ran into a very similar issue with an early production sample of the gchd mark ii which just goes to show that making the stuff isn't magic and the analog video takes extra work to get right insurrection tells us that they refuse to release their cables until they've dialed in the correct video levels and we expect that they can achieve that goal since we've already seen this problem resolved with the gchd mark ii eon's retail units that we've tested have the complete range of detail that gamecube games are expected to display it's possible that there could still be errors in the open source code contributing to these challenges and if so we would like to see these fixes make their way back into the gc video project we greatly appreciate both eon and insurrection for allowing us to examine and give feedback on these products before release i mean you know we want this stuff to be good too so thank you to all who have contributed to these devices and gc video because we've seen that it can be better than official component cables something we frankly did not expect so it's worth it to do it right of course playing game boy game boy color and game boy advanced games through the gamecube's game boy player is a huge feature of the console for a lot of people for the past several years a homebrew project called gameboy interface has been considered to be a vastly superior option to running the game boy player hardware compared to nintendo's official boot disk software a few options for using homebrew software with gamecube include using a special boot disk such as an action replay along with an sd card media launcher that goes in memory card slot b or exploits using certain games that can allow for the lodi of homebrew software that has been directly installed onto a gamecube memory card game boy interface comes in a variety of flavors currently named by its creator extremes is standard speed running and high fidelity each is a balance of compatibility latency and resolution to suit the priorities of each user while standard is the high compatibility mode other versions may be unsuitable for hdmi output we were able to get the speed running version which is 240p to work via the digital output of gc video devices to the framemeister's hdmi input but only if the gc video line doubler was turned on for 480p output however due to the way gc video normally works these various modes may cause incompatibilities even with analog output options in a way that would not affect the official component cables to work around this a feature developed by chris 2600 called direct mode or direct component has been implemented by dan koontz in the gc dual and gchd mark ii firmware labeled in the menu is dyuv this restores the picture output pipeline to its most basic state allowing component to work with oddball video mode such as those used in some versions of the game boy interface in particular if you use the high fidelity version that's been tailored for the ossc and have the oss most recent firmware with optimized modes that are designed just for it you'll get just about the dinged crispest gameboy pixels you could hope for and for gba games they very nearly fill the screen with a 720p output from the ossc but since this isn't optimized mode you may have to bump your oss sampler settings a notch or two if you notice any flickering pixels [Music] by now you should have gotten a pretty good idea of what to expect from gc video whether you choose one of these recent options or the official component cables there's a few things you might want to know regarding gamecube video output before deciding to dive into an advanced solution this is something you might prefer to go through life not knowing so turn back now if you're afraid it might ruin gamecube games for you so okay are you in well here's the thing first while the gc dual and gc hd mark ii both support analog rgb output be aware that gamecube and wii video is natively generated in a digital ycbcr color space rather than rgb specifically a compressed 4-2-2 format without getting too technical the real world result is that blue and red appear to be rendered at a half horizontal resolution while this is not necessarily obvious overall it does mean that certain color edges may appear just a touch messy for compatibility reasons gc video does include a process to convert 422 to uncompressed 444 however since detail that does not exist cannot be restored we're uncertain as to whether the conversion technique used has anything to do with the improved clarity along contours regardless the fact that the video is natively 422 puts a bit of a ceiling on the overall image fidelity possible on gamecube hardware however a key takeaway from this is that in the case of the gamecube and wii rgb doesn't necessarily have an accuracy advantage over component since ypbpr is simply an analog representation of ycbcr secondly while 480p is a standard feature in nintendo published titles when it comes to third-party games support is common but certainly not guaranteed when available 480p is activated by holding b while booting a supported game sadly no pal reaching games support the format at all with an optional 60hz mode being offered on certain titles instead however through the use of a homebrew utility called swiss 480p output can in theory be forced for any title on any region of the console although in some cases it may cause compatibility issues and lastly do know that a lot of gamecube games appear to run at a lower color depth that results in dithering while many key titles like metroid prime and smash don't seem to be affected others like wind waker can be hit pretty hard it's especially noticeable as the setting sun shifts the colors in the sky in games like prince of persia or pn03 heavy dithering is prominent in both interlaced and progressive modes interlace mode tends to reduce the intensity of the dither but often some dithering can still be seen if you look really closely so hey we just thought you'd might like to know since sometimes people ask us what's wrong when they upgrade cables and suddenly they can see patterns like these on their ps1 or other systems that tend to be prone to dithering while dithering has never been a deal breaker for us it might drive some people crazy if dithering is one of your pet peeves then you might consider just sticking with s video for ntsc systems or rgb for pal systems instead of spending so much money on component cables or an hdmi solution but that's a choice only you can make gamecube video output is finally in a good place between insurrection industries pick what you need approach and the all the features you could ever possibly want gchd mark ii your bases are pretty well covered mods are no longer needed and while we're curious to see if further developments may arise in the coming years we're already to the point where the official gamecube component cables seem to no longer offer any unique benefits beyond being a collector's item it's hard to find many negatives with the current situation other than that yes even less expensive solutions are still quite an investment for output from just one particular console but if playing real gamecube hardware is important to you we think you can't go wrong with any of the solutions that we've had a chance to look at [Music] [Applause] [Music] in our previous episode about first party controllers we started with the famicom and went through the 8 and 16 bit generations taking a look at not only the standard controllers from console to console but also how they changed over time along with some of the less widely used first party control options in this episode we'll be going through as many first party controllers as we can across the next two generations of gaming from the sega saturn and playstation on up through the xbox and gamecube and most everything in between when we last left sega the genesis 6 button pad had brought home the arcade experience of playing street fighter 2 and other notable fighting games that were all the rage but heading into the 32-bit generation not only could 2d sprite based games be more detailed and offer deeper gameplay but who knows what sort of challenges lie ahead when navigating the uncharted territory of 3d graphics and worlds when the saturn was released in japan in 1994 sega utilized everything that they learned in the past two generations to deliver near perfection the japanese saturn pad carried over the layout and feel of the genesis 6 button pad but it's the extremely smart tweaks to the ergonomics and the addition of left and right shoulder buttons which results in a controller that many consider to be among the best ever made maybe even the best now the saturn was a 2d beast and this controller was the ultimate tool for these types of games a modern day excalibur not only for the plethora of nearly arcade perfect ports of capcom's hottest fighting games but also the staggering number of shooters brawlers and platformers which helped drive it to the top of sega's best-selling hardware in japan there's a reason that this pad has a legendary reputation that it does the construction mimics the genesis 6 button fairly closely right down to the tech used for the d-pad however it somehow manages to feel just a touch better than that the concave a b and c buttons and smaller convex style of the x y and z buttons match as well hey if it ain't broke don't fix it the l r buttons feel nice and clicky and a rubber start button rounds out the package for many this is the ultimate realization of 2d gameplay and over 25 years later it's debatable whether or not any other controller has even come close to replicating the japanese saturn pad when the saturn had its surprise launched in the us in may of 1995 the redesigned controller was clearly the most obvious source of aesthetic tinkering [Music] from a purely visual point of view the model 1 us saturn pad may have appealed to north american fans but once you hold it in your hands it quickly tells you all you need to know the bulky grips are more angular and uncomfortable and i can't say if they actually fit naturally to anyone's hands the over-designed d-pad has concave divots in the four main directions and the l r buttons are so shallow that it almost feels like you're not even pressing them at all at least the buttons match the japanese stylings but the damage has already been done the controller's internals reveal a more complex build full of thin and fragile plastic pieces in hindsight the model 1 us saturn pad represents yet another misguided decision by sega of america during the mid-90s but ultimately feels like there was some insatiable need to change things for the sake of it [Music] thankfully this is one misstep they specifically sought to rectify when the model 2 saturn released in the us in 96. the u.s controller was jettisoned with the japanese style swooping in to save today what a relief this was supposedly done to cut costs but i don't think that anyone out there believes that this was the wrong choice before we move on from the saturn pad let's take a quick side step to the recently released wireless saturn controllers from retrobit yeah i know these aren't exactly first party controllers but these are marketed as being from sega themselves so thanks to stoneage gamer for sending over a set of pads for this video we can see if they managed to come close to the high standards of the original [Music] selling for around 34.99 the retrobit wireless pads are available in three colors across two different formats bluetooth and 2.4 gigahertz we opted for the 2.4 gigahertz versions because we've come to prefer the format due to quicker connection time and lower input latency this version comes in a clamshell case with two different connection dongles traditional saturn style and usb while using it on an original console is my preferred use it's pretty cool that both are here so you can connect to a pc switch or even a mister both are firmware updatable in case any performance bugs or incompatibilities crop up in the future oh yeah the pad has a rechargeable battery that can last for up to 30 hours so how does it feel i personally found the pad to feel absolutely fantastic and more importantly authentic i was relieved to find out that the d-pad had none of the pivoting issues that were prevalent in retrobit's wire genesis pad if there was any input lag i certainly didn't notice it but more importantly thanks to castlemania games i was able to try out the wired saturn pads from retro bits which predated the wireless versions by several months while these had similarly decent builds upon first testing them out i found that they had mushy l r buttons which had little travel distance and lacked any clickiness of the oem controller it wasn't exactly a deal breaker but certainly made me a little apprehensive about how these wireless pads would turn out as such this was the very first thing i checked when i got this pad and i'm happy to report that it seems to have been worked out and fixed it's a different type of clickiness but it's close enough for me one of the best parts of a new console generation was that arcade the homeports could be closer than ever to their coin-operated counterparts the 32-bit generation was no different and what better way to drive home the experience than extravagant peripherals that were custom tailored to blur the line further on the saturn my favorite example of this is the mission stick released fairly early in the saturn's lifespan the mission stick is made up of two main segments the primary piece contains the stick itself which has a trigger for the a button and thumb buttons for b and c the z-axis wheel tends to be used as a throttle in a few games while the second half spreads the face buttons and shoulder buttons across the surface with each button having its own rapid fire slider the two halves of the mission stick can be separated and reversed making it uniquely customizable for both left and right handed players i have the japanese version here while the us version has some subtle changes to the button design and of course the color through the use of photocells and leds to measure analog movement mission stick is a nifty piece of gaming tech for the mid 90s if you're curious to see a more in-depth breakdown of its functionality retro gaming rc has a video showing how the different parts work together it's actually pretty cool it probably goes without saying that my favorite aspect of the mission stick and the main reason i bought it for myself is that it's incredible for some of my favorite arcade ports on the saturn like the sega ages space harrier and afterburner 2. for the first time at home these games not only look like the arcade but also play true to their original version other games such as panzer dragoon and panzer dragon 2 use the controller to great effect although it took me a bit to get used to the increased sensitivity sky target on the other hand it adds surprisingly little to the experience in 1996 sonic team delivered what could be considered the saturn's killer app in the form of knights into dreams the elements of flight and aerial tricks call for more free-flowing controls so the specially designed 3d controller was packaged with copies of the game [Music] of course the key feature here is the analog stick which facilitates a smoother and more refined range of movement it seems like the 3d controller could have been developed as a response to the upcoming nintendo 64 controller but both controllers hit the market in japan at almost exactly the same time in the early days of summer 1996 so it's likely that they were developed without knowledge of each other at least during the early stages the spring loaded stick is more like a nub flat with little travel distance it does tend to look a bit silly in the face of nearly 25 years of progress but it works it sort of looks like a cigarette lighter you'd see in a car back in the day the circular design of the controller itself goes all in on the 3d motif making for a controller which isn't exactly the most ergonomic thing to hold but it gets the job done [Music] the disc style d-pad matches closely to a regular saturn controller but it protrudes from the surface a bit further the presence of the analog stick does break compatibility with certain games to work around this there's a physical switch on the pad that alternates between digital and analog mode represented by a plus and a circle all six face buttons have matching size with a convex contour however the shoulder buttons were given the analog treatment and resembled triggers an innovative approach which paved the way for a number of future controllers one curious feature is the ability to detach the cable from the pad i'm not exactly sure what this was meant to achieve or accommodate but it's speculated that this might have had to do with an upcoming wireless receiver or a rumble pack style accessory although the 3d controller worked with a slew of games there were very few that were designed to specifically take advantage of its abilities of course everyone knows about knights but i found burning rangers to be much more manageable it also benefits many of the first person shooters on the console with powerslave being one of the few that takes full advantage right down to the analog abilities of the triggers to adjust strafing speed however not everything is a-ok panzer dragon 2 worked perfectly with the mission stick but its functionality isn't exactly one to one with the 3d controller most notably the aiming reticle can no longer reach the outer corners of the screen and the r trigger activates berserk mode as well as moving the camera to the right as it's supposed to despite what seemed like a generally cool reception on the marketplace sega themselves obviously love the design and functionality of the 3d controller with sega's final home console the dreamcast sega made the evolution of the 3d controller the star of the show [Music] the biggest innovation of the dreamcast pad is without a doubt the two expansion slots for different peripherals namely the visual memory unit or vmu which gives you a second information display as well as doubling as a memory card for your save games the location of these ports gives the dc pad its most maligned attribute to this day a cable that connects to the wrong end of the pad over the course of the console's short lifespan there were no notable changes to the design of the pad itself outside of different color variants [Music] [Music] looking at the 3d controller and the dreamcast pads side by side the similarities are immediately apparent if you like the 3d pad this was great news but a number of the tweaks might not have been for the best most obvious is the overall change in shape from my circle to a slightly more angular spaceship-esque design it does complement the design of the console perfectly the fin-like grips are deeper making it feel overall less bulbous and more comfortable to hold which in turn makes it much easier to pull back on the analog triggers the weakest aspect of the 3d controller the analog stick takes a much more defined shape in its redesign and is a vast improvement it's topped off with a convex mushroom cap that is dotted with tiny bumps to prevent slippage which does work for its intended use but wasn't quite as elegant as the rubber tops that some of the competition had [Music] for the first time sega scraps the disc style d-pad for a much more typical cross style which was similar to nintendo's i'm not quite sure how they got around the whole patent thing but i assume it has more to do with the internal mechanisms which is surprisingly similar to the ball bearing aspect of the first genesis 3 button pad finally the face buttons have unfortunately been paired down from 6 to 4. the color coding of these buttons do add a nice dash of flair but it's really unfortunate that this decision was made considering the multitude of arcade perfect ports on the system the analog triggers are simply not an adequate replacement [Music] it's impossible to say whether or not this was the right controller for the dreamcast after the perfection of the saturn pad i wish that they'd come up with something that was a little closer to that with an analog stick as a result the dc pad remains one of my least favorite controllers to use even today there is an alternative on the horizon from retro fighters that looks like it might just solve all my issues with it though sony may seem like a mainstay in the console market today but there was a time when they were still an unproven newcomer when the original playstation launched in japan at the very end of 1994 a key focus was on pushing 3d graphics and gameplay but the system actually shipped with a fairly conservative controller [Music] clearly taking inspiration from the super nintendo which makes sense considering the infamous origins of the playstation the original playstation controller features a d-pad start and select buttons and four face buttons where it innovates a bit more is in its grip handles and four shoulder buttons two on each side r1 r2 l1 and l2 all of them equal in size i've always used playstation shoulder buttons exclusively with my index fingers it never would have occurred to me to try using my middle fingers for the back buttons but apparently a lot of people do do that and there is some debate as to which is the proper method and whether sony intended for four fingers to rest on the shoulders the face buttons have a shallow profile and mostly flat surface as opposed to the concave or convex buttons common on other controllers of the time the now iconic shape icons a pink square green triangle red circle and blue x or cross were envisioned as being used for particular functions the square represents a menu triangle represents a character's viewpoint while circle and x are widely recognized in japan as symbols for yes and no respectively in practical use these symbols mean very little anymore especially outside japan where the standard circle confirm and x cancel placement eventually shifted towards x confirm and circle cancel for costly who knows what reason i've begrudgingly gotten used to it but japanese games still use the classic circle confirmed setup which corresponds to the a confirm that nintendo uses in all regions worldwide the d-pad is a single piece of plastic that pivots under a cross shape in the controller shell which distinguishes it from the plus or disc d-pad designs used by sony's competitors personally i like it quite a lot and this is still my preferred controller when it comes to 2d playstation games or games without analog control [Music] in fact i was really disappointed when my relatively late generation playstation came with a dualshock controller instead of the original controller because at the time i was mostly playing rpgs on playstation and i felt like the extra bulk just got in the way i didn't like the long reach to the analog stick or even understand the purpose of the right stick but the dual shock was actually not the first controller of its kind from sony that would be the short-lived dual analog controller the dual analog controller features vibration in japan but not in other regions resulting in a much lighter controller than the dualshock the slightly longer handles and concave sticks with a harder plastic touch as opposed to convex rubber tops on dualshocks really make the dual analog controller look kind of like a bootleg i mean if you weren't paying close attention to the playstation in 1997 then you probably never heard about this clumsily launched dualshock prototype but it certainly has its fans the longer handles lighter weight and concave sticks are nice for those who prefer them and there are also little ridges at the front of the larger r2 and l2 buttons which are kind of neat you're not going to earn any oh wait a minute why did you decide not to hit it so it was then in november of 1997 that the true evolution of the playstation controller hit japan the dual shock a design whose shape would be changed in only minute details for three generations the name comes from the built-in dual force feedback motors in each handle and of course the dual analog sticks with broad convex rubber tops which are in a mirrored arrangement toward the lower middle of the controller an invisible set of extra buttons dubbed r3 and l3 which are also present in the dual analog controller are activated by clicking the sticks inward it's kind of a strange not very intuitive idea when you think about it but it is nonetheless become a staple of modern controllers a very slightly different version of the dualshock shipped in the year 2000 with a color scheme and plug designed to match the stylings of the smaller ps1 like i said i was not a fan of this design at first so i absolutely sympathize with those who do not like the analog stick placement but playstation being the juggernaut that it was well you'd better get used to it or else you're missing out on some amazing games and get used to it i did the stick placement is now second nature and in some ways i prefer it since it allows the d-pad to remain in the standard position ensuring that 2d games never feel like they're a lesser priority for games that do not support analog control the analog functionality may have to be disabled to avoid compatibility issues the dual shock soon became the playstation's pack-in controller and enjoyed widespread adoption smooth analog controls and 3d platformers like the original spyro the dragon went a long way to prove that with the dual shock sony's console could play host to platformers just as great as the best on nintendo 64. [Music] several games even received dual shock support and updated print runs although personally i feel that resident evil and resident evil 2 are best played with the d-pad the right stick which is almost universally used for camera control in modern games was not utilized nearly as well during the playstation's generation with camera rotation often remain relegated to the shoulder buttons but some games like mega man legends 2 really stand out where the dual analog character movement and camera controls feel shockingly modern but the dualshock's biggest limitation was the original digital controller that shipped with the playstation because not everyone had a dualshock games had to be designed with the original controller in mind and as such analog control was more like a bonus feature the first game to require a dualshock controller released in 1999 apescape an exceptionally charming and inventive platformer that utilizes the dual analog setup to do things that simply could not be done with an n64 controller such as rowing a cadoo or controlling a remote control car independently of the player character by using the right stick having perfected their dual analog controller concept over the course of the late 90s it was no surprise that the playstation 2 shipped with well the dual shock 2. [Music] the dual shock 2 is virtually indistinguishable from its predecessor at a glance the easiest thing to do is to check the top of the controller for a dualshock 2 logo to figure out which one it is luckily the dualshock 2 can be used on ps1 consoles in the original dualshock can also be used on ps2 but compatibility varies by [Music] game the dual shock 2's main distinguishing feature is frankly a bit of a flop pressure sensitive buttons luckily they don't feel noticeably different from standard digital buttons and not that many games even take proper advantage of this feature to my knowledge what i always think of is what hideo kojima did with metal gear solid 2 and 3 because of course he would use some of the system's weirder features in those games you prepare a shot by holding square and fire by releasing it but if you decide to not take the shot gently releasing the button will put your weapon down instead it works well enough but is kind of unnecessary outside of that there's not much to write home about regarding the dualshock 2 other than the tighter analog stick suspension which i do prefer one slight variant that i've come across is the white controller that shipped with the psx which is a japan only dvr slash multimedia box from sony that also plays ps2 games they're notoriously expensive yet unreliable this unit was graciously donated to the show by microruhan the included controller has a considerably longer cord than standard ps2 controllers possibly because of the psx's intended use is a living room multimedia device and also because the controllers plug into the back of the unit but the extra reach also just makes it so handy to use with a regular ps2 system or even a ps1 ultimately the dual shock 2 did very little to win anyone over if they didn't already like the original dual shock but the ps2 itself has perhaps the most overwhelmingly diverse library in console history meaning that like it or not this is one controller that is well worth getting used to when microsoft entered the home console market in 2001 nobody knew how things would play out the console had been building up interest for a while but upon the reveal of the final design of the console and controller one thing was for certain it sure did feed into the notion that american electronics had to be huge well it does have its arden fans the original xbox controller better known today as has been the butt of countless jokes over the years it's big it's huge even seamus blackley one of the designers on the console joked in 2016 that it was large enough that you could land a helicopter on it an app description it was revealed that the duke ended up the way that it did because the internals had already been produced so the shell had to be designed around those parts still you can see the beginnings of an excellent design here chief among these is a staggered placement of the dual analog sticks while the gamecube technically had a similar positioning first the nub on that controller might not have been intended for dual analog use in the same way clearly the duke was designed with first person shooters in mind and that's exactly where it excels the centered parallel sticks on a dual shock don't feel nearly as natural to me when it comes to those type of games also interesting is how much of an inspiration the dreamcast controller seems to have been the analog triggers the a b x and y button placement and the expansion ports for memory cards are all key facets that drive home the resemblance the main addition being the smaller black and white option buttons to give the layout something that could be appropriate for a fighting game that is if the d-pad was any good adopted from microsoft's own sidewinder pc controller the smooth waves might look sleek but i'd wager that it's a poor choice for anything 2d related its extraordinary girth right down to the gigantic jewel at the center of the pad ensures that the duke's legacy will always be that it's a punch line strangely hyper can release a duke inspired pad for the xbox one for the dozens of people who have fond memories of this controller which manages to stay fairly true to the original vision thankfully microsoft was forced to take a different approach when trying to crack the japanese market they already had an uphill battle and including a controller of that size would make the xbox dead on arrival the redesigned s-controller didn't change the tide of the console's fate in japan but the fruits of labor would benefit fans in other regions the improvements to the xbox controller s are numerous first and foremost the smaller size is more manageable hence the s moniker you know s for small sure it's still beefier than the competition's offerings but you could say that it's more resistant to wear and tear abuse the d-pad now resembles something more appropriate to a video game controller instead of melted plastic you might be able to play some street fighter with it now face button placement is more typically spaced as well although the black and white buttons have been shifted to the lower right hand corner the start and back buttons find themselves in a similar situation on the left hand side of the pad due to their recessed nature which was a necessity considering the way that your thumb lays across them it's easy to forget that they're even there i've never had a problem with accidentally hitting these buttons personally but i'm sure there's plenty out there that hates their location one aspect of the duke and the controller s that i feel doesn't get enough recognition is the breakaway cord the xbox was hefty enough that pulling off the shelf would cause some real damage this is also a smart way to incorporate a controller extension seamlessly into the design i'm happy that microsoft was able to recover from their controller misstep and i think the s controller is a really good standard style control pad big girl got a key all right some points yeah you certainly are big aren't you that's it [Music] so before try gets back into nintendo's post snes offerings what about some of the less iconic controllers that arrived in the post 16 bit era the 3do presented an interesting situation because the console wasn't created by just one manufacturer there were a number of different styles to accommodate the different hardware that was out there out of all these panasonic's original pad is easily the most recognizable it's fairly inoffensive amounting to what is basically a melding of the genesis 3 button pad and the left and right shoulder buttons of the snes pad [Music] although the number of buttons are fine for most games on the system the biggest hurdle comes from you guessed it super street fighter 2 turbo five main buttons are so close to the six needed in this case the start button is called upon to fill that gap but the real problem with this controller isn't the buttons at all it's the d-pad the disc style is good for basic functionality but it has a real problem with diagonals they just don't register probably 70 percent of the time this makes it notably challenging to pull off special moves and fighters but it hurts other types of games as well i'd heard that the main reason for this is that the screws in the pad were tightened too much during manufacturing slightly loosening the screws on the left side of the pad will alleviate the issue a bit but it's still super unreliable the most infamous and mocked aspect of the pad these days is the silly approach to controller ports someone thought it would be a novel approach to connect the controllers to each other daisy chain style in theory this could be alright but in practice not so much on the flip side of that a feature of this pad in particular that i feel was ahead of its time is the presence of a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and a volume dial which can route game audio to a set of headphones or earbuds this is a feature that's been touted on modern consoles but the 3do was doing it way back in 1993. the 3do is all well and good but what else well let's check in with digital foundry's john lennon who has accepted the burden of talking about some of the more well let's say controversial controllers the atari jaguar or the jag certainly has a rather poor reputation but if you dig into its library it's a fascinating machine with some enjoyable games yet few would go to bat for its original controller design on top you have a basic three button layout coupled with a stiff d-pad and a central pause and option button but look below and you'll find a full 12-key numeric keypad what's up with that well to better understand this madness we need to look further back at the history of other consoles such as the intellivision colecovision the atari 5200 or even something like the rca studio 2. the idea is that games would include an overlay that you could slot into the number pad area defining the in-game functions and that's precisely how the jaguar is designed to be used as well these overlays basically clarify button functionality using these visual aids now these functions are typically relegated to things like weapon selection map functionality or the option to disable music which is almost always mapped to the zero key for some reason now in the mid-80s the famicom came along and established a more standard d-pad button configuration so it kind of seems like atari was trying to meld the two they combined the more popular d-pad and buttons with the numeric keypad used in other western developed consoles from the past the problem is that action games of that generation weren't really suited to just three buttons this was being marketed as a new next generation machine yet it only had three real action buttons something that was being rectified on other consoles such as the sega genesis and the pc engine with new pads so by 1993 to release a three button pad was just not a great move now atari tried to remedy this later with a revised pad featuring six face buttons along with a pair of shoulder buttons which were basically mapped to keypad functions but it was too late hey at least it handles better than the original jaguar pad but things could always be worse enter the philips cdi the cdi was an attempt to build an all-inclusive living room solution that could handle music movies educational content and yes games unlike most consoles though the cdi has countless variants more in line with a cd player or a dvd player or even the 3do i suppose which means there's no real standardized controller between them most units included a wireless or wired remote like this which were great for cursor based navigation but horrendous for actual video games philips did release a cdi variant of the gravis gamepad but later attempted to standardize games more around this featuring an obscenely lengthy cord this three button pad is the lightest cheapest feeling controller you could imagine but it does work and offers functionality required to play games yes as input is derived from the original three button remotes there are just three action buttons as well plus the d-pad but it works there's also a speed adjustment switch but the actual functionality is kinda limited there as well now it's reasonably comfortable at least but it feels so cheap and fetches so much money on today's market due to its scarcity that it's not really worth it but if you want to play cdi games this is probably the best official way to do it [Music] it's maybe the most love it or hate it console ever made it's time for nintendo 64. i first played n64 in toys r us about a week before launch and honestly up until then i was a skeptic i mean who needed more than 16 bits anyway but i was not prepared to see what this thing looked like in person my 12 year old brain had never seen anything as mind meltingly expansive as super mario 64. and my outlook on the next generation flipped in an instant [Music] now i'll admit i grabbed the controller incorrectly the first time i held the outer handles and reached for the analog stick with my thumb i saw other kids try to move it with the tips of their fingers like it was a tiny joystick and hey that's fair the three-prong design was strange and new to us but look now that we all know how to use this controller the i don't have three hands argument that people keep parroting holds no water you know how to use it you know that you just grip the middle and right handles for most games the left and right for some games and very rarely the left and middle are used like in sin and punishment listen if you had ever put any time into n64 games you'd know that they virtually never ask you to switch to the unused handle during gameplay because there simply aren't any functions there now i won't deny that it is nice having ready access to the d-pad and the stick at the same time on modern controllers for modern games on modern consoles because it's nice for quick select functions and little quality of life things like that but that kind of functionality was neither necessary nor consideration in 1996 it simply does not matter for the types of games that exist on the nintendo 64. the key feature of the n64 controller is of course the analog stick or control stick as nintendo does prefer to call it while sega's 3d controller for saturn may have beaten the n64 to market in the us but not japan it's fair to say that nintendo heralded the analog stick revolution the stick was an absolute revelation when the system first released allowing for a range of precise movement that was simply unmatched when comparing the very very fine degrees of speed and motion that is possible in games like super mario 64 i just can't help but feel the analog movement on modern consoles can't compare so under optimal conditions this is an extremely robust input mechanism but yes the n64 stick does get a lot of flack for what i believe are two primary reasons the lesser issue is that it's got a hard top compared to the softer rubber tops of other sticks that's never been uncomfortable for me but i get it rubber tops are more comfortable although they get nasty when ruined the bigger problem though is that the n64 stick does wear down causing it to become very loose in its pivot joint and movement can feel a bit crunchy when it's too far gone now i've said it before but most of my original n64 sticks are in quite good shape some minimally better than others but none that i would not want to use myself i don't know if i was just somehow gentler with it despite being completely obsessed with the console or if it was in part because i cleaned the pivot area out with q-tips every now and then [Music] otherwise the n64 controller also features a not so typical button layout but one that works extremely well in my opinion the large a and b buttons are your primary face buttons that are placed at an extremely comfortable angle the four c buttons are often criticized because they were clearly designed specifically for camera control in the wild world of 3d gaming but were quite often used as extra action buttons instead this has never bothered me personally and i kind of think of the layout as not being dissimilar from say a 6 button sega controller the r and l shoulder buttons are pretty normal aside from l rarely being used i have to say though when i realized that there was a button underneath the control stick the z button that kind of blew my mind yeah triggers are standard today but at the time it seemed like a really clever idea to put a button under the controller and there was nothing like it on first party controllers before unless you count the virtual boy the controller even has a sort of cartridge port which can be used for a variety of purposes such as the rumble pack the first first party force feedback device for a home console and the transfer pack which allows certain n64 and game boy cartridges to talk to each other but the most important function of the rear port is of course the controller packs which are the n64 storage for external saves the n64 also popularized the idea of controllers being offered in a wide variety of colors in its first year controllers were already available in gray blue green red yellow and black but as time went on a wide variety of crazy translucent colors were also made the n64 controller is far too often taken out of the context of when it was made it was a new type of controller for a new type of game and nintendo was the first company to make analog control standard on their console's primary controller while the n64 controller most certainly did not become the template for modern controllers it took a bold step forward and i would personally say that the first party n64 controller still offers the best experience for the games that were designed around you're just it to impress me you'll hear a lot of people say that n64 was a complete failure but it certainly was a success in some ways although nintendo no longer had the firm grip that they once had is the global sales leader so with their next console nintendo finally conceded to disk based media as their competitors had and adopted the dual handle dual analog layout that was clearly poised to become the new standard but beyond that the gamecube controller is anything but standard i remember checking out the gamecube about a month before release at a cube club promotional events that nintendo was running in cities across the us in late 2001. my first reaction to grabbing the controller was that it was pure bliss something about the shape of the handles which are unique and being more deep than wide just felt like they melted into my hands in a way that no other controller ever had the gamecube controller is a strange mix of experiments most of which have not been influential in controller design since but its distinctive layout has also led to becoming such a firmly entrenched standard in super smash brothers that brand new first party gamecube controllers and third party alternatives are still produced today [Music] now me being bad at smash i've never understood personally if there was a real measurable advantage to using a gamecube controller beyond muscle memory but there's a lot i do love about the gamecube controller that has nothing to do with smash brothers the most striking feature of the gamecube controller is its oddball face button layout and i truly wish that this had been given a chance to become more accepted something that i honestly feel should have replaced diamond layouts it's sort of like an upside down t at a slant but with different shaped buttons a is enlarged as the primary action button while b is a smaller circle and x and y are bizarre kidney shapes originally b was also going to be kidney shaped and the game that i like to point to for demonstrating why this is superior to a diamond layout is actually not smash brothers but soul calibur 2. on a diamond layout you can only comfortably press a and x simultaneously or b and y but with the gamecube central a button you have more options for natural simultaneous presses a and b a-n-y and a-n-x because of this i've never enjoyed playing soul calibur on any console more than the gamecube sure the layout does not work that well when using gamecube controllers with say virtual console games on the wii y and b are not meant to be used simultaneously unlike on snes controller the gamecube also has unique triggers positioned more like shoulder buttons these have excellent finger shaped contours and boast a large range of analog movement there's also a bit of a bonus feature a firm click at the bottom of each trigger is an extra button press unfortunately this was not used very creatively in most games but an excellent implementation is in star wars rogue leader where the analog motion on the r trigger adjusts your speed and then the click closes the x-wing s-foils for maximum mobility other aspects of the gamecube controller are a bit more mixed the z button was heavily criticized when the system first released for looking a bit tacked on and just not feeling great it is only on the right side in front of the r trigger and works a bit harder than standard buttons swinging on a tight hinge luckily it's rarely used as a major action button and more commonly works like select or a mode toggle the d-pad is very similar to the original gameboy advanced d-pad which is great but is way too small in the context of this controller being a bit out of reach and just not that fun to use when it comes to say game boy advanced games through the game boy player the analog sticks are not quite equal to one another as they are on competing controllers the c-stick has a rubberized tip but the lack of a broad top makes it less than ideal for prolonged use and more useful for quick camera adjustments or weapon selection both sticks work inside octagonal gates while the competition had moved on to round gates the octagon shape is nice for a lot of games making it easier to lock your motion to a direction but is less ideal for say shooters which were at the time finally starting to adopt the modern dual analog setup because of this time splitters 2 simply feels better to play on ps2 and xbox compared to gamecube nintendo's newer gamecube controllers that have been released since the wii generation and later have much longer chords which is hugely appreciated even though i've continued to play smash with the newest console's regular controller i always enjoy picking these up as fresh pads for posterity the trigger mechanisms in the new controllers are designed slightly differently and there seems to be some debate as to whether it's good or bad but they work just fine for me i even took pieces from a few newer controllers to make one ultimate indigo controller the gamecube's iconic color but with a longer court and totally fresh parts [Applause] but if you wanted to cut the cord entirely nintendo had you covered released within the first year of the system's life the wave bird is a first party gamecube controller that uses 2.4 gigahertz wireless technology running on two double-a batteries while the extra compartment gives the wave bird a sort of big belly the extra bulk isn't intrusive in the slightest your hands only touch the parts of the plastic that are also on the regular controller so the wave bird feels identical aside from the start button being positioned just the teensiest bit lower the weight and center of gravity is also slightly different not only due to the added batteries but also the removal of rumble motors a measure deemed necessary at the time for keeping battery life high in case of interference a dial on both the controller and receiver could be set to a different wireless channel i personally found this to be pretty necessary when i was in college because i would get occasional hitches and controller response on certain channels while at home i almost never had issues here say cheese so anecdotally the possibility of interference seems somewhat higher with the wave bird compared to most modern wireless controllers but in the right environment it can be close to perfect but despite the lack of rumble the wavebird is a landmark wireless controller previous attempts that wireless controllers mostly used spotty infrared technology the wavebird proved that wireless could be reliable for use on a primary controller and it's hard to not assume that it played a role in wireless becoming the standard in the following generation although with the notable exception of the xbox 360 controller nearly all first party wireless controllers went on to use bluetooth rather than 2.4 gigahertz which tends to result in extra latency so in many ways it could be argued that the wave bird isn't just a pioneer it's still one of the best the gamecube controller is a wonderful but imperfect experiment that reflects a nintendo that was reluctantly adapting to a changing market but didn't want to throw away its unique identity the result was a controller unlike any other that fans have continued to demand be usable on each successive nintendo console and will no doubt be used for a long time to come [Music] the standardization of analog controls over the course of two console generations brought about a major shift in the way the games are designed and for the most part those standards have stuck for a time it seemed like the capabilities of these consoles and their controllers pushed traditional 2d game design off to the margins but as the years have gone on both 2d and 3d gaming have thrived together and enjoy the capabilities of these controllers the next time we visit the subject of first party controllers we'll see how the landscape changed with the challenges of making the wireless capabilities of the waybird the new standard along with the disruptions brought about by motion controls and a push for untethering the console experience from the television [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: My Life in Gaming

Views: 393,447

Keywords: video binge watch, nintendo games, super mario, super nintendo, NES, famicom, game boy, nintendo switch, RGB, nintendo, sega, sony, microsoft, console, Component, SCART, Composite, 240p, PVM, Mod, video game, retro gaming, game hacks, game setup, mlig, modern tv, vintage gaming, console port, emulation, fpga, nintendo switch online, analogue super nt, nintendo books, roms, nintendo controller, classic gaming, nintendo power, playstation, neogeo, retrotink, gamecube hdmi, everdrive, fxpak, adapters

Id: 0-7iOU2x23c

Length: 239min 10sec (14350 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022