NEC PC Engine / TGFX16

[worn spindle]

Never had a real TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine so I have nothing to compare to.

Just double checking to make sure if that was intentional or not.

[grand moss]

It's not a new observation, but the video timing chain is as it is in the system.

[dreamy tiger]

nec gonna nec

[grand moss]

OK, I updated the issue for srg320 to see.

[worn spindle]

Maybe there could be an option to at least center it?

[grand moss]

Well, you'd need to define "center" before that can be discussed.

[plucky python]

I am pretty sure the off center started within the last year. I have the RT4K and use DV1.

[dreamy tiger]

Just went and checked on one in between meetings and it had crashed with ing 2 hours of being started. restarted it and will check on it every 30 min or so

[grand moss]

If you think this has changed over time, maybe you can look at past cores to see when the change happened ?

[dreamy tiger]

It’s definitely happened within the last two stables.

First pic: 240418
Second pic: 250526

I couldn’t find unstables to test from the nightlies repo

That's direct video > Morph > ipad screen

[grand moss]

Well, lots of things can affect that, when there are so many stages between source and display... but srg320 did make some changes in the display line between those dates

[dreamy tiger]

Would anything we can do be helpful? Look at HDMI without direct video? Look at analog?

[grand moss]

Analog

and two things - is it only shifted right, or is it stretched/compressed ?

HDMI has additional stuff happening

[dreamy tiger]

I believe shifted because the space on the right is smaller between cores

[grand moss]

If you can measure how wide the image is, the ratio between offset and full width (if we know what game is tested), we can understand how many pixels the shift is

[grand moss]

Don't compare against different cores; we always had to adjust the TV set to re-center between machiens

[dreamy tiger]

no no, I mean between TG16 releases (2024 vs 2025) - or was that what you were talking about

[grand moss]

I am talking about the difference between two different versions on the same core

If you want to say that the display shifted... pick a game, and measure the width of the display area, and how much it shifted. Based on the game, we can determine how wide the image is, so then the measurements can be converted to millimeters per pixel, so that the right shift amount can be quantified to pixles.

[dreamy tiger]

Ok, I need to do some other stuff but will try to get started on that today

Just to be clear: Doing analog (svideo) to a scaler is ok? Or do you want pure analot to analog? (either way, I'm going to wait for this mister pi to show up - it's just a matter of what measurement is most useful)

[grand moss]

Analog to Analog. Any additional step introduces its own eccentricities

And of course, that means that MiSTer -> HDMI -> scaler is multiple layers

Meanwhile, I'll tell you what I can do.
I can run original hardware -> Commodore 1701 monitor and measure a known screen with masking tape markers, then run the same from MiSTer's analog composite and check position, without adjusting any of the position/size adjustments

If there's a difference, I'll mention it. If there isn't, then it's not likely to be the core, but rather the scaler (either internal or external)

[dreamy tiger]

Ok, I will do VGA > Svideo into my JVC 910SU as soon as the mister pi shows up (I’d do it into the JVC D series but then I’d need a yard stick to measure the difference :p)

[grand moss]

By the way, regarding the MiSTers that hung, what are they reading from ? SDCard ? And if so, what brand ?

And if not SDCard, then what ?

[dreamy tiger]

All NAS. I can move to SD card - and the mister itself doesn’t hang, I can still open the OSD, it’s just the game

[grand moss]

Yeah, please use SDCard; NAS is considered less stable (although not quantified).
Also, please use the word "hang" instead of "crash", but sure, make this clear

"Crash" sounds like it went berserk and lost control. "Hang" sounds like it appears to be waiting for something that it never received.

[dreamy tiger]

Samsung cards were also suspect iirc. I can order some new ones - any preference?

[grand moss]

I use official Sandisk Ultra or Sandisk Extreme

[grand moss]

OK, I ran this test.
On 256-pix width, the MiSTer-output display is within 1 to 2 pixels of the original hardware.
On 348-pix width, it's pretty much the same

Not identical, but pretty darn close

I used Chris Covell's Screen Dimension Test to count pixels (move sprites 1 and 2 to edges of screen).
That test program can be fuond here:
https://www.chrismcovell.com/creations.html

[errant pilot]

Nice! That’s very close

[grand moss]

Yeah. Now there might be something about how the pixels between HSYNC and the starts of display are being interpreted by the HDMI driver and/or scaler

versus how the pixels "after the active display but before HSYNC" are interpreted.

Default MiSTer HDMI output is supposed to automatically center the image, but the internal scaler does seem to interpret as though there is more blank space on the left than on the right, for better or worse.

[spark osprey]

that Patabor issue is interesting…I know I’ve experienced hangs/black screens in various CD games from time to time. Even had I think Ai Chou Aniki hang on a black screen for me during my last stream. I’ll double check that I’m on the latest core and then post an issue with a timestamp from my stream when I get a chance

Edit: Yes, Ai Chou Aniki hung at a black screen for me at one point…I’ll double check the core version before posting the card. I have a feeling it’s not specific to that game, though

another card I’ll make if no one’s beat me to it is the fact that if CD games are in their own folders (in my case CHDs), they won’t use cd_bios.rom unless the bios is directly in the same folder as the CHD.

For example, I have my JP games in TGFX-CD\JAPAN\GAME. If I put cd_bios.rom directly in the JAPAN folder and load a game, I get a Bios not found! error. It only works when I place the cd_bios.rom directly in TGFX-CD\JAPAN\GAME\cd_bios.rom.

[dreamy tiger]

what if it’s in /TGFX-CD/

[spark osprey]

i can try it…I actually realized that I didn’t have a boot.rom there

[grand moss]

In theory, it should check each of the parent folders up to TGFX-CD, and that's what it does for non-CHD rips, but I don't know anything about the CHD code that went in

[spark osprey]

Yep, if I put cd_bios.rom in TGFX16-CD directly, then games boot

doesn't help me when I want to use region specific bios files I guess ...that said, I guess it's not a huge deal in this case

[dreamy tiger]

Got 3 extremes in today. setting them up and then I'll load patlabor on each of them. planning on running one on each flavor of main board. anything I should do aside from update linux, main, and make sure I'm on the latest stable?

[dreamy tiger]

oh does the screen differ depending on the bios file?

I love having region correct bioses on mega cd and saturn

[spark osprey]

ah you know what, I don't think I'm on the newest core

[spark osprey]

I believe there is a difference, but it may be super slight

[dreamy tiger]

the saturn and mega cd ones are big

[spark osprey]

I haven't actually tested it just yet

yeah saturn and sega CD ones are very different from bios to bios

@grand moss ok, confirmed I'm on the latest core...just did a test where I have my bios located at TGFX16-CD\1 - USA\cd_bios.rom. Loaded a bin/cue game from TGFX16-CD\1 - USA\_BIN TEST and received a Bios not found! error.

it DOES work if I put cd_bios.rom directly inside of the TGFX16-CD folder or inside the same folder as the game files

[grand moss]

No, just set them up "as normal" for SDCards. Only suggestion I would make is that I would stay as "vanilla" as possible, and avoid CHD

[dreamy tiger]

yup, redump bin/cue. only game on the SD card is Patlabor.

[grand moss]

Hm.. OK. Maybe I was wrong about the successive parent directory thing. I DO know that you should put the system 3 card in the TGFX16-CD folder, and you can override in the local folder of the game (this is necessary in the case of Games Express games)

Not sure why you'd want to nest them any other way

[spark osprey]

If I wanted to use different regional bios files....that said, the US bios isn't different enough to matter, so I ended up just putting the japanese cd_bios.rom in the TGFX16-CD folder and leaving it at that

[spark osprey]

the system 3 card...is that the arcade card? I don't see anything on the github readme about that file

oh wait, that's the bios d'oh

ah, I don't think I have any of those Games Express CD games

ah dang, Ai Chou Aniki crashed for me again in a different spot before the main menu

can't reproduce it of course 😅

[grand moss]

Yeah, there are different versions. The US version 3 one still has issues with a few CDs, so the Japanese v3 is the optimal one

[grand moss]

I think the Cho Aniki issue has a different mechanism than the Patlabor one. I'm pretty sure that the Patlabor one is representative of some other games, but happens slightly more frequently. The Cho Aniki one appears to be more specific to that game.

But I'm going to have to ask - are you running "vanilla" bin+cue images on SDCard ? Or some other configuration ?

[spark osprey]

CHD…one thing I should definitely do is check my CHDs and potentially rip new ones myself

I’ve noticed crashing/hanging bugs like that with other CD games too, but I can’t remember specific titles. I can’t remember for sure, but I may have downloaded the CHDs from elsewhere, so it’s probably worth re-sourcing bin/cue files and repacking my own CHDs or maybe just switching to bin/cue rips

[grand moss]

Please say "hang" if it just stops progressing; "crash" basically means that it goes berserk and/or the screen corrupts and shows garbage

[spark osprey]

good call

[grand moss]

In any case, the new version should have a much lower frequency than before... we're trying to figure out how much lower, and how to determine the issue when it happens

[spark osprey]

but i edited to say crashing/hanging because I’ve actually seen bugs that fit the crashing description on occasion as well…usually the screen showing garbage somewhere

[grand moss]

If that's the case, it's a completely different issue. The only "Crashes" I've seen in recent history were problems with the images, not the core

[spark osprey]

yep, it definitely could be a me problem. Some of those issues I saw were also from a while ago, so may be obsolete now

first thing I’ll do is redownload a fresh set…I’d like to keep it in CHD, but actually now that I have a 4TB SSD, I guess bin/cue is fine 😅

[grand moss]

As long as we're looking at issues, it's important to figure out what layer the issue is caused by. We might find that certain issues are more likely on CHD than bin/cue, and that's a different type of issues at that point

[spark osprey]

hell, maybe i’ll download a fresh set and reconvert to CHD and keep both sets on hand. If it bugs on CHD, I can switch to bin/cue and see if it happens again

[grand moss]

ok

[dreamy tiger]

@grand moss all three patlabor systems are going strong. going on 12 hours now

actually it’s just now 12 hours

[dreamy tiger]

Had a hang on QMtech sometime in the last few hours. Restarted it and will monitor it more closely

[grand moss]

OK, that sounds good. So the previous thing could have been a storage/networking thing

How many systems ?

I got confused ebtween 6 and 8

[dreamy tiger]

definitely something along those lines, yeah. I have had the single hang after 14 hours. two of the systems are coming up on 24 hours with no problem

[dreamy tiger]

I was testing on 6 misters earlier, but for the sd card test, I am only testing on 3. 1 de10, 1 mister pi, and 1 qmtech.

QMTech hung after 14ish hours. de10 and mister pi have been going strong for 22 hours

I restarted the QMtech and it's been fine for 6ish hours

[grand moss]

So, one potential hang amoung 72 hours of aggregate execution

That sounds "fixed"

The fact that there's a difference between SDCard and network would appear to be a separate issue, which likely affects more than just this one core

[dreamy tiger]

yeah, I think this is safe to call it fixed

do you want to close it?

[dreamy tiger]

yep, and not something worth chasing

[grand moss]

Did you update the github issue ?

[dreamy tiger]

I haven't yet, was cycling card to test this other issue. I can update and close if that's easiest for you

[grand moss]

update it - I don't think it was you who opened it though

(so only they or sorgelig can actually close it)

[dreamy tiger]

ahh ok

[grand moss]

make sure you mention the difference between network and SDCard

I will follow up a little later with another comment speculating about reason

[dreamy tiger]

done and done

@grand moss I meant to ask but it looks like you sorted the image offset thing (or, at least, got the information you needed for it). Do you need further testing on that. I think my analog mister pi might finally come tomorrow

[grand moss]

Sorry, I'm confused - what do you mean "image offset thing" ?

[dreamy tiger]

Sorry, the cores video not being centered

(over HDMI)

[grand moss]

ah OK. No, I'm satisfied that there is no problem in the core, since MiSTer composite output matches original hardware composite output within 1-2 pixel widths.

[dreamy tiger]

ok good 🙂

I thought i had read that, but wanted to make sure I understood

[grand moss]

OK, I updated the issue as well

[strange orchid]

OK, funny thing about the PC Engine. And I wonder who here agrees with me.

But!

My Japanese white PC Engine, when I turn on the console, the click or movement of the power button is what I'd call: unsatisfying.

I just don't enjoy it. Something about the way they designed that power button.

You know? You kinda just slide it over.

Everytime I do that, I wonder if it will really turn on. Feels toy like.

But that's my only very minor criticism. Everything else about it is fantastic.

[grand moss]

Must be a worn out switch. Mine are good

[strange orchid]

I mean, the switch does require a bit of force. It's not loose.
I'm just saying... the design is what I don't like.

[grand moss]

Still better than other consoles in my opinions

[true iris]

I agree. It feels sludgy, stiff without tactile satisfaction.

[grand moss]

I felt the Megadrive/Genesis power switch was sludgy, and not even stiff. No real click, just a slide

[strange orchid]

Agree. Genesis is 2nd worst. haha

[grand moss]

I might agree that the Duo had a non-tactile switch, but my white PC Engine has nice feedback

[strange orchid]

I mean, I do love the consoles, don't get me wrong. But I love a really nice satisying click.

The NES and SNES were good with the satisfaction of the click hehe

Seeing the red light up onthe NES was nice

and then the SNES with that snappy click

[grand moss]

@dreamy tiger @spark osprey any further news on testing ? Just wondering if it continued after our last discussion.It seems to me that the primary cause of hangs can be avoided by using SDCard, but I wanted to know if there was any more detailed information since then

(I'm not sure if non-SDCard related hangs will receive an update, or even if they can be solved)

[dreamy tiger]

Oh, I haven’t been testing since we decided that patlabor was network related - what else needs testing?

[grand moss]

I thought I'd ask since you might just continue running the tests out of curiosity. I think the Cho Aniki hang may be a slightly different root cause though

[dreamy tiger]

I can do some cho aniki tests later tonight. just let the intro run on that one too?

[grand moss]

As I recall, yes.

[dreamy tiger]

ok, I will set up a SD card test for that tonight

[spark osprey]

nothing yet, but I think I’ll have a bit of time this weekend to start redoing my CHDs and get a fresh bin/cue set. Then I’ll encourage people to request TG-CD games on my Sunday stream to hopefully get some testing done

[grand moss]

Cool

[spark osprey]

anyone know what the latest version of CHDMan is?

I think the one I have is newer from like 2023

I'll just grab the latest mame so I'm sure

Also, does anyone know if there's some recommended settings to manually change for CHDMan? I usually just use it stock...

[dreamy tiger]

ok I have chou aniki running on 3 misters from the SD card

[cobalt kindle]

The last change to chdman appears to be November last year https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/tools/chdman.cpp

[spark osprey]

it seems like the hang happened most reliably for me after dying in game, going back to the title screen and then pressing Run to start the game again. It would hang on a black screen after pressing Run

[spark osprey]

perfect, I downloaded the version from the latest Mame package, so I should be all set

[grand moss]

So, I've got something for you to test

Once you're set up

If you get it to hang with all the "regular" settings, try it again with "CD Seek: Fast" and see if you can recreate it

[dreamy tiger]

I haven't gotten it to hang yet

[grand moss]

OK

Sounds positive

[verbal rock]

Am the only one who suddenly have no audio in my pc engine cd core ?

[grand moss]

When is the last time you did an update ?

Was it perhaps May 25 ?

[verbal rock]

1 week ago i think

[grand moss]

Do another update and see if that fixes it

There was a change made to both PC Engine core and Mister Main which needed to be in sync, but Main came out about 1 or 2 days earlier

If you were caught in that window, that would explain the lack of CD audio

[verbal rock]

interesting to know

gonna update inmediately

just updated still No audio in FMV parts

[dreamy tiger]

what is the date of your MiSTer main? You can see that by going to the menu, hitting b (where the scripts menu is) and it’s the date next to MiSTer

[verbal rock]

Date is "Mister v240921, OS V250402"

[grand moss]

Yeah, that's not updated

[dreamy tiger]

yeah, your mister main is old. did you run update_all?

that should update mister main

if the update goes through, the mister will reboot

[verbal rock]

Pc engine core is "TurboGrafx16_20250526.rbf"

I just downloaded the "TurboGrafx16_20240419.rbf" and finally is working fine

[dreamy tiger]

yeah, the old core will work with the old main

if you update main, you will need the new core

[verbal rock]

By main do you the 'Main' file ?

[dreamy tiger]

yeah, the one that you have is dated 240921

[grand moss]

It's literally called "MiSTer"

[dreamy tiger]

(september 21st, 2024) the latest version is 20250525 (may 25th, 2025)

[grand moss]

Not sure why you would want to be running an outdated version.

[verbal rock]

Do you happen to know what does the 2025 version of pc engine core do ?

Am I missing something really important ?

[grand moss]

Bug fixes

[verbal rock]

Critical ones ?

[grand moss]

Hmm... important, but probably not critical:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/TurboGrafx16_MiSTer/commits/master/

Scroll through that list to get back to last september

[dreamy tiger]

Still no hangs. I dunno if I need to get to a specific level though

[verbal rock]

Where can I download this file ?

[dreamy tiger]

do you have update.sh on your mister in the scripts folder?

you can run that or update_all.sh

either of them should grab it

[grand moss]

Yeah, seriously. It is the most normal part of the system to update during an update process

I have heard that some people have done some sort of special configuration to override this and use a specific version of MiSTer, but this only causes problems. I have no idea how this is done, so I can't explain how it can be undone.

I don't recall the specifics around when/why people had done this, but I think one reason was surrounding testing some in-development core.

[spark osprey]

sounds promising. Crossing my fingers that maybe replacing all my CHDs or using bin/cue will fix it for me.

when I had the hang happen, I didn’t get that far into the game. Played for less than 10 minutes.

[verbal rock]

ok so I know why I didn't have the 'MiSTer' file updated , I use Groovy Mister and I need a specific MiSTer file to make it work , problem is that if I replace my updated version of the 'MiSTer' file for the 'MiSTer' groovy mister needs then some things broke , like the Pc Engine Core any idea on how to manage this ?

[spark osprey]

@verbal rock I believe there is a way to specify using a specific MiSTer main file for GroovyMiSTer in MiSTer.ini, but I haven’t used GroovyMiSTer, so I don’t know how to do it

you can do it for other cores too

[dreamy tiger]

From: https://github.com/psakhis/Groovy_MiSTer

[verbal rock]

Amazing that did the trick ! thank you very much everyone for the help you all are awesome !

[spark osprey]

ah ok yeah, so it's the same as other cores, I couldn't remember the exact syntax offhand

[spark osprey]

oh wait, you’re running Ai Chou Aniki, right?

[dreamy tiger]

.... I am not. there are....two of these?

[blazing hatch]

Chou Aniki = Part 1

Ai Chou Aniki = Part 2

Part 3 is on PSX and Saturn

[covert tangle]

Is there a known issue with the shin megami tensei 1 port on the pc engine cd? I get a weird screen jitter effect

[dreamy tiger]

looks ok here. are you on the latest core and main?

[covert tangle]

I may be on some random main from a previous release actually! I'll test that thanks

[dreamy tiger]

yeah, latest core requires latest main. give that a shot and let us know. it’s looking ok here but I dunno if you’re in a specific part or something

[covert tangle]

Yeah just name entry

[dreamy tiger]

lol

I was one screen away from that

never mind, I see it too

[covert tangle]

Just wanted to check out the VA in this version

I can add to GitHub

[dreamy tiger]

let me test on analog first

just to make sure it’s not something weird with the mister scaler

Ahh, my analog setup is in pieces. File it and I can update it as needs be

[spark osprey]

Yes, Ai Chou Aniki is the one where I was seeing the hang

[dreamy tiger]

yeah, I'm running it now. I lost power during the night so I dunno if it crashed or not

[spark osprey]

I loaded it up last night just for the heck of it and played for a bit with my arcade stick and noticed that it seemed to control a bit differently compared to when I used my Dualsense…I redid my controller mappings on the Dualsense and played it a bit, but I actually couldn’t reproduce the crash. I’m still working on redoing all my CHDs and will try again later

[covert tangle]

Sounds good! Yeah funny enough mine is also haha just doing some rearranging

Wanted the ps2 back on the crt which started an entire chain reaction of cable management

[dreamy tiger]

I'm waiting for another mister pi (which is hopefully coming today) and forgot that I dismantled the old setup in anticipation

[covert tangle]

Posted to GH

[dreamy tiger]

@covert tangle #test-builds message

[grand moss]

You beat me to it

[covert tangle]

Nice!

[grand moss]

This may also affect that other one we spoke about last week... action side-scroller with a white line above the HP box

[covert tangle]

I'm not fluent in Japanese lol so I wasn't even planning an actual playthrough. But I'll test the usual stuff (rondo, r type, other caravan shooters)

[grand moss]

@cosmic wasp @dreamy tiger You might want to try Cadash on this test core too, to see if the flashy white line is basically fixed. It affects the same area.

I just hope that no other games got broken by this

[dreamy tiger]

I'll take a look

[cosmic wasp]

I’ll check but we already figured out that line was present on og hardware

[grand moss]

Yes, but frequency of appearance seemed slightly higher on MiSTer

[cosmic wasp]

Got it

[grand moss]

Maybe it's nothing

Just want to make sure it's not worse

[cosmic wasp]

Ran through the first area a couple of times on both builds and it seems to happen at about the same frequency

Maybe very very slightly better on the new build? But it’s hard to say for sure since they happen at slightly different places in each run

[grand moss]

That's fair

Basically it happens due to a bug in the program - it misses the latch window.

It's non-deterministic because of the bug too

The latch window moved, so that's why I wondered if it improved

[spark osprey]

alright my entire TG-CD pack has been replaced with freshly packed CHDs and I also kept the bin/cue rips. I’ll report back if I run into any issues!

[spark osprey]

ha wow, that didn't take long! Ai Chou Aniki hung on a black screen after dying...guess I should try bin/cue

oh actually, I'll try fast seek first

i'm gonna start recording my gameplay

the hard part is that the hang seems random and doesn't happen in the same spot every time

[grand moss]

Uh... last time you were talking about Cho Aniki

[spark osprey]

no

I've always been talking about Ai Chou Aniki

[grand moss]

Well, Chou Aniki is what's in the issue log, and where I had confirmed issues in the past:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/TurboGrafx16_MiSTer/issues/220#issuecomment-2770475172

[spark osprey]

yeah, the issue I'm having is with Ai Chou Aniki, sorry for any confusion

I just played for 10 minutes with Fast Seek enabled with dying a couple times and hitting run at the title screen with no hangs

CHD...i'll give bin/cue a try later without fast seek..I'll try and get example footage captured

[grand moss]

OK

[spark osprey]

probably worth noting that my games are stored on external SSD too

[dreamy tiger]

I have been trying to get that game to crash all day :p

bin / cue stored on the SD card

[spark osprey]

are you playing the game or just letting it run?

[dreamy tiger]

played it

takes forever to die

[spark osprey]

nice

not if you’re skilled enough like me

but yeah it does seem like I’m generally playing for about 10 minutes or just under

[grand moss]

Well, I'm not seeing any issues with Cho Aniki's demo loop (for the past couple of hours)

[dreamy tiger]

I played about an hours word (spread over like 5) of both Cho and Ai Cho - no hangs with bin/cue on the SD card

maybe related to CHDs?

[spark osprey]

it very well could be

and maybe possibly an issue with it not being on the sd card

[spark osprey]

if you’re up for it, maybe try a couple times with CHD and see if you can get it to happen

[slender bluff]

Someone said the other day there was a pack of bad CHDs out there that caused issues

[spark osprey]

I created my own

redump bin/cues from archive, latest version of CHDMan

unless there’s a bad bin/cue redump set out there?

got it on video...it's a random hang unfortunately...doesn't always happen in the same spot

[grand moss]

Yeah, try it direct on SDCard with normal CD seek timing

(as in - not CHD, not external SSD, not network)

[spark osprey]

ok, the plot thickens (or thins maybe....maybe just points to the problem being external storage related)...I just tried loading bin/cue and it hung before even getting to the title screen . The only thing is my bin/cues are not stored inside the TGFX16-CD folder, not sure if that could make a difference

bin/cue did load on second try

I can try from SD card directly later

[spark osprey]

alright, just got a hang when playing bin/cue direct from sd card

The only thing is, I technically launched it using a symlink from the external drive...but I wouldn't think that would matter...

I do see that the one I have is a specific disc pressing I think (SADS)...wonder if I should try a different copy

[spark osprey]

going to try redoing my core cfg files maybe

ah yeah you know, my cfg file has a timestamp from 2023

[dreamy tiger]

If you have a spare sd card, it might be worth just doing a blank one that has the up to date main, Linux, core, and game on it

[spark osprey]

yeah, true

just played for almost 15 minutes with 1 death and restart (bin/cue, SD) and no issues after redoing my config files

[verbal rock]

Is it my imagination or now in the pc engine core we can skip cutscenes ? for example valis or castlevania chi no rondo

?\

I remember that I couldn't do that before

[true iris]

With DracX at least you can skip the intro cutscene once you've got a saved game stored, but not the first run through.

[turbid jetty]

cho aniki guy checking in 😭 saw a hang with network loading on latest stable build with bin/cue over network. as usual, the hang appears to be during a CD audio track change. I'll try with a fresh SD card and loading bin/cue from SD card when I get a chance tomorrow

[spark osprey]

Ai Cho Aniki guy checking in...Just played for 20 minutes and got two levels past when it crashed in the video I posted, died and restarted with no hang

[spark osprey]

How old are your core config files? I've been having fairly consistent hanging with Ai Chou Aniki and after deleting my core config files from 2023 and redoing them, I haven't had it hang on me yet....that doesn't mean it's fixed, but so far so good...

ha immediately after I say that, I loaded the CHD and it hung 😅 No hangs on bin/cue on sd card after redoing the cfg files, though...

[grand moss]

Depended on the game, but it was always possible on most games (except for the occasional mandatory introduction)

[grand moss]

Also made a fix for the CD+G playback remaining issue

#test-builds message

[turbid jetty]

clean image from mr. fusion, game loaded on sdcard as bin/cue. it's been fine for over 2 hours. a few things that are missing from my usual setup:

• network loading
• retrospy (for input display while streaming). this does a really weird thing where it's constantly opening/closing /dev/inputX instead of polling: https://github.com/retrospy/RetroSpy/blob/master/MiSter/retrospy.c
• wizzo extensions for zaparoo and api server
  i'll try to run some other tests with the usual setup with these bits disabled individually to see if i can narrow down a root cause

[dreamy tiger]

I’m putting all my chips on “network loading”. Maybe related to the patlabor hang.

I guess if we could figure out what patlabor and the two aniki games are doing different, we could test other cores with the same setup. Might just be a cifs quirk

[grand moss]

I think it would be important to see exactly how long the outstanding request is outstanding for

I have a feeling that SDCard is pretty standard response times, whereas network probably has various sorts of potential delays that are small but possibly meaningful

I wonder if this were benchmarked, what would the results say, during the times where it freezes

[dreamy tiger]

Is there a way to test that?

[grand moss]

It would require instrumenting the MiSTer executable

[spark osprey]

I did some more testing today and got hangs after the bios on Gradius II and the Rondo of Blood translation. Both were CHDs stored on external drive, though

kinda thinking my issues might either be with CHDs or just external storage…except for that ONE hang I saw in Ai Chou Aniki when it was running bin/cue from sd card that I haven’t been able to reproduce.

next thing to do is get a fresh sd card and run only bin/cues

[grand moss]

Has anybody tried looking at the new test-build on games other than Shin Megami Tensei ?

I want to confirm that nothing gets broken by it, so then I can send a pull request

[faint dagger]

I could try some tests later today, I'm checking other things on the SNES, Saturn and Mga Drive sides before.

[grand moss]

Just so that you are aware of what to look for - the only thing changed was when the vertical scroll register is latched on a given raster line. And even that is adjusted by the smallest possible quantum. So:

• any sort of jittering vertically
• if there is a one-line-offset on a section of screen - too early or too late to change from one section to the other section

[faint dagger]

The core seems fine on about 25 games tested so far and I don't see a flashing line anymore on Casdash too.

[grand moss]

OK cool.

Glad to hear it. Please continue. I will commit the fix tonight if you don't find anything

[faint dagger]

I'm testing my version of Ai Chou Aniki done with my personal copy.

[grand moss]

Also, I sent a response to issue #238

[faint dagger]

Ok, I will read your reply.

[faint dagger]

For illustrating quickly, between the last two stable versions of the core, on HDMI the image have shifted to the right.
It was correct before with a centered image and the same back bar on the two sides of the screen on every game I tried just a moment ago.

I'm searching the exact core version were it began now

[faint dagger]

That commit is the culprit.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/TurboGrafx16_MiSTer/commit/c40e69f39aeff7d38b24bf9bb586721bf688bee4

[faint dagger]

I've not found anything strange (or any evident visual regression) with my tests about the BYR latch change.

[grand moss]

Awesome !

Are you confident that enough testing has been done to assume it's OK to commit ?

[faint dagger]

I would have liked a second person to assist, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Because I tested 40 games in only 3 hours, and I was also testing other cores today + replying on some other issues.

[grand moss]

I can wait longer if you prefer

I'm reasonably confident that nothing broke though.

[dreamy tiger]

I don’t want to step on your process or anything, but maybe it’s worth pushing it to the unstable branch. that will expose more people to it

unless you were planning on doing requesting a stable release

[grand moss]

It's not a branch

But I could do that

It's a tiny change

[dreamy tiger]

sorry, yeah, the repo

[faint dagger]

I think we could push the commit after some more tests.

[grand moss]

OK, I've committed locally; I can make a pull request when you tell me you're happy.

[faint dagger]

Later tomorrow if everything's fine.
After that I will focus on a full review of the Saturn core for the next days.

[grand moss]

Actually, I should probably do it earlier - before I go to bed. It's tiny, but it affects the same area as the HDMI shift that srg320 might just work on tonight

[faint dagger]

Okay, you can do the PR.

[grand moss]

OK, done

Thank you

[whole pulsar]

No worries, please use @ Moderator in the future so it gets all of us. Admin only goes to Kit 😊

[grand moss]

Oh thanks !

(Admin was at the top of the list when I put '@')

[dreamy tiger]

oh no did I miss free steam gift cards again?

[worn spindle]

I commented on this a while back, so it's nice to have verification.

[plucky python]

Sorry I haven't had a chance to test, but I too have commented on it a few times. I think it indeed started around last Winter (December?). Thanks to everyone looking into the issue for us OCD folks 😉

[faint dagger]

I probably saw a regression with the last commit that wasn't caught in time.
The floor on stage 2 (regular stage) of Akumajou Dracula X.

I see a flickering white line now.

If you need a save file.

srg320 found the issue with the shifted image.

[grand moss]

I'll take a look later today

[faint dagger]

The shifting is gone for me with the last commit from srg320.

[grand moss]

By the way, for the Dracula X issue, which version did you test on ? the one before srg320 committed, or after ?

(or both ?)

Shifting the HSYNC may cause a slight difference in when the HSYNC interrupt is raised, and where the BYR/CR/BXR latches should take place

[faint dagger]

Both of them.

[grand moss]

But I suppose you didn't go back to the 20250525 release

And - let me make sure that I'm clear on what you're referring to...
Initially on stage 2, the floor is solid. It's when you proceed to the right a certain amount - past at least one piller, and a few enemies - the top line of the floor starts to flicker

This is what you're talking about, right ?

Also on 20240418 - previous stable

[faint dagger]

Yes, that's the issue right there.
I was going to do a full explanation after my lunch, but you were faster.

I need to test some cores within the next 30 mins, so I'm adding the 20240418 and 20250525 versions to the test tool for today.

[grand moss]

OK

By the way, I saw something on the SplitRes demo which leads me to beleive that the HSYNC adjustment might affect BYR/BXR latch timing, so you might see some weird things show up in games as a result of srg320's fix this morning

[faint dagger]

Thanks for the insight.

[faint dagger]

I need to check Akumajou Dracula X on my original system.

I'm closing the ticket, it's a normal behavior of the game and thought primarily it was a regression on the core.
We cross-checked with two friends of mine : my OG system, another one and also the PSP version.
Sorry about that.

[grand moss]

Oh, Ok. If it was on original hardware, then I don't need to check for myself

Still, that SplitRes demo behaviour is making me think that another revision is needed

Again, I'll need to check on original hardware

[worn spindle]

Tested out the new build. The picture does look more centered, but it seems to still be off by a single column? Still need to adjust the alignment slightly from my Morph 4K.

Was using the Direct Video mode, so I'm not sure if it's related.

[dreamy tiger]

oh I can look. core in the unstable nightlies?

[faint dagger]

Eeyup.

[dreamy tiger]

yeah, definitely much closer, but now it's slightly further to the left. maybe by 2-3 lines?

[grand moss]

Hey, the real consoles in the real timeframe weren't all centered to the same standard. People had Horizontal Hold knobs on their televisions to re-center if the picture was too far to one side - and mostly put up with it if it wasn't too far.

[blazing hatch]

Only a comparison with the real thing on the same TV and probably the same input (composite) will help

[grand moss]

I did exactly that prior to the change, and found it was off by only 1 or 2 pixels.

I'll cehck the new version soon - but maybe not today

[grand moss]

In any case, the real question is whether moving the HSYNC has any effect on X/Y scroll timing (i.e. messing that up)

[hasty flicker]

So cool

[grand moss]

I've just submitted a pull request updating the readme, including lists of games which support various features (because those questions frequently arise)

I also added new information about CD+G support

And I re-arranged a couple of existing items to try and organize it a bit better

I'm not sure about whether lists of supported games would be considered "too much info" for a README, but otherwise it should be accepted pretty quickly

[grand moss]

Yay, accepted !

[grand moss]

I'm thinking it might be time to close old GitHub issues that have been addressed (I don't have rights to do that though)

A couple of the ones there are junk issues

A couple are theoretically resolved - but you let me know

Issue 189 (CD+G) should be closeable by now. Not sure if the originator wants to wait until the official release though

Issue 212 is a non-issue.

Issue 220 - I haven't heard any updates on this in about a week - how is testing going ?

Issue 232 is kind of a non-issue, but sorgelig clearly states it won't be adjusted

Issue 236 is related to a cheat, not the core

Issue 238 - any feedback ?

Issues 198 and 227 are fine to keep open

Issue 243 is new, so need to see whether it's actually an issue or not

[dreamy tiger]

Issue 220 - I haven't heard any updates on this in about a week - how is testing going ?

• I haven't done any further testing here since running it on the 3 misters for 22ish hours. I would vote close this

Issue 238 - any feedback ?

• I vote close. It's much better and I don't know if it's worth chasing "perfectly centered"

[grand moss]

I agree with you. Not sure whether the original posters do

If you had posted in either of those issues agreeing with the issue, could you post an update with your satisfaction ? (If you didn't originally agree with the issue, no point)

[dreamy tiger]

✅

[grand moss]

Oh !

Oh that's interesting - that perhaps doesn't change the timing numbers found during the test program though

I'll look at that after work for sure

[grand moss]

I just looked at the game, and it's working fine !
wow, srg320 is great

Into another test cycle

[dull socket]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/TurboGrafx16_MiSTer/commit/1fb7482f0cde2e37dfe28dff6a6cfe10755d7316

[blazing hatch]

More things to test for David

[faint dagger]

More things to discuss with srg320 too, no 3DO core for today.

[dull socket]

https://imgflip.com/i/9xzjq5

[graceful root]

This is how it should be

[faint dagger]

OKay, let's work on the MegaCD core instead of the 3DO.
EDIT : You're safe; for now. Friends need me elsewhere.

[worn spindle]

Big day for Earnest Evans enjoyers

[stiff lotus]

Oh @dull socket beat me

[grand moss]

OK, that looks interesting....

And I got my hands on a CPU->VRAM access test as well. MiSTer was already very close, let's see if this update makes it closer

[grand moss]

I only got through about 20% of the CPU->VRAM testing yesterday, but this core improves several of the timings (although one got worse)

Hopefully I can post a more comprehensive set of results this afternoon

[grand moss]

OK, just posted the issue

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/TurboGrafx16_MiSTer/issues/246

It's a really clean set of tests, but there's a lot of data to digest

[quaint venture]

Sega 32X should be in hell.

I don't know, but I feel like that needs some updates at this point.

[dull socket]

yes I missed it 😅

[worn spindle]

It does get updated periodically from Zet-sensei backporting changes from the SEGA Saturn core.

[grand moss]

Found some new issues reported by somebody on a different discord. The good news is that those issues were also found on Mesen

[plucky python]

Would someone be able to test Dragon Slayer with this save file?
Load the first save. Go into the door/stairwell. Then back thru the same door/stairwell after the short dialogue. There are two audio chimes that both are messed up. I am on the latest unstable main and unstable TG16 core. I tried the stable TG16 and the problem persists. Have not tried stable main yet.

I am using the Japanese 3.0 BIOS

and bin/cue files

everything is on the SD card

[grand moss]

Have you compared against original hardware ?

If not original hardware, then how about other emulators or older versions of the core ?

[plucky python]

I have not

I will keep testing some other combinations, but I dont have real hardware

[grand moss]

I found a very weird bug today that turned out to be a bug in the game software itself - it showed up in all emulation (but not original hardware). So it's good to know whether it's widespread, localized, or even version-specific

One of my first thoughts is "how do we prove it's not just the game ?"

So any pre-work you can do to see how widespread it is is always helpful

[plucky python]

Makes sense. I will see what I can find. 🙂

Tried the USA 3.0 BIOS and no change.
Then I tried the 04/18/2024 core and the first audio chime is missing and the 2nd one sounds correct.

[grand moss]

how do you know it's correct if you don't have original hardware ?

(although knowing that it's different between these two versions already tells us something)

have you tried mesen emulator ? mesen.ca

Just curious what it does. It's also very accurate

[plucky python]

I will check out Mesen next.

[grand moss]

I'm off to bed but please post results here

I'll check when I get up

[plucky python]

Sadly I cannot figure out how to load a .sav in Mesen.

[proven portal]

https://savefileconverter.com/#/mister

You probably need to convert

[plucky python]

Thank you. Will try to do this tomorrow.

[dreamy tiger]

@grand moss Anything you'd like us to test for this https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/commit/baa19ad26cc7374ef833ee76a1388310626886da

[grand moss]

Nah, I tested

[grand moss]

Trivial change for the sake of one aspect of one game which sends bad requests

The major work on that was understanding that a problem existed at all, and then understanding what happened. Easy fix

[plucky python]

I cant get the convert button to do anything on that site 😦

[worn spindle]

Babe wake up a new PC Engine unstable build just dropped

[grand moss]

Yeah, not much changed, except the startup state is more stable now (although hard to say whether it is "correct")

A few changes still need to be made

[languid pagoda]

Is Cosmic Fantasy any good? Are there translations for the original versions?

[steel ibex]

Official english release of Cosmic Fantasy 2 back in the day. That's it for the original releases. But there are new official translations on Switch for all of them.

[languid pagoda]

I'd like to play on mister.

[steel ibex]

Then 2 is all you got.

[languid pagoda]

[steel ibex]

The only way to play all of them in english is on Switch.

And they hilariously messed up the translation of the first game on Switch and never fixed it.

During battle, when you attack an enemy, the game says the enemy attacked you, and vice versa.

[languid pagoda]

Lazy devs

[spring salmon]

maybe one of these beautiful days the translations can be played on the pissfinges device

[stiff lotus]

I wouldn’t say lazy, more like stupid.

how do you screw that up lol

and then not patch it

Reeks of publisher bullshit

[languid pagoda]

It's also lazy. If you implement something you should take the most cursory of looks if it works any way that you intended.

Sure, more hidden things are for QA but that's so stupid it's also lazy.

[stiff lotus]

it’s stazy

Oh I was right

It was the publisher themselves

株式会社エディア

Edia developed and published the game

Now it makes sense, game publishers are always behind these inept actions

guarantee you it got caught but they didn’t want to pay to fix it

[spring salmon]

from my experiences of observation, people who actually develop video games usually aren't lazy it's more that they don't have time or can't fix things they want

the lazy developer is a myth that needs to be busted

[stiff lotus]

It’s always that, I’ve been making games professionally for nearly 20 years

Game developers are usually super hard working. There’s no such thing as a lazy game dev.

I’ve also worked with a ton of major game publishers. I don’t hold them in high regard lol.

[spring salmon]

nobody who has ever seen a major game publisher of course hold them in high regard, they're quite openly sleezy

[languid pagoda]

Dunno, it's always the devs themselves saying they're not lazy.

Yet Robby won't fix BL3 on NS2. I talked to Randy and he said it's fine as long as Robby does it in his own time.

[stiff lotus]

lol I wouldn’t even know how to fix it

I don’t even know what’s wrong with it

[languid pagoda]

Did you look?

Did you try?

[stiff lotus]

Ok no lol

[languid pagoda]

What would you call it when a dev doesn't even try to find out why a problem exists or how to fix it?

[stiff lotus]

uhhhhh, cool?

[languid pagoda]

All devs are cool then I guess.

Lazy, cool devs.

[stiff lotus]

[spring salmon]

devils crush is really cool

[languid pagoda]

Who dat? Robbys wife?

[faint dagger]

New unstable core here. #unstable-nightlies

[grand moss]

That's right. Usually lazy producer/publisher - "that's on the issues list, but it's too much trouble - it won't make the cut"

And honestly, since the producer/publisher was in Japan, 50-50 that they didn't even notice that the English was wrong in testing.

And the other half for "nobody in the west will buy this anyway... we're shipping this because it was an obligation due to the stretch goal on the crowdfunding campaign"

[grand moss]

Lots of interesting things being discussed here:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/TurboGrafx16_MiSTer/issues/248

Although this commit looks to be the code related to the build from earlier this morning

I'll check it out though.

Yeah, still a minor shake at game over

Closer than ever, but still a minor shade off

[stiff lotus]

Oh wow, is that true? I had no idea it was a Kickstarter stretch goal.

[grand moss]

stretch goal on the Japanese crowdfunding platform, but otherwise, yes

https://www.makuake.com/project/cosmic-fantasy/

ストレッチゴール
900万円：パッケージ版＆英語版の開発
1100万円：ビジュアル/サウンドモードの追加
1300万円：越智先生描き下ろしパッケージ
※パッケージ版および英語版は、リターンには含まれませんのでご了承ください。

Same thing happened on the second one here:
https://www.makuake.com/project/cosmic-fantasy02/

Buth they didn't choose to make an English version of Tenshi no Uta

[worn spindle]

Cosmic Fantasy was almost non-existent outside of Japan, so the lack of demand isn't surprising.

[grand moss]

CF2 was well-loved among TurboGrafx players. Reasonably well-known among Genesis owners too (although not as well-loved)

It was purchased here, don't worry. But the atmosphere in Japan would be "why would they buy it ?"

It's a pretty common story that (some) Japanese managers don't understand the Western market, and make questionable judgement calls

In the same way that Americans misjudged Japan in the 1980s

You might be aware of many Japanese brands with massive sales here, but probably 95% of Japanese business has no intention of exporting anything

It's really still quite insular

[stiff lotus]

GLORIOUS HDR

[plucky python]

Here is a video with the two messed up audio chimes in Dragon Slayer

😆

I had to use HD at 30 fps to get the size down to post here

I can’t figure out how to test in Mesen sadly

Here is the .sav again if anyone wants to try in MiSTer

Using latest unstable TG16 and main.

[solid current]

random question about Turbo EverDrive Pro on Analogue Pocket: is there a way to get Sapphire (Arcade CD) running in this configuration? is there a community patch? I'm finding other Supergrafx and Arcade CD titles just don't work in this scenario so far, but other CD games do run fine

(asking here because I noticed @grand moss has done a number of patches to help games along on Turbo EverDrive Pro in the past)

going to be in London for a month, and want to dive into TG16/PCE co-op games with my daughter 🙂

[grand moss]

Hmm... I don't think I've done such patches....

I am not famliar with how the PC Engine core works on Analogue, as I only do FPGA work on MiSTer (or on my own smaller-scale projects)

Maybe somebody else can provide a better answer

[solid current]

oh sorry, I could've sworn I saw your name on some TG16/PCE translation patches

some of those were CD games, so I made a leap of inference about your expertise 😉

[grand moss]

Oh I have done translation patches - that wasn't what I thought you were talking about though

[coarse shadow]

The Analogue Duo had compatibility problems with some PCE games and the Turbo Ever Drive Pro right from the start. Krikzz (TEP creator) did some patches for some of the issues, but reverted them back because they aren't working. The problem is on the Analogue side.

https://krikzz.com/pub/support/turbo-everdrive/pro-series/firmware/changelog.txt

Ah, ok. I got it wrong. You mean the pocket, not the PCE Analogue.

[grand moss]

Yeah, I seem to recall hearing something like that regarding the Gameboy stuff before that (on the Pocket)

I know even less about the Analogue Duo

Based on what Krikzz had said in the past, it seemed to be an issue with timing of the siganls on the connector

[coarse shadow]

Timing critical stuff?

[grand moss]

so, internal to Analogue, and if you didn't have access to their code, not possible to fix

[grand moss]

That is what Krikzz had said about the Gameboy incompatibility way back when the Pocket first came out.

Probably the same for other stuff too

[coarse shadow]

I guess at the moment Analogue is more focused on their N64 console release anyway.

[grand moss]

Basically, in the end -
Analogue = closed source.
TurboEverdrive Pro = closed source, but with a few pieces of public code as teasers.
When there is an incompatibility between the two of them, nothing can be done unless you are at one of those companies - and even then, without mutual agreement, not very likely either.

[coarse shadow]

Probably true. But i can understand why Krikzz is closed source. The Everdrive clones got out of hand.

[grand moss]

yeah. I'm not complaining- just pointing out that commnity can't fix stuff

[stiff lotus]

@grand moss omg, PC Engine Mini finally cracked - https://x.com/yoshinokentarou/status/1940680844487938239

吉野@連邦(renpou.com) (@yoshinokentarou)

【連邦更新】
ハッキングは不可能という文脈で語られていた「PCエンジン mini」が完全に解析され、遂に「内蔵ゲームの入れ替え/他機種のエミュレーションが可能になった」というビッグニュースをご紹介!!
https://t.co/Y95SBONM68

X · Jul 3, 2025, 7:55 AM

[grand moss]

I saw. Looks interesting. Sure took a while - about 5 years.

[stiff lotus]

5 years ago I would’ve been excited but now I’ve got a MiSTer lol. It’s still cool, happy for people who’s only way to play PCE is the Mini.

[steel ibex]

Same. I played mine a ton at the time. But MiSTer is how I play PC Engine/TG16 these days.

[worldly drum]

were there any exclusive versions like with the mega drive mini?

[faint dagger]

Yes, some arcade ports of games, like Gradius or Salamander.

But those games were extracted years ago (and they work on the core).

Installing new games on the system was the limit until some days ago.

[grand moss]

I think there was a version of a ROM with a tweaked soundtrack - maybe Fantasy Zone ?

Anyway, I thought the special versions of games were pretty nice. And the fact that they got extracted some time ago was also nice

[faint dagger]

Yes, Fantasy Zone too.

I always forgot about that one.

[solid current]

I see these mini consoles in pawn shop windows all time -- for lots of poorer folks, these jailbreaks are fantstic ways for them to experience games at all 🙂

[stiff lotus]

I think it’s just a mass market device, not necessarily for people who can’t afford something better. But the price point really was low enough for everyone to buy in, which is awesome.

Then Sony released the PS Classic at $100 and royally screwed it up so the party was over lol.

[steel ibex]

I will never understand how Sony managed to mess up the PS Classic so badly. Weren't most of the games on it in PAL format?

[dreamy tiger]

tekken 3 was, so it ran at 50 iirc

[solid current]

the person who did the internal hackathon project was very technical, a true PS1 gamer, and knew all the details. On the way to commercialization, it ran through US R&D where there wasn’t those core competencies

you can tell when any emulation project is done in JP versus US

[languid geyser]

I’d still pick one up if I ever found it going cheap, controllers are great and it’s a little faster than the other minis

[grand moss]

Well, I don't know about Sony, but I'd say that in general, consumer electronics companies in Japan have very technical-minded management, which is not the same of consumer electronics in the US

[stiff lotus]

Genuine question and please be honest. I was very disappointed to hear it used retroarch instead of their own custom emulation. Is that a snobbish perspective or silly one to have?

I’m conflicted because at the end of the day who cares if it works well and the front end is nice. But retroarch is free so I feel like I paid money for something I already have on my computer lol.

[solid current]

I was personally puzzled, as the custom PS1 emulator made for the PS Vita was pretty excellent in terms of input latency and battery efficiency

[stiff lotus]

Ok my comment has bad grammar

I meant to say if it works well then who cares

[stiff lotus]

Yes exactly!

[solid current]

but if you use something another internal team created , then they look good

[stiff lotus]

That sounds great

is that bad?

[solid current]

and when you have 20% of the company continually trying to sabotage a different 20% in a perpetual power grab, that kind of collaboration and re-use for player benefit is very low on the list

[faint dagger]

Lazy job, they don't wanted to port POPS to the MediaTek 8167a Quad A35 system on a chip.

[stiff lotus]

Wtffffff

[solid current]

I met a lot of great people, and got some great things done for the product/players during my time there. At the same time, I personally witnessed and endured things that totally broke my heart as a fan. I never unboxed my PS5 console or have interacted with the product I helped create.

I coordinated quite a bit with open source communities and am still working with those collaborators now in my current venture (rbckr.co)

[stiff lotus]

omg that is so freaking cool

I love this Discord, so many awesome people here

[solid current]

I wouldn’t call it Lazy. Some folks work their butts off to try and get a great l, technically credible experience to players just to have it killed due to cutthroat corporate politics

[stiff lotus]

Yeah, it’s not lazy

I’ve internalized that word to mean “they made bad decisions” instead of “didn’t do any work” because of how often I read that complaint online lol

[faint dagger]

My words were harsh, sorry.

[solid current]

personally, I don’t know how I’d get out of bed in the morning after a few rounds of that. an embarrassing, lesser-than software all because someone wants to get a title bump and ever-expanding direct reports.

[stiff lotus]

Yeah, that’s a real shame.

[solid current]

the shortfalls this generations are not due to technical difficulty, lack of resources, or inability to figure out sourcing and distribution. It’s these unforced errors and self-owns, and that’s the iceberg underneath the surface tumult of the general games industry. If someone if caught red-handed, dead-to-rights lying and sabotaging entire teams’ multi-year efforts, they should be fired and banished.

instead, HR departments and legal double down on those individuals and that creates a position feedback loop for those bad actors and emboldens them further. it puts a chilling effect on most everyone with line of sight, and emboldens others to further compromise their morals and the health of the business.

[stiff lotus]

Dude wow, I can’t comment besides saying I’ve personally seen that and you are so absolutely spot on.

They’re afraid of jeopardizing key management positions because they value them over the entire team.

[solid current]

anyway, replica mini consoles weren’t intended to help poor families, but it’s the effect that I see in my extended neighborhood. I hope it goes further than that even 🙂

[stiff lotus]

You know I never considered that but you’re right. It’s an awesome low cost way to get into gaming.

[grand moss]

All of this is true, I'm sure, but is it really related to PC Engine core ?

[stiff lotus]

You’re right, sorry about that

[solid current]

sorry 🙂

[dreamy tiger]

Can someone try to load up the banger titleCD Bishoujo Pachinko - Kyuuma Yon Shimai (Japan) (Unl) for the PCECD? I get a load error even after replacing the image.

Game is redump and stored on a NAS. Core version is 20250526

(Super Attract Mode was a mistake)

[coarse shadow]

I get a load error too with Super CD-Rom system 3.00

[dreamy tiger]

my beloved pachinko

[queen fog]

jepp

[grand moss]

You need Games Express BIOS for the Games Express games

[coarse shadow]

Blue or Green version?

Copied the blue version as "cd_bios.rom" into the game folder and it boots fine.

LOL, but i can't play it anyway. Can't read it, and i don't know the game rules of pachinko.

[grand moss]

The one with more RAM. I can't get threm straight.

[grand moss]

But at least it isn't the core's fault. 😉

[coarse shadow]

The blue one is 32kb

green is 16k

[grand moss]

OK. the larger one also has more memory, and is universal. The smaller one works for some early games, but not later ones.

[coarse shadow]

https://necretro.org/Games_Express#PC_Engine_Duo

All games listed.

[grand moss]

OK. Probably accurate. I don't have time to check now, but it's good that they're organized by date

[tardy hearth]

Finally messing around with PC Engine CD

Does anyone know a huge part of the screen gets cut off?

The left side of the screen has a huge border and the right side looks like its been shifted

Doesnt happen on real hardware to my knowledge

[cosmic wasp]

Which game?

[blazing hatch]

@grand moss : just for the record, furrtek had a last minute update for Hu6201 https://github.com/furrtek/SiliconRE/commit/f8cc940e047b0262af1dfb632da140e02915288a

[grand moss]

Yes, he had PM'd me to confirm something, and he realized his mistake (one gate inversion was not properly recorded). All is well.

[grand moss]

Should be no cutoff unless you have it configured to do so. But there was some back and forth about whether the image is centered, here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/TurboGrafx16_MiSTer/issues/249

That was fixed some time ago - in the nightlies

#unstable-nightlies message

[tardy hearth]

I'll try this out

[tardy hearth]

It was basically every game for me

With PC Engine

I believe it's something to do with vga mode

[blazing hatch]

@grand moss : Are those Furrtek Hu6201 cell schematics (Sharp cells) something new to you that might help alleviate PC Engine emulation? Or is most of it already known?

[grand moss]

Already known. But always good to get stuff like that - in breaking down the chip, he had to add some identifications for standard cells on that process. Not transferable to 6270/6280/6260, but could be used in some other peripheral chips

[dark wharf]

@grand moss i think i found an issue in the latest unstable core while playing Galaxy Deka Gayvan. the opening text crawl seems jerky; text pops up at towards the top of the screen for a brief moment before reappearing where it should. saw some gameplay on real hardware and it didn't happen there

[grand moss]

OK, I just played the intro and I don't see what you are describing. Do you have a video ?

[stiff lotus]

@grand moss does the PC Engine core emulate a Tennokoe Bank for saving games

[grand moss]

First, Tennokoe 2 is the add-on for saving games (this is also built-in on CDROM units). Tennokoe Bank is a HuCard with battery-backed RAM on it to copy saved games from one place to another.

[stiff lotus]

Oh oops, thank you for explaining it

[grand moss]

I'm pretty sure we don't emulate the HuCard because it's not really useful - unless you know of an Easter Egg ?

[stiff lotus]

Nope, I just hear that RndStranger guy bring up a game save accessory when he plays PC Engine games.

[grand moss]

It works on the premise that all gamesaves are stuck in the same 2KB which is contrained - but this isn't the case on MiSTer, so the whole paradigm can't be relied on

[stiff lotus]

Can I save my progress on the games that relied on that accessory?

[grand moss]

no games relied on the Tennokoe Bank. But games that relied on the backup memory certainly can have their progress saved (you need to go to menu to commit them to SDCard though)

("Save Backup RAM" and/or "Autosave")

[stiff lotus]

Ok understood, that’s great!

[dark wharf]

turns out it's because i turned extra sprites on and forgot lol. thanks for the response and sorry for the trouble

[grand moss]

Ah OK, I thought it might be something like that. A couple of settings can do unexpected things

[dark wharf]

fwiw this is the only oddity i've run into in recent memory. been sampling a bunch of pc engine games lately and had extra sprites on the entire time, and haven't noticed much outside of that

it's a really nice feature. having owned all manner of pc engine consoles and flash carts, the mister core is by far and away my favorite way to play pce games ❤️

[random beacon]

I tried the XE-1AJ USB (new model with orange buttons) on the core, but the main mister menu wouldn't let me set up the throttle in the control menu. Is there a preset config for it?

Start doesn't work for the afterburners in XE-1AP mode.

[grand moss]

I'm not aware of one.

...yet

But basically if you use a generic controller with 2 analog sticks, the XE-1AP selection should let you play

I'm actually looking at XE-1AP and AJ right now for X68000, and there will be some updates to the encoding module soon. But I think what you are looking for is really to let you use the XE-1AJ as generic analog stick

[random beacon]

It lets me use the right stick, but it won't let me use the one with no X-axis in After Burner II PCE.

[grand moss]

I'm not familiar with that controller yet, so I don't have a solution for you at the moment.
Not sure if anybody else already has this solved.
But I will be working on that very soon (ordered a controller).

[cosmic wasp]

I know testing this on original hardware for this particular game is near impossible but on the USA version of Magical Chase the title coming up from the bottom of the intro screen seems to momentarily corrupt the main character sprite on both the latest stable and unstable releases. This does NOT occur on the Japan version of the game

Note that this only happens when you press run on the copyright screen to get to the title faster. If you wait out that screen without pressing anything the title will already be in its correct place without needing to emerge from the bottom

[dreamy tiger]

do we know what happens on real hardware?

[faint dagger]

Original game bug.

I saw it so many times on my real system and on some friends' ones.

[cosmic wasp]

Got it thank you!

[faint dagger]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X28OLZQ22Yk

Just for confirmation here.

[dark wharf]

might be remedied by turning extra sprites on

not that it's really a "bug" to begin with

[cosmic wasp]

Oh it’s not a big deal in the slightest I just wanted to make sure it matched up with OG hardware for the sake of the core

[grand moss]

There are lots of little things that are tiny issues in existing games, because those issues were small enough that they weren't detected during testing (or were considered too minor to worry about).

[stiff lotus]

Alright, so who’s here is playing ALZADICK on this core

[blazing hatch]

Who is afraid of the big Alzadick? Just play it 😉

It is NOT the main game of Summer Carnival '92. That was Recca.

[regal valley]

it gets even funnier if you know Spanish and know that "Alzar" = "To Raise"

[blazing hatch]

I have really no clue what they were suggesting with that name, the thinking behind that is vague at best.

[blazing hatch]

"if we are naughty, let's be really naughty. rising cock? No, let's call it alzadick!!"

[regal valley]

its up there with that RPG called "Algunos"

which means "some people" in Spanish. It sounds like you'll get the most generic protagonists ever designed

[blazing hatch]

"no, I CAN speak those languages and I reckecked with the dictionary yesterday. These are cool names".

I wonder who is really playing that game. It is just a Time Trial Caravan mode that would have fitted easily on a HuCard. No different levels, no bosses. And I would call it average at best even for 1992 HuCard dimensions.

[true iris]

They made up for it twice over with nexzr

[regal valley]

HuCards are expensive, yo

it may have been rushed to be ready in time for the event?

[quaint venture]

Not gonna lie, for as basic as it sounds, an RPG called "Some People" in Spanish goes kinda hard.

It also sounds like a music album.

[pallid kestrel]

Are you sure they meant to use the spanish word "Algunos" as the title of the game? Maybe they just made the word up, and it was that word by chance. Like that infinite monkey theory.

I imagine the game would be called something like "Arugunosu" in japanese, not "Algunos"

[stiff lotus]

Algunos ALZARDICK

The ultimate PC Engine shmup

[regal valley]

true. I do wish for it to be translared so I can play it

I know I will be disappointed though 🤣

[regal valley]

MSU1 ports are cool and all... but I'd be impressed by having games created for the SuperGrafx+CD add-on

[dark wharf]

there's one already, space ava 201

not my kind of game personally but it does exist and uses that hardware configuration

i do quite like the small library of supergrafx-exclusive titles, but i don't know if they're enough to justify owning one. the console itself is a bit of an eyesore as well, in my opinion lol

i often wonder how feasible it would be for a programmer to backport the supergrafx games to a regular pc engine. titles like aldynes and granzort don't seem to do too much that a normal pc engine couldn't, outside of some parallax scrolling and larger sprites, both of which could maybe be achieved with background tiles or something

[stiff lotus]

It would be cool to see homebrew on it

[dark wharf]

https://www.pcenginefans.com/forum/index.php?topic=24036.0 someone is working on a conversion of shinobi

[dreamy tiger]

New Core Alert

@grand moss CD+G is live

[spark osprey]

of course I would update like 45 minutes ago and then a new core drops

[regal valley]

it would be hard to backport because you'd have less sprites overall

[grand moss]

I think It would probably be more interesting to take PC Engine games that flicker, and port them to SGX to reduce/remove the flicker. Like Chris Covell's partial R-Type port

[dark wharf]

that's true. i wish that conversion could be finished up someday

the pce port has an extra boss battle and an arguably better soundtrack. the only downsides are the sprite flicker and lower resolution, and the supergrafx hack addresses both of those

[summer lintel]

I remember a while ago there was discussion about how the built in MISTer turbo speeds don't match the PC Engine turbo, was that ever addressed or a workaround found?

[grand moss]

I made a tubo 2-button version of the controller. Different buttons for different speeds. A->X->R (slow to fast for 'A' button) and B->Y->L (slow to fast for 'B' button)

[summer lintel]

Ahh, but how does that help the rest of us 😆

[grand moss]

What are you talking about ? That's a selectable controller from the menu

"Controller: 2 Turbo"

[summer lintel]

Oh! I thought you meant a real literal controller 😆

So those buttons match the built in original frequencies?

[grand moss]

yes

[summer lintel]

Oh awesome thank you ❤️

[stiff lotus]

You’re welcome ❤️

[grand moss]

Alongside the Cyberstick update for X68000, I've updated the XE-1AP module on the PC Engine as well (pull request pending acceptance)

Players may see improvements in compatibilty (or not)

Players will probably see a change in a few controls compared to the last version:

• I believe that throttel was reversed in the prior version
• Run and Select may have been reversed as well
• I have added more button mappings (which may be helpful, or may not be)

[stiff lotus]

You keep making the core better every day. Legend.

[stiff lotus]

Pins also updated

[granite sinew]

great news! After proper support in main was added for my wheel, I returned to outrun on the PCE core and found that I could no longer use the gas pedal and play the game. I bet this fixes that issue and will give it a try again soon here

[grand moss]

cross your fingers

[grand eagle]

It’s still wild to me that Camp California, this wildly B-tier platformer with the absolute corniest voice acting imaginable, got the license to songs by The Beach Boys.

It’s like if Laser Lords had licensed music from The Beatles - it’s weird, right?

[stiff lotus]

That’s cause Camp California is officially a Beach Boys product. Part of their attempt to do a cross-media project for their ‘93 album “Camp California - Where The Music Never Ends”. The characters in the games were intended to be in an animated cartoon that never entered production.

[grand moss]

Oh is that how it happened

I thought it was just that the Beach Boys had ceased being relevant for about 10 years and they were desperate for a revenue stream

But I guess that's how they ended up in that situation anyway

[regal valley]

probably not the first or last time that a record label thought they'd make big bucks with "one of them vidya games" and end up with decent music but bad everything else...

[slim yew]

Yeah, well, 93 was well into the dark years for them.

[spark osprey]

Camp California….is that the game with the swarms of bees?

[true iris]

Isn't that atari's 720? (I've never played CC)

[ornate pond]

It was, and paperboy also 😆

[stiff lotus]

Yo Bro is also a Beach Boys game lol

[regal valley]

those US exclusives are weird ,,,, ok not that Japan can say anything about that

[grand moss]

Impossiamoel, Yo Bro and CampCalifornia were disasters

The other US exclusives were just OK

[coarse shadow]

Ghost Manor was unplayable shit, imo. I can't believe that ICOM/Turbo Technologies released it like that. Feels like early beta.

[plucky python]

That’s hilarious…I had no idea both those games were Beach Boys products haha. As a young teenager at the time, I thought they both looked dumb, so never gave them a chance. Now I’m curious 😁

[dark wharf]

don't forget darkwing duck

[regal valley]

Addams Family was so disappointing. I was hoping it was a port of the SNES/Megadrive version...

[grand moss]

Oh yeah, that was another bomb

I was thinking about It Came from the Desert, which was interesting in a few ways

Though not a fantastic game

[spark osprey]

Thatttt is the one with the bees!

[coarse shadow]

Cinemaware went bankrupt because of it. An overambitious and very very expensive port. And it was shit. The original Amiga version from ICFTD was a atmospheric masterpiece back then.

[true flare]

I never finished it because I could not jump over ants.

Apparently the action segments were different from the Amiga version.

[coarse shadow]

They are, and better too.

[true flare]

You mean Amiga is better or TG is?

[coarse shadow]

The Amiga version is better in every category.

[grand moss]

Not surprised. The TG16 version was very mediocre, and I just couldn't get interested. But it was an interesting concept, and had some tech thing that other companies weren't doing at tha time. But it really had a "computer" feel to it rather than "console".

[regal valley]

the action sequences on it look like EGA... big contrast to the more "modern" FMV sequences

(but it also doesn't look very playable)

[dreamy tiger]

@grand moss I’m probably showing my ignorance here, but I watched that MLIG video about super svideo and the pc engine. Where does the core derive its color for HDMI output?

[grand moss]

The MiSTer core ?

[dreamy tiger]

ya

[grand moss]

We did a deep dive back in 2020 when this was being discussed (it had come up from time to time in the past), and at that time, the core was doing the RGB thing that all emulators were doing. But this time, we did a lot of measurements, with vectorscope, and other tools, and Kitrinx came up with a transformed palette which is quite close to the modulated output. That's included in the core (you can choose whether you prefer the 'original' or RGB)

[dreamy tiger]

sorry, for more context (and, again, i may be showing my whole ass here), the video makes it clear that the composite/svideo color palette is the one designers used when building for the pce and i didnt know if that was the palette used by the core

[dreamy tiger]

oh sweet

[dark wharf]

you can select between the composite color palette or the raw RGB colors

[grand moss]

So, the core, by default, uses a palette which is as close as possible to the original modulated one. But you can override that by choosing the RGB palette

But when you say "...the one designers used when building for the pce...", it's not always true.

The people who wrote for the PC Engine used various methods

Generally, they would have teams which included programmers and artists who would use computers (RGB), or they would use tools on PC Engine on a monitor. Depends on the team. Most Japanese teams would do screen tests to check that the TV showed how they wanted

BUT. This was not always the case.

Any games ported from Amiga (ie. Loriciel), or some of the older games, may not have "clued in" to the transform

And then I remember reading one interview with a development team lead who wanted to impress people as they did a tour of their offices, so they made sure to show their prized game on ALL monitors in the office, and they noticed that they didn't all look the same...

But in the end, yeah, this whole "true palette" thing was explored deeply in 2020, and that's why S-Video even became a goal for Zaxour.

The "proper" palette showed up in MiSTer first, as a lot of innvations like that do

[dark wharf]

try also got something wrong in that video, actually. he claimed that there were never any products that made use of the pc engine's RGB signals, but there actually was; the PC-KD863G was a CRT monitor from NEC with a built-in pc engine that indeed derived it's video signals from the console's RGB lines

[grand moss]

I haven't seen the innards, so I can't verify or refute.

Same thing for LaserActive - I've heard reports that it used RGB

And the TurboExpress (although the original screen was not good by modern standards, so hard to tell)

[dark wharf]

it certainly looks like rgb from the photos and videos i've seen, but i've not seen one in person

[dreamy tiger]

The tg16 was my first console (we were an apple 2 and IBM PC house), and it was always the “weird third console” that no one really knew much about. so I’m thankful that you guys are so knowledgeable because it helps me appreciate it even more.

[dark wharf]

it's an amazing, underappreciated console, and as someone who's owned all manner of pc engine consoles and flash solutions, i can confidently say that the mister core is by far the best way to play

easily in my top 5 mister cores

[grand moss]

🙂

I just think that it should be called PC Engine, because that was the successful version of the machine, for which all the cool gadgets and software were actually made

[golden edge]

It's may favourite way to play this

[dreamy tiger]

same. sometimes I just put on keith courage and let the attract mode loop while I work

[stiff lotus]

Is that a repo, omg it’s a repro

[thorn apex]

I wrote a thing about it a while back:
https://www.retrorgb.com/pc-engine-palette-improvements-the-amazing-people-behind-the-technology.html

[grand moss]

Nice work !

I remember that

[dreamy tiger]

thanks, Dan. Really interesting read

[pseudo rivet]

Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever used RF for the TG16 in my entire life

Because that’s all it had!

[grand moss]

So you never had a TurboBooster, a TurboBooster Plus, a CD-ROM unit, a TurboDuo, a CoreGrafx, or other hardware ?

[granite sinew]

Like most folks in the USA, likely..

I tried the updated XE-1AP support from the 9-1-2025 build with my wheel in Out Run and still dont have a way to shift gears. It will likely either take some hacky binding in main or an update to my wheel's support in MiSTer itself. Gas, brake and steering work fine though.. its just you're not gonna get very far in the game in low gear 😅

hmm maybe its a core binding issue.. now that i think about it more, it doesnt make sense for shift gear to be on an analog axis at all.

The main issue is that I dont have any idea what button its supposed to be on the XE1-ap as there are no control guides that mention gear shifting i can find for Out Run while using it

[grand moss]

I'm not so sure. I think most folks in the USA gave it a hard pass, and then most of the people who bought it, disposed of it after that generation. There were a considerable number of us who were into importing stuff, especially when Turbo Zone Direct was also selling imports

[viscid brook]

I only got my CoreGrafx a few months ago in Japan and I took it back home and bought a flashcart and RGB modded it and everything, super cool system and I really like the Mister core because it cleans up the analog noise and is very accurate

[grand moss]

Oh, I think that run/select were swapped

There was an update like that in the new XE-1AP

[grand moss]

There's also a jailbar fix and Zaxour's Turbonanza

[dark wharf]

i truly believe the mister core is the best way to play pc engine. perfect analog video, supergrafx support, composite palette, cdda volume boost, extra sprites, etc.

it's just so good

[viscid brook]

Yes I installed both and recapped the board

Very neat

[granite sinew]

do you have any idea what the gear switch button is supposed to be in XE-1AP mode for Out Run? I tried binding every button in the core to my wheel and none of them seem to trigger gear shifts, oddly enough

and the brakes on my pedals apparently is an inverted gas pedal lol

looking at it in the input tester, this is the "neutral" position for out run's gas pedal, which requires the brake pedal on my wheel to be held all the way in. the gas is fully pressed in-game when i release the pedal, which returns the right stick in the input tester to 0/centered on the Y axis

okay so i hooked up a normal xbox controller and its the same there, the gas is fully held down by default when the right stick is centered, and releases as you push it upwards

run and select seem to be in the wrong positions also

i did find the gear shift though! it is, for whatever reason, the left stick Y axis up/down!

all those buttons and they decided to stick it there, and give you 6 different options for a brake button on the controller instead

[grand moss]

input tester isn't going to tell you anything, since XE-1AP encodes the signal

[granite sinew]

it tells me which axis the game is using for a specific function, like the gas

i didnt know stick 2 Y- was the brake pedal on my wheel, for example

and also confirms that the game is using Stick 2 Y-127 as a neutral gas position by default, and stick 2 Y-0 when the gas is fully pressed in

this seems the opposite of what it should be. neutral should be 0 and full gas should be -127

i can imagine this may be causing issues with other xe-1ap games on pc engine, i'll give them a try quick

[grand moss]

I had found in my more recent research that my original tests were based on the throttle control being inverted (it can rotate on the XE-1AP; not on the CyberStick)

[granite sinew]

run and select are consistently in the wrong place in all games ive tried in the 9/1/25 build

testing afterburner now

iirc that uses the right stick for throttle also

its the same in afterburner, pressing up on the stick decreases your throttle and returning it to center or pressing down increases it.

I recomment swapping the Y axis there and also the run/select positions back to their placement before the 9/1 build

[grand moss]

I'm just mimicking the values from the controller after testing it with default positions of the rotatable things

I mean, i could make some swaps, but I would like to see how Megadrive behaves

[granite sinew]

right, but that stick on the right rotates both ways, so it would seem the more logical default would be rotated the opposite of how you have it set now

or perhaps an osd option to allow this rotation by the user

[grand moss]

https://github.com/dshadoff/XE-1AP_CyberStick_Info/blob/main/images/XHE-3_instructions.jpg

[granite sinew]

im all for accuracy to the original hardware. from a usability standpoint in the core, the implementation has issues currently.

[grand moss]

Anyway, I'm not arguing one way or the other; just saying that it did indeed change

I won't be able to make changes in the immediate future, but would like to see it implemented on another machine (such as MegaDrive) so that I only have to make changes once

[granite sinew]

No rush! I'd been meaning to try that test build for a while and just had a chance to today when I was hooking up my wheel to MiSTer for another project

[random beacon]

Last I tried the XE-1AJ USB with the core, the throttle isn't detected at all.

(recent USB model of the Cyberstick, based on the other XE1-AJ model)

[random beacon]

The throttle and joystick are removable on the XE1-AJ USB and it's possible to flip the controls of the throttle.

[grand moss]

The USB model is basically a whole different controller with a different signalling system, which just looks like the original. That whole different signalling system needs to be understood by MiSTer at the USB level (and AFAIK, it isn't yet)

I've got one though, and I'll eventually get to working on it if somebody else doesn't first

[slender bluff]

David, is there a version of the Bad Apple CD+G that can be played in the core?
https://gashlin.net/blog/pages/2025-07-19-bad-apple-cdg.html

[grand moss]

I don't know. You can always try

If it works on karaoke players, it should work on the TurboGrafx core

[true iris]

I remember messing with a CD+G creation app on the PC back in c.2002. It was an incredibly limited format. The thing that surprised me most was the 16 colour palette - and if you had one image and slid another onto the screen, the old image would take the new one's palette, making everything ugly af, all the time.

[true iris]

That is a fun read. It makes me want to dabble with this shit again

[slim yew]

Definitely a fun read, but also another rabbit hole: according to the hallucination machine, the Saturn supports CD+EG?

Guess it and the pcfx do. Maybe another feature to delay the 3do…

[grand moss]

There was somebody around on the PC-FX discord who knew a lot more than me about CD+EG (I had never heard of it), and apparently PC-FX doesn't support it

Or, more specifically, it might implement certain portions of it, but not enough to run the disc he had

[dark wharf]

https://x.com/turboxray/status/1975750776095187389 figured i'd post this here too since it's relevant :p

turboxray (@turboxray)

I created a patch for US version of R-Type that not only restores the full sprite line bandwidth (the US version has wait states on vram unlike the Japanese PC-Engine hucards). But I also modded the game to show 368 pixels horizontally; 368x224 res.

Not that difficult of a hack

X · Oct 8, 2025, 2:31 AM

always nice to see pc engine r-type get some love

[pseudo rivet]

no.. the only thing available was the TurboBooster-Plus.. which I declined on purchasing ;p

i dont recall that thing being cheap

[grand moss]

TurboBooster Plus was never available here (Canada) as far as I could find. But I had a Booster, then a CDROM unit (THAT thing was bloody expensive !), and various PC Engine stuff. We had a pretty strong import community here in Toronto

Sorry to hear that you didn't experience the full thing back in the day, but the absolute "must play" game on CD is Ys I & II

And then imagine how you would have felt playing it in 1990

[pseudo rivet]

yeah the CD-Rom attachment came out later and IIRC, it was $500. At the time I wasn't really moved by the offerings. e.g. Ys? I had already played and finished it on the SMS.

so while it was 100% better obviously.. it was a hard sell to get a game I had already played before, at a time when other new games were pouring out everywhere for all consoles & handhelds

would I have liked to have one? yes! But if I had a spare $500 in college at the time (I didn't) it would have gone to games

FWIW.. decades later (like 15 years ago lol), I did get a Duo finally

Now that I think about it.. it took a while for me to even realize that composite (e.g. from the NES) would be better.. I probably used coax output even up through the Genesis because it was just how I had always normally did it. It wasn't until the SNES came out with its AV cable I think it finally kind of dawned on me lol

[regal valley]

back in the day the PCE was this obscure Japanese console that was too pricey to buy, yet inspired great Bomberman games on the SNES

[steel ibex]

For me, the Turbografx-16 was the "Bonk" console. Magazines like EGM used to like to focus a lot on the mascot platformers, and they put Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bonk together as the representatives of their consoles.

[thorn apex]

"Bonk" console
Extra lols for UK/AU gamers.

[stiff lotus]

The TG16 did not exist as far as I was concerned

No one had one, no one talked about it

The only mention I would ever see about it was in a gaming magazine

They weren’t even in stores

[grand moss]

What country were you in at the time ? It was only expensive in places that had no ongoing importers. PCE imports with large markups were actually comparable to official TurboGrafx releases here in Toronto...

And there were several Bomberman games on it. The first was in 1989 or 1990

[grand moss]

What region of the US were you in ? They were pretty much available everywhere I travelled in 1990/91, but fizzled soon after that

[stiff lotus]

Miami, FL. But I was also a kid so it’s likely it wasn’t something I noticed.

Or wasn’t taken to the stores that carried it

[grand moss]

Toys'R'Us ?

It did seem to be somewhat regional outside of a couple of major chains though

[regal valley]

France. It was more expensive than a Genesis or SNES.

[grand moss]

Ah, OK. It clearly existed in France, but I had no idea about the price.

I mean, that was even before the Euro was official

[regal valley]

actually the original PCE was cheaper... but then every game was more expensive on average than Genesis games

its about 215 Euros (not adjusted for inflation)

the extensions costed a pretty penny

610 Euros for a Core + CD unit...

for that price you could get a Neogeo AES with Magician Lord...

[grand moss]

Yes, but NeoGeo cost about the same again for the games.

Actually, that list for Megadrive and PC Engine games ... they weren't that much different, and many of the ones on PC Engine I would have been happiest with were on the lower-priced side

Galaga is probably the best one, other than PC Kid. And if they had the PC E version of Sokoban, it would have been cheaper than Megadrive

I'm not saying it was cheap - it's just that it wasn't a completely different market.

CDROM was pricey, but it's really hard to describe how much difference that sound added to the feeling of the games

[narrow tide]

You in France got the PC Engine from Japan. We in Spain the PAL TG-16.

[grand moss]

Yes, but what year ?

[narrow tide]

TG-16 in Spain ? Very late. 1993

[grand moss]

That makes sense.

[true iris]

Did they release/repackage any games for it? I've got the console but I've never seen any games from that region.

[pallid kestrel]

I'd say it was 1992... I remember seeing it advertised in Hobby Consolas back around then, and games analyzed 😄

Games had that "dark" and strange charm to them, screenshots were VERY cool on the magazines

But the stupid Turbografx was very ugly compared to the PCEngine 🙁

Was designed for USA people I guess

[regal valley]

I had a Super Nintendo and whatever money I had as a high schooler went into getting more games for it 😅

now if I was older with a job then, I might have bought other consoles

[grand moss]

Not even. It was designed by committee by a bunch of people who had no idea about videogames

[grand moss]

My understanding, based on what little I know about the European PAL TurboGrafx, was that they brought over seveal American games, and redid the instruction manuals ... but I only saw about 5 or 6 games, so maybe they stopped there

They were like Keith Courage, and a few of the earliest games (which were also among the worst)

[true iris]

Because of course. 🙄

[grand moss]

Because overstock

[viscid brook]

I actually think Keith Courage isn’t that bad

But not a good pack-in

[dreamy tiger]

Keith Courage fucking rips and I won't hear arguments to the contrary

[viscid brook]

I think they should’ve packed in that Jackie Chan game if they released it in 1990

[viscid brook]

It’s funny how it’s based off some anime tie-in game and they completely redid it with the localization

I think something that hurt the TG16 was that apparently it was executives kids that they were deciding with what to localize

They should’ve just packed it in with Bonk from the start

[grand moss]

Well it certainly wasn't any prospective customers

[viscid brook]

And shouldn’t have changed the design and form factor of the console

[grand moss]

The one thing they did right was localize Ys 1 & 2 on CDROM properly

But even that was Hudson, not NEC

And certainly not NEC USA

[viscid brook]

Devil Crash and Alien Crush are amazing and I like that they brought them over but they censored the devil game

No pentagrams or star of david

[grand moss]

Yeah they censored some of the weirdest things

[viscid brook]

https://youtu.be/9bLFkiyYAhQ

The OST is amazing

[true iris]

Buggy though. Sometimes the flippers stick to the ball like they're magnetic and fling it straight into the drain. Makes me angry... Also I wish it was as fast as Alien. For sure those two were the best in the series.

[random beacon]

Genesis version (Dragon's Fury) got it worse, though.

[dark wharf]

genesis is 0-2 against the pc engine

(devil crash and lords of thunder)

[narrow tide]

The games were the US releases. And not so many games came here. So this console shared time with MD and SNES, so... It was a fail.

Months after its launch, the console was on sale for a small amount of money with around 12 free games.

It was a complete fail.

I had the console with some games. I liked it.

[true iris]

Same as its Korean sibling. Leftover inventory, probably, repackaged and sold at a discount from the start.

[coarse shadow]

In Germany we had import shops for PC Engine hardware and software. The Japanese CD-ROM addon + Fighting Street was sold for 1300 DM (Deutsch Mark), which is 1313 Euro adjusted for inflation (05.1989)

[slender bluff]

Catching up on channel, one thing I really wish with CD+G is there was a set way to dump these, and a standard format, so a standard pack could be made of all these discs and when implemented in emulators, cores etc. someone could just grab an image and load it up. Right now I have no idea how to even find a disc that works with anything.

I am not sure what steps would be needed to get to the point where there is a dumping guide, standard format, and a pack.

[regal valley]

does PC Engine support PhotoCD, or was that just the PC-FX?

[grand moss]

Don't adjust for inflation - that just makes country-to-country comparisons impossible

[grand moss]

The only way I've ever seen them dumped was in CloneCD format, which is also done with several other utilities such as CD Manipulator (open source) and a Linux-based utility (I forgot the name/comand line string)

[grand moss]

PhotoCD standard was created after PC Engine CDROM (AFAIK). Only PC-FX supoprts it, and I was even surprised at that

[slender bluff]

David knows this all already, but for people who don't: To add to the confusion, there are different sub types of Photo CD (which don't seem to have names, or be clearly defined) so some systems support some but not all, 3DO I know doesn't support the more complex ones, I am not sure about PC-FX but since it can play some "game" Photo CDs that are more complex it can probably play all of them. For example the most basic Photo CDs are just images on a disc that play as a slide show. The more advanced can have DVD style menus and music, and different options, so they were made into crude chose-your-path style "games".

3DO plays slide shows but not some of the more complex from my testing. CDi can play them all, and the core is great for Photo CDs if anyone wants to try them out.

[regal valley]

I recently got one and it has a CDi folder. Need to check how to dump it into a chd for use with the core...

[slender bluff]

What is the disc?

There are a seemingly infinite amount of Photo CDs out there, especially in Japan, but there are a decent amount now dumped in the Redump pack that all seek to play fine on the core

[regal valley]

it's an "art book" of illustrator Akemi Takada, focusing mostly on PC Engine Fan covers she did

she is the character designer of several 80s big anime series

theres the cover, the standalone characters, sketches and some comments from the artist

I can view it on PC, but running it with a core on MiSTer and a CRT would be neat

[grand moss]

Should be able to view that PC-FX

Sadly, no such core yet

Probably CDi at some point (not sure if that's a current capability)

Saturn may or may not be able to support it -I think it needed external hardware to support it, though I have seen some PhotoCD software... but that may just be to support the hardware

[slender bluff]

That one isn't part of Redump set, would be a nice one to get added. If you managed to dump your own copy should play fine on CDi core

[regal valley]

is there a PhotoCD redump set? (or you mean CDi)

[slender bluff]

Saturn has a Photo CD loader disc that boots on the core, but the code needed for Photo CD support isn't in the Saturn core. The mpeg add on cart allowed for Photo CDs to be booted without the disc is my understanding.

[slender bluff]

No, an actual Photo CD Redump pack. Easy to find on a certain archive

I tested a lot of them on the CDi core, and working seemingly without any issues now

My favourite one is called God Streams, it is a montage of trippy new age images and an early 90s ambient "vapour wave" style sound track. Is really fun

If you are a Ghost In The Shell fan there is a neat art book Photo CD

I have a suspicion that a Discord user may have a set of 3" Photo CD games that have yet to be dumped that should work in the CDi core... 😉

[placid locust]

I have a booster plus. Came in the box with the clearance tg16 I got from radio shack. Late 90s. In Canada.

[grand moss]

I searched high and low from 89 to about 93 and never saw one.

By then, I was fully using PC Engine, and was about to get a Duo

[placid locust]

Only had 3 games though. Couldn't find any for sale at the time. Bought up all they had. Airzonk. Order of the griffon. And the Keith courage pack in.

[grand moss]

Yeah, by then, they would have all been snapped up. But they were already starting to appear in second-hand stores like Goodwill and so on

[placid locust]

I played quite a bit of it. Always wished I could have found a bomber man or bonk game.

[grand moss]

Well, you can now !

[viscid brook]

How big was the PC Engine import scene in the USA at that time? It was before my own time lol

[grand moss]

I was in Canada. Toronto was actually easy to get mports if you knew where to go. Lots of Hong Kong immigrants, several of them opened stores with imported games, and a couple of mainstream stores too.

They were already dealing with Famicom stuff when PC Engine and MegaDrive came out

A key point at that time was that the companies decided to release a small subset of games (mostly the poor ones) in North America, as compared with Japan.

And since the games in Japan were much lower-priced, they could sell imported games at a decent markup for roughly the same as the American releases. But they had to be careful to choose games without TOO MUCH Japanese text.

The Hong Kong immigrants could sort of piece their way around Mahjong and games with lots of kanji though.

Matter of fact, I made a converter to play Japanese HuCards on American TurboGrafx

[viscid brook]

wow that’s really neat

there was a similar import scene in the USA but mostly through phone call-in order services advertised through magazines

I guess if you were around metro areas with substantial Asian immigrant populations such as NYC or LA, it would be more like you describe

[grand moss]

Could be; it was a unique time for Hong Kong immigrants.

[viscid brook]

What kinds of games were you “discovering” back then from the JP library

[grand moss]

They had great shooters, and even the games which eventually came here were available as imports months ahead

[viscid brook]

https://youtu.be/P9X2GT0agsw

Here’s a good video of SLX describing his experience with the matter in regards to the SEGA consoles

[viscid brook]

Playing the import shmup library back then must’ve been amazing

[grand moss]

it was good. But also, so many good games never made it here

Either because of fear about religious symbols, or 1 sentence in Japanese, or an inability to license characters

Doraemon was a cool game, but it was less interesting as whatever it was called in USA

Kato & Ken was hilarious in Japan, but the American release was nonsensical