hansolo77

That's looking pretty sharp! I wish I had the money to build something like this. Maybe someday.

Alright then. Consider EE the winner for this round. Next game (Galaga '88) will start on Sunday! I liked the 2 month round also. Maybe we should change the name from GOTM (Game of the Month) to something else? The advantages of the 2-month cycle is more time to vote, and more time to submit scores. There's always something that comes up, so 2 months gives you ample time to submit a score if you're interested. It also gives the mods a bit of a break from having to keep the polls and new games churning out every month. But there is the downside too. We have over 40 games in the wishlist, and with only 6 games a year, that'll take 5 years to play though (with more hopefully getting added all the time). But that can be a blessing too, as it presents a longevity.

Tell ya what rtkiii,, unless the other HS Mods are against it, I'm willing to let the competition extend until Sunday. That's my next day off, and the tasks to create a new GOTM and POLL threads usually take more time than I will have available to me until then. So unless they say otherwise, consider it a floated extension. Of course, if nobody takes advantage of it, that's fine though. We'll just assume EE is our winner (again (rolls eyes)).

I made it to "A" boss, I don't know if it is "THE" level boss or not. Was jumping up a bunch of platforms with robotic claws trying to grab me, shooting rockets at me, and the occasional laser blast. Didn't kill it though, and after I died I lost all my POW records. Oh well. Still, the farthest I've gotten so far! Score: 1,136,600 Initials: HAN Level: 2 (Egypt) Updated OP, DB, RSS

I'm glad you're getting as much enjoyment out of it that I did (AM)! It's fun spending free time tweaking and making it work and do just what you want it to. That's a nice looking heat sink. I'm going to need to come up with or find a solution that other's have designed to work with my setup in my PSX case. I plan on using a "PowerBlock". I've already ordered one and it turned out to be faulty, so I'm waiting for a replacement. In either case, there's a problem with the heat in the build, in that the PowerBlock takes over the first 2x6 pins and overlaps a little of the CPU. It blocks some of the heat sink and prevents using a fan in a good way. But I'm sure I can figure something out. As for N64, you're in the same boat as everybody else. Emulation is dodgy at best even on high end PC's. Which is a shame, considering the PSX is from the same generation and it runs "nearly" perfectly on the Pi3. I have heard that overclocking can help increase frame rate to some degree, but you're still pretty much limited to 320x240 resolution, jagged lines (vs anti-aliasing), mono sound, etc. There are some compatibility charts available online. THIS ONE is the most recent one worth looking at, as it was created to combine the data of the others. Basically, you NEED a Pi3, and Overclocking it will help but not necessarily solve problems. In the case for achievements, N64 was recently added to their database and is actively in the process of getting cheevos created. But if you plan to play games for cheevos, you must play with one of the "lr-" (libretro) cores and not the external ones. So far, I've only tried playing one game (Super Mario 64) and was really disappointed in the graphics glitching. It's playable, but it'll make you get an isnta-migraine. Mario's clothes are all flashy red/white. Oh well. Let me know if you have any success. I've personally not attempted to overclock, because I've read some things that say getting your Pi to the frequencies needed means voiding your warranty and without proper cooling can cause fires. I just figure it's not worth it. I'll wait till Pi4 comes out.

Don't give up just yet! There is still 2 full days left!

Also a quick word to Adultery... you might want ask permission to use their API and let them know what you're doing with it. I know over at the RetroPie forums, my friend "meleu" was telling me that their API is kinda slow, and the RetroAchievements server itself is in major need for upgrading. He built a set of scripts to scrape your roms against the list of games currently supporting achievements, and said that such a task has a huge strain on the server and if he were to go public with it and have every RetroPie user use it, it would crash their server. So what he did was scrape it once and store all the hashes in a database that he stored on his github account. Then he wrote a new script to scrape from github rather than RetroAchievements. The idea being that the strain of multiple users would then be on GitHub, who has a much stronger and more reliable framework. But yeah, I just wanted to get a word out to you suggesting if you're going to do anything with their API to check with the admins/etc and make sure it's not going to cause any heavy work loads. Other than that, can't wait to see what stuff you can come up with. Keep me apprised too. I don't spend any time at all in the main GameEx forums anymore. Mostly just the Social and High Score forums now. I haven't even bothered trying to set up Evolution yet since I've been playing with RetroPie so much lately.

Unfortunately, it's not a simple drop and go like GameEx. The way ES works, you have to TELL it work the files are located. By using Selph's scraper, or UXS, it makes it simpler. If you look at the gamelist.xml file, you can see how it's designed. Example: So in that "example" you can see what you need. The game id source "ScreenScaper" is from UXS. Most things should be easy to figure out. But the thing to realize is that the path's need to be entered, or ES won't know about it's existence. If you use UXS or Selph, it will enter all this information for you. If not, you can do it manually, or make up some script to do it if you're good. What I would do, is make a backup copy of your SD card in case you screw up. Then install and run UXS. You can configure all the paths you want UXS to use automatically. To make it easier, I just had it create subfolders in the rom folders for "art". Then I had it set to scrape videos, with the primary art being the box (in case a video doesn't exist) and the secondary art as a screenshot (in case boxart doesn't exist). You can also use a MIX image, where it will create an image using a combination, like Screenshot, Box, Cart. Just have it run through your systems. You'll want to have it store the gamelist.xml file inside the folder "/opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/$system" or if that's not accessible, then "/home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/$system" (it's a symbolic link). Sounds more complicated than it is to do it. If you have problems, just ask. But you definitely want to have a backup of your card before you attempt because if you screw your WORKING card up, you'll be so mad!

There are other uses for Kodi as well. Photos, Music.. Movies and TV are a given, and you can even stream 99% of them from online without the need of local storage. However, the local bit is a lot better as far as manageable quality and performance. A NAS via RPi3 is an interesting idea. I've seen people do that. I went the other way. BIG vs SMALL. Full size 24-bay server with a mini rack. But using a Pi would have advantages like power consumption. As for video screenshots. It depends. I know in my case, I went and got a 1tb drive to play it safe. But it turned out to be overkill. With my system now, complete romsets, and 90% scraped with videos, I still have something like 750gb free. If you have a minimal system, using top 100 lists as you say, and cherry picked games you want, and not all available systems, you could probably get by fairly well. A 32gb card might be all you need.

Depends on what you want to do. There's always ports to play with, like Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Cave Story, Super Mario War, Streets of Rage Remake, etc. If you're not set up with it, scraping for video screenshots is nice. Setting up a custom collection for achievements (my most recent addition) is nice if you're really interested in playing for them. Something I'd like to get working is online play. I'd hoped to be able to set something up so my brother and I could play 2 player games together even though we live in different states. Lastly, don't forget about actually playing! This is my crutch. I'm always tweaking and adding, and fixing. I'm never really playing, which is what the reason for building stuff like this is for. So don't forget to do a bit of that!

Yea, I've been playing some pinball games lately on the GBA. Pacman Pinball and Mario Pinball Land. I've got all but 1 achievement on Pacman's... It's fun for sure. Exposes me to games I'd never heard of or considered playing before. I used "mame-libretro" for my Arcade. I liked the idea of a simplified controller, where everything libretro is run through RetroArch and therefore has automatically configured controllers based on what you set up in EmulationStation.

You sure steel pipe shelves have been done to death? That's the first time I've seen them, and I'm impressed. If I ever get my own place, that's probably how I'm going to do it. Looks easy enough to do. Right now, I'm just using some prefabricated Walmart black book cases with that cheap particle board shelving and cardboard back. I did at one point have a single book shelf over my TV where I had my entire Star Trek DVD boxes set up on display. That was more work than it was worth. I had to buy 2 shelf brackets, find studs to mount them into, make sure it was level, and have a shelf that was long enough. Not an adventure I'm looking forward to in the (near) future. But those pipes look pretty cool.

Man congrats on discovering the solution. I've been silently spying on this thread and am amazed at the technical knowledge and electrical skill you have. I mean, I wouldn't know where to begin on this stuff. I'd have tried a different VHF/UHF switch (I have 3 in a box somewhere). If that didn't work, I would have taken it apart and did my best deep cleaning without the removal of parts (Caps, Resisters, etc) and just hoped cleaning fixed it. From there I would have just pitched the thing in the trash. Seeing your most recent post, about using oscilloscopes and stuff is WAY beyond anything I would have tried or even known how to do. I don't even know how to use a basic multi-meter. So I think you could probably build your own if you had all the parts. Good job!

This game is so fun though. Even if you don't win the monthly banner, there's still lots of enjoyment with it. I've been trying to think, there's only one game series like this. Contra is similar but no where near it's animation and style.

System Bezels.. why didn't I think of that? Something new to play with. I've been helping the RetroPie devs on testing out new features like Custom Systems and Last Played lists, etc. Something I highly recommend is getting an account over at RetroAchievements and setting your system up to play games that support them. It's a lot more fun! As for MAME.. just get a version 0.78 set, use ClrMAMEPro and rebuild a merged set (not split or parent-clone). Granted, you won't get a set that includes PacMan (rather it's PuckMan). But, you'll be able to play about 99% of the games in the set, and you'll be able to scrape them too for all the pretty artwork metadata.

Nice one Exed! I was wondering if you were gonna play this month or not. Updated OP, DB, RSS

Or you could do what I did.... get a 4tb Hard Drive (usb powered) and install that with every ROM ever on a Pi dedicated to playing just PSX games, and put it all inside a broken PSX case.

You guys all suck. My brother talked with me, said he saw it all the way. Our 80% got pre-empted with clouds, and I was inside working the whole time anyway so I never even got a peek of it. Everything Felix said about the excitement and awe is what I dream to experience. I've been a fan of solar eclipses since I was in grade school and first learned about such things. Our teacher goes on a yearly vacation to wherever they're happening, just so he can experience it. There are people that DO that. He had a home video of two of them, and it's just crazy. I'm so green with envy of you guys that got to see it. And I will definitely be planning for the next one. I'll hate myself forever if I miss it.

Always glad to meet friendly new kindred sprites (I mean spirits!).

Not sure about using a trophy as a way to say thanks.. but as a reward? Definitely. It's the best I can do! You gotta give up some secrets! Updated OP, DB, RSS

Wow, I thought they said it wouldn't be for another 40 years before the next visible in the USA, and that a total eclipse happens at the same spot on the earth only once every 185,000 years. Still, 2024 isn't that far away, and I'd probably have a much better chance then. Watch me end up living in Canada then or something. I'm soooo close to just ditching this country. But a lot would need to happen in the next 6-7 years.

I meant to play this while on vacation, and I completely forgot. Oh well, there's still a week and a half left in this game! Updated OP, DB, RSS

Anything to do with space and astronomy is right up my alley. This is the biggest thing to happen that I've been aware of with the power to actually go see. But, as it figures, I'm working that day. And where I live, the best I can expect to see is only like 80%. My brother lives in South Carolina. He's gonna get to experience the entire thing. Even if I had the day off, there's no way I'd be able to make it down there to see it without a car. And I'm sure not going to buy a plane ticket. It just sucks. Maybe the next one (40 years did the say?) I'll be able to go see.

Happy Birthday you Freak!

Mmmm.. I dunnno.. I don't know no A's.. and all those RTK entries looks mighty suspicious to me. LOL Updated OP, DB, RSS