Is MSX2 Emulation Decent?

[Hoagtech]

I have been seriously considering a 1 chip or MSX2/R because I love the feeling of playing games like SMB3 NES on real hardware.

Due to the MSX2 and 1 chip being on the expensive side I was wondering if there is a way to emulate it properly.

Are there any console pc MSX owners that can notice a difference?

I really want to experience the console feel and am ready to feed mame or the likes into my CRT with scanlines.

Also if emulation is good. What is the best program to experience it.

For bonus points I would like to know the same about the Sharp X68000

I really want to play its Castlevania, Contra, and Solid Snake.

[sven666]

You can come play with my solid snake ?

[KAI]

The emulation is good, but running some games can be a pain in the ass.
use blueMSX for msx emulation, and WinX68k for x68000

[WelshMegalodon]

I believe openMSX and XM6 TypeG are the most accurate emulators of their respective systems these days.

[Despatche]

openMSX is good ("runs the Palcom stuff" good), but it's hilariously unfriendly. There's very little you really can't run in blueMSX (Palcom stuff being a big one), so for the most part you just want to stick with that.

XM6 was basically always the best option for X68000.

[Hoagtech]

Thanks for the emulator recommendations and the dick joke.

What I would really like to know is if investing in real hardware would be worth it.

Is the emulation good enough for low input lag and interger scaled image?

[Hoagtech]

Well I spent a good afternoon assigning Neo Geo sticks MSX keys with joy2key.

Is it just me or are MSX games choppy?

Solid snake seemed slow. I booted up the PS2 version of MGS3S and played Solid Snake much smoother.

Is it the emulator or was the version of Solid Snake redesigned for the PS2?

I tried Manbow as well and it seemed kinda choppy and laggy.

I have an updated gaming PC with the latest. Is real hardware better than the emulators?

[null1024]

Well I spent a good afternoon assigning Neo Geo sticks MSX keys with joy2key.

Is it just me or are MSX games choppy?

Solid snake seemed slow. I booted up the PS2 version of MGS3S and played Solid Snake much smoother.

Is it the emulator or was the version of Solid Snake redesigned for the PS2?

I tried Manbow as well and it seemed kinda choppy and laggy.

I have an updated gaming PC with the latest. Is real hardware better than the emulators?

MSX games, particularly MSX1 games are often very choppy and flickery since the machine didn't have scrolling hardware and can draw four mono-color sprites per line.
Hower, AFAIK, Space Manbow should be fairly smooth. Make sure you're running the emulator in MSX2+ mode. Certain things will still be choppy.
I don't know anything about Metal Gear on MSX, so I can't help you there.

[WelshMegalodon]

I seem to recall most of the popular MSX action games supporting two-button joysticks. As for Metal Gear, yes, the versions included with Subsistence are ports of remakes originally designed for mobile phones.

[KAI]

Yeah, it depends on the game, the rpgs in particular are choppy as hell (i'm looking at you xak series).

[WelshMegalodon]

I wanted so much to like the MSX2 port of Final Fantasy, but the awful scrolling did me in. It's not even like Gradius 2 where the actual gameplay keeps you from being too bothered by it.

Not only that, but unlike Ys, the background is constantly moving. It starts to give you a headache after a while.

[Hoagtech]

Darn. i was looking forward to the FF MSX.

I am really enjoying the quality of open MSX over Blue MSX. there are no sound bumps in Open and the games play much smoother.

I did noticed Vampire Killer would speed up when there were no bad guys in the room and it did not seem to be normal. Because of the Erratic speed i had trouble jump whipping because sometimes I would time for a slow jump and the game would go hyper on me.

[Austin]

I am pretty sure that's normal for MSX Vampire Killer.

One other alternative is to look into the MiST FPGA. It does multiple classic computers including MSX. Can anyone here vouch for it? I have considered it myself.

[BrianC]

I am really enjoying the quality of open MSX over Blue MSX. there are no sound bumps in Open and the games play much smoother.

If I remember correctly, BlueMSX is set to PAL by default.

[null1024]

I wanted so much to like the MSX2 port of Final Fantasy, but the awful scrolling did me in.

Yikes, that's bad. That's just bad by MSX standards. It's not just choppy, it looks absurdly sluggish.

[SuperDeadite]

When it comes to emulation, it all depends on what you want to play really. Dungeon Hunter is one of my personal favorites, but it is a light-gun game, so yeah, emulating it is pointless. OpenMSX is certainly far more advanced then BlueMSX, as it supports the newer homebrew hardware like V9990 Graphics Accelerator and OPL4 (Moonsound) audio. But if you just want to play old Konami games, BlueMSX is fine. But yeah, all the Japanese games are meant to be played at 60 hertz.

As for the chop scrolling, it honestly looks worse in a video then when you are actually playing it. Choppy? yes. But the games are designed around it, and still fun to play.

X68000 emulation is generally decent, but it's a far more complicated machine with lots of weird exotic parts that to learn. A lot of games require special keyboard keys that do not exist on anything else. Lots of games have extra options that you will never find unless you have the manual, or someone tells you about it.

[Jonny2x4]

I seem to recall most of the popular MSX action games supporting two-button joysticks. As for Metal Gear, yes, the versions included with Subsistence are ports of remakes originally designed for mobile phones.

To add to this, the Subsistence versions of the Metal Gears have many differences from the MSX2 originals. Some of them are pretty obvious, like the changed character portraits in MG2 and the fact that cigarettes drain your life (a play mechanic that wasn't introduced until MGS1), but most are pretty subtle. I noticed that guards in MG1 tend to move a bit slower on the Subsistence (both, on PS2 and PS3) and unlike the MSX2 version, they can drop ammo or rations after punching them even in alert mode (whereas on the MSX2 version, you had to be on stealth mode to get an item drop).

One big difference I noticed between the MSX2 and Subsistence version of MG1 is how the actual Metal Gear battle works. To destroy Metal Gear, you have to place a series of 16 bombs on Metal Gear's feet in a specific order. On the MSX2 version, if you explode the wrong foot, the sequence will reset, forcing you to start all over. The Subsistence version on the other hand, if you make a mistake, the damage will simply not register (although you'll waste a plastic explosive). An interesting thing about the MSX2 version if that it keeps track of your sequence after you die, so if you run out of explosives while trying to blow up Metal Gear, you can let yourself get killed and resume from where you left off. I discovered this by chance during my first playthrough back in the late 90's when I run out of bombs during my first battle and when I continued, Metal Gear was quickly destroyed after I placed the first bomb on its right foot.

[Hoagtech]

I ended up buying an MSX2+ so I can find out the difference between hardware and emulation.

I definitely felt input lag on both emulators and the speed ups kinda threw me off.

I know nothing about playing MSX2+ in USA. I was told by the seller he would hook me up with a floppy disk I can transfer roms so I’m hoping I can dig in without too much Kanji DOS knowledge.

The machine I bought is the Sony HB-F1XDJ. It has a custom ram extension that holds more common chips and has been upgraded from 64kb to 2GB.



My worry is that having 250 times the recommend ram may give me the speed up I was trying to avoid.

I bought a 20’ SCART cord and x2 two button controllers. I plan to place the console on the center of my coffee table so I can reach out and press when I need more than 2 buttons.

If there are any MSX owners out there with some noob tips I would love to hear them.

It will be interesting and I’m excited to try out a “brand new for me” console.

[BIL]

Nice.

[FinalBaton]

Very nice Hoagtech!

I've always wanted to play on a real-deal MSX 2(or +)

I was eyeing them on ebay at some point

[SuperDeadite]

2GBs? LOL more like 2MBs. (4MB is the limit for each sub-slot).
And no, RAM has no effect on game speed, the majority of games will only use what they were programed to anyway. Floppies can easily be written using something like MSX Disk Manager, just be aware you need a drive that supports 2DD (720kb) format. Most generic USB Floppies do support this thankfully.

Though really you should just get one of the SD/CF carts and be done with it. I don't use it personally, but the MegaFlashRom SCC+SD is generally considered the easiest to use.

[Hoagtech]

Your right there are 2mb not 2Gb.

And why would I need a flash cart instead of floppy?

I would love to know

[SuperDeadite]

MSX Flash Carts don't work like typical console flash carts. In fact there are so many options, it's kind of crazy. Either way though, you will want a mass storage device of some sort. The device I use has FD emulation, so I can load up to 15 floppy images at once in it's onboard memory, boot and swap disks with simple keyboard combos. Most flash-carts can be flashed with floppy images directly too. If you choose to use say sofarun, you just tell sofarun what you want to play and it will look at your hardware and automatically run it the best way possible. There is also GR8NET which adds a network port and you can simply stream roms/images directly from it's own website or your own personal network. I think some games even support multiplayer over it now.

[Despatche]

I am really enjoying the quality of open MSX over Blue MSX. there are no sound bumps in Open and the games play much smoother.

If I remember correctly, BlueMSX is set to PAL by default.

This should be correct. Games behave mostly the same in both emulators otherwise.