PC Engine Mini

[BONKERS]

Sucks that M2 seems to not be learning, I don't get how they used to get this stuff so right to messing it up so many times in a row. Their Konami collections were lackluster(In the scaling department. And the PC version doesn't properly support scaling to 4k and SCIV is basically unplayable on that version), the scaling issues on the MD Mini and now this. How hard is it to get something so simple right?

I'll still probably keep my pre-order. But it's a tad disappointing.

[fernan1234]

As a piece of good news especially re: shmups, this system allows you to play the two shmups mini games in Tokimeki Memorial, Force Gear and Twinbee Returns, by entering button combos before loading the game. In the original game the only way to unlock these games was to spend a few hours playing the game and fulfilling certain scenario requirements, so this convenience makes a real difference.

[Phellan Wolf]

Sucks that M2 seems to not be learning, I don't get how they used to get this stuff so right to messing it up so many times in a row. Their Konami collections were lackluster(In the scaling department. And the PC version doesn't properly support scaling to 4k and SCIV is basically unplayable on that version), the scaling issues on the MD Mini and now this. How hard is it to get something so simple right?

I'll still probably keep my pre-order. But it's a tad disappointing.

I guess that it is cause they are working on to many projects at the same time.
M2 is a small company and if you look closely in the last teo years they have done quite a lot of things:megadrive mini, pc engine mini, sega ages, shooting collections and they still working in a lot more.
All things considered I think that everything has turned out very well being all of their works nice though fir the most hardcore it is not enough.

[bigbadboaz]

They definitely seem to be taking on too much, and in at least the MD Mini's case they seem to have been rushed/handicapped by disappointing hardware.

Explanations are one thing; from this fan's perspective it's disappointing that they would choose to sacrifice quality.

[Konsolkongen]

M2 used to have a pretty consistent quality to all their work, and my hope was that with the recent hype and praise around that company would influence other less experiences studios to look to them for inspiration. Unfortunately it's the other way around, M2 have started making the same poor design choices as the others do

Hell, Digital Eclipse have suddenly gotten pretty damn good. Best looking version of Third Strike is on the SF 30th Collection. With their recent track record and their apparent dislike of horizontal interpolation I very much doubt that M2 could have made it look anywhere near as good :/

[Phellan Wolf]

I think that both of you are right. Maybe All the praised M2 has always got, has all of a sudden clouded their minds and taking them into believe that no matter what shit they do that it will sell well

[Galgomite]

I think M2's style doesn't allow them to make big bundles like this without going broke/ losing their minds. (I recall an interview where they discussed altering a game's physics to compensate for input lag!) Their single-game Sega Ages titles are excellent on Switch so it's obvious that M2 can make near-perfect conversions. My guess is that they're seeing reason, letting these mini consoles pay the bills with their B-team, and putting their passion into "passion projects."

[Fudoh]

Their single-game Sega Ages titles are excellent on Switch so it's obvious that M2 can make near-perfect conversions.

their 2D Switch titles aren't any better than the games on the PCE Mini. Great emulation, but poor graphics options. Phantasy Star Ages on the Switch is shimmering just as much as your average title on the Mini.

[fernan1234]

So basically the last truly good work from M2 were the ports they made for PS2?

[Fudoh]

aren't the PS4 Shot Trigger titles quite decent ? It's probably the same as here. Titles are easily scaleable (integer on both axis while keeping the aspect ratio) look good and the rest doesn't. I have to admit that I haven't tried Ketsui on PS4. Does it exhibit shimmer? Probably.

What I really don't understand is why any producer at M2 with an obviously good eye for well done emulation, just isn't able to tell when the scanline filter is utter shit or scrolling shimmer is just this f***ing obious.

And I think Virtua Racing was pretty ace.

[Konsolkongen]

Phantasy Star on Switch has perfect integer-scaling when you play with the map (the only way I could see myself playing this title today):

https://imgur.com/q6t6Xwz
https://imgur.com/S3rmQWV

The alternating green colors between the scanlines are caused by the image compression of the Switch. It's not there IRL.

Ketsui, Battle Garegga and ESPra.de. on PS4 has perfect integer scaling to 4k right out of the box. Actually a big plus for the PS4 version compared to Switch as integer scaling on that system to 1080p must have borders. The scanlines look great too

The ShotTriggers are on par with the quality I had come to expect for M2 over the past many years.

[Fudoh]

Phantasy Star on Switch has perfect integer-scaling when you play with the map

lucky them that the SMS has such a low vertical resolution

EDIT: Switch Phantasy Star shimmers when in 4:3 mode. You can manually choose integer scale for both axis (dot by dot setting) if you don't care for proper AR. That's basically the same thing they did on the PCE Mini (at least for the 256px wide titles).

Garrega and ESPRade do have 4:3 resolutions anyway though, right ? Ketsui on the other hand on that oddball CPS like resolution, doesn't it? Does it use different integer factors on the horizontal versus the vertical axis ?

[Konsolkongen]

Not sure on the original resolution of each game. The integer might differ on each axis, but it was integer-scaled for sure. I can check the amount for each game if you'd like

All games just about cleares my center speaker when my TV is in TATE mode

https://imgur.com/xApmRmn
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... image0.jpg

I get your point about proper 4:3 in Phantasy Star. I guess I just didn't care as much as I normally would with that huge map being there. M2 should really learn to implement horizontal interpolation like Nintendo did on the SNES Classic, and it looked really quite good too.

[Galgomite]

Their single-game Sega Ages titles are excellent on Switch so it's obvious that M2 can make near-perfect conversions.

their 2D Switch titles aren't any better than the games on the PCE Mini. Great emulation, but poor graphics options.

I’m hearing the PC Engine Mini has 3-5 frames of input lag. My 2D Ages title (Sonic 2) has audio lag but input lag is minimal. And while graphics options may not be extensive, blur and scan lines together look beautiful to me and have no trouble being evenly spaced on my TV. Meanwhile I don’t see any shimmer with graphics options turned off. So it looks like there’s at least some qualitative difference between PC Engine Mini’s quality and standalone 2D titles.

[Konsolkongen]

Sonic is 320x224 and displays fine in 4:3. The shimmer-problem occur when titles use nonsquare pixels like 256x224 or 384x224.

[azmun]

I guess it's still a mystery what has happened to M2 lately. You'd think they'd be able to handle such relatively minor issues with ease since we know they are capable of so much more. Is it possible they too are outsourcing the work? Or they just don't give the same level of care and attention they used to? Another excellent developer that was faithful at porting games was Rutubo. Wish they were still around actively bringing back to life old titles/franchises. And maybe they could have given M2 a run for their money.

[Konsolkongen]

What they should do is release patches for the MD and PCE minis. We know that they can be hacked using USB, so there really isn't any reason why they shouldn't fix their mistakes using an update software on PC.

My bluetooth headphones are updated this way, so I see no reason why they couldn't do it :/

[Galgomite]

Maybe there's an opportunity to fix the U.S. Turbografx Mini release anyway. BTW I just went back and played some Sonic on PS3-- input lag is the same as on Switch but there's no serious audio lag. Looks like there's more misses than hits nowadays?

[fernan1234]

Maybe there's an opportunity to fix the U.S. Turbografx Mini release anyway. BTW I just went back and played some Sonic on PS3-- input lag is the same as on Switch but there's no serious audio lag. Looks like there's more misses than hits nowadays?

Geez, why are you guys subjecting yourselves to all this pain voluntarily? If emulation is the way for you, there are so many better options that will give you accuracy, good video options, and virtually no lag for gaming on modern displays. And they're free.

[BrianC]

I guess it's still a mystery what has happened to M2 lately. You'd think they'd be able to handle such relatively minor issues with ease since we know they are capable of so much more. Is it possible they too are outsourcing the work? Or they just don't give the same level of care and attention they used to? Another excellent developer that was faithful at porting games was Rutubo. Wish they were still around actively bringing back to life old titles/franchises. And maybe they could have given M2 a run for their money.

Gotch Technologies is made up of former Rutubo staff and even worked with M2 on occasion. I remember reading an interview for the 3DS Space Harrier where it was mentioned that former Rutubo staff pointed out a display bug in the arcade version of Space Harrier than M2 overlooked. They are still around and worked recent Namco Museums and a few of Hamster's Arcade Archives titles.

I'm not sure if anything happened to M2. The Genesis mini was clearly rushed and recent Konami is known for caring more about money than the quality of their products. M2 did plenty of nice ports/emulation, but their VC games also lacked in display options (and supposedly a few had too much input lag, but I don't have a reliable source on this) and I'm not sure they did all they could with the DS collections (namco and Konami) in terms of display options.

[azmun]

Geez, why are you guys subjecting yourselves to all this pain voluntarily? If emulation is the way for you, there are so many better options that will give you accuracy, good video options, and virtually no lag for gaming on modern displays. And they're free.

I have yet to experience emulation that is satisfying. However, I do appreciate emulation that involves the original hardware such as ODEs. Also, I would like to try GroovyMame someday but perhaps it's too difficult and complicated to setup.

[fernan1234]

I have yet to experience emulation that is satisfying. However, I do appreciate emulation that involves the original hardware such as ODEs. Also, I would like to try GroovyMame someday but perhaps it's too difficult and complicated to setup.

For the PC Engine (and CD) in particular, I really think that the Madnafen libretro (Retroarch) cores (either PCE fast or Supergrafx) are perfect replacements for the real hardware, both at low res 15khz output (though nornalized at 60hz) or upscaled for flat panels. They are extremely accurate, and almost any issue that can manifest in a handful of games can be worked around with settings adjustments. It's so good and much more convenient than real HW, especially for the CD library, to the point that I retired my briefcase in favor of a Pi outputting 15khz via an HDMI-VGA-RGBS chain.

[BrianC]

Wonder Momo has strange graphic issues in Mednafen, though it's more of a guilty pleasure than a must play.

[fernan1234]

Wonder Momo has strange graphic issues in Mednafen, though it's more of a guilty pleasure than a must play.

True, that's one of very few that won't run perfectly. Not sure but that bug may have been fixed in the accurate core, though that one can't run on a Pi. There's also the better arcade version

[BONKERS]

Maybe there's an opportunity to fix the U.S. Turbografx Mini release anyway. BTW I just went back and played some Sonic on PS3-- input lag is the same as on Switch but there's no serious audio lag. Looks like there's more misses than hits nowadays?

Geez, why are you guys subjecting yourselves to all this pain voluntarily? If emulation is the way for you, there are so many better options that will give you accuracy, good video options, and virtually no lag for gaming on modern displays. And they're free.

It'd be nice to be able to have an official legal device that is of good quality. (And a legal opportunity to purchase these games in some form. As many are obscenely expensive)
I'll more than likely emulate these games elsewhere with the USB controller for sure.

[fernan1234]

It'd be nice to be able to have an official legal device that is of good quality. (And a legal opportunity to purchase these games in some form. As many are obscenely expensive)
I'll more than likely emulate these games elsewhere with the USB controller for sure.

It would be really nice for sure. I've been so close to buying each of the mini/classic systems since the NES/Famicom one, because they're all so nostalgic and cute, but I wait for reviews and realize every time that I'd never actually play on them given all the strictly better alternatives, it would be a day or two of having fun with the UI but then they would 100% turn into shelf decorations, and I hardly have space for those.

Oh, I actually did buy the PS1 classic mostly thinking about flipping it if the emulation sucked after seeing what demand looked like for the NES and SNES classic. That didn't work as expected. Thanks Sony

[it290]

tbh I've been enjoying playing on the Mini. No, the scaling options aren't perfect, but the whole package is pretty damned good. I have both an SSSDS3 + OSSC setup and a MiSTer, and until the MiSTer supports CD titles this will prob be my go-to for a quick game of Dracula X or Spriggan Mk2; I don't have the OSSC permanently hooked up and this is just a lot faster and more convenient, plus the controller is damned nice.

[the androgyne]

I wasn't feeling much lag on the mini so i decided to try a few of the same games on Wii VC, to see if i could tell a difference (I don't have any real PCE hardware). Not really scientific of course but I couldn't really tell. This is Wi running on a CRT as well, i think people didn't have a problem with it back in the day? It's safe to assume lag is there on the mini, even if I can't notice it personally, but whatever is there isn't bad, certainly I dont think it'd be a hindrance to most people. That goes for audio too. A lot of the games being shooters helps cause i think any audio delay is much harder to notice for that type of game!

The display options are a disappointment, as I was hoping it was just some Sega thing that forced their hand on the MD mini. Is there a list of the titles that aren't 256 and are there any which change resolution for certain screens? I haven't played everything but R-Type was the only one jumping out at me.

[Fudoh]

Is there a list of the titles that aren't 256 and are there any which change resolution for certain screens?

the three affected "core" titles are probably R-Type, Ninja Spirits and Panic Bomber.

Star Paro and Soldier Blade have "arcade video" options (which map the 256px into a wider frame on real hardware). Those obviously don't work correctly on the Mini either. Technically Dragon Spirit also has an arcade video mode, but the way it's coded, it probably can't be enabled on the Mini.

[Fudoh]

plus the controller is damned nice.

unfortunately this is the very first controller (in my 36 years of gaming) causing serious pain in my thumb joint. Maybe not after playing for 15 minutes, but the recent 2 hour session took its toll and my thumb joint is now hurting for 24+ hours. The activation force required on the d-pad is damn high. I've been going back on forth between the Mini and my Pi for lag comparions and I have a wired SLS Sega Saturn USB controller on my Pi setup, so it's even more obvious. Will be interesting to see if the extra Hori controllers coming next month will be any different.