Konami Anniversary Collection

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WelshMegalodon
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by WelshMegalodon »

bcass wrote:Is there a recommended ROM set for shmups on MAME, or is everyone using ShmupArch these days?
Absolutely no one is using ShmupArch.

Just grab the latest MAME and a set with as large a number as you can find and you'll be good to go. I actually just updated to 0.231 this week, and I'm pretty happy with the rewritten FM audio emulation.

Don't forget to enable the low latency option in mame.ini if you have a VRR monitor.
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BIL
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by BIL »

trap15 wrote:MAME even says Gradius is 60.606060...Hz refresh, not 60. That's the cause. If it's not jerking at all on your setup, it's probably because you have MAME set to adjust game refresh rate to display refresh rate.
Oh wow, it does. :o I was going off MAMEdev notes. I wonder if Gotch quietly dialled the ACA version down to 60hz. I've been playing their ACA Thunder Cross all afternoon, and that too is ultra-smooth (typing this while glowering at my monitor as BLUE THUNDER 45 putters its way back to the start of the loop).

OTOH, ACA Super Cobra (another 60.6hz MAME entry) clearly chops a bit, consistently, when switched it to PCB speed.

Anyway, calling it quits for today. This just happened in TCII and I didn't even see the bullet. The Theme Of Biruford :cool:
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bcass
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

BIL wrote:I've been playing their ACA Thunder Cross all afternoon, and that too is ultra-smooth.
That's odd, because I did a playthrough of the ACA PC release recently, and it's slightly choppy, like Gradius. I did a capture of it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSg6EoIfN7s
Last edited by bcass on Sat May 01, 2021 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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bcass
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

trap15 wrote:If it's not jerking at all on your setup, it's probably because you have MAME set to adjust game refresh rate to display refresh rate.
I was unaware of that option, it was turned off. I just tried turning it on, and it's fixed the choppy music. However, I noticed that the missile sound effects seem to sound slightly corrupted when they hit enemies, see here:

https://youtu.be/-SShBhUsFto?t=17

That's from Nemesis, but the issue is present on Gradius too.

Any idea what might be causing that?
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BIL
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by BIL »

bcass wrote:
BIL wrote:I've been playing their ACA Thunder Cross all afternoon, and that too is ultra-smooth.
That's odd, because I did a playthrough of the ACA PC release recently, and it's slightly choppy, like Gradius. I did a capture of it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSg6EoIfN7s
It's difficult to tell via 30fps capture. FWIW, I uploaded a stage 3 scoring demo earlier today, which displays some chop (on my potato desktop, at least) - despite the game running without a hitch at 60fps. (by comparison, Thunder Cross II has a subtle, regular chop every couple seconds, noticeable on both the ship and backgrounds)

I keep hearing bizarre things about the Anniversary collection, like it being impossible to toggle extends in Thunder Cross US (per SCC). It almost sounds like they deliberately crippled it to offset it containing seven ACA titles. Which would be quite the shitbird move. :/
Last edited by BIL on Sat May 01, 2021 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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bcass
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

The video capture I posted is 60fps, not 30.
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BIL
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by BIL »

Either my PC's even worse than I thought, or it's not giving me the option to watch at 60fps like most 60fps captures do.

Regardless, if Gradius and Thunder Cross are noticeably choppy on this collection, and it's not a hardware issue on your end, it sounds like they perform worse than the PS4 Arcade Archives stand-alones.
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bcass
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

Weird, you're right, it is 30fps. It won't let me change to 60 either. I captured this using Plays, an app that was discontinued a while back, but it usually captures stuff at 60.
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

According to the Xbox Game Bar I have installed on my PC, the game is running at 60, so it must have been an issue with the Plays app.
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by OmegaFlareX »

The Youtube conversion algorithm seems to be pretty picky about resolutions and framerates. Most of the time, if the video being uploaded is below 720p, it will refuse to do 60fps. I have seen rare 480p60 and even 360p60 videos, though, so who knows. I'm guessing channels like Replay Burners upscale their videos 4-5x before uploading.
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Arthandas
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Arthandas »

bcass wrote:I've noticed that the horizontal ship movement in Gradius in this collection seems slightly jerky:

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

It's more prominent after selecting a speed-up. I'm playing the Steam release. I don't remember the arcade version having this jerky movement. Has anyone else noticed this issue in this collection? Thunder Cross also seems slightly jerky as well.
It's literally the same issue as in R-Type Dimensions, I don't think it's directly caused by refresh rate mismatch as the judder/choppiness is present even on my gsync setup which should theoretically eliminate it.
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Rastan78
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Rastan78 »

In the case of a port that is trying to mimic an authentic arcade game speed that's slightly off 60, g sync probably wouldn't change anything. The game is likely only able to output 60 hz, it's just doubling or skipping certain frames (or some similar technique) to get the end result as close as possible in terms of the original game speed.
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Rastan78
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Rastan78 »

double post, sorry
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Arthandas
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Arthandas »

Rastan78 wrote:In the case of a port that is trying to mimic an authentic arcade game speed that's slightly off 60, g sync probably wouldn't change anything. The game is likely only able to output 60 hz, it's just doubling or skipping certain frames (or some similar technique) to get the end result as close as possible in terms of the original game speed.
Yep, as always it's bad emulation...
Sadly you can't extract the roms like in other two collections (Contra and Castlevania).
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Rastan78
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Rastan78 »

That's not bad emulation, it's just making the best of porting games from an analogue technology where different refresh rates would play smoothly on CRT. When you have consoles that can't output these odd refresh rates natively and non VRR monitors that won't work well with them, it's either slight stutter or sync to 60 and have the game run faster or slower than it should. I much prefer to play with the stutter at correct speed.

That being said this type of stutter is almost unnoticeable until you get way down to Seibu SPI type speeds where it becomes very obvious, something Ike 54 - 55 hz. Looks like there might be something else happening here, but hard to say from a youtube vid.

Maybe with VRR monitors and TVs becoming common we'll see official arcade ports to PC, XBOX whatever the newest one is called? X, and PS5 in the future that have smooth motion at correct game speeds?
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Arthandas
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Arthandas »

Rastan78 wrote:That's not bad emulation, it's just making the best of porting games from an analogue technology where different refresh rates would play smoothly on CRT.
No, that's bad emulation.
If MAME can emulate both R-Type and Gradius smoothly so should official ports, especially since you're paying for them.
Not to mention there are many other arcade/retro ports from different companies running without any choppiness.
That being said this type of stutter is almost unnoticeable
You must be joking, it's super obvious unless you never played the originals.
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Rastan78
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Rastan78 »

You're not specifying if MAME is set up to sync to 60 or the ports you're talking about are attempting to match original game speed or lock to 60. It's not all good or all bad. It's just a trade off deciding to prioritize smooth scrolling vs accurate speed. You can't have both on a console that can only output 60. Devs that are really thorough might give you the option to toggle it like Raiden Fighters Aces.

As far as if it's noticable, on a game that isn't that far removed from 60 and has minor stutter, I don't find it distracting and really only notice it if I stop to stare at it.

But yeah , if it's extremely obvious or inconsistent, it could be some other issue. I have only played the Hamster ports on console on the ACA versions not the Anniversry Collection and those were all fine so far.
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bcass
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

I updated to the latest version of MAME64, which has fixed the odd sound issue I was having with Gradius, so I will stick to MAME for that one. I tried Thundercross on MAME, but it still has this odd graphical issue that MAME has had for years now. It's an issue with the background on stage 3:

https://i.imgur.com/1Qf6ZSN.png

Is that fixable, or am I going to have to go back to the Anniversary Collection? How is the Hamster release compared to the Anniversary Collection version? I'd like to stick to MAME where possible for integer scaling, but it's concerning to see that old glitch with Thundercross still not being fixed after all this time.
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by BrianC »

Also, some TVs and monitors handle different resolutions and odd sync rates better than others. One model of a TCL 4K TV can have odd graphical glitches in 720p with game mode on (seems to come and go. I'm under the impression it may have been fixed, but I'm not completely sure).
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by BIL »

bcass wrote:How is the Hamster release compared to the Anniversary Collection version?
The PS4 one is absolutely perfect, imo. I believe you've cleared ACA Gradius II and Darius on PS4? Same standard. ACA Thunder Cross and Darius were both developed by Gotch Technologies, association with whom seems to have profoundly improved Hamster (ACA Gradius II is apparently theirs). Gotch are staffed by founders of Rutubo Games (developers of the beautiful 32X/SS Space Harrier/After Burner II & SS OutRun), and for quality remain on par with M2. Sometimes better - their Arcade Archives: Contra was that game's first home release, licensed or not, to correctly emulate the 3D stages, something MAME just recently fixed (though MAME's "Continue?" graphic remains bugged).

(of course, nobody approaches M2 for combined quality and extras :cool:)

ACA: Thunder Cross includes Old Japan, New Japan (said to be subtly harder... I think it may be the loop? Japanese arcade ops complained about the old ver, BITD), Europe (seems very much like Old Japan) and US (the notorious one - removes the Option spacing mechanic, and most of the special weapons, instituting a traditional Tiger Heli bomb... as SCC says, it's an interesting oddity for completists). Apparently, it has all the DIP switch settings missing from the Anniversary Collection, too. Even lets you reverse the player sides, if you feel like using the red ship without hooking up a second controller.

TC being a 60hz-adjacent board, it runs smooth as hell. I spent all Saturday eyeballing my PS4's monitor and never saw a gatdamn thing. Then I played VS. Gradius & VS. Castlevania (dat Famicom refresh :cool:) and ACA: Rygar (another good display benchmark - long, contiguous scrolling vistas without a hint of slowdown), to identically good times. I hope someday we get M2/Gotch/Hamster-quality emulation with VRR support. That's the one thing I'm left wanting at this stage.

I've never tried ACA: Thunder Cross on Switch, but it seems to get similarly good reviews there, too.

TLDR: Good stuff. Image
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Arthandas
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by Arthandas »

I don't understand how people can play pixel art games with uneven pixels...
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bcass
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

Arthandas wrote:
I don't understand how people can play pixel art games with uneven pixels...
I don't, I resized it because the screengrab was so small. I play using integer scaling where possible.
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bcass
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by bcass »

BIL wrote:
bcass wrote:How is the Hamster release compared to the Anniversary Collection version?
The PS4 one is absolutely perfect, imo. I believe you've cleared ACA Gradius II and Darius on PS4? Same standard. ACA Thunder Cross and Darius were both developed by Gotch Technologies, association with whom seems to have profoundly improved Hamster (ACA Gradius II is apparently theirs). Gotch are staffed by founders of Rutubo Games (developers of the beautiful 32X/SS Space Harrier/After Burner II & SS OutRun), and for quality remain on par with M2. Sometimes better - their Arcade Archives: Contra was that game's first home release, licensed or not, to correctly emulate the 3D stages, something MAME just recently fixed (though MAME's "Continue?" graphic remains bugged).

(of course, nobody approaches M2 for combined quality and extras :cool:)

ACA: Thunder Cross includes Old Japan, New Japan (said to be subtly harder... I think it may be the loop? Japanese arcade ops complained about the old ver, BITD), Europe (seems very much like Old Japan) and US (the notorious one - removes the Option spacing mechanic, and most of the special weapons, instituting a traditional Tiger Heli bomb... as SCC says, it's an interesting oddity for completists). Apparently, it has all the DIP switch settings missing from the Anniversary Collection, too. Even lets you reverse the player sides, if you feel like using the red ship without hooking up a second controller.

TC being a 60hz-adjacent board, it runs smooth as hell. I spent all Saturday eyeballing my PS4's monitor and never saw a gatdamn thing. Then I played VS. Gradius & VS. Castlevania (dat Famicom refresh :cool:) and ACA: Rygar (another good display benchmark - long, contiguous scrolling vistas without a hint of slowdown), to identically good times. I hope someday we get M2/Gotch/Hamster-quality emulation with VRR support. That's the one thing I'm left wanting at this stage.

I've never tried ACA: Thunder Cross on Switch, but it seems to get similarly good reviews there, too.

TLDR: Good stuff. Image
Great, thanks for the info. I already purchased ACA Gradius II years ago, so will checkout ACA TC on PS4 and delete the awful Konami Collection on Steam.
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Re: Konami Anniversary Collection

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

OmegaFlareX wrote:The Youtube conversion algorithm seems to be pretty picky about resolutions and framerates. Most of the time, if the video being uploaded is below 720p, it will refuse to do 60fps.
This is my experience too. In order to get 4:3 video at 60 FPS, your resolution has to be high, 1280 x 960 seems to do the trick. It simply refuses to accept low resolution, high framerate footage, and will reprocess and demolish the framerate of low resolution videos.
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