Today I was feeling a little adventurous, or stupid. So I decided to try retrogaming on a TV box.
If you're not aware, a TV box is a device meant for streaming stuff, be it IPTV, Netflix, Prime Video, Youtube, whatever.
Most I've seen are actually quite good at that... But how about gaming?
Installing Retroarch went wrong, because again, I'm dumb and downloaded the 64bit version. After realising my mistake, it all went quite smoothly on the installation and setting up front.
After around 2 minutes of downloading the basic assets due to the slow speed when extracting because of the terribly slow CPU, I got everything looking quite nice and well set up.
I had a few problems with my Xbox controller and decided to use my 8bitdo m30 in dinput mode, after a while I noticed xinput worked better there so I stuck to that and everything played fine controller wise.
My first test was Super Nintendo and the results... Surprised me, for all the weird reasons.
At first I tried Snes9x_current, the latest version.
It ran terribly. Like, 45FPS on an NTSC copy. I was half expecting that due to the accuracy of the newer Snes9x core, but it still caught me off guard.
After that I tried Snes9x_2002 and uhh...
Graphical glitches everywhere, stuttering and audio issues. Well, going too far back wasn't ideal.
After all the 2005 Plus version ran perfectly fine, even with Star Fox (despite some frame drops) running okay. Quite a nice surprise that our little box can do this.
I then went to the Mega Drive/Genesis. Started off with Sonic 2 and that ran perfectly... So I threw something a little more demanding at it.
Virtua Racing Deluxe on the 32x to my shock ran perfectly. A steady 100% emulation speed on the Picodrive core.
It was really impressive. A newer core running a more intensive system running even better.
IT WAS AWESOME. Even played some laps for testing (just kidding, I love this game.)
Then came the real banger... THE PS1
With Nekketsu Oyako, a 2D game, running fine, I decided to try out my favourite PS1 game with really low expectations, Crash Bandicoot 2.
And once more, this underpowered tiny little box my father paid $40 for 5 years ago managed to surprise me.
It ran absolutely perfectly.
Of course Crash Bandicoot 2 is a very well optimized game and something like Tekken 3 would likely make it struggle but the fact it ran Crash 2 so well with no stutters or frame drops via PCSX-Rearmed was quite incredible.
This isn't just a novelty too. Now me and dad will be able to enjoy some Raiden or Crash Team Racing on the living room without any additional hardware, and that's just great.
Any way I can find to spend more time with dad is good, even with all the things that divide us, it's gaming that got us so close in the first place... And well, he bought this box, he'll likely be using it for this now too.
More value! Lol.
The only disappointment was Saturn. Cotton 2 gave me this:
Well, it's Saturn... It obviously wouldn't run anyway.
Have a good one lads! I have some Mario to play.