1040STF

@heligo my pleasure!

@heligo I started by buying Andy Puddicombe's book, Headspace. And I did the main exercice (which is 10mns long) once or twice a day. Results started to be significant after a month and since, it was only progress.
Three years after, I needed to renew a little my practice to be sure not to get bored. I started using the "Calm" app. It's great. And after three years, I went back to practicing without any app, just using Puddincomb's book and its few exercise.

I have 4 advices I always give for those who want to begin:

• If it helps, start with an app. Headspace's and Calm's apps are great.
• Begin by making your exercices in the evening, it's much easier as your day is behind you: your brain is free of the tasks to do. In the morning, we all tend to start thinking about what we have to do during the day. It's normal. So it's way easier to get into the meditation practice in the evening.
• Don't use apps too long. Like 2-3 months. A little more if you prefer. But don't go over 6 months. Apps are cool but in fact they are a paradox to meditation as the purpose of meditation is to be conscious, to feel, and to react if you need or want to. You have to explore the exercices by practicing them. By feeling. So if having a voice telling you what to do is easier at the beginning, it's not the full exercise by far. You have to do it by yourself to really say that you are practicing meditation. But apps make it easier when you begin.
• After a few months by your own, try to do it at the beginning of your day. It's harder than in the evening for the reasons I wrote before, but with practice it will become easier and your whole day will benefit from it. When you achieve that, that's when you will feel the most the benefits of meditation.

If you have any question, I'm there

Oh, by the way: by practicing, you will fail many times. Or even sometimes you might feel you're not relaxed after the practice. It's normal. We all go through here. It's part of the process. You need to forget that you have to "succeed" every time. It's not about that. It's about feeling and accepting. If you don't feel more relaxed after a practice, then recognize that fact. And there you go, you "succeeded". It's as easy as that. Never be hard on yourself

I felt the same way like 10 years ago: I was 33-35 and noticed how my reaction time sucked ass compared to when I was a teen.
Since February 2015, I do some meditation almost every day and it improved many many things including my reaction time.
Now I'm 45 and I'm way better at video games than in my teen years.
Our modern society doesn't teach us how to take care of our brain at all. It will come I believe in time, we can already spot the first signs (all the mental health conversation). But for now, we have to take action on our own. And meditation is a good way to go to take care of it.

@cyxceven Thunderforce IV and AC are available on Switch. Two fantastic ports by M2!

But sure, I agree, we need the other games.

@mjparker77 It's not just a memory test and it's still super fun.

It's not because you don't like something that you can proclaim that it's bad and no one should pretend to like it.
You have your own tastes. We have ours. It's ok.

I know Rick Dangerous I and II by heart. I've played those two games for what feels like hundred of hours back in my childhood on Atari ST. It still has a lot of charm.
I tried that port and it's super faithful. Great job.

@X68000 Don't get me started on those abject ports.
Gunbird 2 is awful too.

But their recent PC port of Under Defeat HD is known to have only 1ms of latency, because it supports Nvidia Reflex.
I don't know about the console ports though.
But it might be a sign of improvement...

I wouldn't rejoy myself if I was you. City Connection emulated games are plagued by severe input latency.

Seeing the great R-Type Delta in their hands is more worrying than reassuring!

I won't preorder it. I will wait for the reviews.

AI is crap to generate art.
One thing AI is awesome at is mathematics, algorithms and stuff like that.

So in the retrogaming field, my wish would be AI being used to clean all the GBA games soundtracks from sound hisses and low sound qualities. Without touching the compositions.

Bake those clean soundtracks into new roms that we could use on MiSTer, Analogue Pocket or emulation, and I'm willing to erect a 10 meters public statue in the glory of AI on retrogaming.

@MrPeanutbutterz That's exactly the kind of awful "please don't evolve anything" spirit that gives us the same formulas over and over again in video games.

They were taking a bold approach to WipeOut. Maybe it wouldn't have been good, who knows. But at least they would have gotten the shot. That's how you innovate. Especially as he sounds happy about the direction it was taking.

With your way of thinking we would never had God of War 2018 and God of War Ragnarok. "Oh no, it's not the same as God of War 3".

A tiny note about Curse of Darkness being "unfortunately" not backward compatible on Xbox: you don't want to play that version.

If most Xbox ports back then were superiors to the PS2 versions, this title is unfortunately an exception.
Contrast has indeed been completely screwed up to the point it ruins the art direction and readability of the action.

Therefore, the game looks way better on PS2, even if this version is limited to 480i (Xbox is 480p)
(though you can force the PS2 version to 480p and it's gorgeous)

@Exerion76 Well no, as the digital version launches on Steam as planned.

I still hope there's no disturbing lag in the MK Collection.
The Street Fighter Collection and TMNT Cowabunga Collection are plagued by awful latency.

If Nightdive could teach Digital Eclipse about that, it would be awesome.

I bought one of those (grey model) in 2019 when I got back to retrogaming. I was hoping it was on par with the Saturn one. I agree with you: it's not totally there but it's by far the best pad for Dreamcast, especially for fighting games.
In the next years, I bought two others (another grey and a blue) before the price sky-rocketed. I had to fix a little the rubbers but they work all three very well now.
I also got the black model for PS2, which works also perfectly on PS1. Again, that's a great pad for fighting games on the three first Sony consoles (I have a PS2 USB controller adapter for PS3).
Those and the Capcom 15th anniversary ones.

6-button pads forever!

Well, as a retro-enthusiast that follows both, here's how it looks from the outside:

• Jotego shares every week his work status on every cores he's working on and is so passionate that he works all the time to enhance them, even months or years after release, when in fact it was already excellent in the first place. Listen to any of his interviews, and you will see a shy guy that is not very confortable with people and is so involved into his work that he feels he owes to everybody every tiny explanation that in fact most of us don't understand. But it's a good thing. He looks concerned about his results and satisfying people. And he's super nice to others online!
• "Coin-Up Collection"... I just see them since years on social medias mocking other people, attacking everything that feels suspicious to them, harassing people, encouraging their community to do the same and blocking immediately those who question their behavior.
  Also, the first time I tried one of their core, Battle Garegga, it did a reset about every minute. It has been fixed since, and I'm thankful for their work, but the fact they say that contrary to Jotego, they release a core once it's perfect and there's nothing more to do, feels so much out of place.
  They're fu***ng rude and toxic, that's it.

The video in the article is 50fps lol

@Andee I'm nitpicking but it's the European cover. Not just the UK one.

I did that with a japanese Splatterhouse 3.

Let me explain: a school friend of mine lent me a japanese copy of Landstalker in the 90's, explaining to me she mutilated the cartridge to fit in an european Megadrive. I did try the game in my european Megadrive and it worked indeed.
A few months after, I found a japanese cartridge of Splatterhouse 3 in a second hand store and decided I would make it live the same fate. I did. It felt super wrong. I felt like I was "mutilating" something, especially as thise cartridges are quite solid. It requires some heavy relentlessness!

I enjoyed Splatterhouse 3 and finally sold it back to a store owner who looked at the awful cartridge doubtfully, asked me what the ***** happened, tested it and gave me some pennies for it.

I never mutilated any other cartridge. It felt too strange. Too wrong.

I bought Splatterhouse 3 back a few years ago, this time complete, just before its price exploded to its actual heights.

That anecdote came back to me a few months ago when I decided to "mod" my american Snes Jr to be compatible with Super Famicom cartridges. You just need to cut two pieces of plastic. But It felt the same: wrong.
But at least, the mod on the Snes Jr is invisible so I forgot about it.

Anyway. That's the story

For me, Wipeout 3: Special Edition will never be the "definitive experience", as it's only 25fps.
For years I only knew the Pal versions of the WipeOut PS1 games and it was great. But when I discovered the NTSC ones, which are 30fps, it really blew my mind and I rediscovered the games.

Only 5 more fps might sound not much but it's in fact 20% more frames every second. It's huge. Especially for a game which biggest strength, showcase and vector for gameplay feelings is its fluidity.

So nope, I prefer the quality of the experience rather than more content but a lowered experience.

@Sketcz Of course not. We are plenty.
And I think that's normal.
Despite the dialogues being faaar worst than the PSP version, we heard them while taking in the face the hurricane that was Sotn back then. No one warned us, even reviews.
Those cheesy dialogues are part of that experience now 🙂

@1040STF I found the answer and unfortunately it's "no".
Great patch anyway, I'm in awe when I see all the work done and all the enhancements.
But for me, the PS1 version is still the way to go, just for that reason.

Wait, does it fix the global scaling issues of all the graphics? Backgrounds and so?

That's the main issue for me compared to the PS1 version.

@N64-ROX You didn't sound cynical
Yeah, N64 seems like hell. Emulation is very hard and original hardware is more than ever the best way to go.

So if someone succeed in doing a FPGA core of N64, it would mark the end of more than 20 years of struggling with emulation.

@ParanoidDelusions This is by far the best description of what's the lag and what are its consequences : it's not because you don't notice it that it doesn't have a impact on you and the way you feel the game.

@N64-ROX It will play PS1 games by the end of 2021.
The guy who is developping the cores has already been spending 1500 hours on it and said he needed about 1000 more to complete it. It's a VERY complex core.

N64 must be hell too.

@Dethmunk Games with lag are playable or Raspberry Pies ! But they don't feel the same.
And you will notice it only when you compare to the originals.

A very good exemple : I was playing yesterday SF3 on Switch (docked). It was great ! And suddenly, I decided to play it on Dreamcast (through my DCDigital). This was NOT the same gameplay : characters were far more responsiv, they seemed to jump easily. I went back on Switch (still docked) and nope, that feeling was gone. Jumping felt so heavy.
There you go : Switch version is perfectly playable and enjoyable. But as every modern console has lag (especially docked Switch), I had faaaar more pleasure playing the lagless Dreamcast version.

It's the same for emulation VS MiSTer FPGA.

I've bought a MiSTer this holiday season and for the record, I found it far more easy to configure than a Rasperry Pi.
The first installation is almost the same (find the right files, copy them on your SD card) but after that it's far more easy : one click on "update_all" and all the job is done for you. It will always be up to date.
Configurations of cores and controllers are far more intuitiv than with Recalbox or Retropie.

And the MiSTer menu is flawless : responsiv, no slowdowns, ... Again, far from Recalbox or Retropie.

It's kind of odd ART OF FIGHTING 2 is not included.
Can't find the title logo on the picture. Only 1 and 3.

I have Dreamcast and Saturn equivalent (GDemu and Fenrir) and it's awesome. Glad it exists on Gamecube. I'll put thoughts into buying one soon or later.

BTW, can we put GBA games on the SD Card to use it with the GBA Player ? That would be an awesome feature.

A 320p screen to play 240p games ?
No thanks. That's just dumb : games won't look nice.

@Anti-Matter Yeah, but it's a flawed adaptation. You can't really switch characters during a battle.

The Sega Saturn version is a perfect arcade port with the full tag battle system and almost zero loading screens.

This game, XVSF and Vampire Savior are the three reasons I bought a japanese Saturn back in the 90's, even if I already had a Playstation 1

@Anti-Matter You should definitly try Marvel VS Street Fighter on japanese Saturn. I love XVSF but this sequel is superior in every level.

Already pre-ordered. Saturn Pad is the best I ever had. All those moments (will be lost... 😭) with X-Men VS Street, Marvel VS Street, Street Zero 3, Vampire Savior and so much more...

So glad of this reviews.
And I hope they will get Switch compatible asap !