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Retrocopy?
#248449 - 03/10/11 02:34 AM
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Here's an interesting project. Originality is claimed but it's fairly obvious there's more than just a nod to other projects. Has anyone bothered to take a closer look at what is going on here?
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Shoegazr]
#248452 - 03/10/11 03:09 AM
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#248477 - 03/10/11 06:57 AM
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> Hahahahaha, no.
Yeah, nor I, which is why I asked. 
I was totally blown away with nothing more than how overtly shameless these guys are.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Shoegazr]
#248479 - 03/10/11 07:43 AM
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Sorry to be such a noob, but ...
I don't quite understand the critique of the site. From my reading, they've created an emulator of several different system types, with a built in 3d visualization system and 3d modeller for creating virtual arcade rooms. The movie on their site shows what look to me like some cool features, such as the ability to create room models using a simple user interface, and realistic lighting including lighting using the emulated arcade screens themselves.
I'm not quite seeing where the derision is coming from. While none of the ideas that they have implemented are brand new, it looks like they've done a pretty good job of bringing some disparate features together into an entertaining package.
So why the hate? Am I missing something? Is there some history here that I don't know about?
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Bryan Ischo]
#248485 - 03/10/11 08:15 AM
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> So why the hate? Am I missing something? Is there some history here that I don't know
> about?
Yeah, I don't get it either. Their emulation efforts are very focused on Sega platforms (and NES), and the scope of the effort is what I would expect of a small project.
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italie |
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MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Bryan Ischo]
#248486 - 03/10/11 08:23 AM
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> Sorry to be such a noob, but ...
>
> I don't quite understand the critique of the site. From my reading, they've created
> an emulator of several different system types, with a built in 3d visualization
> system and 3d modeller for creating virtual arcade rooms. The movie on their site
> shows what look to me like some cool features, such as the ability to create room
> models using a simple user interface, and realistic lighting including lighting using
> the emulated arcade screens themselves.
>
> I'm not quite seeing where the derision is coming from. While none of the ideas that
> they have implemented are brand new, it looks like they've done a pretty good job of
> bringing some disparate features together into an entertaining package.
>
> So why the hate? Am I missing something? Is there some history here that I don't know
> about?
RB is just jealous over RetroCopy being more accurate than MAME.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: AaronGiles]
#248487 - 03/10/11 08:29 AM
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I can tell you one big reason right now: It converts EVERY ROM image into an undocumented binary blob format that's only supported by it. Unless you want to have two sets of images sitting around, you'll have to completely commit to using only it.
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: AaronGiles]
#248488 - 03/10/11 09:03 AM
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> > So why the hate? Am I missing something? Is there some history here that I don't
> know
> > about?
>
> Yeah, I don't get it either. Their emulation efforts are very focused on Sega
> platforms (and NES), and the scope of the effort is what I would expect of a small
> project.
NES support is not really good compared to NEStopia or Nintendulator or FCEUX, especially for non-standard mappers. Sega Systems are accurately emulated, OTOH.
What I don't like is the fact that it focuses a lot on the 3d viewer (which I don't really care about) and the fact that it uses this closed source format GAME to put together the ROM dump with scans of the box and a lot of things that might very well fit in external datfiles / cfg files. I consider it a waste of time and efforts, but to each his own.
Concerning the hate towards the developer, he used to be pretty arrogant in his first appearances on the web, but at least he tends to share his finding, e.g. on the SMS hardware, despite his emulator being closed source.
Overall, except for the usual byuu's complaint "it's easy to claim being uber-accurate when you don't show your source", I understand why some users might like it. It's just not the kind of emulator I'm interested in.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Firehawke]
#248489 - 03/10/11 09:11 AM
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> Unless you want to have two sets of images sitting around, you'll have to completely commit to using only it.
Duplicate sets are not a good reason to complain a priori.
E.g., if you want to collect NES games in accurate dumps you need the split dumps which only MESS currently supports, in addition to iNES files supported by other emus. And if you want to play CD games in MESS, you need CHD images in addition to bin/cue supported by most emus. etc.
Sometimes duplication is not a big deal (except for HD space usage )
The real issue is, imho, that his GAME container does not give any valuable improvement over a zipfile combined with an xml file or a dat file, making it a bit redundant...
it might seems valuable to pack together the box scans with the game itself, but if you cannot easily access the scans and other images without launching the emu (e.g. if you cannot create a slideshow of the box scans), I feel like you have gained almost nothing over using a generic emu with a frontend to display boxarts
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: etabeta]
#248491 - 03/10/11 09:19 AM
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I doubt RB was thinking about any of these technical issues in his laughter. You don't need to get past the general cheesiness of it to laugh. It looks like Minecraft meets 3D Arcade and that history video, I don't know where to begin.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248493 - 03/10/11 10:03 AM
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> I doubt RB was thinking about any of these technical issues in his laughter. You
> don't need to get past the general cheesiness of it to laugh. It looks like Minecraft
> meets 3D Arcade and that history video, I don't know where to begin.
Looks to me like he's having fun doing something that he likes and is creating something that he enjoys using. I am not sure why it deserves to be laughed at.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248496 - 03/10/11 01:32 PM
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> I doubt RB was thinking about any of these technical issues in his laughter.
I was stating my point of view on Retrocopy, not reading in Arbee's mind...
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Shoegazr]
#248500 - 03/10/11 02:45 PM
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I’m convinced Mario is a hobo.
He wakes up everyday in the same clothes, runs around in sewers, and collects coins for a living.
At the end of the day, he uses the coins to buy mushrooms
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Bryan Ischo]
#248503 - 03/10/11 03:40 PM
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It doesn't have anything to do with what he deserves. When you post something on the internet you open it up to be criticized by millions of internet users. I guess you haven't read very many YouTube comments or you would understand this fact well. Everyone has an opinion. Take Minecraft, for example. Millions of people love it and I think it looks terribly unfun.
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| GatKong |
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Tetris Mason
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248504 - 03/10/11 03:52 PM
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> I think it looks terribly unfun.
You only THINK that because you don't KNOW.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: GatKong]
#248505 - 03/10/11 03:54 PM
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I know it looks like a scrapped prototype PC game from 1996.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Reged: 09/21/03
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Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: AaronGiles]
#248507 - 03/10/11 04:01 PM
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> > So why the hate? Am I missing something? Is there some history here that I don't
> know
> > about?
>
> Yeah, I don't get it either. Their emulation efforts are very focused on Sega
> platforms (and NES), and the scope of the effort is what I would expect of a small
> project.
According to the web site about a year ago (which is when all the cool kids found out about this), they have something like 50 full-time paid programmers who are "professional, unlike MAMEdev". He's since ratcheted that down, AFAIK. (I don't pay a lot of attention to 32-bit-only Windows-only closed source emulators anymore, DEMUL aside).
But yes, it's blatantly obvious from the forums and the scope of the project that it's just one guy.
Edited by R. Belmont (03/10/11 04:08 PM)
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248509 - 03/10/11 04:27 PM
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> I know it looks like a scrapped prototype PC game from 1996.
Heh, we all know it's technically a prototype game. But he already knows it's a scrapped prototype without even playing it.
Considering Notch's quality assurance I say Smitdogg KNOWS it. Still it doesn't stop the game from being fun.
Anyone mentioned already Retrocopy's author also has a bad taste for music?
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: BIOS-D]
#248510 - 03/10/11 04:42 PM
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I can tell from videos if a game is one I definitely wouldn't enjoy or if there's a chance I might like it. And yeah I hinted toward the music taste in my comment about the video, not that you have much of a valuable opinion in this area since you hate the Beatles.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248513 - 03/10/11 05:09 PM
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> I can tell from videos if a game is one I definitely wouldn't enjoy or if there's a
> chance I might like it. And yeah I hinted toward the music taste in my comment about
> the video, not that you have much of a valuable opinion in this area since you hate
> the Beatles.
Well it's not like I hate them (that was my own exaggeration) as I enjoy SOME of their music once in a while. It's more like I got tired of hearing it everywhere. And overall tired of hearing cranky 30 something guys and older saying there's not other better music "like before". All this paragraph applies equally to U2.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: etabeta]
#248514 - 03/10/11 05:36 PM
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It's not the duplicate so much as the "undocumented binary blob"--
You may or may not remember I was one of the people advocating a completely different format for console dumps (ZIP containers, separated chip images, XML metadata) about maybe a year and a half ago, in a discussion with a certain guy whose name starts with H, on this very forum.
The two things I can't really stand about RetroCopy is that he has absolutely no interest in working with others (the image format and lack of documentation), and that he's pretty arrogant over the supposed superiority of his accuracy.
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Firehawke]
#248516 - 03/10/11 05:44 PM
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> It's not the duplicate so much as the "undocumented binary blob"--
>
agreed
> You may or may not remember I was one of the people advocating a completely different
> format for console dumps (ZIP containers, separated chip images, XML metadata) about
> maybe a year and a half ago, in a discussion with a certain guy whose name starts
> with H, on this very forum.
>
well, now MESS supports separated chips images inside a zip container, exactly like MAME does, with the metadata stored in the xml list. I plan to eventually add support in NES for per-game xml (like in .rpk files for aes and ti99), so that we can offer a valuable alternative to iNES for homebrew too.
anyway, I still have some work to do on xml lists before I can spend time on the latter...
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: etabeta]
#248517 - 03/10/11 05:48 PM
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I'm in absolute support of this. Now to try to convince other authors to jump on board, because the iNES format is an abomination. It was fine up until we realized how many 'mappers' there really were and how uncontrollable the format was going to be.
The only question I have is going to be how I'm going to get things into this new format, and I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Firehawke]
#248522 - 03/10/11 07:03 PM
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> The only question I have is going to be how I'm going to get things into this new
> format, and I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
simply split nointro set in separate prg/chr and then run cmpro with the nes.xml file you can get at http://git.redump.net/cgit.cgi/mess/plain/hash/ (right click on nes.xml and save it), to rebuild a set which would work in NES.
then store the files in mess/roms/nes/ and the xml in mess/hash/ and you are done 
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| Andrew |
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Girl Watcher
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Reged: 09/21/03
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Loc: Boston, Mass.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Shoegazr]
#248528 - 03/10/11 08:15 PM
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> Has anyone bothered to take a closer look at what is going on here?
Not since it initially burst onto the scene. That video wall feature looks interesting.
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A story of one man and his obsession with the female anatomy.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248533 - 03/10/11 08:43 PM
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> I know it looks like a scrapped prototype PC game from 1996.
That would contain ugly plain rendered graphics then.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: etabeta]
#248535 - 03/10/11 09:04 PM
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Interesting. How's the compatibility compared to, say, Nestopia?
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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97 then? I was on a PC game hiatus from 93-98 but PC graphics in 98-99 absolutely destroy current day Mineshaft so I was thinking 96 should be accurate. Wait, when did Doom come out. :-P
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| Moose |
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Don't make me assume my ultimate form!
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248567 - 03/11/11 04:59 AM
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> 97 then? I was on a PC game hiatus from 93-98 but PC graphics in 98-99 absolutely
> destroy current day Mineshaft so I was thinking 96 should be accurate. Wait, when did
> Doom come out. :-P
Hmmm, I was working at EME in the UK when Doom came out ...  So, that would make it 1993-ish.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Firehawke]
#248576 - 03/11/11 08:42 AM
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248629 - 03/12/11 12:44 AM
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> I know it looks like a scrapped prototype PC game from 1996.
Um, I thought it was.....
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: mogli]
#248630 - 03/12/11 12:47 AM
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Seriously? If so I really know my shit. Nailed it. PC game historian gregf eat your heart out.
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Re: Retrocopy?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#248631 - 03/12/11 12:58 AM
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> Seriously? If so I really know my shit. Nailed it. PC game historian gregf eat your
> heart out.
I only used computers at school in the mid-90s, but I did peak in at things from time to time. '96 seemed right to me.
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[Re: 
So, that would make it 1993-ish.
