Hello, I am very excited about the Retron 5 coming out this year some time. If you are unaware what it is, it is a console made by Hyperkin and they made recent consoles like the Retron 3, Retron twin and other consoles. The Retron 5 is going to be the best from Hyperkin. It can play NES, Famicom, SNES, Super Famicom, Sega Mega drive, Genesis and even Game boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. Also it works with Sega power base Converter. I know people hate these consoles because they don't play the sound or video right but i heard from a video on youtube, that there is a special chip that plays the games perfectly. Also there is a menu screen with amazing options like making the game faster and video settings. Another thing that is really cool but i am confused about is that you can use an NES controller or a genesis controller for all the consoles. I am extremely excited for this system and I hope you are too.
I am not excited about it, for two main reasons. 1.It is an emulator 2.It is not compatible with My CRT tvs. Still curious about how well it will manage everything it promises to do but it is not for me personally, at least not in the short term.
Not only it's an emulator but it will be way worse than full software open source emulators like snes9x and bsnes.
There's a review on youtube i watched today. Made me decide never to buy the Retron 5. Better off getting an actual android device and emulating like Flash said, if Emulation is what you're aiming for. Here's the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Ccj8yQ3l8
That review was amazing. Retron 5 has save data troubles with Link to the Past and the Super Metroid cart doesn't work with it. Those are just some of the most popular games released on the snes. And it has its own cheat database when any good emulator incorporates Game Genie cheats? Pretty lame. At least the HDMI output looks nice.
How does this thing even run games? Since it is emulating all the games, does it dump the game from cartridge first, then attempt to execute the ROM image in memory? If so, how does it even do that for Famicom which could have xxx number of mappers. Not to mention, pirate carts which use crazy custom mappers? EDIT: This is probably why flash carts won't work. Or anything with bank switching for that matter (Ie, 256-in-1 carts). All you'll get is the initial loader emulated in memory, with no further access to the actual hardware.
I think this is how it works. When you want to play a game you have a loading bar that takes a little while to complete before the game starts. My guess is that it is dumping the rom to memory.
There will be firmware updates and there already is one that fixes a lot of issues. Sure should've been already fixed, but shit happens. I'm more curious about the source of the EMUs powering the thing. Whether they took or made..
lol, that is what I thought too. Also, in french ETRON means a big turd. So even without the typo when I see the name I cant help but to read it as R-ETRON.
If the OP hates emulation that much, he should stay away from the Retron5, considering there's better deals to be had on that front. If you absolutely need a system, but are unable to find it in yard sales or thrift stores like Goodwill or Savers, buy the Super Retro Trio. It's a hardware based clone, meaning it won't waste your time trying to load the rom into memory and emulate the system. It's $78 on Amazon. You should really go to yard sales and flea markets to find your systems if you don't want to spend that much. Thrift stores are also a plus.
You posted this in the other topic when I suggested emulation to you. This machine is just an emulator box. Vosse, I'm sure they used open-source emulators for their software. There is no way they had anyone write a brand new emulator for any of the systems involved.
You might have been mislead because I believe the Retron 3 or something like that has three different clone system chips. One for NES, one for SNES, one for Genesis. Those are actual hardware clones and not emulation. But this new thing is all emulation.
