[Official] EHW Retro - The EHW Retrogaming club

[neurotix]

 

 

 

EHW Retro - The ExtremeHW.net Retrogaming Club

aka the I Need More Alcohol and Q-tips Club

Welcome to EHW Retro, the ExtremeHW.net Retrogaming club.

Atari or Coleco, Nintendo or Sega, Game Boy or Game Gear, Sony or Microsoft, it's all the same here! If you have an Atari ST, a Commodore 64, a Macintosh or an IBM AT, or even just older PC hardware, this is the place for you too!

I am not sure how much interest there will be in this, but I figured I'd remake my club here.

Whether you have a small collection, a medium collection or a large collection, everyone is welcome here. If you think games were better when you were growing up, and you want to relive the nostalgia, this is the place for you. If you played a game back in the day, but you can't remember what it was, this is the place to ask. Feel free to post pictures of your newly acquired games, post pictures of your collections, and so on. If you go to gaming conventions, feel free to post pics of those too- we would love to see them!

Retrogaming includes all consoles, handhelds, arcades and computers prior to the Eight generation (PS4, Xbox One, Wii U) which is still technically ongoing, even though we're in the Ninth generation now with the recently released systems. As long as new games still come out for the PS4 and Xbox One, they won't be considered retro, sorry.

Update for 2022: This year, the Vita has become retro per the 10 year rule and in about a month the Wii U will as well if you want to list them. The 3DS also qualifies. This was a request of members of the old club (10 years) though I personally feel a game or system isn't retro until it's 15 years old.

 

How to Join

Joining is simple. Just post your EHW name, and a small list of the consoles you own separated by commas. I'm putting this here since some people ignore it, if you want to join and have 10+ consoles, I need them put into a list with commas like in the club members list below. I will not add you if you use bullets, line breaks or any other format besides a simple sentence with commas. If you want you can include an estimate of how many games you have. You can include classic computers, handhelds or arcade cabinets if you want. Look at my listing in the members list as an example in how to format your application.

 

Members list:

 

neurotix (Founder) - NES, SNES (x2), PC Engine Core Grafx, Master System, Genesis, Sega CD(x2), 32X (x2), Saturn (x2), Dreamcast (x2), Game Gear, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance SP, PS2, Xbox, PSP-1000, PSP Go, Macintosh SE w/ replaced PRAM battery and 4MB NEC 80ns SIMMs. 250+ games on cart.

 

ENTERPRISE - PS3

 

pioneerisloud -AMD K6-III 450 @ 600MHz, AMD Athlon Thunderbird @ 1100MHz, AMD AthlonXP 3200+ @ 2.2GHz,  as well as many other retro AMD PC setups

 

Sir Beregond - PS2

 

Fluxmaven - Sega Genesis, PSP, Xbox 360, liquid cooled PS4

 

axipher - Gameboy Colour, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, DS Lite, DSiXL, PSP-1000, NES, N64, GCN, Wii, PS2 Slim, PS3 Fat, Xbox 360, Q6600 / 8800 GTS Crysis rig (lol)

 

Slaughtahouse - Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Switch, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo 3DS, SNES Classic, Xbox 360

Edited February 28 by neurotix

[neurotix]

Reserved for convention information.

Edited November 14, 2022 by neurotix

[neurotix]

Useful videos:

 

 

 

Cleaning stickers, labels etc off of old game boxes and carts.

 

 

Nintendo Gamebit Kit

Edited November 14, 2022 by neurotix

[neurotix]

Reserved.

Edited April 9, 2023 by neurotix

[pio]

  One day I will have..........

 

So far, I've just got a Windows 98SE box (that's SUPPOSED to be a Win 2k box), and working on my XP, my proper 98SE, and Win95 boxes.  I do like emulating the older titles, since I HAD a regular NES, SNES, and N64 back in the day (bought ea when new).

 

I can honestly live without your "living room" setup.   Gimme that old CRT TV and those older consoles though, and I'd be having one heck of a time!

Edited November 15, 2022 by pioneerisloud

[ENTERPRISE]

That's a sweet load of retro. I myself no longer have anything retro, well I have a PS3 and that is about it. However the consoles I have owned are.....

 

PlayStation - Main games were Metal Gear Solid and the Resident Evil series. 

 

PlayStation 2 - Again I was only really an avid Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil follower.  

 

PlayStation 3 - Meta Gear Solid 4

 

DreamCast - Sonic Adventures & Resident Evil remakes. 

 

Game Cube - Metroid Prime, Resident Evil Zero & Metal Gear Solid remake. 

 

XBOX - Halo's & Midtown Madness 

 

XBOX 360 - Only got this to continue Halo series. 

 

As you can see, I only got consoles to follow specific games series. All the while I was playing other games on PC.

[pio]

5 hours ago, ENTERPRISE said:

That's a sweet load of retro. I myself no longer have anything retro, well I have a PS3 and that is about it. However the consoles I have owned are.....

 

PlayStation - Main games were Metal Gear Solid and the Resident Evil series. 

 

PlayStation 2 - Again I was only really an avid Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil follower.  

 

PlayStation 3 - Meta Gear Solid 4

 

DreamCast - Sonic Adventures & Resident Evil remakes. 

 

Game Cube - Metroid Prime, Resident Evil Zero & Metal Gear Solid remake. 

 

XBOX - Halo's & Midtown Madness 

 

XBOX 360 - Only got this to continue Halo series. 

 

As you can see, I only got consoles to follow specific games series. All the while I was playing other games on PC.

I'll go ahead and list what I HAD back then too (I'd love to have again one day).

NES - Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario Bros + Duck Hunt
SNES - Super Mario All Stars (replaced NES copies), Super Mario World, Top Gear?, Donkey Kong Country
N64 - Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Rush, Banjo Kazooie

Obviously, old Mario games were my jam.   After the N64 I kind of gave up on Mario titles, they lost their flavor after the 64 release to me.  I think its because my family always sat down with the NES console when I was really little to play original Super Mario Bros + Duck Hunt, so I think it was more of a familial tie to the games than anything.  I too, was always on PC for gaming even back in the 90's, but it definitely was fun to sit down at the TV and play with friends and family though.  I know I had other games, IIRC I had like 8 games for the NES and like 16 for the super.  The N64, the 4 listed is all I had, again was too busy with PC gaming.

[ENTERPRISE]

@bonami2... Lets get this promotes on our socials

[neurotix]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Yeah, I too had Nintendo growing up but also played the Genesis a lot at friends houses so that's why I have all the Sega stuff. I always wanted it as a kid. The 32x sucks, but the Sega CD is actually awesome and has quite a few shoot em up games as well as Snatcher so its not just fmv games like everyone thinks.

 

For Nintendo, I loved Mario but then some friends got me into Final Fantasy and that started my jrpg addiction which continues to be my preferred genre to this day.

 

I did have a PC eventually, a Pentium 75 with 16MB RAM that my uncle gifted me for my birthday when he upgraded. It had Doom and Duke 3D as well as a few other games. I cleared them both back then but I recently tried Duke3D and even on the easier difficulty couldn't even clear the 1st stage lol.

 

Pioneerisloud, if you wanna list your retro machines with specs seperated by commas I can add you to the club list.

 

And yes, most people choose to emulate and with stuff like RetroPie it makes sense. We recently moved and like I had like 12 heavy boxes full of everything.

Edited January 3, 2023 by neurotix

[pio]

14 minutes ago, neurotix said:

Thanks for the replies.

 

Yeah, I too had Nintendo growing up but also played the Genesis a lot at friends houses so that's why I have all the Sega stuff. I always wanted it as a kid. The 32x sucks, but the Sega CD is actually awesome and has quite a few shoot em up games as well as Snatcher so its not just fmv games kike everyone thinks.

 

For Nintendo, I loved Mario but then some friends got me into Final Fantasy and that started my jrpg addiction which continues to be my preferred genre to this day.

 

I did have a PC eventually, a Pentium 75 with 16MB RAM that my uncle gifted me for my birthday when he upgraded. It had Doom and Duke 3D as well as a few other games. I cleared them both back then but I recently tried Duke3D and even on the easier difficulty couldn't even clear the 1st stage lol.

 

Pioneerisloud, if you wanna list your retro machines with specs seperated by commas I can add you to the club list.

 

And yes, most people choose to emulate and with stuff like RetroPie it makes sense. We recently moved and like I had like 12 heavy boxes full of everything.

Windows 95 Box (not complete):  AMD K6-2 500 (underclocked), EPox Socket 7 board, 64MB PC-100, ATI Rage 128 (missing), CF card for OS, 80GB IDE HDD storage, ZIP250

 

Windows 98SE Box (not complete):  AMD K6-2 450 @ 600Mhz, Gigabyte GA5AX, 256MB PC-133, ATI Radeon 7500 or 9000 (have both), CF card for OS, 160GB IDE HDD storage, ZIP250

 

Windows 2000 Pro Box (done and working / has 98 on it):  AMD T-Bird 1.1GHz, ECS Socket A Via chipset board, 2x256MB Corsair XMS DDR400, ATI Radeon 9800XT, CF card for OS, 160GB IDE HDD storage

 

Windows XP early (not complete):  AMD Athlon XP 2500+, Asus A7N8X, 2x1GB DDR400 OCZ Platinum, ATI Radeon X850PRO, CF card for OS, 500GB IDE HDD storage, ZIP250

 

Windows XP late (not complete):  AMD Athlon64 3200+, unknown Socket 754 board (nothing good, I forgot model), 3x1GB generic DDR400, ATI Radeon X1950PRO, 64GB HP SSD, 500GB IDE HDD storage, ZIP250

 

Windows XP x64 (done and working):  AMD Opteron 180 @ 3GHz, Asus A8N SLI, 4x1GB Corsair XMS DDR400, Sapphire HD5870, 64GB HP SSD, 2TB WD Blue, ZIP250

 

Everything newer than the last listed build, I have one of every generation, done and functional.  Might be missing a HDD or something here and there, but I'm about 99% done with most of them.  The rigs that are listed "not complete", literally just missing drives, maybe a PSU, the CF cards themselves (only had one so far), sound cards, LAN cards, and I need to have the AGP GPU's all re-greased and re-padded because they're got 20 year old dried up TIM on them.  Also, the 95 box, I have to wait for spring, the case needs painted.

[UltraMega]

GameBoy 1 was my first console, and I was a big console gamer until the PS3 era when I pretty much switched fully to PC, partly because PS3 was so expensive. I don't have any of my older consoles anymore, but I have a healthy stash of emulators and roms. I beat Final Fantasy 9 and 10 both recently on the PC versions so I could use graphics mods to upscale them, but had the PC versions not been an option, I would have played them on emulator. I have emulators on my phone and I've been thinking about getting one of those controllers that goes around the sides to make it kinda like a switch. Couple years back I played one of the old GameBoy Pokémon games on my phone on an emulator and got pretty far, don't remember if I finished it. 

 

I wish I could afford to have retro consoles physically, losing consoles for various reasons over the years, I'd have to start from scratch and that's just too much for me but massive respect to anyone who properly collects and maintains retro gaming stuff. I am the dirty freeloader version of that who just plays with emulators instead. Playing the various Super Smash Bros games with Xbox controllers has always been interesting. 

[Diffident]

My first console was the Atari 2600.

 

I plan on going full retro by building a full size arcade cabinet.

[neurotix]

Pioneerisloud, see the joining rules. Nice collection but if you want to be added I need those abbreviated into a list with commas. Just list OS and processor for each box seperated by commas. Thank you~

 

Yes, upkeep for all these consoles and games can require a lot of work. I actually recapped the PC Engine Core Grafx fully (it was known as the TurboGrafx 16 here) as well as replacing failing caps on the motherboard of my model 1 Sega CD. A working one of those is like $400-500 on ebay last I looked. The tray loader that matches my model 1 Genesis and sits underneath it. If any other systems fail I will have to recap them as well. I have also desoldered and replaced countless save batteries in games. With everything that can go wrong, and how much space it takes up, I can totally understand why people choose to emulate.

 

I emulated stuff for years too and it wasn't really til 2010 or so that I started collecting and basically started with a NES, a Genesis and a Dreamcast (which of course has a big binder full of burned games). Back then it was much cheaper to collect and my collection grew slowly over years. I was getting good Genesis games at a place for like 75c each.

 

Also, I basically have a few rules: no more than $70 per game (exception was Chrono Trigger) and I only collect good games, I don't buy any that I'm unfamiliar with or suck. I also tried to stick to only games I played growing up either owning, renting or played at a friend's house.

 

Final Fantasy 9 eh? How did you like it? A few months ago I helped my wife clear the game on the Switch port of it including the entire Chocobo Hot and Cold sidequest. The music for that is permanently engraved in my brain. I can't comment on 10 as I hated it personally when I tried it. Played for about 10 hours and despised it, especially the voice acting.

 

I've never used one of those bluetooth controllers for emulators on a phone but modern phones can emulate stuff up to the Dreamcast excepting the Saturn. Might be worth it if you can find a quality one with decent sized buttons and dpad.

 

 

[UltraMega]

3 hours ago, neurotix said:

Final Fantasy 9 eh? How did you like it? A few months ago I helped my wife clear the game on the Switch port of it including the entire Chocobo Hot and Cold sidequest. The music for that is permanently engraved in my brain. I can't comment on 10 as I hated it personally when I tried it. Played for about 10 hours and despised it, especially the voice acting.

FF9 is probably my favorite FF game, and I really enjoyed it. I played it with the moguri mod, which is a mod that used AI to upscale all the backgrounds so it doesn't looks like a pixelated mess on a modern screen. 

 

 

 

As for FFX, I can see why anyone might find it a bit obnoxious. When I first played it I found it a somewhat obnoxious back then so I totally get that, but it was also a super impressive PS2 game at the time and even thought it was annoying at times, the character animation and detail with fully voiced acting was well above any beyond what had been seen in any other game up to that point. It stood out on a technical level, and was otherwise a very solid FF game as far as gameplay. I think it gets less obnoxious towards the end of the game and I think a lot of the annoyances could have to do with it being translated from Japanese. 

 

As far was mods, I just used a simple texture upscaling mod and that was it. 

 

If I do get a phone controller for emulators, I'll probably play Crash Bandicoot and FF7.

Edited November 16, 2022 by UltraMega

[neurotix]

On 16/11/2022 at 17:30, UltraMega said:

FF9 is probably my favorite FF game, and I really enjoyed it. I played it with the moguri mod, which is a mod that used AI to upscale all the backgrounds so it doesn't looks like a pixelated mess on a modern screen. 

 

 

 

As for FFX, I can see why anyone might find it a bit obnoxious. When I first played it I found it a somewhat obnoxious back then so I totally get that, but it was also a super impressive PS2 game at the time and even thought it was annoying at times, the character animation and detail with fully voiced acting was well above any beyond what had been seen in any other game up to that point. It stood out on a technical level, and was otherwise a very solid FF game as far as gameplay. I think it gets less obnoxious towards the end of the game and I think a lot of the annoyances could have to do with it being translated from Japanese. 

 

As far was mods, I just used a simple texture upscaling mod and that was it. 

 

If I do get a phone controller for emulators, I'll probably play Crash Bandicoot and FF7.

 

 

Wow, if only Squeenix had used something similar to upscale the backgrounds for the Switch port. I thought it was actually really well done- I was surprised that in addition to the character models being higher res with more polygons, the text boxes were all in HD. If they had used the AI upscaling on the backgrounds it would have been perfect. It's a shame how the community does so much with Square games that Square should be doing themselves but doesn't. It's really a shame they shut down that Chrono Trigger remake project, also the translation patch for Final Fantasy Type-0 on PSP (which was covertly released anyway).

 

My favorite FF game, and favorite game of all time is Final Fantasy 4- aka Final Fantasy 2 back in the day on the SNES. I have cleared FF2 US (really dumbed down version), FF4 "Hardtype", FF4 Easytype which was a Japanese rerelease of FF2 US and Zeromus looks different, FF4 Wonderswan Color with translation patch, FF4 GBA, FF4 DS (good lord that was hard) and FF4 PSP Complete Collection, though I did not do Interlude or After Years (that one was a complete 2D remake of FF4). All in all I'd say I've probably cleared FF4 easily 150 times. I replay it on a yearly basis. I'd highly recommend playing the FF4 "Hardtype" with either the bad J2E translation patch or FF4 Namingway Edition if you have not already played 4.

 

9 would be very high in my ranking and its a shame there's no other FF like it. It's easily the funniest FF, and I really liked all the stuff to collect, the Chocobo hot and cold quest (my wife loved it and thought it was cute), and the Active Time Event thing where you can see cutscenes of what your characters are doing when you split up in town. I've cleared 9 at least 10 times.

 

I am actually a very big fan, though not extremely good at, the original FF for NES. With the way the magic system works, and item system (Heal potions only and they only restore a small amount of HP), it's very much a dungeon dive game based around resource management. I love how you can pick a different party each time, and you can complete the four main dungeons out of order if you want once you get the canoe- skipping the volcano and going to the ice cave to get the FLOATER and getting the airship, then doing either the water dungeon or the air castle (granted you gotta get the SLAB from the water shrine to access the air castle). To me, FF1 has nearly endless replayability which isn't too true for the following games.

[neurotix]

Deleted.

Edited April 9, 2023 by neurotix

[UltraMega]

Do you have any suggestions on retro emulator handhelds? I've been eyeing the RG300 V3, but I guess it's out of date now. 

[neurotix]

Get a PSP 1000 (fat psp) for like $80, a memory stick pro duo or memory stick pro duo to sd card adapter and a 16gb sd card, softmod it.

 

I can help you with this in pms if you want. The psp is amazing for emulation and relatively cheap. It has emulators for every major console, and it even emulates nearly every handheld that came before it. It even emulates the GBA full speed. It does the Neo Geo Pocket Color and Wonderswan as well. About the only system it chokes on or can't do full speed is the SNES which will run at around 90% speed.

 

It even has emulators that run full speed for Neo Geo, Cps1 and cps2 arcade boards, though for CPS2 you need a PSP 2000 or greater because CPS2 requires 64MB of RAM (the fat psp 1000 has 32MB, subsequent models have 64MB.

[Avacado]

I had an Atari Lynx way back in the day. I was obsessed with rampart. I remember feeling so special that it was the first handheld with a color LCD. 

 

Atari Lynx - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Avacado

[neurotix]

3 hours ago, Avacado said:

I had an Atari Lynx way back in the day. I was obsessed with rampart. I remember feeling so special that it was the first handheld with a color LCD. 

 

Atari Lynx - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

 

There's a Lynx emulator for PSP as well.

 

Never played the Lynx or really got into it, but maybe I'll check out Rampart as I'm unfamiliar with it.

[Avacado]

10 minutes ago, neurotix said:

 

There's a Lynx emulator for PSP as well.

 

Never played the Lynx or really got into it, but maybe I'll check out Rampart as I'm unfamiliar with it.

It's the grandfather to modern tower defense games. 

[neurotix]

22 hours ago, Avacado said:

It's the grandfather to modern tower defense games. 

Ah, kinda like how Herzog Zwei is for RTS, then.

 

I'm not really into or familiar with tower defense games so it might not be my thing.

[neurotix]

@pioneerisloud added you to the club

[pio]

On 21/11/2022 at 09:06, neurotix said:

@pioneerisloud added you to the club

Sweet.

I"m actually super stoked to be able to play on them soon, should have the old ones done around new years.

 

Once I get things rolling, I might have to bug people for title names to look out for.  I do have my old Win98 gaming collection luckily, but I know there's a ton of old games I missed out on being a child and all back then.

[Sir Beregond]

On 15/11/2022 at 05:56, ENTERPRISE said:

That's a sweet load of retro. I myself no longer have anything retro, well I have a PS3 and that is about it. However the consoles I have owned are.....

 

PlayStation - Main games were Metal Gear Solid and the Resident Evil series. 

 

PlayStation 2 - Again I was only really an avid Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil follower.  

 

PlayStation 3 - Meta Gear Solid 4

 

DreamCast - Sonic Adventures & Resident Evil remakes. 

 

Game Cube - Metroid Prime, Resident Evil Zero & Metal Gear Solid remake. 

 

XBOX - Halo's & Midtown Madness 

 

XBOX 360 - Only got this to continue Halo series. 

 

As you can see, I only got consoles to follow specific games series. All the while I was playing other games on PC.

I still have a PS2. My favorites on there were the Jak and Dexter series, and the PS2 era James Bond games.