Sunday 7 December 2014

Having fun on the iPhone 6 plus...

I made a trailer for inviting people over for game nights in the game room. The software I used was packaged with the phone and it did quite a nice job for a cut and paste affair.


I am not sure whether the theme seems inviting enough as there were only a limited number of themes available on the software.

Thursday 4 December 2014

Alien Storm versus Alien vs Predator, SEGA vs Capcom, 10+ years in the making.

Recently I picked up an Alien vs Predator CPS2 board and that made me wanted to make a video comparison of both that game and Alien Storm. Both of which has a little or a lot of Aliens franchise influence, though some can argue that Alien Storm has even got Ghostbusters elements too! Enjoy the video.


 The kit I got  has some artwork, an original maual, some looms as well as the A and B board.


This is the board plugged into my vertical cabinet. And the moment of truth...


Yes, gamble paid off..






Wednesday 3 December 2014

Video of the Game Room in action!

Just finished uploading the video, enjoy~

and a special bonus..some DDR action on the PSONE

Game Room 2014-2015

Had a progressive change in the game room to include a setup for HD consoles and SD consoles and this was the result.




 Two of the broadcast/reference monitors are controlled by switch boxes. The switch boxes are outputting EURO SCART to the monitors. I also plugged in SVHS and god forbid Composite video just in case. But the boxes allow me to plug more consoles in and better cable management.






This is my horizontal display setup. The picture quality is amazing for a 20+ year old 21" set. Golden axe shown here is emulated on the xbox with coinops.

Next I have SONY PVM set in the vertical position to accomodate vertical orientated games. Most of the vintage arcade games play in this orientation so I can use it for those as well as a huge library of vertical shooter/action games.







The image is pins sharp as per SONY standards and I could not be happier.

 I kept my video scalers on standy should I need to display SD signals on a HD set. I plan to delay that day as long as possible.


 Right opposite the SD setup I have my HD setup. I defined all consoles which output a resolution higher than that of standard VGA to be HD. The top two monitors are standard 4:3 LCD panels, one is set to a horizontal orientation while the other is vertical, again to accommodate games which use that orientation.
The main screen on the front is a SONY commercial monitor built for long hours of use and maximum contrast. I have that running in 1080p through HDMI.

 Like most broadcast standards, there is always the in between adoption. Such as the move from interlace video to progressive and 4:3 to 16:9 display. This is where this stand comes along.
The only console I missed connecting to this setup is the Nintendo Wii but I do not have enough room to do the motion control properly...well, that is the excuse I use anyway.
 


 
 A bar fridge is always handy too.
 Some pictures of the resident arcade machines.


 And a window to experience and appreciate some true to life graphics at 60 frames per second.










Monday 24 November 2014

SEGA Saturn Action Replay Plus Cart flash success!

Upon receiving the cartridges from Play-Asia.com (best price as of post) I proceeded to burn some CD-R for the flashing process. I followed the guide by the previous youtube video link to burn the CD-R and it was relatively quick and easy.


The safest way to flash the cartridges is to use a Saturn that can read backup games, such as modchipped Saturns. The alternative way is to use timed disk swaps while the machine is booting up, personally I leave disk swapping to club DJs. So I used my modchipped Saturn to flash the cartridge.
Relatively painless and the process takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Everything is navigated by the joypad and important steps involve multiple button presses to ensure the user do not stuff the process up. 
Upon booting a CD-R, the Saturn will cycle through the boot up screen, the SEGA splash screen, then it will go to a specific code screen where it will detect the Saturn game and allow the user to boot it up manually.
The game I decided to use also utilises the RAM expansion, has the ability to detect a cheat cart (hence blocking the boot-up) and was a foreign region game (as SEGA region locks consoles) and that game is...
I am happy to report all is well EXCEPT the pseudo saturn does not allow the NTSC signal to pass through, instead it uses the consoles' native video output.So PAL consoles will only output PAL etc.
Some more games I tried:

This was truly an aweful game. And finally I played a bit of Capcoms excellent Warrior of Fate 2 original NTSC-J disk. 


Overall I rate the mod to be relevant as there are some games I manage to boot up that would not do so on my modchipped machine.

Sunday 23 November 2014

Happy Birthday SEGA Saturn!

I decided to celebrate my favourite console by hooking it up to its company's flagship arcade cabinet.


And I realised that it was the first time I connected a SEGA Saturn to an arcade cabinet! It was quite an impressive sight as the console's video output matches the cabinets display. All this was made possible with Viletim's SCART to JAMMA adapter (available here Viletims SCART to JAMMA ) with a PlayStation1/2 controller module and also a PlayStation to Saturn controller adapter which is no longer made.



It was a good night.