Recent Posts

The links to the software and command line script are about half way down the product page: https://thunderstickstudio.com/products/tos-grs-4-to-8-way-restrictor-all-in-one-kit

tos428cl is the command line version you'd wan to use in a batch file:https://thunderjoystick.com/products/GRS-TOS/tos428cl_setup.zip

A word of caution... I am almost positive that the tos428cl application (required to control the switching via commands etc) is a 64bit app.   Normally not a problem but many of us like myself have very light builds based on 32 bit OS like Windows  XP.     It won't run on any of my XP builds unfortunately. 

This is an easy fix if Stefan can compile a 32 bit version.  I have been in touch but so far I don't have a definitive answer if this is actually the problem, or if there could be a fix for us with older systems.

And yes I can confirm that you can't switch directly restrictors 2,3,4.  Only number 1.   Seems like a software bug.  I tested thoroughly on my Win 7 desktop.

It's an amazing hardware and Stefan is incredibly talented putting together such quality and top notch products- I'm very impressed.  Seems the software needs some tweaking and I'll be in heaven.

Great posts these last few.
Sounds like excellent news actually- and that is a great pint glass.
Good on you flushing the system.

The Mystic Defender blurb made me chuckle out loud, which I needed, so thank you!
 

So, I sorted my rather large box of old pcbs into SEGA and everything else.  I’m actually very low on non-saving Genesis games, but I do have a few of these cartridges that split roms in half onto smaller chips to save money manufacturing.



That one on the right was formerly Joe Montana Sports Talk Football, a 1MB game split onto two 512kB chips,

I thought I would get away with just removing the bottom chip and putting Last Battle (512kB chip) on there.

Thus far I cannot get it to boot.



I subsequently pried off the mapper chip and the top rom.  They came off completely clean and left clear holes.  I’m starting to wonder about all that time I spent hunched over smoldering hog lard.

Anyway, no change.  I suspect one of the ROM lines is routed weird… like chip enable or something.  Two hours (and counting!)  spent on this in order to save $2 on a repro board.  No regrets.  I’ll chunk it in my “remove this eprom some day” pile.

But I did get Mystic Defender and Twinkle Tale going.  The price of a legit Twinkle Tale will curl your toes ($400ish).  I actually owned Mystic Defender back in the day.  The only person that did.  Level 4 is ---fracking--- impossible.  It’s so hard the attract mode is literally showing you how to beat it.  Still impossible.  I cannot crack this game even with Game Genie codes as they don’t work on the lava in level 4.  I spent a long time in code generator generator mode in the Fusion emulator and couldn’t come up with anything that worked.  Fun graphics glitches, tho!



Anyway, more to come….


 

What a difference two months makes…

So, every morning I wake up and slam three heaping tablespoons of this now.  I like to use a brewery glass because it helps me pretend I’m fun.



The good news is I’m not dying of colon cancer.  Frankly that’s surprising news as the symptoms and family history weren’t great.  Those of you unfortunate enough to receive texts from me have heard all about this already but 2022 was a damned spooky year. 

Also, do not eat jerky labelled INFERNO from a man with a tattoo on his ass of the grim reaper eating a Carolina reaper pepper.  I thought I was going to end up in the ER.  My specialist got a good laugh out of that anecdote.

But all that aside, I’ve truly felt the best lately that I have in months.  So that’s great.

Other big change was I couldn’t take the old gig anymore, tossed my resume out there, and was scooped quickly.  It’s fully remote, which is very weird, and I’ve lost access to that sweet, sweet color laser printer I pulled out of a junk pile at the last job.

Okay, here we go.  I got some HP inkjet with “unlimited automatic ink refills” for 15 months for $75 all in.  The ink smudges if it gets damp, as can be seen on my text on this label where I licked my thumb and rubbed my sizing notes to simulate spilling beer on a game at 2am.  So I broke out some duck tape and water based acrylic clearcoat.  I haven’t yet resigned myself to sanding mailing labels, so I got a leathery texture.  I gave them four coats.



This forum chews posts so I’ll respond to myself to continue…

[G-Lix] Update 02
---------------------------


Made a G-Lix Logo based on the Vewlix one – might not be final but I like it
Will put this at some point on the Arcade



Monitor Resolution: 2560x1440
Marquee Resolution: 1920x360
2560 / 1920 = 1.3333 ratio difference

So If I want any content to have the same size on both screens when looking at it – Anything I create in 2560x1440 would need to be downscaled by 75% (100/1.3333=75)



 

Confirmed that 10.9.2 fixes the Crosshair issue in Rabbids. Works perfectly now. Thanks for making the update.

Even if I do regret making things for  Dolphin (way to complicated to debug, and I don't use it at all myself in the end)
Here are few steps that can help for diagnostic
1 - follow this : https://github.com/argonlefou/DemulShooter/wiki/Debugging
Do not use scripts, check admin rights and get a debug file, this may rule out any obvious thing

2- is Demulshooter hooking ? Does the icon stays red or become green ?

Next is the part related to dolphin config....we'll come to that later if needed

I attached the Debug from Demulshooter. I have the green "H" and Crosshairs in the systray. I hope I did this correctly. Thanks.

Hi 10Yard,

I tried out your front-end on a different PC and it works just fine, so something about it doesn't like my gateway 7811 FX from I think 2009 that is still running strong... well, still running.   Its running Windows 10.... but for whatever reason, no go. 
 

How would you add all the consoles ?    If you added console versions would they show up on the mainscreen ?   (Also Wondering if I could use DKafe to launch some of the other 4 way classics, pacman, frogger, but not ruin the look of the front end...etc..    that DK game on the game boy is really fun, but just recalled it needs two buttons so I won't be able to use that one in the arcade cabinet) 

It really is great, I played the first 3 cabinets, love that there are goals that unlock coins.... and then when all the coins came tumbling down.... just awesome!

Stuff

you are confusing

input lag

and

display lag

input lag is the time it takes for your button press to be turned into an action on the screen

display lag is the time it takes for a display device to receive an updated frame and change the pixels on that device to that updated frame...

input lag is determined by how fast the button is polled for its state (open or closed), and how that information is coded (if need be) and how it's sent to the computing device for processing. for a usb device that means polling the buttons...building a packet with switch data on it and sending it over the USB chip to the computer USB host chip where it makes its way through other various chips and their associated buses before it gets to a CPU place where it can be decoded and used to control the program. this all takes time.

display lag is determined by how long it takes for a display device to receive frame data and to render that frame on the output device...

an LCD has to receive a whole frame in it's buffer before it changes the entire LCD to reflect that data. commonly called "panel updates" or "whole frame updates" there may be some processing that needs to happen to the frame to make it fit or to find the closest pixels to turn on or off or partially turn on... that takes time. all this is independent of the time it takes for LCD itself to actually CHANGE the pixels and the orientation of the LCD crystals... don't believe the 1ms claims on the box... those numbers are gray-gray measurements... a color-black or black-color pixel change can be much more and the whole process can delay the frame by 20ms easily.

a CRT renders frames as they are being sent to the monitor pixel by pixel, line by line as they come. there is virtually no input lag because the beam is being controlled directly by the data coming in, as it happens. we don't have to process it at all.

of course, all of this is going to depend on how things are controlled, how they are connected...how they are processed. emulation isn't perfect and is introducing its own kind of "lag" and nothing beats dedicated hardware for reducing input to display times...(this is why speedrunners run original hardware on CRT screens if at all possible) and there is always some lag everywhere. even if it's microseconds here and there, but it's getting better and better as computers improve.

honestly, very few people benefit from CRT when it comes to "lag" and most people don't notice a couple MS here or there with using USB encoders