The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

Recovering after my neck surgery, I am spending a lot of time at home and cannot do a great deal, so, I have brought myself a 12tb Hyperspin hard drive.

I have set it up fine and my mini PC has more than sufficient specs to run it. However, on the GameCube games, they load up but no font is shown on the games. 
 

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?

[FLips]

21 minutes ago, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

Recovering after my neck surgery, I am spending a lot of time at home and cannot do a great deal, so, I have brought myself a 12tb Hyperspin hard drive.

I have set it up fine and my mini PC has more than sufficient specs to run it. However, on the GameCube games, they load up but no font is shown on the games. 
 

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?

Apparently has to do with missing some of the emulator's core assets. Are you using Dolphin?

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

5 hours ago, FLips said:

Apparently has to do with missing some of the emulator's core assets. Are you using Dolphin?

 Yeah, using Dolphin as the emulator 

[FLips]

43 minutes ago, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

 Yeah, using Dolphin as the emulator 

Try in the settings, Graphics - Hacks - Safe Texture Cache.

If it’s for a specific game trying looking up that particular one to see if it’s more specific game to game.

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

Try in the settings, Graphics - Hacks - Safe Texture Cache.

If it’s for a specific game trying looking up that particular one to see if it’s more specific game to game.

Thanks, I shall give it a go.

I have tried a few games, Star Wars, Wrestlemania, Starfox Adventures, Mario Sunshine and they have all displayed no text 

If your suggestion doesn’t work, I am tempted to download a newer version of the Dolphin emulator and place that on the hard drive as the one installed is a very early version

 

Edited May 25, 2025 by Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz

[FLips]

36 minutes ago, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

Thanks, I shall give it a go.

I have tried a few games, Star Wars, Wrestlemania, Starfox Adventures, Mario Sunshine and they have all displayed no text 

If your suggestion doesn’t work, I am tempted to download a newer version of the Dolphin emulator and place that on the hard drive as the one installed is a very early version

 

Oh it’s very likely that then.

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

9 hours ago, FLips said:

Oh it’s very likely that then.

Sorted it, thank you 

I had to change it to Direct 3D and then do the safe texture cache…  It made a little more difficult that the text was all in Japanese in the settings but good old Google translate came through for me. 

Going to go through all the other emulator settings today whilst I am at it, as I suspect I might have issues with some of the other higher end consoles

 

[Merzbow]

Is it running Dolphin through Retroarch? I'd always recommend the standalone emulator over that but glad you got it fixed!

I've started the GOG version of the OG Resident Evil and I forgot just how bad the voice acting was back then, I don't think enough is said about the almost generational jump the second and third games took over this. I still love it for it's quirky ways and how it almost singlehandedly kicked off a genre but there's a reason the GameCube port is pushed by Capcom as the main entry point to the story.

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

1 hour ago, Merzbow said:

Is it running Dolphin through Retroarch? I'd always recommend the standalone emulator over that but glad you got it fixed!

I've started the GOG version of the OG Resident Evil and I forgot just how bad the voice acting was back then, I don't think enough is said about the almost generational jump the second and third games took over this. I still love it for its quirky ways and how it almost singlehandedly kicked off a genre but there's a reason the GameCube port is pushed by Capcom as the main entry point to the story.

It is one of the Kinhank drives, which has multiple emulators on which runs through Hyperspin. I know last night I was messing around with them and found a file called Dolphin Triforce, thinking that would be the one, changed the settings but didn’t work and still no text was displayed in the games. I went back into the settings and found the Dolphin emulator tucked in under the GameCube and Wii section, made the changes in there and worked fine.

I am glad I did some research on the drives before purchasing as they are advertised as plug and play but most feedback I saw before purchasing said that it really isn’t the case especially for anything after the 16 bit systems, so I was expecting some work to do on it.

Whilst I am no expert on computers I do have reasonable knowledge but, I can imagine a few people buying these drives and then having immediate remorse.

I played Resident Evil 1 on my Series X last year (think that uses the GameCube version) I enjoyed it, certainly far more than when I attempted to play the OG on my PS1 as it had aged really badly with the voice acting and the load screens

 

[Jazzy G]

I've got my Wii U set up at Vicky's as hers doesn't work. There's this port of a Namco arcade game called Tank! Tank! Tank! That we've been playing. It's simple enough. Got some Earth Defence Force vibes with your shooting at alien insects. It stinks of coin-grabber though as some of the boss stages have some very cheap mechanics, like the boss disappearing underneath the sea on the level for 40 seconds of the final minute of a stage, rendering it virtually impossible to beat it in the remaining 20 seconds, but it's harmless enough fun. We've unlocked a tank called the Munter. 

[FLips]

Heading out today and hoping to pick up a few bits for the NES, maybe SNES. I've done a bit more digging and while I've been sticking to PAL-A, GBR and UKV NES games, it looks like I can maybe get away with PAL-B due to me destroying the region lock chip in my NES. I've avoided them so far, but apparently some have EAI on the back which are runs of PAL B games that were actually made for England/Australia/Italy machines. Failing that they still run at 50hz and so as long as they're not in the French language I can play them fine.
Might make it easier to pick up the likes of Zelda and Metroid which seem to only be PAL-B around here. We'll see.

In the meantime I've been playing a few retro bits.

My office has one of those Midway Arcade cabinets so I've got pretty good at Tapper and Toobin' on them. The dual-stick controls on Tapper are especially fun to play. Toobin' uses the buttons to paddle with seperate hands which is also a blast. Sadly due to what I imagine is just poor manufacturing because it's essentially a licensed emulation cabinet, Paperboy is almost unplayable due to overly sensitive controls making you ride a million miles an hour or crawl with no inbetween.

I've also been playing a bunch of Mortal Kombat on it. It has the first 3 but I've been putting my time into playing Kano in the original. Was bragging to my team that I learned (Googled) how to tear hearts out on it. I don't think they cared.
Fun game but the AI, across all three and Mortal Kombat Trilogy on my PS1 is brutal. Never seen a game input read so much. Even on the easiest difficulties it's three fights in and the AI counters everything and starts whacking out the combos on you. 

Other than those me and my mate stuck Duke Nukem: Time To Kill on and got surprisingly hooked on it. We both played it growing up but the same way we'd only really play Lara's Mansion to find funny ways to kill her on Tomb Raider, we only really played Duke Nukem with all the cheats on.
Playing through it properly and it's actually really good for the time if you can get over the tank controls. Decent shooting, encourages exploring the levels, some tricky puzzles. We're about 1/2 of the way through and we aim to complete it.

[Merzbow]

12 minutes ago, FLips said:

Fun game but the AI, across all three and Mortal Kombat Trilogy on my PS1 is brutal. Never seen a game input read so much. Even on the easiest difficulties it's three fights in and the AI counters everything and starts whacking out the combos on you. 

Probably the most infamous coin munching fighters from that era, but it's wild they they kept that AI in a console only game like Trilogy too (still my fave MK as it was the one i played most at home). It's like I've been playing the MvC collection and I don't remember the home versions ever being as hard as these arcade ports they have on there, even crazy input reading on the first opponent.

Edited May 31, 2025 by Merzbow

[Version1.0]

I've been trying to play a PS3 game a week as I have hundreds of them.

Blur is great. Realistic cars with powerups like Mario Kart. 

Progression is mostly fun, except for really specific objectives needed to face each boss. I'm glad that mechanic seems to have vanished. 

Might give Lord of the Ring's Aragorn's Quest a go next. I know it's a 6/10 game but I love Lord of the Rings.

[Jazzy G]

Apparently all the AI characters in the arcade MK games have an exploit and are beaten using patterns, to the point that there are speedruns for some of them.

[FLips]

What an amazing stroke of luck I’ve had today. 
Went to Newcastle for the day, mostly for food but popped into a couple of retro shops on the way.

Got Mortal Kombat for the SNES for £8 and Another World for the SNES for £10. No idea if those are amazing prices but they’re not awful ones and I’ll play both the games.

One of the CEXs has The Legend of Zelda on the NES but it’s £70 and half the gold coating is scuffed off so I gave it a wide berth.
The other CEX though, and the main reason I went in the first place, had Kirby’s Adventure for £40 cartridge only according to their website, which is £20 less than the cheapest Buy it Now Ebay price so quite the steal for a classic game.

Got there and it’s nowhere to be seen, so I ask the guy and he ends up digging through the drawers. Finds it in a bag but it’s not cartridge only, it’s complete in box. 
I ask him and he tells me “it’s probably cos the box is beat up so we class it as cart only”.

He scans it through, I pay the £40. Look at it.

Probably the best condition NES game I own now. My only other boxed games are Shadow Warriors, Bart vs The Space Mutants and Gauntlet 2 and they’re all way worse condition than this. It even has the original Nintendo seal on the top!

No idea how they’ve graded it but if I wanted it boxed and complete off them it should be £100 so I’ve saved £60 on it. Never gonna get a deal like this again.