How do you feel about today's consoles compared to the Genesis?

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

It really depends on your set-up... Some games run fine on some XP machines but not at all on others. Usually the ones that don't work also wont work with VDMSound (at least if the problem is related to XMS drivers -which is a problem with XWing and Wing Commander) Win2k is better about that though.
I think the DOS version of Half Life won't run in XP either.

There are a variety of later DOS and some win9x games which don't work in XP, though some have gotten patched (though often not patching properly in visa/7 32-bit, but probably working if you copied the patched game folder from an XP machine -or even just the driver folder -which is usually the issue)

It's a craps shoot which games will work on newer OSs. Star Wars dark forces for instance.

I can run Quake at close to 60 fps in 800x600 in dosbox on my 2 GHz Turion laptop. That's the DOS version, of course. (so unfiltered 256 color rendering)
I think quake 2 still works in vista/7 (32-bit). Pretty much anything which runs unpatched in XP runs fine in Vista too. (with some DOS applications being a major exception -though there is some minimal DOS shell support still provided in 32-bit vista -that's how I'm using my qbasic interpreter ;), XP as better though, and Vista is totally incompatible with VDMsound and similar virtual machines)




Hmm, I'd say if you include the broad "first person shooter" genre, that would include cockpit perspective space shooters too. ;) Indeed, some refer to such as "fist person space shooters" and the term is apt.
It's interesting to note comments on the rise of conventional FPSs leading to the decline of such space/flight combat games due to a draw of some of many key consumers (action gamers) of that genre.

FPSs have been around for a LONG time, since the late 80s at least (including 1 or 2 obscure polygon based ones), but it wasn't until Wolf3D that the genre started toreally popularize, and not until after Doom, when graphics were such that space shooters no longer had a visual advantage over on foot FPSs that the interest really shifted.

Again, I can't complain too much, at least now, when I've still got tons of the greatest PC space shooter I've yet to play. (WC III, IV, Prophecy, Frespace /FS2, etc) After I get through those I might have something to whine about though, as I do with any such sim which originally had a strong multiplayer base which is now nolonger supported. (some fan servers in a few cases, like X-wing alliance)

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Lol... why in the world would you want to play a DOS version of Half Life?
Seriously? Heck, I didn't even know there was a DOS version. ;) You're way more 'oldschool' than me. :)

Yeah, I'm not surprised... DOS games need Dosbox to reliably run on XP or >.
No news there.


No offense, but I don't understand why you're playing that garbage... why not play the GL version of Quake in XP in whatever Resolution you want?

I play it in 1280x1024 w/4xAA and V-Sync and it looks amazing and (lol) it runs at who knows what... steady 30-60, anything at 30+ fps on a Monitor at 60hz w/V-Sync = butter. There's no excuse to not play Quake 1/2 on XP or > imo.


I'm sorry but that doesn't work imo. Those are simply called Simulators.

Interesting, that's the first time I've heard that before... I've been playing Sims longer than I have FPSs and I love both genres equally.


Honestly, I've never heard this before.


That's interesting, I've got that one installed.. only tested it for about 20 mins... wasn't too happy that I had to bring it down to 1024x768 to get stable framerates. Something about it doesn't like XP or my 88GT or my Q6600... ??... or it could simply be the driver set I'm on. I loved X-Wing and Tie-Fighter so I was hoping that this Alliance game would be more of the same. I wonder if I'll ever get around to playing it, lol.

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Originally Posted by OldSchool

Lol... why in the world would you want to play a DOS version of Half Life?
Seriously? Heck, I didn't even know there was a DOS version. ;) You're way more 'oldschool' than me. :)

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Nah, I got mixed up... it's all windows, for some reason I was thinking I used to see a command window pop up while launching in win 95. ;)

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Yeah, I'm not surprised... DOS games need Dosbox to reliably run on XP or >.
No news there.

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Simple Virtual machines are supposed to work, but for some reason VDMSound didn't work properly for several games on any of our AthlonXP/Semperon based XP machines. It's odd that many of those same games are quoted as natively running in XP without sound on some machines too. (like Xwing)

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No offense, but I don't understand why you're playing that garbage... why not play the GL version of Quake in XP in whatever Resolution you want?

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Nah, just for fun, that was only with the shareware release too. ;) I think we've got a copy of the Win9x release on CD somewhere, I know we do for Quake 2. (that got a lot more play) I don't really care much for quake though, I like Doom for other reasons as it has a different feel than a lot of later FPSs. If I got into it, I'd be sure to play one of the other versions, I just haven't gotten into it.

I did find it interesting that the DOS version of quake supported some very high resolutions for the time (1440x900 -native res of my laptop). I think the original Duke Nukem supported up to 1280x1024 even!

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I'm sorry but that doesn't work imo. Those are simply called Simulators.

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Heh, yeah.
Similarly, Shooter fans sometimes get angry about the term becoming misused in general and annoyed at having to use "shmup" instead to differentiate from run and gun type games. (the term rail shooter also got blurred between "on rails" light gun type games, and craft based shooters)

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Interesting, that's the first time I've heard that before... I've been playing Sims longer than I have FPSs and I love both genres equally.

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I can't remember when I first read that, but I think it was some hitstory article on the flight sim genre (might be somewhere on wiki too).

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That's interesting, I've got that one installed.. only tested it for about 20 mins... wasn't too happy that I had to bring it down to 1024x768 to get stable framerates. Something about it doesn't like XP or my 88GT or my Q6600... ??... or it could simply be the driver set I'm on. I loved X-Wing and Tie-Fighter so I was hoping that this Alliance game would be more of the same. I wonder if I'll ever get around to playing it, lol.

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Hmm, I though 1024x768 was the maximum resolution that game supported. (didn't matter for me since that was my monitor's native resolution)

My old Athlon XP 1600+ Radeon 9600 machine ran it at maximum settings with no lag in 1024x768, though it started chugging with lots of ships onscreen after I installed darksaber's craftpack mod. (much higher detail models) Runs fine on my laptop though.
Good game, different than the previous ones though, but I liked it. The final level's a bit buggy though.
XvT with Balance of Power campaign is sometimes considered the best in the series. (Tie Fighter being the contender)

Never managed to get those server to work though, something with the way our home network is st-up I think.

OK, here's wiki's mention of the "decline" of space sims: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_f...r_game#Decline

(Wow it's kinda sad this is my first log on to the sight prior to starting grad school. I really miss hanging around here)

I will never be a part of whatever the current generation of gaming is. For me, staying current with modern consoles died somewhere at the time I was in highschool when the PS1 and N64 were the most modern. I have other things I need to spend money on then new video games.

I went from about 1997-2007 without playing any video games(maybe a few computer games). I got back into Genesis, SNES, and NES in 2007 and I really enjoy all three of those consoles, be it playing games I once owned, games I once wanted to own, or games I never played in the first place.

Summer of 2009 I bought a ps2 because I could finally afford one. I got into it for about 3 months, GTA was all I played. I realized I could not play modern style games without devoting a good hour of my time. First for loading times, cut scenes, and then actual playing. When it came to sports games on the ps2 Ifelt like I need coaching experience and real playing experience to understand the game. I just don't want to devot the time to this. I'm in grad school, I play guitar, I work, I can't afford that time anymore. In the time it took to figure out the basics of NFL2k5 I had probably mastered Madden '94.

I almost view SNES and Genesis as one now 16-bit gaming vs. modern consoles.

I see the situation similar than you. I also stopped console gaming on 97 and continued playing with pc and mainly half life with it's team fortress classic mod which is absolutely classic mutliplayer game. Since few years back, i saw one megadrive2 in fleemarket I remebered the glory of Mega Drive. Now I own nearly every hardware of Megadrive: 1, 2, cd, cd2, multimega, 32x, 7*6button controllers, ea mutliplayer, sega multiplayer, 6 button arcade sticks, menacer and I only miss anymore 6 button IR controllers. To include this I own about 200 mega drive games, looking now different region only games. To me my situation were poor. We could not buy more than 3 games for my mega drive when I was young, always I had to change my older games to get new games cheaper. Now I must own all the games I wanted in my childhood. I also agree with that mega drive hardware is very common electronics and easy to mod. This gives even more for the console. The modding scene just makes the mega drive even more brighter star. Only xbox is same level for me, altho I dont play it's games, but I run XBMC in it and play all the kid cartoons from xbox to tv.

Mega Drive is the best video game system in my opinion for these reasons:

1. Durability, well condensators can dry out but it is easy to replace them.
2. Carts, they last forever... Only batteries need to change to get savings working again.
3. 2-4hours game time. In evening I can take some game from MD library, play it trough and close the console in same nite. No need of 7 days hardcore gaming.
4. It is a true arcade console, it dont try to be PC, like modern ones.
5. Disney games, I can give these games to my childrens childs when I am granpa.
6. The happy feeling when playing. This was discovered with my friend, we had a lot of fun to play multiplayers with mega drive. Modern consoles dont give you the fun factor. We absolutely fight together vs cpu in bomberman one level like 2 hours to able to win 5 times cpu in the level. It was hard as hell but when we did it we yeld so much and laught and felt satisfied that no modern game can give you this kind of emotions.

Not to forget, how exiting I am when the new Megadrive RPG Pier Solar is almoust complete and I have ordered 5 units. I just cant wait this game, even tho big corps publishes mega hits like in every month for modern consoles. The reason why these shitty modern games are prdouced are actually the now day kids. They love their xbox360 and ps3 and they want all the exiting games into them, just like I wanted all the games for my sega when I was a kid. They just dont understand the technology bad sides. Also if you dont give sega or nintendo as first machine to youre kid, the kid wont learn anything of the history, then they just think then that gfx is all that matters and the game development is skrewed in the future even more.

Stay true to yourself. GFX dont matter, the game does.

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Originally Posted by MEGADRIVE Jeroi

I see the situation similar than you. I also stopped console gaming on 97 and continued playing with pc and mainly half life with it's team fortress classic mod which is absolutely classic mutliplayer game. Since few years back, i saw one megadrive2 in fleemarket I remebered the glory of Mega Drive. Now I own nearly every hardware of Megadrive: 1, 2, cd, cd2, multimega, 32x, 7*6button controllers, ea mutliplayer, sega multiplayer, 6 button arcade sticks, menacer and I only miss anymore 6 button IR controllers. To include this I own about 200 mega drive games, looking now different region only games. To me my situation were poor. We could not buy more than 3 games for my mega drive when I was young, always I had to change my older games to get new games cheaper. Now I must own all the games I wanted in my childhood. I also agree with that mega drive hardware is very common electronics and easy to mod. This gives even more for the console. The modding scene just makes the mega drive even more brighter star. Only xbox is same level for me, altho I dont play it's games, but I run XBMC in it and play all the kid cartoons from xbox to tv.

Mega Drive is the best video game system in my opinion for these reasons:

1. Durability, well condensators can dry out but it is easy to replace them.
2. Carts, they last forever... Only batteries need to change to get savings working again.
3. 2-4hours game time. In evening I can take some game from MD library, play it trough and close the console in same nite. No need of 7 days hardcore gaming.
4. It is a true arcade console, it dont try to be PC, like modern ones.
5. Disney games, I can give these games to my childrens childs when I am granpa.
6. The happy feeling when playing. This was discovered with my friend, we had a lot of fun to play multiplayers with mega drive. Modern consoles dont give you the fun factor. We absolutely fight together vs cpu in bomberman one level like 2 hours to able to win 5 times cpu in the level. It was hard as hell but when we did it we yeld so much and laught and felt satisfied that no modern game can give you this kind of emotions.

Not to forget, how exiting I am when the new Megadrive RPG Pier Solar is almoust complete and I have ordered 5 units. I just cant wait this game, even tho big corps publishes mega hits like in every month for modern consoles. The reason why these shitty modern games are prdouced are actually the now day kids. They love their xbox360 and ps3 and they want all the exiting games into them, just like I wanted all the games for my sega when I was a kid. They just dont understand the technology bad sides. Also if you dont give sega or nintendo as first machine to youre kid, the kid wont learn anything of the history, then they just think then that gfx is all that matters and the game development is skrewed in the future even more.

Stay true to yourself. GFX dont matter, the game does.

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I LOVE that point! :D

.5?????
Forcing kids to play our games today is hard. Wait ten years an they simply gonna kill you for trying things like that.

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Originally Posted by Donar

.5?????
Forcing kids to play our games today is hard. Wait ten years an they simply gonna kill you for trying things like that.

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That's a gross generization, little kids tend to like simple games and as long as they have no other basis to go on, the graphics are fine. Only problem is that the Genesis controller (even the 6 button which is barely any smaller) tend to be pretty big for little kids compared to NES/SNES/SMS controllers. The simpler controls would also be preferable...

I brought by Genesis over to a friends house and set it up on a second TV while he was playing on the 360 and his little brother (3 years old?) came over to me and wanted to play Sonic 2. ;) (though the controller was really too big for him)

It's not comparable to Atari 2600. Not at all.


And no one said you should "force them". That's a bad idea in general anyway.

My little 3 year old niece likes to play Sonic 2 on my Genesis, though the controller is a little big. However, a SMS controller or an Atari 2600 controller can be used for it and any other one button game just fine.

I can't stand modern games maybe they are to advanced for me or something. The only reason for me to own a new console is sports games which is a must for me. But even Madden has been a joke on the new gen consoles I hope the PS2 wasn't Madden's peak but it very well could be with the garbage they are releasing right now.

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Originally Posted by Donar

.5?????
Forcing kids to play our games today is hard. Wait ten years an they simply gonna kill you for trying things like that.

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I don't have to force the kids, they usually see the bright colorful graphics and want to see what's going on. Compare this to most modern games where the main colors are brown and more brown, and you can see why they are attracted to the Genesis and it's games.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

It's not comparable to Atari 2600. Not at all.

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True, but simple, arcade style Atari games can be fun for little kids too... (and the joystick can be more friendly in some cases)

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And no one said you should "force them". That's a bad idea in general anyway.

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:lol: Yeah, use reverse psychology instead. :p

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Originally Posted by Elliotw2

My little 3 year old niece likes to play Sonic 2 on my Genesis, though the controller is a little big. However, a SMS controller or an Atari 2600 controller can be used for it and any other one button game just fine.

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Yep, though you won't be able to pause... (I sometimes use a VCS stick for 2nd player tails just for fun :))

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Yep, though you won't be able to pause... (I sometimes use a VCS stick for 2nd player tails just for fun :))

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Should be able to pause with an SMS pad. The first button is mapped to A+B and the second is C+Start IIRC.

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Originally Posted by crazyteknohed

Should be able to pause with an SMS pad. The first button is mapped to A+B and the second is C+Start IIRC.

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There's no select line or logic to support it... (the Genesis controller input is basically a 6-bit parallel interface with a select line and simple logic chip to interleave 2 6-bit banks, the 3-button controller only makes use of 2 added inputs though, the 6-button used more -I think all 6 including mode) But regardless, button 1 is A and button 2 is B, button 2/B is the Atari fire button.