New white AtGames handheld - better?

[POLYGAMe]

I have the previous "Street Fighter" version. Blue console marketed by BLAZE in PAL regions. Is the new version better? Particularly interested in sound quality. I believe the screen is bigger...

[SEGA-Jorge]

I think it might be the same. The quality of emulation seems identical. I think it's just the game selection. I have one and use it frequently, although, in haven't gotten other roms on it yet.

[marlowe221]

On a semi-related note, does anyone know if you can load SMS roms on this device and play them?

I know that they released a SMS handheld with a very limited game selection at one time but I was wondering about whether this one would play SMS games. It seems like most Genesis emulators are also compatible with SMS games so...

[EyeDeeNo76]

I have one and use it frequently, although, in haven't gotten other roms on it yet.

Yo You gots not gotten any ROMs ta play on it yet? Download some ROMs ta play on it brace yo'self foo'!
Ha Ha Ebonics is fun. No disrespect to you SEGA-Jorge, but since yesterday I been having fun with it with my friends, I was on phone calling optometrist near me one of them the young lady who answered the phone was talking in half ebonics.

I not one for handhelds but I have looked at the AtGames Sega Genesis Classic Game Console to mess around with but every time do I just buy a couple real Genesis cartridge and call it a day.

[retrospiel]

There won't be any updates. The company responsible for coding the emulator doesn't exist anymore.

[POLYGAMe]

Dang. Might as well keep my one. Sound is just horrible on some games. Seems to be the PSG stuff worst affected.

[SEGA-Jorge]

It only takes .bin files, its been kinda a pain in the butt to get roms on this thing.

[NeoVamp]

It only takes .bin files, its been kinda a pain in the butt to get roms on this thing.

Why is that a pain? just mass convert your old smd files to bin.
(or download a torrent, its all bin now anyway)

[Mad Moham]

On a semi-related note, does anyone know if you can load SMS roms on this device and play them?

I was never able to get that working with my own one, its a shame because I thought it really should also play SMS as other emulators can.



I have the orange Gopher handheld and as much as I like it I think there's room for improvement so I was hoping for the new version to have better sound and maybe save compatibility. But that's very unlikely now, so nevermind.

Still I quite like it in white, so I may have to pick one up next time I have some spare cash.

[marlowe221]

I was never able to get that working with my own one, its a shame because I thought it really should also play SMS as other emulators can.



I have the orange Gopher handheld and as much as I like it I think there's room for improvement so I was hoping for the new version to have better sound and maybe save compatibility. But that's very unlikely now, so nevermind.

Still I quite like it in white, so I may have to pick one up next time I have some spare cash.

That's a real shame. I wonder why the SMS roms wouldn't work?

I still may pick up one of these devices some time. The lack of saving ability is the biggest drawback for me. I know the sound suffers but in the situations where I would be playing it I would have the sound muted 99% of the time any way to avoid disturbing my wife and the baby.

[Mad Moham]

Ok, now that I have both versions of the console, I thought it would be cool to show the differences. I'm actually quite surprised by how different they are.

I'm comparing genuine versions of both, rather than some $5 knockoff from aliexpress or something. Here's what I'm comparing:




Everyone will want to know if there's an improvement in sound quality. As far as I can tell they are both as bad as each other sadly.

The most obvious change is that these consoles are different sizes. When I got the white one I was expecting to find that they had simply modified the old mould tool slightly but they actually made all new tooling. Even the button surrounds are different (I measured with a Vernier caliper because I'm weird). They also moved the USB port, I don't think there was anything wrong with the old position so its probably due them requiring a redesign of the PCB (I'm guessing).



The white version comes with many more games, and while a lot of them are cheap atgames titles that have nothing to do with Sega, there is a decent selection of Sega titles. Not that it matters as most people are probably going to play games from the SD card anyway.

Now I don't know if this is down to inconsistencies in the manufacturing process, or whether they just changed to a different screen supplier, but the white version doesn't seem to like displaying dark colors at all. Here's Shinobi 3 running on both consoles simultaneously, and just to prove its not down to just screen viewing angle I've swapped the position of both consoles and taken the photo again, with the same result. Also, even though both consoles come with Shinobi 3 installed, I used the same rom via the SD card so that I could rule out variations in the rom.




As you can see, the dark green of the trees just doesn't show up with the white console, the least affected level is stage-4 'destruction', with the worst affected probably being stage-6 'traps' so its really only affecting the dark colors. I honestly can't see the purple at all on stage-6.

I couldn't be bothered to play all the way to stage-6 on both consoles simultaneously, but here's a photo of another stage. The issue is most obvious if you look at the stalactites that are furthest away, you can't even see them on the white console.




I wish I knew whether or not the dark color problems are just an issue with my own console but I haven't got any others here to test against. Honestly though, I prefer the older version.

Another strange difference is that if you press the menu button, then select 'SD' again, the black version will highlight the last selected game, whereas the white version will just take you back to the beginning of your list of games.

Honestly, the changes they've made are just strange and I think that for the cost of all new tooling they could probably have got someone in to program a better emulator.

Finally, is there anyone here that has one of these that has ever managed to get the six-button controls to work? Everytime I play Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter I have to play 3-button version despite the console having all six buttons. Yet Ms Pacman is unplayable, just like it would be if there was a 6-button controller connected.

[Sik]

Why is that a pain? just mass convert your old smd files to bin.
(or download a torrent, its all bin now anyway)

Not sure if his issue, but one that keeps irking me is the fact that most ROMs actually come inside ZIP files, and many emulators can run the games off them directly so it's very common to keep them compressed... then when you run into an emulator that can't open ZIP files it starts becoming annoying as heck as you suddenly need to rush to decompress every ROM you may want to play. It's already bad enough on a PC, but I imagine that here you also have the added burden of having to move the card back into the computer to do this and then back into the handheld (if you had been caught off guard).

EDIT: also, if this thing is filtering by file extension that's also a huge issue. A lot of sites now distribute the ROMs with .gen or .md extension. They're exactly the same format as .bin (i.e. a raw dump), but they will get tripped by the filtering if that's the case, so now they have to be mass renamed, bringing back the same issue as above.

[Mad Moham]

EDIT: also, if this thing is filtering by file extension that's also a huge issue. A lot of sites now distribute the ROMs with .gen or .md extension. They're exactly the same format as .bin (i.e. a raw dump), but they will get tripped by the filtering if that's the case, so now they have to be mass renamed, bringing back the same issue as above.

It doesn't seem to care about file extension. I have all my games on the SD card with absolutely no file extension at all, and I've even tested it with strange file extensions. It will simply load any unzipped files in the 'Game' folder.

[Flygon]

I'm actually kind of surprised people don't take every ROM they use out of the .zip!

I had it be a force of habit. I was quite astounded to learn that some people didn't do it.

[Sik]

Why bother extracting when your emulator can open the ZIP file as-is? :v