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Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Thu 23 Aug 2018 18:26
by fraenksn
Hi everybody : )

I received my Retrostone yesterday. Its a pretty solid build and the buttons feel very accurate, I already fell in love with it a bit!
Screen is composite only and looks not very good first on standard settings, but after a few tweaks with the screen buttons on the right of the unit, it finally looks neat (while it stays a bit blurry becauso of the composite. Well, I like this RETROstone!)

BRIGHTNESS: 38
CONTRAST: 0 (!!)
COLOR: 30

!!With this contrast settings, flickering is reduced to a minimum.

You can also activate 'video smoothing' in the Retropi configurati on editor (under basic libretro settings, you can do it for every single emulator). This makes the picture even more blurry : ) ; ) but hell SOMETIMES this looks better when enabled (NES emu in my opinion, it further reduces the flickering when the screen is scrolling which is good for this emulator) All in all, its a question of the personal preference.

Audio jack wont work for me with headphones, its way too quiet(but when connected to my hifi, its fine and loud as it should) I dont use headphones for gaming, so I am OK with it...

I am really havin fun with this unit so far and I hope everyone's enjoying it!

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Fri 24 Aug 2018 16:13
by fraenksn
The display is gorgeous with the right settings! https://ibb.co/fKrtTU

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Sat 25 Aug 2018 11:44
by zxdunny
Yes, these settings are really nice. However they make the darker ES themes too dark to see - I'm using the TFT theme as it's been specifically designed for 320x240 but it's too dark... I may have to play with the theme images a bit :)

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Sat 25 Aug 2018 23:54
by Dukafleed
I got mine couple of hours back,
my initial reaction was disappointed with the LCD, however, i should give it more time to be sure

i just used the setting above for the LCD, and it did help,

i am thinking of adding Pictures and choose better theme to see if it helps,

another issue is the D-Pad, which needs replacing or getting used to.

i am, at this moment, giving it 6.5 out of 10 as a project and 3 out of 10 for price,
this is not a complaint or bashing of, the quality is great, i did expect better though

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Sun 26 Aug 2018 12:55
by zxdunny
zxdunny wrote: Sat 25 Aug 2018 11:44 Yes, these settings are really nice. However they make the darker ES themes too dark to see - I'm using the TFT theme as it's been specifically designed for 320x240 but it's too dark... I may have to play with the theme images a bit :)
TFT theme is excellent, but I did indeed mod it to be a lot lighter - I went with a blueish background which works well:

Image

And while you're at it, any missing systems such as Amiga, Atari 7800 et al can be ripped from the Carbon theme - all you have to do is overwrite the theme.xml for each system with one from the TFT theme and rename the "art" directory to "_inc" - so now I have a complete set of systems in TFT with a lighter background :)

It's also worth noting that the screen is best viewed tilted away from you rather than face-on.

The fact is that the screen is awful, composite connection aside (which certainly doesn't help). Its viewing angles are terrible and it flickers quite a lot - but it does look good on older, TV-based lowres emulators. Ideally, this would have been connected in a non-composite fashion and been 640x480. But that would push the price up considerably, and modded Gameboy cases with Pi3/PiZero internals (which are a LOT slower than this thing) go for anywhere north of £350 at present, if you get them built yourself so it's expected that some sacrifices were made.

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Mon 3 Sep 2018 21:19
by RetroJack
fraenksn wrote: Fri 24 Aug 2018 16:13 The display is gorgeous with the right settings! https://ibb.co/fKrtTU
What is that you are playing?

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Mon 3 Sep 2018 22:43
by Jackamikaz
Dukafleed wrote: Sat 25 Aug 2018 23:54 another issue is the D-Pad, which needs replacing or getting used to.
There is actually a way to fix it viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1735

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Wed 5 Sep 2018 10:37
by fraenksn
RetroJack wrote: Mon 3 Sep 2018 21:19
fraenksn wrote: Fri 24 Aug 2018 16:13 The display is gorgeous with the right settings! https://ibb.co/fKrtTU
What is that you are playing?
Its Alundra for the Playstation 1. A great JRPG adventure!

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Thu 6 Sep 2018 14:57
by Mayday10
I have had it for a week.

I really like the build of it. The one major flaw is the headphone jack, which is well documented. There is a fix, but I'm not sure I trust myself to take a soldering iron to this unit. I am going to try to find noise enhancing headphones.

The weight is nice. Buttons are nice. I will say the 'bumper' buttons in the back feel a bit awkward location-wise, but if I want to play a game enough, muscles will teach me how to get used to it. Buttons are responsive. It is easy to play games. I have played Genesis, SNES, NES, GB, GBA, GBC, and Atari games and no issues (at least with the hardware). I have played coherent games of Desert Strike, Legend of Zelda, Double Dragon, Tetris, Megamania, FIFA World Cup, Battletoads, and tecmo super bowl.

I will say the screen isn't the greatest. But for a handheld unit professionally made, at this price point, it is more than adequate.

The on-board sound is very good.



The issues I have, come from the retroorange software. I am hoping they keep refining that for this system.

Re: Finally its here! - my opinion and some video tweaks

Posted: Fri 7 Sep 2018 16:40
by bedfellow
For the theme, I prefer Pixel TFT.