General Musings of an Urban Procrastinator

Maximum resolution: CPS1        320x187  = 59,840 pixels   SNES        256x224  = 57,344 pixels Magic Sword  Active play area: Arcade      320x159  = 50,880 pixels   SNES        256x183  = 46,848 pixels   Knights of the Round Active play area: Arcade      320x159  = 50,880 pixels SNES     256x168 = 43,008 pixels   Final Fight Arcade then SNES Arcade    320x187  = 59,840 pixels SNES     256x195 = 49,920 pixels   Final Fight CD Mega CD  320x224 = 76,800 pixels.  

Save states The Revenge of Shinobe, Sega Mega Drive My first rule is not to use save states, with a few caveats. Definitely don’t use rewind. This is to retain the consequence of a play session and retain elements of threat, urgency and immediacy, otherwise lost if save-stating. You may use save states when a password is displayed or when saves are offered, for instance, passwords or if saving is allowed through battery backup chips. This retains the pacing of the game design as it was originally conceived. Sometimes a game may be particularly poorly designed, maybe to extend the gameplay or lack of consideration by overly skilled or zealous programmers and designers. So if it is a game you do not respect or particularly enjoy, I advise placing save points at the end of sections which are a particular struggle, even after numerous concerted efforts. Therefore, if you follow this advice, I find that you will have more fun ...

GIMP as a graphics editor Much of it’s functionality seems to be engineered for scientific research, especially colour spaces. A major frustration to me was finding the way to change the colour, or view swatches or rgb values from the default user interface. So it took a period of investigation to accumulate the knowledge to actually find and choose colours to be used in brushes and fills.  Basic functions can be confusing and the default layout can serve as a barrier, as it’s arranged with no particular use in mind. There is no way to load in preset workspaces in recent version, so the first thing is to understand the tabs (Dockable Dialogues) you need to work with. Setting up the Workspace for Pixel Art First we will customise the tabs. Tip: You can switch from single-window mode to floating-window mode from either checking or unchecking Window > Single-Window Mode. I tend to use single-window mode as I find it can get messy working in floating-window mode. When you switch fr...

Hardware T hese are my gaming controllers. You can just make out a tiny bit of grey plastic on the right which is an HP ProBook 'potato' laptop I bought from the nearest mobile phone shop for £160  second hand. Made in 2019 with 8GB shared ram with an integrated Intel HD graphics gpu. The gpu is very capable at 3D games but sadly there is no 2D acceleration. But it's fine for emulation and in fact anything I need to do or play. Although no good for graphically expensive games like Forza or Yakuza . At the top is the Wi-Fi dongle based Retrobit Legacy 16 This grey SNES style control pad with added thumb sticks and two shoulder buttons on each side offers full compatibility with modern games. But it uses low quality plastic and is very light with a mushy and imprecise feeling dpad.  Input lag from a 2.4GHz signal is minimal at about 4-5ms but feels cheap in the hand . 3/5 Next down from the top is the Qanba Obsidian 8 button usb fight stick This is big, but standard for a ...