3 ms·

The original hardware, which I last played last year at Fun Spot, holds up surprisingly well. The responsiveness destroys modern systems completely, and vector

The original hardware, which I last played last year at Fun Spot, holds up surprisingly well. The responsiveness destroys modern systems completely, and vector displays are great. Tangentially there was a niche but slightly notorious port https://www.spheresofchaos.com/ https://www.spheresofchaos.com/ that is appropriately named.

criddell 1y ago
A common complaint for modern Atari retro systems is that they are laggy and I think it's because ultimately they are all emulating the original systems. It seems crazy to me that modern hardware emulating 50 year old hardware can't match the performance characteristics. What could the problem be?
- fennecbutt 1y ago
  Analog vs digital
- bongodongobob 1y ago
  It's not a 100% digital thing. Timing has to be correct in order for the display to work properly, at the very least. The full hardware emulation includes emulating analog stuff.
- vunderba 1y ago
  Not directly related to Atari, but there's always going to be additional lag on modern "mini consoles" since most of them force you to go through HDMI. If you grew up playing Punch-Out on an old NES with the RF module to TV, you'll know how brutal even 20-30 ms of added latency can be if you play on the NES Classic Edition.
- fidotron 1y ago
  In modern systems everything is buffered, often way too much individually, let alone in aggregate. If it were not for the games industry it would be much worse, they are the only force incentivizing keeping latency within somewhat acceptable bounds. Things like FreeSync can help a lot.
  - b112 1y ago
    Even ps/2 vs usb, eg interrupt vs polling makes a difference.
joezydeco 1y ago
Jed Margolin, ex-Atari engineer, did a great pair of articles about the secrets of the Atari vector games. Highly worth your time if you're curious. The Secret Life of Vector Generators: https://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm https://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm The Secret Life of XY Monitors: https://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm https://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm
- msarnoff 1y ago
  My favorite part of Jed's article: "Part way through the run of Asteroids, we used up the world's supply of 7497s [binary rate multiplier chips] and Texas Instruments (the only manufacturer of 7497s) did not have them on their schedule to make more for several months"

criddell 1y ago

A common complaint for modern Atari retro systems is that they are laggy and I think it's because ultimately they are all emulating the original systems. It seems crazy to me that modern hardware emulating 50 year old hardware can't match the performance characteristics. What could the problem be?

fennecbutt 1y ago
Analog vs digital
bongodongobob 1y ago
It's not a 100% digital thing. Timing has to be correct in order for the display to work properly, at the very least. The full hardware emulation includes emulating analog stuff.
vunderba 1y ago
Not directly related to Atari, but there's always going to be additional lag on modern "mini consoles" since most of them force you to go through HDMI. If you grew up playing Punch-Out on an old NES with the RF module to TV, you'll know how brutal even 20-30 ms of added latency can be if you play on the NES Classic Edition.
fidotron 1y ago
In modern systems everything is buffered, often way too much individually, let alone in aggregate. If it were not for the games industry it would be much worse, they are the only force incentivizing keeping latency within somewhat acceptable bounds. Things like FreeSync can help a lot.
- b112 1y ago
  Even ps/2 vs usb, eg interrupt vs polling makes a difference.

joezydeco 1y ago

Jed Margolin, ex-Atari engineer, did a great pair of articles about the secrets of the Atari vector games. Highly worth your time if you're curious. The Secret Life of Vector Generators: https://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm https://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm The Secret Life of XY Monitors: https://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm https://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm

msarnoff 1y ago
My favorite part of Jed's article: "Part way through the run of Asteroids, we used up the world's supply of 7497s [binary rate multiplier chips] and Texas Instruments (the only manufacturer of 7497s) did not have them on their schedule to make more for several months"