Hyperkin Retron 5 Game System - Emulate Your Favourite Classics
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
2,103 words · ~10 min read
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so if you're like me you may be a little tired of AAA developers releasing broken
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or subpar games over and over again
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often with DLC that officially or not fixes the experience this phenomenon has
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pushed myself and a number of my friends back to the Retro Gaming crowd but
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managing a collection of old consoles and managing the space required for old
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school TVs can be frustrating enter the
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Retron 5 from hyperkin also I will be hopefully reviewing the Makey Makey or
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the Kano fairly soon so stay tuned for
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that from December 13th to 20th 2014 you
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can save on select Intel CPUs KN and ssds with special holiday rebates from
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select retailers click now to learn more first off we have the actual
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physical unit on the front we're greeted by Game Boy Game Boy Color and Game Boy
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Advance slot and the power button which takes a kind of surprisingly long time
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to engage but does feel quite solid and has a satisfying click to it on each
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side we have a controller port for NES SNES and Genesis which totals to six
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controller ports in all for a two-player gaming experience on any one of the
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consoles on the back we have an HDMI port USB mini for the included
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controller an AC power jack and an SD card slot which you can use for things
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like updating the system cheat codes and screenshots along with Save State files
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speaking of the included controller it's garbage and I don't recommend using it
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for absolutely anything the quality control seems to be more than a little
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rough two seemingly identical buttons in the top corners of the controller feel
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completely different one has a nice tactile audible feedback and the other
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one feels mushy and dampen the shoulder buttons are similar
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again the left side shoulder button has a satisfying tactile and audible
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feedback while the right one is mushy and sometimes leaves you wondering if
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you even press the button at all the best word I could use for the other
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buttons on the controller is acceptable
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but then it comes to the eight-way thumb stick which is straight up puke worthy
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it squeaks when you spin it which will happen while playing from time to
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time and while most of the lower directions work fine I guess there's
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some sort of obstruction in the top which grinds against the stick creating
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an unpleasant noise and a horrible
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feeling I wish hyperkin would have ditched this abysmal excuse for a
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controller and just lowered the price Unfortunately they didn't so we're stuck
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paying full price and ditching the controller ourselves but wait Luke it
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has a redeeming feature
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Wireless really Wireless you wanted to
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add more latency to this setup we're
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playing retro games with a wireless controller there's more latency between
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your controller input and your character's movement and it's noticeable
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in this case this will stack on top of the input leg on most modern TVs
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compared to Old CRTs and you're going to have a bad time speaking of latency it's
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a shame that the only output option is HDMI so this pretty much precludes the
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use of a CRT TV so forget about light guns and superp Scopes if you don't need
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those you can have a TV with game mode which turns off the image processing or
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a low latency PC monitor and that would help a lot in fact having it next to
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your PC monitor seems like a really cool use case for the Retron 5 if you're
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concerned about the legality of PC emulators and we'll talk about that more
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later on simply plug the Retron 5 into an alternate input on one of your
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monitors and switch your input to it whenever you'd like to play and with
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that we'll jump back to the top of the unit in the back there's a slot hold the
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controller but we just use it to hold games and just ahead of that we have the
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glossy finish something I wish manufacturers would stop using for
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Fairly obvious reasons slotted into that
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glossy finish is your ports for Genesis SNES NES and famicom cartridges other
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reviews are complaining that on this Retron 5 the slots are too tight to
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actually remove the game from and sure the first time you use it it might be a
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little bit tight but even after a moderate amount of use it becomes quite
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easy to just swap games in and out in front of these slots we have the logo
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for the Retron 5 and an LED indicator system letting you know which game is
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inserted the LED would have been much nicer if it was possible to have more
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than one game inserted at a time anyways
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if you insert more than one game instead of just choosing which one you want to
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play you are served an error message until you remove all the game cartridges
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that you don't want to use when you boot up the Retron 5 you're greeted by a
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simple yet surprising ly or not
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Android-based gaming system within the settings menu you'll be able to find
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various video and audio settings included but not limited to image
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filters scan lines and sound enhancement
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which actually sounds pretty good you also have options like controller
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remapping when to load save states and where to save things for those that wish
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to use maybe an SD card there are loads of options and overall this menu system
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is a good experience even with its overall kind of cheap easy menu sounds
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and a little bit tedious software and firmware updating process which really
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isn't that bad if you watch their video on how to do it you can even access
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quick menu within the game for stuff like save states and other various quick
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menu options simply by pressing down and start at the same time now loading games
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can be a little funky with no official compatibility list as far as I know it's
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a bit of a gamble plugging a game in it will probably work and you'll mainly
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just find issues with multi-game cartridges or multi- cartridge setups
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but there will be the odd game that should probably work but totally doesn't
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another frustrating issue with this is that sometimes a ROM May load and it may
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be able to run the game making it playable but it won't actually recognize
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the game meaning that it won't L load any of your save states and none of the
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cheats will actually function properly one really cool thing that the Retron
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lets you do however is to utilize old carts that have dead batteries much more
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effectively than you could have otherwise if the battery is dead in your cartridge and you don't go through the
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process of replacing it you won't actually be able to save anything
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properly but if you use save states on the Retron you can essentially replace
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this functionality which is great as it can breathe life back into some old
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beloved games those are problems I can look past however as honestly the vast
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majority of games will work just fine you just have to be careful about
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keeping things like the contacts on your carts clean enough for the conso will be
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able to read it as well as possible every time to get a good load and a good
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detection whenever you insert it what does get on my nerves however is moving
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the save data from the game to the Retron and from the Retron to the game
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it feels like moving the save data to the Retron Works essentially every time
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but I can't really be all that sure that moving the save data from the Retron
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back to the cart actually ever worked it it didn't actually ever work work it
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seems like it would be able to sometimes work but it would wipe part of the data
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that was on there and then not load the new data which is essentially destroying
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your save file I had that happen to my
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Pokemon Blue cart rest in peace Pokemon
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Blue save game rest in peace early on I
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mentioned that this is a cool way to play your old games through emulation in
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order to utilize things like save states while doing it more legally than
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emulating ROMs on something something like a PC or a phone and while being
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able to use your badass original carts at the same time unfortunately it seems
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that hyperkin may be using other developers code for a lot of their
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emulator support without asking or contacting those people at all all of
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this is under a code license of gplv3 which forbids incorporating the
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software into something like for example a locked down piece of Hardware which is
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then sold so
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there's a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo going on which I don't fully understand
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and the situation is kind of a mess so if you want to learn more I suggest you
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just Google retroarch versus Retron or retroarch versus hyperkin and you'll
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find more information there in conclusion is this the end all
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replacement to Old School console clutter no latency issues that you will
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most likely have to deal with at some degree due to the inclusion of HDMI will
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be frustrating and it has its quirks
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with features like moving saves on and off the Retron totally not working and
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in some cases even breaking what is already there and it comes with a
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controller which will just add Mass to landfills but in a lot of cases the
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actual unit can get the job done I personally think it would be pretty neat
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accessory for someone's PC setup when configured as an alternate input to
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their monitor but at its current price of
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$160 I see most people looking the other
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way let me what you guys think in the comments down below things that are
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worth their price tag however are free things especially Intel CPUs and today
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we're giving you a chance to win one for free if you head over to the giveaway
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page on our Forum using the link in the video description down below you can
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view full entry details and sign up for a chance to win one of two i75820k from
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Intel we'll be running this contest from December 19th to December 26th so just
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consider this an opportunity to get a very cool belated Christmas present from
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Intel we've covered these chips quite a bit since launch and I bet you'll be
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pretty impressed if you get your hands on them yourself especially if you're
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someone who does a lot of multitasking or whatever so head over to lineus Tech
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tips forum and enter for a chance to upgrade your rig to a Haswell e
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processor all right guys don't forget to comment down below what you think about
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the Retron 5 and all the funky stuff that's going on with that if you don't
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guys for watching nice doorbell and I'll see you next time
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