USB-DVG second run

[petercasino]

They've just opened the pre-order list for the second run of the USB-DVG:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Vectrex.XY.and.Vector.monitors.The.Technical.Side/announcements

There's a demo of the USB-DVG here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIL8DNRB-8g

 

[NeonGlow]

Looks interesting. Any mention of price? (Google's not helping and I'm locked out of Facebook.)

 

[petercasino]

Yeah it’s going to be $350 + $19 for international shipping

 

[Macro]

Can Chad's menu also run Vectrex titles ? (although the source is available, so I could always add it myself if needed!)

I'm thinking one of these in the Asteroids cab would be good but that would add a whole bunch of extra games as well. (not planning on changing the controls, so would only pick games you can do with standard Asty controls)

 

[Sbdesign]

So with this you can play all vector titles right?

If so what other titles would suit a tempest?

 

[petercasino]

So with this you can play all vector titles right?

If so what other titles would suit a tempest?

Yep, it’s similar to the Zector ZVG but works with modern hardware so there is no slowdown. There’s a number of other games that use a spinner including Major Havoc.

 

[NeonGlow]

Omega Race as well I suppose. Honestly Tempest is by far the best of these games IMHO.

 

[chadsarcade]

Can Chad's menu also run Vectrex titles ? (although the source is available, so I could always add it myself if needed!)

I'm thinking one of these in the Asteroids cab would be good but that would add a whole bunch of extra games as well. (not planning on changing the controls, so would only pick games you can do with standard Asty controls)

Yeah Vectrex support is next on my list...

 

[petercasino]

Can Chad's menu also run Vectrex titles ? (although the source is available, so I could always add it myself if needed!)

I'm thinking one of these in the Asteroids cab would be good but that would add a whole bunch of extra games as well. (not planning on changing the controls, so would only pick games you can do with standard Asty controls)

Yeah Vectrex support is next on my list...

Great!

 

[John Bennett]

Out of curiosity what's USB like for latency?

 

[chadsarcade]

Out of curiosity what's USB like for latency?

Good question, once I get my hands on one I'll do some measurements.

The menu was originally very flickery (ZVG does a hardware refresh, DVG doesn't) so I did some timing measurements. A menu loop executes in 0-1ms and rendering to SDL (currently my only option for development as I don't have the DVG board) was adding around 16ms - turned out it was waiting for the hardware refresh. I sorted this and SDL then added around 4-5ms per loop. I asked what the loop time was when rendering to the vector screen but didn't get any info.

The menu in the video posted earlier is an older version, the new one has sound currently looking at back porting this to the DOS / ZVG version, but building a dev platform is proving difficult, Allegro doesn't like the video or audio on a virtualbox XP machine

 

[chadsarcade]

So with this you can play all vector titles right?

If so what other titles would suit a tempest?

Tac/scan, great game.
The menu also has vertical monitor and spinner support but nobody I know of has used this, never had any feedback on it anyway.

 

[petercasino]

The spinner works well on the menu

 

[agent4125]

Its advancemame so the spinner support should be excellent.

 

[Macro]

Will it play vertical games on a horizontal monitor ? (obviously with borders - just realised vectrex are all vertical)

 

[DanP]

From Jasons video it does seem to resize vertical games on a horizontal monitor quite nicely. I'm sure I saw a horizontal Tac-Scan being played and it' looked OK if a little stretched. Curious how the Vectrex stuff will be done, wonder if there will be some controls for resizing/stretching the image?

TBH even the ability to play all arcade vector games at full speed will be a win! The ZVG just couldn't play some no matter what PC you used. It will also be good to hopefully have a MAME version that's still being developed. There's a few issues with the older MAME used with the ZVG that are never going to be fixed.

 

[chadsarcade]

From Jasons video it does seem to resize vertical games on a horizontal monitor quite nicely.   I'm sure I saw a horizontal Tac-Scan being played and it' looked OK if a little stretched.   Curious how the Vectrex stuff will be done, wonder if there will be some controls for resizing/stretching the image?

From what I have seen, the service menu on the board itself allows you to flip and/or swap the X and Y axes and resize to fit the screen. Swapping axes will rotate the screen.

Advmame will also rotate v games to h if set to do so.

 

[Macro]

I'm assuming a Pi 4 with 2Gb ram will be fine for advancemame, since none of the games are going to need tons of rom space!

 

[Wurstkopp]

Honestly Tempest is by far the best of these games IMHO.

Of course only if you have never played Space Duel before.

Wurstkopp2020-08-18 21:43:48

 

[NeonGlow]

Never got into it much, though I guess it should be fun in two player mode!

But my reply was in the context of games that can be played on a Tempest control panel, which has a spinner and two buttons. But Space Duel needs 10 buttons for the two player game... I guess a 1p version would be possible, with a bit of hacking.