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Reminds me, hope the author of the BFM Cobra 3 and Scorpion 6 emulator is OK, their YT channel seems to have gone and so does the Cobra emulator on Archive.org? Was a cracking looking project, was excited to see if the later 'proper' Electrocoin software, like the 50p/£100 ROMs would run in it. But would also have handled the Batman game being discussed here I assume, as they'd already shown at least one Queen machine running perfectly.

Are you thinking of a Chuzzy ROM? They could do a very long spin that rolled in a jackpot if holds were refused, not sure if that applied when a win such as XXX was already on the winline though. Chuzzy Bar X doesn't run in the emulator as far as I'm aware, nor do Concept MEMEX ROMs, only the later Concept 32kb ROMs which play a completely different game.

... and just accidentally won an Ayaneo Pocket Air Mini 3GB RAM model on eBay today too Right, that's it, I'm going to write an Allen Carr book about being addicted to retro handhelds

I have a bunch of Cat D ROMs for T7 on 10p/£5. Some of them are switchable (these are labelled as CD and will typically also run at £35/£70 jackpot), some are just labelled D. Haven't tried them in MVFME though. Some of the games can be ridiculously volatile on 10p on T7. One that rings a bell was Elvis Smash Hits, I was about £60 into one once on 10p and then it went bonkers and paid about £55. Not sure about the usual community games, they may be less volatile.

... Have seen some great deals on some more powerful devices, but have just ordered another matching Anbernic, although this time it is the RG40XXH Same processor, only real difference is screen resolution. My CubeXX is a 1:1 720x720, which is absolutely perfect for Gameboy and SNES. However I fancied something 4:3 ratio, for playing Playstation and probably Gameboy Advance. The RG40XXH is another 4" screen device, but this time it's 640x480. So PlayStation and similar should look great. Why not just get a more powerful handheld? I like the idea of having a dedicated one for Gameboy / SNES, and another dedicated one for Playstation and a few other bits. If I had one higher end console, I wouldn't have a fall back position, and these are hardly expensive things. The Cube I bought new was around £60, the RG40XXH was £50 including postage off eBay - admittedly used but looks in fine shape and has the original carry case. Should be here in a few days. So it does appear that when you start with one retro handheld, the likelihood is you'll accumulate more

I took out GamStop years ago, but while it is a good tool in itself, you need to also work on the addiction itself. These days GamStop can be easily circumvented if you desire a gamble, or (as I did) I migrated to arcades and bookies instead, which I thought were 'safer'. Not my smartest move, but made sense in my head (stakes were limited, whereas online there was nothing stopping you from a 'pro-raise' up to £250 a spin). I definitely recommend GamStop, but you also need to remove the desire to gamble at all, unless you are happy gambling elsewhere.

I have downloaded them, but the funny thing is I played them on day 1 and haven't felt a desire to play them since. I ended up sitting there bored. I was discussing with another happy non-gambler last night that the only thing that I have considered using them for since then is statistical analysis. I want to (for example) bang 100x£50 spins through to give a rough idea of the odds on the spinny wheel before some of the games. The segments all look equal, so what are the actual odds of landing on each segment? What about near misses? Are the lands on the wheel skewed to stop just before landing on a feature or big money position? But like you... in terms of actually wanting to play them, I'm happily not fussed. My pick up for when I want to waste some time has been my £45-ish Anbernic handheld for some GameBoy or similar. Which cost less than one £50 spin on one of these sacks of shite, yet provides hours of amusement.

Not having a go, but just pointing out that anyone with a gambling addiction will be easy prey for Freemium casinos, and from past experience you'll start off well, then almost inevitably fall off a cliff as the payouts (I assume they can be rigged as they are just games and not real money gambling) dry up, the stakes increase, and you end up making a purchase between every bonus. The best bit being you get nothing back for your return. People will probably laugh but at the height of my worst I thought they were a safe alternative and once binned £100 on a Freemium slot. Started off well, soon was buying £10 bundles of credits. For what?! I could have bought a few physical console games or a bunch of PC games. Or movies. Or music. But nope, I paid 'decent seat in the West End' money (which would give memories that could last a lifetime) for about an hour of using my own phone to play some rip off slots using the worst psychological shit possible. Absolute fucking twats. I also class myself in that category, but in mitigation I was an addict and as we all know, addicts aren't known for exercising common sense.

I had an addiction to Freemium games and wouldn't recommend them to anyone, especially when we have plenty of addicts in here

If all else fails...

Well, it arrived. It's bonkers for the money in my opinion, the screen is lovely and bright with incredible viewing angles. But it is a bit of a double edged sword for someone like me. I mean it works great out of the box, with a load of ROMs included (which I'm not fussed by, I have my own collection, but is useful for testing). Performance out of the box with stock settings is very good, up to PSX. Anything more than that really is just a curiosity. But then it's a £45 device, and I'm only planning on using it for GB and GBC, among others. It's comfortable for someone with big hands like me. The only real annoyance I've got is sorting out shaders and stuff. Easy to copy games to it over WiFi (it was full of Nintendo ROMs... But no Mario titles ). I guess the thing with shaders is that they are really 'tweaks', and opinions on them vary. I like SNES for example to have a bit of CRT filter, bit of geometry, maybe a bit of glow. Out of the box it looks fine - just like ZSNES or similar back in the day. But then you also find that as you start turning on more graphically intense shaders, the performance takes a hit, the frame rate stops being a solid 50/60FPS. Understandable. Great for £45 but if you want more demanding hardware, or love playing with all the graphical bells and whistles you might want to get a bit more processing power Lovely screen though!! I'm just too old and impatient for all the tinkering. Back in my youth I loved messing about with things and setting them up. These days I find that I can't be arsed and just want them to work the way I want them to out of the box

Since I have the Switch 1 that I probably ought to use for more recent stuff I probably ought to just order another USB exploit pushing thingy and get that going again. I did used to have the app for doing it on my phone but they would also require me to find a USB-C to USB-C cable, and the app in question The attraction of the CubeXX for me is the screen ratio, especially for Gameboy / Gameboy Colour. I often play the older Gameboy titles. Possibly nostalgia from my primary school days (I had a yellow DMG01 back in the day), possibly because the games are typically simpler Hopefully the CubeXX turns up at some point. Ordered from a UK Warehouse but took an extra day or two for Evri to get it? Rookie mistake - should have ordered the protective case at the time for an extra fiver. Didn't realise it was an option from some sellers. Might just have to keep it in my old thick tablet case. At least that has room for a charger too since these are fussy about charging - you have to use a 5V 1.5A charger, anything else causes issues. Also been researching firmware. The stock firmware seems alright, but I've downloaded the latest build of Knulli (Scarab) for this specific device, built in May this year. It's basically Batocera with Emulation Station pre set up for this device. Seems to be well regarded online. Does somewhat go against my whole 'looking for a simple device that just works' philosophy. I assume that is the thing with the likes of your Retroid - you pay more for convenience too, properly set up to just work correctly out of the box rather than needing community firmware to get the best out of it?

I found my old PSP in the garage a while back but no sign of the mains lead. Probably ought to source one. I had several over the years, the last one was used for playing Playstation ISOs on the go. Ripped my own games for it and converted them... How I laughed when I cocked up the disc numbering for FF7 so couldn't progress at the end of disc 1. That wasn't a total waste of time Brilliant little machines. My mind was absolutely blown by GTA : Liberty City Stories. It really felt like a PS2 in the palm of your hand, whereas coming from Nintendo, the handhelds always felt a good generation or two before the home console equivalent. The CubeXX I've ordered is a budget handheld, but £45 seems pretty bonkers really given I just sold my old DMG01 Gameboy on eBay for £50. After fees it's a straight swap. Having just had a quick look at that, it looks absolutely bonkers I may be tempted down the line, especially if the switch fails, but for right now I'm sticking to my Mini PC for serious stuff, and just planning on using my (when they actually post it!!!) new little handheld for proper retro stuff

I've got an old Pi4 here that I'm going to dig out soon - as much as I love my little Mini PC, I think I'd rather have a Pi4 as a dedicated retro machine, then use the mini for Windows. I was actually pondering at one point selling the Mini PC and getting a Windows handheld PC, since a lot of them use the same or similar GPU anyway (Radeon 780M). That would give me a gaming handheld, and a PC all in one. BUT I'm a sucker for individual hardware. I'd rather have 2 or 3 things with each dedicated to one task, even if one device could replace them all I reckon this will be my old hand hand emulator - GBA, GBC, Lynx, as well as SNES and PS1. The Switch will be used for my legit Switch Zelda stuff, and maybe things like PSP emulation and above. Since Nintendo have banned the console, I may well see if I can use it to play *cough* backups too. Why not since they've banned me? I'll have to look into it. The Mini PC will remain my AV unit, and Windows games / apps thingy.

Bit random but announcing that I bought a cheap new handheld last night, hopefully it'll arrive soon as it's coming from an AliExpress UK warehouse. I already have a Switch but I can't remember where the tool is to force it in to homebrew, can't be bothered ordering another, can't be bothered connecting my phone to it to force it. So I fancy getting a dedicated handheld... as I get older I appreciate things which just 'work' and don't need tinkering with I did find my old Gameboy DMG01 in a drawer, in surprisingly good nick for a 30+ year old device - no dead pixels or owt. I was tempted to pay £40 the stuff to update it to an IPS backlit display, probably add a rechargeable lithium battery kit... Then I realised may as well pay less and get a dedicated handheld that will play all Gameboy stuff on a bigger screen and doesn't need flash carts ---- Gone with the Anbernic RG CubeXX It's got a 4" 1:1 screen, so ideal for consoles and handhelds which used screens close to a square aspect ratio, as well as older arcade titles including vertical. Won't be much use for wide-screen games... but if I want to play modern stuff I can use my little mini PC or take the Switch. I liked the idea of a Gameboy shaped device... but I have large hands so went for a landscape orientation device to hopefully be more comfortable 720x720 Resolution which means it'll hopefully not trigger my eye strain. One of the joys of hitting 40 and already having terrible eyesight is I find it really easy to get eye strain on modern crazy resolution phone screens It claims to be powerful enough for N64 / Dreamcast - apparently it's borderline if that is true - but I have no interest in emulating them on it anyway. I might play some Playstation but that'll be it. Can't grumble at £46 brand new delivered to the door! Will update when it's here Why did I post here? Because I searched for Anbernic and got no results. Maybe me posting might help someone in the future