Den - aka Wolfgang
Site Supporter
Hi all, I'm always tinkering with new gaming/retrogaming devices (Steamdeck has been an awesome all-rounder decently) and mate latest aquisions have been the Capcom Home Arcade (CHA) and an Analogue Pocket.
First up, the CHA. I'm a huge CAPCOM fan (especially their late 80s/90s arcade output - massive nostalgia for Final Fight especially, Streetfighter and Ghouls'n'Ghosts series) and so even though I have a great pc with a huge Coinops install and loads of other devices to play arcade/console stuff, I finally got round to getting a CHA, for some 2 player plug in and play fun.
Had a bit of a touch with CEX for a change. Traded in a bunch of games and thought I'd pay the extra to get a boxed CHA (less chance of a scummy one tuning up I thought...) - online ordering was randomly cancelled, so took the chance on an unboxed one for £30 cheaper.
What do know.... a boxed one turned up in mint condition
Pretty much straight away I "hacked" it; installed the Choko hack and Lakka(?)
So essentially I currently have it set up as:
1; no usb stick plugged in; boots as standard.
2; usb stick in; boots and can select to boot in to choko menu; all the cps1+2 games running flawlessly + can play every neo geo game (although no unibios/dip settings control, so no red blood on the Metal slug games:-( - all runds great and scanline filter looks very nice. cps3 (well sf3;third strike is all I've tried) Also runs well - maybe the odd skipped frame here and there, but very playable.
Can also boot in to lakka, which is essentially reproach. Just use this for Neo geo and maybe a few other arcade games and some console (although console with a stick I'm mostly not a fan of these days)
My next step to install the capcom and beo games on to the internal memory (just enough space apparently), so will boot up with full capcom+SNK/neo geo set without usb stick.
Really recommend getting one of these if you can find one at a good price (around £140 at cex I think) - two player, all Sanwa parts and compared to say a Pandoras box, looks great on a tv with decent scanline settings (prob some newer pandoras box might have scanlines now?)
Only downside is unless you are sitting near the tv, a longer power/usb lead would be needed. Also a bit of a squeeze if you are playing 2 player with it on your laps; better off putting on a table.
Also, currently Lakka I think uses older versions of MAME/final burn, so a bit hit and miss re; anything outside of Capcom and neo geo. (Dodonpatchi runds great, but sega system 32 for example is sluggish/unplayable. Megadrive+snes runs great)
Next up, the Analogue pocket. Have been curious to see what all the fuss is about re; FPGA, but was originally waiting a bit more to see how things developed.
I then saw a 'pocket for a brilliant price on FB, with a decent screen protector (+an unboxed zelda four swords gba cart ; bonus! Gonna sell that).
I'm well impressed with it. Getting all the latest cores on there was super easy using pupdater (think that's the right name); even downloads the arcade roms for you (have to source your own console/handheld roms).
The screen is really nice (obvs small compared to the steamdeck mind..) and the video filters are very nice (but not way too many options like retroarch) - no ghosting like you'd see on an early psp screen.
Pretty comfortable to gold and the controls are pretty good (dpad for me not as nice as steamdeck for say streetfighter), more like a gameboy d-pad, which is fine.
Still relatively early days re; which arcade cores have been released, but all capcom cps1+2 and nep are again flawless, as are some of my fave Raizing games like Armed police Batrider, Battle Garrega, which is awesome. Was also really enjoying Stuff Like Vigalante, which I hadn't played in a while (loved the master system ver. When I was a young kid
Console stuff is obviously flawless and looks great on the pockets screen.
Re; software emulation vs FPGA?; not sure yes as to if I could tell a difference. Maybe feels a bit snappier input lag (or lack there of), which is to be expected, but I guess that is gonna be the case when you aren't playing on a big screen which often introduces its own lag.
For some reason, rather than constantly changing games after a minute, I've been finding that I spend more time in a single game (was playing Side Arms properly for the first time, when I didn't bother in MAME)
Was also super chuffed that the new 3 player Final Fight anniversary rom (where there's a cps1 and cps2 version with q sound) is supported on there - essentially a rom hack which has had a lot of time spent on it.
From vids over watched, the picture via hdmi out when docked is super clean and crisp, so have order a dock from the u.s ($60 shipping to the u.k! Pss take...) - will be really nice to be able to plug my madcatz TE1/2 sticks in to it (or my CHA in pure stick mode) and use my 2.4ghz (?) Wireless pads for console stuff.
Might even sell my super famicom and Megadrive, but let's see....
First up, the CHA. I'm a huge CAPCOM fan (especially their late 80s/90s arcade output - massive nostalgia for Final Fight especially, Streetfighter and Ghouls'n'Ghosts series) and so even though I have a great pc with a huge Coinops install and loads of other devices to play arcade/console stuff, I finally got round to getting a CHA, for some 2 player plug in and play fun.
Had a bit of a touch with CEX for a change. Traded in a bunch of games and thought I'd pay the extra to get a boxed CHA (less chance of a scummy one tuning up I thought...) - online ordering was randomly cancelled, so took the chance on an unboxed one for £30 cheaper.
What do know.... a boxed one turned up in mint condition
Pretty much straight away I "hacked" it; installed the Choko hack and Lakka(?)
So essentially I currently have it set up as:
1; no usb stick plugged in; boots as standard.
2; usb stick in; boots and can select to boot in to choko menu; all the cps1+2 games running flawlessly + can play every neo geo game (although no unibios/dip settings control, so no red blood on the Metal slug games:-( - all runds great and scanline filter looks very nice. cps3 (well sf3;third strike is all I've tried) Also runs well - maybe the odd skipped frame here and there, but very playable.
Can also boot in to lakka, which is essentially reproach. Just use this for Neo geo and maybe a few other arcade games and some console (although console with a stick I'm mostly not a fan of these days)
My next step to install the capcom and beo games on to the internal memory (just enough space apparently), so will boot up with full capcom+SNK/neo geo set without usb stick.
Really recommend getting one of these if you can find one at a good price (around £140 at cex I think) - two player, all Sanwa parts and compared to say a Pandoras box, looks great on a tv with decent scanline settings (prob some newer pandoras box might have scanlines now?)
Only downside is unless you are sitting near the tv, a longer power/usb lead would be needed. Also a bit of a squeeze if you are playing 2 player with it on your laps; better off putting on a table.
Also, currently Lakka I think uses older versions of MAME/final burn, so a bit hit and miss re; anything outside of Capcom and neo geo. (Dodonpatchi runds great, but sega system 32 for example is sluggish/unplayable. Megadrive+snes runs great)
Next up, the Analogue pocket. Have been curious to see what all the fuss is about re; FPGA, but was originally waiting a bit more to see how things developed.
I then saw a 'pocket for a brilliant price on FB, with a decent screen protector (+an unboxed zelda four swords gba cart ; bonus! Gonna sell that).
I'm well impressed with it. Getting all the latest cores on there was super easy using pupdater (think that's the right name); even downloads the arcade roms for you (have to source your own console/handheld roms).
The screen is really nice (obvs small compared to the steamdeck mind..) and the video filters are very nice (but not way too many options like retroarch) - no ghosting like you'd see on an early psp screen.
Pretty comfortable to gold and the controls are pretty good (dpad for me not as nice as steamdeck for say streetfighter), more like a gameboy d-pad, which is fine.
Still relatively early days re; which arcade cores have been released, but all capcom cps1+2 and nep are again flawless, as are some of my fave Raizing games like Armed police Batrider, Battle Garrega, which is awesome. Was also really enjoying Stuff Like Vigalante, which I hadn't played in a while (loved the master system ver. When I was a young kid
Console stuff is obviously flawless and looks great on the pockets screen.
Re; software emulation vs FPGA?; not sure yes as to if I could tell a difference. Maybe feels a bit snappier input lag (or lack there of), which is to be expected, but I guess that is gonna be the case when you aren't playing on a big screen which often introduces its own lag.
For some reason, rather than constantly changing games after a minute, I've been finding that I spend more time in a single game (was playing Side Arms properly for the first time, when I didn't bother in MAME)
Was also super chuffed that the new 3 player Final Fight anniversary rom (where there's a cps1 and cps2 version with q sound) is supported on there
- essentially a rom hack which has had a lot of time spent on it.From vids over watched, the picture via hdmi out when docked is super clean and crisp, so have order a dock from the u.s ($60 shipping to the u.k! Pss take...) - will be really nice to be able to plug my madcatz TE1/2 sticks in to it (or my CHA in pure stick mode) and use my 2.4ghz (?) Wireless pads for console stuff.
Might even sell my super famicom and Megadrive, but let's see....
