Mac OS 9 games

NMS

Edit history:

NMS: 2014-08-17 07:25:02 am

NMS: 2009-04-24 09:44:37 pm

2009-04-19 08:30:21 pm

I have some games for Mac OS 9 that I'd be interested in speedrunning, but recording is a bit difficult (They don't run well in Classic under OS X). I have an eMac with a mini-VGA port, an analog-DV converter, and iMovie (or maybe Vidi), so I think all I need is a mini-VGA to analog cable. But before I buy one, I thought I'd ask if anyone here can answer some questions:

-Would this work?
-How would the quality be?
-Would runs produced this way be accepted?
-Would anyone want to see runs of Ambrosia classics like Ares and Harry the Handsome Executive?

Edit: It works. Quality tests here.

Thread title:

nate

2009-04-19 09:58:41 pm

it sounds like it ought to work. my only experience with vga is going the other way. quality will probably depend largely on the hardware, specifically the mini-vga to analog. it will probably have to interlace it to be accepted by the dv bridge and with that will go a lot of the quality. but people have done stuff like that before here and it's been accepted. just don't expect to be able to read tiny text. you'll definitely want to submit the original .dv imovie creates to me for encoding when you submit. and ambrosia games are great.

maybe someone else here knows about vga capture. if you could keep it progressive somehow that would be elite.

NMS

2009-04-19 11:46:18 pm

According to Wikipedia, VGA is already an analog component signal. Mini-VGA has the ability to output composite and S-video (which is better than composite but worse than component). The Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge takes composite or S-video, so S-video should give the best results. I think the output would already be interlaced. Software could deinterlace it if this would help. Further research indicates that I also need a 1/8" TRS (standard headphone jack) to RCA audio cable.

I might also want to run Blizzard's Blackthorne. It's like the old Prince of Persia, but with guns.

nate

2009-04-20 10:01:57 am

my point was that vga is not interlaced while of course s-video and composite are. so if someone could come up with a way to capture vga you wouldn't have to use software deinterlacing at all which is where you lose the ability to read small text and so on.

NMS

2009-04-20 02:01:38 pm

Well, ideally I'd connect the DVI output on my G4 tower to a device that would encode it without ever converting to analog at all. But they cost about $1000. For a bit less I could get a mini-VGA to VGA adapter, a VGA to RGB component adapter, and a capture card that takes component video. Or I could pay $8 for a used mini-VGA to S-video adapter. And I discovered that I can hook up the audio using a TRS to composite/RCA cable that normally connects a video camera to a TV. The right side audio comes out the video channel, but it works.

NMS

2009-04-24 09:54:43 pm

Cables arrived today. It took a while to figure out how to get decent results, but I think they're watchable. I did reasonable attempts at the first levels of Blackthorne and Harry. They always run at 640x480, so they look pretty good. Ares can run at various resolutions, so I just made sample vids for three possibilities. The smaller the resolution, the more of the screen the side panels take up, which makes them slightly more legible, but makes it harder to fight.

nate

2009-04-25 09:37:40 am

shame about the text on harry. ares definitely looks best at 640x480 which doesn't surprise me. blackthorne looks just great.

i may be able to squeeze some more detail out of these using mvbob, not sure. but i think as is they are great to go up on the site.

now finding verifiers may be more difficult ...

NMS

2014-08-17 07:38:32 am

I've been getting the itch to run some of these games again. I no longer have the eMac I used before, but I still have the G4, and now a Windows gaming tower. And it no longer requires a $1000 DVD recorder to capture digital video. I'm very tempted to try a cheap Chinese HDMI capture card from eBay, like this one, since I don't need 1080p with high frame rates or analog inputs. There's not much info about them online, but a few people seem to have used them successfully with common third party recording/streaming software. Then I would just need a DVI-HDMI cable and an audio cable to connect the G4 to my PC's audio in. That should work, right?

nate

2014-08-17 08:21:37 am

i don't have experience with a device such as that but the concept seems sound. definitely let us know how it goes.

dunnius

2014-08-19 02:05:34 pm

Intruding N313 and F014

ChaiN and I have been discussing how to capture video for games before OS 7, namely Dark Castle. I was thinking about trying to run it under classic in OS X, but I haven't had a chance to try it to see if it plays well. It would seem like this would be a viable solution, especially on older hardware that wouldn't be able to keep up with video capturing while playing a game.

Though I wonder if there is a way to do this sort of thing on the old Mac video output, like on an LC. That way the game could be played on the old OS ensuring it would play well and let another computer handle the capture.

nate

2014-08-19 06:32:03 pm

you can't run pre-os 9 under classic though right? or am i missing something?

frozentreasure

2014-08-19 07:17:03 pm

If you're not planning on making official submissions, you could always emulate the OS. I can't find all the documents I have on it at the moment, but it's pretty simple if you have an install of OS9. From there you could just use a modern desktop capture program to capture the window.

dunnius

Edit history:

dunnius: 2014-08-19 10:08:42 pm

2014-08-19 10:08:21 pm

Intruding N313 and F014

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe classic mode can only run OS 9 because it has to have special files or something in to run it in that mode. It's been a long time since I messed with that. Maybe it is possible to hack the changes into OS 8 or possibly 7 to run it, but I doubt 6 or before will work with classic at all.

If the download information is correct on macintoshgarden for Dark Castle, it should run in OS 9. As for how well, I was going to check, but it wants monochrome, which is an obstacle that I will get around to solving eventually.

The plan for Dark Castle(and others) is to make official submissions, but this is difficult on the "original" hardware. My SE doesn't have any video output.