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Mega Drive Mini!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Started by madhair60, April 01, 2019, 01:48:21 PM

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Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Replies From View on June 27, 2020, 06:42:22 PM
I have OpenEmu emulator for my mac and an original megadrive controller from eBay, and I can download rom files for free of any megadrive games I want.  Amongst other systems OpenEmu also emulates Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, Master System, NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Playstation 1 and Game Cube.


Out of interest why is the emulation route so anathema for some people?  Is it that you don't feel people should get this stuff for free, or do you like collecting the physical consoles themselves?

A lot of people have probably got wii's they can do this in trivially too. Tbh I could probably buy most of the good games I wanted to play for the cost of a flashcart. And I used to play rarer things like snatcher on my modded original xbox, which I stupidly chuked out.

I already have the console and some games, so I would prefer to play it on the genuine article. I doubt I'd bother if I didn't though.

Spiteface

Quote from: Replies From View on June 27, 2020, 06:42:22 PM
Out of interest why is the emulation route so anathema for some people?  Is it that you don't feel people should get this stuff for free, or do you like collecting the physical consoles themselves?

The collectable aspect is totally a factor with these things.

That said, these mini consoles aren't really for anyone other than casual gamers. The ones that aren't going to want to mess around with things too much. Just plug in, switch it on, and off you go, straight out of the box.

Those people won't want to download emulators to their PC or even phone/tablet. Let alone buying a raspberry pi to set up as an emulation console.

Also, licenses expire and get picked up by other companies, meaning some genuinely great games might get lost were it not for emulation.

Plus, not all mini consoles are created equal. The Playstation Mini was particularly substandard.

I remember the fuss over the Neo Geo X handheld that actually was just an emulator that you could download. SNK outsourced manufacture and development to another company for this and were so u happy with it (the emulation was crap and other issues) they sued said company and got the whole thing pulled. There have been other attempts by SNK that have been a little better, one that looks like a miniature cabinet with a tiny screen, and one that is a full arcade-style stick and buttons that plugs into the telly.

I have achieved better results than the official Neo Geo X by getting a chinese handheld (as discussed elsewhere) installing Final Burn Alpha (the arcade emulator that the Neo Geo handheld used) and a full set of roms to a micro SD card. Only thing I'm missing might be the clicky microswitched D-pad the Neo Geo machine had.

Sebastian Cobb

Yeah, they're the kind of 'fun' gift that would be played with for a mild nostalgia hit then forgotten about. A bit like tat from The Gadget Shop.

madhair60

No, they're ace. You can hack them easily, pop all the games you want on there (with an attractive menu, boxart, etc) and then have a wee replica of the system with the original pads. Near as damnit to the original without the expense of, well, creaky old Mega Drives.

Pink Gregory

Yeah I suppose I still have all of my old consoles and in terms of games I'm interested in playing, outside of rarities that are a bit more expensive than I'd want to pay for a 10-15 year old disc, I have enough.

Most people aren't in that situation, and are more likely to be 'oh, a Mega Drive, I used to play on one of those.

PlanktonSideburns

No point getting an emulator, have to download a program and then download the game

just buy a mini console, then crack it, and download some games for it

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: madhair60 on June 27, 2020, 10:03:31 PM
No, they're ace. You can hack them easily, pop all the games you want on there (with an attractive menu, boxart, etc) and then have a wee replica of the system with the original pads. Near as damnit to the original without the expense of, well, creaky old Mega Drives.

I've never known older consoles to go 'bad' with the exception of the NES, thanks to its not-really-zero-insertion-force cartridge mechanism and bad power regulation issues. I've not had a problem with my atari, snes, megadrive or couple of n64's. Optical drives can go bad due to their moving parts but people make things that can replace them entirely with sd cards these days. I keep toying with the idea of buying a dreamcast and fitting it.

oustropique

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on June 28, 2020, 11:18:17 AM
Optical drives can go bad due to their moving parts but people make things that can replace them entirely with sd cards these days. I keep toying with the idea of buying a dreamcast and fitting it.

I've just upgraded a PS2 network adapter to take SATA drives, out of anxiety that, seventeen years on, the drive'll be on it's last legs soon even if it still reads discs right now. Your post made me think about getting an SD card to SATA adapter (there are some that support multiple cards which look good), but the speed on the hard drive is very good for PS2 games and until SD card prices drop substantially, I shouldn't think about it. The PS2 itself has survived very well, it's all the peripherals that stop working.

Modifying the console has improved it to no end. Games load faster, but I can also plug in my Dualshock 4 to play games, which is helpful when the Dualshock 2 face buttons need hammering down to register (this is the case on quite a few of my controllers, and there's a lot online about them being 'pressure sensitive' which was reduced in the PS3 onward, but I can't remember it ever being this bad - The Getaway is unplayable), and the proprietary controller port means they're going to die eventually. Loading games via the network means I don't even need the hard drive, but I prefer network installing them to it, which is amazingly convenient. Hack your stuff.

Generally speaking, I prefer emulation, but PS2 and up is just constant tweaking and plugin black magic, so it's handy to keep the real consoles there, and emulation is possible on those. Big fan of the mini consoles still, because of the possibility to hack and put Retroarch and any game  from nearly any system on them. The PS Classic is such a disappointment with its own library that you basically need RA to run anything at a decent framerate and make it look nice, and even then it can disappoint you. Yet it's the only mini I have because it's great playing everything else and I love the way it and the digital pads look. It's needless to tinker with that, for me, given the plethora of solutions available, but it's great to mess about with, and the hacks just keep getting better and easier.

If I'm remembering rightly from an Ashens video, only Japan's Mega Drive Mini got the six button pads, but you can probably buy a generic usb one and use it on the Mini easily enough at this point. I was thinking about this official Sega one. Price is a bit steep, though.

Spiteface

Quote from: oustropique on June 28, 2020, 02:44:36 PM
If I'm remembering rightly from an Ashens video, only Japan's Mega Drive Mini got the six button pads, but you can probably buy a generic usb one and use it on the Mini easily enough at this point. I was thinking about this official Sega one. Price is a bit steep, though.

There are "official" pads compatible with the Mini, but even those terrible Blaze things that took old cartridges and ran them poorly, still came with a version of the 6-button pad as standard though. No excuse.

madhair60

Quote from: PlanktonSideburns on June 28, 2020, 10:23:37 AM
No point getting an emulator, have to download a program and then download the game

just buy a mini console, then crack it, and download some games for it

The aesthetic and nostalgia is more important to me than the convenience. Obviously I could just boot up an emulator, but having a parade of wee replica consoles with all my favourites loaded onto them and the original controllers is perfect for me.

Sebastian Cobb

madhair's retro game cafe for borrowers

Replies From View

Quote from: madhair60 on June 29, 2020, 08:59:53 PM
The aesthetic and nostalgia is more important to me than the convenience. Obviously I could just boot up an emulator, but having a parade of wee replica consoles with all my favourites loaded onto them and the original controllers is perfect for me.

Why not just carry around a laminated photo of a Game Gear?




edit:  sorry, I thought this was the Game Gear Keyring thread.  The Mega Drive ones at least have proper sized controllers.

madhair60


Replies From View

I realised as I was saying it that I already know you do..