Which Console

Deep Thought

Hi all

fascinated by everything on here and love the Raspberry Pi idea and am thinking of going for it.

If I was to buy a retro console, which would be the best games wise ?

SNES? N64? Dreamcast

or something else ?

DT

Myrddin

Go for a Snes & a flashcart...you won't regret it

Steve X2

Or a PC Engine and a flashcart, or a Megadrive and flash cart

Atavan-Halen

I think a megadrive would be a good purchase as there's tonnes of great games available for it and there's a lot of stuff region free.

Sparks43

How longs a piece of string. Depends on what games you are into.

For me the Snes everyday but the megadrive was a cracking system as well. N64 was bloody good and so was the dreamcast. Master system ps1 xbox nes and others.

Feck it just buy them all and embrace the darkside where no one will ever want to be near you again. :P

eddhorse

Start hoarding everything.
As sparks said, buy what you liked back in the day.

CiDeRmAn

You don't really need to limit to one machine, I'd probably get a Megadrive and a PS2, both look great via RGB cable and the PS2 will also run PS games.
And there's lots to choose from for both.
Of course, if you swing that way, get a Snes instead of a Megadrive!

Also, get a CRT, something decent by Sony is certain to also have RGB, and with the right cables, the consoles will look superb.

Flash carts are great, but you can get a jaded from all the games on offer.
Better to think of a favourite genre, be it platformer, beat'em up, shmup or whathaveyou, and buy some classics, the games aren't always that expensive plus, having invested, you'll value them more.

A Megadrive with Thunderforce IV and a PS2 with a copy of The Raiden Project and Thunderforce V and I'd be set up, then add over time, here and there, accruing bits and bobs, until you can't move around the house but for that pile of Famicom carts you bought as a lot...

OwaynOTT

Feck it, start with a NES and work your way up through the the years.

Your only other real good choices are a cdi or an aes.

the groutch

Phillips CD-i, I've heard it's got some especially good Zelda games on it.

Sparks43

the groutch wrote: »

Phillips CD-i, I've heard it's got some especially good Zelda games on it.

Ban him

Ban him NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never let him back

EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some things cannot be forgiven

CiDeRmAn

You're dead right Sparks.

Next thing he'll be saying some nonsense about Boulder Dash being better than Repton.....

Andrew76

the groutch wrote: »

Phillips CD-i, I've heard it's got some especially good Zelda games on it.

People might scoff at that statement, but you can't have a complete Zelda collection without them. :P


@OP: If you want original hardware then you've a mountain of choice, you can't go wrong with either a Snes or Megadrive as a starting point. Compliment them with an RGB cable and a small CRT (21" Sony Trinitron is the sweet spot imo) and you have an amazing gaming experience right there. Flashcarts are fantastic, you just need to be strict with yourself and try playing a few games at a time.

If you're not pushed about original hardware then the Pi3B is a great alternative - that opens up every system including arcade games.

TinCool

Atari Jaguar

smliv

Get an original xbox slap coinops 8 on it, play a few of your old favourites on it. then see which system you'd prefer to start with, as you're better off starting with something you'll want to use rather than just collect and leave there, otherwise you might as well be collecting stamps, games are made to be played.

Deep Thought

smliv wrote: »

Get an original xbox slap coinops 8 on it, play a few of your old favourites on it. then see which system you'd prefer to start with, as you're better off starting with something you'll want to use rather than just collect and leave there, otherwise you might as well be collecting stamps, games are made to be played.

I like that idea,,that coinops8 looks interesting

Thanks for the advice...its this or the SNES

Cheers All

CiDeRmAn

Deep Thought wrote: »

I like that idea,,that coinops8 looks interesting

Thanks for the advice...its this or the SNES

Cheers All

I wouldn't go the Coinops route at all.
If you have to go emulators then buy a Raspberry Pi 3, a far more capable computer than a crusty 15 year old Xbox.
You will be able to use most USB arcade and console controllers and with HDMI it'll plug straight into the TV.

Deep Thought

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I wouldn't go the Coinops route at all.
If you have to go emulators then buy a Raspberry Pi 3, a far more capable computer than a crusty 15 year old Xbox.
You will be able to use most USB arcade and console controllers and with HDMI it'll plug straight into the TV.

mmm...forgot how old the Xbox is...

will look at the Raspberry pi bit again.

So, would I just plug in the USB and play away?

CiDeRmAn

Deep Thought wrote: »

mmm...forgot how old the Xbox is...

will look at the Raspberry pi bit again.

So, would I just plug in the USB and play away?

There's a little more to it than that but it's a great learning experience and you have a tailored system at the end of it.
The device can be mounted in a series of lovely case options and you can get a cheap wired 360 or PS3 controller and off you go, or go mental and build an entire Arcade cab around it.
You can get kits with everything done for you on Adverts but there's some serious price inflation going on.
But, if setting one up fills you with dread, perhaps that's a way you should go.
The RP3 will play your Nes, Famicom, MD, Snes, Gameboy/Color/Advance, PSP, PS1 as well as Atari, Neo Geo and arcade, Retroarch does a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Deep Thought

Not afraid, am quite keen to do something over the winter nights..so will look at whats needed and give it a go

DT

smliv

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I wouldn't go the Coinops route at all.
If you have to go emulators then buy a Raspberry Pi 3, a far more capable computer than a crusty 15 year old Xbox.
You will be able to use most USB arcade and console controllers and with HDMI it'll plug straight into the TV.

The reason i suggested a coinops setup was 3 fold, the original poster wanted to start a retro collection (original) but couldn't decide on were to start, so i suggested a crusty 15 year old retro console modded with coinops on it. So the first thing he would have to do is get a retro console and mod and stick coinops on it, so then he could also chose were he was going to start his collection aswell as being able to get a full set of games for the crusty retro console, with it being modded as some games weren't released to the european market, another thing is retro consoles should not be played through hdmi as i have read on these forums so many times the only proper way to enjoy them as they should be is through a crusty old CRT as that is what they are made for. And as a personal opinion i don't see anything at all wrong with coinops it's a great frontend great atrract mode, customizable, plenty of support on diffrent forums, can emulate thousands of diffrent roms and loads of diffrent systems looks great in a cab setup and you can also build an adapter to play old console games with there own controller or make a cable to output hdmi if you want to go the emulation route instead of using

all NEW (meaning all recent non retro hardware)

CiDeRmAn

CoinOps is running on very old hardware and is limited as a result.
My opinion is just that, an opinion.

Regarding video output.
Yes, we have said, again and again, that the best way to play retro games is on a CRT, not a flat panel, which is why the Pi3 is so handy, it has a composite output right there, via a 3.5mm jack, which also includes audio. Pick up a cable for a fiver and it'll display on a CRT.
Or, you can do what I have done, use a hdmi-vga adaptor and use it on an arcade monitor.

The Pi3 does everything that CoinOps does, but it does more, and it does it faster and better.
If you happen to have an Xbox at home, and an old HDD, then yeah, bang CoinOps on it if you like, but I'd have to say that, in my experience, a Pi3 with RetroPie on board is a far better solution.

The Last Bandit

Hmm.. interesting choice..

I'd not discount the Xbox so quickly, while the emulators are older and somewhat limited (less flashy) all the 8 & 16 bits stuff work perfectly as does most Mame stuff up to the mid 90's.
Also it opens up the whole range of Xbox games to you and there are some real gems in that collection.

If you're serious about retrogaming then you will own a CRT. Fancy pants upscalers are not the solution

CiDeRmAn

Well, another advantage to the Pi3 is that it has Bluetooth baked in, so you have a powerful system that can run emulators and all sort of other wonderful things with both wired and wireless controller options.
My one in the arcade machine uses an intermediary board that was cheap as chips to interface with the arcade controls.
The PiHack I made out of an old TV uses a Pi2 and a wired PS3 controller, works beautifully.

Another consideration with the Xbox is the sheer size of the thing, it's huge!

But, as Bandit says, it is a mature gaming ecosystem, and it's a straight install and then play jobby.

smliv

I'm not dissing the pi I think it's a great little system but i thought on a retro forum with someone starting out wanting to collect retro stuff it would be better to point them in the direction of retro stuff rather than newage stuff that will give them everything at once, leaving them with no need or inclinataion to start into the hobby of collecting retro.

CiDeRmAn

I understand but the Xbox isn't really that retro but it is quite cheap.
Yes, it's a thing to buy but you are looking a scene that still has trouble accepting the Dreamcast as a retro console, despite it being 17 years old.
When it comes to retro stuff, the place to be is original hardware.
But if you are going to go the emulation route, you are best to start with the most capable system available, and the Pi3 is that system.
I run a GB and NES emulator on a GB Micro via a flashcart, it's great for me to play Tetris or Megaman 2 on the go, but it's not the most ideal way to do it.
If I had a spare Xbox and I wanted a cheap and cheerful emulation machine I might go the CoinOps route, but once you start down the pathway of buying hdds, controller adaptors and the like, the price can escalate, making it a less attractive prospect.
That said, CoinOps is a mature system, with solid emu's working on it, which is cool..
But, on the other hand, I can play Nes, Snes, Master System, Megadrive, 32X, Gameboy, GB Color, GB Advance, 2600, 7800, PSP, PS1, Mame, Famicom Disk System, Gamegear, Mame, NeoGeo, Vectrex and others all on the Pi3, with the PS emulation being pretty great.
It's all about research I guess and seeing which solution is the best for a given situation.

Emulation is a starting place, but it isn't really connected to retro collecting.
Emulation is a nice way to try things out before investing, particularly where games have become expensive, no point in spending big money on Truxton for the MD without knowing if it's for you.
I don't know what the overlap of CoinOps users is to Xbox game collectors, but I don't think it's large, and, once again, I don't think the Xbox is a great place to begin for a collector of games, seeing as many on the system continue to be released on modern systems, like the Halo titles.

Retr0gamer

There's really only a hand full of games on the Xbox worth bothering with that aren't on the PC or other systems. If you actually want to collect original games it's a poor console to start with.

CiDeRmAn

It's probably nearly worth owning for Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast, seeing as the arcade game, Outrun 2, ran on a modified Xbox board.
Not sure how much better the port is compared to the PS2 version.

The Last Bandit

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's really only a hand full of games on the Xbox worth bothering with that aren't on the PC or other systems. If you actually want to collect original games it's a poor console to start with.

But that means you have to have other systems or be arsed with a PC. Might not have a huge range of great exclusives but it does have a lot of decent games regardless of whether they are available for other platforms or not.

Retr0gamer

The Last Bandit wrote: »

But that means you have to have other systems or be arsed with a PC. Might not have a huge range of great exclusives but it does have a lot of decent games regardless of whether they are available for other platforms or not.

Yeah but those other systems are far more worthy of your time with vastly better libraries. Outside of one or two Japanese exclusives, Ninja Gaiden and the Sega games there's not a whole lot interesting on that machine.

o1s1n

How else will he play Steel Battalion though?

Yeah I have to say, it's probably the biggest 'meh' console of the whole lot for me. Only really held onto one for Steel Battalion and now that I no longer have that I might just get rid of it.

Wait, Panzer Dragoon Orta! I knew there was something else :pac:

CiDeRmAn

The PS2 and GC were far more interesting, although what it did it did well, Project Gotham and it's sequel were great, Amped and Amped 2, Strangers Wrath, Knights of the Old Republic, but as said most of it's back catalogue are all available for peanuts on Steam, and given their age, will probably run on almost anything.
The biggest selling the Xbox had was the online functionality, far superior than any other machine, bar the PC, at the time.
It was why the machine sold buckets in the States, and also the reason the 360 was epic, they simply did online better.
It took Sony til the PS4 to manage it and it's arguable that Nintendo hasn't caught up.
But, now, the Xbox servers are finished and all those online titles, Halo and so on, have continued their lives on more recent machines, so there, again, isn't any point.
The Xbox is probably the console in my collection that gets turned on the least, especially since Retr0 killed one of them....

The Last Bandit

Absolutely the PS2 and GC are better consoles for a variety of reason. But if you want a single retro'ish console that has very good (and easy to use) emulation of early consoles/mame and a good selection of its own games then the Xbox is hard to beat.

CiDeRmAn

Emulation is a poor way to go anyway.
If you are going to go that way, sure the PC in the home is fine.
Better to start as you mean to go on, with a Snes or a Megadrive, or even a Gameboy Pocket, and start picking up a few bits and pieces

o1s1n

On the subject of the Xbox, the sheer size of the thing is a pain in the hoop. I always had mad difficulty trying to fit it in amongst my consoles.

Usually it sat down the bottom as a grand big pedestal for everything else to be piled up on.

Star Lord

The answer, of course, is:



42!


(Can't believe nobody else said this so far!)


The actual answer, is which generation holds the most memories/nostalgia for you? Probably best to start with that one! For me, it was SNES and GBA

CiDeRmAn

As ancient as I am, it has to be the PS2.... no the MD.... no wait, the Snes.... hang on, the GB Pocket was fantastic... bugger, I love them all!!




except the CDi, because it's sh1t

o1s1n

My favourite gen to go back and play is definitely the 16 bit era, but the one I enjoyed 'living through' the most was by far 32 bit, mainly for the Playstation 1.

Before that, I was playing loads of Megadrive and Snes games but the majority of them were really just that, games. When the PS1 came along it brought a storytelling aspect into it which I hadn't really experienced that much of before and it totally blew me away.

After that my interest started to drop with the ps2 and I wasn't really that into gaming for quite a while.

Retr0gamer

If you want to go down the emulation route some kind of PC set up is a far better choice than a Xbox. Emulation isn't that great on Xbox, although strangely it's got pretty decent emulation of obscure Japanese home computers.

What I liked about the 32 bit era was the weirdness of it all. Games companies were still trying to get to grips with 3D and just throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. You also had the low licensing costs and dirt cheap medium meaning game could sell 20K and still be profitable. It meant you got some really weird and inventive stuff and while a lot of it might not have worked, a lot of it was interesting enough that it's still worth playing.

Today's indie games are the closest thing to it but even they don't come close to that era. There's just too much polish and they play it way too safe. They're made by kids and young adults just out of college and they know what makes a good game and how to polish a game idea with iterative play testing. Everything is based on a framework that works. There's nothing really truly banana's that's like nothing else, stuff like Magic Carpet, Tail of the Sun or Jumping Flash, games that created a genre or just flat out defy classification.

CiDeRmAn

I played the feck out of Magic Carpet.
It was an era of PS games that often outshone their PC originals, and MC had lots of effects and whatnot.
Superb stuff.
Fantavision is still a PS2 I go back to, mostly tech demo but a nice, stylish title, and stands apart from Sony and their previous obsession with 3d visuals.

Retr0gamer

The PS1 on launch had some very snazzy hardware effects, mostly transparencies which gave it an edge in some areas over the PC but the raw processing power and memory of the PC meant the PS1 couldn't match the speed those games ran at on PC, the resolution or size of levels. While MC had some new transparency effects, on PC is just looked so much cleaner and ran way smoother.

CiDeRmAn

For me, at least, the change came with the introduction, around the same time as the PS launch, of graphics accelerator cards.
I know we've mentioned them here before, but that was when I saw the gap between PC and console, begin to close, and by 1997 the PC was pulling away.
My yardstick is console type gaming, so the likes of Sega Rally ran on PC in software only, and looked terrible, the monitor doing the visuals no favours.
But, by 1997, it had flipped, with the PC version of F1'97 looking much better than the already attractive PS version, which was the lead format for the game.
We still got some stonking software only titles on PC, that put consoles to shame, I-War being one, but 3DFX cards and the like just seemed to take the game, set and match in terms of visuals forever after, Tomb Raider is another good example.
The one thing that PCs couldn't do, at the time, was compete on a cost basis, with my first PC, with enough horses for gaming, costing me £2,000 back in the mid 90's, and the graphics cards costing even more. By contrast, a Playstation was £350 here, or thereabouts, quite a saving and you got to jump right in, no negotiating conflicts and patches, no installation times, just pop in the disk and play.
An idiot could use a Playstation, and many did!

Retr0gamer

Nah, the PC was always ahead of the PS1, anything the PS1 could do the PC could brute force. What made the PS1 seem better was actually due to a limitation, the miserable 2MB of RAM split between VRAM and system RAM. Areas had to be tiny but you could pack a hell of a lot more detail into those areas. And those transparency effects looked fantastic PC gaming at the time was focusing on expansive large worlds and complex systems in those worlds which meant detail sometimes had to take a back seat. You can see the PC handling PS1 conversions easily at the time while the PS1 struggled with PC conversion often times losing a lot of content. Even Doom struggled to maintain 30 FPS on PS1 and had levels either cut or shortened significantly. Meanwhile something like Pandemonium on PC made a mockery of the PS1's shaky 20 FPS update.

CiDeRmAn

Each to their own I guess, I know I saw the benefit of all formats because I owned them all in the 90's!
But Direct X and drivers were a nightmare for me at least in those pre-internet days.
That's one emulation that never took off, whatever about playing the games on console as we once did, no one advocates a fun packed install and wrestling with the PC to get everything work.
But then, not entirely absent, as seen with your own fun times with No Man's Sky on PC recently

Retr0gamer

DirectX 1 was an nightmare and liked to replace your graphics drivers with DirectX which ****ed up your display but DirectX 2 was way better and although slower than DOS was much easier to use and get working. Windows 95 really did make PC gaming a lot more accessible whereas before I remember having nightmares trying to get soundcards to work on pre DOS4GW (which was awesome) games.

Saying that, fixing all those issues with my PC and Windows 95 made me a lot more computer savvy!

Doge

I always thought coast to coast was an Xbox exclusive release thanks to ciderman harping on about how the console was worth having alone for that! .

Going to have to download it right now and freemcboot it! Arrr.

CiDeRmAn

Doge wrote: »

I always thought coast to coast was an Xbox exclusive release thanks to ciderman harping on about how the console was worth having alone for that! .

Going to have to download it right now and freemcboot it! Arrr.

The PSP version is astounding.
It is jam packed with the features of it's console big brothers but runs on the PSP really well. There are some slowdown moments here and there but they don't break the game at all.

The Xbox/PS2 games aren't HD but with the eye splitting sunshine colours beaming from your TV you could be forgiven for mistaking that it is, it's so good!
Plus, it's cheap as chips from CEX these days.

Doge

So its almost midnight and its only now I'm after getting the game to install over the network on my ps2! :eek:

A pirate's life is hard work!

The problem was the HDD OSD version of freemcboot uses a 48-bit hard drive installation, and tools like HDL Dump/Dumb will result in an error.

Solution was to run the newer HDLGameInstaller from a USB stick and now it installed perfectly.

I remember "ExitNow" was looking for an update on how to use HDD OSD but looks like that won't happen now.

CiDeRmAn

Or, alternatively, buy the game!

CiDeRmAn

sugarman wrote: »

Not before giving it a good go first!

I just use a cheap IDE to USB adapter and WinHIIP. Copies in minutes, I usually do a few at time.

Ah come on, it's a fiver! And in most branches of CEX!
https://ie.m.webuy.com/product-detail/gaming/playstation2-games/outrun-2006-coast-to-coast/5060004766789#.V_NLdZ8o9nE

Doge

sugarman wrote: »

Not before giving it a good go first!

I just use a cheap IDE to USB adapter and WinHIIP. Copies in minutes, I usually do a few at time.

Have a real dodgy and cheapo one of them in the attic that I used with WinHIIP the last time. The PS2 is on the ground floor though so its a bit of effort, especially pulling the thing out and taking the hard drive out of the console.

Being able to copy games onto it over Wifi is extremely convenient, albeit being limited to 2 MB/s.

Doge

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Ah come on, it's a fiver! And in most branches of CEX!
https://ie.m.webuy.com/product-detail/gaming/playstation2-games/outrun-2006-coast-to-coast/5060004766789#.V_NLdZ8o9nE

I read in commnts on youtube that the game is a bit costly to buy now, must be in the states or something im guessing!