this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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What's the point? If you're gonna alter the OG equipment to such an extreme extent like removing the CD drive, then you're not going to play original copies on it anyways. Might as well just run an emulator.
And missing the normal way to play games. You'd have to use ROMs on this, and at that point there really isnt much of a difference between this and just emulating, you are already more than half the way there.
Exactly. The ONLY point of these consoles is to play physical copies of games you still own. Otherwise just buy a mini PC and USB controllers that match the originals and call it a day. Going halfway like this makes it useless to both niches.
It takes one benefit of using an emulator (digital storage medium) and combines it with the worst aspects of original hardware (physical hardware prone to damage, video output that isn't compatible with many modern displays) and also loses out on the other benefits an emulator has (shader support, save states, emulated hardware overclocking to guarantee max and stable framerates, etc).
To me, this is almost worse because it also permanently alters a console that is no longer manufactured.
Yeah, I was interested in the idea cause I have a saturn which is a bit beaten up, but if I can't play the disc's I have why would I bother.
That's a lot of fancy words to say "so you can emulate your games". Which is our point: if you can't play your OG games and are gonna be emulating those anyways, no one gives a shit if it has an OG chip anymore. We're gonna have to emulate anyways, any might as well do it with better shaders, graphics, control, etc than on this custom built, one use only, emulator.
Oh my goodness, replacing the optical drive with a modern solution isn't close to halfway to complete software emulation. It's not even 20% of the way there.
But it's not the original thing. It's missing a core feature. So it is emulation.
there's the charm of playing in original hardware without having to deal with the original storage medium.
There are better alternatives to CDs, might as well use them. It is no different than using a flashcart.
But if you're buying a retro console just to emulate half the games, why not emulate the whole thing and just buy a modern USB version of the controller?
Are you sure?
yes
given the popularity of everdrives, i don't think most people play on original hardware for the sake of using original copies. using original hardware gets around potential inaccuracies and/or performance issues with emulation. the Saturn is particularly prone to these issues because of it's complex architecture- despite being more powerful, Dreamcast emulators tend to run much better than Saturn emulators just because there are way less moving parts
Okay, but you can do that with a softmod or a flash cart on the Saturn, too. You don't need to rip out its guts to transplant them to a different case. Even if you had a Saturn with a faulty drive you can add a ODE solution without having to sacrifice the original form factor.
Plus, yeah, Saturn emulation is harder and less accurate than other systems, but we're pretty much there these days for most of the stuff you want to play. You can do all sorts of cool cases and consolized devices to play old games these days, why break apart an original Saturn for that?
i agree with a lot of what you're saying- i kept the original shell and disc drive on my Saturn personally and just use a pseudosaturn for playing imports and backups. i was just answering fishos' question of why bother with original hardware if you're not using original discs
Funko pops were also very popular. Everdrives are overpriced junk.
Show us a better solution.
Yeah it's a bit of a head scratcher