/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5306587]

In your experience, which retro console is the most unreliable?

[Anonymous No.5306593]

>>5306587
My Dreamcast is the only console I had trouble with back before it was even "retro". Ended up having to get it replaced by the store once. My PS1 has frozen up a few times on me, but I feel like that had more to do with the state of the discs themselves.

[Anonymous No.5306594]

I've been through more Dreamcasts than anything else, so that.

[Anonymous No.5306597]

Can confirm about the Dreamcast. The 220V models at least anyway, the pins connecting the mainboard to the power supply get warped and corroded and makes the console randomly reset.

[Anonymous No.5306598]

Playstation is the only system that I own that is kill and only read discs when put on sideways when it still worked.

[Anonymous No.5306602]

>>5306593
Actually strike that, does the Commodore 64 count as a "console"? I had some disk drive games for that which I could never get to work back when I was a kid. The older it got, the less cooperative it got, until almost nothing worked.

[Anonymous No.5306606]

>>5306602
Well if we're counting home computers than the Amiga 500 has extremely thin plastic and yellows horrifically and becomes brittle as shit. It's like putting your finger on an M&M on a summers day, it will go straight through.

[Anonymous No.5306609]

>>5306587
I changed lots of PS1 PSUs that cooked themselves and other parts of the system, prominently optical drives.
Some PSU/cooling/drive failures on DCs and PS2s.

Rule of thumb; newer systems are more prone to failure.
Changing some capacitors on a PCE or replacing drive gears on a DUO is hardly what I would call the result of unreliability, more of advancing age.

[Anonymous No.5306617]

>>5306587
P.iece of S.hit 2

>Some of them you can't even put back together with the way they've placed the ribbon cable.

[Anonymous No.5306618]

>>5306602
The only thing that kills a Commdore 64 is it's own aging power supply. You seriously need to check the voltages comeing out of it. Nothing kills the sid chip faster.

[Anonymous No.5306620]

>>5306606
I have no idea what you're talking about. Even the busted up A500 I have doesn't match your description.

What region?

[Anonymous No.5306628]

>>5306620
UK

[Anonymous No.5306637]

>>5306587
Sega CD. It tends to have mechanical problems and lazer problems.

[Anonymous No.5306643]

It's probably the PS1. But that's to be expected with a CD drive.

[Anonymous No.5306646]

>>5306637
Never had any(1st hand JP Model 1 and 2)

[Anonymous No.5306647]

>>5306587
NES
Even in the early-mid 90s they were fucked

[Anonymous No.5306648]

Xbox 360, by fucking far

[Anonymous No.5306651]

Intellivision model 1. I’m convinced that the cartridge port is mostly for show. Of the 10 games I got for it only 2 and a half work (sometimes), despite my obsessive contact cleaning

[Anonymous No.5306652]

Not by experience but apparently the Atari 5200 is pretty dire.

[Anonymous No.5306656]

>>5306618
Actually the SID and CIA chips are easily toasted because they have no ESD protection. You can blow up an SID simply by plugging or unplugging the A/V cable with the computer powered on or by accidentally plugging the sound cable into the video connector on the TV or monitor.

So there's many ways a C64 can be killed although if properly cared for the C64C is much more reliable and stable than the breadbins.

[Anonymous No.5306659]

>>5306651
Seconding this. One day mine just stopped reading cartridges. This was back in the eighties. Model 2 didn't have such problems though but it wouldn't read games like Donkey Kong, which I am told was planned.

But it also ran Burgertime, so there was that.

[Anonymous No.5306669]

The Atari 2600 and Genesis are the most durable retro consoles, it seems they'll survive until the heat death of the universe. Worst...definitely the Atari 5200 and Colecovision.

[Anonymous No.5306673]

>>5306656
The VIC-II and SID can also have overheating issues but it's not a major problem on the later short board C64C with the HMOS chipset (however NTSC C64Cs are less common than PAL ones). This happened mostly because of Commodore using an outdated 70s chip fabrication process that required dual rail power supplies.

[Anonymous No.5306683]

>>5306609
Most PSU failures on retro systems are due to the idiot operator, not the design of the PSU.

>making sure your PSUs have proper ventilation and aren't sitting on a carpet
>also it helps to unplug them when they're not being used

[Anonymous No.5306686]

This is the most unreliable retro system in the world. It's not a matter of if they'll die but when.

[Anonymous No.5306693]

>>5306686
Your only hope is to heat sink the CPU and TED and rip out the 3 in 1 ROMs--they're useless and you'll cut way down on heat and power usage.

[Anonymous No.5306701]

In 30 years you'll probably still be able to boot up your Atari 2600 and play Galaxian while there won't be any working Xbox 360s left anywhere.

[Anonymous No.5306702]

>>5306683
That's what I told people over and over, but they keep these systems stacked(and running) in shelves or cabinets or on the carpet where they get clogged with dust/lints/fuzz. I also removed a concerning amount of dead insects from retro systems...like wtf ?

[Anonymous No.5306703]

>>5306701
360 slim is fairly reliable at least. All of the 7th gen consoles had reliability problems at first. Wii less so

[Anonymous No.5306706]

>>5306683
I mean, the C64 PSU wasn't a very good design to begin with, still, like anything else it appreciated proper care. Problem was they have no overvoltage protection so when they do go bad, it's like Chernobyl.

[Anonymous No.5306712]

The early SNESes with the SHVC board have a high CPU failure rate, but this was fixed from the GPM boards onward so if yours has a SCPU-B you shouldn't need to worry at all.

[Anonymous No.5306720]

>>5306587
only /vr/ refuses to count the ps2, but that system. Not even close.

I thought a few other systems were tied for failure, until I started offering repairs and mods via the internet. The ps2 comes in more often than anything and what is even more damning is most people paying more than it would cost to just replace it. Also local ma n pa shops have stacks of 20-50 they get in over a 2-3 month period. They ask me to repair systems and the ps2 is ungodly in comparison.


Next would be Sega cd (caps), TG-16(caps), TGCD(caps) Amiga CD32, CDi, ps1(entire system), 3do, NES(video/audio and pins), Saturn(psu and drive), SMS, 32x, Dreamcast(damaged from poor handling/ humidity). In that order. The rest are about tied, until you get into Intellivision, coleco, 2600 which is mostly due to age and care they received. Most pre 3rd gen stuff was used with wrong voltage adapters and what not, similar to what causes SegaCD so much issue.


With the respective of sales figured in, ps2 is still top by no margin. More ps2 = more dead units, but not by such a large gap.

[Anonymous No.5306727]

RAM seems to be about the only thing in an Apple II that goes bad, otherwise they're quite bombproof.

[Anonymous No.5306737]

>>5306651
>>5306659

I'm gonna have to disagree with you guys. I hate Intellivsion but I have never had any issue getting games to boot. I have seriously only cleaned a couple of my games. I do think that the controller feels like it's ready to explode at any moment.

[Anonymous No.5306746]

>>5306587
PS2 isn't retro yet, so I guess the PS1. But I think the PS2 deserves a honorable mention, I went through 2 of those which seemed unheard of at the time.

[Anonymous No.5306748]

I don't think the SEGA Master System is very durable.

[Anonymous No.5306753]

>>5306720
It's mainly the disc drive that goes in the PS2, right?

[Anonymous No.5306756]

>>5306720
>caps
What exactly causes these to fail?
AFAIK the Luminous Town Electric scandal didn't happen until the late 90's, so you'd assume most caps before then would be fairly reliable.
Is it just the heat that kills them?
I personally own a lot of electronics from decades prior to video games and they still work fine. Even wax paper caps from the 60's still keep chugging along like the day they were made.

[Anonymous No.5306767]

Computer edition:

Apple II: Mostly RAM, the II/II+ are less reliable (but easier to fix) due to their huge PCB with over 100 chips which tends to get fairly toasty. They used tri-voltage 4116 RAM which is not as reliable as later single voltage types and gets hot. Also Apple used a lot of shitty RAM brands because they were cheap.

Atari 8-bits: The 400/800 were the best built, the XL series are not quite as much and have a lot of RAM failures due to shit PSUs and use of trash-tier Micron RAM. The XEs are cheap and flimsy as fuck and almost all have Micron RAM that dies if you look at it the wrong way.

VIC-20: Usually pretty reliable, sometimes the RAM goes bad or the VIC (which may benefit from heat sinking).

C64: Early breadbins had a horrible failure rate especially of the PLA. Later breadbins and C64Cs are much more reliable but all have shit PSUs and lack of ESD protection for the SID and CIAs. Heat sinking the VIC-II and SID may be a good idea.

Plus/4 and C16: Heat sink the main ICs and take out the 3 in 1 ROMs, I'm not kidding. The Plus/4 seems to die more often than the C16 perhaps because it's a more complex design and the case has less room in it to disperse heat.

IBM PC/XT/AT: Mostly RAM and caps.

Amiga: The 500 is the most stable and reliable, other models have cap issues or batteries that leak and destroy the PCB.

[Anonymous No.5306768]

I ended up repairing/replacing all my PlayStation consoles (PS1-4) at some point. My current PS2 works pretty well and thankfully doesn't seem to have any issues. My PS1 had some issues playing the FMVs in Parasite Eve, but otherwise I mostly used the PS2 when I want to play PS1 discs, so I never had much of an incentive to have it repaired.

My original NES also got replaced due to faulty PPU, but otherwise it never had any real issues for the 20+ years it was still working. My original Super NES still works, but it only outputs RF and the video image is still faulty. My original Game Boy is just a brick and my Game Boy Advance SP is currently under repairs for a new screen due to dead pixels. I haven't used my Nintendo 64 in years and my GameCube has a dead disc drive (but just like the PS1, I used my Wii for GameCube discs).

My Sega Saturn always had some issues reading discs, but when it works it works. My Dreamcast on the other hand currently suffers from a dead disc drive too.

[Anonymous No.5306776]

>>5306768
>My original NES also got replaced due to faulty PPU, but otherwise it never had any real issues for the 20+ years it was still working.
I don't think I've ever seen the main chips in a NES go bad unless they were used with the wrong PSU or it was in a lightning strike. Almost always it's the flaky cartridge slot that causes issues.

[Anonymous No.5306805]

>>5306767
>Amiga
>batteries that leak and destroy the PCB
I got an A2000 that was unsalvageable because of this. The owner just kept it in a closet for 20 years. The PCB had a PHYSICAL hole in it, almost large enough to stick through a finger.

[Anonymous No.5306806]

>>5306646
I recently pulled mine out and the laser limiter had a common fault that requires you to bed it a bit to make it stop correctly. If you don't it doesn't read a disc because the laser starts in the wrong position. Lasers on them burn out quite a bit due to age and the use of cd "backups".

[Anonymous No.5306808]

>>5306805
This isn't a problem exclusive to Amigas, it also affects many early 90s PCs because of the blue barrel batteries that were in vogue at the time.

[Anonymous No.5306814]

>>5306767
>The 500 is the most stable and reliable
Coincidentally it's also the simplest model design-wise.

[Anonymous No.5306816]

>>5306767
Want to know how I know this anon is American?

[Anonymous No.5306834]

>>5306587
Xbox. Any microsoft console actually. Their build quality is incredibly poor.

[Anonymous No.5306852]

>>5306587
My N64 is kill
Pretty sure it's the power brick

[Anonymous No.5306856]

PSX (laser) or Sega CD model 1 (disc tray belt). Any other answer is wrong.

[Anonymous No.5306885]

I have Snes, saturn, DSlite, PSone, Ps2fat, ps3, psp, psvita and 360

My DSlite had a hinge crack that i got warrantied, My Ps2fat had issues reading cd format games so i had that warrantied too. My 360 red ringed but couldnt get it warrantied because it was 2 months after warranty expiration. all my other consoles worked fine without any issues.

[Anonymous No.5306936]

>>5306587
Sega GameGear probably.
I guess around >95% of all produced GameGears have leaking/busted capacitors by now.

[Anonymous No.5306939]

>>5306767
>C64: Early breadbins had a horrible failure rate especially of the PLA. Later breadbins and C64Cs are much more reliable but all have shit PSUs and lack of ESD protection for the SID and CIAs. Heat sinking the VIC-II and SID may be a good idea.

The C128 is surprisingly bombproof for what a ridiculous Rube Goldberg contraption it is, I've never seen a dead one that wasn't the result of poorly thought-out hardware mods by the owner.

[Anonymous No.5306986]

>>5306701
In 60 years you still will be able to play Tetris in an old Game Boy.

[Anonymous No.5307074]

The Virtual Boy is terrible for display issues. The ribbon cables that connect the LED displays to the motherboard are held on with glue, which goes bad over the years. This can cause a lot of problems, most commonly bright red horizontal lines across the screen, scrambled graphics, brightness issues, displays that don't work at all, etc. The only solution is to solder the ribbon cables to the board. I can't solder to save my life, but thankfully it turns out there are some VB fanatics out there you can send the ribbon cables to and they'll do the soldering for you for like $25.

All 3 Virtual Boys I've owned over the years eventually developed these issues. They're all fixed now, but damn, what a stupid design choice.

[Anonymous No.5307084]

PS1, easily.

[Anonymous No.5307091]

This bastard. The internal memory for date/time and game saves dying on saturn is a classic. Inb4 it's gotta be the battery and only the battery brah

[Anonymous No.5307113]

>>5307091
Never heard of that.

[Anonymous No.5307135]

>>5306602
>>5306593

Anecdotal, obviously, but both my c64 and launch day Dreamcast have been awesome. ps2, 360, Jaguar CD, CD-i, and sega-cd have been dumb baka mother fuckers.

[Anonymous No.5307140]

>>5307091
Of all the consoles the saturn doesn't belong in this thread, its mainly the reason why Sega went el cheapo on the dreamcast laser, compared to the Saturn's one which was very reliable.

Just make sure you change the cr battery and keep back ups on your action replay and you're sorted.

[Anonymous No.5307149]

>>5306652
>>5306669
The 5200 and Colecovision use 4116 DRAMs which get hot and are easily eaten by a bad PSU.

[Anonymous No.5307151]

>>5306587
>which retro console is the most unreliable?
MS-DOS

[Anonymous No.5307226]

>>5307151
>MS-DOS is a console
wew lad

[Anonymous No.5307230]

PlayStation and it’s not even close.

[Anonymous No.5307257]

>>5307226
>It isn't
wew lad

[飛翔 ルーラー !TdLGxo1/9U No.5307262]

>>5306587
Sega Genesis

[Anonymous No.5307276]

>>5307262
That’s strange. I was just going to say it’s been my most reliable system.

[Anonymous No.5307314]

Famicom Disk System. There almost certainly are none still left that work that haven't been serviced. The drive belt just melts.

[Anonymous No.5307325]

>>5306602
No, it doesn't count as a console.

[飛翔 ルーラー !TdLGxo1/9U No.5307508]

>>5307276
1. Anything so much as touches it your game freezes up and you have to turn off the system and start your game all the way back at the beginning.

2. Power button gets jammed in the system to where the only way to turn it off and on anymore it to physically unplug it or plug it back in.

3. The controller ports are comports with pins that if bent can make the system unusable.

4. All of these problems fresh out of the box brand new from Toys Я Us.

Oh yeah this sure sounds reliable imagine if this thing were advertised that way, you'd have a sea of people outside store windows like the zombies outside the mall in Dawn of the Dead.

[Anonymous No.5307518]

>>5306936
this is the only real answer. I know the GG isn't a popular system, but they are all dead or destroyed at this point. Even the majesco re-releases are iffy and they came out like 10 years after the originals.

cap kits are plentiful and easy to install thankfully.

[Anonymous No.5307528]

NES but it's usually simple mechanical repairs. PS1s largely have dying lasers. Common SNES models have CPU plague and die randomly and the chassis themselves become incredibly brittle. I've seen surprisingly few dreamcasts with dead lasers.
-t. works at a retro game store and on hundreds of systems each year

[Anonymous No.5307538]

I have 2 Sega CDs. One of them I haven't gotten around to checking what is wrong with it but it stopped working last year. Likely a fuse, since it won't power on. Sega CDX randomly restarts occasionally.

So gotta go with the Sega CD.

[飛翔 ルーラー !TdLGxo1/9U No.5307550]

>>5307518
>GG
Giggling girls?
Great grandmas?
Great grandpas?
Great grandparents?
Gay guys?
Giant genitalia?

[Anonymous No.5307571]

>>5307325
It plugs directly into a TV and loads carts, its totally a console.

[Anonymous No.5307574]

>>5306816
no

[飛翔 ルーラー !TdLGxo1/9U No.5307590]

>>5306816
You threw holy water in his face and it burned him?

[Anonymous No.5307605]

>>5307257
It isn't

[Anonymous No.5307608]

>>5307508
Complete opposite with my US model 1.

[Anonymous No.5307614]

>>5306587
PS2 I bought in 2001. Got the disc read error and its scratched the bottom of some of my discs. My family was too stupid to know Sony would pay to refurbish it due to a lawsuit. So I ended up getting a new PS2 in 2008. I've never had any problems with any cart based retro console. Except NES which I needed to clean the contacts and it still works fine. Mostly disc based systems are the only ones that fail.

[Anonymous No.5307627]

>>5307550
Game Gear you dumb chink. Game Gears have shit capacitors made in mexico that dry up.

[飛翔 ルーラー !TdLGxo1/9U No.5307657]

>>5307627
Oh yeah I remember that piece of crap, I had a choice between either that or a brand new Intelevision for Christmas 1993 and I chose the Intelevision.

[Anonymous No.5307680]

>>5306637
>lazer
wtf is a "lazer"?
Why do retards always spell laser, an acronym, like that?

[Anonymous No.5307749]

>>5307680
Z is cooler than s

[Anonymous No.5307789]

>>5307614
Ps2s are actually very sturdy, you just got a defective unit. Sega cds, now those can suck a dick, even fixing them is a waste now that wiis emulate them.

[Anonymous No.5307795]

>>5306936
Yeah I remember that my Game Gear wound up breaking after a few years of use. My dad tried fixing it but could never get it working again. Same thing with my Nomad, I think these systems just had unreliable power supply's or something.

[Anonymous No.5307816]

>>5307795
The caps in game gears were shit (not unlike most capacitors in that era) but the overly complicated screen and light didnt help, plus its numerous pcbs snd ribbons that made it a hassle to fix. I dont know what caused it to be shit at release, but the design didnt help, neither did the battery consption.

[Anonymous No.5308147]

>>5306659
only 1 game i have works out of the 10 I have for intellivision, even on ebay a lot don't work.

I had an atari 2600 that I took apart and removed the tia chip to do a mod, i accidentally put it in backwards and turned it on before realizing my mistake. I put the chip in the proper way and it worked fine. It also had horrible tv reception until replacing the capacitor near the power input, now the picture is perfect.

[Anonymous No.5308165]

>>5306587
My NES never played any games without at least 5 minutes of the flashing green screen in between taking out the cartridge and blowing on it...then it got to the point where banging on the console was the only way to make a game boot up...also, whatever mechanism holds the cart down doesn't work anymore so I push it down and then wedge a rock in there to hold it in place.

[Anonymous No.5308205]

>>5306587
well of all my consoles, my N64 is the only one that bit the dust, so I guess that one.

[Anonymous No.5308380]

>>5307528
>Common SNES models have CPU plague
Is the earlier units with the SCPU-A no doubt.

[Anonymous No.5308390]

The Famicom had teething problems too in the very beginning but Nintendo had time to work them out by the time the console was a major seller. The SNES had to be immediately thrust into the mass market despite being not entirely mature technology at first. That may also account for why many popular Japanese game franchises when they went to the SNES proved a let-down compared with their 8-bit predecessors. They were rushed to meet market demand and programmers didn't have the time to slowly learn and master the hardware as they did with the Famicom.

[Anonymous No.5308587]

So what's the exact deal with NOACs? Redpill me on them.

[Anonymous No.5308598]

>>5308587
Famiclones used to use reverse-engineered CPUs and PPUs. Sometime in the late 90s these gave way to NOACs which integrated the entire Famicom onto one IC. Unfortunately the compatibility of Famiclones is dodgy. They'll work with the more simple stuff like Pac-Man and SMB, a lot of the advanced/third party mappers like MMC5 and VRC series fuck up on them.

Thing is, in places like Taiwan they mostly had pirate multicarts with about 50 NROM games on them. Nobody had MMC5 stuff so compatibility was not really taken into account, the Famiclones had to be just good enough to run Battle City off a multicart.

[Anonymous No.5308615]

Most Famiclones look and feel cheap, the sound is usually inaccurate as fuck and game music can sound way off. Who would want to subject themselves to having Manami Matsumae's masterpieces sounding all off pitch and playing at the wrong speed? NES emulators from the late 90s-early 2000s like NESticle are more accurate even than the typical Famiclone. NOACs fuck up when used with an MMC5 because the mapper relies on timing tricks that the NOAC doesn't emulate correctly.

Some enthusiasts with an FPGA could produce a more accurate NES clone than anything you'll find with a NOAC.

[Anonymous No.5308623]

Based on the limited time I've had with NOAC based Famiclones at a mall kiosk, I didn't notice any problems with the sound being off.

[Anonymous No.5308625]

>>5308623
Well I've seen more of the things in action than you have and in particular SMB3 really sounds fucked up. The "ching" sound when you pick up a coin is more like a "boing" sound and the sampled PCM drums on the overworld music are loud as fuck and drown out the rest of the music.

[Anonymous No.5308628]

>>5308598
The CNRAM line is often not connected which causes MMC5 games to fail.

[Anonymous No.5308631]

>>5308598
The CIRAM line is often not connected which causes MMC5 games with four screen mirroring to fail.

[Anonymous No.5308638]

>>5308631
Ok. The way I see it is 97% compatibility was probably seen as good enough by most Famiclone makers and to be honest, most of the games that are broken aren't very good anyway--Castlevania 3 and TMNT 3 are about the only ones I would care about.

[Anonymous No.5308639]

>>5308638
Many of the games that do not run correctly on the Yobo/NEX are great games. Did you ever consider that maybe you aren't very familiar with the NES/Famicom?

[Anonymous No.5308647]

>>5308639
Supposedly the following are broken:

Bandit Kings of Ancient China: You don't really need to play this
L'Empereur: You don't really need to play this
Castlevania 3: Ok
Dragon Warrior 2: Sure
Rad Racer II: Trash
Paper Boy: It's not bad but I can just play the arcade game on MAME anyway
TMNT III: Sure, this is a must-play and the best NES Ninja Turtles game, but some sources suggest it may not be broken after all

[Anonymous No.5308649]

Admittedly it's just my opinion but I can always play CV3 and TMNT 3 on emulation and not being able to run them on a NOAC is a small sacrifice for having a freshly-manufactured system that isn't 30 years old and spent 25 of them in an attic or damp basement, and even then there are hundreds of other quality games that will work just fine on them.

[Anonymous No.5308659]

Isn't a NOAC what the NES Mini used? If it's good enough for Nintendo themselves...

[Anonymous No.5308661]

>>5308659
It's an emulator, not a hardware clone like the NOACs are.

[Anonymous No.5308662]

>>5308649
The main problem is those "compatibility" lists gloss over graphics corruption in games that boot. Good examples are the world map in Zelda and the menu system in River City Ransom on the Yobo (and possibly FC Twin and NEX?). Those would be listed as fully compatible because they run, but they aren't close to correct.

I don't know Famicom games but you would be missing out on Just Breed, one of the most impressive NES/Famicom games.

[Anonymous No.5308667]

Regarding the glitches in Zelda and River City Ransom, I was never a fan of either one, if I want to play a brawler it's TMNT 4: Turtles in Time or Streets of Rage 2 for me, I can barely to stand to play any others after playing those two perfect examples of the genre. So yeah I can see why people would complain since a lot of people do like those games, but it's still about on par with backwards compatability of first party systems (a few GB/GBC games wouldn't run correctly on the GBA, etc). Even taking glitched games into account, that still leaves somewhere between 90%~95% that run flawlessly (except audio), still not bad.

[Anonymous No.5308668]

>>5307508
This happened....

I have never had any problems with any of my Genesis' and I've had three of them (first one I gave to my parents for my niece whenever she goes over to their house, second one we got with a Sega CD that was given by my brother to his half-brother, and the one that I currently own). The only real issue I've had with one is the current one that I bought second-hand that has some rainbow color issues that most very early model 1s have. but thats it.

[Anonymous No.5308679]

>>5308668
I agree. Like somone else said, the Genesis is one of the most dependable retro consoles next to the Atari 2600.

[Anonymous No.5308680]

>>5308662
>I don't know Famicom games but you would be missing out on Just Breed, one of the most impressive NES/Famicom games.

A lot of people like Just Breed; it's a mix of Dragon Warrior with Fire Emblem and it uses the MMC5 for very colorful and detailed graphics. The other games are either games most people find at most slightly above average or pretty bad (Cheetahmen II in particular).

[Anonymous No.5308682]

>>5308667
Still I've never seen a GBC game that had incorrect colors or fucked up sound when run on a GBA.

[Anonymous No.5308686]

>>5308682
A few GB/GBC games fuck up on a GBA, off the top of my head I know R-Type doesn't work correctly (sound glitches) and Tarzan (graphics? I don't remember). There are a small number of PS1 games that don't work properly on a PS2 either (IIRC all Japanese exclusives). Still that's nothing compared to the litany of bad colors and inaccurate sound on Famiclones. And because you personally don't like certain games doesn't mean it's ok for them to not work. Yes that even goes for Cheetahmen 2.

[Anonymous No.5308694]

Anyway, you'd be surprised at just how many NES games do hax tricks that even give emulator coders a headache, although nothing beats Micro Machines. Early NES/Famicom made before mid-1986 won't run it correctly and only one emulator (Nintendolator) can do it.

Marble Madness, Spelunker, Door Door, Pirates!, Battletoads, all just some examples of games that do various weird stunts such as playing around with the IRQ/NMI in unusual ways or switching charsets in mid-frame. As for Paperboy, that one exploits an odd behavior in how the controllers are read.

[Anonymous No.5308696]

Also no two Famiclones are exactly alike, some will run games that break on others. None have 100% sound but some are better or worse than others. Also some even have differing CPU performance, for example a given game may produce severe slowdown on one Famiclone but on another it's no worse than it is on a real NES.

[Anonymous No.5308740]

>>5306602
even if it counts as a console, i would call the C64 one, if not the most RELIABLE of them all, especially considering its age. Just have a look at i.e. this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVphFkaX1gg

[Anonymous No.5308746]

>>5308662
Examination of the NEX reveals that the CIRAM line isn't implemented because that particular connector was used instead to detect if a Famicom cartridge is inserted. Also it has a 32k SRAM in it which is way bigger than what a real NES has (only 2k).

[Anonymous No.5308747]

>>5308740
That's a C64C though. If you left a breadbin outside for a decade, I guarantee you won't have that kind of luck.

[Anonymous No.5308749]

>>5308746
>Also it has a 32k SRAM in it which is way bigger than what a real NES has (only 2k)

They use whatever parts they can get off the shelf. SRAMs that small really aren't made anymore, I'm pretty sure the smallest ones still produced are 32k-64k. Which is fine, you can just wire it up to only use a portion of the chip.

[Anonymous No.5308752]

>>5308747
Also we don't know the particular climate conditions that C64 was in. Depending on where you live, temperature and humidity conditions over the year can vary a lot and some may be more favorable than others. If you lived in a place like Miami with humid, salty ocean air, the thing would be destroyed utterly by corrosion.

[Anonymous No.5308760]

To be honest Famicom compatibility with NOACs is a worse problem than NES compatibility. There are fewer NES games than there are Famicom ones and they're all well-documented and understood. Famicom games are a bit more mysterious and they tended to use a larger assortment of mapper chips and peripherals than what NES games used.

[Anonymous No.5308814]

Newer NOACs fix the MMC5 problem but still have fucked sound and other issues. It's still bewildering to me why this hasn't been fixed in this many years.

[Anonymous No.5308825]

>>5308814
It is China, so you shouldn't be surprised. And although the older Famiclones from the 90s that had a full chipset in them were better, it's not very cost effective to produce one today because you'd have to charge over $100. Keep in mind that when a real NES was new, it sold for around $200 and adjusted for inflation that would be about $500-$600 today.

[Anonymous No.5308837]

It's dodgy. Bigger Color Dreams games, some Tengen, and of course MMC5 won't work on NOACs. NROM, UNROM, and MMC1 should all work. Yes, I know CV3 not working is a big problem because that's the one MMC5 game that's a must-play.

Certain MMC3 stuff doesn't work either.

[Anonymous No.5308849]

I have a NEX and it runs Mega Man 2 just fine.

[Anonymous No.5308853]

>>5306587
Not retro but OG Xboxes have bad clock capacitors. If you haven't removed it yet then yours is probably gone.

[Anonymous No.5308858]

>>5308849
The NEX has the usual shit Famiclone sound and fucked colors. That alone is a black mark in my book.

[Anonymous No.5308865]

>>5308694
>As for Paperboy, that one exploits an odd behavior in how the controllers are read

Actually it doesn't work right because Atari didn't adhere to Nintendo's programming guidelines for reading the controllers and they used a weird technique, but it still manages to work. It does break on NOACs though.

[Anonymous No.5308869]

>>5308837
CV3 is actually the least troublesome game since it uses the MMC5's capabilities the least out of all MMC5 titles.

[Anonymous No.5308875]

Should have also mentioned Startropics which uses an MMC6 (MMC3 with 2k of on-chip RAM).

[Anonymous No.5308878]

>>5308853
Unless you have a 1.6 revision.

[Anonymous No.5308929]

>>5308647
>>5308649

wow all these mental gymnastics over a course of hoops and loops

[Anonymous No.5308951]

>>5308615
what rock do you live in?

we had 2 FPGA nes clones now

[Anonymous No.5308983]

Odd why nobody has been able to do same with an FPGA C64.

[Anonymous No.5309173]

I had TWO Gameboy Pockets crack screens on me, both times because my little brother threw/stepped on it. Something about the screen struck me as far more fragile than most Nintendo handhelds.

[Anonymous No.5309267]

>>5306587
NES Toaster
Dreamcast

[Anonymous No.5309445]

>>5306587
Nothing retro of mine has given me trouble, the only console I ever had break on me was a PS3. Everything else still works since day one

[Anonymous No.5309456]

>>5306587
Atari 5200, original NES, Atari Jaguar/CD, and the PlayStation 2. Ooh one year early it's soooo not retro.

[Anonymous No.5309473]

>>5309456
I would argue that anything from the 5th gen isn't retro because that's the start of the modern era of games with disc based media and 3D polygonal graphics becoming the norm

[Anonymous No.5309476]

>>5306587
Virtual Boy, the screen cables are glued to the main board and the glue loosens over time, making the displays become basically useless unless you do a tough soldering job to permanently connect the ribbon cables.

Also, the Bally Astrocade is amazing at overheating. They can kill themselves very quickly on a carpeted floor, and often I see people talk of using a laptop cooler for them because they overheat so readily.

Finally, in my own experience, the Playstation series is poorly built. I've lost PS1s and PS2s when I've never lost consoles from Nintendo or Sega (beyond the DS Lite hinge crack on my launch model).

[Anonymous No.5309482]

>>5309473
That's not how retro works, anon, but I see the logic. It would firmly delineate a line between classic and modern games, but it's arbitrary. It works, though I guess in this case since no one refers to the Atari Jaguar as a classic or retro console, so you may be on to something.

[Anonymous No.5309483]

>>5306986
you might have to run it on a flashcart if the original roms burn out though, Tetris carts are going on 30 years of age for the OG print run.

[Anonymous No.5309484]

How could I leave out X-Box, X-Box 360, and X-Box One? Fucking junk. Why do people buy gimped PCs for the same games? Can someone explain it to me?

[Anonymous No.5309490]

>360 XBox One
Ooops, those two are not classics at all, got carried away, but the XBox and XBox 360 are gahbidge.

[Anonymous No.5309491]

>>5308638
>>5308647
I'm fairly positive TMNT3 was bootlegged, so the bootleg console makers must have taken it into account. I know it was bootlegged because this activated a secret anitpiracy measure where Shredder was invincible.

[Anonymous No.5309494]

>>5307074
Every single VB ever made will fall to this, there have been brand-new still-sealed boxed units opened in this decade that had the exact same problem.

>>5308165
fun fact: pushing the cart down actually pushes the cart pins out of place, meaning your connections get shittier and shittier the more you push it down.

You don't actually have to push the cart down either, it works fine as-is. I'm half-convinced anymore that they weren't just emulating a tape player, they were actively encouraging repairs and replacements like the evil cunt manufacturers of the new era.

[Anonymous No.5309576]

>>5306587
The toaster NES model is well known for its pins getting bent out of shape when you put a game in, but I haven't really had problems with mine otherwise. I use a flash cart, though.
>>5309473
I kind of agree, at least for console games. The fifth generation was really a transitional period.

[Anonymous No.5310064]

I went through 4 PS2s somehow.

Great console nonetheless.

Most reliable was Genesis.

[Anonymous No.5310085]

The virtual boy no caveats.

[Anonymous No.5310092]

Ironically the only console that's ever given me trouble was the gamecube. Mine eventually just stopped reading discs. Eventually got a second one and a few months later that stopped reading discs too. Everyone says they're bulletproof bu they ended up going 0/2 for me. No other console has ever crapped out on me

[Anonymous No.5310105]

>>5310092
People say they're bulletproof because they can be used as blunt weapons and still be fine afterwards. Less so because of the disc lasers

[Anonymous No.5310116]

>>5310105
Found a youtube link of one being dragged behind a car and still working afterwards, but it won't work for some reason.https://www.youtube.com/v/DRhCjglpzh8

[Anonymous No.5310163]

>>5306587
The NES was so unreliable we got rid of ours around 5 years after we got it. That front-load design choice to make it look like a VCR was a huge mistake.

[Anonymous No.5310165]

>>5310163
>The NES was so unreliable we got rid of ours around 5 years after we got it.
Your family was too hard on it. My was in mint condition ten years after I got it. (gave it away)

[Anonymous No.5310171]

Potentially noob hardware question here, but shouldn't cartridge based consoles much more reliable than disc based ones?

[Anonymous No.5310175]

>>5310171
They are more reliable than disc-based ones. The less moving parts, the better as less stuff that will break. Yeah, NES's aren't indestructible, but they should outlast all of us if they're kept from corroding and abuse. A SEGA Genesis might last even longer.

[Anonymous No.5310305]

>>5306647
The pin connector is sucky but thats easily repaired. Like, it's easier than most of the shit you do during the day. A grandma with parkinsons disease could do it.

[Anonymous No.5310309]

>>5306816
Because he didn't mention your pile of shit with chiclet buttons and no good games?>>5306834

[Anonymous No.5310401]

Playstation. 9 times out of 10 games won't boot, it's like they don't spin up fast enough.

[Anonymous No.5310820]

>>5306602
c64 and a500 were solid as a rock. you could smash a nigger sjull with it and go play games with it before even the blood dried. kept it running for nearly a week because you couldnt save the game vermeer

[Anonymous No.5310830]

>>5309483
>mask ROMs
>burn out

[Anonymous No.5310837]

>>5309473
The 7th gen was the start of modern gaming to be entirely fair.

[Anonymous No.5310843]

>>5306587
My N64 has reset out of nowhere a couple of times. I have an oem expansion pak installed.

[Anonymous No.5310870]

>>5310820
>C64
>solid as a rock
Maybe the C64C, not the breadbins anyway.

[Anonymous No.5310902]

>>5306587
I always had to give my PS1 some slaps on the side for it to work. Could be because it had a chip tho.

[Anonymous No.5310904]

>>5309494
The NES games don't start unless you push them down...have you never used a physical NES before? You push the cart in, then push down and it locks in place so you can hit the power switch and go.

[Anonymous No.5310927]

>>5310064
Only consoles allowed on this board. Otherwise it would be a deathmatch between the PS2 and X360, which are both far more unreliable than any retro system. Even the Sega CD, which is my choice.

[Anonymous No.5311107]

>>5310309
He mentioned the Plus/4 though.

[Anonymous No.5311332]

>>5310870
Well everyone i knew had one and i never see even one of them break. and we were kids, so we treated them badly.

[Anonymous No.5311404]

>>5310904
Not them, but some fags "fix" their original Nintendos by purposing installing a new connector that is tilted like that. Listening to them rationalize how it's still as good as an unfucked NES is good for some cheap laughs.

[Anonymous No.5311408]

>>5306587
Dreamcast

[Anonymous No.5311426]

>>5307262
>trip fagging
get the fuck out, your kind is a cancer here, especially babbage gramps, that guy ruins this board.

[Anonymous No.5311434]

I have 2 Dreamcasts and 2 PS2s that are broken.
And a another non-/vr/ console by sony that is broken.

[Anonymous No.5311485]

>>5310843
Give it a rubbing alcohol scrub and dry

[Anonymous No.5311559]

>>5306587

The fat playstation 1 & 2. They were extremely cheap builds.

[Anonymous No.5311803]

>>5306587
I'd say older ps1 models. I had one of those defective models that would break its own cd drive.