RetroFreak (11 consoles in 1)

[AaronC]

Update on the rom dumping front.

Out of 166 games, only 6 I couldn't get it to recognize. The three I mentioned on my last post and now Mike Tyson, Clash at Demonhead, and Xexyz. I cleaned Xexyz pretty good and it still won't recognize it. I though it might have been the NES to Famicom adapter I ordered, but the rest of my NES collection zipped through with no problem. I did dump them without them being recognized and they did not play. Bonk's Revenge is the only one that hasn't be recognized but still played when I dumped it. Going to try and clean them again tonight and give it one last shot.

Still happy with the ratio. I did play a lot of TG16 games last night and just that alone has made it worth it haha! Also fired up Bucky O'Hare for the first time and was very impressed with it.

All in all, it was a great purchase. I've had no signs of overheating and I played for a good amount of time last night. All the games I dumped are working just fine with no problem. Great little machine.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I have hundreds of carts and I'm pretty sure the slots on this thing would die if I tried to dump everything. I ended up doing 100 games or so or calling it good.

There's also plenty of stuff I purposefully didn't dump. For instance, for Japan-only games with fan translations it seems like it'd be much easier to simply download a pre-patched ROM and put it on the SD card, vs. downloading a patch and having the RetoFreak apply it to the game.

I had a few games flat-out not work with the system. My copy of Galaga '90 didn't read, though that only works when it feels like it on my TG16. Yggdra Union couldn't be read either, so I popped it into my Retron 5 where it worked fine. There were a some others too.

[Tanooki]

I know it's legally gray at best, but if you didn't want to wear out the cheapo bendable pins there, couldn't you just throw a ROM to ROM set of downloaded files vs your carts on a SD card and just call it a day? It would save you hours, days or more of effort of popping in and out hundreds of cartridges.

[AaronC]

I know it's legally gray at best, but if you didn't want to wear out the cheapo bendable pins there, couldn't you just throw a ROM to ROM set of downloaded files vs your carts on a SD card and just call it a day? It would save you hours, days or more of effort of popping in and out hundreds of cartridges.

I've actually thought about this. At least for the ones I own that won't dump. The good news is that I'm pretty much done with Nintendo. Don't collect for it any more and that is the one that is giving me the most trouble.

[Tanooki]

I don't either and trust me I keep seeing some common games as of late in the $3-10 range I'd be more than happy to pick up but it's a slippery slope into being pissed at scalpers about it again so I stop myself. I do miss buying NES and SNES games to explore but it's no longer cost effective or smart to do so. (Instead I'm doing it with Dreamcast.)

[R9delta]

The pins on the Retro Freak hold up pretty well in my opinion honestly. I've dumped about 500+games on to it twice (the second time because I accidentally trashed my rom dumps)..all within probably an hour span each time which is a lot of abuse in my opinion but the slots have held up fine. As far as just throwing roms on the SD card instead I probably wouldn't put more than like 1000-1200 total on one. The inital start up time to load up gets really bad the more roms you add. It wouldn't surprise me if it took 20 minutes to load up if you dropped a US and JPN set of every rom the Retro Freak supports.

[Jagosaurus]

Maybe limit to putting 1 system on a dedicated SD card. Then you can imagine you're inserting a real cart... not an EverDrive!.. into a real system... not a clone!... running the real chip set... not emulation!... on a CRT... Not HD! I kid. I understand the circular argument there.

Good to know regarding more ROMS = start up time differences.

[AaronC]

The pins on the Retro Freak hold up pretty well in my opinion honestly. I've dumped about 500+games on to it twice (the second time because I accidentally trashed my rom dumps)..all within probably an hour span each time which is a lot of abuse in my opinion but the slots have held up fine. As far as just throwing roms on the SD card instead I probably wouldn't put more than like 1000-1200 total on one. The inital start up time to load up gets really bad the more roms you add. It wouldn't surprise me if it took 20 minutes to load up if you dropped a US and JPN set of every rom the Retro Freak supports.

I don't want anyone to think the pins are trash, because their not, but they are just a bit stubborn at times haha! They aren't any worse or better than the Retron 5 and I thought they were more than serviceable.

If I do go the route and emulate, it's only the the ones I own and can't get it to recognize. I'm not a big fan of emulation in the since of pulling the files from a website, but I can see this system being great for that. Is there a consensus on a safe and easy site to get ROMs? I would like to have the ones I can't get it to recognize on the system. Especially Xexyz which I really like.

[BoneSnapDeez]

An "achievement" added to your screenshots folder after you add a bunch of games to the SD card:

[Jagosaurus]

@Aaron, I use emu paradise personally. You can pick ROMS individually or download the entire set for the system.