RetroFreak (11 consoles in 1)

[arcadifvid]

feeling terrible right now. my retrofreak just decided to stop working. it would power on, and get to the title page that says retrofreak, and then just hang there. cant do anything else. never gets to the game selection screen, tried it with or without dock or sd card or any controller. help ? it was working just a few days ago

[Jagosaurus]

feeling terrible right now. my retrofreak just decided to stop working. it would power on, and get to the title page that says retrofreak, and then just hang there. cant do anything else. never gets to the game selection screen, tried it with or without dock or sd card or any controller. help ? it was working just a few days ago

I dont personally own one, but if it were mine I'd try a different firmware or reloading the latest firmware on a different sd card.

[arcadifvid]

@Jago, yeah i already tried it. but its still the same.

Had no luck with cybergadget support either as their suggestions didnt work as well. im giving up. probably just open it up. i could still use the controller and controller adapter though but thats it.

[nightrnr]

I keep going back and forth on whether this would be worth getting.

On one hand, I really like the idea of manually copying roms from games I own to a dedicated emulation system. It's like a "my physical collection digitalized"; just seems neat. It would also make collecting carts fun again.

On the other paw, it really irks me that it encrypts the roms so that it cannot work on any other device. I'd feel like I'm subjecting my carts to foreign, vice gipping pins for no reason.

Thinking about getting a Pi3 finally and using it for a similar purpose (just putting "my" games on it). It would be nice to have an efficient, quiet, system with no moving parts for classic games.

Beyond that, there are the other systems I soft mod to meet my digital rom needs (Xbox, PS2, and Wii come to mind; some are quiet and efficient enough). And more still, everdrives for the actual systems I do have. And I even have a way to play them on newer TVs when it comes to it (Xrgb-3).

I think in the end, I am tempted, but it's not for me.
...and yet, do I still kind of want it? And what, for yet another option that I won't play much? Or would the limitations make it interesting enough to get more gameplay out of it. I could totally see just putting a game on it when I'm serious about playing it. Then it would be a record of what I actually spent time with, not a full, but emotionally empty rom list. It could be the anti-backlog for me.

...if only it were cheap enough to be an impulse buy...

[Tanooki]

You're not alone on that. I didn't know it encrypted the ROMS it dumps, that's crap. I wonder if it would do it to any roms you take from the outside and stuff onto a SD card and feed it to the thing?

I'm as it is now up to 3 kits (GB, NGPC, and SNES) so I'm less needy for it, but the fact it has some really good features, less crappily built than the hyperturd retron5, and can double (encrypted or not) as an all in one everdrive it is pretty tempting.

But as you said, a Pi(3) box could do this too, and with the 4 USB ports it wouldn't be a stretch to get a USB<->(Your system of choice) Controller adapter or just a USB SNES Buffalo clone controller as they're as good as it gets without being Nintendo made. The RF though you can at least still repeatedly use your carts which is a plus while the other is just ROM bait.

If that system were not $180-200 with the controller adapter (and it would cost +? for the NES cart one too which sucks) and 1/2 that price I'd be all over it as an impulse buy. It costs more than a New3DSXL level investment for a ROM box which doesn't sit will with me.

[Jagosaurus]

That is odd that it encrypts the dumped ROMS. Is it possibly more of an export issue... as in it doesn't export a clean ROM (no proprietary system settings or save options tacked on to it) versus a true DRM intended setting?

It's my impression this does not happen from SD card, but I am not certain.

Then again... maybe this isn't that big of deal. Most folks dumping ROMs and then trying to export to SD... likely have ROM sets as well. I think the odds of a user tinkering with ROM dumping & moving them over to external storage withough already have ROMs elsewhere is low. Still unfortunate and unnecessary if intentional though.

I agree nightnrn....at some point it's a circular argument for me also I own systems, real carts, flash carts/EDs, modded systems with emus, emu PC to TV... this box overlaps all those... why do I want it? .... not sure but I do

[nightrnr]

Really, I'm just a spoiled brat; I want everything, and that's all.
The "me" from even 10 years ago would absolutely flip out at the wonderful toys and tech at my disposal.

But I am really into repurposed and dedicated purpose systems these days. I really do see the appeal and application for this system.

But the "me" from 10 years ago would have also balked even harder at the encryption, as I had much less downloaded (only what I deemed necessary). Times are different now; the emulation scene got better and more accomodating, while the game industry (convenient or not) did very little to embrace that new era. That left us to our own devices, so to speak.
Not sure I care to elaborate more on my opinions too much, as even as times change, people tend to have strong feelings on the subject. But I think I'm in good company.

I think a Pi would be nice for Sega CD and PCEngine SuperCD games. However, I've wanted to use an Xbox for the same purpose.

I REALLY want to get my Famicom with RAM adapter and flash stick going, as that would make fam disk games much more special. It has terrible video though. I need to either mod it somehow (1st attempt failed), or just get an AV Famicom.

Dedicated repurposed systems: they get more playtime from me.

Finally, and I don't know if it's true, I heard the RetroFreak has issues getting NES carts using sram to copy. Maybe it depends on the adapter, or maybe that was older firmware. If true, I wouldn't even bother with the adapter and just do the 16-bit games (along with a few famicarts for the heck of it).

[AaronC]

I will say that the NES carts was the most annoying to dump. I finally got them all to work, but man it was a struggle. Luckily I only have about 20 or so NES games. Other than that, all my SNES games worked except for my Terranigma repro and for some reason my Bonk's Revenge did not copy over correctly even though it still plays. Genesis worked perfectly. I was super surprised at how quickly it recognized most games. I really like the system and the interface is pretty simple to use. It's just nice to have all my games in one place and easily accessible.

The one thing that the system has opened up to me is the chance to start purchasing actual Super Famicom carts. There are so many cool games that never came over here and I'm getting chance to play them. It's been really cool learning about those games on here, SNES Drunk, and MJR and seeing which ones have translation patches and which ones can be played regardless of language. I have a pretty good list starting with the Great Battle series.

In short, it's a pretty cool little box.

[nightrnr]

For SFC games, I always used a Game Genie to play my meager collection. Except for Rockman X3, which I found a replacement cart shell that fits the PCB.

It's a moot point now, as I do have a Super Famicom to play them on, but still, I always had options to play Parodius.

I think, I'm not getting the RF. I've been re-evaluating how I like to play my collection and it has been strictly original systems when using authentic carts.
All my efforts have been for using original hardware when possible (flash carts or original carts), with the exception of Famicom, and even there I'm working on it. My funds have even been going to video processors so they will work well on newer TVs.
The RF is definitely neat, but I'll stay in my niche.

Pi3 is still in the air...

[BoneSnapDeez]

Ha, there's an unlockable "Famicom" game in this thing. Similar to Pac-Man with feline enemies. Dunno how to unlock it exactly, showed up for me a few days ago. Or maybe it came with the last update? Pretty amusing.