by bmoc Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:21 pm
Base Unit Hardware & Interface Review
The base unit comes in a very professional box with glossy artwork on most sides. The box is well padded. Inside the box you will find the base unit, wireless controller, 2.4ghz wireless dongle, microUSB cable, HDMI cord, and ac adapter.
As previously mentioned, the wireless controller is very similar to a DualShock 4 controller. It has roughly the same heft to it as a DualShock 3 controller so not heavy at all. The manual claims it has around an 18 hour battery life. To use it wirelessly, you have to plug in the included 2.4ghz wireless USB dongle (using up one of the two USB ports). I’m not sure why they went this route instead of including a Bluetooth controller. Probably cost savings? Allegedly the Polymega has Bluetooth capability but I have not found a way to add a Bluetooth controller. I think that may be coming in a future update.
I tried a few third party controllers via USB and none worked so far: DualShock3, Xbox One, Mayflash adapter, MC Cthulhu arcade stick. Playmaji has stated that support for more controllers is coming. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for DualShock3 support. I’m also hoping for a CD system controller port module so I can use my existing PS1 and Saturn controllers but I am not holding my breath. I may break down and buy a Retrobit Saturn controller which is currently supported.
Ok, enough about controllers. Let’s talk about storage. The base unit comes with 32GB of built-in storage but only 9GB is usable after the latest firmware update. 9GB is fine if you are only dumping carts but if you have a substantial amount of disc based games, you are going to need more storage. I’m currently using a 512GB Western Digital NVMe SSD with my base unit. After several hours of installing games, the SSD did overheat on me twice. The SSD disappeared from the Polymega’s interface and I had to power down the unit to let it cool.
To combat this, I have removed the SSD slot cover and propped up the base unit about ¼ inch to let heat dissipate better. I’m going to look into getting a heatsink for the SSD because the passive SSD cooling vents in the Polymega are not adequate. So far my workaround seems to be fine as I have installed games for many more hours without overheating. 9/13/21 EDIT: While this prevents the storage from disappearing from the interface, I think I was also encountering some thermal throttling on the SSD. Lots of FMV sequences would have stuttering audio which was not present when the SSD was cool. Since I am done installing discs, I'm running the base unit upside down - PSX model SCPH1001 style. Since doing this, I haven't had any FMV issues and the SSD stays a lot cooler. If adding a heatsink doesn't fix this, I have two options to use the unit right side up: wait for the firmware update that allows you to move games between storage device + get a larger microSD card or get a laptop cooling pad. I'm leaning toward the cooling pad.
Another big problem that I had is some PS1 discs that just would not rip correctly. These discs play fine in every other console I’ve thrown at them. Some of them had minor scratches but one (Final Fantasy IX disc 3) was immaculate and it would not rip. For these problem discs, I burned replacements to CD-Rs and those installed just fine to the Polymega. So I definitely recommend keeping a few CD-Rs handy for this purpose. For the record, here are games I had problems with: Tekken, Ridge Racer, Metal Gear Solid disc 2, and FFIX disc 3. (Edit: I spoke too soon about Ridge Racer. Even with a backup copy, it would not recognize the game for installation. Ridge Racer Bonus Turbo Mode Disc will install though.)
I’ve had a few minor issues as well. I could not get the system update to work over WiFi. It just would not see that one was available. After plugging in with Ethernet, I was able to get it to work after rebooting. It very well could have been server issues and I just got unlucky when I tried it. The other issue is my physical eject button is not working. This isn’t a big deal because you can eject via the operating system and if you are really desperate, there is a pinhole eject as well that is common with most optical disc drives. EDIT: My physical eject button started working on its own. I haven't done anything other than rebooting that should have affected it.
On a more positive note, the interface is excellent and very intuitive. I’ll go over each section of the left navigation bar.
Search – This does what you would expect. It allows you to search your entire library.
Now Playing – The game that is currently inserted. Pressing X gives you options to install or delete the game. Pressing A starts the game.
My Collection – Allows you to search your installed titles by console. By default, there is one tile per console and region. There is an option in the Database settings to condense these tiles to one per console type (ignoring region).
Playlists – There are two playlists that you cannot remove and they are at the top: “Continue Playing” which has your recently played titles and “Recently Add” which is self-explanatory.
Media – Where you can go to view your screenshots
System – Brings up the system settings menu same as pressing the Polymega button on the wireless controller while outside of a game.
In game options include:
1. Save/Load State
2. Controller management
3. Screenshot
4. Virtual Display
5. Settings
6. Console (reset the game or change installed discs for multi-disc games)
7. Exit Game
Virtual Display warrants some additional explanation. This is where you go to change display options and your configurations can be saved per console or per title. Aspect Ratio can be adjusted between Standard 4:3 Zoom (default), Standard 4:3, Square Pixels, and Wide 16:9. I agree that Standard 4:3 Zoom looks the best so it is a good choice for the default. Filters (called Virtual Display) can be changed between None (called simply HDMI), RGB, and Composite. I think that both RGB and Composite look really good. RGB has vertical and horizontal scanlines that mimic an RGB monitor. The closest thing that I have seen is the RetroTINK 5x Pro’s PVM scanline setting which I also think is phenomenal if you are into scanlines. Composite also has vertical and horizontal scanlines but the image is blurred slightly. It is a very good approximation of a composite image on a quality TV. If you press X on this screen, you get more image options including additional zoom, blurring (for smoothing out early 3D games I assume), X/Y screen position adjustment, contrast, and brightness. All in all, some very good options to dial in the image the way you want.
Last edited by
bmoc on Thu Sep 23, 2021 3:43 pm, edited 7 times in total.