That first video is good, and also the second one from the same guy that continues with the installation of the USB hard drive. I got both of those done with no problem. I got a bunch of Wii games down onto the hard drive then the Wii stopped reading discs so I have to deal with that now. I had a feeling it was going to go based on some of the noises it was making.

Is there a good way to play Gamecube games on the Wii if they are also stored on the USB hard drive? I saw the thing called Dios Mios but it seems a bit iffy. It might be the only way. Right now I have the Gamecube hooked up anyway but it would be nice to take a box out to clean things up.

I haven't gotten to the other emulators for the homebrew channel yet, hope to get to that over the holidays.

That N64 V3 Everdrive looks great, I think I will get one. I looked on Ebay and added up the prices of all my N64 cartridges and it looks like I could pretty much pay for it if I sell those. But, maybe I'll keep them, can't decide. The most valuable ones I have look like Goldeneye 007 (about $25), Mario Kart 64 ($50) and Pokeman Stadium 2 ($40).

Check out Ebay, search for NES + game title, and click show sold listings only so you see what people actually paid. Zelda maybe 40-80, Marios 30-40, Tyson maybe 20-30.

BUT, boxes, and especially mint or near mint boxes, change things quite a bit. So if you have those they probably will get higher prices. Those would need some more research I think to set a good price.

Zelda offered for $5,000 !

ebay.com link: Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past SNES NEW SEALED 1ST PRINT MINT GOLD VGA 85

I've had an Xbox One for quite a while and I agree. The menu system sucks. Every time I turn the damn thing on I fumble around before I get to what I want. You would think Microsoft could figure out how to design an interface by now. But like you said, UIs everywhere are pretty lousy these days. It seems the art of designing a simple, effective, and efficient interface is fading. But I will tell you what I think is a nice one: LaunchBox. I have this installed on a gaming PC and it has a nice menu to launch everything - all the PC games including Steam as well as all of the emulators, MAME, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Wii, GameCube etc etc. It works great and is customizable. I haven't been able to get it to work with the pinball software yet though. I think it will do it with enough work. It's worth a look if you would like a gaming PC front end alternative to Hyperspin. I tried Hyperspin and it was such a tiresome mishmash I quickly gave up on it.

The first rule of rom club is you don’t talk about rom club.

632C9D1F-7F96-442B-B346-A6B019362FBC (resized).jpeg

F3826098-BE52-4237-BA86-96597E373927 (resized).jpeg

Ha got it, actually I was aiming it at the post you replied to. Anyway, just having some fun and giving a hint for those that need it. Another hint... no-intro is a fun google search term.

RIP Paradise of the Emu

Nintendo is putting the hammer down on a number of different Rom sites, Emu was one of them. They are folding up rather than risk the legal wrath. Google "nintendo rom sites" for plenty of articles about it.

This is a great day. Soldier of Fortune just hit GOG!

If the idea of shooting a bad guy's leg clean off into a bloody stump with a shotgun sounds horrible to you, run away. Otherwise, this is one of the classic FPS games ever. I still have my original disc although I play it with a CD hack. Now I can pay for a clean DRM free version. Happy happy days.

Relating to the posts just above, I got rid of pretty much all of those old games, the boxes, the discs, the manuals. Once I could get them all on Steam or GOG and have it all electronically I wanted to save the space. I did check them before I threw them out and it didn't seem like they were worth much. I might have sold a few on ebay, can't remember. It's all good, I am happy as heck to be able to play them now without having to put a stupid CD or DVD into the computer.

I just don't have time to play much these days and I would be super rusty at UT. But good lord some of the best times we ever had was when we would set up a handful of PCs on my home network and just go to town against each other in deathmatches. Man that is fun times. We also played a lot of Capture the Flag and Onslaught, hours on end, moms/wives yelling at us and being ignored...

UT (resized).jpg

Going on this weekend in Pomona for you SoCal retro types. They have pinball there as well.

http://retrocityfestival.com/

If you just got a scope and you don't know anything about it, this is probably one of the better tutorials. It is very long though. Nonetheless, I learned a ton from this and it was worth the time for me.

My oscilloscope that looks cool as hell but I barely know how to use

Tektronix 465B front power off 2 (resized).jpg

workbench 2018-08 (resized).jpg

Pretty decent show. A bit dry but it was a good review. I didn’t learn much new as most of that has been covered in various ways before, but still enjoyed it. All the interviews with the real players makes it good.

Yes, I agree. There could easily be a second part that is just as long, although I don't know if it would be as interesting personality-wise. It really is something to think about the impact of a few people - Bushnell, Jobs, Wozniak, Miyamoto. And how about Ralph Baer? Was he way ahead of his time or what?

I think it would be interesting to pick up from there to the new consoles and also to tie in the growth of PC gaming. Then you veer into the goodness of Doom and all of that.

Also, Emuparadise has pdf scans of all of the Nintendo Powers in their magazine section.

Those 2 games are fun. What's cool about this all being "retro" now is that we can play these games as much as we want and finally find out how far we can go. Of course these games were originally made to suck quarters as quickly as possibly so they became difficult in a short time after you started a game. Back when we played them for real, unless you were a fanatic with a lot of money in your pocket you would never really get far. Think how many quarters you would have had to put out to get to where you are right now. Enough to buy a Pi probably!

All so true. I don't worry so much about which is better, I'm just grateful we have both of them. And Quake also. I still get so much fun playing all of those. Hard to believe after almost 30 years. A testament to the brilliance of the original designers.

HERE YOU GO!!

https://www.gog.com/game/blood_fresh_supply

This just came off sale, it was $7.49. It will come on sale again, they are always having sales coming and going, if you have it on your wishlist you will get an email when it comes up again. I have it on my GOG wishlist, I will get it sometime soon, but I am still working through a ton of games. I am in the process of setting up a big gaming setup on my main PC using Launchbox as the front end. It incorporates all sorts of games including lots from Steam and GOG. I have 114 games on GOG alone!

Here are a few screen shots in its current state. And yes, I like to SHOOT, SHOOT and SHOOOT.

lb 2020-04 arcade (resized).jpg

lb 2020-04 msdos (resized).jpg

lb 2020-04 windows (resized).jpg

That is a cool project. I will follow this to see where it goes, but for now I'm happy with software emulation. This looks like a good alternative. Smokemonster is great, my available hard drive space dropped way down because of him .

I’ve been going through a Nintendo stash from the rugrat that hasn’t been touched in years. In there is a GameCube Game Boy Player DOL-017 with a start up disc and manual which are in a perfect and complete box. It seems that the disc in particular is consistently sold for $160. What is it about that disc that makes it so desirable/valuable? I have no clue.

I’m still going through a bunch of stuff for SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and DS. Lots of Pokémon stuff as that was his thing back in the day. Most of the cartridges seem to be worth a decent amount, $10-20 each, but that start up disc is the most valuable thing I’ve found so far.

OK, thanks. Check out this shiny little sucker, still in the case it came with, including the manual.

Game Boy Player Start-Up Disc (resized).jpg

I will sell it, for

dr evil one million dollars (resized).jpg

I saw that, I did some research and found all that stuff. I read that the new loader is better although you do have to jump through a few hoops to get it going, nothing too difficult I don’t think. Maybe I’ll give it a try some time when I get the chance. The thing is, for myself I just do all that GB, SNES, etc stuff on emulators on a PC or Raspberry Pi which is fine for me. But my son is more into the original experience with hardware so he might want to do it that way.

One of the best retro FPS games of all time is FREE at GOG! Serious Sam: The First Encounter

https://www.gog.com/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=20200824_Harvest_Sale_NL_GAME_GIVEAWAY_EN&utm_term=EN&track_click=1&link_id=B_section_CTA

OK I'm out of touch, this is the first I have heard of the GC Loader. That sounds totally cool, I presume everything is good with yours and you are satisfied? It is basically like getting an Everdrive for the GC. I want one.

Looks like you can order here, and pay shipping accordingly:

https://gc-loader.com/product/gc-loader-pnp/

Is that the recommended way to go?

I also am thinking that I might buy a used GC off ebay or offerup or whatever and mod that one, and keep my original GC in virgin state.

Thanks! Ordered both. Looks like used GC consoles go for $50-70 each. What do you think, is it a big deal to just use mine and save the DVD drive when I remove it? I presume it could go backward to original condition with no problem?

I just checked my receipt, bought my Gamecube at Target on Nov 18, 2001. Just a few days after launch!

OK thanks, think I will do that. One more question, is there any particular SD card you like for this? Looks like 128GB would be a decent sweet spot to hit, that should hold around 80 ISOs I would guess. I bought the mount with the extra "holder slots" so I could stash extras in there if needed.

Yes, I have all that done on my Wii, thanks to this thread. It stopped reading discs anyway, so I modded it and attached an external drive loaded with Wii games, and have ninetendont also. But I have the GameCube sitting there already, so I find it to be an elegant and convenient setup to mod it separately. So I will have:

N64 with Everdrive.

GameCube with GC-Loader

Wii with home brew and usb drive loader.

This will be great for convenient game loading on the Nintendo front.

The next question will be if I want one of these for the GameCube. Pricey but looks cool for hdtv gaming which is what I do.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KL8ZKZP/

I also have a Raspberry Pi set up with retropie set up for running other stuff like MAME, Atari, and Nintendo handhelds.

Thanks, also just to confirm I have all this right, I’m going to get this SD2SP2 also to plug into the serial port so I have write capability with Swiss for game saves and such.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082VBMQ2B/

I have been messing around and researching this way too long, I need to get off my a$$ and get something going. Thanks for posting that control panel, I have not seen that one before, don't know how I missed it. This is the one I have been looking at seriously.

https://www.monsterarcades.com/copy-of-full-size-2-player-contol-p

I don't do the shmups so I can't add anything authoritative for that. But for Pac-Man and anything of its ilk, I think this would be the best one:

https://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=365

Apparently this is how the original Pac-Man joystick worked - with leaf switches. For a pinhead, those switches should look real familiar!

The drawback to that one is that you are stuck with one direction version. I do think that a 4-way will work fine for the games that use 2-way (either L-R or U-D). But an 8-way will definitely not work right with Pac-Man and other 4-way games. So you have to decide if you want to give up 8-way, or have multiple joysticks. You also are not the right 4-way angle to play Qbert.

Another way to go is to get the Ultrastik 360 which will handle any and all directions, then just set up every game to use the correct joystick configuration, the other inputs will be ignored.

I can't make up my mind what to do, but I swear I will make it happen in 2021. NYE Resolution!

Cool. The one question ----> Will It Pac-Man???

If it works for a good game of Pac-man, then this should be a great solution for getting 4 way and 8 way in one stick. I think that is the key test. All other games should work OK if that works (I don't do fighting games though). With Pac-Man, you have to have instant and consistent response in the exact direction you want to go, otherwise, it never seems right.

The one thing you miss out on is a 45 degree setup for QBert.

There is a new ebay listing of the same setup for $1,550.

ebay.com link: itm

Here’s one that was sold for $1319.

ebay.com link: itm

That’s really odd, even though I copy the link it’s showing the wrong listing. Anyway you can see the one offered for 10k.

Wow I did some checking, I had no idea that the Gamecube games were worth as much as they are. I've got the SD card mod with all of the pieces ready to go, unfortunately my project list is pretty long right now so I don't know when I will install it, but when I get to it and get it all working I'll probably sell off the discs. Super Mario Sunshine, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Star Wars Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike, Metroid Prime 1 and 2, Bond Nightfire, Need for Speed, Wave Race Blue Storm, Mario Kart, Bionicle, Namco Museum are some of the ones I have.

So it looks like it can emulate all the consoles including Wii and GameCube, and you can import your Roms into it via an SD card. I guess all the MAME games run on it also? That sounds like a pretty awesome deal, I had no idea. I don’t know if I can ever adapt to the handheld controls for fps games, but being able to do all that emulation would be great. I might have to get me one of these.

So it looks like you can use it as a handheld, or connect to a TV with HDMI and then run it with some BT wireless controller(s) of your choice. That is pretty dang slick if all that works. Does it play all the MAME games as well? I presume so.

I have a sort of older PC that I have set up with all of the emulators and Launchbox and I was going to connect it into the big 4K TV for games (NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, etc), but it sounds like this would be a simpler and cleaner way to do it.

Is the interface pretty good as far as selecting a console/game, if you have a lot loaded on there? Guess I should have a look at the inevitable Youtube videos that cover it.

As far as FPS goes, I am set up on my PC for that anyway. I have been going through a "retro resurgence" of FPS games recently. Man it sure is fun playing the old classics - Doom, Quake, UT, and Half Life. With some sprinklings of Serious Sam and SOF. Unreal Tournament 2004 is especially fun.

I now have a Steam Deck 512GB and have been playing around with it as I can find time. It does work pretty well and without a whole lot of effort for retro games using Emudeck. I have tested with various consoles such as Atari 2600 and all Nintendos through N64, so far all that works with no problem. Hope to try some Gamecube and Wii games on Dolphin this weekend.

I can play all my MAME arcade games, I did this by just copying them over and running them on Proton.

I can play Doom (original) with Crispy Doom, again just copied it over and it runs on Proton.

Of course no problem playing most of the stuff in the Steam library, it runs Half Life 2 with no apparent problems.

As a controller it seems fine for any console game. For most arcade games its not great, but then again neither is any other console controller such as Xbox 360. Most arcade games require proper arcade controls to really enjoy (especially joysticks and trackball). But these could be connected via USB.

I do tend to play a lot of FPS, and I am still working on that. I don't know if a controller will ever match the mouse and keyboard setup. There is some possibility to play FPS with the gyro enabled, I was able to get some decent control with HL2 this way. But the gyro seems to be uneven as far as its behavior, and it doesn't seem to work in the same way in different games. It could be me or the way I have it set up, this needs more experimentation.

I have a somewhat nice case with an older HTPC setup inside that I have been thinking of updating and putting onto the living room tv for retro gaming and all other gaming. I also have 4k gaming set up on my main computer with Launchbox and it is a really nice setup, so that would be replicated on the HTPC. But I decided to try out the Steam Deck and see if it could take the place of the HTPC. I have been messing with HTPCs for many years, and the most annoying aspect of it is dealing with Windows. Also, there is much less of a need for a fancy Kodi setup as everything has converted to streaming. But I still do have a lot of media content stored on a NAS and in fact I can run Kodi from my streamer now (Google TV) so that is nice and pretty much eliminates the need for an HTPC for that aspect. So, the HTPC would mainly become a gaming thing.

So for my next testing, first I will try out the Steam Deck through the Steam app and see what it is like to play wirelessly on the living room big TV from the couch. That would be fun.

Then, I will try plugging the Steam Deck straight to the TV via HDMI (well through the AV receiver actually) and connect a wireless controller to it, and see how it runs in that mode, which is basically as an gaming/HTPC. If that works well I might keep it that way and ditch the HTPC entirely.

All that said, having all gaming organized and interfaced with Launchbox is really nice. The SteamOS interface is OK, but doesn't come close to Launchbox. Plus, the scraped media for the games isn't very good and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to change images such as the icons/box cover graphics. So far this seems to be the case for imported non-Steam games.

That is the weakness of it - it is too Steam-oriented, which you can't really blame them for. I have a fair amount of stuff on Steam, but I have lots more on GOG because I like non-DRM, and I have a whole mess of retro console stuff along with MAME arcades. All of that exists super nicely on Launchbox, sort of so-so on Steam Deck (at least so far, I am still experimenting with it).

Played some GameCube Mario Kart Double Dash on Dolphin on the Steam Deck, seemed to work great.

If you get a Steam Deck and want to play around adding all sort of games which requires working in the desktop mode, you really want to get a keyboard and mouse attached to it. Its a pain do much work on the desktop with just the touchscreen and Steam Deck controls.

I had a multiport USB, keyboard and mouse sitting around so this was pretty easy to connect. Also I used the USB drive to move stuff over like ROMS. This works pretty well.

Note that the Steam Deck only has the one USB C connector, so you probably will need one of those little adaptors to convert a USB A cable to to USB C, that's the white piece plugged into the deck. These are a few dollars on Amazon, and are handy to have around as many devices are going all USB C, including laptops.

Steam Deck with keyboard and mouse (resized).jpg

There are several different ways to do it. I haven't tried GOG games yet, I hope to get to that next when I get time. Heroic seems to be the recommended easiest way to do it, like here:

https://gamevoyagers.com/how-to-install-gog-games-on-steam-deck-quick-easy-guide/

But I recommend reading through this thread first, there is some interesting information there:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/4826187053911692384/

I will report on my experience when I get to it.

I was able to get Unreal Tournament 2004 from GOG installed running via Heroic using the basic instructions above, without too much trouble.

I tried the method of just copying over the entire install directory from my computer and then adding the exe file to the Steam games, but that did not work.

Yes, still in desktop mode, open the Steam app, you have to go to the bottom left corner to add a game and there is an option to add a non-Steam game. I got crispy doom to work that way.

My steam deck project has been stalled due to life, but I'll get to it and report. I also just got the steam dock for it. This is to achieve my goal of connecting this to my 4k OLED TV and use a wireless game controller to play all sorts of retro emulated games.

My last attempt failed as I could not get the HDMI out to show up on the TV. But it worked fine when I connected it to my computer monitor.

I hate it when stuff doesn't just work.

Did you reset the Steam Deck to original as-shipped condition? It looks like it is doable, but somewhat of a pain.

Still haven't decided about mine.

I have a fairly recently upgraded tower with a 4K monitor that is great for all the games I want to play, in particular FPS of all kinds (but mostly old school rather than modern warfare).

But I also like to get of the PC and play games in the living room while loafing on the couch. I don't think that will ever work well for the FPS games, but is great for any console games. And all the retro stuff, including MAME. I still haven't figured out if the Steam Deck will work well for this. If not, I probably will sell it.

i7-12700K
64GB DDR4
RTX 3080 12GB
With 9 TB of SSD goodness:
Samsung 980Pro 1TB boot
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB games
Samsung 860 EVO 2TB video production
Samsung 870 4TB random shit

Lian Li Lancool Mesh II and Noctua NH-D15

It runs Doom and Quake super fast!

Launchbox DOS 2022-11 (resized).png

Launchbox Windows 2022-11 (resized).png

I don’t feel any boundaries on the term retro.

As you can see I like to play a lot of the older FPS, Doom goes back to 93, that 30 years ago so I call that retro FPS gaming. That’s best done on a PC unless you can somehow master a controller in place of the mouse and keyboard. The main reason other than work requirements that I have a somewhat ridiculously overpowered PC is to run the new Microsoft FS (not retro).

But having a good amount of PC power can be useful for the more demanding emulators, such as PS2, PS3 and even PS4 (I haven’t tried these yet). It’s also fun to play something like Quake II RTX which is Quake II with ray tracing, it looks amazing but requires serious horsepower especially for the video card. Playing that game for a while will heat your whole house up in the wintertime.

I run emulators on the PC for any or all consoles up through GameCube, plus MAME for arcade games. It’s all organized through Launchbox which is really nice.

I also have my original N64 connected to the 65” OLED TV, but admittedly I sold all the cartridges and have an Everdrive in there with lots of games. Well, all of them. Also connected to the TV is my original GameCube and Wii. I still have all of the GameCube and Wii discs, but the Wii disc player died on me. Thanks to this thread I hacked it with the home brew setup and it has a USB drive on it with lotsa games. Also have in the family an original SNES and a variety of Gameboys.

My eventual goal is to get a nice controller setup with joysticks, trackball and spinner so I can play the arcade classics via MAME in the big screen.

Lots of different ways to have fun.

Pricecharting.com is pretty cool, you can enter in all your games and it will track the values. I entered all my games in there and it can be surprising how much money you have sitting there. I’m talking thousands and I don’t even have all that many games really. If you have complete games that include not only the cartridge/disc and case but also the instructions and the original box, those are worth the most.

As far as the Steam Deck, I think it should be pretty great for handheld gaming and travel. But I really want it to also work on my big TV to run the retro games. Still working on that.

Give me some time and I will report, I haven't had a chance to get to it, too busy with life. But hope to get to it this weekend.

Any suggestions for the top 5 or maybe 10 Sega Genesis games?

I have a curated collection rather than the massive "all and everything" approach some people take. For consoles its pretty much all the Ataris and Nintendos since that is what I used to play. I never had a Sega system. A family member did have a Sega Dreamcast and I played that a bit, especially Hydro Thunder which is a blast. I currently have these 3 games for the Dreamcast.

Launchbox Sega Dreamcast 2022-11 (resized).png

I can’t believe how long it has been since I posted this, life and work has kept me away from the fun stuff. I am finding some time over the holiday break to work on some retro gaming stuff.

So as far as connecting the Steamdeck to its dock and then to the 4k TV via the Denon receiver, that was a simple matter of swapping the HDMI cable. I did that and it’s working good now. I did some testing with a wireless Xbox 360 controller, and was able to play MAME arcade games, N64, Gamecube, and Dreamcast. Everything worked great, all games played smooth. Just what I was looking for.

Thanks again everyone for the Genesis recommendations, I finally got them set up and ready to play. It looks like a lot of fun to be had as soon as I get some time to try these.

Launchbox Sega Genesis 2023-01 (resized).jpg

The Gamecubes are pretty easy to get if you are patient and look around. I got a nice Gamecube Platinum DOL-101 recently off Offerup for $40, its in great condition. I'm going to mod it when I get around to it. I still have my original GC I bought way back when they first came out, it still works fine and I didn't want to tear into it.

Yes to all of this. I have a GCLoader stashed away ready to go that I got a while back. I also have my original stack of GC games, I am hanging on to them for now because as you said they seem to keep going up in value.

I don't look at pricecharting.com too often, but I just logged in to check it out, as I have all my retro games entered in there. They have a nice chart right at the top showing the total value of your collection, it was just over $1,000 in Nov 2022, now it is at $2,256.

As far as Gamecube games, Mario Kart Double Dash is the highest one I have at $78.22. Luigi's Mansion is $62.72, not sure why that one is so popular. I also have the Gamecube Gameboy Player with Startup Disc, that is up to $182.50.

Guess I'll hang onto this stuff!

At least you can still get them digitally to read.
https://archive.org/details/NintendoPower1988-2004/Nintendo%20Power%20Issue%20001%20%28July-August%201988%29/

GOG rules. I have tons of games from there. When I want to try a new one I put it on my wishlist and wait for it to come on sale. They send an email when your wishlist item comes on sale and you can snatch it up for even cheaper.

Will it run Everdrive?