There were a very small number of grey carts with 1.0 on them but most 1.0 carts at least in America are gold. Most grey carts are 1.2, but some have 1.1 as well. 1.1 is a general bugfixed version but also rare, while 1.2 is where all the censorship came in. Unfortunately for Europeans, all PAL versions are based on the censored 1.2 build. Due to this, grey carts are generally safe to assume are 1.2, because it is the most abundantly available build of the game, having been manufactured and sold the longest.

There are some reports of 1.1 having partial censorship as well, though these may be due to someone swapping the physical carts shell from a different version of the game.

I currently use an HP EliteDesk SFF (the middle size one) and use a DAC for DisplayPort to RCA.

DACs generally add less than 1 frame of lag. Youre thinking of scalers. If the adapter applies any sort of processing other than simply converting from digital to analog, then it adds more lag. But simply converting will usually have nearly imperceptible levels of lag. I can try to measure it when I use it next and see, but I can say that I don’t notice any “awful lag.” I am not a fighting game player, but timings in Shenmue for QTEs and Legend of Dragoon for combat don’t feel off or bad.

If you wanted, the EliteDesk Mini has a proprietary expansion slot in the rear for modular video output, and one of the available modules is VGA. VGA to RCA is just a cable adaption (analog to analog) and intoduces zero extra lag, so that could be an option if you for whatever reason feel like DAC conversion introduces too much lag.

Personally, I skip SSB64 entirely and go directly to the best Smash version on the GameCube. SSB64 on the N64 is fun, but it isn’t Melee.

It does hurt my heart a little to see a grey cart Ocarina of Time knowing it is so likely to be a version 1.2 game, meaning it was censored. I just can’t stand the Fire Temple music in 1.2, the chanting samples really elevate that BGM.

Also, I would highly recommend picking up Gauntlet Legends if you can. Excellent 4 player arcade hack-n-slash game. Although most of this collection seems to tell the tale that you likely don’t have other players often, so maybe not… The game is okay single player but way more fun with friends.

My only reason for not suggesting one and instead suggesting a mini PC is the lack of general availability when I went to get a Pi 5. And the cost, when I looked an Pi5 cost about $80, and for its price I figured a mini PC like an Intel NUC or even easier to find an HP EliteDesk mini, would vastly outperform it for a little higher cost.

They can regularly be found online or in person for $120 or less. I got a secondhand EliteDesk mini with a 9500T for about $60 USD, including a 256GB NVME and 16GB RAM, which is plenty for retro gaming in general. You can also get just the regular SFF and add a SFF GPU for PS3/Xbox 360 emulation at a pretty low cost as well. I put one together with a base PC cost of $99 for an i5 7500, 16GB RAM, and 500GB HDD, and added an AMD RX 6300 2GB for just $75. It easily handles PS3/X360 emulation at native resolutions. Sure it cant run most modern PC games because its an RX6300 designed for business PCs and not gaming, but that doesnt mean it cant run older stuff really well.

Being a genuine hardware owner and enjoyer myself, I know it might seem bad to recommend an emulation setup over genuine hardware. But in my experience, I find I spend a lot more time playing on a mini PC with emulators I have connected to a genuine CRT it 1x internal resolution than I do playing on the real hardware I have. Its a big hassle. Sometimes I pull them out for guests or jids or whatever to get to experience how things used to be, but for me I want to play the games and the genuine hardware is just extra steps.

Of course, using genuine hardware is going to give a more immersive and nostalgic experience. But if someone is wanting to actually play the games and not just experience nostalgia for a week before the hardware starts collecting dust, emulation is clearly superior.

The thing about genuine hardware is that constantly getting up to reset it when a glitch happens, or when you want to change games or change consoles, etc, gets annoying pretty fast. Eventually you figure you don’t have enough time or energy for it and thats when it starts collecting dust. I say just skip that step altogether and go the emulation route. Then if you really want a genuine console, buy a cheap one first and see how long you last playing on real hardware. I give you a week before you go back to the emulator.

My suggestion might seem sacrelige, but hear me out.

If you want something to actually use that is convenient, a mini PC that emulates them all is far better than genuine hardware. Kinda like how I will always say that driving a replica of an expensive car is better than driving a real one out on the road. Set up takes a lot longer, but in the long run it is far cheaper and much more convenient.

• modern TV compatible output
• modern CRT shaders very closely approximate actual CRT look especially at 4k with HDR (I have real CRTs to compare, and they do look similar)
• you dont have to unplug and plug in multiple consoles, wearing out the tv input port when you want to change consoles
• only takes up one tv input port
• some games can run at better framerates than the original hardware could handle, giving a more consistent experience
• no physical space lost to game boxes and multiple unused console accessories
• expandable storage to include all games from each console’s library
• can play handheld games on a TV without needing overpriced genuine hardware like the GameBoy Player for the GameCube ($75+ is ridiculous)
• you get to play games you will literally never be able to thanks to speculative buyers and collectors making the real thing too expensive (~$1,000 USD for Panzer Dragoon Saga NTSC should be illegal)

You could potentially invest in console themed controllers, so the inputs match the controller you are holding. Sure, the integrated graphics might not be good enough to PS3 on some older ones, but it’s hard to beat that at ~$150 USD for up to 6th gen. Lots of genuine hardware now is that price or more thanks to speculative buying and “collectors” ruining the hobby for people that actually want to play the games instead of just hoarding them.

Xenia does pretty well these days and keeps getting better

Personally, I emulate anything that I play on a modern display and run that straight through HDMI, or DisplayPort depending on what the display accepts.

If I am playing something older, I usually have a working console for it, but if I don’t I still emulate it. If I have a working console, I plug it into one of my CRTs via composite (RCA) as that is the input my CRTs accept and the most common output on consoles of the time (like HDMI is today). If the game I am playing is on a console that I have that no longer functions, I emulate it and output via HDMI to an RCA adapter and plug that into one of my CRTs. This has some delay but it is not noticeable to me.

Sometimes I have fun playing modern games on a CRT in 480p with the same setup. The graphics look really good since I can max everything out with a good framerate, but the text and UI is basically unreadable, even with max UI scaling in most games. They just don’t make them with low resolutions in mind.

If I am not using it, I unplug it from the TV and put it away.

For audio: CRT built-in speakers are the most authentic. But sometimes I use headphones.

I would be more concerned with difficulty of keeping them clean and how long it takes before they melt into goo.

Wii emulator for N64 isn’t going to be as accurate as the real N64 console though.

Considering the Dreamcast had such a tiny library, it truly was 5-10 years in the future.

Cry. And pilfer some E Waste drop offs one last time. Then cry some more, pour one out for the future generations of gamers who can never correctly experience a retro game designed to be played on a CRT (and they probably won’t even care honestly, they’ll be too absorbed in the new shiny thing to consume, its already happening now).

I immediately don’t like those silicone pads. Just expose the buttons underneath like a normal person, please. I imagine they designed it that way to try to obscure the fact that this is just a glorified Raspberry Pi Zero case with built in 720p display not all that dissimilar from something like the already existing PiGrrl.

This is something that should cost like, $50 USD or less, but is probably going to be listed for more. As this article points out, this market is oversaturated. You can already get other devices for that price or less with better or comparable specs. I don’t think they will be able to price this aggressively enough to compete.

Bagged, boarded, and sealed with a certificate? Won’t that just encourage speculation purchasers calling themselves “collectors” to try to resell them at absurd prices in a few years?

Quake and Doom are early enough to be okay. But for later games, like Elder Scrolls Adventures Redguard, DOSBox has a lot of problems with those titles.

Emulation is generally not very good for newer DOS games, primarily because DOSBox is really bad with anything 3D. Its emulation of 3dfx cards might as well be non-existent.

In this case, it actually would be better for them to play on genuine hardware.

I have not played Amnesia, but I have played and enjoyed Alien Isolation. I would not call Alien Isolation a Survival Horror game, though. I would call it an Action Horror game. Especially the second half of the game, which is more reminiscent of the Aiens action film. While the first few hours has gameplay similar to Survival Horror, it lacks other elements that classify a game as Survival Horror IMO.

Survival Horror as a genre (IMO, obviously) is basically Puzzle game gameplay first with optional combat that the efficient player is intended to avoid (with more than just a singular enemy or “Stalker” enemy). It contains themes and elements of horror as its most prominent story and/or art features. Its design exploits the player’s inability to see or know something that the player character sees or knows (usually via fixed camera angles that obscure enemy positions from the player, even if the design of the level would.indicate that the player character can see an enemy), causing the player to have a higher level of anxiety when they enter a new area.

The combat will feel bad to the player, so that they will be discouraged from trying to combat enemies. Sometimes this is because of story reasons, like Silent Hill protagonists being untrained in the use of weaponry. Other times, the aim, hit chance, and enemy health are obscured to give the player a greater sense of risk like in Resident Evil (the original, as RE2 and later games switched to Action Horror). Sometimes combat is extremely simplified to the point that basically the only thing the player can do is run away and hide, like in Haunting Ground or Clock Tower.

This is where we get to weird cases like Koudelka. Koudelka has many elements of a Survival Horror game, but because of its combat system (a randomly-initiated strategic turn-based JRPG-like combat system, think Tactics Ogre or Fire Emblem combat), and its lack of puzzles in the hours I played, I do not classify it as Survival Horror. I classify it as a Horror JRPG.

While I agree player controlled cameras are more immersive, Survival Horror as a genre is not about immersion. As a game designer for a Survival Horror game, you aren’t trying to immerse the player, you are trying to keep them on the edge or their seat. A great way to do this is to remove information or control from the player. Removing camera control, obscuring health, etc. are all tools that you as a designer can use to increase the player’s anxiety. For example, Haunting Grounds has the “Panic” mechanic, where if the player allows the player character to become too fearful, the game relinquishes control of the character away from the player for a limited time, and the player character will take random actions that you as a player cannot control for that time. A survival Horror game designer should want to build anxiety in their game wusing their tools to do so at various paces throughout the game while not exhausting the player, and through various types of events (such as jump scares, although jump scares should really only be used once and any more than one time is indicative of a bad or lazy designer IMO) you relieve the player’s anxiety so that they do not become exhausted. This is why Safe Rooms in Resident Evil 1 and Dino Crisis have their calming music, they exist as a point for the player to relax and let go of their anxiety so that you as a designer can build it back up through more gameplay.

Fixed Cameras (that is, cameras with a pre-determined location according to the player location, meaning the camera can move like in Silent Hill, not just a Static Camera like in Resident Evil) are basically a requirement for Survival Horror. This is why I say nearly all modern “survival horror” games are actually just Action Shooter games. Modern Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alone on the Dark, etc. All Action Shooters now.

One of Survival Horror’s biggest elements is that the peak optimal way to play is intentionally avoiding combat (except mandatory bosses). Most true Survival Horror games have combat that feels bad. It either has low visibility, or the player animations are slow, etc. Tools that the developers use to try to discourage the player from engaging in combat while at the same time thematically fitting in to the genre. Compare this with modern action horror games: the combat feels good. The aim is easy, the animations are fast. The player will want to engage in combat more because that is part of the design for mainstream audiences.

Fixed cameras also build anticipation in the player and create a more memorable playthrough experience. Everyone that played Silent Hill 1 remembers this scene forever:

Both Dino Crisis 1 and Silent Hill on the PS1 used this style of camera to great effect.

Maybe the developer only develops premium games for premium gamers?