The Dangers of using 3.3V Flash Carts in Retro Consoles

[MrBroadway]

Maybe I just have golden systems (unlikely since a couple of my optical systems were bought non-working and I brought them back to life) but I've played with a ton of burned discs and had pretty much no issues. I also had a PS2 I bought new die on me within a year and I fed it nothing but retail discs. I very much think the cdr scare tactic thing is crap.

There's no way a properly burned CDR could wear out the laser more quickly. If anything, you could optimize the burn to preserve it longer. I'm fairly certain the VG industry made that up to scare people into not pirating.

[Black Tiger]

The idea is that today people use high capacity cdr discs and the laser has to move farther as it reads and just gets used more. Of course, someone playing original discs everyday is still working their cd drive much more than someone playing cdrs once a week.

[Gypsy]

I'd say the best advice is to just play and enjoy your consoles. Of course if there are good measures to take such as using a good power adapter (doesn't have to be oem, just not poorly shielded garbage) as well as just not playing from discs when it's easy (ie PS2).

[SignOfZeta]

I worked at an EB during the PS2 boom and what I noticed about that system was that if you never played it you couldn't tell if it still worked. If you played it at all there was a good chance it would break in the first year. The ones we got in...I want to say mid-late 2003...failed at a huge rate, with my medium sized store receiving multiple DOA units.

Whenever one of those God forsaken GTA games came out a lot of systems would go from almost no use to 24/7 duty and shit the bed before the customer (and everyone in their family) could beat the game.

Seriously, the number of PS2s purchased to FINISH a game that was started on another, now-broken PS2...it has to be in the hundreds of thousands. That system was massively successful but also a complete POS. There have to be soooooooo many of those things in landfills.

ALSO: The PS2 is the only device I've ever owned that required me to go into a sub-menu and turn the TOSLINK on because it was off by default. WTF is that about?

[Gypsy]

Somehow, I have a launch PS2 that still works, never repaired either. It's my main one. But yes they are such pieces of shit that I keep quite a few around, including a Japanese PS2 that I've already had to repair once.

As for the TOSLINK thing that doesn't surprise me. It's a poor HD console (esp compared to XBOX) with it's crappy ypbpr and of course, the high lens failure rate. There was actually a lawsuit against Sony over improper disc read errors. Then Sony continued their legacy with those early model PS3s and really what can I even say about those that hasn't been said. This is from a company that had exploding batteries in laptops, so I basically never expect quality from them. I had to buy an external fan for my PS4.

[SignOfZeta]

To be fair, it's hard to wear out an XBox with just the three games that it has. You could have said GameCube at least.

[MrBroadway]

To be fair, it's hard to wear out an XBox with just the three games that it has. You could have said GameCube at least.

Aw, c'mon, let's be fair. It has at least...four exclusives.

[Gypsy]

To be fair, it's hard to wear out an XBox with just the three games that it has. You could have said GameCube at least.

I just meant comparing the hd video output of those systems.

But heh, just depends what you wanna play. It has a lot of the same games as PS2 and console exclusives (that are also on PC). Of course I'd rather play those games on PC. Obviously it doesn't have much in the way of Japanese games compared to PS2. So for someone that leans towards Japanese games (large portion of this forum I would imagine) it offers next to nothing.

[MrBroadway]

But heh, just depends what you wanna play. It has a lot of the same games as PS2 and console exclusives (that are also on PC). Of course I'd rather play those games on PC. Obviously it doesn't have much in the way of Japanese games compared to PS2. So for someone that leans towards Japanese games (large portion of this forum I would imagine) it offers next to nothing.

Now that I think about it, I think there were only three Xbox/PC-exclusives I nabbed after I sold my Xbox: Fable, Jade Empire, and Halo. The rest I got on PS2 or GCN. I wish I could have Panzer Dragoon Orta elsewhere, but I think that was the only one...maybe GunValkyrie.

[Gypsy]

Those would definitely be some of the better PC/Xbox games. There are a lot though. Off the top of my head I know there was a Thief game that made it to Xbox, Cthulhu, Stubbs, Arx Fatalis, Deus Ex, KOTOR, Morrowind etc...

Of course...playing Morrowind on Xbox is beneath playing Wonder Momo for 10 straight hours in terms of things I'd want to do.

[SamIAm]

As an owner of seven flashcarts and a Neo multicart, I've been eagerly reading about this for the past hour.

Interestingly, the 68000 CPU's actual output voltage for these signals might be more like 4.25 volts (although whether that is consistent across all manufacturers, I can't say), and that would drastically bring down the amount of excess current flow caused by 3.3v flash chips and no proper translators. Someone would really need to check with an oscilloscope to confirm.
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/motorola/68000/68000_16-Bit_Microprocessor_Apr83.pdf
(page 81)

The Z80 may be much lower - 2.4 volts.
http://datasheets.chipdb.org/SGS/SGS8400.pdf
(last page)

Of course, that's just two parts, and it's just the minimum rating while the max is unspecified. As for the PCE's CPU, who knows?

Krikzz wrote this: http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=6614.msg51195#msg51195

Doesn't really address the issue of stress on the console side, though.

[esteban]

UPDATE: Bernie just informed me that he had a NEOFLASH cart inserted in his DUO (power switched on) when the plastic housing of his DUO *MELTED*.

[SamIAm]

EDIT: I think I get it.

[SignOfZeta]

Those would definitely be some of the better PC/Xbox games. There are a lot though. Off the top of my head I know there was a Thief game that made it to Xbox, Cthulhu, Stubbs, Arx Fatalis, Deus Ex, KOTOR, Morrowind etc...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I hate all of those games. The XB was really good at that stuff, the sort of anti-human style-free depressing brown crap that goes on and on for hundreds of hours. The sort of stuff that now describes almost anything that isn't Nintendo. Oh God, how I hate this kind of shit and all the nearly identical covers with a personality-less bad ass standing in pile of wreckage with a green tint to everything.

You forgot Star Wars: Obi Wan, btw.

[Gypsy]

Lol, I'm sure I forgot a bunch of them.

Related: I don't understand how people keep buying Assassin's Creed games. But yet Ubi is like...15 games deep at this point? Something absurd. It shames yearly sports titles honestly.

Even Japan has some of this brown now, looking at Dark Souls.

I recently bought a PS4 but I'm playing just as much PCE, Saturn and old PC games as ever. Yakuza 0 is super fun though.