Collectors, how big is your stash of Pi games?

VictimRLSH · 28 Oct 2018, 20:47

DOS, PS1 and Amiga games take up most of the file space.I'm currently sitting on 1.5TB, but I know there are much bigger collections out there...

thelostsoul · 29 Oct 2018, 08:58

I am at a 64 GB on the Pi. It started as 32 GB card and I didn't want include space demanding games, but changed my mind a while back to include some Playstation and Sega CD games (and they are still uncompressed, need to work on this). Amiga doesn't need much space on my system, as I only have 50 games or so. The thing is, the whole setup is a curated list and each single game is tested. I have a 480gb WD portable harddrive here and could use it for those bigger games.

Do you extract archive files, even if the system supports zip? Snes emulators in example support zip archives I believe. I extract the roms anyway.

VictimRLSH · 29 Oct 2018, 14:31

I don't have that much on the Pi's SD card itself, since I mount a 256gb USB stick. I only unpack the ones that can't run from a zip. It get way too unwieldy if I cram too much stuff on the Pi, then I have to wade through it whenever I want to play something. I was referring to total software collected. I'm one of those people that want to archive EVERYTHING. I found that is as much an entertaining hobby as actually playing the games. Also getting addicted to designing and building. Now that I have the mini-bartop, a controller/keyboard mount palmtop, I'm kicking around a mini build for the Pi zero I have sitting around doing nothing.

I still have 18gb free on the 32gb SD card, and I have a full Raspbian install on that one, complete with a lot of utilities, Exagear, etc.

thelostsoul · 29 Oct 2018, 14:51

@VictimRLSH said in Collectors, how big is your stash of Pi games?:

I was referring to total software collected.

Ouh, ok. I have somewhere near 2000 games now (forgot the exact number), some multiple versions (with good reason), some homebrew and mods. A lot of work was done to get images and record videos for titles not found through scraping.

I'm one of those people that want to archive EVERYTHING.

Everything is maybe a little too much, even for my hard drives on the pc currently. I see my RetroPie on the Raspberry Pi as a subset of everything I have. That's why I don't include everything on the Pi.

I found that is as much an entertaining hobby as actually playing the games. Also getting addicted to designing and building. Now that I have the mini-bartop, a controller/keyboard mount palmtop, I'm kicking around a mini build for the Pi zero I have sitting around doing nothing.

I was mainly on the software side of "building" and searching for games (as you probably can tell from my previous postings and threads). One day I want do such a bartop too, if I have more money. The prices for all those parts are high in Germany and i am short on money. Once I start this thing, I know I get hoooked too. Building, experimenting, learning, designing, all those stuff are exciting. Doing your stuff, presenting to others. I absolutely can understand you here.

ballboff · 29 Oct 2018, 15:07

I don't see the point of this. Scrolling through that many games isn't fun. Take the gamecube for instance, out of the 600 games released, there are only say bout 5 or 6 that are playable. Megadrive/SNES , pretty much every game is playable, apart from maybe lion king and that battle toad game. And maybe you might pick up the odd game just to see what it's like, but you'll always go back to sonic and/or mario kart. I suppose there's no reason why you couldn't have a backup drive with every game on it, but like I say, you're wasting space if you know you're never gonna play the world is not enough or puzzle fighter on ps1.

VictimRLSH · 29 Oct 2018, 15:28

Yeah, if you don't have the collector mentality it doesn't make any sense. I don't stop at downloads, I'm also constantly buzzing pawnshops and thrift stores looking for physical finds too. I love original packaging and manuals when I can get them as well.

BobHarris · 29 Oct 2018, 16:03

@VictimRLSH All that stuff needs space too. I'm fortunate to have a small apartment, so I can't collect much as I don't have the room for it (saves money/time/worries). I much prefer the Pi: you can collect as many games/art/manuals as you want, without them taking up any physical space or having to worry about them degrading over time. But I only want good games on there. I have about 800 games, spread out over 20 systems and taking up almost all of my 64 gb memory stick.

Even that is way too much, so I won't expand upon it anymore. Collecting more than a couple hundred of games feels more like hoarding to me. Games are made to be played and who has the time to play thousands of games?

thelostsoul · 29 Oct 2018, 16:12

@BobHarris Do you have video previews of the games? With large number of games, they also take a lot of space.
@VictimRLSH I gave up collecting physical copies, but I can understand if you enjoy this. A friend of me always looking everywhere, at flee market, at second hand shops, in the internet and it is just pure fun. The main problem I have is since the retro boom in last years, the prices are going crazy.

m2306 · 29 Oct 2018, 16:43

I had a huge collection of retro games but sold about half of that stuff. It was taking up too much space and I never got around to hooking up any of those old consoles because of hassle with finding them in the storage room and angry waifu when I finally managed to play something since the living room looked like a teenagers room with all the consoles. I also don’t feel that collecting is a healthy hobby for me. I get too worked up about what I want to have. For the above reasons I do only emulation these days. I’d love to have a curated rom collection but that takes a lot of time and playing random games is a lot of fun too. I haven’t fine tuned my Retropie setup yet and have huge romsets for many different systems on a hdd. For example, I havent decided between Mame and FBA, so I have full sets for both. Retropie takes very long to start up (because of too many roms?) but works great after that.

BobHarris · 29 Oct 2018, 16:50

@thelostsoul No, I only have the front boxart images. I also stopped gathering digital manuals. I have all the manuals of the games on my favorite system (ps1) and that's enough for me. It's just too much work that it feels like a chore..and online you can't find manuals of a lot of games either so it won't ever be complete (unless you hunt down physical copies). It does bug me a bit, as the manual often was an essential part of the package, explaining certain mechanics that you'd have a hard time figuring out on your own.

VictimRLSH · 29 Oct 2018, 17:12

@thelostsoul I definitely hear you about the prices, in fact it is tempting to sell things, but like most collectors, I won't sell unless it means I can get something even better.

@BobHarris That is why I expressed an interest in a scraper that grabs docs and perhaps even GameFAQs, cuts down on the work.

BobHarris · 29 Oct 2018, 17:17

@VictimRLSH What do you use to be able to read the docs/manuals? I use a pdf viewer app in kodi. It would be nicer if you could switch to the manual midgame.
Also the pdf viewer I use often has trouble reading downloaded manuals; I have to extract the pdf to jpegs and then convert them into a pdf again..that way I never have any issues. But it's quite a bit of work.

VictimRLSH · 30 Oct 2018, 03:25

@BobHarris I just use the pdf viewer built into Raspbian, as I have installed the full desktop. I agree, it would be great to switch between the manual and/or FAQ and the game.

sirhenrythe5th · 30 Oct 2018, 20:43

150 NEOGEO
222 PSX
100 NES
100 PC-Engine (including CD Images)
150 Megadrive (including 32x)
85 SEGA CD
35 ScummVM
30 MS DOS
1331 Mame 😊
350 SNES
200 GBA

All that on a 200GB MicroSD Card, i like the idea of having all in a small System without external HDDS.

shavecat · 31 Oct 2018, 21:04

Openbor 98
Virtual Boy 23
Snes 783
SnesCd(fans) 53
Sneshack 41
Sg1000 75
SuperFamicom 82
MegadriveHacks 183
SegaCd 160
Sega32x 35
Scumvm 202
ResidualVM 3
Psx 878
Psp+Minis 211
Ports 30
Pc engine 410
Pc games 7362(not sure here...)
Neshacks 47
Nes 819
Nds 165
N64 336
MegaDrive 751
SegaMastersystem 319
Gbc 533
Gba 873
GameGear 368
G&W 56
Dreamcast 130
Daphne 14
Lynx 40
Arcade 2361
AmigaCD 96
Amiga 3404

128gb SDcard & HDD 1T
Usually dont play much,
just travel them and getting tired from that ;)...

thelostsoul · 31 Oct 2018, 21:33

@shavecat Holy Broly!

shavecat · 1 Nov 2018, 07:44

@thelostsoul
Yeha all sorts with gamelist and videos snaps (didnt sleep a year cause of that shit ;) )

sirhenrythe5th · 1 Nov 2018, 07:44

@shavecat i also spent a lot of time to search nice Artworks/Flyers for each game without scraping.
Was worth the work.
A lot of stuff you collected! 😮👍
I reduced my collection to those games i really like, full romsets would include too much Trash for me.

shavecat · 1 Nov 2018, 09:20

@sirhenrythe5th
yeha crazy time spent ;)
and not really dont have any duplicates or games that are not working...
but yeha lots of trash haha

thelostsoul · 1 Nov 2018, 11:57

@shavecat I often try to only have 1 or 2 versions in my collection, depending how different they are. But there are some exceptions. I bet you have all versions of Earthworm Jim and Street Fighter 2 included? What is your controller setup? I use SNES gamepad for almost anything, besides Arcade games. They are played with an Arcade stick. Alone this difference is sometimes a reason to include "duplicates". Sadly, no other input device here (besides mini keyboard/mouse for starting some computer games). The amount of games you have included is insane! Just a question, are a descendant to Kefka or somehow related to him?^^

In general, I would be interested in the decisions and reasoning on one version over the another version of a game. Obviously this applies only to curated list of less games. I am also interested in the hacks you all included. (Maybe on a different thread? I mean, there are a lot of related threads.)