ROM greediness

ohmycommodore

Not saying I don't HAVE a ton of games, I just only load a small set on my RP :)

PetroRie

@mediamogul I understand your point.

Or just the fact that today's games are fast paced quick rewarding, which makes games of the 90s much more time consuming relatively.

Older games are pretty limited but we didn't knew better. I used to play Super Mario Bros 3 almost everyday with my brother and we had a lot of fun. I still enjoy that game, I can't have the same fun and experience on a modern game.

Most new games focus a lot on multiplayer, for an example BF1 I didn't beat the single player I just played 2 missions and I started to play the MP. I unlocked almost everything, I ranked so fast, on Operations I'm almost always the first with the highest points and highest kills. I'm not a pro but it took me a while to get there, it's pretty easy with this game if you always go for the objective you always can flank a couple of them and secure the sector.

However I really think all the new games should have a online co-op mode. This really adds something to the experience in my opinion and many developers forget this. Wouldn't it be great if GTA5 had online co-op?

HurricaneFan

@blackshadow How much storage does your pi have? 150 psx games sounds like a ton of space.

felleg

I'd rather have an organized titanic list of games for some consoles (NES, SNES, Genesis, 2600,...) than be missing the game a friend wants to show me when I bring my pi over. Downloading on the fly is not always possible!

@HurricaneFan
I don't know about others, but I have about 40 psx games. I just store them on an external USB which is always connected to my pi (it's 128Gb and super small, very useful
https://www.amazon.ca/Lexar-JumpDrive-128GB-Flash-Drive/dp/B012PKV7RC

blackshadow

@HurricaneFan i have a 1TB pidrive attached to my pi in a box and use it mostly as a media center for all my dvds i own to save me having em all laying about with my limited space(i have bought a lot of films over the years so converted em all and put em on my pi) have it bolted to the back of my tv out of the way :D

got a pizero laying around doing nothing aswell and im considering a portable build for it when i get time

HPK-de

Hi,

for me retropie is just playing the old games, i played since i was young (i'm 40 now).
I was never been an console guy, i only have an old SEGA Master System lying around somewhere here, and i only have the roms i have originally for this system.
My main goal is to do Dosbox.... I was an dosgames player all my life, and i have lots of them. My focus lies between the years 1989-1995.
All in all (inkl. scummvm-games) i have around 150 of them, some really old (bought decades ago), some newly (re-)bought at GOG.com. At GOG alone i bought 40+ games, normally for 0,99$-4,99$ (sale prices) each.
I prefer buying games i play, even when i can download them somewhere from "Abandonware Sites". It gives me a better feeling, buying them. And it's exciting,
finding an old treasure on street markets or retro conventions.
I'm only interested in games i played as a kid on my computer, or played at some friends at that time.
Above that, i just buy some carefully selected classics (i like Microprose and Lucasarts titles) and games that shaped the time and history of PC-Gaming.

Now iḿ turning to get some early Windows Games up and running on pi with the exagear software, which is amazing. I got "Anno1602" running via LXDE and wine, and it works very fine.

Today i bought 2 games for only 1,49$ each at gog.com:
"Myst" and "Riven-the Sequel to Myst".
Both are rather big (600MB for Myst and 2,4 Gig for Riven), but they work fine on
the RetroPie using the ScummVM. But i had to store the games on an USB Stick,
they doesn't fit to the sdcard anymore.... It is still amazing, what this small box is capable of ;)

Greetings to all the retropiers out there....

Zigurana

Wait, what? Myst runs on ScummVM?

mediamogul

@Zigurana

You bet your bippy!

space cadet

Another game I need to play!

HPK-de

@Zigurana
Yes, Myst and Riven working with scumm.
Be sure to get the game @ gog for the sale price!

Gosenbach

sweet!
Is there a guide somewhere that outlines how to get something purchased from gog working?

HPK-de

@Gosenbach
The Guide is simple:

Install the game on a Windows PC (It comes just as an .EXE).
Copy the Game Folder into your Roms-Folder on the Raspberry PI (I use FTP).
Tell ScummVM to add an game and tell him, where to find the Game Folder.
Done! Play the Game....

When you want to download other games (not Scumm comatible)
you have tocheck if it is the Dosbox version.
https://www.gog.com/mix/list_of_gog_games_using_dosbox_2
https://www.gog.com/mix/games_using_dosbox
When it is the Dos Version you follow the step above (without the Scumm Step),
but you have to configure DosBox manually.... Thats quite complicated for some games.... ScummVM is very easy....

But if you need help.... Just post what game you like to play, maybe i have an config for it ;-)

hooperre

@HPK-de Does the "Myst Masterpiece" version work off of GOG?

mediamogul

@hooperre

It's noted as being supported.

guythp

Thank you OP; You've injected a moment of sanity in my current frenzied ROM download.. That said, it's nice to discover games that are fun to play and aren't so well known.

I must whittle down the games I'm going to put onto my pi.. On the plus side it'll give space for some playstation games.. On an off-topic, how's 3DO emulation on the pi?

tyreal90

great topic. Im unfortunately in the opposite boat in that roms are like pokemon to me and i have a compulsion to catch them all. I definately understand the point the op is making. i...just...can't... help...myself. on a similar note to what others have said, i have had friends mess with retropie with me and we almost always only play games we played in our childhoods despite having more choices of a wider library.

AlexMurphy

@tyreal90 You have what is known as "ROM fever". Please stop. It's not good for you!

tyreal90

@AlexMurphy

i wonder if there is a rom rehab program that i can join. haha kidding. my retropie image is only 111 gigabytes......

I think that the world needs both sets of rom collectors. For those of you that needed to find an unpopular or hard to get game. There is a good chance it would have been impossible to come by if not for a completionist who made sure to capture it off the cartridge or put it on a website. I remember the end of farenheight 451 when the world had destroyed knowledge, it was up to the people who hoarded it (in this case books) to remember what time would forget. Im not saying that there is a right way to collect, a focused collection or broad collection. I just think they can sometimes be symbiotic.

Eldrethor

@tyreal90 I can relate to the whole idea of preserving knowledge.

I'm a hoarder but I limit my collection to US games, English PAL games, select Japanese games, and specific hacks. For me, the idea of having such a large library is like digging up a time capsule that tells me what this console's life was like during its run: box art styles, popular genres, mainstream movie/TV titles, major franchise characters, big-name gaming companies, controversies, the attitudes and trends of the time, etc. Each console becomes a slice of history that I can immerse myself in, and I get to see how all of these things change as we go from one generation to the next.

jamesbeat

@Dochartaigh said in ROM greediness:

I like hoarding ROMs but I do it well! In the root folder are all the games I own - then I have a folder with every single game from a select systems romset. So whenever I hear a game talked about, or watch a video, or see it on a top XYZ list somewhere, I already have it loaded up on my Pi 3 and can try it out and see if I like it.

MAME is an entire different animal...WAY too many to ever go through. Those I limit to what I used to play at the arcades (and some other cool ones I've found over time). I split those up into different categories too since there's just so many.

Oh, plus I have like 16 TB of hard drives in my Mac Pro so I'm pretty set for storage space ;)

Same here - I like full sets because I enjoy retro gaming not just nostalgia trips.
Of course I play all of the old games that I had (I never stopped though, so it's not really nostalgia) but I also like discovering new ones.
It's much easier to have well organized full sets so that when I see a review of a game I'd like to try, it's already on there.
Not only that, but when I have guests, all the games they want to play are on there too.

The trick is to have them organized into alphabetical folders - makes finding a specific game really quick and easy.

I also do this with MAME.
I don't have MAME on my retropie box, but I do have a dedicated cabinet. It also has all the games on it. I know I'll never actually play them all, but I have the space, so why not have them on there?

My MAME setup is a little different. I can't organize the games into folders, but I have it set up so that up and down on the joystick scrolls up and down the list, and left and right skips to the previous/next letter of the alphabet. Again, very quick and easy.