Best PCE hardware to get?

[Magicalbottle]

Hi all, I'm about to get into PC Engine and was wondering what the best version of the hardware is? Needs to be RGB modded I read, but I like the black color of the PC Engine DUO, or is it better to get the R or RX?

[broken]

Save yourself a lot of headaches and get a Duo-R.

Black Duo's are ticking time bombs with leaking caps.

[SuperDeadite]

Depends on what you want to play.

A Duo-R is a great unit but it can't play SuperGrafx nor LD-ROM2 games.
Sadly there is no single piece of hardware that plays the entire library.
A Duo-R is a solid place to start though.

[TheRetromancer]

Actually, for performance and price, the PCE/Turbo Duo is the best option you can choose. Replacing the caps is easy (time consuming, but easy), and they're about $100 cheaper than a Duo-R. The SuperGrafx is a waste of time to acquire, as less than ten games were made for it, and two of those (comprising about 66% of all games worth playing on the SuperGrafx, honestly) can be played on the PCE/Turbografx. LD-ROM2 stuff is 90% useless, and the few games that are worth your time aren't worth the expense of the hardware needed to play it.

The ONLY advantage the Duo-R has over the regular Duo is that the original capacitors are more likely to be in good shape...but they will still fail. It's an illusory 'improvement', owing to the fact that the Duo-R is a younger system, not to any increase in quality of the parts. I've purchased two 'broken' Duos off of eBay and repaired them both for less than $20 each. If you're willing to go the extra mile, you can drop another $15 to replace the laser lens with a brand new HOP-M3, though this is not usually necessary.

Honestly, the hardest part about repairing the Duo is dialing in the trimpots, and with a frequency counter and a cheap oscilloscope, you can dial your system in perfectly, courtesy of thesteve's brilliant instructions over on PCEnginefx.com's forums.

Seriously - do yourself a favor and ignore the Duo-R's.

[Strider77]

I don't see buying an R or RX as a hassle or a disadvantage.

If nothing else you don't have that retarded A/V plug sticking out on the side.

[Galgomite]

Ditto on the side-mounted AV plug on the original duo. I have one on my CDX and hate it.
It's my understanding that the position of the caps in the original duo make even replacements more quick to fail than in the Duo-R. That said, my Douijidance-modded Duo-R (which I would otherwise have recommended) has developed a video problem, so there's still no escaping the fact that this stuff is all OLD and may have problems down the line.

[TheRetromancer]

It's my understanding that the position of the caps in the original duo make even replacements more quick to fail than in the Duo-R.

I have heard nothing regarding this particular statement, and so cannot comment on it, but it strikes me as extremely odd, bordering on unlikely. Where have you come by this information? Do you reference the cluster of caps near both heatsinks?

[kamiboy]

Yes, that is right. I've heard the same thing. The capacitors placed close to the two regulators are usually the first to fail in a Duo, no doubt due to their exposure to heat.

If you recap with quality 105C caps you should be good for a decade or two though.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Another cool incentive of playing/owning an NEC PC Engine Duo-RX variant gaming console is, with a handy Arcade Card Duo placed in the Hu-Card slot and an original or CD-R copy of Spriggan, you'll notice that all the anime cutscenes are sped up a bit + in-game gameplay is sped up as well (the framerate is sped up as well making for a more robust Spriggan game compared to playing it on "normal" speed/framerate).

Found out this cool PCE game speed-up trick by trial & error one day.

The Duo-RX comes with a single NEC produced Arcade Pad 6 controller endowed with auto-fire functionality for buttons 1 & 2. Sadly, NEC did not include an internal Arcade Card setup from the get-go with the Duo-RX console. Still requires either an external Arcade Card Duo or Arcade Card Pro upgrade just to play 'em cool PCE Arcade CD-Rom2 games including the only Arcade CD-Rom2 shmup of Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire indeed. Originally, the Arcade Card Duo came with a whopping MSRP 12,800 yen price tag and a 14,800 yen price tag for the Arcade Card Pro respectively upon their initial debut.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[ifog]

I like the black color of the PC Engine DUO

matching with the HORI

[kamiboy]

What a beast. I think I'll "stick" to the Micomsoft HE PRO.

Actually, I cannot get used to playing with a stick after a whole life on pads, so I'll stick with the good old comfy standard two button pad.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I bought one of those cool Hori Fighting Stick PC for a mere $20.00 USD off of eBay back in 2000, however, the shipping was an additional $35.00 USD with EMS shipping from Japan to the USA. Still worth the additional expense of having it shipped despite the low winning bidding overall pricepoint. I've noticed that my PCE shmup scores get higher with use with the HFS-PC setup easily compared to play 'em with the lowly TurboGrafx-16 Turbo Pad setup or even NEC's 1st-party produced Turbo Stick arcade joystick setup. The joystick base on the HFS-PC is all metal for both the top and bottom portions making for a solid and robust PCE arcade stick barnone. It originally came with a MSRP of 7,800 yen when it made it's initial debut at retail in Japan.

Works just fine on a TurboGrafx-16 console with the appropiate reverse PCE to TG-16 controller adapter cable setup.

PC Engine Fan x! ^_~