Retro Duo and other two in one consoles

[Deca]

I was looking to pick up something along these lines, and my local gaming store carries Retro Duos. Hoping to get some opinions on them or other, similar products before I decide to pick one up. I'd rather not move my NES and SNES from my parents place but have some games I'd like to be playing. I have trouble putting too much faith in a used NES other than a toploader, and that's a bit more than I'm looking to spend.

[Estebang]

The Retro Duo is a complete waste of money. Shoddy workmanship, highly inaccurate sound, and sometimes glitched graphics. Super Mario Bros. has constant fart noises in its music when played on a Retro Duo.

I think there's better famiclones out there, but they probably wouldn't be any cheaper than an actual NES.

[Friendly]

Yeah, those are a total waste. Buy the real thing or emulate.

[drunkninja24]

Depends. If you just want something to play games, I say go for it. I bought a RetroDuo for my sister-in-law for Christmas 2 years ago since her NES was on the fritz and she also wanted to play SimCity. Been working fine for her since, but of course she probably wouldn't notice any inaccuracies in the games.

[Moniker]

There's this thing: https://www.retrode.com/

It's sort of a USB adapter for SNES/SFC & GEN/SMD catridges. Has slots for cartridges and controllers and then you play them on an emulator on your PC. Not much point if you're an unrepentant pirate, but could be pretty useful for the virtuous.

[Jeneki]

While I don't own any of the "retro" console remakes, I've used a bunch of them at conventions and whatnot. All of the ones I've seen have composite video output only , so there's a metric asston of deinterlacing and upscaling lag when hooked up to modern TVs.

[Friendly]

There's this thing: https://www.retrode.com/

It's sort of a USB adapter for SNES/SFC & GEN/SMD catridges. Has slots for cartridges and controllers and then you play them on an emulator on your PC. Not much point if you're an unrepentant pirate, but could be pretty useful for the virtuous.

Retrode is total crap, stay clear. It's basically a hardware emulator on which you play your real and potentially expensive cartridges (why would anyone do this if you emulate the consoles anyway??). Emulation is less than perfect (any software emulator is superior, and free). The controller ports are incorrectly wired (= the buttons don't match the consoles it emulates). And it doesn't even have RGB output, wtf?!

[Deca]

Ughhh maybe it's time to man up and buy a top loading NES. I just want to play Legacy of the Wizard

there's a metric asston of deinterlacing and upscaling lag when hooked up to modern TVs.

Believe me I have no intention of ever connecting any older console to anything but a CRT, so it's not much of an issue.

[Moniker]

There's this thing: https://www.retrode.com/

It's sort of a USB adapter for SNES/SFC & GEN/SMD catridges. Has slots for cartridges and controllers and then you play them on an emulator on your PC. Not much point if you're an unrepentant pirate, but could be pretty useful for the virtuous.

Retrode is total crap, stay clear. It's basically a hardware emulator on which you play your real and potentially expensive cartridges (why would anyone do this if you emulate the consoles anyway??). Emulation is less than perfect (any software emulator is superior, and free). The controller ports are incorrectly wired (= the buttons don't match the consoles it emulates). And it doesn't even have RGB output, wtf?!

I was under the impression you had to BYO emulator. Which would also solve the button issue. Also thought that it was basically a rom-mounting accessory, with no actual emulation happening in the unit.

[Friendly]

There's this thing: https://www.retrode.com/

It's sort of a USB adapter for SNES/SFC & GEN/SMD catridges. Has slots for cartridges and controllers and then you play them on an emulator on your PC. Not much point if you're an unrepentant pirate, but could be pretty useful for the virtuous.

Retrode is total crap, stay clear. It's basically a hardware emulator on which you play your real and potentially expensive cartridges (why would anyone do this if you emulate the consoles anyway??). Emulation is less than perfect (any software emulator is superior, and free). The controller ports are incorrectly wired (= the buttons don't match the consoles it emulates). And it doesn't even have RGB output, wtf?!

I was under the impression you had to BYO emulator. Which would also solve the button issue. Also thought that it was basically a rom-mounting accessory, with no actual emulation happening in the unit.

Oh, I see this is version 2; what I read was probably about the first model. Anway, after reading the explanation this device seems to be very useless. Why would you play your original cartridges emulated on your PC?

[drunkninja24]

Well, saves for one thing. You could hook it to your laptop or something, play a bit, still save to the cartridge, take it back home, play it on your console from where you left off, or something like that. Only real use I would ever have for it anyway.

[drauch]

Retro duo sucksa ssss. Hope you like shit sound and "real" controllers. Just do an emulator. I'd rather suck a leech through my dick that play on this shit.

[null1024]

Oh, I see this is version 2; what I read was probably about the first model. Anway, after reading the explanation this device seems to be very useless. Why would you play your original cartridges emulated on your PC?

Doesn't it pretty much dump the rom [read: pretty much the only way emulation is legal, dumping your own roms] and provide connectors for your original controllers? That's not useless at all.

[CStarFlare]

I personally love my retro duo. You can (and should) use a real SNES controller for it, but it's played almost every one of my SNES/SFC games flawlessly (only exception being Demon's Crest). Its NES support is less stellar, I've run into sound issues on two games and Dragon Warrior won't load without being attached to a Game Genie, but it's overall very usable for my purposes.

If you're a stickler for perfection you'll want the real thing, but as someone who wants occasional 8/16 bit fun in his life I've generally been really happy with it. I have heard that there's many different models that are difficult (impossible?) to identify without opening the box, each with slightly different capabilities, so that's one thing to watch out for.

Off topic, but is there something similar with FDS support?

[Obiwanshinobi]

If you have any beef with playing console games on computers, isn't the original Xbox perfect for this kind of thing? Softmodded Wii should do the trick as well. PS2 and DC have a nifty range of emulators, but burning the discs and modding is more of a hassle (then again, fat PS2 with HDD might come in handy).

[Ex-Cyber]

it's played almost every one of my SNES/SFC games flawlessly (only exception being Demon's Crest).

Is it the thing where Arma is invincible, or does it just crash?

[Gus]

If you have any beef with playing console games on computers, isn't the original Xbox perfect for this kind of thing? Softmodded Wii should do the trick as well. PS2 and DC have a nifty range of emulators, but burning the discs and modding is more of a hassle (then again, fat PS2 with HDD might come in handy).

Playing NES/SNES/MD/GBA emulators is about the only thing the Wii is good for.

[CStarFlare]

it's played almost every one of my SNES/SFC games flawlessly (only exception being Demon's Crest).

Is it the thing where Arma is invincible, or does it just crash?

It has a ton of slowdown from the get-go and is generally unplayable. A quick google indicates that not everyone has this problem, but I confirmed it with my copy.

I gave this thread a read a while back and found it very interesting regarding compatibility and such.

[Ex-Cyber]

I've been told that SNES clones use flat-out copies of the SNES chipset, unlike most NES clones, which explains why most of the compatibility issues are related to region/lockout checks. The Demon's Crest thing is really, really strange, to the point that I can't help but suspect that it's another copy protection pseudo-glitch planted by the programmers.

[Deca]

Well this is disappointing as I mostly want to play NES games at the moment...Though one of my new years resolutions was to finally play through this FF3 cart that's been laying around. Does anyone have access to a Retro Duo and a copy of Legacy of the Wizard to see how it runs?