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Post by Sarge on Jan 4, 2021 0:04:24 GMT -5
The Fenrir is what I'm waiting on - both my systems are Model 2s, but he's working on that. That being said, the Satiator does have the benefit of not opening the system at all, and lets you continue to use discs if you want. But yeah, it's way more expensive than I was expecting.
I did end up buying a new flash cart today, though - an EverDrive 64 2.5. Yeah, a flash cart for my least nostalgic Nintendo console. Go figure! I'm still itching to try out some stuff with it, especially the patches that remove some of the anti-aliasing from games. Not all of it, though, as there's a hardware step that anti-aliases more, but I've seen some comparisons and it does look better to me.
The 2.5 has some drawbacks, but I couldn't justify the much pricier model, which I think is only useful for Animal Crossing. Whatevs, y'all! And I did get it for relatively cheap, since I'd racked up tickets at Stone Age Gamer for a while through giveaways and purchases, so I had $50 of store credit to plop down on it, plus another $10 off coupon. N64 flash cart for under $60? Yeah, I can do that.
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Post by Ex on Jan 4, 2021 11:05:25 GMT -5
Four years ago I saw this video where this guy (Professor Abrasive) got around the Sega Saturn's copy protection by hijacking the rear mpeg video card expander slot near the backup battery: He developed a PCB called "The Satiator" based on this concept. The Satiator serves as an SD card adaptor to play any Saturn ISO you want without doing anything to your Saturn's CD drive. Now his Patreon backers are receiving beta versions of the Satiator. It costs $260. I was excited for this product, but I can't justify that price at all, especially when the Fenrir ODE only costs $114 and doesn't require any soldering. I applaud his ingenuity, but $260 for something that also requires soldering, is probably naive.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 4, 2021 15:29:52 GMT -5
Thankfully, the Satiator doesn't require soldering. It's just that the Fenrir doesn't require soldering, either. The Satiator sits in the MPEG card expansion slot in the back of the Saturn - it's a true plug-and-play solution. You don't even have to remove your laser like the Fenrir/Rhea/Phoebe/MODE. The Fenrir just has you mount it and plug the ribbon cable that went to the laser into the Fenrir instead.
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Post by Ex on Jan 4, 2021 15:32:13 GMT -5
Thankfully, the Satiator doesn't require soldering. It's just that the Fenrir doesn't require soldering, either. The Satiator sits in the MPEG card expansion slot in the back of the Saturn - it's a true plug-and-play solution. You don't even have to remove your laser like the Fenrir/Rhea/Phoebe/MODE. The Fenrir just has you mount it and plug the ribbon cable that went to the laser into the Fenrir instead. Okay, so if this is a 100% plug 'n' play Saturn ISO player, then that explains the premium price.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 4, 2021 15:51:09 GMT -5
It's still a lot more expensive than people were expecting, including myself. I didn't figure it would go above $200, but... yeah. If it were at $200 or a bit under, I'd probably already have one. I think most were expecting around $150.
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Post by anayo on Jan 4, 2021 16:25:56 GMT -5
It's still a lot more expensive than people were expecting, including myself. I didn't figure it would go above $200, but... yeah. If it were at $200 or a bit under, I'd probably already have one. I think most were expecting around $150. For $150 I'd have been sorely tempted.
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Post by Ex on Jan 4, 2021 17:15:34 GMT -5
With a new niche product like this, you start high, sell to the deep pockets, then slowly slide the price down over time. This guy knows what he's doing.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 4, 2021 17:25:51 GMT -5
True. If he gets that cost down soon, I will be tempted... but he better beat out the Fenrir guy.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 12, 2021 16:13:38 GMT -5
Well, got my EverDrive 64 in. Tested a few games - load times are really fast, which is excellent. I've also tried the no anti-aliasing patches, which removes some (but not all) of the AA from games. It already makes quite the difference, although to go full-on PSX-style, you'd need the RGB/Deblur mod. I'm still really happy with how it looks already, though. You get some extra dithering, but I think I'd rather have that than the smeary mess you get from doing an anti-aliasing pass on both the polygons and the entire screen.
Of course, this does nothing for textures. And if I ever get a spare N64, I will probably try to install a deblur option. I've seen screenshots and at that point most games look almost like the PSX instead.
Oh, another neat thing is you can back up your controller pak to the SD card. Very handy, because as some of you may already know, those actually use batteries, not flash memory.
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Post by anayo on Jan 21, 2021 7:07:59 GMT -5
With a new niche product like this, you start high, sell to the deep pockets, then slowly slide the price down over time. This guy knows what he's doing. I hope you're right. There weren't really inexpensive after market Everdrives at first, but I ended up getting an affordable earlier model of SD2SNES from a guy on Racketboy after they had been out for a while. Hopefully the Satiator follows the same path.
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