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Post by MIK on Mar 19, 2015 12:06:56 GMT
Great review and video!! VERY COOL device and nice to see it working properly. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by smithyz on Mar 19, 2015 16:48:34 GMT
Exactly what MIK said.
Thanks Buckoa51
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Post by buckoa51 on Mar 19, 2015 17:10:31 GMT
You're very welcome Only wish I could have kept it myself!
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Post by zyrobs on Mar 19, 2015 21:23:29 GMT
Rhea does speed up loading by the way, just indirectly. Actual data transfers are not faster, but seek times are instantaneous, which can add up very fast in some games.
Like in Virtua Fighter 2 (when you lose and continue) and Fighters Megamix (between any match), when you have to wait for the drive motor to move to the beginning of the audio track. The match won't start until the drive movement is done. With Rhea, this happens instantly, so the game "loads" much faster.
I suspect this would be even more extreme on seek-heavy games. Shining Force 3 comes to mind.
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Post by Yart on Mar 19, 2015 21:43:46 GMT
At first I wasn't a fan of needing to completely remove the CD-ROM drive and replace it with the Rhea, and I really was not a fan of having only one game on each SD card. The more I think about it though, the more the system becomes like a giant DS with its small cartridges, and that idea kinda warmed me up for some reason. You can get SD card wallets, but finding low capacity SD cards for cheap (in Canada, not sure about there) isn't that easy, unless you buy in bulk directly from a supplier or somethin' with a minimum bulk order of like 50 or 100 for like $0.30-$1.00 a piece or somethin'. (Anyone have any experience with Alibaba?) Since there's so many great Saturn games... it might actually be worth it, especially with the quicker seek times. Also I'd imagine it would be fun to make a completely new casing for the Saturn with the Rhea to make it resemble more of a cartridge based system. Thanks for the review Buckoa! I'll get one down the road. The possibilities are making me kinda excited. EDIT: Apparently I can't read when I just wake up... oof. Ok so there is a way to have multiple games on one card... blegh curse these eyes!
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Post by buckoa51 on Mar 19, 2015 21:54:43 GMT
What do you mean? Optical drives are fast enough for anything and there's no seek times because Gamecube! (sorry, reference to another recent thread, couldn't resist I should probably add that fact to the review. It would be lovely to have some sort of GUI to launch the games. I think to do that you'd need something cartridge based that could communicate both with the Saturns CPU and the optical drive emulators firmware. Who knows, maybe something like that will come along one day.
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Post by Yart on Mar 19, 2015 21:58:10 GMT
Isn't it possible to just write a Saturn homebrew program specifically for the Rhea that loads off the SD card, that lets you explore the SD card and load another game?
I mean, I'd imagine it'd be possible to change ROMs after the Saturn has booted up a game already. The first (and only) clue I have is Death Tank Zwei. People managed to pull that out of Duke 3D and release it as a separate game ISO. It's a game that loads after Duke 3D has loaded.
Edit: Unless of course, it's the whole issue of each folder being recognized as a separate disc or somethin'... oh yea... I can see how that wouldn't work now. Oof the program you'd write would only let you explore the one folder at a time (01, 02, etc) as if it were the CD.
Blegh.
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Post by zyrobs on Mar 19, 2015 22:08:54 GMT
What do you mean? Optical drives are fast enough for anything and there's no seek times because Gamecube! (sorry, reference to another thread, couldn't resist The drive motor needs to move to the location where the data-to-be-read is stored. This can take a relatively long time. If a game does a lot of seeking, it can end up spending more time seeking than actually reading data. Play a game of Virtua Fighter 2. When you lose the match and choose to continue, before the match restarts you'll hear the motor buzzing for a bit as it moves the laser around for the correct audio track. The game is halted during this as it is waiting for the drive to get to position. It can take hundreds of milliseconds... not much, but it is noticeable, especially if you have to continue a lot (which isn't uncommon given that the AI in VF2 is a gargantuan smeg). On Rhea, there is 0 seek time, and this makes the game much snappier: you press Start during the continue screen and you INSTANTLY start a new match, as opposed to a fraction of a second later. It's a small difference but it can add up easy enough that I noticed it straight away. I don't remember from the top of my head which games do a lot of seeking. I recall Shining Force 3 throwing a lot of motor noises because it had to load stuff for every attack scene in battles. So it may be loading much faster with Rhea during battles.
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Post by zyrobs on Mar 19, 2015 22:20:16 GMT
Isn't it possible to just write a Saturn homebrew program specifically for the Rhea that loads off the SD card, that lets you explore the SD card and load another game? I mean, I'd imagine it'd be possible to change ROMs after the Saturn has booted up a game already. The first (and only) clue I have is Death Tank Zwei. People managed to pull that out of Duke 3D and release it as a separate game ISO. It's a game that loads after Duke 3D has loaded. Edit: Unless of course, it's the whole issue of each folder being recognized as a separate disc or somethin'... oh yea... I can see how that wouldn't work now. Oof the program you'd write would only let you explore the one folder at a time (01, 02, etc) as if it were the CD. Blegh. It would be possible to write a loader, and perhaps make Rhea act differently when it sees that specific crafted iso. That way you could select folders via controller, and have a rudimentary GUI that would display info from the game header. Then, I dunno, load it by resetting the machine. The one single problem is that someone would need to, you know, write the actual code.
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Post by buckoa51 on Mar 19, 2015 23:36:39 GMT
Yes I know, it was a mickey take (not against you of course!) based on a recent infamous thread.
Deunan has said on his blog its basically impossible on the current hardware. Still, people thought something like the Rhea was basically impossible at one time.
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Post by zyrobs on Mar 19, 2015 23:58:34 GMT
Deunan has said on his blog its basically impossible on the current hardware. Still, people thought something like the Rhea was basically impossible at one time. Nothing is impossible, just improbable.
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Stahn
Novice
Joined: March 2015
Posts: 43
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Post by Stahn on Mar 24, 2015 17:10:19 GMT
Wow, I didn't know about this Rhea thing ! Just found out about it now, I'm still reading, this can revive 1 dead Saturn I have (doesn't read CDs anymore) I left in some box somewhere ! If it reads every known Saturn game it is a blast !! gotta save some 130€ for the future
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Post by buckoa51 on Mar 24, 2015 18:41:50 GMT
It can (assuming the fault is purely down to a broken CD mechanism). Remember though it only works with 20 pin consoles at the moment (typically only early model 1 consoles).
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umg
Saturn Gamer
Joined: March 2015
Posts: 133
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Post by umg on Mar 25, 2015 0:34:34 GMT
Remember though it only works with 20 pin consoles at the moment (typically only early model 1 consoles). Is there a reason for this? I've held off from buying one for this very reason.
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Post by zyrobs on Mar 25, 2015 1:05:07 GMT
Remember though it only works with 20 pin consoles at the moment (typically only early model 1 consoles). Is there a reason for this? I've held off from buying one for this very reason. Different drive protocol, different required parts, problems routing the electronics on the PCB or placing both connectors on them, parts may not be available or cost too much, and users are complete dumbfucks and can't count to 21 (yes, this is a real problem, people can't figure out how to install these things already, having TWO connectors on them would cause even more confusion). Oh, and there are 3 different 21pin drive types as well, that all need to be handled.
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