leaving cd- based systems paused

[AlexKidd]

Whenever i'm in the middle of playing a game that doesn't save (ninja gaiden for nes comes to mind) i'll sometimes pause it , shut the tv off and come back to it when i have a chance. I even left my genesis or nes on the whole time when i was on vacation once. This has never caused any problem with my games or systems. However lately i've been playing mostly saturn and i'm kind of paranoid to do the same thing. So basically i'm asking is it ok to leave my saturn on and paused for a few hours while i'm at work or out to eat or something? or will this damage the system in any way?

[Kitsune Sniper]

If the game uses streamed music (CDDA, XA audio) then yes, I'd worry and turn off the system. But if it uses synth music (like the Resident Evil games), the CD stops spinning after a little bit so I wouldn't worry. It depends on the game.

[c0ldb33r]

What about heat problems? Don't newer systems output more heat than older cart ones?

[Blitzwing256]

depends on the system, however when I was younger I had found an experinece loop in dungeon explorer 2 for the sega cd, I decided to leave the game going over night to max out my charecter.

when I woke up the next morning there was no music playing and the disk tray was sticking out , the game was still playable but i coudln't get it to retract the tray, i also coudln't save the game and when i turned the system on and off the sega cd was non-functional.

your mileage may vary but I woudln't leave a cd based system running for long periods of time.

[Synergy]

I've done that a couple times with cartridge-based games, but nowhere near being something that's routine. I wouldn't even think of doing something like that with a CD-based game, personally.

[Graham Mitchell]

If it's an old-model Saturn (with the "clicky" shoulder buttons) then you really don't want to do that. One of the reasons for the redesign was because they were overheating. This was made worse when machines were placed on carpet. I worked at Babbage's when the Saturn was released and those things were getting returned quite a bit because they were frying. A later-model Saturn is probably a bit more robust, but I still probably wouldn't leave it on when I wasn't using it.