Do you think retro upscalers are worth it?

[Edmond Dantes]

You're in Puerto Rico right? Yeah, it's not like the lower 48, where CRT's remain somewhat plentiful.

I'm in Arkansas, actually. It's just my area is mostly country and a lot of the thrift stores sell what I call "old woman things" (dolls and such). My nearest town doesn't have a Goodwill, but there are some like 30min-1hr away that do, and I'm hoping to make a trip up there soon.

@Gameguy -- This particular old CRT of my grandpa's had clear visual distortions even before booting up Duck Hunt (I actually played a bit of SMB first, and Mario was green... granted, living on a diet of mushrooms might do that to a person, but I still don't think its supposed to look like that)...

What the heck is a Sony Trinitron and all that?

The going all emulation argument is something I've thought about, though lately I've been thinking of a variant... IE selling physical games in favor of flash carts and ODEs. Probably gonna start with Optical Disc Emulators because CD and DVD-ROM based games are getting expensive and I've had one experience too many with buying a Sega CD game and it either doesn't work or it has a pinprick of death that makes it unfinishable, so that market has become too much like gambling. Apparently a cartridge called the... I think its the MODE? allows you to play Sega CD games straight from a cart, without even needing the real add-on.

[gbpxl]

I'm in Arkansas, actually. It's just my area is mostly country and a lot of the thrift stores sell what I call "old woman things" (dolls and such). My nearest town doesn't have a Goodwill, but there are some like 30min-1hr away that do, and I'm hoping to make a trip up there soon.

@Gameguy -- This particular old CRT of my grandpa's had clear visual distortions even before booting up Duck Hunt (I actually played a bit of SMB first, and Mario was green... granted, living on a diet of mushrooms might do that to a person, but I still don't think its supposed to look like that)...

What the heck is a Sony Trinitron and all that?

The going all emulation argument is something I've thought about, though lately I've been thinking of a variant... IE selling physical games in favor of flash carts and ODEs. Probably gonna start with Optical Disc Emulators because CD and DVD-ROM based games are getting expensive and I've had one experience too many with buying a Sega CD game and it either doesn't work or it has a pinprick of death that makes it unfinishable, so that market has become too much like gambling. Apparently a cartridge called the... I think its the MODE? allows you to play Sega CD games straight from a cart, without even needing the real add-on.

I heard the Terra Onion cartridge plays Sega CD games. I dont remember the details on that. The ODE for the PlayStation is always sold out. I cant remember what the story is for the Saturn and Dreamcast. GameCube has an ODE as well which looks really slick. all of them require extensive soldering and electronics knowledge. it's a very advanced mod.

[Tron 2.0]

. I cant remember what the story is for the Saturn and Dreamcast.

The mode is for saturn and dreamcast far as odes go.The last one that came out for the saturn is the satiator which plugs back into to the saturn vcd slot,allowing you to keep the system stock.

[Gameguy]

I'm in Arkansas, actually. It's just my area is mostly country and a lot of the thrift stores sell what I call "old woman things" (dolls and such). My nearest town doesn't have a Goodwill, but there are some like 30min-1hr away that do, and I'm hoping to make a trip up there soon.

What craigslist would be nearest your location? I tried to search for Arkansas but there's a few areas listed. I accidentally first searched the Kansas craigslist by mistake, and when I searched for TVs in the free section there were tons. Then I realised my mistake and searched one of the listings for Arkansas and there were only 3 listings for giant projection sets, but plenty of listings for free chickens, a rooster, fence pickets, and potato salad.

I love the description for one of the projection sets. "This is old so it does not have any HDMI inputs. Would also make a good Target." Of course you can use it for shooting. lol

@Gameguy -- This particular old CRT of my grandpa's had clear visual distortions even before booting up Duck Hunt (I actually played a bit of SMB first, and Mario was green... granted, living on a diet of mushrooms might do that to a person, but I still don't think its supposed to look like that)...

Maybe it could be fixed? I'm not sure what causes that specific issue but it would probably be something commonly known, at least to diagnose if not worth repairing.

What the heck is a Sony Trinitron and all that?

I assume you're joking but if not it's a brand of TVs that are known for being high quality.

The going all emulation argument is something I've thought about, though lately I've been thinking of a variant... IE selling physical games in favor of flash carts and ODEs. Probably gonna start with Optical Disc Emulators because CD and DVD-ROM based games are getting expensive and I've had one experience too many with buying a Sega CD game and it either doesn't work or it has a pinprick of death that makes it unfinishable, so that market has become too much like gambling. Apparently a cartridge called the... I think its the MODE? allows you to play Sega CD games straight from a cart, without even needing the real add-on.

That's a partial solution, but the hardware playing the games would still have issues with modern displays so it doesn't actually help with usability in your case. It's why I would go with the pure emulation route if you're going to be displaying them on a modern TV anyway, and you can still emulate CD games using images as well.

There is a cartridge that can play Sega CD games on the Genesis console without needing the Sega CD system, but it was priced around $300 when I last looked into it. Even if CDs or DVDs won't work because of damage, you can always just burn a disc to CD-R or DVD-R, these solutions have been around for ages. The real problem would be the disc drives themselves failing, more than the discs failing. Though both would still be an issue overall. I'm a bit surprised a small pinprick would prevent the game from being unreadable, usually error correction would work with a small defect like that.