Strictly from the shelf life POV. How long until early CD games, like PC Engine CD stuff will become unbootable? All I know is that cartridges will die too some day, but at least they probably will outlive many of us.
Also do you think, collecting the media after it's dead, is still viable as long as you have CD image iso preserved in some other form?
I have C64 and Amiga games that still work today. They'll die out out long before a game on CD will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Orchid87
Dunno some games from the mid-90s were not pressed very well and are prone to disc rot. I never experienced it myself. Theoretically, CD's can last for 200 years. In reality hard to know. How you store them and treat them also plays a big factor. I think carts esp anything 16 bit and older are more at risk. Capacitors go bad.
CD can't last so long. They are made of plastic. plastic becomes opaque over time. Also the disk ROT is a problem. And the laser pickup are not so reliable.
CDs lasting 200 years was the hype back then but it's clear by now that it's pure bullshit. Besides the fact they're extremely easy to scratch (which kind of voids the whole lifetime ordeal), air leaking into them and causing disc rot is a pretty known problem. It's more a matter of how long it'll take before they rot. Pressed discs at least tend to be better quality than burned discs (which you're lucky if they live more than a few years).
...I wonder what are the statistics on rotting CDs.
Cartridges will probably outlive us at this rate though. It legitimately seems like mask ROMs are the only ones living up to their promised lifetime (even the oldest stuff hasn't seen bit rot in significant quantities yet). And replacing capacitors is cheap and easy, I'd consider that to be just routine maintenance. The problem will be when the custom components start dying (which depends on how delicate that particular piece of hardware is).
To me it's just buy what you like. Fuck what anyone else thinks...
I'm selling all my CD games (mainly Sega CD). I just don't want to be the guy that wakes up one day to a ruined collection. I've many well cared CDs just go to the cemetery, even as recent as Xbox 360.
This is 100% right.Quote:
Originally Posted by SegataS
This is 100% wrong. Properly stored, CDs will outlive you. The laser pickup itself I don't know, but the disc will be readable. CD rot is so absurdly remote that it's not even worth bringing up. It was only a real problem with LDs.Quote:
CDs lasting 200 years was the hype back then but it's clear by now that it's pure bullshit. Besides the fact they're extremely easy to scratch (which kind of voids the whole lifetime ordeal), air leaking into them and causing disc rot is a pretty known problem. It's more a matter of how long it'll take before they rot. Pressed discs at least tend to be better quality than burned discs (which you're lucky if they live more than a few years).
Also the part about CD-Rs is just plain wrong. I have the very first CD-R I ever burned in 2002, 16 years ago, and it reads. Not only does it read, a surface scan reveals a rating of 99% quality, better than some pressed CDs.
Unfortunately it's full of MP3s which would be better off unreadable.
CD is better IMO because if it has audio tracks, you can listen it it in a CD player or make MP3s.
I worry about that when buying games for disc systems. I've had one or two discs start to show rot, but they both still operate.
Anyone who played this stuff while it was current should realize that they only have so many decades of life left themselves.
I don't believe that after zero discs have died over 30 years, my PC Engine games are going to suddenly begin rotting.
LOL... Jesus, way to go morbid on us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
Point taken, enjoy your stuff while you have it, don’t sweat what’s going to happen in twenty or thirty years.
... and maybe consider life insurance.
I think that now is the most viable time, all my CD based consoles have a reliable copy and play alternative. Things like ODEs and HDD launchers and even good emulation make it great to be able to buy and backup, still play and stay the right side of the law.
Yeah, I get the stuff that I do because it brings me enjoyment. If someday they stop functioning, it will not lessen the enjoyment that I got from them over the years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
That said, I expect CDs to outlive me since I live in a nice semi-arid environment with my items stored in a cooler and darker location.
I imagine buying a used original white XBOX360 is like rolling the dice at this point.
Same with fat PS3sQuote:
Originally Posted by EddieJ1984
?Quote:
Originally Posted by Orchid87
Old PS3s have a Yellow Light Of Death issue, but for some reason it didn't result in as much a PR disaster as the Red Ring Of Death was for the 360.
It's a bit rarer but you're still screwed if it happens.
Properly stored stuff, mean, stuff you can't use. Now, in from my point of view, have something without using it is exactly like to don't have it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blades
Store them may be increase they viability, but this not mean they will last forever. One day everything will stop to work, CD, DVD, cartridges, consoles. It's normal, it's ok.
The best thing to do in this case is use them! Time is the critical factor, not how they are stored.
Disk ROT is rare, but it can happen. I have a DVD video wich is ROT.
For CD-R is complicated, I have some CD-R from earlyer 2000 wich still perfectly readable, and some other of the same period wich are completely destroyed themself. In particular I had a very old CD-R on wich the top surface was completely detached.
This can happen even with cartridges or consoles. In this days I've found that one of my MD is broken, it was in perfectly working order last time I used it, and it was stored in almost perfectly conditions. And no, is not just the capacitors, they still ok, is something around the Z80, or the Z80 itself or the Z80 ram. One of this two ICs was died even if they was perfectly stored and not used.Quote:
Originally Posted by netpredakonn
That's why I'm still using all of my retro stuff, I know one day they will stop to work, and I don't want to loose my opportunity to play with them.
I prefer that they die doing what they were created for, instead of finishing their days on a dark and gloomy shelf.
About Fat PS3, once I've worked on one of those, at the end I've discovered that the heatsinks was concaves, no wonder they have heat dissipation issues.
I'm sorry but the Disc Rot fear mongering shit needs to stop. Disc Rot is caused by a Manufacturing defect. It doesn't just magically start happening. It's due to either air or something getting in the disc at pressing or the pressing not being good. Meaning the clock on it starts ticking at pressing. So if the discs you have are well taken care of and show no signs of rot today, 20+ years after they were pressed, odds are they're not ever going to if you continue to take good care of them.
Taking good care of them doesn't mean not playing them, it simply means not being a moron with them. People need to realize the pin hole issue may not be disc rot, but someone taking bad care of a disc. Many games I've come across with that form of "disc rot" I've noticed upon closer inspection it's very clear those pinholes are actually tiny nicks that have happened due to abuse. How? They're not really circular or looking like they happened organically so to speak. If you look closely it's actually more of a tiny scuff as you can see it's all in one direction like something rubbed against it.
And in many cases those games still boot and play fine. Why? Because the CD medium was designed with tons of redundancies. Case in point, I have a copy of Megaman 8 that if you hold to the light looks like Swiss Cheese. When I looked more closely if was obvious it was due to abuse from the reasons explained above. The game still plays fine, just one FMV skips, but that's more due to a scratch on the laser side. Every year I check it and have noticed no worsening of the issue, and every year I rip it and run a checksum on it. Every time it passes the checksum and verifies that all data is there and readable. I can even play it in an emulator and the FMV that skips on my Saturn plays just fine.
Finally, one of the most ridiculous ones I've heard is that keeping all 4 discs of a multi disc game in it's case like Panzer Dragoon Saga will destroy the game even if it just sits on a shelf. The claim here is that the sleeves will cause top damage to the disc on the bottom on the spindle. So to debunk that let's look at some facts:
1) If the sleeve material was abrasive enough to cause top damage to the disc underneath, don't you think it would be abrasive enough to scratch the disc you put in and take out of it? The fact that doesn't scratch the disc should make it obvious that material isn't that abrasive.
2) Do you really think Sega or any CD/Game publisher of the time would be dumb enough to put the media in something that would destroy it just sitting on a shelf? I didn't think so.
3) Have you actually looked at how a US Saturn case is designed for this? The spindle is higher than the disc so when you put the first disc in, and the next disc in it's sleeve on top, the spindle prevents that sleeve from touching the disc. The design of the sleeves does the same thing for the other discs laying on top.
In other words, it's safe to leave Panzer Dragoon Saga in it's case.
Honestly I think this fear mongering is nothing more than people trying to cause a panic to get more people to buy more SD Card / IDE HDD mod kits for their CD systems. I've even heard some people I work with claiming that Saturn and PS1 games aren't worth buying because they'll all succumb to disc rot in the next 5 years. Which that is just ridiculous and I know it's coming from Youtubers spreading this nonsense.
Of course, I'm not saying that every CD will die due the disk ROT, but disk ROT is something that can happen to a CD or a DVD. I'm don't know how the CD or DVD manufacturing process is done. If the layers are only melted together, or some chemicals is used. I suppose the second one, in this case there is a chance that disk ROT will happen on every disk, maybe the clock is just ticketing very slow. But I think the plastic will crystallize or became opaque earlier.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
This look like common sense to me, I suppose people don't use CD as frisbee or coaster.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
True, scratches are not a problem, I've also "repaired" some unworking CD with one of these cheap scratch repair machines. The disk still looks bad, but it works. Most of the scratch are under the focus point or the read error can be compensated by the parity bit or other error correction algorithm.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
I agree, this is really ridiculous. Keep Panzer Dragoon Saga in it's case is 100% safe for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
I'm interested on SD cards or HDD mostly due the consoles failure than the CD. My saturn was always a pain in the ass with the laser. And I've started to have some problems with my PSX too. And most of the old PC CD or DVD drive I've managed in the last years needs at least a belt replacement.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118
Whatever majinga is smoking, I want some. Maybe that’s why all his CDs turn opaque.
Yeah, we have two dead PS3s floating around the house. Too bad, also: I’m pretty sure they were the backwards-compatible models.Quote:
Originally Posted by Orchid87
And I do seem to remember something of a firestorm about the PS3’s failure rate back in the day, just nowhere near the level of the 360.
We had quite a few YLOD at the store show up. YLOD wasn't rare. Just not as widespread as RROD.
I think the install base for each console at the time also had something to do with the perception of failure rates. I don’t know the numbers at all, but there was a good stretch of time there where hardly anyone owned a PS3, whereas the 360 was selling like hotcakes... RROD be damned.
But don’t take my word for it, it’s all documented pretty well in our threads from 8-10 years ago.
Even a smaller install base should not have 25% or 54% fail rates. Granted Wii was greatly less powerful (just a suped-up Gamecube) but it had less than 1% fail rate at that time( I think it ended up with 5% overall). Nintendo was just insane with low failure rates for a long time. The story is now infamous but we had one of the guys come in who told us the DS Mount Everest Story who was on the mountain. So I have been telling it for about 11 years now. Don't ask for links on fail rates as this was info given to us by vendors and such at the time so may not be the most accurate or my memory isn't lol. I just know we got 2 and MAYBE up to 3 YLOD a month at the store. RROD was constant. No doubt that all went down over time as more units sold. Esp after hardware revisions. 360 started to improve after Jasper I think and if I remember right those came out in 2008? 2007 I remember the 2 most common phone calls. Do we have any Wii's in stock or do we fix RROD. If I were to guess the ratio of each/ 1/3 of that was RROD and the rest Wii calls. My god the Wii calls drove me insane! Even as a Wii owner I started to hate hearing the damn name. The phone was never on the hook. We had 2 cordless phones to start but there were so many calls for Wii and RROD my manager got so pissed walked over to Shopko(which wasn't a short walk and uphill) with a bad knee and bought 8 cordless phones so at least 4 of them could remain charged lol with the other 4 in use.
It's been many years since I worked in retail but I'd guess those first 2-3 years of this generation were dull compared to the first 2-3 years of 7th gen working in retail.
I haven't been on the forum in a day or two but was pleasantly surprised to see someone pose the question. To be quite honest, I am not too worried about disc based games. What I'm interested to find out are the Nintendo cartridge based games. Namely the Nintendo DS, 3DS, and Switch.
Anyone know what is the projected longevity of Nintendo DS, 3DS, and Switch game cartridges? I've tried to look up info on the matter, to no avail.
Probably as long as CDs lol
Well DS,3DS, and Switch are flash based. The Switch is read-only. Flash can only be read so many times. I think older SD cards from the early to mid-2000s had 10,000 write cycles and later ones were bumped to 100,000 and even that was a few years ago so maybe better now unless the higher speeds counteracted that? SD cards can start to break down after 10 years or as little as 5. However, that is an SD card and I have DS games from 2004 and work just fine. Then again my copy of Super Mario World battery is still holding up. My guess it there is no reason to worry yet or for a long while. LCD screens in those systems likely die before the cart.
I dunno my dude:Quote:
Originally Posted by Blades
This is something I heard a few people say about SD cards. Which is why I am quite suspect to the latest cartridges. Can anyone find any definitive info on the matter? Truth be told ... it's one of the reasons why I've skipped the Nintendo Switch this generation.Quote:
Originally Posted by SegataS
Switch is read-only so it may be less stressed. I don't think there is much to worry about. You can still buy those GBA games with Spongebob episodes and they still work.
Here's hoping they didn't cheap out on the Flash.
Same way there's pressed CDs from 1981 that still work flawlessly, but Flash Drives from 2015 that're probably already knackered.
Quality of manufacture matters!