To All The CD Based Gamers Who Once Used Carts

[Ninja16608]

I have a question. How many current gen. to say..Turbo/NES/SMS days gamers miss the speed of a cart vs. the load times on cd only based systems? If it were possible would you rather have your carts back but with the cd quality?

I know it's crazy to think they can cheaply match the size of a BluRay and a DVD would still raise the cost of carts,,but what if.

I ask this because I remember getting a PS and thinking god the games take forever to start. I know they have become faster and more efficient and most likely better as we go. Now I had a TG16CD long before my PS, but because of the ability to play hucards I never really minded the cd load time on the unit. When the PS came on the scene and I didn't have a choice of media to play my games on, I think that's when I started to notice load times much more.

So who misses their carts???

I play current gen systems and have come up through the ranks of Atari, ColecoVision, Nintendo, NEC, Sega, and the list goes on but I miss my carts, even with hard drive loaded games like the 360 and the one they still don't compare to carts, and my PC's raid config is faster than the consoles but still nothing to the carts :-(

[Bernie]

The Playstation has a new flashcart coming soon.  Plugs into the rear port, and will play backups from SD card. 

[DragonmasterDan]

I have a question. How many current gen. to say..Turbo/NES/SMS days gamers miss the speed of a cart vs. the load times on cd only based systems? If it were possible would you rather have your carts back but with the cd quality?

I know it's crazy to think they can cheaply match the size of a BluRay and a DVD would still raise the cost of carts,,but what if.

I ask this because I remember getting a PS and thinking god the games take forever to start. I know they have become faster and more efficient and most likely better as we go. Now I had a TG16CD long before my PS, but because of the ability to play hucards I never really minded the cd load time on the unit. When the PS came on the scene and I didn't have a choice of media to play my games on, I think that's when I started to notice load times much more.

So who misses their carts???

I play current gen systems and have come up through the ranks of Atari, ColecoVision, Nintendo, NEC, Sega, and the list goes on but I miss my carts, even with hard drive loaded games like the 360 and the one they still don't compare to carts, and my PC's raid config is faster than the consoles but still nothing to the carts :-(

Even more than disliking optical media loading times, having to install games to console hard drives to actually play them is even more irritating.

[PCEngineHell]

Not a issue I ever minded. And to note, a few Snes games did have loading time due to compressed data or whatever the fuck they had going on.

[CrackTiger]

I love discs.

This is kind of a rigged hypothetical. Why not ask if people would prefer discs with zero flaws or carts with zero flaws?

I started playing CD games in 1990/91 and although I still love cart games, they became outdated early on. The pros for disc-based games have always been extreme in contrast to the cons and those classic carts have more flaws than you realize.

Not a issue I ever minded. And to note, a few Snes games did have loading time due to compressed data or whatever the fuck they had going on.

There are actually a lot of SNES games with load times, often longer than PCE/Sega-CD load times.

[SmaMan]

I never really minded load times on CD games. I do have my limits, mind you, but it's never been a huge issue.

What I really hate is excessive CD switching. My dad and I used to play Tiger Woods PGA Tour on the Gamecube, and some of the later versions came on two disks. The game could be booted from either one, fortunately, so we'd usually just start the console on the one that was in there the night before. But without fail, whatever course we wanted to play was on the OTHER disk! X(

[ParanoiaDragon]

Not a issue I ever minded. And to note, a few Snes games did have loading time due to compressed data or whatever the fuck they had going on.

I forget why, but a lot of Jag cart games have load times for some reason.

[HailingTheThings]

I don't mind load times all that much, but then again I've never directly dealt with a Neo Geo CD, so... hmmm.... :3

[o.pwuaioc]

I don't mind load times all that much, but then again I've never directly dealt with a Neo Geo CD, so... hmmm.... :3

NGCD load times are literally the worst. PS1 and Saturn load times don't come close. But SNES loads time are laughable compared to early disc load times.

Also, for the OP, if PS1 load times are bad, try them on a PS2. You'll shave off a few seconds.

[ToyMachine78]

I have a question. How many current gen. to say..Turbo/NES/SMS days gamers miss the speed of a cart vs. the load times on cd only based systems? If it were possible would you rather have your carts back but with the cd quality?

I know it's crazy to think they can cheaply match the size of a BluRay and a DVD would still raise the cost of carts,,but what if.

I ask this because I remember getting a PS and thinking god the games take forever to start. I know they have become faster and more efficient and most likely better as we go. Now I had a TG16CD long before my PS, but because of the ability to play hucards I never really minded the cd load time on the unit. When the PS came on the scene and I didn't have a choice of media to play my games on, I think that's when I started to notice load times much more.

So who misses their carts???

I play current gen systems and have come up through the ranks of Atari, ColecoVision, Nintendo, NEC, Sega, and the list goes on but I miss my carts, even with hard drive loaded games like the 360 and the one they still don't compare to carts, and my PC's raid config is faster than the consoles but still nothing to the carts :-(

Even more than disliking optical media loading times, having to install games to console hard drives to actually play them is even more irritating.

+1

[Phase]

If someone made a new console with cartridges that were updated to todays standards or similar to a fast ssd or sd card I would be all over it. Also needs a switch to bypass menus and just load the game immediately. I don't mind discs but I like carts better for fast loading and not fragile. I like to pop a game in and play.. I also like corded controllers more .. Sure cds were great back in the day when carts couldn't  compete but now days I could see a cart being superior.. of course it would be more expensive but things are coming down..maybe some day..

[Arkhan Asylum]

lol, I play C64 games that load of floppies, so CD loading isn't even slow.

[pulstar]

I do prefer carts to cds just because I don't have to be so careful (or more truthfully, I don't have to fret when I lend games to friends etc). Load times don't bother me that much, I've had a NGCD and waited minutes to play games. The only time loads times bother me is when I'm playing an RPG and it's full of battles and each battle takes 30 seconds to load up. If I remember rightly Wild Arms 2 did this on PS1...maybe my memory is bad though.

[TR0N]

I do miss cartridges only because of how reliable they are.With discs based consoles you have to take care,plus with moving parts it's laser can wear out quickly.

[TheClash603]

After playing a bunch of Sim City 2000 on SNES, I  was prepared for CD games and their load times.

Also, I was a computer gamer in the 80s, so I knew all about load times.

[Ninja16608]

lol, I play C64 games that load of floppies, so CD loading isn't even slow.

Hahah Arkhan,

I never even put floppies in there, forgot all about them, but yes I do remember loading floppy disks to play games.... Damn how could I have forgotten, Spoiled by solid state :-)

[ClodBusted]

So how about the C64 Datasette?

[GohanX]

Eh, forget carts or cds. I'm ask about a 1 TB hard drive with all the games on it these days.

[munchiaz]

The Playstation has a new flashcart coming soon.  Plugs into the rear port, and will play backups from SD card. 

you got a link for more info on this?

[Dicer]

So how about the C64 Datasette?

Start to load game...
Eat lunch
Take a shower
Short Nap

Error, reload tape....

Thankfully my time with tapes was short and I got a pair of 1541's pretty quickly, and later on the speed load cart.

[Ninja16608]

My time with tapes was also short. I had an Atari XE I believe it was XE and the cassette tape add on, now that was fun 

[Bernie]

The Playstation has a new flashcart coming soon.  Plugs into the rear port, and will play backups from SD card. 

you got a link for more info on this?

http://ps-io.com/

[SmaMan]

Since we're moving in the direction of tapes & floppies, some of my earliest gaming memories were with my dad's C64. I think he had the tape attachment, but I don't remember using it. We always used the floppy drive. He did some programming of his own for it, mostly shapes and colors learning games for my sister and I, but he also made the equivalent of multicarts for the thing, putting about 4 games per side of the disk. I think he also found ways to speed up the loading time on them too.

[jlued686]

I miss the character of old carts. In fact, I made a blog post about it a few years ago (complete with pictures!):
http://www.mojomenace.com/2010/01/cart-sniffer/

Some of those old-school carts were amazing!

[johnnykonami]

The Commodore 64 was my first game system, essentially.  Right up until I got my TG-16, in fact, it's what I played games on.  Those load times are not missed!  Thank god for emulation in the case of the C64.

There are still some CD based games that I want, but I want to focus on cartridges again because I just feel like they are gonna outlast the CD games overall.  Re-collecting some of my favorite Hu-cards is first on my list, in fact, although I'm not looking to complete the whole set or even go for some of the rarer ones.  Most of the ones I want to get again are thankfully pretty common.  Can't say the same for some of the CD games I want though (*cough*DEII*)