Seedi - yet another emulation box, perhaps good enough?

[Silverfleet]

Dinging it over game performance now seems an unfair argument to make since there's like what 2 prototypes and it's still sort of early-middle of life into development. They even stated in the video that the performance hasn't been finished or optimized so they have problems. I'm no seedi backer, but I get grumbly and annoyed anytime someone tries to show something off early to let people know, warn them it's not finished so things are beta, and then people call them out over stuff not working right. Well duh, you got told that much. Let them get their OS/firmware/drivers whatever it is finished, then slap them silly if it still struggles.

 

My only real gripe with them is not working out something so everything just works out of the box, even if it means reverse engineering the firmware and doing it yourself. 20 years ago a frenchman did it for PCE, then PCE CD and PCE Express and Arcade card drivers for PCE/TG16 under the named of Magic Engine. It's doable, been doable for decades now.

 

Is it unfair to judge the prototype on performance? Probably. But isn't it running emulation software and a frontend that is available (and working) for a bunch of other devices, like PC's, Raspberry Pi, etc? Do those devices struggle running those games? Also, if you were releasing your actual prototype to get reviewed, wouldn't you make sure that one of the best features that would get people to invest in your product works before sending it off?

 

Side note: I remember running real Sega CD games on an emulator (maybe Kega Fusion?) on a Dell tower PC about 15 years ago. I didn't have a Sega CD at the time, and I borrowed the games from a friend to see if they would work. The games ran great right off the CD-ROM drive. I couldn't believe it! I didn't have any Turbo CD games to test with anything back then, but I bet Hu-Go would've run them without issue. The Wii plays Sega CD and Turbo CD files very well, but can't read the discs unfortunately (something to do with the drive not being able to read CD's).

[Keatah]

I was hoping they'd make the funding. They're only at 54% with 6 days to go.

 

Do these kickstarter things get big pushes at the end? And not a kick in the ass..

[Tusecsy]

Nope, vast majority of dough comes in the first few days.

 

RIP Seedi, 2017-2017.

 

You now join the graveyard filled with RetroBlox's and Chameleon's.

[Tanooki]

 

Is it unfair to judge the prototype on performance? Probably. But isn't it running emulation software and a frontend that is available (and working) for a bunch of other devices, like PC's, Raspberry Pi, etc? Do those devices struggle running those games? Also, if you were releasing your actual prototype to get reviewed, wouldn't you make sure that one of the best features that would get people to invest in your product works before sending it off?

 

Side note: I remember running real Sega CD games on an emulator (maybe Kega Fusion?) on a Dell tower PC about 15 years ago. I didn't have a Sega CD at the time, and I borrowed the games from a friend to see if they would work. The games ran great right off the CD-ROM drive. I couldn't believe it! I didn't have any Turbo CD games to test with anything back then, but I bet Hu-Go would've run them without issue. The Wii plays Sega CD and Turbo CD files very well, but can't read the discs unfortunately (something to do with the drive not being able to read CD's).

I get where you're coming from but I still call it jumping the gun as it's in development. Sure it's using a common set of reused parts and probably a bunch of the code too, but unless they're just incompetents it's still in development. I'm find pulling out the knife on a fraud gaming kick starter type event, but if they can pull it off it would be a nice thing to have given it was 100% stable. I do agree I personally would not have shipped it off, even with a known youtube reviewer begging for it, so I'm on your side there. People are going to just slap it around for problems running Neo Geo stuff among others and they kind of have it coming because no everyone will read, listen and instead just draw conclusions.

 

I'm aware of HuGo too, was a fine tool in its day and probably still is. If I had the cares to burn a few things I'd probably fire up Magic Engine again as I do have a copy of that one.

[TheTIGuy]

So while these boxes of software emus are boring as beige, they do the job well and everyone can enjoy them at modest cost.

Beige is more fun. Black is the new beige.

Edited October 17, 2017 by TheTIGuy

[Keatah]

Well looks like they didn't make it. Disappointing, but not totally surprising.

[dj_convoy]

I think something more polished will come along sooner rather than later and do what this was going to. Hopefully, emulation for disc based stuff* will be more robust by then, and we can have an easy solution that doesn't involve setting up a computer under the TV. I'm somewhat onboard with a way to supplement (not replace, per se) temperamental stuff like the SEGA CD or Turbo.

 

 

 

*I mean, I already have like three different ways to play PSX games without counting emulators, and more counting handhelds! Let's iron out the Saturn or Dreamcast and get those running as well as possible next.