Ripoff everdrives

[bluejay]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/383942017396

https://www.ebay.com/itm/m114708358155

has anyone tried these Chinese ripoff everdrives? Are they any good?

Edited March 28, 2021 by bluejay

[Steven Pendleton]

I have not, but I have heard that a lot of the various clones are not very good. The real GB Everdrive X5 is currently on sale and is only $0.10 more than the fake GB Everdrive you posted, so I'd seriously consider that instead. The one you posted seems to specifically be a clone of the X5 as it is, so I'd just pay the extra 10 cents and get the real thing.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[bluejay]

49 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I have not, but I have heard that a lot of the various clones are not very good. The real GB Everdrive X5 is currently on sale and is only $0.10 more than the fake GB Everdrive you posted, so I'd seriously consider that instead. The one you posted seems to specifically be a clone of the X5 as it is, so I'd just pay the extra 10 cents and get the real thing.

That’s interesting, as I’ve heard people say they’re just as good as the real everdrives. I’ll have to do some further research. 
 

The clones I posted I don’t plan on buying, they were just examples. I’ve found multiple Everdrive GB clones on AliExpress for under $30. I also found Super Everdrive clones that claim to be DSP compatible for under $50.  Besides, it’s not so much the price that’s keeping me from buying genuine everdrives; it’s the fact that Krikzz doesn’t accept PayPal combined with the shipping from Ukraine. 

Edited March 28, 2021 by bluejay

[Atariboy]

That's why people in North America generally buy them at StoneAgeGamer.

 

Your post is the first I've read in defense of bootleg Everdrives. Every other time I've seen it discussed, it's been to warn others that their build quality isn't up to par, that they sometimes get bricked when applying a firmware update, etc. Not to mention that the creator is viewed as one of retro gaming's good guys, so people like to support him by avoiding knockoffs. 

 

That said, I have no first hand experience with the bootlegs. But I feel confident that the old adage about you getting what you paid for is likely to hold up with these given the consistent criticisms I see of counterfeit Everdrives at retro gaming forums. 

 

Maybe you'll get lucky, but especially if saving a few pennies in the hope the product still works as advertised isn't important to you, just go to StoneAgeGamer. They're based here and accept Paypal.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Atariboy

[Reaperman]

I have an n64 and gbc knockoff everdrives (or everdrive-like flash carts with labels that imply a relationship).  The gbc one worked well as near as I could tell.  The n64 one has annoying video sync issues in its menu, and dumps noise into the audio during the game (somehow).

 

It's worth noting that I haven't tested either extensively. The reason I went with knockoffs is I really tend not to care about those systems so much, and aliexpress swayed me with their pricing. a bit of "well maybe I like n64 flash cards $45 worth, but certainly not $100+ worth"

Edited March 28, 2021 by Reaperman

[bluejay]

All I need is the ability to play games. The cheapest Gameboy Everdrive on StoneAgeGamer’s website is $89. That’s much too expensive. Gameboy is one of those systems that seem to play whatever you give it to play. Nothing to worry about as long as it works. Regarding firmware upgrades, why not simply avoid them?

 

That being said, I’m slightly more concerned about the SNES Everdrive clones. There’s a lot more to go wrong. Tell you what, I’ll be the guinea pig this time, and I’ll try a $30 GB Everdrive and a $50 DSP compatible Super Everdrive from AliExpress, and I’ll give a simple straightforward answer on how good or bad it is. 

[Steven Pendleton]

3 hours ago, bluejay said:

That’s interesting, as I’ve heard people say they’re just as good as the real everdrives. I’ll have to do some further research. 
 

The clones I posted I don’t plan on buying, they were just examples. I’ve found multiple Everdrive GB clones on AliExpress for under $30. I also found Super Everdrive clones that claim to be DSP compatible for under $50.  Besides, it’s not so much the price that’s keeping me from buying genuine everdrives; it’s the fact that Krikzz doesn’t accept PayPal combined with the shipping from Ukraine. 

Oh, I didn't know he doesn't accept PayPal. That changes things if that's your preferred payment method, I think. Uh... I guess since you've already posted this:

2 hours ago, bluejay said:

All I need is the ability to play games. The cheapest Gameboy Everdrive on StoneAgeGamer’s website is $89. That’s much too expensive. Gameboy is one of those systems that seem to play whatever you give it to play. Nothing to worry about as long as it works. Regarding firmware upgrades, why not simply avoid them?

 

That being said, I’m slightly more concerned about the SNES Everdrive clones. There’s a lot more to go wrong. Tell you what, I’ll be the guinea pig this time, and I’ll try a $30 GB Everdrive and a $50 DSP compatible Super Everdrive from AliExpress, and I’ll give a simple straightforward answer on how good or bad it is. 

that's what I'd probably do if it was me. I have heard but cannot confirm that lower-quality carts can damage your hardware, so be careful. I don't know the details about it, though, so I can't really say. Check your cart PCBs and stuff when you get them to make sure your stuff is good. Again, I'm not the best dude to ask about this stuff, but I am sure there is definitely someone here who is an engineer or even just knows way more than I do about this sort of stuff.

[bluejay]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Oh, I didn't know he doesn't accept PayPal. That changes things if that's your preferred payment method, I think.

He only accepts payment via credit card, which is too much hassle for me. No thanks.

 

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I have heard but cannot confirm that lower-quality carts can damage your hardware, so be careful. I don't know the details about it, though, so I can't really say. Check your cart PCBs and stuff when you get them to make sure your stuff is good. Again, I'm not the best dude to ask about this stuff, but I am sure there is definitely someone here who is an engineer or even just knows way more than I do about this sort of stuff.

I can certainly check the carts, but there are pictures of people using them on their consoles in the feedback section of the AliExpress listing. I don't think it'll be a huge problem when tons of people apparently have bought it before me.

[bluejay]

I also found SD2SNES clones for about $90. That's also really tempting. I've heard a lot of good things about SD2SNES clones from multiple people.

[youxia]

1 hour ago, bluejay said:

I can certainly check the carts, but there are pictures of people using them on their consoles in the feedback section of the AliExpress listing. I don't think it'll be a huge problem when tons of people apparently have bought it before me

if the feedback is good, I wouldn't worry too much. People often complain about stuff from Ali based only on the on popular assumption that anything coming from China must be crap. That's not true of course, there are solid sellers and scammers, same like on ebay or anywhere else.

[CatPix]

As with anything from China, there are good or bad clones.

Also, One issue you might encounter is that most of those clones are first gen clones of Everdrive, meaning that functions that are supported in current Everdrive (Not having to reboot the system to write saves, use of Game Genie menu, etc) may be absent.

Also yes alot of the time updates won't work because the hardware is slightly different.

 

Of course you can argue that it's a minor inconvenience compared to paying 3 times more to get the real deal.

But then there's also a more moral issue : AFAIK, the Everdrives sales is Krikzz's business. If people buy clones of his carts (and if Nintendo can't crack down on Famiclones, do you think Krizzk has any chance of cracking down on fakeDrives?) then Krizzk will eventually give up on Everdrive development and sales.

Of course eventually other sellers will pop and replace him but for the retrogaming community, it will still be a loss of experience on developping SD carts.

[youxia]

The moral angle is a bit ironic, seein' as these carts are used to play pirated games. And not everybody has pockets deep enough to afford expensive stuff. If the prices are really 3x times cheaper it can make a difference between not buying at all and buying the cheap one.

 

I don't really collect cart-requiring consoles, but if I was I would perhaps mix'n match: buy some from Krikzz and some from Ali.

[CatPix]

I was thinking moral as in "beneficial for retrogaming", but I get your point

 

And I get the financial side too, but since we mentionned pirates games, then I could counter-argue that going all emulation is entierely free.

 

Now I'm not going to say that one solution is better than the other. There's a limited supply of games and money doesn't come cheap.

 

For the moral side, I will expand on it : my point is more that buying Everdrives from the man who manufacture them (or authorised resellers) is beneficial for the retrogaming community as a whole.

 

If making cheap and good carts was easy, then we would see other "legitimate" SD carts maker popping all the time.

We don't see them. Either most people aren't interested in making them, or they won't because they think they can't recoup their losses in development and production time.

 

One reason is probably that many people only care about developing carts for their favourite system or brand. Another reason is that why would they compete in offering a similar product, if they can't price it much cheaper than Krizzk, knowing that people will prefer to get the clone products from the best-know maker?

The Harmony cart has been existing for about 10 years, and the price is still quite "high". I dunno about the parts used inside but the site does explain that there are irreductible costs that explain that such a low-production prodcut can't be made cheaper.

 

Same with the Carnivore2 cart. This one is interesting because it's an Open-Source project, so basically you can see everything that is used to produce it (and get the schematics, PCB files and ROM to make your own)... And 70% of the usual price (about 100€) is for hardware.

The 30% is what you can't see (shipping the parts, assembly time, etc, and marging ) so well, at least for the carnivore2 you can easily see that the price isn't some fat cat using their dominant position on the market to sell a 25€ cart with a huge bump in price.

 

My point is that, unlike pirated games that don't hurt anyone (Can you buy a NES cart from Nintendo?) piracy in homebrew does hurt the market.

Now, I don't personnaly care if you get a cloned Everdrive, and I might get one too (until I can get a legit one) at some point... but at least, be aware of the fact that it's not quite like buying a repro game from a Chinese seller.

Edited March 28, 2021 by CatPix

[youxia]

53 minutes ago, CatPix said:

My point is that, unlike pirated games that don't hurt anyone (Can you buy a NES cart from Nintendo?) piracy in homebrew does hurt the market.

Now, I don't personnaly care if you get a cloned Everdrive, and I might get one too (until I can get a legit one) at some point... but at least, be aware of the fact that it's not quite like buying a repro game from a Chinese seller.

I am of course aware of the difference. Which is why I said I'd most likely buy from the original source. He has some lower priced options too these days, besides I'd only ever need N64 really.

 

My point was that arguing about morality of it is not really all that clear cut, as usual with this subject. I'm sure Nintendo et al would object to it being harmless with a slew of their own arguments (even if I mostly agree with what you're saying). You could also argue that more people being able to enjoy the OG hardware is good for retro scene too. And similar to software piracy, buing a clone cart does not necessarily equal a lost sale for Krikzz. He's been around for ages, so have the cloners, and yet it all seems to go on still.

 

Overall, sure, I'd always recommend to consider the original source first. I just find it irksome when some folks get a little too sanctimonious about it, or dismiss "chinese crap" out of hand (though this is not aimed at anybody in this thread, which was quite reasonable so far).

[Tanooki]

8 hours ago, bluejay said:

I also found SD2SNES clones for about $90. That's also really tempting. I've heard a lot of good things about SD2SNES clones from multiple people.

The SD2SNES clones aren't built by krikzz or use his own firmware.  They don't have the problems that Krikzz fakes do where if you throw a firmware other than the china custom one, they brick.  The more advanced china stuff runs with issues, they're not well made of he everdrive knockoffs on more complex stuff.  The basic of basic, the 8bit handhelds that don't use custom mappers or other weird bs (gameboy/color, game gear, etc) they're fine.  It's just a cheaper alternative, but given what they tend to cost, you're better off paying that $40~ to BennVenn and getting something well built from his ElCheapo line.

 

I'd personally suggest NEVER buying any SNES everdrive, the cart base losses due to the lack of chip support is a kiss of death.  I don't see any good carer of the SNES be perfectly fine with the SA1(Mario RPG, 2 Kirby Games, 3rd Parodius game, DBZ fighter, etc), DSP1-4 (Mario Kart, Pilotwings, Dungeon master, Top Gear 3000), SDD1 (SF Alpha 2, Star Ocean), C4 (Megaman X2+3), FX1/2 (Yoshi, Doom, both Starfox's, Stunt Race, etc) being happy about that one bit.  The amount of games that won't work amount in values now over $1000.  Is it that bad wanting to buy a clone ($90) or a second hand ($150~), or new ($200) such a bad thing to get correct full support?

[Reaperman]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I'd personally suggest NEVER buying any SNES everdrive, the cart base losses due to the lack of chip support is a kiss of death.  ... The amount of games that won't work amount in values now over $1000.  Is it that bad wanting to buy a clone ($90) or a second hand ($150~), or new ($200) such a bad thing to get correct full support?

The flip side of that logic would also be true--look at how many games work for less than half the price.  The working-game to dollar ratio is (potentially) quite a bit higher. 

 

Looking it that way is the reason that I haven't upgraded my super powerpak to any everdrive or clone. Granted it is the SA1 version, which supports a fair number of those special-chip games, and I already own almost all the rest as plastic, collectible  shelf-squares. 

 

It's also why I haven't upgraded my old everdrive md to the latest hotness. Really what china's selling for sega is probably a clone of that old everdrive md to start with, and it's given me an awful lot of joy. Even though it's older, when it came out its feature set was nearly universally applauded, and the simple existence of newer models doesn't take anything away from it.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Reaperman

[+GoldLeader]

I have mostly Everdrives and they are high quality.  Also that problem with improper voltages (mostly on Clone Everdrives, for consoles) that could slowly kill your console was a no go for me.   For a flagship system like the SNES,  it was absolutely worth it to me to get the SD2SNES...I believe it's now gone through a couple more name changes.  The only one I cheaped out on was for the N64.  Nothing against it (the N64), mind you, but for me I was fully into SONY by then...So lately I got an ED64 and for the price it was unbeatable.  That said, I don't have one for Game Boy (I do have an Everdrive for GBA though).  I'll look into both options for a Game Boy Everdrive when the time comes, but I have a feeling It'll be a Krikzz...

 

Unless I'm missing something, you can always buy on eBay and pay with PayPal.  So maybe when the time comes compare both there as well.

[CatPix]

Which makes me think, last time I checked Krizzk site, "buying" would redirect to their European (for me) Amazon sellers, so, can you even still buy directly from Krizzk?

I did for my GB Everdrive and my MAster System ED, and it was all fine.

[SiberianSpForces]

I have a Super Chinese Everdrive. It works, but did not play the DSP1 games when I soldered the chips and put the software for them on it. I used to have a Jack DIY GBC/GB clone and it up and crapped out on me. It's a hit and miss for these clones, imo.

[Atariboy]

9 hours ago, CatPix said:

If people buy clones of his carts (and if Nintendo can't crack down on Famiclones, do you think Krizzk has any chance of cracking down on fakeDrives?) then Krizzk will eventually give up on Everdrive development and sales.

Nintendo has no way though. All NES related patents that protected the hardware expired many years ago, leaving the NES internals in the public domain.

 

It's why for instance we see something like SNK 40th Anniversary Collection on PS4 and XB1, with a NES emulator and scores of NES games. If it was at all illegal to replicate the functionality of the NES hardware, such products wouldn't exist from mainstream videogame publishers. 

8 hours ago, youxia said:

The moral angle is a bit ironic, seein' as these carts are used to play pirated games.

At one time.

 

But while still the primary purpose, many of these systems do have thriving and interesting homebrew scenes these days. It's not such a stretch for instance to imagine buying an Atari 2600 Harmony cartridge with homebrew primarily in mind. 

[CatPix]

2 hours ago, Atariboy said:

Nintendo has no way though. All NES related patents that protected the hardware expired many years ago, leaving the NES internals in the public domain.

I mean, fair, I should have said "Famiclones pirated games". Plus, Famiclones appeared as early as 1990 (at least) when the patents were still protecting the Famicom design.

[bluejay]

The thing is, the AliExpress SD2SNES have excellent reviews with pictures of people playing on their Super Nintendos with the knockoff SD2SNES. The PCB looks fine and if anything goes wrong I’m covered by 75 day buyer protection. There’s really no reason for me to not try them at the very least. 

[Reaperman]

2 hours ago, bluejay said:

The thing is, the AliExpress SD2SNES have excellent reviews with pictures of people playing on their Super Nintendos with the knockoff SD2SNES. The PCB looks fine and if anything goes wrong I’m covered by 75 day buyer protection. There’s really no reason for me to not try them at the very least. 

While that may be technically true, the 75 days is barely enough time to get items from AliExpress--thanks to 2020's drama and its impact on customs.  I've had to request protection extension on probably a half dozen items over the last year just to cover shipping delays. Really the best you can hope for is the 15 days you get to open a case after reporting a package's arrival.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Reaperman

[bluejay]

4 minutes ago, Reaperman said:

While that may be technically true, the 75 days is barely enough time to get items from AliExpress--thanks to 2020's drama and its impact on customs.  I've had to request protection extension on probably a half dozen items over the last year just to cover shipping delays. Really the best you can hope for is the 15 days you get to open a case after reporting a package's arrival.

I'm located in Korea which is a lot closer to China than the States. AliExpress estimates packages will arrive in under 3 weeks. Regardless, I've found some items that come with a 1 year warranty, and that sure as hell is long enough to confirm whether it works correctly or not.

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

I've accumulated Krikzz everydrives for TG16, Genesis, SNES, and N64.  I have a weird feeling my SNES one is bootleg even though it has a Krikzz sticker on it.   I did see some youtube video of a collector swearing that the knock offs are just as fine.  I wouldn't trust a knock off in my TG16, but i'm using the genesis one in a hyperkin genesis clone (sold my original genesis) and don't care too much about the system.