• Kongpiler@lemm.ee
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    1 hour ago

    For me it’s the “Seeegaaaa” and then a small prayer hoping that the Sonic cartridge is properly inserted.

  • Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    I think that’s even more so a problem these days for people getting into retro consoles because many of these discs are more than 30 years old, the disc drives too are getting up there in age. Many of them are starting to fail or become unreliable from dust and wearing out with age since the laser assembly is rather fragile.

    It’s one of the reasons why ODE and SD loader mods have become popular lately, as well as Homebrew game loaders on the newer consoles which can support them (PS2, PS3, Wii, Wii U).

  • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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    1 hour ago

    This reminds me of my X-BOX for real. Absolutely amazing console. (I still miss those “Duke” controllers).

    But the most common disc reader was terrible. Over time games would just stop reading. Halo: Combat Evolved, I kid-you-not, would start to load…and then load BACKWARDS, usually (but not always!) resulting in “Problems reading disc.”

    Me and my co-op friend would be cheering it on like it was going for a touchdown LOL.

    Crimson Skies too, I remember. I took great care of my discs but I guess the drive would just scuff them up over time.

  • GneissSchist@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Oh, man. This brings back memories. I did this every time I loaded any game into the system. My PS1 had issues with the balls on the disc spindle that locked the disc in place. I had no idea and had so many issues with discs not loading until I discovered it. Then it became the disc equivalent of popping the cartridge out of the SNES and re-seating it until it worked. Eventually, I had to replace the balls as they fell out but as a broke college student, I just crumpled small bits of aluminum foil into similar sized balls and stuffed them in there. Worked great after that.

  • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    The worst was if it was a multi disc game and the broken disc was the last one. You’re invested, excited to see how the story ends, ready to smash Sephiroth’s face in, and it all grinds to a halt.

  • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    As kids, we never had to worry, because pre-PS1, we were already bombarded with lessons on proper disc handling from our boomer parents when we learned how to play their vinyl/CDs. Kids who just threw their discs everywhere, stepped on jewel cases, and used the top of their console to rest drinks on are the ones that had to pray their games worked. I’m looking at a wall of 30 year old playstation games that are pristine.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      2 hours ago

      THIS. 100% THIS.

      Simple rule for discs: always touch the edges, never the surfaces! It’s…it’s not that hard. I never had PSX disc read problems.

      Not throwing shade at the kids who did because of shoddy lasers or something, of course. :)

      (I did have OG Xbox disc read problems… because those crappy Thompson drives shredded discs over time)

      Seeing people hold the surfaces of discs with their snack-greased fingers would infuriate me. Same with seeing them put label-up on the dusty VCR / cable box / dvd player rather than back in the case to switch games.

      Nowadays it seems even more common because people don’t seem to know how discs work.

      On that note, It’s the same thing with RAM. Watching tech review channels where they’re just pinch-holding RAM sticks or fanning them out like playing cards makes me twitch.

    • Lightfire228@pawb.social
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      7 hours ago

      My PS2 would randomly decide not to read the disc sometimes. IIRC, we were pretty careful with both the disks and console.

      From what i remember, the issue was the laser was either dirty or otherwise shotty and sometimes wouldn’t read the disc

      • remotedev
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        4 hours ago

        I remember opening my PS2 to clean like a quarter inch of dust off the laser. And then losing money when trading it in to GameStop because the seal was broke

  • Farid@startrek.website
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    1 day ago

    This applies tenfold if you lived in a country where the are only pirated copies of games and all consoles come pre-modchipped (especially if your game was a multi-language copy with a built-in selector/launcher). I assume the modchips had shit timing, so when the chip was having a bad day I would sometimes have to restart my PS2 for 10-15 minutes straight until it loaded. Sometimes I gave up and came back later to repeat the cycle.

    Bonus memory: PS2 is supposed to play PS1 games. So when we got a PS2, on the first day I tried one of my bootleg PS1 games and it loaded fine. After that, it never loaded another PS1 game ever, showing the “please insert PS1 or PS2 disc” error.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      2 hours ago

      This reminds me of the story behind CD Projekt RED getting started in Poland. The only way for them to bring games to their community was basically bootlegging them, so that’s where they began.

      That’s rough. :(

    • yamanii@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Thankfully there was a magazine here that wasn’t afraid of talking about chips, which ones were good, which ones enabled ps1 games too, etc. It’s why I purposefully asked for a matrix chip for my fat ps2.

  • cybervseas@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Are we praying that the disc loads, or are we praying along with the holy sounds that were the PlayStation startup sounds?

    • Sabata@ani.social
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      1 day ago

      Why would the disk not load? I properly stored it on the middle of the uncased CD stack.

    • SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Or praying the space ship flies true.

      I remember there was an Easter egg but I can’t recall if it was related to no disc and then loading an audio cd or something else. You’d have a small space ship flying around and towards and away from the screen almost like a screensaver.

      It’s been almost 30 years though so I’m a little hazy on the details.

      It’s bugging me that I can’t find it online anywhere.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      2 days ago

      Little of both. This is where you might encounter a boot error, between the white and black screens. But I never saw one that I didn’t forcibly make happen when modding. At least not with PlayStation’s. Xbox red rings were common as fuck, and they would also occur during the startup logo sequence.

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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      6 hours ago

      EDIT: I found my favorite PS1 animation helping out below! HERE it is!

      I have all of the retro consoles boot animations that people were cool enough to switch up into a Steam Deck boot animations I also have the plugin for deck tools that allows you to get a random one after each reboot. Needless to say, I never get tired of hearing the old OG Gameboy, PS1/2, GameCube, etc. boot animations and sounds. Core memories indeed!

        • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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          5 hours ago

          Here you go!

          Decky Loader

          Animation Changer (I recommend just following the install guide for Decky Loader, opening the plugins shop from the side menu, and then finding the Animation Changer plugin. I just included this link so you would know what to look for, and to see some of the dope ass animations people have been kind enough to share.)

          Happy hunting! If you don’t know, you can also install CSS themes, change the background noise and UI audio elements too! I’ve got mine with a Fallout (Blue) theme, sounds from the Pipboy for navigating the menus, and most of the retro console boot animations. :)

        • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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          6 hours ago

          It never gets old! I have to boot into Windows partitions for some few things, so coming back to these retro boot animations reminds me that SteamOS is home. :P

  • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I know why engiseers do what they do. I had to perform my own rituals to appease the machine spirit to run my favorite game on ps2.

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      At the end of my playstation 1’s lifecycle, i had to give the disc a pre spin and sometimes turning it upside down helped too