Regarding the Doom port - Saying "it was rushed" is a bit of an understatement. Rebecca Heineman ended up having to write the port in only ten weeks. The fact that the game works *at all* is a miracle. Burger Becky was also the developer of the Wolfenstein 3D port, to give you some perspective on her programming chops.
rebecca asked the developer for the source code to the game so she could work on the port, after about 2 weeks of waiting she recieved a floppy disk with the dos version of doom on it, she had to explain what source code was and how she couldnt work from doom.exe and eventually she just asked john carmack for the source code.
@@temmie5085 Carmark was notorious for picking favorites when it came to Doom on videogame platforms. He personally coded the Atari Jaguar version, yet deliberately sabotaged the Saturn version. This appears to be another example of that.
@@DTM-Books Don't feel bad, id software had over two years to port the SNES version and waited till the very last minute and programmed it in literally less than 13 days. Instead of coding to utilize the SNES's Mode 7 on the floor scaling, they removed the textures and slapped the 1st Gen Super FX chip on the cartridge to perform the polygon scaling. The SNES was the laziest port ever made.
The 4DO core of RetroArch offers a lot more than the old Windows release. I added mouse and gun support, better overclocking, multi-rom support, and a bunch of random other nice to haves. As for homebrew, Optimus and I would like to help facilitate the homebrew scene by making the development environment easier to setup and create tutorials (that aren't in Russian as a lot of low level details are as oddly there was a significant Russian following of 3DO).
@@FrameRater Chip8 I'm sure could be. I wrote a chip 8 emu for the TG16. The issues with the 3DO one are probably just that it was a proof of concept and chip 8 isn't worth playing tbh. I'm sure LameNes can be improved but for what purpose? It will never run full speed. It's a 12.5 megahertz cpu.
What about Atari 2600? Strangely enough I more often see emulators for NES than A26. Is that simply because of popularity or is it a harder console to emulate?
@@FrameRater Perhaps. With some ARM assmebly I suspect it'd be possible. Emulating a 1.19MHz 6507 on the 3DO CPU running at 12.5MHz would probably take up a decent chunk of the compute resources. Not sure C (the primary language used in 3DO development) would have too much overhead. Might be worth a try. The 2600 is reasonably well emulated by Stella so few reasons for others. The NES however is not. Also I suspect there is more nostalgia and general knowledge for the NES.
I saw a 3DO FZ1 at a Flea Market for $20.00! But I didn’t buy it because of it’s reputation. I got Bubsy 3D for free at that same Flea Market instead. To this day, I’m still kicking myself for not taking it home. At least with the definitive home console port of Gex (and it’s ability to save) I’d have a Chance in Hell... -_-
FrameRater, your cd-r issues would most likely be solved by purchasing a specific type of blank cd. It turns out, most cd-r media is basically trash when it comes to backing up games. It just doesn't work, and you'll wind up with all the issues you encountered. So, basically it's not your "setup", it's your discs. Any discs made by CMC Magnetics are trash. Yours probably came from this manufacturer. Next time you have to do this, buy a spindle of Verbatim cd-rs. Specifically, AZO Verbatims (The AZO branding will be on the packaging). These are made by Mitsubishi. You will notice the discs are a blue-ish color. The dye they use seems to allow the drives on these old consoles to properly read the data. I had issues with Playstation backups that were solved with this brand.
CMC is the company that bought the Taiyo Yuden factories, the only factories left making quality media. I had great luck with Verbatim for a very long time, but Verbatim has been more hit-or-miss in the last several years. I bought a 100-pack of "CMC Pro - Powered by TY Technology Shiny Silver CD-R" off Amazon for 29 bucks and every single disc I've burned reads perfectly on my FZ-1, better than my original game which stutters despite it having no obvious physical scratches. I don't know if Verbatim changed their manufacturing or what, but it's clear that almost nobody is making quality CD-Rs anymore since the demand is probably the lowest it's ever been. Maxell, for sure, has been trash for as long as I can remember.
This is basically correct. Different CD-Rs have different refractive indexes which can cause the disks to be outside of the tolerance of the laser sensor in combination with the factory calibrations in the CD drive. Generally speaking, burning the disks at 1x is also often produces slightly better results. I'm not sure if this is because the media spends longer under the write head.
@@PUHCsi Old discs will rot whether they've been written to or not. You're better off using new media from a quality manufacturer. I already mentioned the brand that I bought in my previous comment. Every single disc I've burned for the 3DO works perfectly, and I burn them at full speed.
I found 6 huge spindles of ancient Office Max brand CD-Rs at a thrift store for like a dollar each, and those have been the best CDs I've ever had for burning games. Every single thing I've thrown at them has worked perfectly and I haven't seen the slightest bit of rot on them (yet, of course). They're not blue or gold they have a very bright and reflective silver surface that looks very similar to a retail CD. I remember back in the day it used to be hit or miss and you could count on at least a few out of each pack not working, I wish I'd have paid a visit to Office Max!
I actually had a Panasonic OG 3DO growing up, and the thing STILL works. Have 1 OG controller, and 1 Capcom controller, both still work great as well. Considering how many times I've moved, how many times I've thrown it in storage, it's crazy how reliable that thing is.
As someone who owned one back in the day and enjoyed it immensely, I feel the need to correct/point out a few things. This is going to be a long comment, so buckle up. 1. The system's name was not short for "3D Operation." It's true meaning was your second mention, "Video, Audio, 3D-O", because it was supposed to be the "next step beyond" the first two. Among developers it was also jokingly referred to as "Three Dollars Only" because the company's royalty fees were famously cheap compared to other console makers (and was, reportedly, around $3/disc.) 2. The Goldstar's reliability issues were overblown. I had the Goldstar model, and it was fine. And I realize you used stock footage at that point, but the MPEG Decoder module didn't plug into the expansion slot on the left, but the huge empty bay on the right. It was a pricey addon to an already pricey system ($100), but it did deliver what was promised: MPEG-1 decoding. Video CDs, or VCDs, never caught on in North America, but in the Asian markets it became THE media for many years, and is still popular in some areas to this day (primarily because they were a snap to copy.) You can tell if a system has the upgrade if the 3DO boot splash screen has stars in it. There were plans on releasing games that took advantage of the module, but this never happened. 3. Speaking of copying, you're facing two issues with CD-Rs. First off, the original capacity for CDs was 650MB. But people realized you could "overburn" them, by forcing the burner to write past the last data track. This track usually extended past the 650MB limit, and you could, in a way, think of this trick as "overclocking" the CD-R. However because this trailing track and "hidden" extra capacity was the result of how the discs were made and were simply a remnant, not every disc could be overburned, nor did every disc have the same amount of extra capacity available. And an overburned disc was not guaranteed to be completely readable by every CD-ROM drive. So, what does this have to do with anything? Because it led to companies realizing commercial CD-ROM drives could read higher-capacity discs than the hardware was spec'd for, and creating higher-capacity CD-Rs. First at 700MB, then 750MB, and finally topping out at 800MB. They did this by officially extending the data track and packing the tracks tighter together. The result was some CD-ROM drives had issues reading these extended and tighter tracks. Especially earlier CD-ROM drives. And guess what kind of discs you bought to burn 3DO games to? That's right, higher-capacity ones, that are "off-spec" from what the system is expecting. In fact it would be very hard to find 650MB CD-Rs these days, as the higher-capacity discs became the norm very quickly. So, what's the second issue you might be encountering? The dye used in CD-Rs varied in quality and shelf-life. Even kept in perfect conditions, the dye will eventually break down (Google "bitrot.") So there's the possibility that the ones you bought have already started degrading, even while unopened. 4. While on the subject of CDs, you asked why didn't they just release the 3DO Blaster and not bother with console licensing? Because computers at the time were EXPENSIVE. To use the 3DO Blaster you had to have a computer which would've cost you between $1800-$3000 at the time, then the 3DO Blaster itself which, IIRC, was around $400 itself, THEN the kicker: It ONLY worked with ONE specific CD-ROM model. It was incompatible with every other CD-ROM drive on the market. While expensive, the console was a cheaper option for most people. The 3DO Blaster was simply an attempt to bring PC users into the 3DO ecosystem, not a primary angle for marketing games. 5. You didn't mention how the system used no proprietary A/V connections, which was not the norm then or today for consoles. You were free to use whatever cables you wanted. RCA, S-Video, RF Switch? Whatever you preferred or your TV accepted. Native S-Video output in particular was something no other consoles in North America did. 6. Immercenary was honestly a lot of fun, and a game that I wished would get remade today. The basic gist is that in the future, everyone's hooked into a virtual world 24/7. The longer they're connected, the more dependent they become on the system, and if disconnected will die. It's very Matrix-like, but they're aware they're in a virtual world, as it started as a fun environment. Imagine if Second Life had a baby with the Matrix, and there you go. Eventually the AI controlling the thing went all rampant and decided people should fight to the death. The virtual world became a battleground, with every player given a rank from 1 to 255. The higher you are, the more powerful you are. Rank 1 was the AI itself. As you go down the ranks, the other people become more and more abstract, until you get to people at the bottom who are represented as simple polygonal shapes. These are people who are so absorbed into the virtual world, their minds are pretty gone. If you offline someone above you in rank, your own rank rises. So it became very dog-eat-dog. Because this is pretty much the end of society and humankind, someone gets a message back in time to try and stop it. They provide information on how to hack into the world from a secret location (again, Matrix-like) from the past and attempt to defeat the master AI. Multiple volunteers die attempting this, their brains fried. You play the 6th volunteer. You start at Rank 255, and have to make your way up (you gain in power as you do so.) Also noteworthy that one class of enemies (modeled after Venus) were topless, as some of the enemies were done with real actors, and interacted with in FMV sequences. 7. The Doom soundtrack was done in-house (*snicker*) by the same guy who was the president of Art Data (the company responsible for taking on the port.) He had no idea how game development worked, but he had a garage band. The sole programmer on the project (who you mention) gave him audio tapes with the MIDI versions recorded onto them, and he interpreted them. He's the reason the port was so rushed. 8. Cyberdillo was 100% awful. Trust me, I actually bought it (on clearance.) There's nothing past the first stage you played that redeems it. 9. Space Hulk was GREAT, but it was HARD. 10. Gex was indeed a good game. A solid platformer. 11. "Budget RollerCoaster Tycoon" is ironic, given that RCT ripped off Theme Park to start with. Whew, that's a lot.
The SNES has S-Video output out of the box in North America. Admittedly actually finding an S-Video cable for the SNES back in the day was next to impossible, but it does support it just fine. The Jaguar also supports S-Video (though I'm not sure if the Jaguar predates the 3DO or not).
Immercenary is one of the best 3DO games. Very innovative for its time. Another great title is Star Fighter. The PlayStation port is garbage, but the 3DO version had excellent controls; it’s a polygon third-person shmup, great soundtrack. I think Captain Quasar is another game I loved, but the two aforementioned and Return Fire were the classics.
I need to give you a big thank you. As a child, I remember buying some of the X3D games at a local 7/11. It randomly came back to me a few years back and I went off trying to remember/find the games online to no avail. I had honestly suspected I dreamed the whole thing. You of all people, however, managed to reference it in a video. You put my years-long saga to an end. God bless you, sir.
The SNES mouse will not work with the adapter. The 3DO controller port is actually a fairly advanced protocol for it's time. The SNES -> 3DO adapter is just a joypad conversion. It outputs the joypad data stream.
The 3DO source was released to the public many years ago and lives on today as "The Ur-Quan Masters". There's also a HD re-make of sorts with options for remixed soundtracks and such. The series is also now available on GOG and Steam along with the 3rd game in the franchise that we totally won't speak of because never mind it never existed.
An exclusive you missed that's well known is from NaughtyDog. Way of the Warrior. Another exclustive fighter that's amazingly bad is Shadow: War of Succession
@@FrameRater Most people talk about Way of the Warrior because it has a White Zombie soundtrack and was made by the now famous NaughtyDog studio. From a software development perspective the game is interesting as well but one wouldn't know that without researching it.
I really wanted to like Way of the Warrior, but its control motion moves were terrible, like 1987 Street Fighter 1 bad! It had that great White Zombie soundtrack and impressive visuals for its time, but horrible controls. SSF2T and Samurai Shodown were really good on 3D0 though, but SSFT2 you needed to get a 6 button controller.
trapexit It's also notable considering this game also breathed new life on Naughty Dog as the game originally developed for the 3DO was then released for the first PlayStation, Crash Bandicoot, thus making it a big franchise and would go on to make Jax & Daxter and Uncharted.
The interesting thing about Way of the Warrior is that Naughty Dog basically had no money to finish it and had to film characters in Jason Rubin's apartment (he plays two of the characters). They then sent the game to Mark Cerny (the PS4/PS5 architect) at Universal Interactive Studios who liked it enough to publish it and sign them on for the Crash Bandicoot games. The graphics are not that bad, the digitized characters look pretty good despite the low-budget production, but there's a lot of cheese in it that made the game more funny than fun. The controls are pretty awful. Random trivia: it outsold Samurai Shodown on the 3DO.
The 3DO was my favorite system in my collection. I actually played it quite a bit, so call me a fan. I had some very valuable games for it. Cyberdillo is more fun than it has any right to be. My system and all my games were lost in a house fire last year though... and I know I will *never* see them again. I will never have enough money for this system. Oh well.
Look on the bright side, there's still plenty of units out there for sale. I picked one up last year for $200 with two controllers, the light gun, and a game for $200. Not a terrible price IMO. And you can get a USB ODE for it to avoid having to load discs. As far as emulation goes, 4DO is kind of old at this point. Phoenix is where it's at. It also emulates the Atari Jaguar.
No, I owned one, it wasn't awesome. The games sucked, the controls sucked, and then it flamed out, leaving me and my investment in the dust. NOT, good times. Ghost Manor was pretty cool though. Until I found out I had bought a beta version and it didn't work!
@@barryosbourne2581, man are you kidding me? I had that game! I thought it was gonna be cool. It totally sucked ass! The controls were terrible on that one!
I recently found out, after finding a CRT TV from possibly the 80's or earlier, that Gold Star is actually now known from their new name LG! Interesting tidbit for anyone wondering what happened to them lol. The TV is White/pearl colored, it's nuits lol.
Return Fire: Maps of Death wasn't copyright protection. The game was an expansion and requires the original game to work. To play maps of death you either need Return Fires disc or a save file on your system and it'll work fine.
Return Fire!!!! That's the game I saw on play at my local video game rental store back in the 90's. I had no idea what consol it was for and tried to look up what elements were in the game. Glad you finally showed me the game title.. Now i know I'll never play it but from the gameplay I saw, the game is rather enjoyable but is two player and I think two player only.
My 3D0 was having the same issues playing burned discs. I investigated my console and found it was the later version FZ-01 without a fan. The system has a thin piece of metal, the same as the shielding on the disc drive, for a heatsink. The pathetic excuse for a heatsink would get so hot, it would singe my skin in a fraction of a second. It was super heating my disc drive and the longer I played a game, the worse it worked and froze all the time. I stuck 3 large heatsinks onto the faux factory heatsink and games began to work better. The circuit board and the case had the spots for a fan so I added a capacitor, a bridge/jumper and a 40x40x10mm 12v double ball bearing fan. It clipped in perfectly and worked when the system turned on. I noticed a 10uf capacitor was leaking on the power supply, right beside the cd drive. I replaced that. After all that, my console now plays burned discs perfectly fine and no longer freezes, no longer stutters video/audio, fmv works fine. Check yours, would make a good video for everyone.
One game that would not work was a burnt Wolfenstein. It would barely make it to the main menu and the longer the system was on, the more the audio stuttered and eventually stopped and the menu would lag and eventually would not respond. After I replaced the leaking capacitor and installed the fan and heatsinks, Wolfenstein works flawlessly!
Thank you for the hour long rabbit hole. Your sacrifice of time and money was a thoroughly enjoyable watch for the Putt Putt YTP, Holiday Murphy, the memes, and to hear Twisted drop the F Bomb. The entire 3DO company lead to this moment.
I had that issue of Next Generation and the the M2 speculation was something else even at that time. Spread across multiple magazines from 1997-1999, it even had me excited until the Dreamcast entered the scene in late 1998.
You mentioned your CDR's didn't work. Keep in mind that the 3D0 came out when CD technology was still capped at 74 minutes. 80 minute discs are ~almost~ compatible, but not quite. Try grabbing some 74 minute CDRs on ebay and burn as slow as possible. Worked for me on my ps1 backups.
@@DanielAyy No. @chupathingy5862 is incorrect. 74 or 80 does not matter. It's about the quality of the CD-R. Get some Maxell Branded CD-R, It might still be CMC Magnetics (when looking at the media info) but it will be of the highest quality available today (Ridata used to be great, but I do not know if that's the same 20 years later). Part 2: Burn it on the slowest speed your drive allows. You can burn at 8x or even 16x with a modern CD/DVD burner drive if that's the slowest it allows. If you're running an ancient Windows 98 rig, Burn at 1x. With the above bare minimum, you will have success. With early CD Burners, if you burned above 2x, FMV's would stutter. In 2012, my Panasonic laptop BluRay Burner would only burn at a minimum 16x but the burns came out perfect. I still say, the MAIN THING TO LOOK OUT FOR is Quality media (like the maker of this video). Do not pick a random no name. Use ImgBurn to see the media info. Let me know if you have any questions.
Your 3DO laser is not in good enough condition to read the colour of blank CD-R discs you used, simple as that. There is nothing wrong with burning CDs if you use the right discs for certain machines (Mega CD, CDTV, CDi, CD32 etc work better with particular types of CD-R) and the laser is in almost new 'low mileage' condition in the 3DO (reading CD-Rs requires more effort so 'testing' with original game discs proves nothing except your laser is in average not almost brand new condition so you got a high mileage player there).
I could be misremembering, around 1994, when I moved to Wisconsin, I was living in a hotel and remember having a 3do in my room (I lived there for about 4 weeks and remember playing it from time to time)
That might be because the 3DO had a fair amount of adult entertainment using CD Videos. In fact, there was a model made exclusively in Japan that could swap 5 CDs, and we're really only used in love hotels.
As a kid I always wanted a 3DO, a couple years ago I bought one and I love it. Had a similar issue with the burned CDRs, some games would work ok while others couldnt barely start. Ended up modding it with an ODE that loads the games from USB it works much better now. Some of the games I really enjoy are Sewer Shark (which looks much better than the Sega CD version), Eye of Typhoon (a good fighting game), Slayer and Rebel Assault
@@FrameRater You never heard of the Rebel Assault games? The original is quite a well known Star Wars game, the sequel is more obscure but a very good FMV game.
Dad got one of those when it was already obsolete.. Had only demo disc with it, so my memories for that system - fancy CD player with cool visualisation..
The Goldstar never had any problems playing CDRs. My buddy had the same Panasonic one you do and I seem to remember some issues with his too. NFS is two players -first player is on top.
I had both the Goldstar and Panasonic 3DO's back in the day. Wish I never sold em now. Had loads of games. I used to be a Buyer at a Cash Converters so used to get first picks at what came in.
3DO is very sensitive to CD-R brand just like Pc-Engine/Turbografx. A lot of them have poor dye so your best bet are ones that are gold graded. Had to do that with mine.
@@arthurcollector4002 that's not right at all.90s lasers can read them fine it's the type of image that was dumped and cdr brand is all. For one thing i use 16x speed Memorex for Saturn games (2x drive laser) and it reads just the same as a regular disc, with Pseudo Kai cart of course. Same with modded Ps1, it reads burned games perfect, and my Dreamcast, and..
@@JohnnyMatherson The image file format shouldn't matter. All the files are decompressed when written to the CD-R anyway. As long as the burning software can successfully decompress the ISO/BIN/Or whatever other image format you're burning, then it should be fine. But if there are CUE sheets missing, the game content won't buffer properly on the console.
Mad Mental Hibby Mad Mental Hibby the way it was dumped can affect the end result, regardless of bin/cue or iso format etc. Some dumps of games are bad to begin with, or don’t mesh with a particular model of a console, of which there were several revisions for consoles back then like Saturn or even 3dO.
@@JohnnyMatherson We're not talking dumps here, but direct rips from CD through the CD drive of a computer. As long as the rip is 100% accurate, then the game should play normally when burned back to CD-R using appropriate software regardless of the image format used to get the game back onto disc.
700 dollars!! This thing my kid asked me for, was 700 dollars!!!! I''m ruined!!!! Holdup: Buy my kid a playstation instead! He'll never notice! Future sight: I guess he never noticed. I'm safe.
You might want to look at verbatim branded CD-R packs. I know they at least sell them at office Depot, and my Saturn and Dreamcast don't seem to have issues with them
Like Izzy commented, get AZO Verbatims. They're made by Mitsubishi. Regular Verbatims are made by a Taiwanese company called CMC Magnetics. These are junk, which is unfortunate, because these are way more common and are also branded as Maxell, HP, Phillips, Memorex and other brands.
for years the gold standard for CD's has been Taiyo Yuden. They are sold in bulk, unbranded, and unlabeled. Taiyo Yuden is a manufacturer that supplies other companies, and often get rebadged as names youd know of. Theyre the best quality cd you can get. usually those brands or types of disc that "always works" is just a rebranded TY disc.
The Jurassic Park game that appeared on the 3DO was not exclusive? That's news to me. I want to know where this got ported to because I've been dying to play it again. Edit: I didn't watch far enough for you to address the situation. This game's high on my list. Oh, and second edit: you might be interested to know there's a schmup minigame within the Jurassic Park game!
I own quite a large 3DO collection. I do believe that Return Fire: Maps O' Death was an expansion pack. It should work if you put in the disc for the original Return Fire.
I remember back when this was new, there was this show on YTV called "It's Alive!" which was a weird, weird show. It was a little bit of everything. It had comedy sketches, but also had a segment called "Uh-OH!" which was a game show for kids, where slime was regularly dumped on them. If the name "Uh-OH!" sounds familiar, yes, that show was based on that segment, turned into a half-hour program. But the weirdest part of "It's Alive!" was the runtime. It was an a hour and half long with commercials. What does this have to do with the 3DO? Well, whenever they had a contest of some sort, the 3DO was always the top prize. Makes me wonder if the London Ontario area has a market saturation of 3DOs due to that show.
I'm in the concept stage of videos where I look at an entire system's library in one go. Probably restricted to systems with less games, like the Atari 5200.
@@FrameRater I'd love a video on the Atari 5200. I own not one but two of them - one each of the 4-port and 2-port models. I've never met anyone else in real life with one.
My dad owned and ran a Panasonic store in Red Bank, NJ. I played just about everything on the system, and I loved it. Yes, the software could of been better, but it had such a underdog charm that always stuck with me. Fun fact, I recently went back to the store, it's been closed for over 20 years, and found a stack of sealed copies of Love Bites. Oh joy of joys. lol
So about the Return Fire skull, you're getting that because you needed a save file of the original game as Maps o' Death is an expansion pack. Weird innit?
Ahhh, my first console... Such an interesting story, and the console itself is pretty decent, besides the price... Also, the Gex version on the 3DO is the best version of the game, and solely due to the saving feature.
@@HiNRGboy @Ben Dallas On the other hand, the Saturn version (as well as the others, incluiding the best technical version, the PC) for some inexplicable reason don't have the save system. It's a pick your poison type of stuff, and since Gex is pretty darn hard, I say it's worth not having the smoothest of transitions for the saving capability.
Yes the burn speed and Cd-R make a difference in if the burned image will be successfully read. I had a whole 3do collection of burned discs sometimes it took multiple burns to adjust the correct speed.
There was a trio of AD&D games for the 3DO that I don't think was available on other platforms. They were FPS dungeon crawlers. I have two of them, Slayer and Deathkeep.
Wow. prices are nuts. I got an RGB modded 3do for $169 last year! Also, burning is a tough issue. First, you need a good burner. Then you need good media, highly recommended to use ones with blueish tinted bottoms which are usually higher quality. Taiyo Yuden used to be the standard, but died out and the plants we bought by CMC, which are still solid. I use a Pioneer Burner with CMC media and burn at 4x can burn discs so solid they run on players that normally don't play CDRs at all.
3DO still has best version of some of the games that got ported to other consoles. Need for Speed on PS1 totally changed and some other games graphics didnt look right. Not only that but some PC game ports to 3do are enhanced in some regards
I actually owned the fc2 top loader & worked amazing. I also probably had the largest collection of games because I had a full binder of games. I gave it to my cousin which I kinda regret. I had a love/hate relationship with 3D0 because so many games had bad controls. FMV actually worked well with legit games. Overall I enjoyed it.
So when you talked about the controller, you mentioned how you heard rumors about how attempting to use a Genesis controller could ruin your controller port and cause it to stop working. I actually did some digging into this -- the short answer is, yes, it can, and possibly damage the console beyond repair. The long answer -- I compared the pinout between the two, and the 3DO controller works fundamentally differently from the Genesis. The pins on the Genesis controller basically all correspond to different buttons. In an idle state the button is logically low (grounded) and is high (+5V) when pushed. The 3DO instead uses a clock and serial data line to send the button information, in addition to also using two more pins for sending audio to the headphone jack. That alone already makes it fundamentally incompatible with any Atari or Genesis pad, but on top of that, the power and ground pins are more numerous and put in different places...and attempting to push buttons in specific combinations on a Genesis controller (or Atari, for that matter) can potentially cause a direct short between +5V and ground. That absolutely has potential to fry your console beyond repair. So yeah, you made the right call in not attempting it. Oh yeah, and if you need a better way to find a list of multiplayer games for any console in the future, I might suggest MobyGames. It's not always reliable but they do have categories for multiplayer games (on the specs tab) and you can narrow them down on a per console basis. Loved the video man, watched it from start to finish and learned a lot from it!
I bought a 3do a few years ago, having wanted one since it originally came out. I never had trouble with CDRs playing, but I do have a FZ10 model. Also, the 3do is region free, so you can always check out the japanese games for a larger variety of titles. Being a fan of the Ultraman series, the 3do had a japanese game based on the Ultraman Powered series which is unique to the system.
32:49 Stealing in Japan is seen as bringing shame to the family and can actually get you shunned and banished. In older imperil Japan (prior and during WWII), you were actually expected to commit suicide to right the wrong. I know this has nothing to do with 3DO but I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
I bought the 3DO when it came out solely because of the awesome Road Rash game. Other games I spent a lot of time on were PGA Tour Golf , Star Control II, Return Fire, Gex, Madden Football, Need for Speed, Super Street Fighter, The Horde, Flashback and even the gun games Mad Dog McCree and Demolition Man. I did find that as the back up memory filled up, the system became "glitchy" and lagged more, which made the light gun games impossible to play. Just before the Playstation came out, I sold my 3DO, recouped most of my money and bought the PS on release day. While the 3DO never gained a huge market share as we all had hoped, I do have fond memories of playing it. It was a huge step better than my Sega Genesis at the time and filled my gaming need before the PS.
FINALLY someone covers Immercenary in a 3DO overview video! I have seen several others that cover a plethora of games but totally ignore Immercenary! If you can get a working copy (or are willing to emulate) I recommend giving it another try. The story is C-grade silliness with the camp that goes with it, but the gameplay is actually rather fun.
I really think your laser is bad or you messed somehow, the burning of cds. I have the FZ1 too, burnt my games and no game has any of the stutter/loading problems you shown here.
When I got my 3DO I had a similar issue with loading CD-Rs. Mine only read pressed discs and didn't even recognize CD-Rs, and if it by chance did it ran like ass. I was able to improve performance by cleaning the laser. Games that are heavy on FMV still struggle, but most games seem to play fine after that minor adjustment.
It's interesting to see you cover this stuff, but after 40 minutes, you're still excusing yourself because of technical issues. Getting your stuff working would have made this a lot better.
I excuse my technical issues because I lose $200 - $400 a month and I'm not about to invest more into a brand new burner, some expensive CD-Rs, a 3DO laser replacement, a USB modification, and all this other stuff people expect some random TH-camr to be able to afford.
Genesis-style controllers are basic one-pin per switch with NO protocol (I guess you might call it parallel but it's a stretch). Even the NES at least used a shift register to individually clock out the status of each button in order. So, there's some possibility that a Sega or Atari controller could short pins that another type of port expects to not be shorted.
I don't know how you can feel bad about pirating games that almost wouldn't exist if not for those rips especially when you cannot possibly legally buy these games anymore to support the creators. You aren't ripping anyone off since the only pockets you could possibly line are of some guy on ebay who had nothing to do with the development of the games. And devs have put up fights trying to stop people from even buying second hand games too, they get nothing out of it so they tend to see it on the same level as piracy since either way they didn't make a sale, some random guy did.
Regarding the Doom port - Saying "it was rushed" is a bit of an understatement. Rebecca Heineman ended up having to write the port in only ten weeks. The fact that the game works *at all* is a miracle.
Burger Becky was also the developer of the Wolfenstein 3D port, to give you some perspective on her programming chops.
Its a real shame and I can only hope it didnt affect her resume/background because that woman can make code manifest by just staring at the notepad
rebecca asked the developer for the source code to the game so she could work on the port, after about 2 weeks of waiting she recieved a floppy disk with the dos version of doom on it, she had to explain what source code was and how she couldnt work from doom.exe and eventually she just asked john carmack for the source code.
@@temmie5085 Carmark was notorious for picking favorites when it came to Doom on videogame platforms. He personally coded the Atari Jaguar version, yet deliberately sabotaged the Saturn version. This appears to be another example of that.
when you learn something from youtube comments. Amazing info; didn't know any of this
@@DTM-Books Don't feel bad, id software had over two years to port the SNES version and waited till the very last minute and programmed it in literally less than 13 days. Instead of coding to utilize the SNES's Mode 7 on the floor scaling, they removed the textures and slapped the 1st Gen Super FX chip on the cartridge to perform the polygon scaling. The SNES was the laziest port ever made.
The 4DO core of RetroArch offers a lot more than the old Windows release. I added mouse and gun support, better overclocking, multi-rom support, and a bunch of random other nice to haves. As for homebrew, Optimus and I would like to help facilitate the homebrew scene by making the development environment easier to setup and create tutorials (that aren't in Russian as a lot of low level details are as oddly there was a significant Russian following of 3DO).
Any chance of improvements on LameNES? Or other emulators in general?
@@FrameRater Chip8 I'm sure could be. I wrote a chip 8 emu for the TG16. The issues with the 3DO one are probably just that it was a proof of concept and chip 8 isn't worth playing tbh. I'm sure LameNes can be improved but for what purpose? It will never run full speed. It's a 12.5 megahertz cpu.
What about Atari 2600? Strangely enough I more often see emulators for NES than A26. Is that simply because of popularity or is it a harder console to emulate?
@@FrameRater Perhaps. With some ARM assmebly I suspect it'd be possible. Emulating a 1.19MHz 6507 on the 3DO CPU running at 12.5MHz would probably take up a decent chunk of the compute resources. Not sure C (the primary language used in 3DO development) would have too much overhead. Might be worth a try.
The 2600 is reasonably well emulated by Stella so few reasons for others. The NES however is not. Also I suspect there is more nostalgia and general knowledge for the NES.
How do you use a gun with 4D0 using a modern TV.?
"Controller cable is far too long! Would this ever be at all necessary?"
SOCIAL DISTANCING WHILE PLAYING LOCAL CO-OP
dumbest question most cables are too short why complain if its long
It's because player 2 port on the console is in the back
Kenny MacCormick scaring people over a fake ass virus is no good
@@wolfetteplays8894 and USA are the best the in it, _fake_ congratulations, ass.
@@wolfetteplays8894 dumbass
"Movement is a key to my success to get a key to my success to get the crowd scream sex" - 3DO David Bowie RIP
I saw a 3DO FZ1 at a Flea Market for $20.00! But I didn’t buy it because of it’s reputation. I got Bubsy 3D for free at that same Flea Market instead. To this day, I’m still kicking myself for not taking it home. At least with the definitive home console port of Gex (and it’s ability to save) I’d have a Chance in Hell... -_-
FrameRater, your cd-r issues would most likely be solved by purchasing a specific type of blank cd. It turns out, most cd-r media is basically trash when it comes to backing up games. It just doesn't work, and you'll wind up with all the issues you encountered. So, basically it's not your "setup", it's your discs. Any discs made by CMC Magnetics are trash. Yours probably came from this manufacturer.
Next time you have to do this, buy a spindle of Verbatim cd-rs. Specifically, AZO Verbatims (The AZO branding will be on the packaging). These are made by Mitsubishi. You will notice the discs are a blue-ish color. The dye they use seems to allow the drives on these old consoles to properly read the data. I had issues with Playstation backups that were solved with this brand.
CMC is the company that bought the Taiyo Yuden factories, the only factories left making quality media. I had great luck with Verbatim for a very long time, but Verbatim has been more hit-or-miss in the last several years. I bought a 100-pack of "CMC Pro - Powered by TY Technology Shiny Silver CD-R" off Amazon for 29 bucks and every single disc I've burned reads perfectly on my FZ-1, better than my original game which stutters despite it having no obvious physical scratches.
I don't know if Verbatim changed their manufacturing or what, but it's clear that almost nobody is making quality CD-Rs anymore since the demand is probably the lowest it's ever been. Maxell, for sure, has been trash for as long as I can remember.
This is basically correct. Different CD-Rs have different refractive indexes which can cause the disks to be outside of the tolerance of the laser sensor in combination with the factory calibrations in the CD drive. Generally speaking, burning the disks at 1x is also often produces slightly better results. I'm not sure if this is because the media spends longer under the write head.
Yeah the 3do is pre cdr try using old school cdr audio discs, they usually cost a little more but the 3do should have zero problems reading them
@@PUHCsi Old discs will rot whether they've been written to or not. You're better off using new media from a quality manufacturer. I already mentioned the brand that I bought in my previous comment. Every single disc I've burned for the 3DO works perfectly, and I burn them at full speed.
I found 6 huge spindles of ancient Office Max brand CD-Rs at a thrift store for like a dollar each, and those have been the best CDs I've ever had for burning games. Every single thing I've thrown at them has worked perfectly and I haven't seen the slightest bit of rot on them (yet, of course). They're not blue or gold they have a very bright and reflective silver surface that looks very similar to a retail CD. I remember back in the day it used to be hit or miss and you could count on at least a few out of each pack not working, I wish I'd have paid a visit to Office Max!
I actually had a Panasonic OG 3DO growing up, and the thing STILL works. Have 1 OG controller, and 1 Capcom controller, both still work great as well. Considering how many times I've moved, how many times I've thrown it in storage, it's crazy how reliable that thing is.
I've considered a 3DO more than once simply because it's a bit of an odd ball system to own as a pure collectors piece.
As someone who owned one back in the day and enjoyed it immensely, I feel the need to correct/point out a few things. This is going to be a long comment, so buckle up.
1. The system's name was not short for "3D Operation." It's true meaning was your second mention, "Video, Audio, 3D-O", because it was supposed to be the "next step beyond" the first two. Among developers it was also jokingly referred to as "Three Dollars Only" because the company's royalty fees were famously cheap compared to other console makers (and was, reportedly, around $3/disc.)
2. The Goldstar's reliability issues were overblown. I had the Goldstar model, and it was fine. And I realize you used stock footage at that point, but the MPEG Decoder module didn't plug into the expansion slot on the left, but the huge empty bay on the right. It was a pricey addon to an already pricey system ($100), but it did deliver what was promised: MPEG-1 decoding. Video CDs, or VCDs, never caught on in North America, but in the Asian markets it became THE media for many years, and is still popular in some areas to this day (primarily because they were a snap to copy.) You can tell if a system has the upgrade if the 3DO boot splash screen has stars in it. There were plans on releasing games that took advantage of the module, but this never happened.
3. Speaking of copying, you're facing two issues with CD-Rs. First off, the original capacity for CDs was 650MB. But people realized you could "overburn" them, by forcing the burner to write past the last data track. This track usually extended past the 650MB limit, and you could, in a way, think of this trick as "overclocking" the CD-R. However because this trailing track and "hidden" extra capacity was the result of how the discs were made and were simply a remnant, not every disc could be overburned, nor did every disc have the same amount of extra capacity available. And an overburned disc was not guaranteed to be completely readable by every CD-ROM drive. So, what does this have to do with anything? Because it led to companies realizing commercial CD-ROM drives could read higher-capacity discs than the hardware was spec'd for, and creating higher-capacity CD-Rs. First at 700MB, then 750MB, and finally topping out at 800MB. They did this by officially extending the data track and packing the tracks tighter together. The result was some CD-ROM drives had issues reading these extended and tighter tracks. Especially earlier CD-ROM drives. And guess what kind of discs you bought to burn 3DO games to? That's right, higher-capacity ones, that are "off-spec" from what the system is expecting. In fact it would be very hard to find 650MB CD-Rs these days, as the higher-capacity discs became the norm very quickly. So, what's the second issue you might be encountering? The dye used in CD-Rs varied in quality and shelf-life. Even kept in perfect conditions, the dye will eventually break down (Google "bitrot.") So there's the possibility that the ones you bought have already started degrading, even while unopened.
4. While on the subject of CDs, you asked why didn't they just release the 3DO Blaster and not bother with console licensing? Because computers at the time were EXPENSIVE. To use the 3DO Blaster you had to have a computer which would've cost you between $1800-$3000 at the time, then the 3DO Blaster itself which, IIRC, was around $400 itself, THEN the kicker: It ONLY worked with ONE specific CD-ROM model. It was incompatible with every other CD-ROM drive on the market. While expensive, the console was a cheaper option for most people. The 3DO Blaster was simply an attempt to bring PC users into the 3DO ecosystem, not a primary angle for marketing games.
5. You didn't mention how the system used no proprietary A/V connections, which was not the norm then or today for consoles. You were free to use whatever cables you wanted. RCA, S-Video, RF Switch? Whatever you preferred or your TV accepted. Native S-Video output in particular was something no other consoles in North America did.
6. Immercenary was honestly a lot of fun, and a game that I wished would get remade today. The basic gist is that in the future, everyone's hooked into a virtual world 24/7. The longer they're connected, the more dependent they become on the system, and if disconnected will die. It's very Matrix-like, but they're aware they're in a virtual world, as it started as a fun environment. Imagine if Second Life had a baby with the Matrix, and there you go. Eventually the AI controlling the thing went all rampant and decided people should fight to the death. The virtual world became a battleground, with every player given a rank from 1 to 255. The higher you are, the more powerful you are. Rank 1 was the AI itself. As you go down the ranks, the other people become more and more abstract, until you get to people at the bottom who are represented as simple polygonal shapes. These are people who are so absorbed into the virtual world, their minds are pretty gone. If you offline someone above you in rank, your own rank rises. So it became very dog-eat-dog. Because this is pretty much the end of society and humankind, someone gets a message back in time to try and stop it. They provide information on how to hack into the world from a secret location (again, Matrix-like) from the past and attempt to defeat the master AI. Multiple volunteers die attempting this, their brains fried. You play the 6th volunteer. You start at Rank 255, and have to make your way up (you gain in power as you do so.) Also noteworthy that one class of enemies (modeled after Venus) were topless, as some of the enemies were done with real actors, and interacted with in FMV sequences.
7. The Doom soundtrack was done in-house (*snicker*) by the same guy who was the president of Art Data (the company responsible for taking on the port.) He had no idea how game development worked, but he had a garage band. The sole programmer on the project (who you mention) gave him audio tapes with the MIDI versions recorded onto them, and he interpreted them. He's the reason the port was so rushed.
8. Cyberdillo was 100% awful. Trust me, I actually bought it (on clearance.) There's nothing past the first stage you played that redeems it.
9. Space Hulk was GREAT, but it was HARD.
10. Gex was indeed a good game. A solid platformer.
11. "Budget RollerCoaster Tycoon" is ironic, given that RCT ripped off Theme Park to start with.
Whew, that's a lot.
You know all that simply from owning a 3D0 back in the day? Wow.
@@tacsman Probably because he looked into it, since he had it. Wow.
The SNES has S-Video output out of the box in North America. Admittedly actually finding an S-Video cable for the SNES back in the day was next to impossible, but it does support it just fine. The Jaguar also supports S-Video (though I'm not sure if the Jaguar predates the 3DO or not).
Immercenary is one of the best 3DO games. Very innovative for its time.
Another great title is Star Fighter. The PlayStation port is garbage, but the 3DO version had excellent controls; it’s a polygon third-person shmup, great soundtrack.
I think Captain Quasar is another game I loved, but the two aforementioned and Return Fire were the classics.
Draknfyre speaks truth!
I need to give you a big thank you.
As a child, I remember buying some of the X3D games at a local 7/11. It randomly came back to me a few years back and I went off trying to remember/find the games online to no avail. I had honestly suspected I dreamed the whole thing. You of all people, however, managed to reference it in a video. You put my years-long saga to an end.
God bless you, sir.
The SNES mouse will not work with the adapter. The 3DO controller port is actually a fairly advanced protocol for it's time. The SNES -> 3DO adapter is just a joypad conversion. It outputs the joypad data stream.
Star control 2 is the greatest game ever !I loved my 3DO in the mid 90’s
Agreed. I lost many hours to that one. Best game on the system.
The 3DO source was released to the public many years ago and lives on today as "The Ur-Quan Masters". There's also a HD re-make of sorts with options for remixed soundtracks and such. The series is also now available on GOG and Steam along with the 3rd game in the franchise that we totally won't speak of because never mind it never existed.
An exclusive you missed that's well known is from NaughtyDog. Way of the Warrior. Another exclustive fighter that's amazingly bad is Shadow: War of Succession
Not much into fighting games myself. I did consider burning SFII though.
@@FrameRater Most people talk about Way of the Warrior because it has a White Zombie soundtrack and was made by the now famous NaughtyDog studio. From a software development perspective the game is interesting as well but one wouldn't know that without researching it.
I really wanted to like Way of the Warrior, but its control motion moves were terrible, like 1987 Street Fighter 1 bad! It had that great White Zombie soundtrack and impressive visuals for its time, but horrible controls. SSF2T and Samurai Shodown were really good on 3D0 though, but SSFT2 you needed to get a 6 button controller.
trapexit It's also notable considering this game also breathed new life on Naughty Dog as the game originally developed for the 3DO was then released for the first PlayStation, Crash Bandicoot, thus making it a big franchise and would go on to make Jax & Daxter and Uncharted.
The interesting thing about Way of the Warrior is that Naughty Dog basically had no money to finish it and had to film characters in Jason Rubin's apartment (he plays two of the characters). They then sent the game to Mark Cerny (the PS4/PS5 architect) at Universal Interactive Studios who liked it enough to publish it and sign them on for the Crash Bandicoot games.
The graphics are not that bad, the digitized characters look pretty good despite the low-budget production, but there's a lot of cheese in it that made the game more funny than fun. The controls are pretty awful.
Random trivia: it outsold Samurai Shodown on the 3DO.
If you're a huge fan of Road Rash, I'm told the 3DO version of the game was the best by far.
It was pretty great.
ReloadPsi I can say with certainty that it was!
It was mind blowing at launch.
@@ricbrook7059 , I thought so. It was a pretty good one binge.
@@ricbrook7059 sure was, along with Need for Speed and Fifa I was blown away!
The 3DO was my favorite system in my collection. I actually played it quite a bit, so call me a fan. I had some very valuable games for it. Cyberdillo is more fun than it has any right to be. My system and all my games were lost in a house fire last year though... and I know I will *never* see them again. I will never have enough money for this system. Oh well.
An Actual Mother Bear sorry to hear about your loss.
I got one in 1995 and also played it a ton! The good games were great!
An Actual Mother Bear Man I hate to hear that. If you have a PC check out 4DO, It's pretty great, and I rarely turn on my actual 3DO anymore.
Emulation is your friend
Look on the bright side, there's still plenty of units out there for sale. I picked one up last year for $200 with two controllers, the light gun, and a game for $200. Not a terrible price IMO. And you can get a USB ODE for it to avoid having to load discs.
As far as emulation goes, 4DO is kind of old at this point. Phoenix is where it's at. It also emulates the Atari Jaguar.
Quarantine 3DO is pretty much 3D in real life right now. The remake we never asked for.
the 3DO scares me
me too
Why?
@@donacarmenmorales8806 zoomers have a nebulous fear of the early 90s. They love it yet also are filled by a nameless dread by it
@@BigboiiTone 💯💀
Good for playing Dragons Lair and Space Ace. Don't forget the Philips CDI also. It was the same concept.
12:16 hope he's happy at becoming a popular Internet meme
I bought a 3do with 24 games 1996 For 170$ It’s laser finally burnt out about two years ago. It was a fantastic machine to me
When all you have is 3do controllers
YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE...
A pretty nice collection of 3DO controllers!
stonks
The 3DO was the truth, and anyone that says otherwise never even played one.
Yea it was awesome.
No, I owned one, it wasn't awesome. The games sucked, the controls sucked, and then it flamed out, leaving me and my investment in the dust. NOT, good times. Ghost Manor was pretty cool though. Until I found out I had bought a beta version and it didn't work!
Okay, Gex was cool too. Man, I wish I'd never pawned that thing.
Oh yeah, it was "Monster Manor," not ghost manor. Those were some high ol' times y'all.
@@barryosbourne2581, man are you kidding me? I had that game! I thought it was gonna be cool. It totally sucked ass! The controls were terrible on that one!
I thought 3DO stood for "Three Dimensional Optics".
I recently found out, after finding a CRT TV from possibly the 80's or earlier, that Gold Star is actually now known from their new name LG! Interesting tidbit for anyone wondering what happened to them lol. The TV is White/pearl colored, it's nuits lol.
Yep actually known as lucky goldstar
Return Fire: Maps of Death wasn't copyright protection. The game was an expansion and requires the original game to work. To play maps of death you either need Return Fires disc or a save file on your system and it'll work fine.
Whenever I see Gex it always reminds me of that Geico gecko advertisng insurance policy commerical.
I love how the down arrow on the d pad is just another left pointing arrow. Now thats innovation
The 3DO controller cord length.. has the opposite problem of the NES Classic cord length
3do is so underrated. If you want to travel back to the 90s this system has the best games library for it.
Slam n Jam 95, one of the best basketball games ever.
Return Fire!!!! That's the game I saw on play at my local video game rental store back in the 90's.
I had no idea what consol it was for and tried to look up what elements were in the game.
Glad you finally showed me the game title..
Now i know I'll never play it but from the gameplay I saw, the game is rather enjoyable but is two player and I think two player only.
My 3D0 was having the same issues playing burned discs. I investigated my console and found it was the later version FZ-01 without a fan. The system has a thin piece of metal, the same as the shielding on the disc drive, for a heatsink. The pathetic excuse for a heatsink would get so hot, it would singe my skin in a fraction of a second. It was super heating my disc drive and the longer I played a game, the worse it worked and froze all the time.
I stuck 3 large heatsinks onto the faux factory heatsink and games began to work better. The circuit board and the case had the spots for a fan so I added a capacitor, a bridge/jumper and a 40x40x10mm 12v double ball bearing fan. It clipped in perfectly and worked when the system turned on.
I noticed a 10uf capacitor was leaking on the power supply, right beside the cd drive. I replaced that.
After all that, my console now plays burned discs perfectly fine and no longer freezes, no longer stutters video/audio, fmv works fine.
Check yours, would make a good video for everyone.
One game that would not work was a burnt Wolfenstein. It would barely make it to the main menu and the longer the system was on, the more the audio stuttered and eventually stopped and the menu would lag and eventually would not respond.
After I replaced the leaking capacitor and installed the fan and heatsinks, Wolfenstein works flawlessly!
Thank you for the hour long rabbit hole. Your sacrifice of time and money was a thoroughly enjoyable watch for the Putt Putt YTP, Holiday Murphy, the memes, and to hear Twisted drop the F Bomb.
The entire 3DO company lead to this moment.
The CD burning problem might be due to the burner not the media. There is a format used mainly for VCD and Karaoke CDs.
I had that issue of Next Generation and the the M2 speculation was something else even at that time. Spread across multiple magazines from 1997-1999, it even had me excited until the Dreamcast entered the scene in late 1998.
You mentioned your CDR's didn't work. Keep in mind that the 3D0 came out when CD technology was still capped at 74 minutes. 80 minute discs are ~almost~ compatible, but not quite. Try grabbing some 74 minute CDRs on ebay and burn as slow as possible. Worked for me on my ps1 backups.
I've used 80 minute verbatim discs for ps1 games and the fmvs are slightly out of sync and stutter a little, could 74 minute discs fix that?
@@DanielAyy No. @chupathingy5862 is incorrect. 74 or 80 does not matter. It's about the quality of the CD-R. Get some Maxell Branded CD-R, It might still be CMC Magnetics (when looking at the media info) but it will be of the highest quality available today (Ridata used to be great, but I do not know if that's the same 20 years later). Part 2: Burn it on the slowest speed your drive allows. You can burn at 8x or even 16x with a modern CD/DVD burner drive if that's the slowest it allows. If you're running an ancient Windows 98 rig, Burn at 1x. With the above bare minimum, you will have success.
With early CD Burners, if you burned above 2x, FMV's would stutter. In 2012, my Panasonic laptop BluRay Burner would only burn at a minimum 16x but the burns came out perfect. I still say, the MAIN THING TO LOOK OUT FOR is Quality media (like the maker of this video). Do not pick a random no name. Use ImgBurn to see the media info.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Your 3DO laser is not in good enough condition to read the colour of blank CD-R discs you used, simple as that. There is nothing wrong with burning CDs if you use the right discs for certain machines (Mega CD, CDTV, CDi, CD32 etc work better with particular types of CD-R) and the laser is in almost new 'low mileage' condition in the 3DO (reading CD-Rs requires more effort so 'testing' with original game discs proves nothing except your laser is in average not almost brand new condition so you got a high mileage player there).
I don't know that cds couldn't have been a big selling point. it didn't pan out, but remember what the playstation 2 did for dvds?
I wonder if the 700MB CDs was the problem. In my memory, the CD capacity in the 90s was 650MB.
I think that's the first time the words "wasting a cd-r" have been uttered in about 10 years.
I could be misremembering, around 1994, when I moved to Wisconsin, I was living in a hotel and remember having a 3do in my room (I lived there for about 4 weeks and remember playing it from time to time)
Out of all console why the 3do? The sega genesis and snes were cheaper but whatever
@@toone1562 I agree, I'm guessing they were offered a discount to have them in their rooms
@Lassi Kinnunen for 1993 atleast, like the ps2 the 3do still has that charm to its look
That might be because the 3DO had a fair amount of adult entertainment using CD Videos. In fact, there was a model made exclusively in Japan that could swap 5 CDs, and we're really only used in love hotels.
@@WildPotatoIndustries imagine watching hentai on a 3do lmaooooooooo, thats like watching hentai on a wii through homebrew lmao.
As a kid I always wanted a 3DO, a couple years ago I bought one and I love it. Had a similar issue with the burned CDRs, some games would work ok while others couldnt barely start. Ended up modding it with an ODE that loads the games from USB it works much better now. Some of the games I really enjoy are Sewer Shark (which looks much better than the Sega CD version), Eye of Typhoon (a good fighting game), Slayer and Rebel Assault
Huh, I never stumbled across Rebel Assault. Probably would have tried that one.
@@FrameRater You never heard of the Rebel Assault games? The original is quite a well known Star Wars game, the sequel is more obscure but a very good FMV game.
I hope you will cover 3DO exclusives more in-depth later on, with hopefully CDs burned at the correct speed or something.
Rebecca did fps ports, wolf 3d from the mac/2gs version, doom, killing time. Amoung other types of games she did for 3do.
Dad got one of those when it was already obsolete.. Had only demo disc with it, so my memories for that system - fancy CD player with cool visualisation..
The Goldstar never had any problems playing CDRs. My buddy had the same Panasonic one you do and I seem to remember some issues with his too. NFS is two players -first player is on top.
Never had one, but did see a nice copy of the 3DO version of the original Alone In The Dark.
Really wish I'd bought it.
I had both the Goldstar and Panasonic 3DO's back in the day. Wish I never sold em now. Had loads of games. I used to be a Buyer at a Cash Converters so used to get first picks at what came in.
3DO is very sensitive to CD-R brand just like Pc-Engine/Turbografx. A lot of them have poor dye so your best bet are ones that are gold graded. Had to do that with mine.
off couse is very sensitive with cdrs, a 90s cd reader was not make to read cdrs, a technology from 10 years later
@@arthurcollector4002 that's not right at all.90s lasers can read them fine it's the type of image that was dumped and cdr brand is all. For one thing i use 16x speed Memorex for Saturn games (2x drive laser) and it reads just the same as a regular disc, with Pseudo Kai cart of course. Same with modded Ps1, it reads burned games perfect, and my Dreamcast, and..
@@JohnnyMatherson The image file format shouldn't matter. All the files are decompressed when written to the CD-R anyway. As long as the burning software can successfully decompress the ISO/BIN/Or whatever other image format you're burning, then it should be fine. But if there are CUE sheets missing, the game content won't buffer properly on the console.
Mad Mental Hibby Mad Mental Hibby the way it was dumped can affect the end result, regardless of bin/cue or iso format etc. Some dumps of games are bad to begin with, or don’t mesh with a particular model of a console, of which there were several revisions for consoles back then like Saturn or even 3dO.
@@JohnnyMatherson We're not talking dumps here, but direct rips from CD through the CD drive of a computer. As long as the rip is 100% accurate, then the game should play normally when burned back to CD-R using appropriate software regardless of the image format used to get the game back onto disc.
700 dollars!! This thing my kid asked me for, was 700 dollars!!!! I''m ruined!!!!
Holdup: Buy my kid a playstation instead! He'll never notice!
Future sight:
I guess he never noticed. I'm safe.
I personally think an Xbox GPU for your PC would really make sense.
You might want to look at verbatim branded CD-R packs. I know they at least sell them at office Depot, and my Saturn and Dreamcast don't seem to have issues with them
My FZ-10 3DO will not read Verbatim CD-Rs at all, but it will read other brands.
@@traviscombs6947 well, it's still worth a shot. Though maybe just continue finding small packs until you find the brand that does actually work
Make sure you're getting AZO dye Verbatim discs
Like Izzy commented, get AZO Verbatims. They're made by Mitsubishi. Regular Verbatims are made by a Taiwanese company called CMC Magnetics. These are junk, which is unfortunate, because these are way more common and are also branded as Maxell, HP, Phillips, Memorex and other brands.
for years the gold standard for CD's has been Taiyo Yuden. They are sold in bulk, unbranded, and unlabeled. Taiyo Yuden is a manufacturer that supplies other companies, and often get rebadged as names youd know of. Theyre the best quality cd you can get. usually those brands or types of disc that "always works" is just a rebranded TY disc.
This is peak FrameRater. Can’t wait to binge watch this.
The Jurassic Park game that appeared on the 3DO was not exclusive? That's news to me. I want to know where this got ported to because I've been dying to play it again.
Edit: I didn't watch far enough for you to address the situation. This game's high on my list. Oh, and second edit: you might be interested to know there's a schmup minigame within the Jurassic Park game!
I loved my 3D0... I had Genesis too and definitely tried the controller in it, nothing broke, it simply didn't work.
The whole "subscribings free!" Wow, what a throwback. Great vid man
FrameRater has a Framemeister? How fitting.
Put a lot of effort into this video, thank you, and also, the diversion was an awesome part, thanks for adding that in too
I own quite a large 3DO collection. I do believe that Return Fire: Maps O' Death was an expansion pack. It should work if you put in the disc for the original Return Fire.
That's correct, it checks the save file from the original
Not hearing the "yeah. Framerater" caught me off guard
I was surprised to find out that Knock Out Kings was an original exclusive to 3do!
Now I want to have Guru Larry looking after my save files. I think he'd do a good job.
I forgot about 3do having a first person shooter 40k game.
Quarantine, the game on PC also looks and sounds like, from a review LGR did on it, that it is a faithful 3DO port.
"They dont work on my cd jukebox". Its a Victrola, that isnt a brand known for quality.
I remember back when this was new, there was this show on YTV called "It's Alive!" which was a weird, weird show. It was a little bit of everything. It had comedy sketches, but also had a segment called "Uh-OH!" which was a game show for kids, where slime was regularly dumped on them. If the name "Uh-OH!" sounds familiar, yes, that show was based on that segment, turned into a half-hour program. But the weirdest part of "It's Alive!" was the runtime. It was an a hour and half long with commercials. What does this have to do with the 3DO? Well, whenever they had a contest of some sort, the 3DO was always the top prize. Makes me wonder if the London Ontario area has a market saturation of 3DOs due to that show.
To bad you couldn't really review the games but I love this format. I'd love to see some more long format videos on consoles. Keep up the great work.
I'm in the concept stage of videos where I look at an entire system's library in one go. Probably restricted to systems with less games, like the Atari 5200.
@@FrameRater i like this format. the video had some major problems but you still made it work and i got a lot of info out of it. thanks!
@@FrameRater I'd love a video on the Atari 5200. I own not one but two of them - one each of the 4-port and 2-port models. I've never met anyone else in real life with one.
My dad owned and ran a Panasonic store in Red Bank, NJ. I played just about everything on the system, and I loved it. Yes, the software could of been better, but it had such a underdog charm that always stuck with me.
Fun fact, I recently went back to the store, it's been closed for over 20 years, and found a stack of sealed copies of Love Bites. Oh joy of joys. lol
So about the Return Fire skull, you're getting that because you needed a save file of the original game as Maps o' Death is an expansion pack. Weird innit?
WoW, this video must have taken the longest of time to create. Amazing job!
Ahhh, my first console... Such an interesting story, and the console itself is pretty decent, besides the price...
Also, the Gex version on the 3DO is the best version of the game, and solely due to the saving feature.
The Gex on 3DO is the worst actually.. sloppy scrolling compared to the smooth enhanced Saturn version
@@HiNRGboy @Ben Dallas On the other hand, the Saturn version (as well as the others, incluiding the best technical version, the PC) for some inexplicable reason don't have the save system. It's a pick your poison type of stuff, and since Gex is pretty darn hard, I say it's worth not having the smoothest of transitions for the saving capability.
Yes the burn speed and Cd-R make a difference in if the burned image will be successfully read.
I had a whole 3do collection of burned discs sometimes it took multiple burns to adjust the correct speed.
I remember wanting to play Gex & the OG Need for Speed back in like 1994- I didn't have $700 big ones though so my Sega was fine
There was a trio of AD&D games for the 3DO that I don't think was available on other platforms. They were FPS dungeon crawlers. I have two of them, Slayer and Deathkeep.
Thayer's Quest and Kingdom: The Far Reaches actually have completely stories, audio, and gameplay. The only things in common are the actual video.
Wow. prices are nuts. I got an RGB modded 3do for $169 last year! Also, burning is a tough issue. First, you need a good burner. Then you need good media, highly recommended to use ones with blueish tinted bottoms which are usually higher quality. Taiyo Yuden used to be the standard, but died out and the plants we bought by CMC, which are still solid. I use a Pioneer Burner with CMC media and burn at 4x can burn discs so solid they run on players that normally don't play CDRs at all.
3DO still has best version of some of the games that got ported to other consoles. Need for Speed on PS1 totally changed and some other games graphics didnt look right. Not only that but some PC game ports to 3do are enhanced in some regards
Star Control 2 on the 3DO is amazing and the best version of the game.
hour long vid on 3do? recommendations finally came through with something good.
I actually owned the fc2 top loader & worked amazing.
I also probably had the largest collection of games because I had a full binder of games.
I gave it to my cousin which I kinda regret.
I had a love/hate relationship with 3D0 because so many games had bad controls.
FMV actually worked well with legit games.
Overall I enjoyed it.
47:17 The game is called The Incredible Machine, but good job making this video.
So when you talked about the controller, you mentioned how you heard rumors about how attempting to use a Genesis controller could ruin your controller port and cause it to stop working. I actually did some digging into this -- the short answer is, yes, it can, and possibly damage the console beyond repair.
The long answer -- I compared the pinout between the two, and the 3DO controller works fundamentally differently from the Genesis. The pins on the Genesis controller basically all correspond to different buttons. In an idle state the button is logically low (grounded) and is high (+5V) when pushed. The 3DO instead uses a clock and serial data line to send the button information, in addition to also using two more pins for sending audio to the headphone jack. That alone already makes it fundamentally incompatible with any Atari or Genesis pad, but on top of that, the power and ground pins are more numerous and put in different places...and attempting to push buttons in specific combinations on a Genesis controller (or Atari, for that matter) can potentially cause a direct short between +5V and ground. That absolutely has potential to fry your console beyond repair. So yeah, you made the right call in not attempting it.
Oh yeah, and if you need a better way to find a list of multiplayer games for any console in the future, I might suggest MobyGames. It's not always reliable but they do have categories for multiplayer games (on the specs tab) and you can narrow them down on a per console basis.
Loved the video man, watched it from start to finish and learned a lot from it!
6:50 perfect general is a CLASSIC I played it on DOS back in the day!!
I bought a 3do a few years ago, having wanted one since it originally came out. I never had trouble with CDRs playing, but I do have a FZ10 model. Also, the 3do is region free, so you can always check out the japanese games for a larger variety of titles. Being a fan of the Ultraman series, the 3do had a japanese game based on the Ultraman Powered series which is unique to the system.
Killing time was an amazing game! Too bad you couldn’t get it to work.
This is the first video of yours that I’ve seen. Excellent work! Definitely subbing.
I have a load of burnt games and they all work perfect just cant remember how I burnt them but there all on kodak cdr x52 speed disks
I was already thinking about adopting but I will finally take action and you can credit that to StarShipTroppers generosity :-)
32:49 Stealing in Japan is seen as bringing shame to the family and can actually get you shunned and banished. In older imperil Japan (prior and during WWII), you were actually expected to commit suicide to right the wrong. I know this has nothing to do with 3DO but I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
I bought the 3DO when it came out solely because of the awesome Road Rash game. Other games I spent a lot of time on were PGA Tour Golf , Star Control II, Return Fire, Gex, Madden Football, Need for Speed, Super Street Fighter, The Horde, Flashback and even the gun games Mad Dog McCree and Demolition Man. I did find that as the back up memory filled up, the system became "glitchy" and lagged more, which made the light gun games impossible to play.
Just before the Playstation came out, I sold my 3DO, recouped most of my money and bought the PS on release day.
While the 3DO never gained a huge market share as we all had hoped, I do have fond memories of playing it. It was a huge step better than my Sega Genesis at the time and filled my gaming need before the PS.
FINALLY someone covers Immercenary in a 3DO overview video! I have seen several others that cover a plethora of games but totally ignore Immercenary!
If you can get a working copy (or are willing to emulate) I recommend giving it another try. The story is C-grade silliness with the camp that goes with it, but the gameplay is actually rather fun.
I really think your laser is bad or you messed somehow, the burning of cds. I have the FZ1 too, burnt my games and no game has any of the stutter/loading problems you shown here.
No, Maxell CD-Rs are absolute garbage.
My FZ-1 runs CD-Rs better than it does my original game disc (which doesn't have any scratches on it).
Love the local feel of this vid, good stuff bro. first time to find you. Good stuff
"WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!"
- AVGN
When I got my 3DO I had a similar issue with loading CD-Rs. Mine only read pressed discs and didn't even recognize CD-Rs, and if it by chance did it ran like ass. I was able to improve performance by cleaning the laser. Games that are heavy on FMV still struggle, but most games seem to play fine after that minor adjustment.
It's interesting to see you cover this stuff, but after 40 minutes, you're still excusing yourself because of technical issues. Getting your stuff working would have made this a lot better.
I excuse my technical issues because I lose $200 - $400 a month and I'm not about to invest more into a brand new burner, some expensive CD-Rs, a 3DO laser replacement, a USB modification, and all this other stuff people expect some random TH-camr to be able to afford.
@@FrameRater Lol. It's also pertinent information. Other people might want to know it can be a pain the ass to collect for and use. Great video.
Genesis-style controllers are basic one-pin per switch with NO protocol (I guess you might call it parallel but it's a stretch). Even the NES at least used a shift register to individually clock out the status of each button in order. So, there's some possibility that a Sega or Atari controller could short pins that another type of port expects to not be shorted.
I don't know how you can feel bad about pirating games that almost wouldn't exist if not for those rips especially when you cannot possibly legally buy these games anymore to support the creators.
You aren't ripping anyone off since the only pockets you could possibly line are of some guy on ebay who had nothing to do with the development of the games. And devs have put up fights trying to stop people from even buying second hand games too, they get nothing out of it so they tend to see it on the same level as piracy since either way they didn't make a sale, some random guy did.
Jews gonna Jew, man. IP is a concept of Jewery.
The odd message on Maps o' Death probably means it needs a regular Return Fire inserted first and then swapped for the expansion somehow
This is true. Maps o' Death was an expansion not a sequel.
Pretty much like how GTA:London is played on PS1
Basically DLC before DLC were a thing
13:50 Licensing the architecture/platform for 3rd parties was not that unique, for example Microsoft did it a decade earlier with the MSX.