I have an early Saturn with Oval buttons which I've been told is a pain in the ass to install a mod chip in.
Isn't there an action replay mod for playing back ups? I heard something about this a few months back.
Yeah, there's a disc image that you can run to flash the Action Replay, and it will then load CD-Rs. You have to use the swap trick or another Saturn that can run CD-Rs to flash the Action Replay, and then after that all you need is the AR.
i dunno what chips they're using but the Phantom chips going around atm work with them, done 2 or 3 oval button systems and they've turned out fine
Keep your games in a cool dark place and for most you will be kosher, some pressings are more liable to disk rot than others but I don't think there are any games that we can point to and say "This WILL go bad". Also, if you get fingerprints on the bottom of a disk, clean it off quickly with isopropyl. in years to come the oils from your skin can and will cause oxidization or... something, on the bottom of the disks. PS1 games in particular are real liable for this.
Crap, I reckon I've quoted the wrong thing. I'd give you the low down on how (and why) knackered I was but it's a boring story.
I've never seen discrot on anything except a few things in flea markets that were clearly stored in a flooded basement. None of my Saturn discs show the slightest sign of it. Neither do any of my audio CDs, some of which are nearly 30 years old.
Disc Rot isn't nearly as prevalent as people would have you believe. My guess would be it happens in less than 1% of discs over time. I'd say that with good care (keeping it in a good case, not rubbing your fingers over it, etc), discs last longer than carts or hard drives.
I swear the most durable CD I've ever had was the Rock Paintings CD+G disc that came bundled with Model 1 Sega CDs in the US. All I remember was just picking it up and noticing how damn-near indestructible it felt after handling modern discs for so long! "We Are The Information Society"