Small dedicated emulator machine?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Recently after being burned with one of those Sega Genesis clones I decided to just make something that I know will play ROMs. I'm looking to build a dedicated emulation machine for my collection rather than the constant wear and tear on them.

Things I need:
1. Small form factor (roughly the same size or smaller than a modern game console)
2. DVI output (or HDMI as they are interchangable)
3. Low cost, I don't want a full fledged computer just something that runs ROMs and either Linux or Windows OS.
4. Usb support.

How would you build a low cost, low profile emulation platform for 16/32 bit console games? Do you think I could do it for under $150? I know the older emulators are pretty low resource programs. Hell, it could run a legacy OS too if that OS has console emulators.

Cheap and small are the bottom line here...

[gct]

How about a nettop? Might run you more than $150, but you would be hard-pressed to find something smaller unless you go for some of those very expensive UMPCs.

I recently bought a Zotac HD-ID11 and I love it! Got 2GB of RAM and a 60 GB Sandforce SSD, so it's pretty snappy. Dual-core Atom is better than I expected, and so is ION graphics chipset. It runs pretty quietly too. I'll post more info about this system once I've gotten my softwares and games sorted out, though for now I'm using it as a download box. In fact I bought this system primarily to consolize it for a few games, I'm working on programming a game launcher that's accessible by USB gamepad, so that I can boot it up and launch executables without needing to have a keyboard attached.

I think some newer versions support dual-channel DDR3 if you think you need it, mine is only single-channel DDR2.

If you are feeling spendy though and want more CPU power, I would recommend you to go for a custom mini-ITX build - I think Zotac has a H67-based ITX motherboard now, pair that with a good 2nd-gen dual-core i5, power it with a picoPSU and throw it in a mini-box m350. Will be much more expensive but it should even do Saturn emulation easily, which I am not so confident my Atom D510 can do...

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Essentially I'm just trying to cram an old emulator into a very small form factor. Probably don't even need more than 4 GB or so of storage space. I have a pretty tight budget as a college student. Normally I'd just find and old computer but I simply would like something portable.

These would be great but look at the prices!
http://www.stealth.com/littlepc_DuoCore.htm

[gct]

Yum, it looks like that kind of Intel CULV + GMA 4500MHD combo in my notebook, the CPU is more capable than Atom but the graphics are not as good as ION. But expect to see CULV becoming more common in nettops soon.

If you can increase your budget just a *tiny* bit, I think a nettop will suit your purpose quite well. My HD-ID11 cost around $200, RAM is cheap if you can find people's old 1GB sticks that got swapped out during upgrades, same with old laptop hard drives if you don't want to splurge on a SSD. You can surely do a nettop $250 all-in, maybe less if you find one 2nd-hand, but I would still recommend finding one dual-core+ION, as older ones may still be single-core+GMA950, blech...

If you really want to get cheap and don't care for looks, just go on craigslist and find some old Celeron-based laptop for $80 or so. Shouldn't have any problem running a Genesis emulator, but I wouldn't trust it to keep running for very long. Probably won't have DVI outputs either.

[rancor]

Excellent topic. I'm very interested in doing this myself, but I have no idea what sort of minimum chipset I should invest in. Does a dual-core atom have enough horsepower to run MAME and such? How much does the graphics card really matter when running emulators? I wanted to go for a core2 duo, but was waiting for prices to come down. Right now my PC is a pentium III, and it runs fairly well, but I'm really not sure what the next step up would be (cheaply). Looking forward to reading the replies here.

[gct]

My most recent knowledge of MAME is from the time before games like Raiden Fighters became playable :\
So nothing worthwhile 3D, a GMA950 will do fine as I don't think those old MAME builds even used any GPU acceleration. I wanted ION for some better ability to play PC games from around 2005 or so. For those old MAME games even a single-core Atom will work.

If you want to upgrade cheaply from a Pentium III, there should be lots of people selling very capable Core2Duo/Quad-based computers in the second-hand market. Keep in mind I'm very much in the Intel camp on the CPU side and Nvidia on the GPU, I don't know much about AMD/ATi operations.

rancor I know you are in Japan, but in my city people are listing old-ish quad-core desktops around CAD$300, and Nvidia 8800 GT video cards for $50. But it really depends on what you want to do with the machine. I found undamned's YsBox build to be a neat inspiration and my Zotac nettop is kind of a cheap response to that.

[Obiwanshinobi]

If you just wanna make a PC of old parts, you can as well go AMD (during the P4 era they fared better than Intel) and get yourself one of those Athlons. I don't recommend integrated video cards as they tend to hog more RAM than it's worth when you can buy a separate old card for peanuts.
For the sake of emulation CPU is the most important thing, but integrated video is no-no if you are into gaming.
Bear in mind that Athlon XP 2000+, 1 GB RAM and just about any video card younger than 10 years allow you to watch HDTV-rips in 1280X720 without breaking a sweat. Weaker CPU, such as PIII, may be not up to the task.

[Ex-Cyber]

Does a dual-core atom have enough horsepower to run MAME and such?

You'd have to ask someone who's tried one, but I doubt that an Atom being dual-core would help much in MAME. The MAME drivers that really benefit from a second core tend to be those that an Atom is too slow for anyway. The thing about MAME is that performance depends heavily on which driver (i.e. which game) you're running. Pac-Man is certainly playable on an Atom; something on Naomi or Atomiswave (or System 12 for that matter) will not fare so well. You can check out some MAME benchmarks with an Atom 330 (older 1.6GHz dual-core) to get an overall feel for what will run well and what won't (but don't expect that you'll get exactly these numbers, for several reasons).

How much does the graphics card really matter when running emulators?

It varies by emulator. For emulators of 2D systems, it hardly matters because the only thing done by the GPU is stretching and some of the crappier filtering options. For MAME it makes no difference because MAME does even 3D rendering in software (for accuracy and portability reasons). PS1/Saturn/N64 can utilize a GPU depending on configuration (i.e. if you're going for upscaled/tweaked graphics instead of native res/effects), but they're not very demanding when they do. Last I heard, PCSX2 (the only really playable PS2 emulator at the moment) will swallow a $500 graphics card whole and then ask for seconds (depending on settings and game).

[louisg]

I'd love to hear from someone who's tried emulators on an Atom. I think some of those boards even have S-Video out. An emu machine would be cool to have around

[Shatterhand]

Try to import one of those things here from Brazil:



It's called "Cybergame", and it's developed by Dynacom, a brazilian company with like 30 years of experience in producing shitty gaming products. (Nah, they had a pretty good NES clone, probably the best NES clone produced here in Brasil, and they also had a line of Joypads for lots of different consoles which were pretty good. But they did a fair amount of crap products too)

It costs R$250,00, which is exactly around US$150,00. It emulates Mega-Drive, SNES, GBA, NES, SMS and a bunch more of systems. According to a friend of mine who bought one, it's smaller than a PS2slim. You load the games via a SD card.

Of course, the controllers probably suck, and I have no idea how's the quality of the emulation, or the quality of the video and audio output. I can ask my friend if you think it's a possible option.

[gct]

Thanks for the caveats, Ex-Cyber. As I said, my knowledge of MAME is from a time before things became very CPU-intensive - the newest game I cared about in MAME is probably Progear. And I was able to play Contra: Shattered Soldier in PCSX2 on my 9800 GT smoothly, nowadays a <$100 card. But again I didn't bother with PS2 emulation since PS2 hardwares (even modded ones) are cheap and common as dirt.

There will always be a natural tradeoff between portability and power. For Pixel_Outlaw, if all you want is early MAME and Genesis emulation, then I think an Atom nettop will be sufficient for your CPU requirements and is about as small as you can get for a reasonable price.

If you need more CPU and still want to keep the size down, I can only suggest building around a mini-ITX platform. The current most powerful ITX is based on Intel H67 chipset, and if you don't want to use integrated graphics (which I have read are much improved in the Sandy Bridge CPUs), there is still the option for a dedicated card. Only problem is finding a mini-ITX case that will take your big graphics card and the power supply you inevitably need for it. I have a Lian-Li PC-Q07 and while it is small, I would not say it's portable. I really like the mini-box m350 case - you can get a very powerful CPU build in there, but you are limited to integrated graphics.

edit: Suggesting a completely different solution for Pixel_Outlaw - why bother with clone hardware? Why not get a proper Genesis 3 (or better - a CDX) and an Everdrive MD cart, if you already have your physical carts and just want to keep them safely stored?

[je_apostrophe]

I have Meerkat Ion Nettop from System76:

http://www.system76.com/product_info.ph ... ucts_id=95

It runs everything up to N64 really well in emulation. I haven't tested anything newer because I actually have those platforms.

I recommend it.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Thanks for the recommendations guys. Shatterhand, please do ask about that console just for the heck of it.

[dcharlie]

what about getting a second hand Wii and hacking that? Perfect for form factor though you'd perhaps have to buy the old wired pad/joystick or get the classic controller.

not tried beyond SNES , but that runs well with the odd exception. Another idea is ... a hacked PSP!

Mame out and out sucks on it, but PS1, CPS, Neogeo, PC Engine, Megadrive, SNES (not quite perfect though), Final Burn Alpha, NES, C64, Spectrum etc etc... If you hack a PSP Go then it's pefect pocket size fodder -AND- has tv out -AND- you can sync a wireless PS3 pad to the unit. 16 gig of built in storage and expandable via memory stick

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I recon youre just better off using an old PC like a early PC experess machine so you can stick a new cheap graphics card in it and pop in a couple of sticks of RAM. If size is an issue just use a small case or buy an old shuttle PC.

Im still keeping my old PC around as I plan on making that into an dedicated emulator machine sometime in the future when I buy a new desk to fit 2 PCs. Its an old Intel P4 HT 640 (anyone have an idea how these stacked up against simlar processors of the era, any good for overclocking?) Which has no trouble with PS1 games but as it only has 1gig of ram in it atm it cant run anything newer so I dont know if its up to the task.

Anyway the only things I need it to run are MAME which although I havnt run mame on that PC Ild hazard a guess that it could run even Ketsui or Rayforce right? consoles would be 8 and 16bit systems, PS1 and DC with the N64 as a plus, no chance itll ever run saturn or NGC games. But still if I set it up it with hyperspin or someother front end I can imagine having allot of fun with it. (Ill need to replace the old fan that sounds like a jet engine aswell)

One large plus for me getting myself a dedicated games PC with no none gaming stuff on it including a net connection is that itll keep me gaming. Instead of getting side tracked surfing the net or whatever. I tend to play my games in little spurts where ill surf inbetween. Unfortunatly im surfing way too much atm.

[GaijinPunch]

This fails on just about every level, but still works (for me at least)
I have Windows XP running on a Shuttle Cube, with an arcade VGA. The Arcade VGA also has DVI. They apparently have even smaller models, but I've never looked into them.

[undamned]

If you are looking for small form factor, just grab a non-new laptop. No loud fans, integrated keyboard, you can throw it in your bookbag, etc. etc. Otherwise OEM "small form factor" machines are your next best bet (if you wish to use a video card other than an integrated one). I know most folks have probably seen this, but this was my Xbox 360 sized gaming PC I build a while back and should be more than adequate for such emulation endeavors: http://therealundamned.blogspot.com/200 ... ect-i.html

And if you want to go all bonkers and stuff: http://therealundamned.blogspot.com/200 ... ultra.html
-ud

[Shatterhand]

Thanks for the recommendations guys. Shatterhand, please do ask about that console just for the heck of it.

Ok, according to him, the video quality isn't bad in an CRT TV, but in an LCD TV it looks like shit.

The audio output isn't very good either.. the stereo gets mixed, with sounds from left coming from right and vice-versa from time to time, and the sound isn't very clean. WIth Mega-Drive games, the sound quality is noticeably a lot worse than the real thing.

The controllers aren't fantastic, but aren't horrible either and you get used to them.

It has built-in emulators for nes, snes, Mega Drive, gba and system 32 (Note, that's what he said, I am not sure what he means with System32)

The emulatorn run on top of a Linux OS, and there are people working out ways to run Mame and Final Burn on it.

It weighs less than a PS2 Memory Card, but it looks well built. He left the thing on for 20 hours and it didn't even get hot.

It has SD Card and USB Support.

He only had trouble running 2 SNES game so far: Top Gear 3000 didn't work and Cannon Fodder froze in a certain part. Everything else he tried worked fine, though he said he heard Snes games with the FX Chip don't work. He also said in certain SNES games there's some laggy controls and loss of framerate, and (thats an important part) this KILLED shmups games on it, as every shmup he tried was too laggy to be any playable.

Megadrive, GBA, GBC and NES games all worked well, though he also noticed some drop of framerate in certaing MD games.

The console also has support for playing videos and flash games. According to him, flash games are completely unplayable and look like a real mess.

He also said that, considering the cheap price of it (For Brazil Standards), he says he's 80% satisfied with this thing.



My personal opinion: Don't bother with it. I am certain you can get similar products in your are with a cheaper price. Anything regarding gaming here is too damn overpriced. From what he described, his standards seems to be pretty low to be 80% satisfied with this thing

[KBZ]

I'm thinking that an ION equipped Nettop will be able to handle just about everything in shmupmame 3.0.

But rgb/svideo or even component output is a must for me. I bought a cheap vga -> svideo converter but the output is very poor.

This one here is a bit more expensive and hopefully has better output, but it looks almost exactly like an uncased version of the cheap one I have.

Anyone have experience with sending the vga signal to their low res crt?

[Drachenherz]

One large plus for me getting myself a dedicated games PC with no none gaming stuff on it including a net connection is that itll keep me gaming. Instead of getting side tracked surfing the net or whatever. I tend to play my games in little spurts where ill surf inbetween. Unfortunatly im surfing way too much atm.

Oh yeah, I can feel you, it's the same with me... *grmbl*

If I'd be playing half the time I spent surfing, I'd be a LOT better than I actually am atm...

But I guess this will change, when I get the cab up and running... It's no coincidence, that it is in the dojo - a training place. ^^ No Internet - only play. Yay!

Cheers.

[Drachenherz]

Oh fuck... Just ordered a zotac mag nettop as a small dedicated emulator machine...

[1up]

Ok, so it's been a while, but people who went the small formfactor way for cheap emu boxes, how are your experiences?

Will a dual core atom w/ ion chipset run games like ketsui, doj, galuda etc. at a desirable framerate?

Thinking about getting a cheap box for a project but if it's not powerful enough to handle those games I might look for another solution.
I had a 1.6ghz dual core, ion chipset and 2gb ddr2 ram at one point and it ran snes and most psx games fine, but never got around to
trying the newer shmups in mame before I sold it.

[gct]

Wow, I can't believe I recommended a nettop earlier in this thread. An Atom processor won't cut it for newer MAME stuff and I doubt the AMD E-series platform will do it either.

I just recently moved my beef-ass ATX parts into my main ITX machine, it is housed in a Coolermaster Elite 120 case, and I am running a Core i5-2500K CPU with a GTX 460 1GB. Damned sweet, but probably not the cheap solution people are looking for in this thread.

My cousin recently bought an OEM desktop from Fry's. I can't remember the exact model since I deleted the e-mail, but it was a Gateway he said cost $379. I had a look inside last weekend, the case is very tiny, low-profile, DTX Acer motherboard with a PCI-E x1 and PCI-E x16. AMD-A6 platform so it should be decent CPU-wise.

If you'd rather build your own, look out for 2nd-hand ITX platforms on socket 775/1156/1155, or clearance stuff. A while ago Fry's was clearing out the Zotac H55 ITX motherboard for nine bucks!

[louisg]

I have an 1.6ghz Atom-based set top box I built, and I get wildly varying performance with MAME. CPS1/2 stuff runs fine (as in full framerate and reasonably smooth on a CRT), as do NeoGeo games and R-Type Leo. But, as an example of how unpredictable it can be, Outrun won't work, and Ketsui almost runs but the sound is very stuttery.

I could try Genesis emulators on it if you want; those are probably OK on it.

[Friendly]

low profile emulation platform for 16/32 bit console games?

I suppose Ouya should be powerful enough for that, and is as low profile as it gets (the console is about the size of a fist).
To be released in March 2013, costs $99 USD, includes a controller.

http://www.ouya.tv

[ZellSF]

On my Xperia Play I found all the Android emulators to have terrible input lag, unless there's some hardware design flaw in the Xperia Play (I know it's not exactly unlikely with the mess that phone is) then I wouldn't trust an Android box as a dedicated emulator machine.

Edit: oh, btw, whatever you buy you're going to end up wanting something better... Just speaking from experience, I started with an ION (Atom+nvidia) based setup too, but it wasn't good enough for PSX/N64 emulation. Then I moved to a mini-ITX based setup, but then I was really running a proper computer and just putting arbitrary size requirements on it that really put restrictions on what I could use it for for no reason.

[null1024]

I have an 1.6ghz Atom-based set top box I built, and I get wildly varying performance with MAME. CPS1/2 stuff runs fine (as in full framerate and reasonably smooth on a CRT), as do NeoGeo games and R-Type Leo. But, as an example of how unpredictable it can be, Outrun won't work, and Ketsui almost runs but the sound is very stuttery.

I could try Genesis emulators on it if you want; those are probably OK on it.

The 680x0 cores in MAME have wildly different performance -- the 68000 core is very mature and fast, but other 68k variants/revisions will be pretty crap, even if the game runs at a fairly low clockrate.
CPS1/2 and Neo-Geo will run brilliantly on almost anything. Outrun and most of the Sega scaling boards actually need a pretty decent spec machine, like a 1.9GHz not-Atom minimum.

I'm tempted to say get a Raspberry Pi, but I dunno how well it'd perform -- supposedly the CPU is comparable to a 200-300 MHz PII. It's $35 bare with nothing, and would need about $20 more in hardware to be usable, but it has HDMI out, it has USB, it can run Debian.
The problem is, it's ARM, and I dunno what good emulators would work/compile. I can't expect anything too far past SNES, and I'd expect MAME to be a bit crap on it [also, the build would take days probably, but since it draws a meager 5v current, it doesn't matter].

I have a $270 netbook that I use for everything PS1 and under -- it's a bit choppy for PS1 and N64 stuff, but does everything lesser just fine, and it has HDMI out. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834215382 is a similar machine to what I have, it might be a bit different. Same processor as mine at least, much much better than Atom garbage. Clocked lower [1GHz, burst mode of 1.3GHz], but gets more done per-cycle, and has all the modern CPU extensions [SSE1/2/3/4/etc].

Also, I was lunatic enough to try PS2 and Dreamcast emulation on it -- gets 6-18fps in game for PS2, and 10-22fps for DC.

low profile emulation platform for 16/32 bit console games?

I suppose Ouya should be powerful enough for that, and is as low profile as it gets (the console is about the size of a fist).
To be released in March 2013, costs $99 USD, includes a controller.

http://www.ouya.tv

Could be an option. The .emu guy makes some very nice Android emulators [PC Engine, NeoGeo, SNES [less nice because it's unsupported], Genesis, NES], and they're pretty reasonably priced, considering he actively provides support for his paying customers. They're all GPL'd, so you're mainly paying for support, such as feature requests/compatibility fixes, as you can build your own version from source pretty easily.

[1up]

Wow, I can't believe I recommended a nettop earlier in this thread. An Atom processor won't cut it for newer MAME stuff and I doubt the AMD E-series platform will do it either.

What newer mame stuff? SH-3 emulation or something else? Aside from the SH-3 stuff theres the 3d games that need a monster to run decently.

I was hoping a zotac zbox with a atom d2700 (2x 2.13ghz) would do the job for everythin MAME except SH-3 and the 3d stuff.

[CoolgyFurlough]

I wonder out loud how well a Raspberry Pi would work for emulation purposes.

[BPzeBanshee]

RetroArch is available for arcade games on the Wii and with the games it does run it does a better job than existing stuff for it, as well as the Xbox. Second-hand ones go for pretty cheap these days and are the ideal ones to grab considering the newer models rip out GameCube support.