Anyone have a dedicated Emulator PC? (Video of mine inside)

Anyone here built a PC just for Emulators? I've built 2 so far, an Acer Revo R3610 (I have now sold - without the roms) and an Acer Revo RL70 (My current Emulator system)

I configure all the emulators and link them with the Maximus Arcade front-end. Then hide Windows, so it all acts like a console. Controlled by an Xbox 360 Wireless Pad and hooked up to my 42" LG HDTV.

Here is a video of my old Acer Revo R3610 in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szLCe8IzB_s

(The newer RL70 i have now is slightly more powerful and also allows me to play Sega Model 2 smoothly)

Anyone else done something like this? Photos or Videos?

 

I do like your front end for using the PC. Very nice. Can the icons be clanged? I really dislike the clunky western arcade cab that is used and would like to use Japanese system pictures rather than the American ones such as a Super Famicom and Mega Drive.

I also have an emulation PC. It's an Acer laptop with dual core 2.5ghz CPU running windows 7. It is connected to my big TV via HDMI an can run anything up to Model 2 emulation. The best part is that the PC cost me very little because the screen on it is dead. Well, basically the screens back light almost never works but that doesn't bother me since its always connected to the TV.



I'm not a wares nut or ROM kiddie. I own almost 2 thousand retail games. An emulation PC is for connivance and to play those long lost arcade games.

Yakumo

 

I want to get a laptop for emus and older pc games. Will probably have to wait till tax season.

 

@ Yakumo

You can change everything about the skin - thats just the default one. The program comes with a full skin editor. I have made my own skins in the past but keep going back to the original. Nice system you have there btw!

 

Cool. I think I'll look in to using that launcher in the future. It will sure make thinks a lot easier.

 

Can you change that "whoosh" sound? That would annoy the hell out of me if I used it on a regular basis.

Funny story; making fullscreen interfaces for loading emulators and roms used to be a bit of a hobby of mine. I never actually completed one, but I made tons of mockups and got pretty far in some of them. They were all made with Flash, using some simple Actionscript - it took me quite a while to figure out how to launch programs from Flash, and I never got around to actually implementing that "feature" into any of the interfaces. But they were cool looking, and you could scroll around and select stuff with a keyboard or joypad (if you used a joy2key type program). I even made one that was inspired by the photo uploader "program" in MGS2. It was possible to make executables out of these interfaces, but I didn't make too many of those since I never ended up actually using them.

 

I'm really thinking of doing this, it's great to have a separate emulation PC. Much easier to manage that's for sure.

 

I should do this with my old Dell laptop thats just sitting around! btw Yakumo, are using some steady cam or is that some nifty stabilisation built in, cos the movement in that video is really smooth! :confused-new:

 

The phone has many different features for video and photos built in to it. Steadycam is one of them. Works pretty well but does give a strange zooming effect at times and can spazout every now and then.

 

I have all my configs and notes for my setup, if anyone needs a hand setting things up!

@ la-li-lu-le-lo - You should totally finish one of those front ends/launchers, would be interested to see one!

And you can change the woosh noise, my girlfriend gets annoyed with it too - i just sit there scrolling through the menu to wind her up!

 

I'm spending my afternoon converting my laptop just like yours, urbangansta. Gonna give the trial a whirl and see how it runs, your setup looks awesome!

 

Cool, I'm glad I inspired you! Let me know if you need any assistance...

 

You've inspired me too. That's going to be my project for next week. I'm going to have to make some nice 720p big icons for the system names now but hey, I've got the time.

 

Sounds like a good idea, I have an "old" laptop lying around that'd be perfect for emulators.

 

I'm a bit lost on emulation stuff. Apart from Fusion, Zsnes and MAME, i haven't been trying anything lately. I might try checking PC Engine stuff, but there doesn't seem to have a complete emulator like Fusion for it ( with renders, upscalers,... )

A bit off-topic, but you guys think would be worth it getting a PSP E-1000 (the latest model, without wi-fi = cheaper) for emulation purposes? I don't know nothing about PSP and it's custom firmwares and emulators.

 

Just buy a used 2k series psp and cfw it ( or hell...even a 1k psp will do ).... should be able to pick one up for like $50-$80

 

I'm pretty behind the times too, just have some version of MAME that's several years old (really wish MAME auto updated...) and still have Nestopia and SNES9x on my computer, even though there's probably way better emulators now (what are the best NES and SNES emus, anyway?) I didn't even know about Fusion until like a year ago.

 

This is what I'm currently using for emulation on the go and works very well (I also have the extended battery, so I get lots of hours of fun! )

 

The problem is finding on in decent condition and for a good price. People overprice everything around here.

 

Well, I got most of it up and running, I never read up on it so it was more trial and error but I got it then end, so far I setup snes, megadrive and PS1, got it setup with wireless Xbox controllers, had a couple of mates over last night, ended up playing megadrive games until 4am fuelled with copious amounts of lager.

The cool thing is my mates don't have interest in retro consoles or a clue about emulation but when they just seen the frontend they where blown away with how simple it all was, so much so they didnt even ask how it was all possible, Should have done this ages ago!