Hi Everyone, Is there any cheap Mini PCs/box's people know of that are strong enough for just emulation and perhaps movies? I'm looking create a cheap box for the TV to play games/movies with.
Check out this link: http://www.intechraoutlet.com/rbwww/home/ These guys sell recent-vintage computers, mostly off-lease office equipment. I scored a P4-2GHz Dell for about $120, and with an OEM install disk I have a licensed version of XP running on it. If you hit them on a good day, you can get a PIII-500 machine for around $30 or so. You'll generally have to supply a low-end graphics card and sound card, but those are easy to get.
Hmm, nice find! While we are on the subject, are there any places that sell reasonably priced mini-itx machines that could do the same? I mean Emulate and play movies (just in a more portable formfactor). I have no idea how well the VIA line of chips run, so I don't know if some of these machines would cut the mustered so to speak.
Via is considered a low-cost alternative chip maker. Their chips aren't out of spec or anything, but in a desktop machine you get much better performance and reliability out of the Intel or AMD equivalent at the same price. In my experience, Via chips are best applied in portable applications, like laptops or UMPCs. At risk of treading into less-than-legal waters, I've found the best emulation and video platform for a low price is an original Xbox. $50 gets you a PIII-700 with an Nvidia graphics chipset, lots of integrated I/O and no Windows overhead.
YOu can also look for old Dell SFF systems on ebay, etc. They are small and if complete are enough to play emulators all the way up to 64bit consoles...
Xbox FTW in this situation. I have 2 myself. 1 emulation and movie dedicated with a 250GB HDD and a second for running actual games off the internal 200GB HDD
I quite fancy the look of this, its possibly a bit over-powerful though http://us.shuttle.com/KPC/buy.html
Well, I considered the Xbox, but I didn't like the fact that you need to use Xbox pads for everything you play. At least for PCs, you can use USB converters for the appropriate console controller you wish to use.
There are keyboards and remote controls for the Xbox (or at least my buddy has them, I'm not sure if they require you buy additional receiver hardware). I've always fancied the thought of an NES-PC... ~Krelian
The xbox can have USB ports wired to it VERY easily. In fact the standard xbox hookup for controllers is USB with a larger fancy shell. You can cut the tip off a xbox controller cord and soldier the wires to a USB cord and the xbox controller becomes USB. So to add them you simply run 4 wires off the xbox controller board and mount a USB mini hub somwhere (can be internal or you can run the cord out of the xbox and have a mini hub or something sitting next to the xbox or on top of it They are WONDERFUL for emulation, trust me!
