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Advice Needed. Best OS for Dedicated Emulation Computer


PeculiarSatyr

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So I'm thinking about building a PC with the sole purpose of Emulating video game consoles. I'll probably get a Blissbox to use original controllers.

 

I've only ever built Windows PCs and have never built a specialized machine. Basically I'd be looking to emulate everything from the 2600 to the Wii and up if possible.

 

Anyone have good experiences with a specific linux distro that I should try (that is reasonably user friendly)?

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My favorite emulation machine is currently an Xbox. I already modded it 8-10 years ago, so it was a piece of cake setting it up. I went on eBay and picked a four pack of controllers to augment the two controllers I already have. You could probably softmod an Xbox and get it all set up for under $100 (including 4 controllers).

 

The nice part of using an Xbox is that I can use the composite/svideo output on a CRT, looks like the original. I also use the component out with a projector that looks very old school. It's a blast to play! You can also remap buttons to keys on the keyboard, and even joystick movements. In Satan's Hollow I set a button to be joystick down for the shields.

 

Downside is having to use Xbox controllers and the inability for paddle games. I've tried four player SNES bomberman, but I haven't tried four player Mule yet. (Wish it supported the 4 controllers as a multijoy interface too.)

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There is a Linux distro called Puppy Arcade you could check out. Groovy Arcade is a MAME-only Linux distro that many use for arcade cabinets.

 

Windows 7 is my prefered OS for emulation and gaming. I've found the software better supported and updated more frequently.

 

I can also run Steam and other PC gaming on the same machine with the widest selection available. Sure, Steam is available on Mac OS and Linux, but the selection is still much smaller. Better than years ago, though ;)

Edited by akator
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Hate to say it, but it's gotta be Windows. Even though emulators are open sourced, the Linux versions just don't run as good as on Windows, plus there isn't a good selection of front ends.

 

If you must use Linux, then RetroArch is good for an all-in-one emulator...

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Although my OS of choice for general computing is Linux, I fall back to Windows 7 for emulation.

 

However, nobody here has mentioned OSX. There are a lot of great emulation written for the Mac OS. In addition to MacMame, http://www.macmame.org/

 

I also like Sweet16 by Eric Shepard: http://www.sheppyware.net/software-mac/sweet16/

 

Richard Bannister has written (ported) many great emulators listed below, and a link to his site: http://www.bannister.org/software/index.htm

 

Edited by airsoftmodels
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Yeah he said he's building a PC.

1. you can "build" a hackintosh. http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

2. he also said he wanted to use linux, but almost everyone suggested windows.

3. i don't want to limit the discussion to just his needs, but rather suggest alternatives for others as well.

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1. you can "build" a hackintosh. http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

2. he also said he wanted to use linux, but almost everyone suggested windows.

3. i don't want to limit the discussion to just his needs, but rather suggest alternatives for others as well.

 

1. That's probably not the best way to go about it

2. Again, the "best" angle

3. You're right, exploring options is good and there's a lot of stuff for OSX

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I'm going to add my voice to the masses here and say...

 

Windows.

 

My dedicated emu box uses Windows XP SP3, booting right into a front-end and hiding all the other bits of the OS. It isn't connected to the internet, so no need for any wasteful antivirus programs. It's slim, trim, and works perfect for everything I need it to do. Plus, Windows has all the great emulators. Even though Linux and even OS X have some good options, Windows is still king. Plus, connecting things like controllers to Windows is still easier than with OS X and Linux. I have a USB NES controller that works fabulously with Windows, but isn't recognized in OS X or my friends Linux box.

 

In terms of trying to emulate anything past the N64/PS1, as stated by another user above, it starts to get dodgy. If you do want to give it a try however, you will definitely want to get your hands on a beefy CPU. Emulators such as Dolphin, which does Gamecube and Wii, is very, very, CPU-intensive.

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Yeah he said he's building a PC.

To be fair, I've seen people in this forum and plenty of other places using PC to mean a "personal computer" in general, Mac or Windows. I've even seen people lumping iOS and Android devices under the general term of PC!

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As people have mentioned already, the original XBOX (i.e. an enhanced mobile Celeron 733 with a stripped-down Windows 2000) or a PIII or P4 running Windows XP SP3 are both really good for anything pre-Playstation1.

I have considered using my old Dell P4 system for that very thing, but I will need to choose if I am going to use it's hard drive for that or place into the PS2.

 

I wonder how anything pre-ps1/N64 would work with the XP image I run on occasion with Parallels because honestly, the Dell takes up a huge amount of space, and when I really need to use Windows, I just run an image for light stuff or just boot directly into my boot camp install.

 

One issue with the original Xbox is the limited amount of Ram available, and the version of MAME that was available for it is very old, unless that has changed.

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I'm going to add my voice to the masses here and say...

 

Windows.

 

My dedicated emu box uses Windows XP SP3, booting right into a front-end and hiding all the other bits of the OS. It isn't connected to the internet, so no need for any wasteful antivirus programs. It's slim, trim, and works perfect for everything I need it to do. Plus, Windows has all the great emulators. Even though Linux and even OS X have some good options, Windows is still king. Plus, connecting things like controllers to Windows is still easier than with OS X and Linux. I have a USB NES controller that works fabulously with Windows, but isn't recognized in OS X or my friends Linux box.

 

In terms of trying to emulate anything past the N64/PS1, as stated by another user above, it starts to get dodgy. If you do want to give it a try however, you will definitely want to get your hands on a beefy CPU. Emulators such as Dolphin, which does Gamecube and Wii, is very, very, CPU-intensive.

 

I am very impressed with the progress that has been made with Dolphin. It almost runs at full speed on my 2011 Mac Mini.

 

Speaking of emulating anything past the PS1/N64, is there an Xbox emulator out there. Given that that it is essentially a PC (the Celeron for the CPU), wouldn't code that uses the CPU run at native speed on any intel based system? I guess the hard parts would be trying to port the Xbox's OS which probably can't be legally ported anyway, and while the GPU is from nvidia, it was custom made for the Xbox, correct. My guess is that is probably not easy to emulate....

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Plus, connecting things like controllers to Windows is still easier than with OS X and Linux. I have a USB NES controller that works fabulously with Windows, but isn't recognized in OS X or my friends Linux box.

 

 

Agreed, though I think this situation has improved as well. I don't know if you and I have the same USB NES controller, but it works like it should with OpenEMU. I think any controller that is a USB HID class device is recognized by Windows, OS X, Linux etc, though the emulator in question has to have support built in to use it directly. Many console controllers are not, but there are adapters that are sold to make them that way.

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I use Windows for my general computing tasks and emulation because I am very very familiar with how NTFS and all its 3rd party and oem support tools work.

 

Classic gaming and computing and archiving on modern machines means you're pushing around a lot of files, especially if your music and photo collection are on the same disk. And to have a nice set tools is gravy on the ice cream!

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Windows, Linux, and OS X all have great emulators now. I'm a big fan of OpenEmu on OS X. Windows has the most oddball emulators out there though. Better off looking for compatibility and finding a front-end you want then anything else.

 

I wouldn't buy a Mac just for emulation though. You can get a Windows or Linux machine for half the cost that does the same thing (as far as emulator compatibility goes)

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How are people feeling about Win 8.x for emulation?

 

I have a 6-year old Toshiba laptop running Win XP. It's given me plenty of good service, but I'm thinking of buying a new laptop for general Internet, basic documents, and of course some retro emulation (nothing newer the 90s). I'll probably keep the old XP machine as a backup/spare.

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mGalaxy ain't bad. If you don't really care about having a front end of course the are more emulator projects running on Windows than any other platform so you can just run each app independently. Even the most basic Windows hardware is sophisticated enough to run all major emulators from PSX down. If you're not planning to run anything more sophisticated than 90s games, you don't really need to bother buying anything to expensive. Just get the storage space you need and a decent processor, an i3 or so. (thats more for general stability and speed in Windows than a direct need based on emulation, a modern celeron is fine for running this stuff but can sometimes be to blame for slowdown in Windows)

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