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Anyone built a small form factor PC just for emulation?

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    #46
    Originally posted by speedlolita View Post
    Looks quite pricey tbh Colin.



    And that's without a GPU. You won't need a GPU for what you want though, the i3 has a HD2500 which is more than enough for MAME and 16bit.
    Few things:

    A lot of your parts are huge over kill. You don't need an SSD (a 64gb SD card would work fine but, I'll include an actual HDD in my example build), an i3, 8gb 1333mhz RAM, or that weird PSU. You can run most of these games with a raspberry pi which has 512mb RAM and a fairly low end CPU. That and it is much easier to program with lots of support and it cost about ?35-?45 (with case and controller). The downfall is that the emulation stops just after ps1.

    Here is my theoretical build. Sorry the part prices are in $. The total is in ?.
    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

    CPU: AMD A6-3500 2.1GHz Triple-Core Processor ($59.98 @ SuperBiiz)
    Motherboard: Biostar A55MLV Micro ATX FM1 Motherboard ($49.98 @ SuperBiiz)
    Memory: Patriot 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
    Storage: Western Digital 500GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Best Buy)
    Case: Rosewill R379-M MicroATX Slim Case w/300W Power Supply ($54.98 @ Newegg)
    Case Fan: Cooler Master SickleFlow 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan ($7.98 @ OutletPC)
    Total: ?156.63
    (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
    (Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-25 16:28 EDT-0400)


    The case comes with a 300w psu which is more then enough, the cpu and motherboard are in a combo but, it saves you basically only the cost of shipping, you only need 4gb of RAM since it's strictly for emulation.

    The OS however, is a tough call. You have a few options, go with the least bloat filled Linux distro and run whatever emulators work on there (I know Retro Arch works for all older titles -up to ps1-) or go with Windows XP but, you may need to put in more RAM or over clock the CPU for more FPS. It is a tough call because both of these options can go horribly wrong. Support is limited so you might have to do a lot of leg work (mainly research) to load new ROMs/ISOs or to help your fps. It also will probably not be controller friendly so a keyboard and mouse would probably need to be close by.

    The final issue comes down to the ps2, ,gc, and xbox emulation. There is PCSX2 for ps2 and Dolphin for GC but, xbox fought legal and technical issues. PCSX2 doesn't have a full library but, is quite stable. Dolphin has an even smaller library (though it does have some Wii emulation) and can be very unstable. Thankfully, minimum system requirements don't exceed 2gb of RAM and like a Core 2 duo 1.6ghz CPU but fps might be an issue. Considering a more powerful APU and more memory could help however, I went for the cheapest theoretical build.

    Figured I'd give my input. Hope I helped out

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      #47
      Originally posted by QualityChimp View Post
      Don't forget this sweet Blueberry Pi arcade cab!


      That is really nice, any more info on how I'd make one?

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