solidus

Exactly. Plus the used market is flooded with old PC parts. You can use Aliexpress/Ebay and build a small PC for a few hundred bucks. Mine has parts from around 2011 and runs everything up to PS1/N64 flawlessly. I have a 2011 era i7 cpu and a pretty crappy Radeon GPU just for a bit of an up scaling boost for 3d consoles.

I really, really hope everyones answer to this is 'of course not!'. Please people do not go into debt for this stuff

I only have experience with the Anbernic and Miyoo handhelds.. and I would say they are a no brainer if you do not mind emulation and want something portable. As for a stationary console though... I dont really have hands on experience. For me, the best route was always to build a very cheap, small form factor PC and just run retroarch.

Yep you can modify them. This is the emu in case youre interested. https://retropie.org.uk/docs/FinalBurn-Neo/ Its a fork of Finalburn Alpha. Its considered to be more accurate than MAME for many games especially neogeo.. so I tend to use it alot.

Hey all, not sure if this was mentioned anywhere... but is using FBneo via retroarch OK for this? I tend to play all my arcade games with that and use MAME for special cases

I dont really want to know what that is lol

Been playing this game non stop for the past few days. I think it may be my first time ever honestly.. as I cant recall playing it before. It has a surprising amount of strategy if you are trying to bust high scores. Its a ton of fun trying to set guys up under rocks... also deceivingly difficult. I think Ill be enjoying this one for a while.

This is interesting. I wonder how input lag is with the streaming... Ive tried some streaming stuff before and I noticed lag. I imagine things like fighters and shooters where response is crucial may be problematic... Ive played Doom 2016 using a shadow PC and it was really laggy and hard to enjoy

So much awesome info..thanks! Im assuming those sticks have no gates and have a full 360 degree movement right? I assume thats what I want for shmups in particular where I dont need to hit specific directions like I would to do combos in a fighter, and instead want smooth movement in all directions and everywhere in between.. basically like a controller analog stick

Whats interesting is that, the arcades I played as a kid are quite different from the games I am into now. Im in the US, and Im not sure if that has much to do with it, but the arcades near me were filled with fighters and beat em ups. I grew up playing Street Fighter, Ninja Turtles, Simpsons, Mortal Kombat, etc. Nowadays I am much more into shmups, run n guns, etc. My favorite 'arcade' game these days is likely Metal Slug, 1942, Gradius, etc. Funnily enough, I have never actually played much of these games on an actual arcade, simply because I never saw them... so I have no frame of reference Its not to say that I wont ever play fighters or beat em ups, its just that my current motivation for an arcade stick setup is to play shooters and run n guns. I am not sure how that effects my choices, as I am not particularly nostalgic for a certain feel at this point...

Any tips on good things to get setup? Im using retropie for the first time actually, but on a PC. Ive only ever used Retroarch standalone. Currently everything is default except shaders.

Yea I am definitely going to just build a box at this point. Seems like the way to go. Im more concerned with picking the right parts at this point.. as I have 0 experience. Will be interesting to learn though. I really want something simple to start.. mainly to play shmups honestly

Thank you thank you! Really appreciate all the info. And yes Im going to check out your site and let you know if I need anything at all. Artwork would be awesome

I agree with you totally.. a lot of them do look very homemade. I do not have any CNC equipment.. but I do have a decent set of tools, drill press, band saw, etc. I have been thinking some kind of plastic like Lexan or PVC/ABS would be a good route. It will look alot cleaner than plywood I think. Seems like Hammond actually makes stuff like that as well

Lol, promised the wife I would cut down on the electronics projects this year to lower the clutter and collection.. but this may have to be an exception. @doubledown, any advice on the box? Thats really the most confusing to me. I have seen some people use jewelry/cigar boxes... but I feel like my best bet is to build one from scratch out of wood. Or even better some kind of PVC/Lexan/etc and some kind of glue