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Best Console to make an emulation machine?


Top Console Emulation Choice  

44 members have voted

  1. 1. Which Console is Best as an Emulation Machine?

    • Original X Box
      25
    • X Box 360
      0
    • PS2
      0
    • PS3
      2
    • Dreamcast
      2
    • Nintendo Gamecube
      0
    • Nintendo Wii/Wii U
      15

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As I realize I have less and less space to house stuff i'm really keeping the best titles and moving more towards SD carts. I also may have to slim down a few systems but may want to play those games still and explore other retro systems I probably won't find in the wild. I have more or less narrowed down my choices to the original Xbox and Wii to use as an emulator box; and I was wondering which you all thought would be better to use as an emulation machine. Here is my reasoning for avoiding other options:

 

-PC/Raspberry Pi: Probably better I realize but I want to use a console for convenience and aesthetics.

 

I gutted a broken Genesis and used that as a shell for a Pi machine. You could always use the shell of your favorite system as a build point. The last dedicated console I used for emulation was an original Xbox with an Xecuter. It worked really well, although I wanted HDMI for my main TV which is why I went the Pi route.

 

Sounds like the Wii is your best bet, but the Pi in your favorite system is a fun project if you haven't considered it - it would certainly meet your aesthetic requirement.

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I prefer the Wii.

 

- A lot of emulators support 240p mode on analogue TVs.

- It's WAY easier to softmod a Wii than an XBox.

- No worry about hard drives dying (which just happened to me).

- Drag and drop files to SD cards, no slow FTP transfers necessary.

- Most importantly, there are several great controller options available, instead of having to use Microsoft's terrible d-pad.

 

On the other hand, if you're a "retro games on an HDTV" kind of guy, the XBox supports 1080i. Also, some of the emulators are a little bit better, and XBMC (or whatever it's called now) is pretty sweet.

 

...whereas using a Wii i'd have to burn discs or have an external hard drive connected via a USB (the speed worries me for that option.) I know you can do the home brew channel on the Wii mode on your Wii U, but assume you couldn't access the external hard drive formatted for the Wii U via that channel, creating its own issues. Can anyone speak to that and/or if you are able to partition it?

Idunno, I never bothered with discs or hard drives, I just use an SD card in mine.

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"It's WAY easier to softmod a Wii than an XBox" - somewhat debatable.. while yeah if i recall it took me booting up a PC with a spare IDE cable hanging out, the whole process literally took like a minute and the xbox was ready to go. :lol: But yeah at this point setting that up could be a hurdle.

 

Drag and drop files to SD cards, no slow FTP transfers necessary - slow? FTP within your local network should max out your wire. :P Just saying...

 

But yeah I guess I have to revise my thoughts.. the Xbox is superior to the Wii.. but the methods do require some aged tech ability (e.g. getting out your IDE cable :lol:) Probably today Wii would be the better option for most. I also have to mention I spoke about the Retropie earlier.. I should say we had a HARD TIME getting sound to work over HDMI ok on it. The configuration of it was very difficult to be honest.. My brother-in-law ended up downloading a preset config that worked for him. Guess I should have mentioned that.

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I also have to mention I spoke about the Retropie earlier.. I should say we had a HARD TIME getting sound to work over HDMI ok on it. The configuration of it was very difficult to be honest.. My brother-in-law ended up downloading a preset config that worked for him. Guess I should have mentioned that.

 

I have spent far more time fiddling with retropie than I ever had softmodding any system

 

also as a side note, most SD card interfaces suck in terms of speed, on my PI-B I have the os on a high speed SD card and roms on a laptop mechanical sata drive hooked up via usb adapter and one day I benchmarked them. The SD was reading at the rate of 20-26MBs hard drive was in the mid 70's

 

its not that big of a deal when your dealing with a rom or 2 at a time, but its a massive time difference when doing something like the 50 gig mame romset, or a 17 gig dos blob off of archive.org

Edited by Osgeld
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"It's WAY easier to softmod a Wii than an XBox" - somewhat debatable..

Well, when you consider that most people are asking if someone else will do the mod service for them... =)

 

Most people probably don't even have the screw bit required to open the unit, let alone the skills required for a hard drive hot swap. Heck, even I managed to screw it up twice, since there are so many different methods available, and the tutorials I was looking at accidentally left out a few VERY important steps >_<

 

A lot of people might consider FTP transfer to be difficult, also.

 

I've never tried the memory card/game exploit method, so I don't know if that's easier than hot swapping or not.

 

Drag and drop files to SD cards, no slow FTP transfers necessary - slow?

Now that I think about it, I'm transferring gigabytes of ISO contents over FTP vs. megabytes of ZIP files to an SD card, so maybe that's not a very fair comparison =)

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I've never tried the memory card/game exploit method, so I don't know if that's easier than hot swapping or not.

 

 

I used the smash stack on my Wii U Wii side and it took a few minutes on a forum at most. I used the banner bomb on the Wii (which was patched out long ago, I think, but I maintained the channel) and that was easy, just had to find the files. The hardest part of it is googling assuming you have the right game.

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- Most importantly, there are several great controller options available, instead of having to use Microsoft's terrible d-pad.

 

The d-pad on the Controller S is fine. That said, there are many solid third party options (I dig the Capcom Street Fighter Anniversary controllers), and there are controller adapters too (for instance, PS1 to XBOX).

 

I have a couple of nice arcade sticks that work on the XBOX as well, which is especially great for the MAME stuff.

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  • 1 month later...

So an AA member modded my Xbox for me with a 500GB IDE hard drive and the latest coin ops OS. It is loaded with emulators and games, and I can burn my xbox games to the HDD as well as upload ISO's via the ethernet port. I have to say i'm pretty impressed thus far! Looks to be linux based and the games play very well and look sharp. N64 games are in higher rez than usual. All other emulators I've tried work great and have lots of options, including the 2600, 7800, INTV, Colecovision and NES (among a number of others.) For example you can overclock the 6800 in the genesis emulator. Very cool....will have to look into going my Wii U next via the home-brew channel on the Wii menu.

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Pop over to www.emuxtras.net and you can find updated and improved versions of many of those emulators as well as homebews and some emulators most likely not on that modded hard drive you have.

 

There is also a small community of xbox owners over there who can help you out and answer any questions you have.

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I used the smash stack on my Wii U Wii side and it took a few minutes on a forum at most.

I was talking about the XBox. It has a similar softmod method, but it requires having someone else put a file(s) on a memory card for you. Hard drive hot-swap was easier for me though, especially since I wanted to upgrade the HDD anyway.

 

The d-pad on the Controller S is fine.

Eh, I prefer d-pads that don't make your character crouch when you're trying to walk to the right. It was slightly better than the 360's d-pad, but that's not saying much.

 

Very cool....will have to look into going my Wii U next via the home-brew channel on the Wii menu.

I've heard the WiiU doesn't support 240p mode though, but it looks like you're going to be playing on an HDTV anyway.

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Wow looks nice.. I need to get back on my xbox and check out if there's any cool updates as it's literally been years and years since I last updated it.

 

On that note.. a lot of the emulator front ends by "Madmab" I'm pretty sure he's a member of this site but goes by another nickname :)

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As far as consoles go I recommend the Nvidia Shield Android TV. Without a doubt. It doesn't even need to be rooted to run emulators. Though you can easily do so with it for expanded functionality. You can even download and install a pre-rooted ROM from Nvidia. No manufacturer always trying to shut down your modded console. With Android's massive market share and development scene, there's a ton of emulation choices. The Shield Android TV emulates almost everything up through the Dreamcast and Gamecube extremely well. It can even run many Wii games pretty well. It's more powerful than either the PS3 or Xbox 360. Throw in the decent great sized selection of Android (mostly) PC ports. Also with homebrew like OpenBOR and all sorts of indie development projects, it's pretty amazing what you can get for $200-$300.

 

DOOM, Hexen, Heretic, Quake, Wolfenstein (almost any of them I guess? including Doom 3: BFG Edition)

Max Payne

Half-Life (Xash 3D)

Half-Life 2

Half Life 2 Ep. 1

Half-Life 2 Ep. 2

Portal

Grand Theft Auto III

GTA Vice City

GTA San Andreas

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic

Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast

Star Wars: Jedi Knight III - Jedi Academy

Ducktales HD

Dragons Lair

Dragon's Lair 2

Double Dragon Trilogy (looks to be straight up arcade ports (finally)...it can run them in MAME4Droid too, but it's put together very well as it's own game/app

 

all sorts of stuff I'm forgetting...

 

Oh and you can use a PS3 or 4, Xb360 or Xbox One controller with it.

Edited by MadZiontist
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Wow looks nice.. I need to get back on my xbox and check out if there's any cool updates as it's literally been years and years since I last updated it.

 

On that note.. a lot of the emulator front ends by "Madmab" I'm pretty sure he's a member of this site but goes by another nickname :)

 

I hear he can be pretty helpful as well! Although he probably needs to work on his disguise a little. :lol:

 

post-3211-0-83552100-1480803202_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

On another note... There is a way to take a spare xbox controller and splice it to a USB cable and just use a USB stick in place of an xbox memory card (if memory serves). With that method we are talking a simple save game exploit just like on the Wii.

 

Oh and the Wii emulation is rather nice.. not quite as a consistent interface on the 'ol xbox, but still pretty decent.

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On another note... There is a way to take a spare xbox controller and splice it to a USB cable and just use a USB stick in place of an xbox memory card (if memory serves).

Sure, but if you've got the skills and the tools required for that, you're probably more inclined to do the hot swap instead.

 

Although I did have a little trouble last time...my main PC has a dead PSU and I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet, another PC doesn't even have any IDE ports, and the third choice has one of those motherboards that won't let you unlock hard drives @_@

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It's also possible to order one of those xbox cable to USB cables from places like ebay rather cheap.

 

As for hot swapping. I have one PC where it won't let me unlock the hard drive unless it is one a specific port (might have been primary drive, secondary port). So hooking it up to the the secondary drive primary port did not work.

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It's also possible to order one of those xbox cable to USB cables from places like ebay rather cheap.

 

As for hot swapping. I have one PC where it won't let me unlock the hard drive unless it is one a specific port (might have been primary drive, secondary port). So hooking it up to the the secondary drive primary port did not work.

 

Are you guys talking about unlocking the Xbox hard drive? All you need to do is open up the Xbox, unplug the xbox's IDE cable from the DVD drive (i.e. the middle slave connector of the cable...not the hard drive connector). Then turn on the xbox (make sure the video cable is plugged or the xbox won't start up).

 

When you boot up the xbox it will give an error message in several languages and have a number on the top left (either 11 or 12) and that means the hard drive is unlocked. :)

Edited by NE146
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Nahh... we are talking about soft modding an xbox. Which means having an xbox memory card (or alternative), an exploited game save and the appropriate game to run.

 

By far the easiest way to do it for those who are hesitant to open up their xbox.

 

Although a similar thing can be done with a hotswap and running something like Babylon 2 or Autobuilder.

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Nahh... we are talking about soft modding an xbox. Which means having an xbox memory card (or alternative), an exploited game save and the appropriate game to run.

 

By far the easiest way to do it for those who are hesitant to open up their xbox.

 

Although a similar thing can be done with a hotswap and running something like Babylon 2 or Autobuilder.

Yes.. I'm talking softmodded too. I'm familiar with the Ndure method you're talking about which is very convenient but what I'm saying is you don't need to have a memory card and the exploited game. All you need is the torx screw and you're good to go.

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Yeah.. I've not had a problem with the Xbox controller D-Pads too much. They don't work too well with Street Fighter moves, but they're definitely not the bad experience that were the original PSP D-Pads where it was impossible to shoot diagonally in NES Contra. :lol:

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I've not had a problem with the Xbox controller D-Pads too much. They don't work too well with Street Fighter moves...

Exactly. Most of the time, it's not quite as glaring in other games, but it's still noticably a poor design. For example, a lot of 360 games use the d-pad for a quick inventory, and it's no fun to be in the heat of battle and make the wrong choice.

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Exactly. Most of the time, it's not quite as glaring in other games, but it's still noticably a poor design. For example, a lot of 360 games use the d-pad for a quick inventory, and it's no fun to be in the heat of battle and make the wrong choice.

I was fortunate to get one of those neat Logitech controllers for the original Xbox. The wireless ones and the pad is pretty decent to pull off Street Fighter from my modded box.

 

I got both the modded Wii with home brew and the modded Xbox ( not sure which mod it has though since it was a garage sale find). Both are good for emulation but I do tend to keep more on the xbox just for the comfort of the controller.

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