PC specs for emulation

mm_surf

I currently use a netbook for emulation (small & sits under the TV, nice & portable), but looking to make a bit of a frankstein effort to do some HTPC duties as well as emulation.

Might be able to get my hands on a 2.8GHz P4 machine (for free) to base it on.

Currently, the Netbook works fine for mame/SNES duties, but struggles at PS1 and N64 emulation (stuttering video, for the most part)

I use a bluetooth joypad (motioninjoy drivers) that seems to be fairly compatible.

Would the P4 unit be able to handle PS1/N64 emulation ok? I have a GFX card or two that I can use, if that would help - rather than using onboard GFX.

I mainly want to try the emulation out on a bit more permanent basis, before committing to a custom build.

thanks for any pointers!

M.

Myrddin

I wouldn't rate the P4 highly at all in terms of emulation...though with PS1/N64 its likely going to be your gfx card that makes the difference.

A p4 system though will bottleneck a high speed gfx card, I'd recommend at least a Core2Duo at this stage

mm_surf

Thanks. In an ideal world, what would be suitable & "cheap" in terms of a processor, assuming I get a MOBO with onboard graphics that can do the job?

It would be an under-telly box, so it'll be used as a HTPC with emulation capabilities.

The "FrankenPC" will be going ahead anyway as a "beta" if you will. Just trying to determine if it turns out as a pile of cack, whether its the materials or the execution! It's difficult to place where a netbook PC is in terms of operating capability compared to (for example!) a late P4 setup.

Money is the limiting factor at present (I haz none!)

M.

Myrddin

mm_surf wrote: »

assuming I get a MOBO with onboard graphics that can do the job?

For PS1/N64 & other 3d stuff...I'd say youd be doing well

mm_surf

EnterNow wrote: »

For PS1/N64 & other 3d stuff...I'd say youd be doing well

Not a deal-breaker. Would have been handy from a cost/power/noise viewpoint to have it all on one board.

Relatively middle of the road card be up to the job?

Myrddin

mm_surf wrote: »

Not a deal-breaker. Would have been handy from a cost/power/noise viewpoint to have it all on one board.

Relatively middle of the road card be up to the job?

Ah yeah they don't need anything crazy at all, I'm actually not too well up on PS1 or N64 emulation because I don't find them particularly accurate so someone else may know what specs your looking for

Steve X2

EnterNow wrote: »

For PS1/N64 & other 3d stuff...I'd say youd be doing well

If it's a new mobo with one of Intels new procs the onboard graphics is good enough to run SFIV at 1080p on full settings as well as most recent games on low graphics mode. So they should be ok for some PS1 and N64 emulations as well as a bit of Dreamcast as well.

Myrddin

Steve SI wrote: »

If it's a new mobo with one of Intels new procs the onboard graphics is good enough to run SFIV at 1080p on full settings as well as most recent games on low graphics mode. So they should be ok for some PS1 and N64 emulations as well as a bit of Dreamcast as well.

Yeah but given the fact the OP says he has no money to spend on this, I doubt he'll go for a new mobo & proc setup...unless he has compatible ram & psu to go with it. How much are you looking at for one of those new Intel ones?

Steve X2

EnterNow wrote: »

Yeah but given the fact the OP says he has no money to spend on this, I doubt he'll go for a new mobo & proc setup...unless he has compatible ram & psu to go with it. How much are you looking at for one of those new Intel ones?

Probably about 150 Euro for a basic mobo and new proc. Might be better going for a bundle proc/mobo/ram etc but a few Euro would need to be spent.

Myrddin

Steve SI wrote: »

Probably about 150 Euro for a basic mobo and new proc. Might be better going for a bundle proc/mobo/ram etc but a few Euro would need to be spent.

Didn't know the integrated gfx had come on that much, interesting!

Steve X2

EnterNow wrote: »

Didn't know the integrated gfx had come on that much, interesting!

For the latest games I wouldn't bother with them(although they will run). But for emulation and new but retro style games its something to look into (certainly something to think about for a new cab machine).

Here's "Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition"on the previous generation of Intel integrated graphics that are on the older i3 procs (HD 3000 series, HD 4000 is the newer version in the latest chips).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ3Msxo1d8E

And a bit of FIFA 13 for all the fans here
This on the even older HD 2000 integrated graphics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvFDeF-Rcnk

mm_surf

Thanks guys, food for thought.
For the FrankenPC, it'll get whatever I can cobble together. Won't be efficient or pretty!

When I have a few quid, looks like a passive GFX card is the obvious way to go.

M.

kaiserjim

I have picked up a pentium 4 pc(3.05ghz)for emulation.The plan is to set up Hyperspin with mame, a snes, a megadrive, C64 and a ps1 emulator. I will be looking to build a cabinet to put it in at a later stage. The pc has 512mb ram,an 80gb drive and an on board gfx card.
Can anyone recommend a graphix card ? Ill be connecting it to and old tv so I think(from reading on here) it will require an Svideo connection.
I think the ram is upgradable too 2gb. Do you guys think that the above specs would be sufficent for running that kind of set up or would I need to drop the Playstation/Hyperspin plans.

Myrddin

kaiserjim wrote: »

I have picked up a pentium 4 pc(3.05ghz)for emulation.The plan is to set up Hyperspin with mame, a snes, a megadrive, C64 and a ps1 emulator. I will be looking to build a cabinet to put it in at a later stage. The pc has 512mb ram,an 80gb drive and an on board gfx card.
Can anyone recommend a graphix card ? Ill be connecting it to and old tv so I think(from reading on here) it will require an Svideo connection.
I think the ram is upgradable too 2gb. Do you guys think that the above specs would be sufficent for running that kind of set up or would I need to drop the Playstation/Hyperspin plans.

I don't think Hyperspin will be too happy on a P4 with 512MB ram

kaiserjim

EnterNow wrote: »

I don't think Hyperspin will be too happy on a P4 with 512MB ram

Im upgrading the ram to 2 gb. Do you think that would make a difference or would I be better off with Mala or Maximus arcade. Hyperspin looks fantastic but I'd drop it if needs be.

kaiserjim

kaiserjim wrote: »

I have picked up a pentium 4 pc(3.05ghz)for emulation....Do you guys think that the above specs would be sufficent for running that kind of set up or would I need to drop the Playstation/Hyperspin plans.

EnterNow wrote: »

I don't think Hyperspin will be too happy on a P4 with 512MB ram

You would definitely need more ram at a minimum. I've got hyperspin, mame, NES, SNES, N64, MasterSystem, megadrive, and a handful of dosbox PC games running on my cab, with a P4 2.8ghz, XP pro, 4gb ram (only 3.5gb used by the OS because it's 32 bit XP), and just integrated graphics, no card, and an ordinary 5400rpm SATA drive.

It runs OK (not amazingly) but i've tweaked it a good bit, I've gone fairly in-depth with registry tweaks and performance and services settings on the OS, and i've set hyperspin to run in it's native 124x768 resolution and turned off some of the animations and transitions. The games themselves and all the emulators are fine, even the N64 works OK (although the games themselves are not that much fun on a joystick layout) but Hyperspin can stutter on loading up games and video previews sometimes, the framerate sometimes takes a dip when you're scrolling through wheels.

I certainly wouldn't recommend putting a PSX emulator on that spec without an AGP or PCIe GFX card, but for that kind of machine you'd pick up a second hand card a few years old fairly cheap. Anything newer would be pointless as the system board and processor itself would be a bottleneck on the card's performance. Memory for a P4 generation board is cheap too. I hunted on adverts.ie when i built my cab and got 4GB of DDR2 for a tenner per 1GB stick i think.

Steve SI wrote: »

Here's "Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition"on the previous generation of Intel integrated graphics that are on the older i3 procs (HD 3000 series, HD 4000 is the newer version in the latest chips)

Steve, if you have a minute to look, could you post a link to an example of a system (from on an online retailer or something) that's around that spec?? I want to upgrade the P4 system in my cab to run more emulators and PC games, and SSFIV:AE is the highest spec game I'll want it to run. I need to know what sort of hardware list to look out for for the upgrade system and how much I'll need to budget for it.

Is it possible to get something like that in a small or very small form factor. I'm very limited for space inside my cab?

Thanks

Steve X2

Deleted User wrote: »

Steve, if you have a minute to look, could you post a link to an example of a system (from on an online retailer or something) that's around that spec?? I want to upgrade the P4 system in my cab to run more emulators and PC games, and SSFIV:AE is the highest spec game I'll want it to run. I need to know what sort of hardware list to look out for for the upgrade system and how much I'll need to budget for it.

Is it possible to get something like that in a small or very small form factor. I'm very limited for space inside my cab?

Thanks

You'd be better off building up your own system rather than getting a pre-built one. And if its going inside an arcade machine with limited space you could really keep it small by doing away with a case and building it on some MDF or similar.
You can get some nice small system boards these days that are still very capable and perfect for arcade builds.
If you like I can post some links to boards and procs and ram etc? If you have a max budget in mind that would help as well.

Steve SI

Steve SI wrote: »

You'd be better off building up your own system rather than getting a pre-built one. And if its going inside an arcade machine with limited space you could really keep it small by doing away with a case and building it on some MDF or similar.....If you like I can post some links to boards and procs and ram etc? If you have a max budget in mind that would help as well.

Yeah the plan would be to build my own. I was just looking for a sort of sample spec to work off. Given that I have the OS and HDD already and all the work done there, ideally just swopping over the board, processor and ram would be perfect.

Budget is whatever the cheapest way to run SSFIVAE well enough in 1024 x768 will cost, ideally with a small, low profile mobo that I can fit where the existing P4 board is. Running that game is the hardest the system will need to work, any more headroom on the spec would be a waste of cash.

Retr0gamer

For emulation most of the workload is placed on the CPU and not the GFX, the GFX is really only used when adding post processing like anti aliasing, filtering and edge smoothing which you can turn off. I'd say a P4 would easily handle PS1 and N64 emulation, you could get them running full speed on less than 1GHz machines. The big problem with PS1 and N64 emulation is how awful they are with the best emulators relying on plug-ins and being fairly inaccurate as well.

N64

AMD chips are the way to go if you don't want to spend money on a dedicated graphics card. Seriously, they can run crysis at 720p and they are relatively cheap as well!

Post on the pc building and upgrading forum for help:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=842

Duggy747

There are a few games that might not run too well like Donkey Kong 64 or Banjo Kazooie but that's more down to their current emulation. Some N64 games run absolutely horrific no matter what rig you have due to them eating resources from bad emulation.

Same can be applied to PS1 hardware as a lot of games like Gran Turismo will run fine but might have the odd visual and audio stutter on your hardware. For the most part, PS1 emulation is pretty good.

But, that all depends on the version of the emulator you choose, graphical settings, and plug-ins you use as they''re fairly robust in configuration for both systems.

Myrddin

Duggy747 wrote: »

For the most part, PS1 emulation is pretty good

I can't say I agree. It might be 'good' as in its quite useable & playable, but in terms of emulating the look & feel if playing a PS1, I find that & the N64 both seriously lacking. They actually surpass visually what both systems could achieve in reality, but that makes it kinda 'fake' to me

Duggy747

EnterNow wrote: »

I can't say I agree. It might be 'good' as in its quite useable & playable, but in terms of emulating the look & feel if playing a PS1, I find that & the N64 both seriously lacking. They actually surpass visually what both systems could achieve in reality, but that makes it kinda 'fake' to me

That's what I mean, in terms of playability the games, for the most part on both systems, are well playable. A big problem with N64 emulation is just how rough the text is on games and images like logos & sprites on games are very rough and jagged.

Plus, you at least need a N64 controller. It just ain't right playing with anything else.

Controller support for PS1 is good from anything like a PS2 USB adapter to the Xbox 360 controller with shock support.

But, if a person was looking for the genuine feel then they wouldn't getting any closer to the actual consoles themselves.

Graphically, the emulators will always be better since they can bypass the limitations of the systems but that can come at a price of distorting texts and images in the games.

Duggy747

Duggy747 wrote: »

A big problem with N64 emulation is just how rough the text is on games and images like logos & sprites on games are very rough and jagged.

Plus, you at least need a N64 controller. It just ain't right playing with anything else.

Werent there issues with the actual original hardware, in that the PAL and NTSC versions had different effects, fog, resolutions, bars, sharpness on the polygons etc? I'm not 100%, I might be wrong, but that's got to have a bearing on the quality of the games emulated too?

It's true about the control pad though. It's pointless playing an N64 game on anything but an N64 pad. I have an N64 Emulator on my arcade cab with a P4 in it, and the games themselves are mostly playable, but the joystick and buttons controls are a complete waste of time. If it wasn't for Mario Kart 64 I'd have just taken the system off the cab altogether, but that game is awesome.

Duggy747

Deleted User wrote: »

Werent there issues with the actual original hardware, in that the PAL and NTSC versions had different effects, fog, resolutions, bars, sharpness on the polygons etc? I'm not 100%, I might be wrong, but that's got to have a bearing on the quality of the games emulated too?

Yea, the NTSC roms run a lot better and faster than the PAL but that was down to the console's variations in those regions.

It's true about the control pad though. It's pointless playing an N64 game on anything but an N64 pad. I have an N64 Emulator on my arcade cab with a P4 in it, and the games themselves are mostly playable, but the joystick and buttons controls are a complete waste of time. If it wasn't for Mario Kart 64 I'd have just taken the system off the cab altogether, but that game is awesome.

Mario Kart 64 is a blast to play with friends and is well playable on a normal controller like the XBox 360. It's probably the only N64 game that sees the most action on my system bar the odd Mario game................or even Superman 64 for the sheer horror. :pac:

With a bit of tweaking, you can play games like Goldeneye on that controller if you map the likes of the C buttons to the proper analog controls but............it just don't play the same.

Retr0gamer

I don't think there's a difference between the PAL and NTSC machines other than the slower CPU clock speed.

There's numerous problems with N64 emulation. No emulator has been able to emulate the N64 texture filtering other than the official Wii emulator which means 2D art looks terrible and textures look very different to how they look on the original hardware. A lot of times it means the gap between textures doesn't match up and looks horrendous. Also the fog effect again is very imprecise on emulators again other than the Wii emulator. I know I give out about the antialiasing on N64 games but the blur is also part of the charm and missing from every emulator even the Wii one.

PS1 emulation is another joke. They haven't bothered getting the timing between components emulated so they use plug-ins to fluff it. It means only the big name games work correctly and most need specific plug-ins to work. And when I say correctly I mean they are playable to the end but with lots of flaws. Anything else is a lottery. If it's a highly advanced game which relies on the timing between different processors you'll end up with graphical and even game breaking flaws.

Duggy747

Duggy747 wrote: »

Mario Kart 64 is a blast to play with friends and is well playable on a normal controller like the XBox 360. It's probably the only N64 game that sees the most action on my system bar the odd Mario game................or even Superman 64 for the sheer horror. :pac:

Lol, me too, and me too.

I play mario kart 64 on a joystick and buttons, and it's grand. Considering the only buttons you really need are go, shoot, handbrake and left/right, it's hard to go too far wrong. Bowser's castle is an utter, utter, bastard when the AI racers are out to get you.

Superman 64 on the other hand, well what can you say about that game that hasn't already been said? You know what i reckon it needed to improve it?

1. More rings
2. More fog