The Best Non-handheld Console?


Jarska333

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Obviously, currently the GP32 is the pinnacle of hand-held emulation, in the variety, and quality of the emulators. But what is the best home-based ( :p ) console for emulation? I'm hearing it's Dreamcast, am I hearing right? How is the emulation in Dreamcast? How about X-Box? Is there much of a "scene" for either? Homebrews, etc?
 
Its the Xbox, both have brilliant scenes but the DC is at the same level, if not lower than GP32. XBox can do PSone and N64.
 
modded xbox roxors, nothing against the DC scene - its good value for money and its amazing what they do with that machine but if you want a emulation console there is no better alternative than the xbox
 
Dreamcast is one of the best homebrew consoles arround, you can expect from it mulation wise arroun the same as from gp, some things les, some more (neogeo cd...)
and the actual non-emulator-homebrew is amazing, theres so much... some realy good quality.
and the best thing, you can pik up a used dreamcast for under 50$, totaly worth the money, payd nearly 200 for mine when i got it, and iam happyer with it than with any other "next gen" console.


xbox=pc *hides* so yes, kinda good for emulation, but a cheap pc can give you the same, you can even use the xbox pads at a pc. but homebrew wise xbox could be calld dreamcast2, maybe just couse its so easy to port stuff from pc over to it, and it haves a hdd and stuf... but you pay over 250$ for a xbox with mod (well you can softmod it for free) and hdd.

so dreamcast is more worth the money, but xbox is of course faster.
if you have the money get a xbox, but you cant make anything wrong bying a dreamcast, and its cheap.
 
I'm softmodding mine tomorrow, I didn't know it did 64 emulation, thats fuckin cool man! mmmm...now I'm REALLY looking forward to doing it! I bought splinter cell and an action replay so I'm all set. Anyone softmodded theirs? How'd it go, was it easy, really hard?

edit: what kinda size are 64 roms?
 
So DC is "modded" out of the box?

I'm deffinately allocating funds for one...

X-BOX, maybe later...

Somehow DC has better "image" in my head then the XB...
 
Xbox of course!!


With a modded Xbox, you can play NES, SMS, Game Gear, Lynx, GB/GBC/GBA, Turbographx/PC Engine, Genesis/MegaDrive, SNES, Neo Geo, and a very current port of Mame (v.84 is the latest version I have though I haven't checked for updates lately), with 99% of the games for all of them running perfectly at full speed with perfect sound. N64 works very well as well with probably 50-75% of games working, also mostly full speed and all with sound, PSX works well as well. And I'm not even bothering mentioning all the older (than NES) consoles that it does perfectly. Not to mention ported games like full Doom (of course).


Considering you can pick up a used Xbox for somewhere around $100 and softmod it for free (or chip it yourself from $30-75), I wouldn't say it compares to using even a cheap PC to emulate stuff. Also, you know, I'm sure all of us would much rather sit on our comfy couches playing emu's thru our Xbox's on nice large TV's, rather than sitting at a damn computer desk to play them all day. And don't pay the $250 for a premod... it's a ripoff. IMO, chipping or softmodding are both super easy. Hell, the chips they sell these days don't even need to be soldered in, they are litterally 'plug and play'. And there is so much documentation on the net on how to do any of the methods availabe that there's really no reason even the most technically uninclined person couldn't do this themselves.


Unless you're talking NES and earlier, there's no way in hell you can compare emu's on the DC to emu's on the Xbox. 'Nuff said.


And I've softmodded mine and it works great, I love it and played the hell out of it. For anyone who doesn't know, softmodding is the process of hacking into the Xbox using software only and setting it up to run just like a system modded with a chip. That's right... you dont' even have to open it up to enjoy all this stuff. It's not too hard to do, you gotta read all the readme's VERY carefully and take your time with every step, it is very easy to mess up if you're not being careful, but even if you make a mistake, MOST mistakes are easy to recover from. I cannot stress enough though, read EVERY WORD of the readme's, FAQ's and tutorials, then read them again. I hate to say this but don't expect a lot of help from anyone if you get into trouble, as most xbox sceners turn up their noses to guys who do softmods and can be real jerks. Anyone interested in doing any of this should check out xbox-scene.com. Actually I take that back partially... the guys on the xbox scene forums are pretty helpful as long as stuff you're asking isn't covered in the tutorials, but forget talking about softmods on the xbox scene channel on IRC :p

Also, the xbox emu/homebrew scene is HUGE.
 
I know it's not a console but... I bought a cheap PC off Ebay, got a couple of low noise fans and a PS2 to USB adapter. The video card has TV out, wireless keyboard and mouse (on my coffee table), sound goes to my stereo and it's plugged into my wireless hub.

The result is something that'll cheerfully play emus on my TV but also plays movies, MP3s, gives me TV listings (XMLTV), web access and also acts as a file server to my PC in my office. Plus because it's on all the time it's quite handy for downloading stuff.

An xBox is the simple solution but if you like to fiddle with PCs and are happy to pick up the bits cheap off ebay it's certainly worth thinking about!

J(ohn)
 
powerfull pc w/ tv-out is a good idea, but for what you're looking for get an xbox plain and simple. my pc's always in use as well, so having a stand alone emulation powerhouse(xbox) is a good thing. and just like a pc, it's also great for its media capabilities. and like bast pointed out, it's a really cheap solution. and if you don't have a DC, get that as well. not for its emulation capabilities, but if you don't have one you'd better hang your head in shame.

so yeah, listen to bast. get an xbox for emu. it's the whole reason i and many others got one back then(then found out the game selection wasn't too bad ;) ). head over to xbox-scene.com for info on modding it.
thanks to its wealth of emulators/homebrew apps i was able to enjoy countless classics i've missed over the years. i was even planning on making a mame cab using an xbox hah(cheap).
another thing, be sure to get most of Xport's emulators since their UI is really good. also look out for surreal 64 and fbax/kawa-x and many others that have popped up(been a while since i checked)

later
 
for PC I think it's project64, but i haven't checked up in a while... I may be wrong.


and none of them ran paper mario properly last year when I checked...
 
i just bought a dc

8 bit sys emu is v stable - snes is good w/out sound

mine was only £10 - thats why its better than xbox!

bargain!!!! retro gaming!!!
 
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