Emulators On A Media Center Pc

[aaronson911]

Does anybody here have much experience with media center pc’s. I was thinking about buying or building a media center pc’s. I want the media center PC for emulations and other things such as blue ray, DVR, playing media files, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, ect. This forum seems like a knowledgeable place for emulators. Does anyone have emulators working with a smooth user interface that does not require a keyboard and mouse? I would like to have 4 wireless controls for multiplayer emulators as well as a remote. Does any one here use myth TV version of Linux for emulators or windows media center? Also what type of wireless controllers do you guys think would work well. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[ninjawiz2x]

:huh: so let me get this straight you want a computer ? That connects to your TV?

 

[sehs33]

I currently run one and here are my advices:

1. Nothing wireless! I have invested a lot in wireless keyboards, mice and joysticks until I realized that it doesn't have to be wireless, use 5 meters USB extension cables (yes the signal will reach the machine flawlessly) and USB hubs and you will get rid of all the problems: line of sight issues, rechargeable batteries dying, you are too far from the receiver and this also lowers your investment a lot. One more thing, couple the cables and lay them under stuff or beside the wall.
2. Pick a cute case (full tower case with no handles are not living room friendly).
3. Decide the most powerful system you want to emulate then build your machine accordingly. Some times it is much cheaper to buy a new PlayStation 2 unit than to upgrade your ancient P4 PC that use SD RAM.
4. Invest in an HDTV: if you are planning to use your HTPC with a normal TV than drop the whole idea (PS: Full HD is worth the little extra over HD Ready)
5. Don't over stuff the case with too many fans, their sound will be very annoying in a silent scene in the nice Blu ray movie you are watching.

 

[Tag5]

I currently use the ACER Aspire L320 as my main home PC. It's initially advertised as a living room PC, it's very quiet, compact and pretty looking. It only uses 90W in power but I had to max out the memory (2GB) as the initial pre-installed memory didn't seem enough for all my applications and games. You could always change the OS to suit your needs but don't forget to make an image of the HDD before formatting.

Hope this helps. :lol:

 

[aaronson911]

:huh: so let me get this straight you want a computer ? That connects to your TV?

Yeah that is the basic idea. Basically an htpc or media center computer replaces multiple boxes in your living room with one pretty box.

Thanks for the replies.

The Acer Aspire does look like a pretty good machine the low price\heat\noise is a big plus. I was looking at the specs however and I wish it would have 4 usb ports in the front if not using wireless like seh33 suggested and space for a second hard drive. Newegg does have lots of computer cases just for HTPC’s that look like it would fit in a living but they only have one bare bones machine that got bad reviews. The television I do have is a relatively cheep 720p Samsung 42 inch plasma. What kind of software do you guys have on your machines? How do you have your emulators rigged so you don’t need a keyboard and mouse? There will be less technical family members who would use this computer as there only means of accessing the TV. So I want everything to be accessed pretty easily just by the remote.

 

[Javacat]

I've heard that windows media center is actually surprisingly good, and I'm sure I've read somewhere that you can use it to launch emulators n stuff. There's also MediaPortal which looks v nice and is open source. It might be worth you checking their site out to get ideas of what you could do, and what sort of hardware to go with.

For the controllers, I'd go with something bluetooth (class 1 or 2) if possible. You could use PS3 controllers, or wireless xbox 360 controllers with an adapter for your PC (like the one @ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Xbox-Wireless-Gami.../dp/B000MGVAAQ).

 

[Titcher]

I run a media center-esque thing on my mothers mini-itx PC. That's got XBMC on, and it's all I recommend, many plugins out there, including iplayer scrapers as well as various others. There's an emulauncher script that looks okay, haven't really tried it, but looks good. In regards to controlling it, for the media part at least I recommend using this, it's what my mother uses and she finds it all very easy. As for software to use the remote, I suggest intelliremote, it's a pay for remote, but very cheap and is very very useful, being able to set system commands and such to buttons.

 

[sterling976]

I'm running mythtv at home -- my primary frontend is mythbuntu on a ShuttlePC K45 (the backends are slightly beefier desktops hidden away in the home office).

Peripheral-wise, I've got an ATI remote wonder that works pretty well, but needed some serious configuration in lirc to get it customized. I'm also using a Logitech bluetooth keyboard that was branded for use with the PS3, and some cheap-o logitech controllers for emulated games.

In addition to watching live TV and recorded programs, I can catch shows on Hulu, and I'm running a number of emulators (ePSXe, zsnes, and fceultra).

I highly recomend this setup. One of the reasons I chose MythTV is the all-in-one nature of the solution. The emulators work very well and the PVR functions of mythtv are better than many of the commercial systems I've used in the past.

The Shuttle PC I'm using appears to have been discontinued, so maybe the K4800 would be an economical replacement. Over the next year or so some of the Atom- and Ion-based systems are showing some promise. Personally, I'm waiting until the technology matures a little more and I see more detailed user reviews on teh intarwebz before I go through the headache of finding new frontend hardware.

Interestingly enough, while the topic references emulators on a media center box, I'm also working on a way to get mythtv-stored content streamed to a Pandora (essentially running media center functionality on an emulator box). I've had some moderate success tweaking gmyth's sample programs so they don't run away with all your memory after 10-15 minutes of streaming video.