Thinking of getting a retro gaming machine.

SweetMylk, rok temu

“Emulators & ROMs” part of megathread. Think it’s not worth to buy something for the roms when you can donwload them. Why not get something modern like a steamdeck or ayaneo for a true handheld experience?

Haui, rok temu

Thank you! I will check it out.

The main reason is because I dont have 400 bucks (much less 1000) to burn on something nice to have atm. I could absolutely use one of my two beefy computers if need be but I figured I‘d ask what other people do.

SweetMylk, rok temu

If you an android phone you can use that too with a cheap bluetooth controller.

Haui, rok temu

Sadly I dont but thank you very much got your suggestion!

Amphobet, rok temu

If you want a handheld, Anbernic makes some good stuff. anbernic.com They do tend to load the SD card up with games beforehand, but the card is cheap & likely to fail, and the games are sorted & titled strangely (and may be otherwise dodgy). So you probably want to replace it with your own card with games you sourced yourself.

Haui, rok temu

This looks very cool! Which one of these do you have? How modern games are you able to play with it? Is ps3 possible or rather not?

Amphobet, rok temu

I have an RG353V. I got that one for the aesthetic (looks like an old gameboy), and I do like it, but I can see why people generally suggest a model with a horizontal form factor instead, since the vertical (gameboy shaped) is not very ergonomic. I mainly stick to 8 or 16-bit games. but it should be able to handle 5th gen consoles (saturn, ps, n64) just fine, but 6th gen (dc, ps2, gamecube) will depend on what game you’re running and may require tweaking the settings. ps3 is right out, I’m afraid.

Like I said, I mainly run older stuff, so double check what I’m saying if 5th and 6th gen games are important to you. I don’t really mess with those.

Haui, rok temu

Thank you very much! I will definitely check it out. 5th gen would be awesome but 6th gen is very much optional. :)

banana_meccanica, rok temu

Whatever alternative you’re offered, I don’t think it’s worth spending more than $50 on an emulator console. (This is the maximum make sense price for any hardware that can emulate old consoles up to PS3).

Haui, rok temu

I will keep that in mind. Thank you very much. Always good to get a reality check on prices.

itGoesWooWoo, rok temu

Linus Tech Tips covered some options about a month ago. The one with the SATA drive cartridge slot got my interest a bit.

youtube.com/watch?v=51foBSsRpJk

Haui, rok temu

I watched this video actually. Thats how I got the idea initially. Might check it out again for details. Thanks for mentioning it.

dimkin0, rok temu

Loving my Ayn Odin. With little effort it will handle up to PS2 and will even handle some Wii and 3DS games. Form factor is comfortable. I’m really happy with the retro experience on it.

Haui, rok temu

Nice! Thanks for the suggestion.

dimkin0, rok temu

No problem, check out RetroGameCorp on YouTube for reviews of handhelds, as well as guides. There was also a (hate to say the r word) reddit thread that had some great sources for roms too.

Haui, rok temu

Thank you again. Will check the reviews out. And don’t worry, we’re slowly easing off our former favorite drug. ;)

FippleStone, rok temu

You should be able to, ahem, find some convinent ROM collections on most torrent indexers. A standard NES game is only ~128kb, so the whole library of games is only like 750mb. It scales exponentially with every generation as data storage improved, so the SNES library is 2gb, the N64’s is 5gb, and the PS3’s is 20tb. I find that I really don’t need the full library of a consoles releases available, so I usually only choose maybe a hundred or two that I’m interested in, there’s only so much time in the day. If you don’t need a handheld device I can recommend modding your ps3, it can emulate most anything, the hombrew scene is active and there’s been a lot of support for it, plus for the majority of consoles it’s a full custom firmware solution, so it’s a pretty seemless experience once you set it up. Plus with the internal hdd there’s plenty of space for stuff. Pretty much everything up to last gen is easily pirateable, so have fun with it, it’s easy once you get the hang of it.

https://aussie.zone/pictrs/image/08dc3200-8b24-46d8-8c53-01aa097e67b5.jpeg

Haui, rok temu

Thank you so much for this very informative post. I will strongly consider trying this. :)

andrew, rok temu

A raspberry pi or steam deck will offer a generally better emulation experience than a ps3- the homebrew scene for the ps3 leaves a lot to be desired.

Haui, rok temu

Interesting! Thanks for letting me know. A steam deck is a consideration since its very cool but also quite expensive. Pi, I assume put in a handheld format, would be an idea as well.

It’s interesting that your experience with the ps3 is so different from other commenters. What exactly were you disappointed with?

andrew, rok temu

The ps3 provides decent ui but due to stunted interest in the ps3 for homebrew there hasn’t been as much of a focus on getting emulators running well, just to get them running, so while 2d systems will run well at native res you won’t be able to push them very far with shaders, and while n64 allegedly works decently you’ll be stuck with buggy and slow performance. The real upside to the ps3 is decent ps1 and ps2 emulation because of Sonys efforts (even on non-bc consoles) which opens the door to thousands more games.

Haui, rok temu

Interesting! I never thought of the ps3 marketshare/sales. Makes a ton of sense. I will keep an eye out for sources so I can make an informed decision. :)

_TK, rok temu

A raspberry Pi is a very good emulation device using the RetroPie image. A Pi 4b can go up to PSX/N64 fairly easily.

On the handheld side of things, most of them that “come with” ROM sets will have them loaded on an SD card. These manufacturers often skimp on the cards though, so expect it to die quickly. You can usually just clone the whole SD to a new one and it’s fine.

Most of these devices use RetroArch and software emulation. However, there is another option. The Mister project and devices sold by Analogue use field programmable gate arrays - chips that can change their structure according to software. This means running an NES game on one of these devices is more literally like running it on original hardware. For accurate emulation, this is the best option by far. However, it comes with a significantly higher price tag.

In general the easiest and least expensive startup for emulation is on the PC. With fairly modest hardware, emulation of everything up to PS2 is possible with some newer platforms also being very emulatable (notably everything Nintendo puts out is easy to run because their architecture is largely straightforward, their systems are lower power, and there is significantly more demand for their games)

If you specifically want something hooked up to your TV, a first generation (launch window, before they increased the battery life) Switch can happily run a fair amount of stuff, including everything up to N64/PS1. The (new)3DS/2DS is also a great emulation device and can run basically everything up to SNES/Genesis handheld.

Oh and one more option. If you have Android, you can easily install a variety of emulators and use a Bluetooth or wired controller with them utilizing a controller phone mount.

Haui, rok temu

Thanks for letting me know! I‘m playing with the idea of a handheld but I‘m open to other options since I would love to balance price/experience/comfort.

Most people say rooted ps3 would work well, one said it doesn’t. I sadly only have an iphone atm so android is no option. I could technically root an old iphone if that works. Otherwise I‘d probably buy a decently priced handheld.

Building one from scratch is a bit much next to my ubuntu home server with 14 docker containers, two pcs (one linux, one windows) and 6 pets. :) But i would opt for a kit or something if it’s better than prebuilt (ie anbernic).

Its so awesome that so many people are giving good suggestions. Thank you very much.

kratoz29, rok temu

I recommend the Chinese handhelds too, I only have a Retroid Pocket 2 (too old), Anbernic RG351V and a Miyoo Mini V2, I only use the RG and Miyoo, the later is great for simple games/quick burst but due the lack of wifi antenna it is not possible to use Retroachivements with it… which it is possible with the RG351V, also the Anbernic has quite the better hardware without a question.

Notice all these aforementioned handhelds would only give you a pleasant experience up to PS1 (minus Saturn), so if you want a handheld that can at least give you PSP, Dreamcast and N64 I’d pick an Android based Retroid Pocket 3+ Anbernic also have some capable models for this. it is worth to mention that if you have a relative new Android phone you already have a capable emulator with you all time, you’d only need a holder or a telescopic joystick to enjoy an almost endless library of games (despite having a PSP I finished Persona 3 Portable with my phone and a Razer Kishi controller).

Haui, rok temu

Thank you very much! I will check your suggestion out! The anbernic handhelds look very cool.

casualhippo, rok temu (edited rok temu)

for retro handheld options try !c/sbcgaming@lemmy.ml

There’s a massive spreadsheet that’s linked on the reddit equivalent that tracks and breaks down handheld features, price points, and what consoles it can reasonably emulate too

spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/…/edit?usp=sharing

Haui, rok temu

I checked it and bookmarked it. This doc is insane! Thank you so much!

Billy_Gnosis, rok temu

A lot of it depends on what consoles you want to emulate. I’m no expert, but from what I’ve seen just casually looking through retro gaming forums, is that anything up to N64/PS3 is doable with relatively cheap hardware. But if you want to emulate N64 or PS3 and above properly, you’re going to need to step up in specs.

Haui, rok temu

Definitely sounds like it from the majority of the comments. Thanks for mentioning it. :)

butterypowered, rok temu

Did you mean PS2? There’s about a decade between N64 and PS3.