Hi All, While the wife and I are lying here with a stomach bug and trying to survive our energetic 10-month-old boy, I'm thinking about starting a games night once a week just to break the monotony of "one TV show per night". A couple of years ago I had a Pi 2 running Retropie with mostly NES, SNES and Sega Genesis games on it. I bought a couple of really cheap retro style gamepads from Amazon and it worked quite well, but now I'm thinking of something more permanent that can handle PS2 games too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think even the Pi5 is capable of PS2 emulation with decent frame rates. I'd like something small/compact that can take two wireless controllers, HDMI output to a 42inch TV. Recently discovered Batocera, which looks and feels great! Anybody have a relatively cheap setup that you can suggest, or simply show me your awesome setups. I know you have them! Cheers Neal
Not sure about what a Rpi can emulate these days, myself and most of my friends have moved away into the mini pc space, pretty power efficient, can emulate to a newer gen of console (switch included), I believe mine is on an Aoostar GEM10 from memory, the 6800h model with batocera, not that i play much anymore, had it on an external drive so when i want to go back and use it as a normal pc or a server its not a huge pain and i cant bugger it with dual boot by being me . Or you could go the retro retro route and grab a retro console
Xbox SS is what I recommend (SX if cost isn't a problem), it's pretty compact, the dev mode is now free, and it can emulate PS2, DC, Gamecube and wii perfectly, and OG xbox is being worked on, also you can play current gen Xbox games. No modding is needed, just switch to dev mode, load it up with emulators and go!. However, for the Wii you are stuck with games that support traditional controls, and there isn't all that many. It's not the cheapest option anymore because of the recent price increase, but it's definitely the best AIO option and well worth the extra. I managed to nab a new one for £180 before the price increase. Here is a video that MVG did about it last year.
A lot of the time, my "retro setup" is just... my desktop. But if you're looking for something more interesting... My Nintendo PlayChoice-10. It's a NES in an arcade cabinet, fully original. Lets you play special versions of NES games which have an extra chip, holding the instructions that display on the small upper screen. You don't pay for a set of lives, like a normal cabinet; you pay for time instead. That's the biggest. The smallest.. Surprisingly playable! Then there's the mini consoles. I've got most, but not all, of the ones that have been released to date - and there's a neat trick with 'em: There's my eldest, playing Star Parodier on the PC Engine Mini. Y'see, the mini consoles have HDMI outputs - but if you set 'em to "stretch" and plug 'em into an HDMI to composite/SCART adapter... they run perfectly on an actual CRT in the proper 4:3 aspect ratio. Better shot of the screen: A lot cheaper than tracking down the original hardware, and takes up a lot less room!
