Re-purposing older PCs and turning them into EMU hubs

[AppleQueso]

I've been prepping an old pc I brought back to life to use in a MAME cab sometime. I've been wanting to build one for years.

Can't remember the exact specs off the top of my head, but I know it has a 1 GHz processor and 256mb of RAM.

It can handle older versions of MAME (like 0.55) pretty well, but Final Burn Alpha runs like a dream, which is great considering it supports most of the games I'd want to play anyhow.

I've also considered seeing if I could cram a mini atx pc into an old ps1 casing and create a dedicated epsxe box out of it. Take advantage of the high resolution rendering options and whatnot.

[fastbilly1]

If you want to cram a pc inside of a console, wait until early next year. Intel just released its new processor style, and they said they could have 10nm desktop processors by the end of the year. That and the new version of the Ion chipset is rumored to drop this fall. So a new atom and Ion3 on a tiny mobo (rumor is PicoITX) and youll be set for your psx box.

[AppleQueso]

If you want to cram a pc inside of a console, wait until early next year. Intel just released its new processor style, and they said they could have 10nm desktop processors by the end of the year. That and the new version of the Ion chipset is rumored to drop this fall. So a new atom and Ion3 on a tiny mobo (rumor is PicoITX) and youll be set for your psx box.

That sounds perfect. It was just an idea I was toying with in my head so it'd be a while before I actually tried it anyway.

Ideally I'd like to have it set up in such a way that I could still use original controllers, memory cards, and even discs. Now that would be neat.

[fastbilly1]

Controllers and disc, not a problem. Memory cards, I dont know of a way to do that. IF you could get the PS3 memory card reader to work on a pc (I havent looked into it since it came out so it might be doable), then all this could be possible. Just going to take alot of work.

[AppleQueso]

Controllers and disc, not a problem. Memory cards, I dont know of a way to do that. IF you could get the PS3 memory card reader to work on a pc (I havent looked into it since it came out so it might be doable), then all this could be possible. Just going to take alot of work.

Well like I said, it's just an idea right now.

I imagine when I'm ready to do this for real I'll be making a thread on here anyhow.

[jeffro11]

If you want this memory card to only work on the PC and emulator... You could stick a usb drive into the memory card. Make windows or whatever OS your going to use mount it as a certain drive consistently and make epsxe save memcard files to it.

Of course this would be useless, but cool!

[fastbilly1]

Well like I said, it's just an idea right now.

I imagine when I'm ready to do this for real I'll be making a thread on here anyhow.

Awesome. I always like seeing what other peoples minds cobble together. Mine is currently seeped deeply in a side project that is probably going to fail but whatever, itll be fun.