So, I had this idea a couple nights ago, for building a computer for the living room that has the sole responsibility of emulating everything from the Atari 2600 to the N64 (and MAME). I just need a video card that looks good on a 47" widescreen HDTV, and some decent USB controllers. Anybody here familiar with emulation? The last time I was actively emulating was when I was playing Neo*Geo roms on my Athlon 800 - I was fucking amazed when I got Zelda - Ocarina of Time running on a Compaq last night.
Good luck sounds pretty cool. A hospital I support uses those type of displays to display vital patient information and they use an Nvidia PCI card to run two displays spanning the desktop horizontally. I like the Nvidia's interface. I would not spend a ton of money a good pci -w-digital out should be fine I would guess. And the resolution/ refresh rates should not matter much for those games. I would be interested in knowing how it works out as I am considering something simular myself. Come to think of it you might consider a tv tuner card also and use your pc as a DVR.
There's no need in getting a decent video-card.. I have a gf4 ti 4600, and it runs everything up to n64 fine. . even in higher resolutions. . The main problem with emulators lies in the fact that you have to set up controller schemes and video modes seperately for each game .. ( specially on n64, amiga and mame. . snes and sega arent that big a problem . .) . .for a good joypad . .check out the dual firestorm pro . .(logitech i think.. ) ..oodles of buttons .. nice design. .and practically indestructable. . Also . .none of them do widescreen, if i remember correctly . .
something I noticed about Emulators, anthing stronger than a gameboy advanced is really jittery and slow, if you use a SLI vidiocard with two 256 meg cards, will it solve that issue? or is it part of the processor or ram?
Thats mostly processor related. . all the advanced stuff a console does has to be emulated (hence the name . . :shock: ) .. but cant be done with a gpu .. takes up a lot of cpu-time . .but you could trying another emulator .. which console are we talking about ?
