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Wanting to upgrade my old hardware, time to build an Emu-box?

the_auto_tech

New member
Hey guys. This is a situation I've been trying to figure out for a long time now. I'm kind of an old school guy and still want to play a lot of my old RPG's. I've got a Wii, Xbox 360, and a slim PS2 for reference. Now, I've wanted to get back into the old Playstation 1 and SNES RPG's, but am trying to figure out the best way to do it. I've done some work with emulators and see the benefits to using them (essentially unlimited save space, portability, graphics upscaling, saving space, etc.) and have thought maybe it's time to build a laptop devoted specifically to emulation. It would be a slight investment, but I'm getting a bit tired of dealing with memory cards, tons of disc copies, a cupboard full of controllers, and the fact I can only play them at home. The upside to having the old hardware is that it maintains the "feel" of the old school stuff (putting a disc in, load times, original controllers, etc.) and is reliable with minimal work, just takes up space. I know there's quite a jump between emulating PS1-era and PS2-era and I'd love to be able to do PS2-era stuff, but if I can at least get PS1-era and back I'd be perfectly happy as that saves a ton of space in the house. So, I'm at this point.

Would you guys recommend simply building a laptop to handle PS2 era and earlier emulation as kind of an "all-in-1" setup? Maybe just shoot for PS1 and back? Thanks for the help!
 

revl8er

That Damn Good
It's going to be hard to find a laptop that can handle ps2 emulation. Most desktop pcs can't handle ps2 emulation at full speed. My pc overclocked at 4.2ghz with 2 gtx 670s sometimes slows down a bit in games such as MGS3. The problem with the emulator is that it mostly relies on processor speed and would require at least 4.5ghz.
 

Clements

Active member
Moderator
I'd recommend a desktop with a Core i processor in the 4GHz+ range for the absolute best experience with PCSX2. Laptops generally are not so good for PS2 or above emulation, due to potential cooling and throttling issues that could hurt your performance.

A lot of games can actually be played with lower end CPUs than that (I had FFX, a less demanding game, running almost fullspeed on an Athlon64 X2 2.6GHz), but if you are buying brand new you might as well go for something like the i5 3570K like revl8er has and bump up the multiplier to the 4GHz+ range. That way it will cope with the majority of games, and enables you to emulate Wii and Gamecube acceptably as well.

If you want something small, consider something like Mini-ITX set up with a BitFenix Prodigy or Lian Li Mini ITX case paired up with a Mini-ITX board like a Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 or similar.
 
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the_auto_tech

New member
Damn, I was hoping I could emulate PS2 and back using a laptop, but it looks like that isn't the case unless I spend some big money on it. So from what I can tell to emulate PS2 you need something with a 4GHz+ processor, which most laptops won't touch. RAM doesn't appear to be the issue, more so that it's the processor that you need. I guess if I have to build a small desktop I can, I was just hoping for portable.

I would prefer if I could do PS2 and back as it will allow me to get rid of a lot of my hardware and disc copies. If I only do PS1 back I'll still have a PS2 sitting around here. I guess the nice thing is that I could just have the newest systems out and not have to keep around any of the old consoles. I guess it's just time to build a desktop again. I'll just get something that will have HDMI support and a Blu-Ray drive, that way I can get rid of my Blu-Ray player as well and just use the desktop. Will make some more room in the TV stand.
 
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the_auto_tech

New member
After doing some looking around it's for sure that you'll spend a lot of money to get a laptop with a processor to remotely handle PS2 emulation. It seems like a desktop is the only way to really do it. So, I guess I'll just build another desktop. Realistically I could use one to replace my Blu-Ray DVD player, my PS2, and also use it for Netflix and downloaded content as it would work better than the X-box 360. So, let's talk desktops then.

Ideally yes, I would like something smaller as I want to fit it in my TV stand. A Mini-ITX case would be great for that. First thing I need to decide on is a motherboard as that's the base of the computer. That one you posted is very nice. I see it can take 16GB of DDR3 memory, is the proper CPU socket for a Core i5, has a decent audio ouput setup, HDMI, and has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in. Seems like a great base to start a computer on.
 

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