Preloaded emulation drives on Amazon

D

Ducman69

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jul 12, 2007
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I'm too lazy to curate my own bunch of roms and emulators and want to just pickup something turn key to plug into my existing HTPC setup.

I'm concerned about malware and see some have horrible interfaces with games that are half buggy or duplicates or jacked controls, and others that seem pretty polished. I'd prefer less with a really nice looking interface where every game just works; quality over quantity.

I have a pair of 8bit Dio ultimate controllers already.

Any experience with these, good, bad, ugly?

Edit: I think I may have answered my own question, that they aren't worth it. In this video they are talking about free to download packages like "coinops legends 2 bit wars" that's turn-key with a best-of-the-best retro platforms. Not an endorsement though, since I don't have anything more to go by than the video.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1fsjxNXwPc
 
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I asked the same question here a while back and never got an answer. I don't have an issue curating my own collections, I just have never figured out how to get arcade ROMs to work.
 
Ducman69 said:
I'm too lazy to curate my own bunch of roms and emulators and want to just pickup something turn key to plug into my existing HTPC setup.

I'm concerned about malware and see some have horrible interfaces with games that are half buggy or duplicates or jacked controls, and others that seem pretty polished. I'd prefer less with a really nice looking interface where every game just works; quality over quantity.

I have a pair of 8bit Dio ultimate controllers already.

Any experience with these, good, bad, ugly?

Edit: I think I may have answered my own question, that they aren't worth it. In this video they are talking about free to download packages like "coinops legends 2 bit wars" that's turn-key with a best-of-the-best retro platforms. Not an endorsement though, since I don't have anything more to go by than the video.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1fsjxNXwPc
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sure, if you dont already have a pc. but as your edit shows, if youve got one they are pointless.


Armenius said:
I asked the same question here a while back and never got an answer. I don't have an issue curating my own collections, I just have never figured out how to get arcade ROMs to work.
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what "arcade roms", thats very vague. mame will handle most and teknoparrot does a bunch of pc based arcades games.
 
There is a site with every Rom that is Free but I forget the name since it was like 10 years ago.

Front Ends are just the program that Runs the set of Roms on Mame. I hardly play Arcade games anymore I tested them out with my OLED monitor far better experience than any LCD.

I'm pretty sure alot of games out there are still broken.
 
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Armenius said:
I asked the same question here a while back and never got an answer. I don't have an issue curating my own collections, I just have never figured out how to get arcade ROMs to work.
Click to expand...

Just put the Zip Files in the Roms folder you can have them zipped up and they will still read. Then click on the EXE not sure if Mame 32 is still out there. Looking around there is a Mame x32 and Mame x64.
 
pendragon1 said:
what "arcade roms", thats very vague. mame will handle most and teknoparrot does a bunch of pc based arcades games.
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I can't remember them all, as I've tried numerous ones over the years. It's supposed to be as simple as unzipping the directory structure, but MAME or FBN are never able to recognize them.
 
Comixbooks said:
There is a site with every Rom that is Free but I forget the name since it was like 10 years ago.

Front Ends are just the program that Runs the set of Roms on Mame. I hardly play Arcade games anymore I tested them out with my OLED monitor far better experience than any LCD.

I'm pretty sure alot of games out there are still broken.
Click to expand...
There is value in having someone put on the front end for you, has all the right emulators preinstalled, ensures all the games loaded actually work with the right names and what not organized, that the controls work, and so forth.

I wasn't talking about the standalone emulator PCs that they sell though, but rather just the preloaded often 2TB hard drives where it just has the single launcher to worry about and everything just works. I see them on sale for about $85 where you just plug it in via USB, double-click the launcher, and you're gaming when you're feeling a bit nostalgic. If you're on a 1TB per month data cap, that is two months worth of internet usage alone as well to consider.

That said, since we know this stuff is all likely coming from China, I do wonder if maybe it makes more sense to have a standalone system that is offline though, as it would be a lot more secure in case there is some malware hidden in there. I have an old Ryzen 7 1700X microATX computer in the kitchen with a GTX 1050 that is long overdue to be retired, and while ancient I bet that is plenty for turning into a little offline emulator box. 🤔
 
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