Portable running off of emulators?

[DrizzT]

Is it possible? I'm sure many people have thought of it, but really what would it take to make a portable system that we could insert a flash drive and run emulators off of?


And before anyone makes a comment saying "u r dum i h8 u" just remember... I don't care.

[Harshboy]

u r dum i h8 u

[palmertech]

I have one, a GP2X with internal USB host port. Works perfectly.

I have been meaning to put it in a case with a new 5" screen, but keep putting it off. Check out my photobucket.com album "palmertech" for pics, they are there somewhere.

Would a GP2X do it?

[DrizzT]

I have one, a GP2X with internal USB host port. Works perfectly.

I have been meaning to put it in a case with a new 5" screen, but keep putting it off. Check out my photobucket.com album "palmertech" for pics, they are there somewhere.

Would a GP2X do it?

So about what did it take you cost wise to make it? Would I just be better off making one out of an existing n64 I have?

[palmertech]

Making one out of an N64 is WAY more expensive, and also impossible.

Well, a GP2X runs about $60-100 on ebay, depending on condition and accessories. From there, you COULD just use an SD card for emulators and roms. If you want to use a USB stick, you need to mod it with a powered USB host drive slot, I could make a simple tutorial if needed.

If you want a bigger than 3.5" screen, you will also need a PSone LCD, a battery, and some case materials+bits and bobs.

Total cost for GP2X with SD card slot, unmodded: $80, maybe

Total cost for modded USB and bigger screen GP2X: About $150

Total cost of experiance from building a REAL portable: priceless.

If USB is not important, I would actually have to suggest just getting a PSP.

[cennar]

u r dum i h8 u

now that's talking down to the kid/being one your self. you should take a long look at those GPs any kind you can get your hands on would be a cool thing to mod with. might help your rep as a beginner and every thing. Also Game boys, DSs and PSPs have home brew emulators that might be up your alley and easier to find. GBAs and DSs have a few choices of flash carts to order from far away hongkong. any way best of luck on the GP2x if you can find an expendable one.

[Triton]

<3 gp2x. fun to mod too!

[DrizzT]

Wow, I learned so much just from reading posts from the 3 days i've been here.

[grossaffe]

Palmer and I were talking about a pico ITX witj emulators the other day. efefective: probalbyh. cheap. not really. Drunk: I am.

[cennar]

yeah those dc-dcs look easy to strip down too. better than those Nanos and Mini ITXs that would have ending up the size of a mobile VCR.

how much like 140 200 tops for a board, some busted Ipod for a drive, a 20-60 dollar ide conector. The PSU and battery must be about 150. every thing else is scrap. still about 420.00 or so to make. but then thats a speedy emulator DVD player wifi jacked handheld.

[Sparkfist]

Using something like the Nano-ITX board you could make a pretty small fairly powerful emulation machine. Their designed to be low power, their the same size, if not smaller, then a 4x4 Atari. The only thing that could discurage any of you is that the Nanos go for about $350+.

grossaffe, the pico sounds cool. I'd like to hear what idea you have for it hardware wise. I kind of figure you'd guys would be loading up either a custom build of XP (mame style) or a Linux distro built for emulators (mame possibly). And a nice flash drive would be fine for running the OS and possibly games off of it, maybe a little slow.

GP2X, is nice. It's what CronoTriggerfan bought.... I think. Anyways the they loved the machine and the ease in changing emulators and games. Keep an eye out there are different models. It would be best to do some research on what you want before just going after one and getting something that has only half of the features you were looking for.

-Sparkfist

[ShockSlayer]

I'd just(Correction: I did) build a gamecube portable with a built in SD card slot and run everything pre gamecube on it.

There, I win.

SS

[grossaffe]

Using something like the Nano-ITX board you could make a pretty small fairly powerful emulation machine. Their designed to be low power, their the same size, if not smaller, then a 4x4 Atari. The only thing that could discurage any of you is that the Nanos go for about $350+.

grossaffe, the pico sounds cool. I'd like to hear what idea you have for it hardware wise. I kind of figure you'd guys would be loading up either a custom build of XP (mame style) or a Linux distro built for emulators (mame possibly). And a nice flash drive would be fine for running the OS and possibly games off of it, maybe a little slow.

-Sparkfist

It was just pipe-dreams at that point. I was thinking a Linux distro with a graphical front-end set to load up on boot designed to run the emulators. I'd probably keep it to 16-bit emulation or somewhere around there, though, because those pico ITX machines aren't too powerful.

edit: I think palmer and I came to the conclusion that for size v. price, the nano was the better option to go with. Still not a cheap operation, though.

[gamerjr]

Whats the fun of making a portable that just emulates the games... For all of the portables with an exception like the Dreamcast just start your own collection of games.

[bicostp]

My Dell Axim x30 PDA runs Gameboy, GBA, NES, SNES, Genesis, 8086 PC, and some really old MAME games pretty well.

The only problem is the controls. 4 buttons with a rectangular D-pad in the middle. It works well enough.

I want the x50v. It's got a better screen (640x480 as opposed to 320x240), better processor (600-something mhz), hardware 3D acceleration (probably a port of Quake III, too), and VGA output.