Dream Gaming System

[showty]

Hi everyone.

I've started up a project I've dreamed of doing for a long long time, and thats to built the ultimate, most user friendly homemade games console ever. All of my favourite console games stored on a mammoth HDD, including all the best from NES, SNES, Sega MegaDrive, PS, N64 and so on.

My problem is now what operating system to use on this beast. The idea is that using some sort of frontend app, I'll be able to scroll through the ROM list with a controller, and each game launches the appropriate emulator via command line jumping straight into the game. With Windows I'm guaranteed all the emulators I need, the problem is with Linux. I really want to use Linux for this thing, but there just aren't any N64 emus that work well. Mupen runs Mario 64 with difficulty and none of the Windows ones run well under wine (except Project64 but without sound).

Does anyone know what I can do to get most systems emulating on this PC of mine? I really want to make this dream a reality.. on Linux too :)

[Hobo Joe]

Well, i know ZSNES will run all your super nintendo ones, but I'm not sure about N64...

[tgm4883]

It's more than you need, but if you install mythtv and the mythgame plugin it will do exactly what you want

[hikaricore]

what type of video card are you using?

this would possibly explain issues with mupen64.

[MonkeyBoy]

I have been investigating the possibility of making a MAME/JAMMA machine which it sounds like you might want to make too. If you google you will find loads of different howtos and different OS choices. There is actually a DOS based OS purely for this type of project but i forget its name right now.

Linux is a much better choice than windows for the frontend of your project purely for ease of customisation.

I played all through Mario 64 on Mupen and found it fine. You should be able to sort that problem out.

This link (http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/menu-readme.html) may be of interest.

[lakersforce]

You should make a thumbnail picture with the cover art of each game. That would really look nice and professional.

[showty]

It's more than you need, but if you install mythtv and the mythgame plugin it will do exactly what you want
Yes, and this is exactly why I want to use Linux. Far more flexible (as someone else mentioned) than Windows.

MonkeyBoy; yes I got Mario 64 running with slowdown at certain areas and minor graphical glitches, but couldn't get even Zelda OoT running, and thats a must have :)

You should make a thumbnail picture with the cover art of each game. That would really look nice and professional.
Yeah, thats the idea! :)
I'm really excited about it for this reason, it'll be so awesome once I've got four high quality wireless gamepads hooked up to it as well so I can play split screen with friends :D

[hikaricore]

what type of video card are you using?

this would possibly explain issues with mupen64.

I got Mario 64 running with slowdown at certain areas and minor graphical glitches, but couldn't get even Zelda OoT running, and thats a must have :)

:P I can run Oot smoothly on a pentium 2.6ghz using an nvidia 6200 PCI card. So I'm asuming something's not right in your HW or driver setup. Also did you try using a less powerhungry video output plugin than the default?

[showty]

I tried virtually every plugin and I couldn't get the text to appear in OoT, or get Mario running perfectly. Sorry, it didn't actually lag, just not display things properly (my bad :P)

Graphics card is a Radeon 9600XT with the latest fglrx drivers installed. Runs UT2004 fine, Deus Ex under Wine, Sauerbraten etc etc. Will most likely be using a higher powered Nvidia card for the final PC though. If not I might have to use a Radeon 9250 or a GeForce 2 MX.