Reliving my childhood, emulation style

[Mabu]

I've been thinking lately about building a rig for myself to be used primarily for emulating some older consoles, up through and including the original Playstation (PSX), and hooking it up to an older CRT that I have kicking around. Would love for it to be small form factor, wireless internet, and be as quiet and use as little power as possible. Also, I may eventually decide to use the rig in an arcade cab, but it'll be used in one of my spare rooms for now.

I don't have an actual budget at the moment, as I'm really just trying to get an idea of how much I need to spend to emulate the PSX flawlessly. While I definitely know that I don't need much horsepower at all, I have no idea how much I actually do need.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
See above - primary purpose is for running some old console emulators up to the PSX.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
None at the moment - trying to get an idea on how much I need to spend.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
CT, USA. Sadly, the closest Microcenter to me is up by Boston, a good 2+ hours away.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need. Case (preferably SFF), Mobo (micro ATX?), PSU, CPU, RAM, DVD drive, GPU (if necessary)

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I have a spare Samsung Spinpoint F3 1tb HDD that I could use. Also have all the accessories that I need, such as KB, mouse, gamepads, speakers, etc.

6) Will you be overclocking?
No

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
It's an old 19" NEC CRT that's capable of 2048x1536 I think, but I will probably run the emulators in something like 1024x768 or 1152x864, or maybe 1600x1200.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
No set date yet, just trying to get a feel for everything at the moment

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
Onboard wireless would be nice, but a discrete wireless card could would do the trick as well

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I have a 32-bit XP license that I could use to save myself a few bucks, as I don't think I need Win7 for my purposes

Thanks very much in advance!

 

[engiNURD]

Looks like a cheap/used Core2Duo setup would work just fine. If you want new, then go with AMD.

 

[plugwash]

CPU

If you want quiet and low power while still having good performance i'd be looking at the dual core sandy bridge chips. No they aren't quiet as cheap as AMD chips or older tech Intel chips but IMO the low power consumption makes up for that especially if the machine will be running most of the time.

You can pick up a dual core 2.4 GHz SB chipfor under $60

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116409

Microcenter were doing some crazy deals on i3 + mobo combos a while back but these seem to have ended.

Case (preferably SFF), Mobo (micro ATX?),

You could go either micro-atx or mini-itx. Micro-atx has more expansion slots and was traditionally cheaper. Mini-itx is obviously smaller.

If you go Mini-itx you should almost certainly get a board with onboard wifi to keep the slot free for future graphics upgrades.

If you go SB then don't worry too much about chipsets, any of H61, H67, Z68 etc will be fine (P67 doesn't have integrated graphics so I would avoid that one)

Cases are quite a personally thing and I don't really follow the market so i'm not making any specific case recommendation.

PSU,

Depends on your case choice.

, RAM,

Just pick up a 2x2GB set of basic DDR3.

DVD drive

There doesn't seem to be much differentiation in these nowadays. I'd probablly just pick up the cheapest one from a brand i'd heard of.

GPU (if necessary)

I strongly suspect that the integrated GPU in a SB processor will be more than enough. You can always add a GPU later if needed.

 

[Mabu]

Just got the lights back on here in the NE, and finally checking up on my thread!

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Few questions though:

CPU/GPU - How are the 3D graphics capabilities of those low-end SB chips? I know that my oooold Pentium III at 1.8ghz combined with a GeForce 7600GS AGP card wasn't enough to max out epsxe (the PSX emulator of choice) at 1024x768, but my next upgrade of E8400 + Radeon 4850 handled it with ease with all the eye-candy cranked up. While I realize that was a huuuuuuuuuge gap in terms of processing, I really do not know if a low-end SB CPU on its own would be enough to max things out.

PSU/Case - Many of the mini ITX cases I've been looking at from Rosewill and Apex come with PSUs. Any idea on the quality of these? Here's one for example: APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply
. Would that be enough to handle everything, including a low-end GPU if I need to add one?

 

[engiNURD]

Low quality PSUs included in most of those ITX cases. Consider replacing with a better quality unit.

As for the GPU capabilities, the Intel HD 3000 is no where near the level of a Radeon HD4850 for gaming. So, you'll want a discrete card if thats the level of performance you require. Unfortunately, I have no idea what epsxe requires, sorry.

 

[Gomar]

I have Atari2600, Coleco, SAGA, PS, C64 emulators. MAME etc.
some games work, some dont. It's fun to look back, but playing 8-bit games is a headache.

 

[Adzsask]

Matx mobo, 8GB of ripjaws RAM,sandy bridge G620 pentium, GTX 560 GPU,500watt PSU,and case of your choice (been using the coolermaster elite series mid towers for my recent budget builds, very good quality)

 

[Mabu]

Here's what I've been able to come up with so far:

187.99 - Combo of Intel Pentium G620 Sandy Bridge CPU, BIOSTAR H61MU3 LGA 1155 Intel H61 mobo, Rosewill R363-M-BK MicroATX case, and G.SKILL Value Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333. That deal basically gets me the ram for free.

42.99 after MIR - XFX Radeon 5670

39.99 after MIRAntec EarthWatts Green EA-380D 380w PSU

No onboard WIFI on that mobo, but shouldn't be a problem. I could also just grab any old $20 optical drive as well.

How does that all look?

 

[Adzsask]

That looks great(toss in another stick of RAM it is dirt cheap), I have built several g620/asrockH61/210GT vid card matx rigs this year, these are a little quicker then my old rigs I built people (4GB 1066 DDR2, q9400 quad @ 3.8,8400GS, ATX ASUS p45 mobo) and the wattage these things pull from the wall is funny (max CPU temp 50C with stock cooler, under 20 watts idle, under 100 watts full load)
http://www.antonline.com/p_CMPSU-430CXV2-PG_893073.htm?sID=PG
That is the PSU I have been using, well worth the extra few $ for modular, also a very solid and well reviewed unit.

 

[illram]

What gamepads are you using? I used to have a PS2 adapter utility but it was a PITA and frequently crashed my system. I have Xbox controllers that work for certain new PC games but they don't work with everything and seem dependent on the game specifically supporting them. Any suggestions?

As for hardware, can you just reuse that 4850 in your new build? It will more than handle any emulator you throw at it, I think. If not that 5670 should be plenty. I have that in an old e6600 rig of mine and it runs old games (Bioshock, COD4, Borderlands) flawlessly and should handle emulators with ease.

 

[Mabu]

@Adzsask - Thanks for that tip on the Corsair PSU. It looks Newegg has a $20 MIR for it as well, making it even cheaper than the link you posted, though it's currently out of stock.

@illram - I have a TON of gamepads that I could use - XBOX360, PS1/PS2/Gamecube/N64 (including the legendary Adaptoid) all via USB adapters, some Logitech dual analog pads, an xbobx360 arcade stick that I modded with some Sanwa/Seimitsu parts, a couple of old Thrustmaster/Guillemot pads, et al. Though my primary pad will likely be a PS1 dualshock connected via an old Radio Shack USB adapter. I've had that combo in my main rig for about 8 years now, and it's been rock-solid.

As for recommendations, that Radio Shack adapter is pretty much the best there is, but they've been out of production for years now and are all but impossible to get a hold of. Same goes for the batch of PS1 Dualshocks that were in production around the time that the PSOne was released, which was the last revision of the PS1 hardware.

I've had good luck with this adapter so far, using standard Gamecube and PS2 contollers.

Also, I no longer own the 4850, as I passed it along to a buddy of mine when I upgraded to a 5850 couple of years ago. I'm thinking the 5670 should be enough horsepower to do the trick.