System For BigBox - Advice Needed

[onyx]

Hi everyone. 

I have been a regular user of launchbox on my desktop but plan to setup a bigbox system for my tv. 

I have a HP 260 G1 mini pc with an i3-4030u processor, 4gb DDR3L ram and a 1tb drive. I plan to plug this into my 27 inch TV and I will be using systems such as arcade and cartridge base systems. 

Will this system be sufficient or is there anything that will greatly improve performance in bigbox such as more ram or an ssd drive to replace the mechanical drive.

Also, will this system be able to go further to play ps2 / dreamcaset games should I decide to use it in the future?

Thanks 

Jon

 

 

[DOS76]

I think that i3 will be adequate to run BB maybe with out all of the bells and whistles but I would recommend upgrading to at least 8GB of RAM if not more.

[neil9000]

I would suggest more ram, 4GB really is too low, windows can use that much itself, then you would have Bigbox and the Emulator on top of that. As for running PS2, Dreamcast you would probably want a GPU for them, you may get away with native resolution on them but that is a low end CPU, so it may struggle.

[DOS76]

yeah missed the part about PS2 and DC and unfortunately I don't think they will run very well on that CPU.

[onyx]

8gb it is. I'll stick with arcade and cartridge based systems (and cassette obviously, can't leave attic attack out!) 

My issue is that I read that not many mini systems are adequate for big box, but i guess they are the systems that have the lower end J and Celeron processors. 

Thanks for the input. 

If I were to swap the 1tb drive for a 500gb ssd and then have roms or box art directed to a USB stick via USB 3.0 would I see any improvement or would it be a waste of time / money? 

[neil9000]

3 minutes ago, onyx said:

8gb it is. I'll stick with arcade and cartridge based systems (and cassette obviously, can't leave attic attack out!) 

My issue is that I read that not many mini systems are adequate for big box, but i guess they are the systems that have the lower end J and Celeron processors. 

Thanks for the input. 

If I were to swap the 1tb drive for a 500gb ssd and then have roms or box art directed to a USB stick via USB 3.0 would I see any improvement or would it be a waste of time / money? 

Roms on the USB drive should be fine as long as its a half decent drive with good read/writes, i would advise against storing images there and keep them on the SSD. Bigbox is fetching/displaying/discarding images all the time so i wouldnt want those on a thumb stick.

[Lordmonkus]

It's not the size of the system but what is in it.

More ram which has been stated already helps, a GPU also helps and a big hit to performance when people complain about it is running a media intensive theme which puts a big load on the system. Use a lightweight theme and reducing image quality to medium will help it out a lot.

[bman83]

Hi All,

My thoughts are go for as much ram and you can afford and put in your mobo. You can always use more ram. Plus, you need enough to run

- OS

- BIGBOX

- EMULATOR

 

Once you have done that you're good