Nerdfather Posted December 29, 2019 Share Posted December 29, 2019 I have been wanting to create a retro device for my Living room TV, and I don't want a big setup. I could setup a small HTPC but I was just wondering what is the best hardware for running big box on a big screen tv with bluetooth controllers for ease of sitting on the couch and gaming with my kid. Is a pi worth it? A nvidia shield (I've read these are very popular these days) or should I just go the HTPC route and create buy a small chasis and mobo and get this puppy going like that? As far as emulation goes, I'm looking for more retro than newer. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted December 29, 2019 Share Posted December 29, 2019 A Pi is cheap but lack luster and lacks the power to run emulators really well. Yes, it can run some stuff acceptably but it has bad input lag. The Nvidia shield is more powerful but it only runs Android which limits your options for emulators. A PC will give you much more power than either and far more flexibility in choice of emulators. The more power you have the better emulators you can run and reduce input latency in Retroarch and Mame using the Frame Delay feature which can be very CPU hungry depending on how high you set that to. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerdfather Posted December 29, 2019 Author Share Posted December 29, 2019 Thanks for the input, I guess I'll go the HTPC route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeadVoivod Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 (edited) I bought the Intel NUC Hades Canyon mini PC, absolutely perfect, although not the cheapest if you don’t wanna spend too much. Here’s my setup. I bought a mini PC, the Hades Canyon, mainly to use with LB. The Intel NUC Hades Canyon i7-8809G is an Intel NUC Kit with 8th Generation Intel Core Processors and has a Radeon RX Vega M GH graphics (4GB, 8M Cache, up to 4.20 GHz) which supports up to 6 displays. Graphics outputs are 2x Mini-DP 1.2, 2x Thunderbolt 3, F+R HDMI 2.0a. Other connections like USB are Front: USB3, 2x USB 3.1g2 (Type A and C); Rear: 4x USB3, 2x Thunderbolt3 (USB3.1g2); INT: 2x USB2, 2x USB3, so plenty of them. Unfortunately it doesn't come with memory or storage, so I bought that separately, as memory I bought the Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2x16GB 2.666Mhz DDR4. Storage wise I bought a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD for OS, and a Crucial MX500 1TB (3D NAND, Sata M.2) for games and such. Furthermore I'm using an external 5TB for my ROMs collection for LaunchBox, which should be enough. Edited December 30, 2019 by DeadVoivod Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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