Hardware

[Rexxar]

hello, I would like to know what hardware I need to move bigbox smoothly. I want to use shaders with mame and emulate up to gamecube, not beyond. I have thought about an i3 12100f and 8gb of ram (I don't know if 4 gb would be enough), the gpu I don't know what it would be. Let's see if you can enlighten me with this. a greeting

Edited August 16, 2022 by Rexxar

[neil9000]

4GB is not enough RAM, even 8GB is debatable these days, 16GB is much more common and recommended, Windows itself uses a lot and then Launchbox/Bigbox stores a ton of images to RAM too. i3 is "probably" OK, but i would go with a i5 personally. As for a GPU you dont state if you want to upscale systems like PS1 and gamecube as that is all it will be used for, any system that isnt 3D wont use a GPU at all, shaders will use a GPU, but unless you are using something like the megabezel shaders (which are retroarch only) then most shaders are relatively light and dont need much in the way of a GPU.

[Rexxar]

ok very well, regarding the systems I want to emulate everything up to the 6th generation of consoles (gamecube, ps1 and 2, xbox, Dreamcast, etc) what are the portable ones then up to the nintendo DS and little more. I have a GPU Ati Radeon R7 2400 2gb (Would this GPU?) and as I said I have in mind the i3 series 12 (I have spoken very well of it and above is a good price) but I would also look at the i5 (what model would it be?). I'm not going to play in 4k or high resolutions, that's why I'm not sure about the components, as the resolutions I'm going to use are no higher than 1280x1024.

[skizzosjt]

6 hours ago, Rexxar said:

ok very well, regarding the systems I want to emulate everything up to the 6th generation of consoles (gamecube, ps1 and 2, xbox, Dreamcast, etc) what are the portable ones then up to the nintendo DS and little more. I have a GPU Ati Radeon R7 2400 2gb (Would this GPU?) and as I said I have in mind the i3 series 12 (I have spoken very well of it and above is a good price) but I would also look at the i5 (what model would it be?). I'm not going to play in 4k or high resolutions, that's why I'm not sure about the components, as the resolutions I'm going to use are no higher than 1280x1024.

 

 

Intel's core CPU nomenclature is pretty easy to understand. Bigger # = more power = higher cost. Assuming all comparing is done between the same generational release. You cannot use that same train of thought if you wanted to compare or choose between i7-2770 and i3-12300 for example. because most will go "i7 is better than i5 and way better than i3 so I'll get the i7-2700 of course!" not having any clue that it was released over 11 years ago and performs like it's an 11yr old CPU by today's standards lol. i3 / i5 / i7 / i9 is easy to understand. The 2nd bit of #'s is the specific SKU and designate what generation it's from. 2700 being 2nd gen and 12300 being 12th gen. Also, making sure you know what the F means in their CPU names....It means there is no iGPU! (integrated GPU) Which means you NEED to have a dGPU (discrete GPU) installed or you will have a great time staring at a blank screen lol. So if you really were hellbent on getting the i3-12100f you NEED to have installed a GPU. The one you mentioned is a bit ancient in itself also. Not that it means it's not a good fit, but might want to check into compatibility. It might not work on a newer motherboard because the VBIOS of the GPU might only work on legacy/BIOS systems as opposed to modern ones with UEFI. A new CPU needs a new motherboard, and compatible RAM which after a quick check looks like 12100f is compatible with both DDR4 or DDR5, so will give you more options in both the motherboard and RAM department! It sounds like you're considering building a system from scratch for emulation. So it would be a good time to ask, have you thought about all these considerations? If not I am sure there is several more that need to be considered too.