[taalas]

Hi everyone,

I am currently thinking about adding game console emulation to my living room HTPC. I have planned to build a MAME arcade for some years now, even planned the cabinet already and built the necessary USB adapters for legacy gamepads, since I don't have the time currently I won't be finishing it any time soon.

For a quick game of old NES games I'd really try to use the HTPC for now, starting with 2 XBOX 360 controllers (I do have the Windows BT adapter).

So, I just wanted to ask if anyone could give me some advice on the following points (I am trying to achieve a good implementation with XBMC):

- What do I use to start the games (ROM Collection Browser?)
- Do people prefer to use single emulators (ZSNES, etc...) for each system or multi-emulators (like Mednafen). I tend towards Mednafen because it would minimize the programs needed, no experience though with that program yet...
- Do these emulators have problems loading the rom data from an SMB share, that is not mounted (accessing these through a network path)
- Anything else I shoudl be thinking about?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated...

thanks

taalas

[Tomkun]

Hi there.

I am also really into my emulator gaming, so I will share with you my experiences. At the end of the day, it's all up to you though!

1. I use Rom Collection Browser and it works great for my needs. I did try Advanced Launcher but found it very confusing and time consuming to set up. I don't know whether that has changed recently, so it may be worth another look.

2. I use whatever is best for the systems I am emulating. The beauty of using a frontend like RCB is that you never really see behind the scenes once it is all set up so using single or multi emulators makes no difference.

3. I don't use an SMB share myself but I believe that while there were issues with RCB and SMB shares, they are resolved now. You should ask in the RCB thread.

4.a. Consider using another program such as EventGhost or AutoHotKey that will enable you to quit emulators easily with a single keypress to return you to XBMC.
4.b. Bear in mind that your controllers need to be turned on before you start the emulators or they may not be recognised.
4.c. Have fun and if you have any more questions feel free to ask!

[teeedubb]

I use RCB to launch my games, tried AL but I never like it. I really dig the auto downloading of artwork and RCB's ability to be configured. Mednafen is a great emulator and I use it for everything it supports, even its alpha psx support is better than anything Ive used. I use eventghost to close running emulators from my harmony remote and can control xbmc using 360 controller, here is the xml file I found on these forums to configure the controller to work with xbmc

[taalas]

Thank you both for sharing your experiences, many good points so far, that already helps alot deciding how to implement what i would like to achieve...

[taalas]

Just a quick follow-up:

RCB looks very promising and seems to be able to handle SMB paths without problems.

I did some preliminary testing of emulators (though not of the respective SMB support yet) and Mednafen looks very promising. I will most likely use this for all supported systems. Only system that's not working at 100% satisfaction is SNES, which some odd sound crackles at times and a slight input lag. For N64 Project64 seems like a good bet, not checked if it works from commandline. Same goes for Dolphin, very impressed with their progress in the last years, haven't checked commandline support.

Having EventGhost or similar software to quit emulation is a good point. I do have a small BT keyboard lying in the living room as a fall back, but would really like to be able to be completely keyboard free.

[bmn001]

So you really have two options, and it sounds like you've found them both already: Rom Collection Browser and Advanced Launcher.

If you're a "completist" and you've got thousands of roms, both of these add-ons will choke hard, *especially* over a network share. They'll both get super-sluggish and crashy. Consider paring down the list of roms to like your "top 20" for each system and they should work much better.

Another issue with having thousands or even hundreds of roms - neither add-on lets you download metadata/artwork in the background, so you can expect XBMC to be unusable for a few hours while those tasks complete.

[newoski]

If you have a big collection, look into HyperSpin.

It's the XBMC-quality front-end for games. I launch it from xbmc

[taalas]

@bmn001:

I do have quite extensive sets of roms and at least will trim these down to specific regions (no need to have same games from multiple regions on there), but you have a very valid point there. Still these sets will contain quite a lot of roms. I might start with only the games I am interested in. The artwork scraping I am less worried about...the machine can sit there and download for a couple hours if needed...

@nekowski:

good point. I do know HyperSpin coming from a MAME background and think it is quite nice. Years ago, when I was more active building said arcade setup I purchased a license of (other arcade-frontend I can't remember right now), but I remember that I came back to HyperSpin years later and regretted not getting that in the first place. The reason I wanted to include the chooser directly into XBMC is the aim for a very homogenous solution. It's a very good idea though, I will give HyperSpin another look.

[newoski]

HyperSpin is free

I launch it from XBMC using Executor.

It opens.clean, launches games. And then when o close it, XBMC opens fullscreen again.

[taalas]

@nekowski:

I read in the emulator thread that you use the original systems's controllers. Do you use the originals with an USB adapter, originals retrofitted for USB or USB rebuilds? I have read very mixed reviews about the last group, many people say most are very cheap copies, are there any you can recommend? I do have most of the original controllers (non-USB) and was trying to decide between options.