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Diskeater
07-14-2004, 08:33 PM
I've decided to go ahead and start work on a project thats been kicking around inside my head for about a year now.

The idea is to build the "ultimate gaming machine," or a computer with every game from the NES up to the N64 on it. Ideally, I would like the computer to auto-boot into a type of frontend that lists all available games so that any of them can be accessed rather easily.

But first, the hardware:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-170-006&depa=0 Albatron KM18G PRO 2.0 mobo </a>
http://www.pcavailable.com/web/index.aspx?pid=1523&cid=3 Antec Aria Case </a>
AMD Athlon 1800+
WD 80 gb hard drive
512 megs of RAM
Basic CD-ROM

My motherboard of choice had to meet two requirements: It had to be AMD-based and it had to support TV-OUT.

If anyone has any hardware suggestions, please let me know.

Also, I would love to dump the CD-ROM and just do a network install of an OS. Thing is, I'm really not sure what OS to get. Like I said, I would love to have the system boot up into a preconfigured frontend for all the games on the computer but I'm not sure exactly how to do that.

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Reaper man
07-14-2004, 09:43 PM
> AMD Athlon 1800+


won't you need more juice for some N64 games (like perfect dark?)

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IceWolf20
07-14-2004, 10:54 PM
> Also, I would love to dump the CD-ROM and just do a network
> install of an OS. Thing is, I'm really not sure what OS to
> get. Like I said, I would love to have the system boot up
> into a preconfigured frontend for all the games on the
> computer but I'm not sure exactly how to do that.

I would try using your favorite Linux distro, and write a shell script to auto launch a "menu" system that would give you a listing of emulators and the available games for each. Unfortunatly, I'm not sure how good console emulators are for linux (what with video and sound). You could probably write something in C++ using FLTK to generate a GUI menuing system that would launch the rom with the emulator of choice. If you'd rather stick to C, you may be able to hack the kernel and write a device that would handle the management....but that would probably be pretty elaborate. It may not be possible to do a direct boot to the menu, but I'm sure with whatever distro you use, it could be coerced into launching your menu system rather than KDE or GNOME (or whatever).

As for a windows environment.....I dont know much about windows programming, but I'd imagine that you could whip up something in Visual Studio (.NET) with visual BASIC or something of the sort. It probably would be a bit tougher to get a standalone windows app to run solely without windows trying to run the show, but it may be possible.

Dunno....just some suggestions to throw out there....good luck!


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Diskeater
07-15-2004, 02:57 AM
> won't you need more juice for some N64 games (like perfect
> dark?)

I can't even run Perfect Dark on my Athlon 2800+.

No matter, I'm sure it would run fine but I actually didn't like Perfect Dark all that much.


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Diskeater
07-15-2004, 03:38 AM
Yeah, I was afraid of that. I have very very little Linux experience. While it would be damn cool for the computer to autoboot like that, I think I might just bite the bullet and stick XP on there.

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Diskeater
07-15-2004, 03:41 AM
Wish I could edit my original post but I can't.

I was considering whether or not I really need 512 megs of RAM. I could probably get away with 256 megs and that would drop the cost of the system by about $35.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but that would make the total cost around $300-$315.

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Fla Flash
07-15-2004, 08:20 AM
Gakk.
XP? Nope. Linux? Nope.
Try DOS.
You could boot to Quikmenu and have just the icons for the different gaming systems there.

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Diskeater
07-15-2004, 08:54 AM
Except there are no decent N64 emulators for DOS.

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Lobster Cowboy
07-15-2004, 09:55 AM
i think as far as OSes go, if you want the greatest compatibility, you should go with windows 2000

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Fla Flash
07-15-2004, 10:41 AM
That's true. But click on the quikmenu "N64" icon and it reboots in XP or whichever os you need to run it.
You can fool with the autoexec.bat as you need to open the emulator directly from there. <img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>

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Diskeater
07-16-2004, 07:20 AM
> i think as far as OSes go, if you want the greatest
> compatibility, you should go with windows 2000

I'll try it out. Now I just need to figure out how to do a network install of the OS.

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