Portable Emulation on the cheap.

[PDHorror]

Hi all,

I've been into emulation for a Loooong time. I started with stuff like Nesticle and ESNES way back in the 90s and used to be on this forum a lot back in the day. However, now I have two jobs, am married and don't have a bunch of free time at home. Which brings me to my question. I still playing emus, mostly GBA, SNES and Genesis, but I just don't have time to sit and play at home, especially the time consuming RPGs that I love so much. So, I'm asking what is the cheapest and easiest way to get emus, mostly gba or snes into something portable. I know PSP looks really good for that, but I can't really afford to spend over $100 on something, only to possibly brick it by trying to install new firmware, etc. I have also been looking at buying an actual GBA (they are cheap now), but the flash carts, even the 128mb ones are are around $100 also. Is there no cheap alternative?

Thanks much in advance.

[Isildur]

I bought a used Palm Tungsten T3 a few years ago for $50, and play games using Little John PalmOS (http://www.little-john.net/), which plays NES, SNES, Gameboy/GB Color, Genesis/Megadrive, Sega Master System, Game Gear, Wonderswan/WS Color, NeoGeo Pocket/NJP Color, and Atari 2600 games.

[ToastyCheesy]

Try a GP2x F200. It may not be exactly what you want in terms of a price, but for $179.99, you get:

-Dual 200mhz ARM cpu's
-64 MB ram
-64 MB storage
-Standard SD card slot
-QVGA display (Touch screen capable)
-TV output
-Support for video, audio playback
-E book reader


Not only does it hack specially made games and software, but it has all the emulators you would expect to run on a hacked PSP.

You can pretty much find a place to play games on the go on everything now though, I found an old iPaq the other day for $7 and I was able to run some old nes games off of it, even my phone (nothing special- Samsung Beat) has a gameboy emulator for it...

[The 9th Sage]

I just use my DS for that stuff. Homebrew hardware (assuming you already have a DS) is pretty cheap, probably around $40 (and let's say at least $15 - $20, for a lower capacity SD card). Emulation of some systems is imperfect (SNES, NeoGeo). Genesis, NES, GB/GBC work pretty great (there are some other emulators, such as one for Master System that seem to work great, but I've not used them extensively). Actually, NeoGeo is pretty good too amazingly, though I don't think it supports anything but streamed audio in NeoGeo games at the moment. SNES is pretty playable (I played through games like Earthbound on it), but sometimes you need to futz around with the settings to make sure everything is visible.

As far as GBA goes, you can't emulate GBA on the NDS. If you had one of the slot-1 DS carts though, there are 'RAM packs' (such as the EZ 3-in-1) that you can use to load GBA games. I believe they are around $20 - $30...you'd need a slot-1 card first though.

[eSPy]

Im using my DS and a card as well. I have been able to play NES, SNES, gameboy (color) and even NeoGeo games on the go. Ther are heeps more emulators out there as shown on zopahr.net. I bought the Edge card and it has been easy as pie to use. no patching or formating necessary unlike most other cards. i picked it up here if you are interested http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10919

[eSPy]

just found this good wiki for emulators of all types. heres the list of emulators they have listed for DS http://www.emuwiki.com/index.php?title=Emulation_on_Nintendo_DS

[shadowdorothy]

get a Dingoo A320, it's $75 and can play games from the nes to psp. it looks like a gba micro and psp fusion type thing.

[eSPy]

get a Dingoo A320, it's $75 and can play games from the nes to psp. it looks like a gba micro and psp fusion type thing.

wow..didnt realize that it could handle PSP stuff! just found this site with some different emulator info for the dingoo http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Dingoo-scene

[The 9th Sage]

I'm skeptical about PSP stuff. There isn't even a good PSP emulator for the PC yet, let alone a portable system that isn't as powerful as higher end PCs.

[packardmelan]

A review on the Dingoo... (as translated by Babelfish) includes:

SNES
The super Nintendo emulator is unfortunately hackelig. Even if one deactivates the sound, the plays run too slowly and also with the Frameskip attitudes no real joy arises. Harm, but here still some must be optimized. RPGs or other plays, which do not have to run necessarily liquid, are however halfway playable.

-- Gee, SNES with frameskip AND sound turned off... "no real joy arises".

I'll stick with my DS Lite and R4 for now. :)

[triverse]

Just bite the bullet and get a PSP or a DS (although I prefer PSP and am biased since I only own that handheld). Everything up to SNES is pretty good (SNES you have to fiddle with settings and such to get speeds around 30 to 60 frames per second but you can do it).
If you are limiting yourself to say, Atari 2600 and Gameboy/Gameboy color then you could get away with a GBA (all of the home consoles are too 'squished' or defective to play on a GBA).
You should be able to pick up a used PSP or DS for under $100 now by the way.

[Reaper man]

If you are limiting yourself to say, Atari 2600 and Gameboy/Gameboy color then you could get away with a GBA (all of the home consoles are too 'squished' or defective to play on a GBA).

That's the same with the DS. The DS doesn't have the vertical resolution necessary to display all the horizontal lines at once.

[triverse]

That's the same with the DS. The DS doesn't have the vertical resolution necessary to display all the horizontal lines at once.

Thanks for the info Reaper Man, in that case, just get a PSP.

[Lillymon]

The resolution issue isn't as bad as it seems really, PocketNES (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PocketNES) got around it either by scaling or automatically scrolling up or down depending on the settings used. It seemed fine when I tried it, and I don't see why most SNES and Genesis games wouldn't be playable with the same solution.

[Reaper man]

The resolution issue isn't as bad as it seems really, PocketNES (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PocketNES) got around it either by scaling or automatically scrolling up or down depending on the settings used.

It still has to sacrifice something. Give me perfection, or give me death.