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[Niku]

So for a brief time I was considering the rigamarole of building a MAME cabinet because I thought it would be kind of awesome before logistics set in about actually having a stand-up cab and the fact that I was never a huge arcade gamer to begin with, yadda yadda.  But the idea didn't really go away, so much as it just kinda festered under the surface.  So now I am strongly considering doing an NES PC mod to load it up with console emulators, and I've been cross referencing various guides and completed projects to try to steal my favorite things from each one to make a mod box.  Unfortunately, this is complicated by a few things, namely that I have no dremel or soldering experience at all, and most of the projects I've used for reference are anywhere between a year and four years old and so I'd feel like a heel e-mailing random people with YO HOW YOU DO THIS.

Anyway the basic idea as it stands is: mini itx motherboard with S-Video out, with the S-Video wired to the original A/V ports on the NES.  A SSD to keep down on heat and moving parts.  Some retro-zone USB converters to hack apart and wire up to the NES controller ports so original NES controllers and accessories can be used.  A flip out / hidden USB hub that I am totally stealing the idea of for plugging in other USB controllers for SNES or Genesis emulation and so on.  Jam the sucker open, cut out some stuff, maybe slide some holes into the grill on top for ventilation purposes, and then MAGIC and then it all works.  Mostly I am posting this so people can go HOLY FUCK SON YOU'RE RETARDED GET SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING or give me beginners tips on all of this stuff, but I'm still at the spitballing and poking around phase rather than the buying anything at all phase.  Load it up with a front end (I really like the Hyper-Spin front end which is kinda cheesy but also looks way nicer than a plain-ass menu) to boot to and have it putting out through S-Video to Composite cables and I think it would be a fun emu-box without the horror of actually having a full MAME cab.

[Brentai]

Haven't they come out with kits for this sort of thing yet?

Anyway unless I missed something there it sounds like you're just setting up a dedicated box with a complicated retro controller > USB input scheme.  Figure out the frontend and you're three-fourths of the way there.

[Niku]

Haven't they come out with kits for this sort of thing yet?

Anyway unless I missed something there it sounds like you're just setting up a dedicated box with a complicated retro controller > USB input scheme.  Figure out the frontend and you're three-fourths of the way there.

Well I am also cramming it all into an NES, which is where the soldering and dremeling comes in.  I've slapped together PC parts before but this is still more wiring than I've done before at the same time.  Basically combining ideas from this:

Retro NES Gaming PC - Stealth Edition

with ideas from this:

NES PC Build Project - Part 3

to hopefully end up with an emulation box that is ready to go and plug in on old TVs and the like and have good looking emulation without the extra sharpness of all this newfangled HD bullshit.

[Bongo Bill]

How much space do you have inside the NES for all of the parts that will go into this? You should have little difficulty fitting a mini-ITX motherboard in there with a GPU that has the kind of outputs you require. Emulators are not GPU-intensive, unless you're planning on throwing a Playstation emulator in there as well, so if you can find one that has the necessary functionality integrated, that'll be even better, possibly enabling you to eschew active cooling.

Don't hesitate to discreetly mutilate parts of the case if it'll save you some wiring.

[Romosome]

I have a half-built cab that's sat there unfinished for years now and still no idea where it'd go when finished

[Thad]

I'm not sure S-Video is worth it; it's really a pretty terrible standard.  Fragile as hell (I don't know how many cables I had to replace over the years because I bent a pin or ran over the cable with my chair) and not well-supported.  I assume you're using it because you already have a CRT TV with an S-Video in, yes?  If so then yes, 16-bit games (and 32- and 64-, if you intend to play those too, and movies) will look noticeably better with S-Video (until you manage to inevitably damage the cable somehow), but NES games will probably look worse.

Otherwise, if you're planning on hooking it up to a modern TV, forget S-Video and use VGA or DVI.  (DVI->HDMI adapters are a couple bucks at monoprice.com, and indeed that's pretty much where you want to go for any kind of media cable.)  Of course, at that point ALL your old games are going to start looking pretty crummy, but if you run emulators with Blargg's NTSC filter for graphics (and the biggest-name ones -- Nestopia, SNES9X, Fusion -- have it baked in) that's the next best thing.

Also, using the original controllers makes for some definite bragging rights, but also a whole lot of plugging/unplugging controllers.  Frankly my OG SNES controllers aren't in the best of shape anymore from all these years of wear, and of course since the SNES layout has defined standard controllers for the past several generations there are plenty of PC controllers you can get that work great for SNES games.  (I'm partial to Logitech, but an Xbox 360 controller will do the job just fine too.)  NES is a bit dicier; I've got my Wii Remotes working via a Bluetooth adapter and a couple of programs but I wouldn't recommend it.  And Genesis controllers -- well, I've yet to find a controller with 6 face buttons that works well for Genesis emulation.  (As I've mentioned elsewhere, you'd think Mad Catz's SF4 fightpads would do the job, but they're too floaty; they're great for games designed for an 8-directional stick, but not so much for ones designed for a pad.)

Don't know much from soldering/Dremeling; you'll want some practice before you start hacking away on your NES.

I have a half-built cab that's sat there unfinished for years now and still no idea where it'd go when finished

Aw, too bad; that thing's a beaut.  I still tell people about that, and how that's what I'd build if I were serious about this shit.

Instead I ultimately wound up building a standard mid-tower case and hooking it up to my TV.  I use XBMC, which is pretty great as a media frontend but not something I'd necessarily recommend for games.  There's a plugin called xbmc-emulator-plugin or somesuch; it gets the job done as a launcher but requires a whole lot of fiddling for the metadata not to be terrible.  (This is largely because -- MAME aside -- games don't generally have well-designed, consistent, scraper-appropriate metadata sites like movies and TV shows do.)

[Brentai]

Most modern TVs still support coax and composite, which are really the standard for older (and current, if Sony's packaging practices are any indication) consoles.  It's not too difficult to find a video adapter that'll output to one of those.

Went back and read the part about wiring into the NES's original A/V ports, which I don't know how/if that works but okay.  I'm gonna have to say if that's a thing that somebody has posted instructions for, follow those instructions.  Otherwise just rip that crap out and output from a video adapter with coax.

[Thad]

Well, I mean, if you're using the original composite connectors then you're using the original composite connectors and presumably the only reason you're using S-video in the first place is that's what the video out on the MB is.

First of all, the trouble with using the original output jacks on the NES is that they're mono.  I imagine you'll want stereo sound for emulating consoles that are capable of it.  I suppose you could use the two side jacks for stereo sound and the rear jack (which was for the coax adapter but, if memory serves, used an RCA connector) for video but that seems a little silly.  Or I suppose if your MB and TV (or stereo system) both support that single-cable RCA-connector digital audio standard then you could use that, but it seems like a bit of overkill.

[Brentai]

It sounds like it'd be better to go with a SNES mod if you're going to cobble existing hardware, but I've heard SNES hardware is super-complicated.  Genesis?

[Thad]

Well, the NES is a big empty box so it's the easiest to put a computer inside.  I'd just say forget about using the built-in A/V ports.  But then, sticking a PC in a gutted NES isn't a project I'd be into in the first place, so obviously YMMV.

[Niku]

It sounds like it'd be better to go with a SNES mod if you're going to cobble existing hardware, but I've heard SNES hardware is super-complicated.  Genesis?

Well, the NES is a big empty box so it's the easiest to put a computer inside.  I'd just say forget about using the built-in A/V ports.  But then, sticking a PC in a gutted NES isn't a project I'd be into in the first place, so obviously YMMV.

This mostly.  The SNES is goddamn insane to shove other parts inside of, and part of this is the general nostalgia factor of having a mostly intact NES box outputting the stuff as well as having a project to work on to fiddle around with learning wiring and the like. 

I suppose you could use the two side jacks for stereo sound and the rear jack (which was for the coax adapter but, if memory serves, used an RCA connector) for video but that seems a little silly.

The built-in A/V ports are an idea from one of the stealth mods I was looking at that, if I remember right, used both of the side ports for the stereo output while using the RF port around back for the video like you say.  I could be wrong on that, but it is why I was looking at the rewiring of the S-Video.  Plus, having original controllers is a genuinely big thing for me because right now I am really tired of playing old games with a Dual Shock or a WiiMote, which is total personal preference.  Of course, I could just go ahead and get the RetroZone controllers and hook them up to my Wii anyway, but then I wouldn't be overcomplicating playing old games in the first place.

I guess basically my goal is:
Emulation output that doesn't look terrible in THIS MODERN HD WORLD (I might play around with the NTSC filter and see how that looks)
Original controllers for NES and SNES, possibly Genesis as well
Making the exterior of the box still look as much like an original NES as possible.  Hacking the back out for the motherboard plate and running HDMI out of it is honestly the EASIEST solution, but then, building a media box would be the easiest one of them all.  I might actually do that to begin with just to get the whole front end up and running properly before I try cramming it into an NES anyhow.

[Brentai]

NTSC Filter is really your only chance of making older games look right on an HD television.  Those games were designed for displays with different PIXELS; you can't make them look the same without some render-time trickery.

[Royal☭]

Retro Gaming PC in an NES on Instructables

Got an emptied NES lying around that echidna gave me a long time ago, but haven't had a chance to plug stuff into it. That one has a goal of being able to plug into an HD TV or monitor, which is something that honestly doesn't bother me. Plus with that it's easy to modify to play a wide spectrum of games and devices, including up to MAME and PS1.

Honestly, dream project would be to build a PC that looks like BMO.


As far as controllers go, USB NES controllers are like $10 so just you know. But that only handles NES games, obvs, but like Thaddeus said, there's no shortage of applicable USB controllers for various needs.'

Instructable about turning an SNES into a gaming PC

[Niku]

Honestly, dream project would be to build a PC that looks like BMO.

Okay, new goal.

[Lottel]

I remember seeing a project where you turn a gameboy into BMO. controller, face, and everything.

[Royal☭]

Yeah, that's actually on Instructables as well.  My goal, however, would be to make it a fully capable emulator box. Which is also more expensive, since an LCD screen around 4-5" in size is like 100+.

[Thad]

As far as controllers go, USB NES controllers are like $10 so just you know.

How come it says "dogbone style" and shows a picture of a standard rectangle controller?

But that only handles NES games, obvs

Well, any game that only needs two face buttons, really.  SMS, Game Gear, Game Boy/Color, a whole lot of MAME games, or, for that matter, a whole lot of Genesis and GBA games, too.

(Hell, most RPG's are three-button affairs -- Accept, Cancel, and Menu.  That means you can play them OG Final Fantasy style, with Menu on Start.  Remember how you could play the original Suikoden with only your left hand, using Select for menu and L1/L2 for Accept/Cancel?)

[Brentai]

For that matter, map one of the Genesis face buttons to Select.  Unless you're playing Ranger-X, Eternal Champions or a Street Fighter port, you're probably covered.

[Thad]

Well, a lot of the brawlers use A for a secondary attack.  If it's a special then you're probably safe mapping it to Select, but if it's something you actually want to alternate with your standard attack (eg A/B as punch/kick -- or, hell, shoot/whip in EWJ) then that won't work so well.

[Thad]

So for those interested in the authentic controller experience, Retrode goes one better, with ports for unmodified SNES and Genesis controllers AND cartridges.