Maybe I‘ll mod my ps3 to make it emulate games. I heard that works pretty good.
I obviously would like to get tons of old games and since they’re not sold anywhere for a fair price, I deem it morally sound to find them.
I heard of „handheld retro gaming consoles“ which also have found games on them. Does anyone have experience with those?
Btw: Since the graphics are pretty low res, that could be a better alternative than the ps3 since the 55“ tv its hooked up to might make it look worse.
It’s just an idea at this point so I‘m happy for any direction. I figured c/retrogaming might be wrong since talking about finding unlicensed games might be against their rules. Feel free to advise me otherwise.
P.S.: Forgive the ignorance. I know my way around commandline and some medium advanced programming but I‘m not pro at sailing the high seas at all.
You should be able to, ahem, find some convinent ROM collections on most torrent indexers. A standard NES game is only ~128kb, so the whole library of games is only like 750mb. It scales exponentially with every generation as data storage improved, so the SNES library is 2gb, the N64's is 5gb, and the PS3's is 20tb. I find that I really don't need the full library of a consoles releases available, so I usually only choose maybe a hundred or two that I'm interested in, there's only so much time in the day. If you don't need a handheld device I can recommend modding your ps3, it can emulate most anything, the hombrew scene is active and there's been a lot of support for it, plus for the majority of consoles it's a full custom firmware solution, so it's a pretty seemless experience once you set it up. Plus with the internal hdd there's plenty of space for stuff. Pretty much everything up to last gen is easily pirateable, so have fun with it, it's easy once you get the hang of it.
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Thank you so much for this very informative post. I will strongly consider trying this. :)
"Emulators & ROMs" part of megathread. Think it's not worth to buy something for the roms when you can donwload them. Why not get something modern like a steamdeck or ayaneo for a true handheld experience?
Thank you! I will check it out.
The main reason is because I dont have 400 bucks (much less 1000) to burn on something nice to have atm. I could absolutely use one of my two beefy computers if need be but I figured I‘d ask what other people do.
If you an android phone you can use that too with a cheap bluetooth controller.
I recommend the Chinese handhelds too, I only have a Retroid Pocket 2 (too old), Anbernic RG351V and a Miyoo Mini V2, I only use the RG and Miyoo, the later is great for simple games/quick burst but due the lack of wifi antenna it is not possible to use Retroachivements with it... which it is possible with the RG351V, also the Anbernic has quite the better hardware without a question.
Notice all these aforementioned handhelds would only give you a pleasant experience up to PS1 (minus Saturn), so if you want a handheld that can at least give you PSP, Dreamcast and N64 I'd pick an Android based Retroid Pocket 3+ Anbernic also have some capable models for this. it is worth to mention that if you have a relative new Android phone you already have a capable emulator with you all time, you'd only need a holder or a telescopic joystick to enjoy an almost endless library of games (despite having a PSP I finished Persona 3 Portable with my phone and a Razer Kishi controller).
Thank you very much! I will check your suggestion out! The anbernic handhelds look very cool.
Loving my Ayn Odin. With little effort it will handle up to PS2 and will even handle some Wii and 3DS games. Form factor is comfortable. I'm really happy with the retro experience on it.
No problem, check out RetroGameCorp on YouTube for reviews of handhelds, as well as guides. There was also a (hate to say the r word) reddit thread that had some great sources for roms too.
Thank you again. Will check the reviews out. And don't worry, we're slowly easing off our former favorite drug. ;)
Whatever alternative you're offered, I don't think it's worth spending more than $50 on an emulator console. (This is the maximum make sense price for any hardware that can emulate old consoles up to PS3).
I will keep that in mind. Thank you very much. Always good to get a reality check on prices.
Linus Tech Tips covered some options about a month ago. The one with the SATA drive cartridge slot got my interest a bit.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=51foBSsRpJk
I watched this video actually. Thats how I got the idea initially. Might check it out again for details. Thanks for mentioning it.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=51foBSsRpJk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
If you want a handheld, Anbernic makes some good stuff. https://anbernic.com/ They do tend to load the SD card up with games beforehand, but the card is cheap & likely to fail, and the games are sorted & titled strangely (and may be otherwise dodgy). So you probably want to replace it with your own card with games you sourced yourself.
This looks very cool! Which one of these do you have? How modern games are you able to play with it? Is ps3 possible or rather not?
I have an RG353V. I got that one for ~the aesthetic~ (looks like an old gameboy), and I do like it, but I can see why people generally suggest a model with a horizontal form factor instead, since the vertical (gameboy shaped) is not very ergonomic. I mainly stick to 8 or 16-bit games. but it should be able to handle 5th gen consoles (saturn, ps, n64) just fine, but 6th gen (dc, ps2, gamecube) will depend on what game you're running and may require tweaking the settings. ps3 is right out, I'm afraid.
Like I said, I mainly run older stuff, so double check what I'm saying if 5th and 6th gen games are important to you. I don't really mess with those.
Thank you very much! I will definitely check it out. 5th gen would be awesome but 6th gen is very much optional. :)
