Every so often I’ll look at the Emulation Wiki that has a “Emulators on consoles, phones & other hardware” section and while you do hear a fair amount about people using their Xbox One for emulation I feel like you don’t hear as much about emulators on the N64 or the Dreamcast for example so it got me wondering. I have seen videos from YouTubers like Modern Vintage Gamer talking about how various consoles are viable for the purpose of emulation but I am more worried about your personal accounts.
I’ve used the Wii, PSP, and the Vita.
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I mostly used the Wii for NES games. I felt like Wiimote was perfect for use as an NES controller.
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The PSP I mostly played GBA games with Uo gpSP kai. It was a great experience. I am wary of taking emulator handhelds with me because I am concerned about damaging the screen or the analog stick(s) but that wasn’t a concern with the PSP Go and the plastic cover case I had. It really made me wish there was a sort of offline version of RetroAchievements so I could track my goals/progress on top of giving me a reason to replay my favorite classics.
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I tried to use the Vita as my exclusive go-to device for emulation for a bit but I found using just RetroArch a bit frustrating. RetroArch felt a bit slow to use especially with my large library of games and I had trouble configuring a key combination for save states and other things that felt natural to use and wouldn’t interfere with other games I was playing (ideally I would have liked to use the Playstation button as the modifier button and the shoulder buttons for save/load). The lack of dual shoulder buttons complicated this further and made playing PSX games a bit more uncomfortable. Having access to RetroArchievements was nice but I think I was spoiled by AmberELEC and how it listed achievements and had an icon in the library that listed what games do contain achievements. Improved N64/Dreamcast emulation would have likely made me play it more considering I don’t play much above that even with more modern handhelds.
My PSP Go was definitely my most used one. I’ve also mostly stuck to GBA emulation because sadly SNES emulation was subpar. There was a lot of frame skipping and audio cackling if I remember correctly. A lot of games were almost running full speed but had a lot of issues. PS1 emulation was built into the PSP and ran perfectly.
It’s a shame there was never a device that had the same form factor as the PSP Go but more powerful. That thing was literally perfect for me, the build quality was amazing and it fit comfortably in my pocket. Waking it up was instant and jumping into games was quick. The D-pad feels great. The battery life was pretty good and the screen, despite being a low resolution, was pretty high quality. I still sigh when I see it in my drawer, they just don’t make them like this anymore. I bought mine used for roughly $40 and it’s still the most premium feeling device I have.
The proprietary charging cable was also a bit annoying
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Are you using Lakka or RA within the Switch OS, or Android perhaps?
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I’m not an emulator guy, but I played PSP on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro and Pro back in… 2013-14. 1GHz, 512MB RAM or such, slide out qwerty keyboard. the games I played ran flawlessly.
Wasn’t it designed to basically be one for one with the PSP?
That’s probably the Xperia Play you are thinking of, but same times
Used my One X for a bit, but easier to just use my Shield Pro and/or gaming PC.
I know you’re looking for more „diy“ answers with active setup, but I just have to say how cool it was for me to start playing old Xbox games on the 360, when the original one broke. What I didn’t know then is that you had to purchase an expansion drive for storage, for whatever reason.
But hey, the 360 still runs, and I can play Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex, which was one of the games I grew up with.Going forward, the Steam Deck seems to be pretty damn cool for emulation. I’ve tried xemu on my PC once, so that’s what I’d likely use on the Deck, if I actually decide to buy one.
The upscaling in xemu is very nice, and ups the game to the quality you remember it being back in the day. My PC did struggle a bit though, but more than 2x scaling was pointless on a 1080p display anyway. Likely wouldn’t need any scaling on a handheld.
