Is the PSP still the best bang for your buck portable emu...

[Sarge]

Yeah, it's really old tech now. Really old for the smartphone world. I'm guessing you could buy a random $50 smartphone and blow it out of the water now. I mean, my parents got some cheapy Samsung Galaxy Express smartphones, and I'd be willing to wager they'd handle SNES and GBA like a champ, even if the resolution of the screens is nothing to write home about (800x480).

Plus, the benefit to not using a Vita and going with Android is that you won't have to hack it to get stuff on there. You could also look at a cheap tablet with a Switch-like contraption for controls, or if you wanted to go expensive, go with an NVidia Shield.

[Exhuminator]

XD's Dpad sucks and is in a really dumb spot (for retro games). Refuse to pay money to play 8 and 16 bit games with an analog stick.

Well here's what I use for portable emulation gaming:



It does a fantastic job from NES all the way to PS1, the Android emulators I use are perfecto.

Keep in mind I only play turn based JRPGs and SRPGs on it, so touch input is not a problem. However, if I wanted to play action games I'd just get one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IM ... 293HIUAW1A

There may be something better out there, but a solid smartphone works well enough for me these days.

[Jagosaurus]

Following this thread. I had my full size 16 inch screen laptop with a buffalo SNES USB controller in the bed last night as I winded down. Playing some Mario Bros 3. . More portable than the Virtual Boy! I need to get something a bit smaller.

I was recently considering a PSP also, but decided to go Android or with a smaller laptop. I do really dig how the PSP can run .isos of PSP & PS1 games as mentioned though.

I'm a big android fan but I like the idea that I can also use a small Windows laptop for other retro related softmod projects, moving ROM files to SD flash carts, DLing and unzipping full ROM sets, organizing my ROM/.iso archive, FTPing files to modded consoles, etc, etc. I think I want a "this is my retro emulation and retro tinkering laptop" machine, but I still want it relatively portable for emulation on the go.

For $50 I'm still open to the Android route as a dedicated portable device. This would also give me access to the Google Play games which is a plus. I'd have to use a bluetooth controller which does make all these options a bit less portable. I also won't do it on my main phone. I hate playing a game and getting a phone call. It would be a secondary device.

I have been eyeing this 11 inch Windows 10 laptop (or something similar) as a recommendation from another community member:
https://www.amazon.com/HP-Stream-11-y01 ... b_title_ce

Not sure how that processor would handle all 5th gen titles, but reportedly it does run them. Of course you'd be fine from 2600 through 16 bit CD consoles which would be my main focus. It supports bluetooth & USB controllers. With only 32GB of flash storage, I'd be loading selecting ROMs I am playing at that time on the machine and keeping my USB drive close by.

@Sarge, you mentioned PSTV. There are some cheap Andorid TV boxes running Retro Arc well out there. I like the idea of one tiny box with a pre-installed GUI for YouTube, Netflix, .MKV movie playback, and retro emulators. This is a project I might eventually get into. I'm leaning more towards this than a Retro Pi.

[fastbilly1]

Android burner and a FC30 and you have a much more capable system, though a bit clunky. Retroarch is in the Playstore which handles most things. Or you can go with one of the many one off emulators like myboy and NES.emu.

Retroarch is not good about cheats and you will have random issues with some disc based games, but most of them have documented workarounds. I beat FF7 with no issue on Retroarch, but FF8 has an issue with the first fight I never figured out how to fix.

Ontop of that being that you have the Playstore you might be able to run Playstore titles. You know like all the Square Enix rpgs they ported over.

[Exhuminator]

I do really dig how the PSP can run .isos of PSP & PS1 games as mentioned though.

The PSP is pretty ideal for portable PS1 emulation (after all, it's built right in), I use my PSPs to play PS1 games often. That said, the Android version of ePSXe does a very good job.

[Sarge]

Yeah, that's the one thing the PSP/Vita nails. Almost perfect PSX emulation, owing to the similar CPU architecture. It's not perfect (Mega Man Legends lags in spots where it doesn't on actual hardware), but that's really the only big thing I've detected.

Well, that, and having to use different POPS versions for certain games.

[Jagosaurus]

@billy, I've been looking into Retro Arc a bit recently. The Adroid TV boxes I mentioned before seem to run it well. Am I understanding right that there is a mednafen core also? Then Retro Arc is essentially a front end for mednafen at that point (versus command line & drag n drop)?

I'd be interested to see how that works because all the cores I've seen so far have been system specific by emulator. I know on oXbox I do have mednafen releases that are system specific. Is that how mednafen is within Retro Arc or can you essentially chose any applicable ROM (ever ) from that single core?

@exh, So what do you do for PS1 dual shock games versus dpad?

@Sarge, Cool. I didn't know the PSP used POPS for this. I'm a big fan of using POPS on my modded PS2 for PS1 .isos. The compatibility runs about 80% on the PS2. Is it similar or better on PSP? Sounds like you have to run specific POPS releases depending on game. Interestingx I've only ever tried the latest POPS release for PS2.

[Exhuminator]

@exh, So what do you do for PS1 dual shock games versus dpad?

With the PSP I just remap the controls to something that works. I mostly play SRPGs on my PSP, so needing dual shock controls is a non-issue.

[ADingoAteMyBaby]

My go to emulation machine is the Original Xbox with Coinops 8 installed and tons of other stand-alone emulators. Over 7,000+ games on mine as we speak. My second choice would be a modded Wii.

[SuperDerpBro]

My go to emulation machine is the Original Xbox with Coinops 8 installed and tons of other stand-alone emulators. Over 7,000+ games on mine as we speak. My second choice would be a modded Wii.

Super portable!