Apartment living for the modern gamer?

[Metalcrack]

I want to start a thread on tips/tricks to get maximum gaming enjoyment in an apartment setting (could apply too a small room too). Obviously, apartment living puts a damper on some aspects of gaming, including having to limit volumes, amount of gear setup versus space available, room setup and the like.
Some tips I have to share are:

1. Good/great pair of headphones. If you can run your setup through an a/v receiver, you should easily be able to use a quality pair of headphones to not only keep peace with the neighbors, but also enhance your gaming experience. I use a pair of Grado SR60s, which aren't super cheap, but at $60.00 are THE entry can into the world of hi-fi sound (backed up by numerous reviews). I also use them at my listening center (PC with all my music on it).

2. If you do not use a console, put it away. I use plastic bins to separate systems, games, controllers and cables by console. this keeps the clutter down to a minimum, and the Wife happy (in my case). If you do have an urge to play that one game, you can easily find it by looking at the neatly labeled bins....right?

3. If you have multiple TVs, have multiple gaming setups. Our main TV is HD ready, and sizable, so only the newest systems are hooked up/played there. Xbox 1 and my 360 are setup there, and GCN, Dreamcast and PS2 are ready to be played there (cables in a drawer). In my bedroom I have a SDTV that is perfect to play the PS2, Dreamcast and Saturn (Thanks for the mod chip Racketboy) etc. on, as it has S-Video, and composite for NES and SMS systems. I use a wire rack made for consoles in there to give me a little more room (although a gamer didn't design it as top-loading systems are a pain to use).

4. An audio pier or bookshelf is a great way to be able to have maximum consoles setup versus floor space used. You can run an unlimited number of cables behind it, and several consoles stacked onto the shelves.

5. Racketboy had an excellent article on seating, so I won't mention much here accept to integrate your current seating to maximize gaming (although if you actually watch TV or movies, it's prolly already setup). I also have a portable/foldup gaming chair that I use periodically, but for the most part just sits around. Please see http://www.racketboy.com/gamerooms/2007 ... hairs.html for some great ideas/alternatives.

6. The fewer cords the better! I like to use wireless controllers when possible to keep unsightly cables to a minimum. Many companies have made controllers for us retro gamers to maximize comfort and convenience. NES, Atari 2600, and I believe even my beloved Genesis have wireless controllers available (probably IR, but better than none I guess).

If anyone else has some ideas or tips please share them!

[pixelbender]

I'll just share my setup with everyone (I'm in a smaller apt).

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In my family room, I have my Xbox, Dreamcast, 360, and Wii hooked up to my 42" plasma. For me, if it does 480p that is the cuttoff for this TV. I have all these systems hooked up to my Onkyo 7.1 receiver. I plan on modding my DC for digital output soon, and the only one without it will be the Wii.

In our small second bedroom, where my fiance and I each have desks, I have a small 2 shelf cabinet with a 20" CRT tv (s-video inputs) on top, with my NES, SNES, Genesis, Saturn, and N64. These systems actually look best (well, at least look good and most authentic) on the smaller 20" CRT being played closer to the television.
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In both rooms I have shoe holders that hang on the back of closets in each room, so I can store my controllers and accessories in them. In the family room, all of my games are in 2 large (200+) cd case books that I keep in my tv stand (a HUGE antique dresser that had the legs cut off and drawers removed and the fronts modified to flip outward). In the other room, collectable or less-played games are in clear plastic bins in the top of my closet. I plan on building a custom shelf for those cartridges I do play soon.
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In terms of sound I have the surround sound in the family room, and its ok. The bedroom (office) stuff just runs through the TV, which is ok for me. I have Grado SR-80s that I guess I could hook up late at night in the family room, its just that I need to find wireless DC controllers and everything in this room will be wireless, and I hate to add wires at that point.
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For seating in the family room we have a leather sofa with reclining parts on each end (this is a Godsend!). In my office I'm just gaming from my (admittedly crappy) computer chair. I also can hook up anything to my Dell LCD via the video inputs (my Mac takes the DVI, but the rest are free) but it just doesn't do the old systems justice.
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I would really like to find a halfway decent quality Dreamcast wireless controller setup and my family room would be all wireless. I also have the option of playing the older systems emulated on my Xbox (wirelessly), but the real thing is just so much better.

[RadarScope1]

Metalcrack - which kind of wireless NES controllers are you using? Are they the ones from Messiah? If so, what are your impressions? I've been looking for someone to give me an honest evaluation of the these pads because I want to check them out. I am fighting a war against wires. If I can go wireless in ANY way in my gaming, I will do it, but not at the expense of precise control.

[diehllane]

I've got a few different NES wireless options. I have the satellite (works okay), Freedom Connection (probably the best wireless I have ever used), and I used to own some of the Acclaim Wireless controllers (worked pretty good)

[Metalcrack]

I personally don't have the NES controllers, but like I said the are prolly IR (infrared, relying an direct sight of sender/receiver, think of remote controls, not Xbox 360 or blue tooth). This might hinder performance. The only after-market wireless I've bought was for the original Xbox, which had about 100 positive reviews. The Messiah kit looks quality, but I'm not sold on the d-pad.

[gradualmeltdown]

Headphones :

You are right. The Grado SR60's are possibly the best bang for the buck in any price range. They sound almost as good as headphones that cost several hundred dollars. I use them for producing in hotel rooms on the road.

My favorite headphones without a headphone amp are the Sennheiser HD 595 or 580's. These cans sound nearly as good as the 600/650's at a 3rd of the price. The 595's are a little bright and have a small background grain due to their highly detailed performance. You can hear wind instruments pads and valves so you'd expect some underlying grain! I prefer the 580's due to their low end response and better performance for electronic music and hip-hop. I'd say for home theatre they would be great, but lack a little detail from the 595's or 600's. Both sets of cans are between $200-300

Then there are the AKG K 701's. These blow my other cans away! The only issue is to really hear them sound better than the others listed you will need a heaphone amp. These phones have a low sensitivity level even though they ahve a 62-ohm impedance rating. It might have to do with all the crazy things they did with the diphrams and voice coils to create such good dynamic response. I plan on buying a pair as soon as possible. I can damn near mix and master on these instead of using nearfield studio monitors!

[otaku]

I live in a house but have room mates. I just crammed all my stuff in my room (one tube tv 27inch) and all my systems on a little entertainment cart. Can't play though much after they go to bed and no headphones. Kinda cramped and messy to obviously

[lordofduct]

I'm a music crazy boy, and have gone deaf in my years of music pleasure... headphones just bug me, so I constructed weird ways to get gaming pleasure in tiny little places when I used to live from apartment to apartment.


1) When apartment hunting I literally went looking for two things:
---1 - Can I walk through the front door with my TV and not be afraid my neighbors are going to shoot me and steal it
---2 - Is the apartment near the end of the building with at least one room not along a wall with a neighbor

2) due to lack of space usually because I lived in a tiny little dive, or I had 20 some odd roommates, my game room was located in my bedroom. When I was moved out of my parents house when I was like 16 or something I moved into my friends house and slept on this little love seat in his bedroom; it was falling apart and the most comfortable thing I've ever slept on. I would bring this from house to house and stick it in the middle of my room.

Behind that would go my bed and in front of that along an entire wall I'd set up my TV and ALLLLLL my games. I would make sure it was the wall that no neighbors were against, and even then I'd pad it with egg shell cartons (not pretty, but I was 18, high on coke, really drunk, and not really caring much).

3) I bought this satellite speaker set up and screwed the bastards into the couch... it was nice as it created a really nice surround sound effect when I was playing games AND and blocked the sound from going anywhere else!

4) I also blocked up the windows with foam padding and the sort... I worked graveyard shift, so light annoyed the hell out of me! This also blocked a lot of sound as well.

and yey, I could blast my music all night. I also made sure to explain to my neighbors my very bizarre hours and the sort... when they noticed I was some 18 year old punk with 3 jobs and in school they usually didn't mind all to much, at least I wasn't some piece of shit who robbed them and raped their children.



Funny thing about that whole walk through the front door with out being shot thing. So I grew up in a very small town in Connecticut on a farm. We never locked our door, my grandmother even believed that if you are too stupid to walk through a door then you're too stupid to visit our home. Even after I moved out of CT this tradition held, I was always in a big family or living with a lot of room mates.

Even today I have several room mates (reminds me of family, whom a good deal have now died), there is always someone at home and we don't lock our doors most of the time. Why, you walk in my house you are greeted by 5 guys, some guns, a Pit Bull and a lot of anger if we don't know you. We also live in a pretty good part of town, not a lot of crime here.

But right down the street it turns in to crack town... good ol' Florida is great for this! You don't even have to turn a corner for your street to turn into crack town with in a mile... the crackers know there side of the street and don't come to ours... and vice versa.

Well one of my room mates was hanging at a friends down the street in the bad part of town and convinced him that we don't lock our doors when some one is home, why the hell should YOU have too. Ummm, cause you have hookers up stairs and a crack house across the way maybe...

anyways, they stopped locking up. 2 Guys walk right into their house one night, shot gun in hand, and proceeded to rob the guys right in front of them. damn it...

kicker of the story, they go to take all their videogames! One of the guys living there says... and I'm not lying.

"Dude, it's Christmas this week... could you just not take the XBOX360!?"

They left the 360... yep, took the money, PS2, other games, jewelery, beer, a lot... left the 360!

moral of the story: Lock your fucking doors even though your crazy friend with 80 bajillion big angry room mates and an arsenal of guns doesn't.

[molotovwars]

Dude, it's Christmas this week... could you just not take the XBOX360!?

priceless