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ITT-We build the smallest/ portable Hyperspin build.


LSDguy

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Hello all,

Cyber Monday is upon us. Lots of gear is going on sale with free shipping. I pose this question to you: How can we build the smallest/best functioning portable hyperspin setup that can connect to any tv and use any available xbox 360 or PS3 controllers in any household?

How can we do this, with roughly 100-150 dollars? Have something snappy, cool and small that can be moved from house to house easily?

*Note* The system should mainly run old cartridge based systems. Disc based systems would be out of the question for this build.

This is just an open ended brainstorm. Just something I might pursue.

Steve

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You can create a mini-itx rig that is capable of running nearly as well as any PC these days relatively inexpensive. Once you start getting into stuff smaller than mini-itx, this is where the performance drop is seen. the Intel NUC line is possibly the highest end tiny form factor PC you can get but their crappiest models start at around $150. Then there are Nano and Pico-ITX solutions from companies like Jetway, Zotac's ZBox line etc.

Simple cartridge based systems, even with modern emulators can play nearly perfectly using very very old hardware. Mame and hyperspin are far more dependent on higher clock speeds of more modern hardware than they are GPU performance (in which most cases nearly nothing is used) so higher clock speed CPUs are an important factor. You just have to keep in mind that the smaller the device is the lower the performance scale tends to be lately so beware of what you ask for.

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You can create a mini-itx rig that is capable of running nearly as well as any PC these days relatively inexpensive. Once you start getting into stuff smaller than mini-itx, this is where the performance drop is seen. the Intel NUC line is possibly the highest end tiny form factor PC you can get but their crappiest models start at around $150. Then there are Nano and Pico-ITX solutions from companies like Jetway, Zotac's ZBox line etc.

Simple cartridge based systems, even with modern emulators can play nearly perfectly using very very old hardware. Mame and hyperspin are far more dependent on higher clock speeds of more modern hardware than they are GPU performance (in which most cases nearly nothing is used) so higher clock speed CPUs are an important factor. You just have to keep in mind that the smaller the device is the lower the performance scale tends to be lately so beware of what you ask for.

Love this, can you post a picture of those intel NUC SYSTEMS. I'm not looking for performance, just the running of cartridge based systems and mame (minus the higher end 3d games) on a small tiny box that can be transported super super easily. And be duplicated easily is needed. Any more thoughts?

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since you are looking to buy, amazon and newegg have images and product descriptions of the latest i3 NUC

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-D54250WYK1-i5-4250U-Processor-Power/dp/B00H3YT8CC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102053

Only problem with the latest generation NUC is that the i3 units do not seem to have any turbo frequency adjustments. The last gen models (at least the i5 i saw) could scale from 1.8ghz to 2.6ghz. I've seen mame run just fine on the i5 last gen NUC but never saw hyperspin running on it. This is why i really can't give you a definitive answer on which small setup to simply buy.

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That was a great post. Now where can we get a NUC style case, and break it down to its components. Hyperspin can run on win 7, with 2 gigs of ram and a pentium anniversary processor. For only cartridge based systems. But the above post is definetly similar to what I'm thinking. Not just to simply buy but to build. What do you think? Anyone know of a super small case, mobo and cheap ram for a build like that?

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That was a great post. Now where can we get a NUC style case, and break it down to its components. Hyperspin can run on win 7, with 2 gigs of ram and a pentium anniversary processor. For only cartridge based systems. But the above post is definetly similar to what I'm thinking. Not just to simply buy but to build. What do you think? Anyone know of a super small case, mobo and cheap ram for a build like that?

As jeremy0203 said, NUC systems are not generic units. They are completely custom form factors and cases. If you actually want to build yourself a system, it may be in your best interest to look into some mini-itx form factor stuff.

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[YOUTUBE HD][/YOUTUBE HD]

There's an idea an old Mac mini, can I set it up to boot straight to hyperspin

Oh yea. Just set the windows partition to be the startup OS and shell HS as you normally would.

The processors are decently healthy core2 duos, like I still have mine even though it's in storage but it's clocked at 2.53 ghz with Nvidia 9400m graphics, but if you run a software OC utility you can get them to at or just over 3 ghz which is plenty for what you wanna do.

Pick up 2 white 360 rf pads and you have a nice little setup that matches, plus able to play up to DC...IF you use NullDc...not sure how Demul would run.

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Great post brother! Did you see this by any chance? http://www.amazon.com/ECS-Elitegroup-BAT-Mini-1-0-Desktop/dp/B00KX93WQW

I was thinking running this, windows 8, and have high capacity USB stick with hyperspin. Furthermore it comes with a Bluetooth card that could be used with the proper drivers to detect xbox 360. Controllers. This would be super cheap and portAble. What are your thoughts? I want it to work with anyone's controller wherever I go. No dongle, I also heard there was an easier way to use ps3 controllers now. Thoughts?

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