Want a Cheap Gaming Console with Loads of Games? PS2.
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There's a program called FMCB which is installed on a PS2 Memory Card, but if you're unable to make one yourself then you can buy it on eBay (£5ish for a 64MB card with FMCB). After that, you can play your own PS2, SNES, Mega Drive, etc backups through a USB stick.
Yes, this is technically piracy, but if you're okay with it, then games is something you'd have plenty of.
Wii is another console that gets pirated a lot, so you can choose either one as they're easy to use. GameCube on the other hand is kinda hard to hack, I assume.
The original xbox is the king of emulator boxes I think. You can stick a large hard drive in and put tons of emulators and original xbox games on it all accessed via an easy menu. It can emulate up to PSX and N64 at full speed for some games. Where there are versions of games for PS2 and gamecube/wii as well as original xbox the xbox version is most likely the best version. It has true 5.1 sound too and some of the emulators are full speed at 720p or 1080i.
Nowadays I guess the best emulator boxes are probably a small box PC running a Ryzen chip with integrated GPU something like the Athlon 3000G. I think that can emulate up to wii u levels although not sure of this. You could probably make such a box for £200-250 possibly less than £200 if you sourced everything as cheaply as possible, amazon warehouse, ebay auctions etc. Just make sure you use 2x2GB memory or 2x4GB to make sure dual channel memory is working, it kills performance if you only have single channel memory. The Athlon 3000G is unlocked for both cpu and gpu so you can run it well above stock clocks.
Emulating N64 at full speed with audio is sometimes even an issue for modern devices too. I mean, you can play it, but it's not as enjoyable as playing it properly.
I wish Nintendo would remake Mario 64. The camera takes some getting used to.
Rockman N64 emulation has always been a bit weird, I remember emulating the N64 on a 300mhz Pentium system using a emulator called UltraHLE I think and it did a good job of emulating a few N64 games at full speed but most wouldn't work. If Nintendo bring out a classic N64 console it will be hard to resist at Christmas. I can play NES and SNES perfectly on many devices but N64 is still far from perfect on most devices plus you need a proper N64 controller or the full experience.
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