Outrunner

Is it quiet under full load? That was the main thing that put me off as its a lot of power in very small form factor. It does look great though and the power is perfect.

Purchased a SFF with these specs: Intel i5 4590 3.3Ghz Quad Core MSI 1050TI 4GB Low Profile 12gb RAM 240GB SSD + 2TB HDD And it plays Outrun perfectly. Would recommend anyone looking to get started in emulation or whoever wants a relatively small, quiet and cheap PC for the living room to check these out as they tick all the boxes. Getting used to Windows and its general crappiness as an OS however is another thing. Quite possibly the most user unfriendly experience ever, esp Windows Defender with its "Hai, I just deleted loads of files just because, kthanksbye!" and all of this install this driver then that driver and this update and blah blah blah. A Linux based fork of Tekno would be most welcome at some point but for now this will do.

Whats the best all in one front end for everything emulation related? CoinOps Ultimate looks real good. What do you use and why?

Thank you, that is very handy but from reading up about Tekno it works best with Nvidia GPUs so I'm going to stick to whats recommended for the simplest option. They do look great though, perfect aesthetics and size on the second one. I've been looking around and it seems repurposing old SFF is the best option overall as they are quite capable for emulation and inexpensive, quiet and relatively small. How does this spec seem please? Took your advice about the dual drives as it makes sense. Intel i5 4590 3.3Ghz Quad Core MSI 1050TI 4GB Low Profile 12gb RAM 240GB SSD + 2TB HDD It appears the graphics card can only be fitted into the black PCIe x4 slot, not the blue x16, due to there not being enough room in the case. Is that a major issue? This does seem the best option for me as they are little over the size of a console, quite quiet and very cheaply available. Not to mention how Dell make decent quality, reliable stuff. Wonder why these aren't spoken of more as I was totally unaware of this option until a few days ago Inspired by: Bonus for spec info differences:

Maybe but if they can cram everything inside a gaming laptop or Xbox then why would a PC need to be so large it can be seen from outer space? I get it, its OK for you lot who sit in your bedrooms playing games but my requirements aren't the same which is why I'm quite specific with what I outline but grateful for the help and insight you professionals provide as I know next to nothing about being PC. From what I've learned since posting this thread it seems the huge box option is what all the purists would go for because its cheaper, more durable and upgradable. The tiny quiet unobtrusive box that can be hidden away when not in use that I like is more expensive, may have cooling issues and has a fixed spec. The middle ground of those Mini PCs I've looked at seems to be a halfway house with none of the benefits of the big box whilst being not much cheaper than the small box. Looking at the spec of the small box above its actually quiet powerful and should easily handle anything I throw at it. The tech tests online about temperature and throttling seem to be OK as the fan management works pretty well and really for what I'm using it for it shouldn't be sweating anyway as I'm not pushing that much through it. That combined with the insane price jacking on graphics cards at the moment (which is something I only discovered when reading old threads and finding out people are selling year old tech at more than they paid for it due to shortages) are really making the small box seem to be the best fit for my needs. Reddit reviews on these cheap Chinese Mini PCs seem quite good as well. That said I just found this video when searching: Very interesting as you can get those machines from £100 - £250 and Dell are good quality so all in all with the extra parts its still below budget and looks reasonably decent/small.

Thanks, that makes it much easier and helps to clarify the confusion. Outrun 2 is mainly what I want to play and that natively ran on: CPU : Intel Celeron 2.8ghz GFX : NVIDIA GeForce 7600gs 256mb AGP GFX Memory : 512MB (256 bit GDDR3) Which is super low specs in a modern machine whilst I've got other folks saying you need an absolutely cutting edge, huge, sound like a turbine engine with LEDs all over the place PC just to play Pong! Is there a resource for Tekno of what supported games ran on what hardware anywhere? I had a feeling that this worked via interpretation layer and not emulation due to the shared hardware and that was why it didn't make any sense when there was such divergence. So as a rule of thumb just look up the specs of the game you want to play in TP and make sure you've got more grunt. Also following on from your other post about getting a full size PC, I really don't have the space nor inclination for that which is why I've never been a PC gamer. Believe me if I could mod a console to run TP I would, happily, as I dislike Window as an OS and all that comes with it, especially those ugly ass machines. Thats why I'm trying to find an aesthetically pleasing solution and am thinking about the HP Pavilion: As they are within my budget second hand and have the specs listed above. What is putting me off about this HP is that it apparently uses non standard parts and can't be upgraded which means I might as well buy the small Chinese box listed in the OP instead as its got a far better spec and much more agreeable form factor: CPU Intel Core i7-9850H Core 6 Cores 12 Threads, 2.6GHz, Up to 4.6GHz Cache 16M Display core NVIDIA GTX 1650 4GB (soldered on board, Can not upgrade) RAM 16GB DDR4-2666 included Hard Drives Capacity 0GB Solid State Disk Support 1* M.2 2280 SSD, (NVME 512G SSD Included) But truly there is no end when it comes to PCs, is there? There is always something faster, better, stronger, harder coming along. I use a Playstation Classic for emulation and that is tiny, instant on, no messing around and handles everything I could ever want on arcade upto a point. Getting this new machine would replace that and add Dreamcast, Tekno and PSP and possibly some PS2 but not essential. Mainly I'm dropping this cash just to play Outrun so you can see why its a bit nuts from my POV...

Thanks, both are HP Pavilions and according to what I've quickly checked online aren't upgradeable due to the OEM PSUs being a bit different and only having enough power for the standard rig. HP don't sell upgrades either. See things like this are why I don't like PC. That looks absolutely awesome, thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'd been looking at those small Alienware Alphas but apparently they have cooling issues and can get super noisy. That MSI is the kind of thing I had in mind but the prices are absolutely sky high but it comes from a branded company as opposed to no name Chinese boxes so at least you know the quality/durability will be there as thats a concern with these small boxes. If someone started punting out small HTPC sized gaming boxes that were quiet and reasonably priced they could clean up as that sector of the market seems to be being ignored.

Thanks but those options are way out of my price range plus I'd prefer not to have to build a PC, especially with how overpriced components are at the minute. Does Tekno really need that much power? I've spied a couple of second hand machines that are specced as follows: Intel Core i5-8400, 3.90GHz, 6 Cores Processor Storage 1TB 7200 RPM HDD. 16GB Intel Optane GeForce GTX 1050 2GB GDDR5 Dedicated Graphics Card Memory RAM 8GB OR: Intel Core i5-9400F, 2.90GHz, 6 Cores Processor Storage 256GB SSD for top speed GeForce GTX 1650 4GB Dedicated Graphics Card Memory RAM 8GB Both of these are within my budget and come in a regular style PC box. The main aim is to play Outrun 2 SP DX in 1080p/60FPS perfectly smoothly. I know the rest of Retroarch stuff will work perfectly anyway as its already handled by a Playstation Classic so getting a decent enough spec for Tekno is the main thing here whilst spending around £500, tops.

Thanks. The thing thats confusing for TeknoParrot is that if you look at the specs for O2 they are quite low: http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=984 And considering that TP seems to interface/overlay more than actually emulate the hardware I'd have thought an average modern system would handle it easily? The info online is quite contradictory with some saying low specs are cool and others saying you need loads of power?

I'm interested in getting a PC for living room emulation purposes, especially Teknoparrot and Outrun. Am wondering about costs/specifications and if anyone has recommendations please. From what I can glean an Intel chipset with Nvidia graphics is the way to go as I'd originally looked at a Ryzen box but apparently thats a no go. What kind of specification do I need and is there any type of machines you can recommend that are small, quiet and affordable? Budget is around £500 and I don't mind buying used. I've noticed these Chinese Mini PCs on youtube: Are they reliable and fit for purpose? Bit over my current budget as I was initially looking at Lenovo M93P: But don't think its powerful enough with Intel HD Graphics? Ideally I want to emulate upto Dreamcast/PSP/Gamecube at 1080P/60FPS with no frameskip so what do you recommend? Thanks