Emulator box - Dual Core Atom 330

[vulcan500rider]

Hi all!

I'm considering putting together an emulator box based around this Atom/Motherboard, with 1GB RAM: NCIX.com - Buy Intel BOXD945GCLF2 MINI-ITX DDR2 945GC Dual Core Atom 1PCI Motherboard Retail - BOXD945GCLF2 In Canada.

It has a GMA 950 built in, which I was planning on using as the sole GPU.

Is there any reason that this system might not be sufficient for NES, SNES, Genesis, and perhaps even N64 emulation?

Also, can anyone suggest a small PSU to power this? All it would have to handle is the mobo/cpu, DVD drive, and a single HD.


Thanks!

[enaberif]

nes, snes, and genesis will be fine. But N64 not a hope.

Even a top end system like mine cannot properly play N64 at a decent speed.

[vulcan500rider]

Really? I had it running on my Opteron 165 without too much of a problem...Which emulator were you using?

That said, I suspect you're right about the Atom and the N64 emu...<sigh> Oh well. Even NES, SNES, and Gen will be a pretty good start.

[belgolas]

On my old Q6600 at stock I had no problem running N64 games with even AA and it was always above 60FPS. On a side note I really recommend getting the premier partnership at NCIX. Especially if you buy a lot of stuff. One item I saved $100 (although could price match to save $50 so one item was 1/3 of the partnership)

[ipaine]

I'm just wondering but why would a Atom not work fine? I'll admit I have only been playing with the nes, snes emulators but I took a look and found project64 for the N64 and its requirements seem low enough:

• Pentium III 600 Mhz or better
• 128 Mb. RAM or more
• Fast video card with 16 Mb. Video RAM or more
• Windows 95/98/Me
• DirectX 6.0 (latest version of DirectX recommended

So really I'm not sure why it would not work. And then you can use something like Mamewah as a frontend that can switch in between the different emulators.

[vulcan500rider]

Thanks, Begolas; I was a premier partner once upon a time, but I find I'm just not ordering as much from there anymore...I really just don't have the cash.

Thanks to you too, ipaine. I guess I should have probably just looked up the requirements for project64, but my bigger problem is that I just don't know what the atom cpu/gpu combo is capable of. I think it's a 1.6ghz clock speed, but that never tells the entire story, does it? I've also heard that it's equivalent to a Pentium M, but again that means fairly little to me; I haven't been able to find anything that compares it to either an Athalon 64, or a C2D, which are the two most recent processor types I've worked with. That said, I guess it doesn't really matter too much--if it doesn't play N64 games, I'm not that fussed, and if it does, I guess it's a bonus...As long as it plays the other emus, I'm happy.

[belgolas]

I would guess that atom dual core should be more then enough for N64.

[JD]

I think a dual core Atom would be plenty...

My mom's netbook (single core Atom) can run 720p MKV video just fine which I'm guessing is more demanding than N64.

If you really want to be safe, put the emulator + rom onto a USB drive and head down to a store that has netbooks on display. Run it and see, if it works on a single core atom, the dual will be perfectly fine.

[ipaine]

hmmm, you know what you want a answer I can find out for you. I have a eeePC with the atom in it. I will put project64 on it and see how it plays super smash brothers.



edit: Ok I have put it onto the eeepc and it runs, just not very good. Ok well it runs ok but the fps drops from the nice 60 down to about 30-35 in the heavy action stuff. But there is one thing I must stress that eeepc only has a intel 945 for graphics and it is running vista.

So that said I would say that chances are you will be fine with an Atom (just) as long as you are not running vista with it. I also noticed that the board you linked to had the Atom 330 while I have the N270, they are both 1.6GHz but the 330 has 1M of cache while I only have 512K.

[vulcan500rider]

Wow! Thanks for that, ipaine! If these forums worked that way, I would be rating you a 5! <laugh> I much appreciate the effort. I guess the only question I have left is about the PSU, but maybe I should just post that in the PSU forum...