My 9 year old laptop is finally failing, overheating and shutting down if I play a game, and I am in the market for something that can at least run Wii, XBox, and PS2 emulation. I have no interest in even most PS3 and XBox360 games, though I do have an XBox360 which I was looking to DVD firmware hack. Maybe get a PS3 some time to fully hack.
Clean the fans.
Already did, and some thermal paste. I think the actual circuitry is just failing in general. Heat degradation.
Pi is decent for emulation, but they are gay as fuck to setup. Unless you use a pre-made image. Then it's not so bad. But I have a huge rom/media collection I've been working on since before emulation went mainstream. So someone else's image just won't cut it for me.
If you can find a cheap Xbox One S/X they are beast for emulation. I just set up an OG Xbox One the other day. Can even play some Saturn games full speed. NDS runs slow. PSP runs great.
On the S/X models Saturn runs perfect and can also play PS2 games. I had the OG laying around doing nothing so I gave it a go. Not as good as my PC emulator.
You can even install retroarch in retail mode instead of using Dev mode.
Maybe get a PS3 some time to fully hack.
I would warn against it, unless you just have one laying around (FAT model). I have two that I did mods to and the power supply went out on both shortly after. Now I power them up with a PC power supply.
Good luck.
Softmod only on the consoles. I don't do hardmod. The Xbox360 can only softmod the DVD drive to play burned games, but I think I can install games to a USB drive formatted for X360 afterwar. Planning on using JungleFlasher. Both the Wii and PS3 can be softmodded more.
I've been looking at used laptops on craigslist and it seems I can get by with a budget of $400. I think I can reasonably get a few more years with a 16GB RAM (32GB Max) and GTX 1050 Ti mobile on a decent last gen CPU.
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