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Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 3, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I see ads pretty regularly for small cheap emulators which come pre-loaded with classic video games for PS1, SNES, Gameboy Advance, etc. Anyone know of an actually good one?

Would a Steam Deck fit the bill? People dump those all the time on the used market because they want the OLED version (emulation can't take advantage of a refresh rate over 60Hz so the base version isn't a negative) and even the base-est of the base models with a 20-dollar 512GB SD card can store more or less every console game that even can be emulated (with the possible exception of every Switch game; you'd need a 1 TB card for that).

The officially licensed ones (I think there are NES, SNES, and PS1 at this point?) are neat from a collectors standpoint, but these all are just low power embedded SoCs with emulators. I don’t have a turn-key recommendation - there are just too many afaik. Just buy one with a good YouTube review, or ask on 4chan.org/g/ chinkshit general.

I’d recommend you pirate the small-by-todays-standard romsets and emulate on any PC you have. An Intel n100 would do it and that’s $125 for enough power to be an AV1-decoding HTPC alongside, includes windows license.