Any of you run emulation of nintendo, super nintendo, n64, dreamcast on your HTPC's through XBMC?

Are you running XBMC as the actual OS/Firmware or you using an OS under it (Windows, Linux, OSX)?

A Sega Dreamcast EMU may exist for Linux but I haven't seen it or maybe DullDC supports Linux, who knows. But basically your answer is yes, what you'll need to figure out is -

Do you want to launch games from inside XBMC or outside of it? Do you want Metadata, Box Covers and Fan Art to show up for each game?

If so you have a few options as I have been working on this for quite some time. Advanced Launcher and the right skin will give you all the above with metadata and launch games inside XBMC. I find this simpler to use Adv Launcher over Rom Collector Browser. Its not without its issues. While some people might find its trivial, its somewhat minor but could threaten operation of my server so I haven't done so. To prevent such problems leave your games on a local drive to the machine running XBMC, problem solved.

I would vote for Advanced Launcher. If you want something more complicated, you can launch Hyperspin from XBMC as well.

I use Rom Collection Browser. Overall I've been happy with it. The setup can be a little tricky depending on the emulator. You'll need to know the parameters required to launch a specific game. For example, Nestopia uses the CLI parameter ROM. Overall the GUI will guide you in your setup. The games are scraped online similiar to XBMC movies, tv shows, etc.

When you select a game to play it minimizes xbmc, then executes the command to run the game. After you close out of the emulator XBMC will maximize again and you can go from there.

I tried Rom Collector and found it hard to setup. Advanced Launcher was much easier to understand. However you must map a folder with your games in it because Samba Shares are not supported with that Add-on. (same with Rom Collector).

That is if your files are located on a server like I have them.

For the correct metadata to show up, for example with Playstation files, like GT2, your folder structure should have each disc image in its own folder.

I have all my SNES roms in one folder. About 95% have the correct metadata and scrap correctly. The other 5% either use the wrong data or don't display the correct box art or no box art at all.

Haven't set up NES yet or Neo Geo yet.

What I will end up doing is running -

ePSXe for the majority of Playstation 1 games v1.7 runs pretty much everything. I have audio issues with Jarrett and Labonte Stock Car Racing (World Touring Car Championship). With 1.6 it wouldn't load at all. Anyway for games I have trouble with I use pSX. You can't improve the graphics like with ePSX since it used no plug-ins but its pretty much 99.9% a emulated PS1 console and plays 99.9% of available games. If you put the Japanese or European BIOS in it, it will play those games too.

For SNES, SNESx9 is what I use. I was using ZNES but it doesn't support a resolution I want. Both have the same problems with Super FX games, only bNES will do it pretty much perfectly, but you have to unpack your roms to use it, not interested. I'll deal with the minor errors, I don't play those games often or at all. I am going to pare down my SNES collection pretty soon.

NES I use RockNES, not setup yet and for Neo-Geo I will use MAME32 since the majority of Neo Geo emu's are not supported anymore.

I have Sega Genesis and 32x games as well but I want to use the correct gamepad. I'm looking into that.
Edited by dj4monie - 6/22/12 at 3:23pm

Hyperspin looked cool, and i seen people incorporate it with xbmc.

I decided the amount of work to put in is not worth it, if everything came bundled together I might change my mind.

Thats just a personal opinion i play them for like a half hour then dont touch them for awhile again.

I wanted to add hyperspin just cause it looked so cool for nostalgia.

I personally use mediaportal with an addon called emulators 2.

This works very smoothly, and is very easy to setup. Comes with all cover art, fanart, game descriptions etc. I can browse the game and load them directly with my remote control. They then load the rom straight away.

My xbox contoller is configured with all my emulators (Eventghost to help with anything that was a bit tricky to configure)
Then at 1 button on my remote/xbox controiller I can close the emulator immediately and go back to mediaportal.

I have configured

SNES
NES
N64
Gamecube
All Gameboys
Genesis
Saturn
Dreamcast
PS1
PS2
Xbox
For all newer games I have configured up PC games, however running into a slight issue with steam games, havent really tried to fix it yet though (the steam game loads in the background so I need to alt+tab to use it)

I know it isnt xbmc, which I guess you have your heart set on forits other functions, but for me personally I preffered emulators 2 on mediaportal to when I tried xmbc advnaced launcher (not tried Rom Collection browser though)

I'm using gamebrowser for mediabrowser. I have nes/snes/genesis/mame/wii/ps1 configured and it works fine for me. Ive mapped a shutdown button and i'm able to close games easily and return to the gamebrowser menu. setup is pretty self explanatory but assassins guides make it childs play.

The developer is currently working on gamebrowser II, you can read about his progress here http://community.mediabrowser.tv/permalinks/11590/gamebrowser-ii-beta

I personally use XBMC with Advance launcher, but in regards to the post I'm quoting.... How are you emulating Xbox???? I can't seem to find anything online about successful emulation for that system.....

I know this is about xbmc solutions, but I have to echo the post above about gamebrowser for media browser. It has worked very well for me with my large collection of roms and emulators. its also nice for managing pc games. versions 2 is going to be adding alot of features, so definitely check that out if you aren't satisfied with the xbmc solutions.

Yes, Media Browser can and I think media portal can also.

That is why I decided against Hyperspin, there is nothing simple about it, but I guess that's the price you pay for the high level of customization.

If you want to run EMU Movies as well, Game EX supports that. It will also launch from the Media Center strip. I decided against it because I want all the other stuff my Media PC does to be centralized as much as possible.

WMC - DVR/PVR, Hulu Desktop, Core Temp Plug-in, Internet TV Plug-in
XBMC - Ran from inside WMC, All Streaming Content, TV/Movie Archive, All Downloaded Content, Console Emulation, maybe PC Games

Keeps the interface simple IMHO... All by remote. I haven't figured out how I wanna close games yet though.

I don't remember HS being all that hard to set up? I am running HS on my arcade cabinet, and its been installed and running for the last couple of years and I haven't needed to touch it it, so my memory of the install is a bit fuzzy.... but if it really was all that hard, I would of just gave up and moved on to something else...
but just based on memory, you tell it where your games are, you tell it what emulator to use for said games, you remap the keys (mostly because my cabinet buttons were all mapped weird, guess you wouldn't need to do this for a HTPC/PC), and then started playing...

I have done it through mediabrowser

I didn't say it was hard, I said it wasn't simple. If you have time to fool with it, the results are pretty good and like I said lots of custom options. I also didn't like the fact it ran better with pSX than with ePSX. I use both but only when ePSX won't play a game which is rare now (as of v1.7).

With Hyperspin you download like two sets of files. One to actually run Hyperspin and another one to set it up. With Advanced Launcher for example, as long as you have the proper folder structure, all metadata shows up. Its fairly simple to setup the emulators to run and switches to make sure their GUI doesn't pop up. The only problem I have is launching SNES games via SNESx9, I get a full screen window with the windows menu bar at the time. Also ZNES because how its written doesn't work with networked folders, you need a drive letter. SNESx9 will run files from the server. But by that point I had moved the SNES files to a local drive.

I want to keep the files there. As I said nobody has said if mapping a folder(s) on my server will effect other functions of the server and how other programs access the folder. XMBC itself supports Samba Shares, so its not an issue but Advanced Launcher and ROM Collector do not, which means either map a folder or keep the files locally. As it is, I have to make folders for every game so metadata show up property.


Edited by dj4monie - 6/23/12 at 7:23pm