What is the best for portable amiga emulation?

[mrbob2]

I have a psp and gp2x and they both have emulators and i think the gp2x is better than the psp for emu as the psp is always jerking with games. I was thinking of getting a pandora until i nearly choked to death on the price lol When im on my pc/laptop im playing black ops or GTA etc and id much rather play amiga games nowadays on a portable device.

I was thinking..... would the best portable device be simply a netbook? One of those tiny pc laptop thingies with the atom processor?

Would that be powerful to run WINUAE (the daddy of emulators) and the games we all know and love? It would just simply be an emulator for games of other systems too but amiga emu is of course the main point. Netbooks can be found for between 150 and 199 pounds (roughly) and that is a good price for portable amiga emulation.

My only concern is will the netbooks be powerful enough to run WINUAE at a decent speed considering they have usually 1ghz processors and minimal gfx card devices.

Thanks for any advice guys :-)

[lolafg]

Hello , a netbook is really good to emulate Amiga , look this thread , that was my eeepc running classic workbench...: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=56973

You can even run N64 , PSONE , MAME , SNES , Megadrive...and mine wasn't one of the more powerfull netbook.

[onkelarie]

A netbook is indeed a good option. With a decent Atom processor you have a very good portable winUAE fix. You might check out an eeePC...

[mrbob2]

Hey thanks for the info, i dont mind paying a little bit more (around £300) to get a really good or better one, i just dont want to have to take it back to pc world and say can i swap this as it doesnt run AB3DII fast enough lol

What sort of specs should i be looking for, ive seen a few on amazon 1.6ghz n450 n455 n570. Do i need to worry about a GFX card as they dont seem to mention one?

[fitzsteve]

Most Netbooks have built in intel Graphics, actually this is ok for WinUAE but you'll have a nicer experience with a proper graphics accelerator.

I have one of these:

http://uk.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/N10Jh/

It has switchable graphics between onboard Intel and a 512mb Geforce G105M

This badboy can even play games like Crysis and Call of Duty 4! Yeah on a Netbook

Ok they are a little slow, <25fps but they run well enough to play.

And all emulation I have tried works great, N64, Megadrive, Snes, Amiga(awesome)

I have an RTG workbench setup at the native resolution of 1024x600 and have all WHDLoad setup oh and even ShapeShifter so I have my Windows PC emulating an Amiga emulating a MAC! And even that runs great!

I can't speak highly enough of this Netbook, its the only one I know that has a dedictated Graphics Card.

I'd be happy to make a little video of it running for you?

I got mine for £175 (2nd user but like new) from eBay about 3-4 months ago, best purchase I made this year

Steve.

[Djay]

Originally Posted by onkelarie

A netbook is indeed a good option. With a decent Atom processor you have a very good portable winUAE fix. You might check out an eeePC...

indeed, i have this solution for when i am away from home!

[stainy]

I reckon... this

Pandora

[ElectroBlaster]

The Pandora looks good but there is this niggly thought about the way its built.... is the casing ok? I read a few things about it cracking which really puts me off.

I reckon a good netbook will do the job, fitzsteve pointed one out that looks great on paper due to its strong video chipset.

[mrbob2]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Most Netbooks have built in intel Graphics, actually this is ok for WinUAE but you'll have a nicer experience with a proper graphics accelerator.

I have one of these:

http://uk.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/N10Jh/

It has switchable graphics between onboard Intel and a 512mb Geforce G105M

This badboy can even play games like Crysis and Call of Duty 4! Yeah on a Netbook

Ok they are a little slow, <25fps but they run well enough to play.

And all emulation I have tried works great, N64, Megadrive, Snes, Amiga(awesome)

I have an RTG workbench setup at the native resolution of 1024x600 and have all WHDLoad setup oh and even ShapeShifter so I have my Windows PC emulating an Amiga emulating a MAC! And even that runs great!

I can't speak highly enough of this Netbook, its the only one I know that has a dedictated Graphics Card.

I'd be happy to make a little video of it running for you?

I got mine for £175 (2nd user but like new) from eBay about 3-4 months ago, best purchase I made this year

Steve.

Now thats what im talking about! lol I have a top end pc for gaming and a decent 512mb gfx card in my laptop, the netbook would be just for emulation. To know its got a decent gfx card under the hood in reserve is perfect. I think il go 2nd hand too. £175 is great, id buy 2 lol Thanks so much for the info steve, you have saved me a heck of a lot of search time as theres millions of netbooks :-)

[CritAnime]

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

The Pandora looks good but there is this niggly thought about the way its built.... is the casing ok? I read a few things about it cracking which really puts me off.

Seems like Ashens did a pretty thorough job on reviewing this thing. From the review it would appear that it's a nice and robust system. It's just the pricing that seems to be a little steep. However, I suppose you have to factor in the overall production costs of most of the bespoke parts. And if I did have that sort of money I would most definitely invest in one.

It just seems a safer bet to invest money in than say some other recent emulation products

The full ashens review can bee seen on youtube:
[ Show youtube player ]

=========================
Edit:
I forgot to mention the Caanoo by GPH. A friend owns one and there is an amiga emu in production for it (might even be some beta out for it). This system again seems robust enough to handle Amiga emu. Also there is a full size USB port built into it so it's possible that full keyboard use could be implemented.

[T_hairy_bootson]

The caanoo and gp2x emulators are roughly identical with the caanoo being just a tad faster.

[CritAnime]

I was interested in getting a Caanoo but I think I am going to save up for the Open Pandora.

[mrbob2]

I thought of the pandora but for the price you may as well get a netbook with the full beans WINUAE and as it's running windows and a huge HD it beats pandoras specs and has the most/best emulators. Only thing is, it's hard work finding a netbook with a gfx card. The ones I find on currys/pc wielded sites are intel GMA which sound like integrated things. If they can run WINUAE then that's all good but there're varying processors like the 450 475 so I assume the higher the number the better the CPU? Plus clock speed too

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by mrbob2

Now thats what im talking about! lol I have a top end pc for gaming and a decent 512mb gfx card in my laptop, the netbook would be just for emulation. To know its got a decent gfx card under the hood in reserve is perfect. I think il go 2nd hand too. £175 is great, id buy 2 lol Thanks so much for the info steve, you have saved me a heck of a lot of search time as theres millions of netbooks :-)

You're welcome mate - it might a little while to find one though as they wre not in high street shops in UK only Internet stores.

All the best,

Steve.

[seuden]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Most Netbooks have built in intel Graphics, actually this is ok for WinUAE but you'll have a nicer experience with a proper graphics accelerator.

I have one of these:

http://uk.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/N10Jh/

It has switchable graphics between onboard Intel and a 512mb Geforce G105M

This badboy can even play games like Crysis and Call of Duty 4! Yeah on a Netbook

Ok they are a little slow, <25fps but they run well enough to play.

And all emulation I have tried works great, N64, Megadrive, Snes, Amiga(awesome)

I have an RTG workbench setup at the native resolution of 1024x600 and have all WHDLoad setup oh and even ShapeShifter so I have my Windows PC emulating an Amiga emulating a MAC! And even that runs great!

I can't speak highly enough of this Netbook, its the only one I know that has a dedictated Graphics Card.

I'd be happy to make a little video of it running for you?

I got mine for £175 (2nd user but like new) from eBay about 3-4 months ago, best purchase I made this year

Steve.

That's a great price too, nice once fitzsteve


Steve.

[mrbob2]

Hi guys, i have found this netbook which i think will be ok for WINUAE

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/asus-ee...05833-pdt.html

ASUS Eee PC 1015PX-BLK081S 10.1" Netbook - Black

Processor Intel® Atom™ N570 Processor
- 1.66 GHz
- 1 MB L2 Cache
- Integrated Graphics
- 8.5W Max TDP
- Dual-core
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Starter
RAM - 1GB DDR3 RAM
- 2GB maximum memory capacity (1 x SODIMM slot)
Graphics card Intel GMA 3150

*************************************************************************************

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/asus-ee...85644-pdt.html

ASUS Eee PC 1018P Netbook - Black

Processor Intel® Atom™ Processor N550
- 1.5 GHz
- 1MB L2 Cache
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Starter
RAM - 1GB installed DDR3 RAM
- 2GB maximum supported memory
- 1 x SODIMM memory slot
Graphics card Intel GMA 3150 graphics
Screen type Widescreen LCD
Screen resolution - WSVGA
- 1024 x 600 pixels
Screen size 10.1"

******************************************************************************

Or this one which is cheaper but has a faster CPU at 1.83ghz but is single core ?

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/sony-va...34672-pdt.html

Processor Intel® Atom™ N470 Processor
- 1.83 GHz
- 512 KB L2 Cache
- Integrated Graphics
- 6.5W Max TDP
- Single Core, with Hyper-Threading technology
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Starter
RAM - 1GB installed DDR2 SDRAM (667 MHz)
- PC2-5300 specification
- 2 GB maximum RAM capacity
Graphics card Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3150
- integrated with CPU for increased energy efficiency
- supports up to 1400 x 1050 pixel external display resolution



Do i need to worry about the gfx card or is emulation all about the CPU?

This is a 1.5ghz N550. Would i be better going for a 1.6ghz CPU and does single/dual core make any difference to amiga emu?

Im going to town shopping tomorrow and this is the most difficult thing ive ever had to fathom out lol Seems more complex than a pc or laptop lol

Thanks for any advice :-)

[Jonathan Drain]

I used to emulate an Amiga 600 on a 1.25GHz Athlon XP and it was fine. Recently I used a 1.6GHz Atom netbook to play Zerberk on a plane at 36,000 feet.

Multiple cores won't help Amiga emulation as WinUAE doesn't take advantage of extra cores. WinUAE's developer said it would be very difficult to take advantage of the extra core and still keep timing accurate.

Any modern graphics card should have no trouble handling WinUAE, especially if you're just running old games and software. I don't think WinUAE relies too heavily on the graphics card.