Unsure if this is the place to ask or not but figured it was closest to it.
Basically I am looking to make an AIO retro gaming PC. Main goal is to have one simple box hooked up to the TV so my friends and I can game without having to swap discs and consoles all the time. Would probably use mostly DS3 (or 4?) controllers hooked up with USB or via BT.
I know lemmy doesn’t much care about piracy but this is all just to play games/consoles we legally own. Would include PS1-3, Nintendo, SNES, N64, Gamecube (think that is all we have).
I think https://batocera.org/ has been mentioned, Lakka (maybe this is more for pis?), and EmuDeck has been mentioned. Basically looking for the easiest distro to throw on a PC with a nice UI (can be launched via kb/mouse, all the same to me) that has the emulators built in and just needs the ROMs.
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I’m going to go against what others are saying and advise against the raspberry pi. If you are serious about ps2, ps3 and gamecube, the pi will struggle with more games than it runs well. Especially for ps3, you’ll want at least a 4c/8t CPU, preferably no more than 5 years old, anything less will struggle.
Not specific to your use case, but use the distro you like. Then add an account for gaming and tailor that account’s environment for running games.
I’ve tried a few distros now, and none have been so easy as Pop!_OS. I’ve switched back to Windows before, but not since this last time on Pop!_OS. It’s just so simple to use out of the box, they like to use flatpaks (which I LOVE), and the UI is so clean and intuitive that it would be hard for me to go back for that reason alone. Automatic. Fucking. Window. Tiling.
In regards to gaming, System76 puts in so much work on their end to make Pop!_OS a gaming beast. They even have a separate download of their distro specifically tweaked for compatibility with Nvidia cards, which is huge! I love using the terminal, but the Pop! Shop app that they inclue is such an intuitive way to find new apps (that are curated, specifically for ease of use with the distro) and easily check if there’s a flatpak version.
TL;DR Pop!_OS, hands down
You literally just need a steamdeck. The EmuDeck software within it is made for exactly this and docking station it to your TV.
I assume it can handle multiple controllers via BT or USB? I honestly hadn’t even thought of this and it isn’t a terrible price for all you get.
It does, I do this myself and it works perfectly!
I believe Batocera itself covers all the consoles you mentioned.
It’s also got a pretty nice little UI (very customizable) and it has a really nifty feature where you can pair Bluetooth remotes super easy (basically just put the controller into pairing mode and click “pair Bluetooth controller” and it’ll instantly pair).
It also runs like absolute lightning - I’m running my Batocera on a 2012 MacBook Pro and it still runs everything up to PS1 decent frames (which is an achievement for this laptop lol).
To top it off, adding the games is super easy. I just used a flash drive and put the ROMs into their respective folders in the file explorer and it just added the console’s icon to the home screen.
It’s not a gaming specific OS, but ive been running Pop!_OS on my main PC for just about 3 years now with mostly successes. Steam runs great with proton and i use bottles for the rest of it (gog, battle.net, uplay, etc)
On my laptop I use nobara. It comes with some gaming specific tweaks to the kernel to make the experience a little easier.
@timbuck2themoon I think Lakka (https://www.lakka.tv) might be a good option as it is the official distribution of RetroArch, though I haven’t tried it myself yet.
Garuda is literally designed as a gaming distro.
It has auto installers for retro and modern gaming (emulators, Steam, Gog, etc.)
This is interesting but ran into a few issues right away. Some db lock error on update (resolved itself after a bit), could install the emulators but then they erred out. I would’ve liked to try a launcher (I assume one does what lakka, batocera, etc. do) but after updating I rebooted and it hung on loading the initial ramdisk.
Think I’ll pass on this one but thank you for the suggestion.
I haven’t used it for a while, but the last time I was using Lakka I don’t think it had been ported to Pi yet. It worked great and was very much for PCs. I don’t know about interfaces though; my install booted straight into RetroArch which isn’t the slickest-looking thing but worked fine for me.
Make sure to check compatibility lists for the emulators you want to use. You may be surprised by how many games don’t run/can’t be finished/have major glitches on later systems like PS2, PS3, and GameCube. Also, there are no PS3 RetroArch cores, so you’ll need to use the standalone version of RPCS3.
