How does the Xbox (a PC) do it??? (to startup like a console?)

[MrTeressaBond]

therefore would it be possible to get computer parts and somewhat make a home-made console, programmed simply to play games from a certain console?

its a small and secret project a friend and I are doing, and would like all the help we can get.

[Accordion]

therefore would it be possible to get computer parts and somewhat make a home-made console, programmed simply to play games from a certain console?

its a small and secret project a friend and I are doing, and would like all the help we can get.

Possible…yes.

But why?

Either have the added benefit of a fully functional PC or use the console in question.

Wouldn't simply having a partition for the emulator be more efficient.

[bah]

If by 'play games from a certain console' you mean 'load straight into an emulator for a certain console*', then yes.
If you mean 'building your own ps3' then no.

As Accordion said
'But why?'

Assuming you're running XP, just:

• delete or move all desktop icons
• disable my computer etc showing on desktop
• turn on large icons in display properties
• auto hide the taskbar
• disable prompting for a password on start up (assuming this is a single user PC)
• set some gaming themed wallpaper
• create shortcuts to your favourite emulator(s) on the desktop
• done

Took all of 2 minutes, looks pretty uncluttered, still have a fully functional PC.

Buy a cheap dual shock rip-off USB controller from ebay etc, do a fresh OS install and don't install crap that loads on start up if you want it to boot faster.

You could use msconfig (start|run|msconfig|ok) to just disable some of the things that are already loading on start up instead, don't mess with settings you don't understand though.


The project can't be too secret if your telling and requesting help on public forums...




* Assuming you know there is an accurate emulator for that system that runs full speed on your hardware.

[MrTeressaBond]

well not exactly, because (i dont know if i am using the right term) it will be 'hardware emulated' as in the PC parts will be there to emulate the console, and will run directly (of course with a little bit of programming).

with added functions, like AA and AF. and because of its whole power (the PC parts will of course be way mroe powerful than the hardware of these consoles) the games should not lag or stutter whatsoever.

The project can't be too secret if your telling and requesting help on public forums...

well i relaised this for awhile, because i somewhat needed help alot from the experts (you lot!) but it cannot get any further than this until needed. Also, there's more to this than what i mentioned

[bah]

Good luck with that.

[pibs]

I am thinking this is somewhat in the lines of what you want?
http://www.tmsoft.com/article-arcade.htm

I am gathering up the parts to build one myself.

[MrTeressaBond]

hahahaha, now that one is funny, but somewhat, mine is near the edge of that line, but way more advanced and possibly more complicated.

i'll but this as an example, a machine, made of PC components, to 'hardware emulate' a Sega Dreamcast, OR a Sega Saturn (known to be ever so complicated itself).

[MrTeressaBond]

anyone may i ask?

[MrTeressaBond]

anyone at all?

also, does every console HAVE an Operating System? so it can be programmed to do this and that? OR is it all done within the hardware?

[quzar]

This is one of those "if you have to ask, you won't be able to do it" situations that come up oh so much. Yes, one could build a PC that would be able to hardware emulate a system, but that would require basically having all the components of that systems hardware present, or compatible things. One could probably also write some funky windows scripts that would allow autoboot to a game instead of explorer. Taken a step further, you could rewrite a motherboard's bios (there are a few boards out there that were popular enough with the modding community that the structure of the bios, and writing for it is pretty well documented, a DFI lanparty board comes to mind) so that it does fast checks and displays a spiffy animated logo (my vaio laptop has a setting that allows one to display either the POST information text or an animated logo) and then boots into the modified windows.

In fact, many modern (and older) arcade machines were simply modified PCs. Since most arcade machines have POST messages anyways, it wasn't too big a deal to just make them PCs.