advice on a very cheap not very powerful micro atx board

[ste2425]

this board is to purly run emulators on a little snes case mod im doing but i crnt seem to find a board for it. It doesnt have to be very power full but it must meet these minumum specs.

now the requirements for PJ64 are as follows
-600 Mhz
-128MB RAM
-decent graphics card

if anyone can recomend a board for this is be very greatfull, id prefer it to have a builtin cpu audio and video is possible and be as cheap as poss but cabale of running the emus smoothly, cheers guys. i no the talk of emu's is hush hush but this is a board to meet these given specs so please help guys i got the snes case and its all gutted out and waiting.

 

[choppy]

have you considered motherboard bundles from novatech?

 

[Geofrancis]

go on ebay and get a
pentium 3 motherboard
1ghz cpu
512mb sd ram
an old agp card like a gforce 4 or a radeon 9200 graphics card it will have more than enough power to run old emulators.

 

[lemonadesoda]

To fit in a snes case, I think you need an ITX or nano-ITX board. What is your budget? New or second hand? For an emulator, you are probably OK with a VIA C7. For something more adaptable, get an Atom of Via Nano based board.

 

[Geofrancis]

yea you will need itx i missed the bit where u said you were putting it in a snes look here
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/animalsnes/

 

[ste2425]

yea its for a nintendo nes not snes sorry and my bidget is very very very very low im looking at about 30 quid at best, and thats one perferably witha builtin cpu

 

[Geofrancis]

for nes games you might get away with a epia 800mhz like this but you wont get anything cheaper that size with a cpu. just remember even thjo its 800mhz its only about the same processing power as a 350 pentium 2.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Epia-800-Mini...3|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

 

[ste2425]

thanks for the help guys last night i found one on here that im in the middle of buying,

VIA MII10000 Motherboard with 512MB RAM and daughterboard - $50
- http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/em...erboard_id=202

for the price i couldnt say no so thanks guys its hepled ill be shure to make a work log of this , but ill post it when ive finished so you dont end up with a half done project

 

[lemonadesoda]

WAIT !!!

I had a VIA MII-10000. I got it over 5 years ago, near to the time when it was lanuched.

It is slow. It is slower than a Pentium 3 at 650 Mhz. Yes, that's right. It was so slow and unable to really run Office XP at an acceptable pace that I JUNKED IT and replaced it with a second-hand by parts Pentium 3 at 800 Mhz that was so so so so so much faster.

What kind of video-out do you want to drive. It was struggling at keeping up with 2D windows dragging/swapping on a 1280x1024 screen. Be warned!

I really advise you against spending any time and money on those older VIA chipsets. Get an C7, Atom or Nano at the minimum

 

[ste2425]

right well thanks mate cheers for the heads up

 

[ste2425]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320366629347&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:GB:1123

would this do the job? if it will fit that is, the most powerful emu's ill be runing is n64 one's and its spec is in my title thread

 

[Geofrancis]

those celerons were based on the williamette core pentium 4 that was slower than a late pentium 3.

you would be beter with this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130309324617
with a cheap graphics card like this for some basic 3d acceleration
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....y.co.uk:80/230344256660_W0QQmfeZsearchQQfviZ1

 

[ste2425]

alright mate thanks for the help
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=190308237503&Category=3762&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26its%3DI%26otn%3D2
im gonna go for this card as its low profile which will fit the nintendo nes case better

 

[lemonadesoda]

Look at this list of *new* ITX mainboards: http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=mb1ppga_ddr&sort=p

The first one, an Atom 230, is good enough. EUR 50, GBP 45. Spend more, get more. I'd go for something around EUR 65 using an Atom 330. That way, you can use it for running the emulator AND doing something else in the background, even if just antivirus or file/print serving.

Starting at EUR 50, dont waste your time on an older board for "just" 30 off ebay. The extra 20 gets you a lot more milage.

 

[Geofrancis]

i didnt think you could get an atom board for that cheap. you will still need a pci graphics card for it. with one if these it will play hd video/cuda and enough 3d acceleration for emulators
http://www.digital-fusion.co.uk/Inu_products/INU_ProdDetailsL9.asp?ref=44953164
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=32327&tid=frooct

the only thing i dont like about the atom 330's is ive found that they are heavily multithreaded so only perform well with more threads. games are only single threaded to you wont get very good performance in games

 

[lemonadesoda]

For snes emulator, an integrated graphics would be OK. For ANY HD video or 3D gaming, you are right, a GPU would be needed.

 

[Geofrancis]

he said that he would be playing n64 games those require some hardware video acceleraton. intels graphics are so bad because they do most of the rendering in the drivers instead of hardware.

 

[ste2425]

well the most intensive gaming i will be doing is a nintendo 64 emu. This project is for my dad as away to say cheers for gettin me a car when i passed my test so it wont be doign anything for intensive then supper mario 64, no internet so no need for anti virus purly like a console but can load up many different consoles

 

[Geofrancis]

if your could find a motherboard with nvidia or ATI onboard graphics im sure it would be powerfull enough for any emulators you will throw at it

 

[ste2425]

right kwl cheers tbh he mainly goes on about atari things dunno what they are, before my time but ill be using it to so n64 is a must ill keep searching cheers

 

[Geofrancis]

this board
http://www.spotonuk.com/Mini-ITX/zotac/Zotac-Nvidia-610i-ITX-ST3500641AS_84363/
this cpu
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intel-Celeron...Power-CPU_W0QQitemZ150347596363QQcmdZViewItem
this case
http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12325

that would let you play pretty much any emulator as the onboard graphics are hardware direct x 9c so sould play anything 3d

and has dvi for flatscreen tv's

 

[ste2425]

this board
http://www.spotonuk.com/Mini-ITX/zot...00641AS_84363/
this cpu
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intel-Celeron-...QQcmdZViewItem
this case
http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12325

right im going for this, minus the case i already got ma nes ready if anyone dnt like the set up please say now as ill order it otherwise

 

[ste2425]

wat size psu and how many pins does that board need though i crnt find out on the net

 

[Geofrancis]

i think it has a 24 pin socket and a 4 pin p4 socket but it will run on a 20pin + p4 connector

what case/psu are you looking at?

 

[ste2425]

an old nintendo nes case, and i dnt no about a psu that smallest thing possible