- May 20, 2008
- 1
- 0
The title says it. Thats a Nintendo case housing a mid ranged gaming pc. I started building it when i figured out that blueray was going to end up on top of the format war. I said to hell with the whole thing and decided that i would just download (legally or not) all my highdef stuff.
The computer consists of the following parts; Nintendo entertainment system's gutted husk. an epia sn 18000g by VIA. It has a 1.8 ghz cpu. And i opted for the Nvidia 8600gt. it plays games, but this move was also so i would not have to try to stick a dual core in the machine to decode hi def movies. more on this later. Believe it or not the whole set up gets its power from a 110 watt system of ac adapter through 120 watt pico PSU. I traded a diskdrive in the name of sticking it to the man. Rather, no blueray for a videocard that lets me decode hidef and play Call of Duty 4. My input device is the Logitech DiNovo Mini, for the sake of portability. i typed all this out so far and will likley finish with the dinovo fo practice. it also seemed more practical then trying to mount an IR eye and doing a remote. For games, ans as an example for emulators for say, old nintendo games, i use Logitech's Cordless Rumblepad 2. Quite possibly the best RF cordless controller for the pc. I will eventually mount front USB for when i want to play real games with a proper mouse and keyboard. Also, i need to figure out a way to vent all the excess heat the CPU is generating. The 8600gt, because of the way its mounted, pulls air in then pushes it right back out being mounted upside down and under the motherboard. it contributes almost nothing to the heat problem.
For the most part, i have completed this project, but i consider it unfinished because i am having troubles with a few bits of software. Firstly, while i do like MediaPortal i was looking for some thing that would look like the Wii's channel menus. i just thought there was some thing clever about the idea of cramming a computer inside a nes, that had a wii gui. Or perhaps i just like confusing people. Secondly and to me, more importantly, i am having trouble playing movies on it because all the internet movies are in MKVs. Geforce and radeon cards seem to have nothing to do with them as far as hardware acceleration goes. once i figure out how to remux these files in to mp4'a or something similar it will become more practical to watch movies, and thus i might actually start using the damned thing.
It plays games well enough though the load times are terrible, and cpu intensive games like counter strike source give me nothing but headaches. Cod 4 runs on mid settings and Command and Conquer 3 plays just about maxed out. older games don't even register on the effort-o-meter. It does a fine job with rise of nations for instance. I have yet to try crisis as i don't think it will even install.
And thats every thing. when its finished i will take pictures for every one who cares. let me know if you have any questions about this. Also if any ine has figured out how to painlessly andquickly transmux (not reencode) MKV files to mp4/avi i can hardware accelerate, please post about it. If any one has ever thought a wii skin for media portal would be a good time, please, now is the time to get started making it. i promise i will swiftly put it to effective and context appropriate use.
Please forgive poor capitalization. not easy on the dinovo mini.
The computer consists of the following parts; Nintendo entertainment system's gutted husk. an epia sn 18000g by VIA. It has a 1.8 ghz cpu. And i opted for the Nvidia 8600gt. it plays games, but this move was also so i would not have to try to stick a dual core in the machine to decode hi def movies. more on this later. Believe it or not the whole set up gets its power from a 110 watt system of ac adapter through 120 watt pico PSU. I traded a diskdrive in the name of sticking it to the man. Rather, no blueray for a videocard that lets me decode hidef and play Call of Duty 4. My input device is the Logitech DiNovo Mini, for the sake of portability. i typed all this out so far and will likley finish with the dinovo fo practice. it also seemed more practical then trying to mount an IR eye and doing a remote. For games, ans as an example for emulators for say, old nintendo games, i use Logitech's Cordless Rumblepad 2. Quite possibly the best RF cordless controller for the pc. I will eventually mount front USB for when i want to play real games with a proper mouse and keyboard. Also, i need to figure out a way to vent all the excess heat the CPU is generating. The 8600gt, because of the way its mounted, pulls air in then pushes it right back out being mounted upside down and under the motherboard. it contributes almost nothing to the heat problem.
For the most part, i have completed this project, but i consider it unfinished because i am having troubles with a few bits of software. Firstly, while i do like MediaPortal i was looking for some thing that would look like the Wii's channel menus. i just thought there was some thing clever about the idea of cramming a computer inside a nes, that had a wii gui. Or perhaps i just like confusing people. Secondly and to me, more importantly, i am having trouble playing movies on it because all the internet movies are in MKVs. Geforce and radeon cards seem to have nothing to do with them as far as hardware acceleration goes. once i figure out how to remux these files in to mp4'a or something similar it will become more practical to watch movies, and thus i might actually start using the damned thing.
It plays games well enough though the load times are terrible, and cpu intensive games like counter strike source give me nothing but headaches. Cod 4 runs on mid settings and Command and Conquer 3 plays just about maxed out. older games don't even register on the effort-o-meter. It does a fine job with rise of nations for instance. I have yet to try crisis as i don't think it will even install.
And thats every thing. when its finished i will take pictures for every one who cares. let me know if you have any questions about this. Also if any ine has figured out how to painlessly andquickly transmux (not reencode) MKV files to mp4/avi i can hardware accelerate, please post about it. If any one has ever thought a wii skin for media portal would be a good time, please, now is the time to get started making it. i promise i will swiftly put it to effective and context appropriate use.
Please forgive poor capitalization. not easy on the dinovo mini.