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Nexus Player: SNES Emulator, Full Blown PC, Android Device

Started by MV/Liberace!, January 07, 2015, 01:11:41 PM

MV/Liberace!

Sorry about my lame delivery, but I'm all stuffed up with some kind of flu shit.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JClnWVP7zc


Discuss.

cweb

This is really awesome. I've been looking for a cheap(ish), easy, stable way to run old-school emulators (SNES/GB(A)/NES) without buying a Retron5 or getting something larger.


I wonder if I would be able to USB my old Gravis Gamepad Pro into it, rather than dishing out 40 bucks for the controller.

Bart Ell

Chances are I am missing something here but why would I want this Nexus Player when I can just get a rooted mx2 android box? The mx2 has hdmi, 4 usb ports and sd card reader. You can use a wireless usb keyboard/mouse and also a wireless usb game controller or two and run the game emulators.

If you are a stealy kind of person just throw xbmc/kodi on it and you have every movie and tv show ever made plus hundreds of live tv stations.

analog kid

That's awesome. Rootable android device for my TV, has a game controller option. Looks snappy. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for.

I have a Roku. Someone evidently rooted it with XBMC, but nothing was ever released and the Roku itself has more to offer than XBMC. Rokus are pretty clunky compared to what I'm seeing here with the Nexus Player.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: Bart Ell on January 07, 2015, 06:10:56 PM
Chances are I am missing something here but why would I want this Nexus Player when I can just get a rooted mx2 android box? The mx2 has hdmi, 4 usb ports and sd card reader. You can use a wireless usb keyboard/mouse and also a wireless usb game controller or two and run the game emulators.

If you are a stealy kind of person just throw xbmc/kodi on it and you have every movie and tv show ever made plus hundreds of live tv stations.

I'm not familiar with that box, but if it works, great.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: cweb on January 07, 2015, 02:14:05 PM


I wonder if I would be able to USB my old Gravis Gamepad Pro into it, rather than dishing out 40 bucks for the controller.

It will probably work fine.

Edit: And thanks, it was the Retron5 i was looking at before buying the Nexus Player. I couldn't remember the name of it when making this video.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: Bart Ell on January 07, 2015, 06:10:56 PM
Chances are I am missing something here but why would I want this Nexus Player when I can just get a rooted mx2 android box? The mx2 has hdmi, 4 usb ports and sd card reader. You can use a wireless usb keyboard/mouse and also a wireless usb game controller or two and run the game emulators.

I did a little reading on the mx2. Looks like it has about half the cpu power. Is it running regular android, or is it android TV? I didn't see that. Also, being a Nexus device, the NP will be certain to get better developer support (Roms, etc). The additional ports are nice on the mx2, but for me, the NP has what I want. The only real disappointment on the nexus player is the lack of an Ethernet port, but that's OK, and I wish it had 2GB of RAM instead of just 1.

Bart Ell

Quote from: MV on January 08, 2015, 02:39:44 AM
I did a little reading on the mx2. Looks like it has about half the cpu power. Is it running regular android, or is it android TV? I didn't see that. Also, being a Nexus device, the NP will be certain to get better developer support (Roms, etc). The additional ports are nice on the mx2, but for me, the NP has what I want. The only real disappointment on the nexus player is the lack of an Ethernet port, but that's OK, and I wish it had 2GB of RAM instead of just 1.

If the mx2 is not powerful enough then the new Gbox might do it.

http://www.amazon.com/Matricom-G-Box-Quad-Octo-Android/dp/B00QHLSKOE/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1420726379&sr=8-6&keywords=android+box


MV/Liberace!

Quote from: Bart Ell on January 08, 2015, 08:16:01 AM
If the mx2 is not powerful enough then the new Gbox might do it.

http://www.amazon.com/Matricom-G-Box-Quad-Octo-Android/dp/B00QHLSKOE/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1420726379&sr=8-6&keywords=android+box

Looks like it's not running pure Android based on some of the reviews. Should be fine if there's an active development community so you can have a real Android experience, but I don't know if that's the case with this.

area51drone

I'm listening to your video with my bose quiet comfort headphones on and man it sounds like we are in the room together.  You keep moving back and forth across the left and right speakers and you make some noises that I literally turned my head around to see if my son walked into my office.    I know this says nothing about your nexus player, but  this is entertaining just for that reason.   What were you recording this with where the stereo audio is so good?

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: area51drone on January 09, 2015, 01:40:40 AM
I'm listening to your video with my bose quiet comfort headphones on and man it sounds like we are in the room together.  You keep moving back and forth across the left and right speakers and you make some noises that I literally turned my head around to see if my son walked into my office.    I know this says nothing about your nexus player, but  this is entertaining just for that reason.   What were you recording this with where the stereo audio is so good?

Recorded with my galaxy S5.

area51drone

Quote from: MV on January 09, 2015, 02:32:00 AM
Recorded with my galaxy S5.

That's crazy.  I had no idea they had stereo mics on them.   Were you really moving around as I describe?

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: area51drone on January 09, 2015, 04:00:54 AM
That's crazy.  I had no idea they had stereo mics on them.   Were you really moving around as I describe?


i didn't think i was moving around wildly or anything, but i probably wasn't stationary the entire time either.


Bart Ell

Quote from: MV on January 09, 2015, 05:08:33 PM
that looks like a credible option.

I have no idea what I am missing with the "real android experience" - no idea what these boxes should be doing that they don't. I have a few of the M8 ones around the house and have them loading xbmc/kodi on startup. Since I don't really play games on it the only real app I use is the STB Emulator for IPTV. The extra USB ports along with the ethernet port, hdmi and sd card reader were more important for my needs than any extra processing power would be.

Outside of xbmc/kodi, the STB emulator will be the one thing the majority of us simple folk will be after in a few weeks/months as IPTV is about to hit North America in a big, illegal way.


cweb

Got this up and running yesterday. Netflix, Youtube, and Drive all working. A little bit of screen formatting issues until you go "full screen" with apps.

My emulators run pretty smoothly except for stutters when they load ads. Should probably get the paid versions anyway.

For the record, my old USB Gravis GamePad Pro works just fine with this system. Thankfully, the emulators allow me to do some custom button mapping so I can ensure everything is assigned right.

The process took a little longer than usual for me because I don't have experience flashing ROMs. I was also using a Mac for most of it, which is a tad different for newbies. When I tried to flash the 600mb system image to the Nexus, it kept freezing and failing on Mac's fastboot program- which is no surprise because I often have issues pushing just 5mb files using Android File Transfer. It no likey, I guess. Using fastboot on a PC flashed it without issue.

The dev recommends using DroidMote for screen control. I may give this a shot at some point, but for now the keyboard/mouse combo works just fine. Looking forward to playing some Super Mario 3 when I get home!


MV/Liberace!

Quote from: Addis0n on April 29, 2015, 07:57:58 AM
Put Kodi on that thing and add 1channel repo

I tried kodi and didn't like it. Between ESFileExplorer and BSPlayer, I have since found kodi to be entirely unnecessary.

cweb

Beat Donkey Kong Country on this thing recently.

(Saving game states is great tool for tricky platformers.)

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: cweb on April 29, 2015, 12:04:52 PM
Beat Donkey Kong Country on this thing recently.

(Saving game states is great tool for tricky platformers.)

what emulator did you use?


MV/Liberace!

Quote from: cweb on April 29, 2015, 12:26:56 PM
SNES9x EX+

you have any latency issues?  i have just enough latency to make it annoying.  i don't know if it's the bluetooth controller or the lcd tv or the emulator...

cweb

Quote from: MV on April 29, 2015, 12:51:47 PM
you have any latency issues?  i have just enough latency to make it annoying.  i don't know if it's the bluetooth controller or the lcd tv or the emulator...
It's pretty darn smooth. Nothing noticeable. I've also played a good deal of Super Metroid and Super Mario RPG, without issues.

I use a wired USB controller instead of a bluetooth one. Maybe that's causing your latency?

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: cweb on April 29, 2015, 04:24:23 PM

I use a wired USB controller instead of a bluetooth one. Maybe that's causing your latency?

Ok, I'll try a wired controller and report back. I'm currently using the Bluetooth controller that you could buy with the player.

cweb

For anyone who is still interested, I'm starting to see these devices at places like Best Buy and Target for $70. My guess is they're not selling that well, probably because the average user doesn't know or want to bother with the full Android install.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: cweb on June 23, 2015, 09:08:51 PM
For anyone who is still interested, I'm starting to see these devices at places like Best Buy and Target for $70. My guess is they're not selling that well, probably because the average user doesn't know or want to bother with the full Android install.


wow, i did not know that.  i'll have to go pick up another for the TV in my two year old daughter's room.  she's an android boss.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: cweb on June 23, 2015, 09:08:51 PM
...probably because the average user doesn't know or want to bother with the full Android install.


and, by the way, that's the problem.  the nexus player should have just shipped with full blown android on it.  it would have been amazing, right out of the box. 

cweb

Quote from: MV on June 24, 2015, 11:03:10 AM

and, by the way, that's the problem.  the nexus player should have just shipped with full blown android on it.  it would have been amazing, right out of the box.
Yep. I'm part of the educational tech market (on the in-house install/support side) and I would definitely push to use these in classrooms- except that I know it would be shot down. Why? Because it doesn't come with straight-up Android out-of-the-box. If our help desk has to flash or root these, they want nothing to do with it.

Quite a shame, actually. The savings over their darling Mac Minis would be substantial.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: cweb on June 25, 2015, 05:59:16 PM
Yep. I'm part of the educational tech market (on the in-house install/support side) and I would definitely push to use these in classrooms- except that I know it would be shot down. Why? Because it doesn't come with straight-up Android out-of-the-box. If our help desk has to flash or root these, they want nothing to do with it.

Quite a shame, actually. The savings over their darling Mac Minis would be substantial.

Let them know it only takes about 60 seconds to flash each unit.

area51drone

Quote from: cweb on June 23, 2015, 09:08:51 PM
For anyone who is still interested, I'm starting to see these devices at places like Best Buy and Target for $70. My guess is they're not selling that well, probably because the average user doesn't know or want to bother with the full Android install.

They're about $40 used on ebay.    My guess is they'll be around $20 in another year maybe.   My TV will play media from a remote share, and has netflix/amazon/youtube/browser/picture viewer etc already built in.  Other than gaming (which is intriguing but I don't have much time to play), have you found much else to do with an android device on the tv?

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