Will you let us know what case you chose or maybe you built your own…? I’m curious how you piece together a gaming system for your friends.
Right now I only have a generic case because I am not sure what I want to do, so it’s my fallback. I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at a custom design, but it all comes down to the time I have on hand.
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I think I’ll have to go wireless for the controllers. Pets, me, wife are tripping over the stupid cords. The Buffalo pads respond well, they just feel too cheap. I’ll save them for >2 player games.
I know I’ve recommended it before but I really love the SNES30. It has a quality build and is perfect for 8- and 16-bit games. If you need analogue sticks, either the DS4 or XBox One controller is a solid choice.
My friend has a SNES30 special edition controller that he’s been having problems with. It’s not precisely responsive on his rp2B (which he’s connecting in a confusing way) or his windows PC. There might be some inherent issue with the rp2B since it doesn’t have Bluetooth capabilities. But his computer does, which is strange. I’m not sure why it won’t respond well. He said I could borrow it to try with my rp3B retro station. I’ll probably do that before pulling the trigger on my own SNES30 pads.
I know you and Peter rave about them so I’m sure it’s a great controller. I just want to be sure it functions properly before I dump $60 into two new pads.
I have a xbox 360 controller which is great on the PC. but once again it has wires, whereas the xbox one controller doesn’t. Excellent suggestions! Soon my house will be full of controllers of varying levels of quality.
Maybe this will help with your friend’s set up.
As for connecting it to the Pi3 I don’t think you’ll run into the same problem.
I haven’t looked much into it, but would the wireless 360 controller work? I think you can pair it with this for connecting.
I definitely did not see this on the 8bitdo website the last time I was there: Retro-Bit & 8Bitdo N64 Gamepad. Is this new? Or was I just not paying attention?
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It’s pretty new I think. I’ve seen it pop up on Amazon. I’ve not really looked into it though because the N64 emulation is kind of crappy on the Raspberry Pi, and I haven’t cared to find a cool controller for it.
Ok, so I’m not crazy then. I doubt very much I would buy one, even if the Pi handled N64 games well. The N64 controller is definitely not a favourite of mine, even if it was innovative at the time.
great thread. That’s a very nice NES case mod. I did a case mod that was okay on my last PC. I’ve thought about doing something along these lines time to time I have some classic systems but it just feels ‘blasphemous’ to me to do something to them, and i would not feel right about it. (I realize how strange that sounds) I do have a $60 retrobit duo (which i never even use) if I feel like modding that’s where I’m going to do it, on a cheap new-fangled repro.
I’ll share some info I learned on my case mod.
Rustoleum Truckbed Coating Is a rather economical route to giving something a very nice and durable finish. It has a slight texture to it and is meant to withstand abuse. The textured surface can collect dust more than a smooth surface. One can contains quite a bit of the stuff. This could be pretty cool on custom cartridge shells for unique style or maybe even controller shells (wont be sticky palms, but it might have sticky buttons so BE CAREFUL with that)
Dremel brand or Black and Decker Rotary cutting discs Is a great way to work with cutting plastic and to some extent metal. I found myself vastly preferring it to any solution involve any saws or drills anyway.
Duplicolor paint is pretty solid (but somewhat expensive i guess?)
Not sure about ‘sweaty palms’ with controllers but I really liked the metal flake options and whatnot for metal. It adhres well to metal.
When painting metal and plastic I read that even though you can’t physically tell you are supposed to give them a thorough ‘degreasing’ with engine degreaser. I dont know how necesssary this is but professionals claim that when you make plastic or metal parts they have lubrication to get them out of the dies they are cast in so when you paint them you want to get that residue off. I had very good results using engine block degreaser and duplicolor on my aluminum/steel PC case. Havent’ worked with plastic. Can anyone else confirm/deny this being the case with plastic?
McMaster Carr and other places have pelxiglass in a variety of shapes and thicknesses, you can make PC style ‘windows’ with your fancy new rotary saw in a variety of colors and styles with Floursencet, UV reactive etc. I would probably be making a console mod with a little window with a UV light in it i got off of xoxide or similiar site that basks on some small floursecent rods inside the thing were i to do this stuff again. Kinda miss it after writing this post. 
What’s the best way to secure those plexiglass windows? That was one of the things I didn’t exactly do right when i made mine. I used a nut and washer system but that breached the external surface. Was okay for what i was doing but not ideal.
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Thanks for all the tips. Those will be valuable for my next mod (which will not be an original NES case). I agree with you it is almost blasphemous to paint an original, but they did produce so many that I can justify my evil actions, lol.
I love this idea! For my RP mod I used a single layer of paint which I’m totally kicking myself about now. The slightest bump chips off paint. I will have to repaint eventually. Something durable would be perfect.
I have an inexpensive, generic, dremel but I love it. I use it for plastic and wood. Picked up some cutting discs for the RP project but I liked the drills better. More control for me. Personal preference.
Not sure about this but it makes sense. I thoroughly clean with baking soda, soap and water. Seems to do the trick. I’ll have to research degreaser for plastics.
I went completely cave man style with the window. Glued the 5" x 7" glass under the case with hot glue. Not pretty but you can’t see the sloppy glue mess from the outside and it stays put.
Thank you GigaDeath for the feedback. After completing the projects I’ve already made some improvements to the RP mod.
I switched out the breadboard for a solderable perf board. The circuit is in and complete. I just need to secure to the RP case. I’m thinking about taking some NES controller screws ( or repro’s) and using Sugru to secure them upside down. Use neoprene washers so there’s no metal on metal and get some washers and nuts to secure in place.
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Figured it was worth putting in the thread I dont actually own anything to do this with but i’ve always wondered the cause. The main site goes into detail if you click on the ‘how to make it’ link at the tippy top: http://www.retr0bright.com/
Just look at that C64! I had no idea that was a widespread thing. I’ve seen how bad this gets on old computers, and maybe many people have seen old keyboards that get like this. For whatever reason It didnt connect in my head that it was related to the top shell of my SNES yellowing. I figured it was due to them being used in environments where they were around smokers. (typically most old computers i’ve come across were ‘business machines’ and a lot even had nasty ashes and stuff in the fans)
Kind of interesting that this is a 35+ year long mystery that people (demosceners!) are figuring out how to fix lol. If anyone on here does it i would be curious to see pictures.
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Ah yes, the old retro bright pseudo fix. Gotta love a clean retro system sans the piss yellow fading. I would try it if I had a nice clear coat to seal in the fresh grey rehabbed plastic. Also there is some discussion about causing brittle plastic as a result. Thanks for the link @GigaDeathNullGolem.
two more links worth a share:
TvGameLauncher download | SourceForge.net love this thing. its probably a solution to a lot of things. (very nicely made, but simple to use) but for me, my problem was a simple and unusual one that i’ve had for years: I got it to disable a screensaver on my emulator (since joypads dont necessarily stop a screensaver). But it can force output to display of your choosing, reroute audio if you have multiple sound inputs/outputs (such as a seperate headphone, stereo or surround system). This really is worth a look at if you multimonitor. I’ve used it and feel lame for not been playing stuff on my biggest monitor i’ve had for quite some time now, which this also let me do. This is probably a good thing to look at if you run different audio sources. But my setup is fine the way i have it in windows.
http://www.x360ce.com/ 360 controller emulator. This seems to be a good way to get controller working in games that dont like your joypad. i’m a light joypadder but it looks less ‘fiddly’ than xpadder or key bind utilites that act as workarounds. users also appear to make controller profiles online already (so you dont have to bind keys?). Came across it in a search for how to play Downwell with a joypad. worked out of the box
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So I just got an SD2SNES Everdrive in the mail today. I’ll have to take some pictures and get some captures from it. I’m curious to see if there’s any difference between running a ROM off of one of these things in a SNES vs running a real cart in the SNES. I think I’m fully off the deep end at this point with SNES paraphernalia!
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Holy damn! I want that. First time I’ve heard of it but I definitely want. Please do post screenshots when you get a chance.
How does it handle games requiring the FX chip?
It doesn’t currently support the FX chip. They apparently update the firmware pretty often, and are working on it. It has an FPGA in it to handle all of the different enhancement chips, and they just haven’t implemented a couple of the chips some of the SNES carts had (including the FX). This is the list of games it can’t currently play: Incompatibilities – project sd2snes
The two biggest standouts for me are Yoshi’s Island, and Super Mario RPG. I already own a copy of Super Mario RPG, but I’ve actually never played Yoshi’s Island. Hopefully it gets a firmware update soon.
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i’ve heard of it but not familiar. That’s cool man. I would test out any of the games that use special sound chips. modern day repro carts (the deluxe kinds) you can get a google pop up searching for snes special chips:
Super FX chip in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.
Super FX-rendered 3D polygon graphics in the SNES game Star Fox.
The Cx4 coprocessor chip in Mega Man X2.
CX4 wireframe test screen.
DSP-1 chip in Pilotwings.
S-DD1 chip in Star Ocean.
SA1 chip.
ST010 chip in Exhaust Heat II.
I forget what Dungeon Master uses but it’s also special in some way. something to do with JVC technology. No emulator likes that game! I got it to work once on some weird emulator that was really not very usable but the game appeared to work past the opening dungeon doors sequence (all emulators freeze there)
I remember reading once that there was something just like this being sold by a company. they were selling some kinda shell around a chip that had three special chips on it (DSP-1, SA1 and maybe DSP-2?) if the game needed the chip great, if not that’s fine. supposedly they worked well and were reliable. imagine yours is the same deal. no clue, just parroting. 
you got the multicart now you need a multisystem! check out the retron 5. this guy gives a pretty good review. really cool channel he has a very nice collection of weird stuff. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA58fg6wZSM&index=37&list=PLD4E95BD5EA898348
audio sounds good imo. comments look promising too. I wonder if it would work on multicarts. with all these systems, this thing looks like the go-to machine for this sort of stuff. Still, not sure what the best solution is for compatibility. For me, the carts i own are the ones that dont emulate. therefore (imo) an Ideal setup would be a hybrid system like this that can run ‘problem’ roms on multicarts that the popular emulators have trouble with, maybe with updates and firmware patches for those games. I think there is a place for something like that since it would allow these things to be preserved in some way, and at the same time be covenient.
edit: ah at the end he states he tested with flashcards. doesnt work. sorry to dissapoint 
I like it. Gamester81 has a pretty nice little review:
You don’t want to know the sad shape my SNES was in. It works fine, just super dirty. Cleaned it up, looks good now.
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Those aren’t that big of a deal breaker for me. As much as I like Star Fox the one FX chip game I really liked was Stunt Race FX for some reason. But I’d live without them. I’m starting to think I should buy this SD2SNES and an 8bitdo wireless controller adapter for SNES and I can have my dream of setting up my wireless SNES. Loading everything onto an SD card and not having to swap cartridges would be handy.