[Completed] Project N64 PC: A Kaveri HTPC inside a Nintendo 64

[d33g33]

Awesome work, bravo!

[GhostWindGamer]

Congrats on the awesome work man

[SageC]

Awesome work, bravo!

  

Congrats on the awesome work man

Thanks, guys!

[aricleather]

Awesome! Congrats

[Anthony_95]

Love that menu !! Everything matches

[SageC]

Update #5 - 8/5/2014 - Final Update:

 

Okay everybody, It's time for the final update on this thing. I've had it done for a couple weeks and I've been using it as my main computer for that time because my main rig has been dismantled for reasons that will become apparent soon.. But that means I have some opinions on how the FM2+ platform performs but I will save the blabbering till the end and for now some pictures as a final product!

 

 

 

 

 

That 16 year old LED still chugging along!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, there it is, two months of work and we've made it to this point! As my first mod project, this has been fun and educating experience, I learned things, mainly that paint is a pain in the ass. But it's definitely been fun and if I were to do it again I don't think I would have done much different, I mean there things that didn't go as planned but I don't think I could have avoided those things without changing the end goal of the project.

 

But enough about that, how does this thing perform? Well as a CPU it's pretty decent, I'm coming from a mildly overclocked i7-4770K, and yes in comparison it feels like a $200 chip. I didn't really do anything intensive with it and for the most part it never got bogged done the experience was smooth and felt good but I did do all the Photoshop for the Rainmeter skin on this thing and although, far the most part, it was able to do everything I wanted it to, I was able to tell the decline in performance.

 

As a GPU, performance was as expected. In terms of emulation performance was great both N64 games and GameCube games performed great with very little to no lag. And although I haven't gotten a chance to test out game stream, as this has been my most powerful PC since my main one is disassembled, but I imagine it to run great considering it doesn't really take much on the end of the receiving PC.

 

Temps are where things get weird, the cooler was able to cool the processor adequately for most things. Idle and non GPU intensive stuff was good with temps any where from 45c-55c, running a N64 emulator temps didn't get any higher than 60c, Gamecube emulators got it up to about 75c. But Twitch, oh my goodness, Twitch for some reason makes this thing into a furnace. Watching high quality streams, even past broadcasts, easily make this thing go straight to 80c-85c. I don't know why, I don't know how, but its been a fun couple of weeks anxiously waiting for the WAN show archive to go up on YouTube..

 

I guess I should also comment on the experience of having what looks like an N64 but is able to do so much more, and I have to say it's pretty awesome. Like I've said I haven't been using it as intended, as HTPC, but instead as my main PC so I'm sure the experience will feel more genuine once I get to hook this thing up to the big screen TV and sit back on a couch, playing whatever I want. But I was able to sit back and play a game of Mario Party 3 with my dad and besides Waluigi being an evil piece of garbage it was pretty cool to sit back and play on what felt like an original N64 but with a quick alt-tab able to do whatever I could on a desktop PC.

 

So I guess that's it, thanks for all the feedback and I'll be back with a new project soon!

 

*Actually as a side note I was going to include benchmarks from a modern game like Bioshock infinite but it seems I'm only getting a third of the performance in comparison to other benchmarks on this thing. My only ideas why at this point would be the Bioshock Infinite benchmark utility is malfunctioning, the processor is thermal throttling, or that it's because I'm not running dual channel RAM. I don't really care because I don't have the storage space to download more than two modern games at a time so even if this thing performed properly I'd still probably have to use game stream.* 

[Pärminator]

Very cool!

[acidydragon]

Update #5 - 8/5/2014 - Final Update:

Looks amazing.

 

I feel inspired.

[SageC]

Very cool!

 

Looks amazing.

 

I feel inspired.

 

Thanks!

 

 

I also forgot to add some GIFs to show of the Power button and LED, so here they are.

 

 

[enthalpy]

Awesome =) I really like it!

[GhostWindGamer]

Looking at this makes me wonder how it would look in one of the clear n64's

[ShadowCaptain]

dude this is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I really like it, makes me want to plan a new project :3

[Nickolas47]

EXCELLENT

[dragoon20005]

imagine your clueless friends who come over to see a old console

 

but the moment you fire it up and it boots to Windows or SteamOS

 

i will love to see the looks on their faces

 

 

Old school retro console with a twist

[Gene5is]

dude this is awesome!!! excellent job!

 

15/10 

[SageC]

Awesome =) I really like it!

 

 

dude this is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I really like it, makes me want to plan a new project :3

 

 

EXCELLENT

 

 

dude this is awesome!!! excellent job!

 

15/10 

 

Thanks!

 

Looking at this makes me wonder how it would look in one of the clear n64's

 

I own a green one, that'd definitely be sweet! But you would have to polish it or something after sanding out the inside, because the plastic would just be all cloudy otherwise,

 

imagine your clueless friends who come over to see a old console

 

but the moment you fire it up and it boots to Windows or SteamOS

 

i will love to see the looks on their faces

 

 

Old school retro console with a twist

 

It's definitely a conversation starter!

[juretrn]

Love your work and all the modding, that was really great!

 

But if the N64 is not the ugliest thing I have ever seen, then I don't know what is. 

[SystemofaSyndrome]

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