Hey all - since posting this I have gotten more time to live with this device and in my testing I have found the latency to be worse than it seemed on initial testing. For short durations it is pretty darn responsive but there are random lag spikes which cause issues in any fast moving games. I would like to experiment with this more, but for now it is hard for me to recommend replicating this project unless you think you have the software chops to tackle these lag issues. I still believe it could work well but it is not as easy of build as the hardware makes it look!
A few years ago I converted my old phone into a portable video game console. Loaded it with roms and emulators from NES to Wii, put Gamepass on there, a DOS emulator with Fallout 1, and some miscellaneous Android games. Played using my PS4 controller until I bought a Bluetooth controller that held the phone; can't remember the name of the company atm but I know I paid $30 with shipping from Amazon. Always got looks and questions, quite a few people were very interested in it. From my experience it was more positive than negative. Sadly the device gave up the ghost last year. I'm currently working on doing something similar with an ONN Android TV Box from Walmart.
You could be just like that one kid in NCIS/CSI/Whatever show it was, that time...where to show they were a "pro gamer", they were shown miming empty handed controller movements while watching one of the other characters play...because, you know, pro-gamers do that 🙄
most underrated channel on yt rn. you bring an enthusiasm and quality to your videos that shouldnt be the case for 55k subs. please take your time so you don’t burn out/sell your soul because i don’t want to lose this channel ❤
I would like this for EVERY retro game controller I got for that system maybe some others. However, an Idea for future improvement would be using the access point for other controllers for a multiplayer experience on the same setup to allow more people to play.
there are products similar to this that have the roms built in and hdmi out to connect to a tv - first time i have seen the wifi presented emulator, which is very cool! kudos to you abe - and i am sure you will somebody commercialize this design shortly 😅
This was a very cool build. Personally I have no training in working on electronics. But recently I was able to swap the board from a generic USB SNES controller into the shell of a defective USB Hyperkin Scout controller. I needed no special tools. Just a screwdriver and hot-glue. And the controller works. Hyperkin made one of the best SNES controller shells. But they aren't plug and play for the USB controllers on SNES and GBA emulators for some reason. And Hyperkin also discontinued their best looking controller and replaced it with one not as good. Their older USB controllers also seem to become defective rather easily, so I swapped in a board from a generic USB SNES controller, and the Hyperkin controller is now not only fully functional, it no longer needs to be programmed. It's completely plug and play.
Your channel is amazing, reminds me of when Bringus first started, I was there for that, too. You’re doing a great job and I see at least a million subscribers in your future.
Continue the projects and you'll be a massive youtuber. I've subscribed not because I want to build your exact projects but to learn about basic electronics engineering. You're a great resource.
A short led me here and I'm glad it did. This guy is the perfect combo of smart and smartass. I love it and I'm going to try and make one out of an N64 controller because YES. Good stuff Sir.
maybe a custom qr code badge to launch mobile sites to the browser page? you may be able to register the private ip address of served by the esp to a subdomain of a public domain you own and then register a cert to that. long shot but this might be what you need to get ios support. this project really solves for a problem and is great work. If this was a pi project with an easy to design controller hat, im sure i and others with less hardware skills would build.
That's a good idea and since he's serving his own WIFI network from the device, I'm curious if there's a way to implement bonjour protocol and route to a constant address like 'magic-controller.local' or something. Not that using the IP is a problem, I just think it would make it look a bit more polished.
Thanks, polishing the name resolution might just be as simple as using the esp as a dhcp/dns server in addition to the wifi access point. not too familiar with bonjour, but I expect it is a bit more complicated and may even require listening on the client side. @@theOrneryMaker
This is awesome man, I was watching your shorts and saw the bit about the Unihiker and I had a really cool idea as a nerdy gift for one of my best friends thanks to that video. Not sure what components to use and I'm a lot shorter on time than I thought I would be. Wanted to get into soldering and hardware for fun since I like software so much. I'll be watching your videos, the editing is great and I hope you blow up man!
Really awesome idea, man! I got into emulation this past year with a retroid device and fell in love with how easy it is to have in my pocket at all times. Felt like being a kid again. I love my switch, but sadly it's just a slight bit too big to stick in my pocket XD Ever do anything with wacky controller mods? Just this weekend I turned my midi keyboard into a gaming device and played Monster Hunter with it on stream using a software that maps midi inputs to mouse and keyboard inputs. I played for about three hours until my wrists started hurting XD Keep up the good work man. Never thought about something like this. This is a clever way to offload the work to a heavy lifting device like a phone or computer but keep the data on the go with you! 👍
Great video again, always love your content. Quick question, can this emulator support multiple controller inputs? And do you have any thoughts on maybe hosting this on a pi for home/multipler use? Lastly, what’s the lag like?
This is so damn clever and can't quite keep up with the technical side of building this, but seeing what one passionate person can achieve, I can't help but feel a sense of inspiration. It makes me believe that "anything IS possible." The video also being entertaining and funny is just the icing on the cake.
This is so cool! I couldn't tell if it was already doing so, but it would be cool to add in code to trigger the WiFi network sign in when the devices connect to the network of the controller. That way (in theory at least) you could use it on devices that might not have a web browser app but have support for wifi network sign-in pages like maybe the Nintendo Switch.
Parts list is basically what's outlined in the video! Exact code I'm not sure as it's pretty janky atm, if I get time to clean it up I'll def share it!
Years ago I did one were it has a PI Zero in it along with a battery but it had a cord coming out of the top so you can connect it to a TV over HDMI, you only get about an hour out of the battery but it was a fun little project to do and I started on a 2 payer version but didnt get to far. maybe i need to pick up were i left off.
Neato. I have the Android Nintendo emu. from Playstore with NES, SNES, N64, and GBA. I play all the classics. I still like the 80's and 90's Mario games. I was poor and never had Mario World, so it's sweet. Edit: I thank God I'm not that hairy.
how do I get into this, and I mean really give me the most basic stuff I can do, a book to read, anything. I finally have time for a hobby and this kinda stuff is something I've always wanted to pursue (I can code in java so I've always wanted to make a device to play my games on)
Cool idea and prototype. I hope you plan on doing a revision and cleaning it up a bit. Moving the power LED to the open cord port would be a good way to make it look a little more finished. I wasn't able to tell from the video, did you make the USB charge port accessible from the outside or do you have to split the controller to charge the battery as it is now?
wonder if you could put an nfc chip in the back, so that you could tap it onto your phone and it tells your phone to connect to the controllers wifi, like a qr code
Holy s*** dude you're my new best friend give me any kind of thing cuz I have no idea how to put this together but I'm going to make it f****** work cuz it's f****** awesome cheers my friend and Merry Christmas
You can play From Below Pocket Digital version Link with Same Boy Emulator for two player. You could also make a couple of Cartridges with your Digital version with the Epilogue GB Operator and Geek Tech Batterless Save Cartridges. It's legal and Cheaper that way. Especially if you want two to Link with.