I also use a barebone system (Shuttle XPC) for emulation, just like Bloodwych, and it doesn't serve any other purpose. The specs of my barebone PC are 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 2.8MHz P4, NVidia GForce 7300GT and 2x500GB HDDs.



Here's an older picture of the barebone desktop for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.


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My current emulation system is an Athlon XP 3200+, ATI 9800 Pro, 1GB 3200 ram, plus a load of older HDDs I had spare totalling about 740GB (300GB + 120GB + 120GB + 200GB), plus a 60GB system drive I have the actual emulators and OS installed on. This is all just in a generic PC case that was my main PC a few years ago as it was hidden in my MAME cabinet originally.

However I currently have two other PCs not really being used. One of them is inside a Thermaltake Sonata case, so I'm thinking of building a new emulation system around that, using existing parts I have from the spare PCs to make a better one.
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You seem to be assuming that Amiga emulation is only emulation of the Amiga on a (spit!) PC. I use my (real) Amiga 1200 to emulate the good old Spectrum 48k as so many of the games produced for that platform have no equivalents on the Amiga (or PC), such as Firelord, Splat!, Fairlight, Starquake & Down to Earth.
Regards,
Mike.
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I mentioned above that I started out emulating other systems on Amigas in the 90's. BBC Micro, C64, Spectrum, PC-XT etc, and even an Atari ST emulator that would load the GEM desktop and some software, but not any games.

But the truth is, that since around 1998 the PC has been and still is the best platform for emulation. Emulators for most systems are in their most advanced form on the PC. Look at WinUAE compared to the Linux and Mac versions of UAE for example, although those can both work well. The PC also has a huge range and variety of emulators compared to any other platform.

The second platform I use emulation on the most is the PSP, which is great for portable emulation. I also use emulators on a Dreamcast, Xbox, PS2 and Linux.
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Wow, nice read Harrision.

Sure.

Unlocked Athlon XP Barton Mobile 2.2Ghz 512k cache
512MB DDR (easily enough for emulation)
Creative Radeon 9600 with passive heatsink (silent)
Sony black DVDROM
160GB main hard drive, 40GB second hard drive.

Not the specs of Demon Cleaners machine, but I built it years ago and it was state of the art back then. To tell you the truth, it's easily powerful enough to run all the emulators and 2D remakes and is whisper quiet due to the cool running mobile Barton and passive graphics card. Plus it's very small - amongst the smallest SFF's I've seen.

Talking about Demon Cleaners setup - love your Retro wallpaper at the bottom! That's a lot of emulation links you've got there! I have a retro wallpaper too that I made myself. I'll post it if I remember when I get home. Has lots of game characters and logos!

Although there is nothing that beats the real thing in terms of the complete experience, emulation is still an incredible tool regardless of the format it's running on. PC's may have been enemy number one back in the day, but they're cheap and fantastically versatile today.
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Just imagine owning all the machines for real that you emulate I already have a lot of stuff, but one would need a huge garage to set it all up, which of course would be nice.
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One of those New York style lofts would be brilliant for such a setup. Just imagine it.

I'm thinking of building a new emulation system around the new Atom based Mini-ITX motherboards. You can get a dual core atom now that would provide a lot of processing power for emulation and you can get some great really small cases for them too. Would be a very nice setup to tuck away under a large TV. Also very quiet.
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I think I would like to eventually put together a good SFF emulation PC and maybe decorate it with logos/badges from Amiga/Atari/Mame etc.........
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What would be perfect would be for that PC making company that use the Commodore name to sell just the cases rather than the full overpriced complete systems. Then I would buy on of the cases with the cool C= logo on the side and build an emulation system using that.
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In terms of emulation on the Amiga, I have a BBC Emulator which I have briefly run on my A500+. Not sure what it is called. It came with my Microtext teletext adaptor so you can download the BBC's telesoftware and run it on your Amiga.

I have also ran ShapeShfiter on my A1200 but due to my lack of Double Density Mac boot disks, I didn't get beyond the flashing question mark.
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