After you've built a charming Raspberry Pi-powered retro gaming console, you may be wondering if you can just have a little more power and play some of those other games you might remember, such as Xbox, Wii, or PS3. Perhaps in the future, a later revision of the RPi can handle this, but currently, to emulate 6th/7th generation consoles, you need something a little more beefy. Luckily, [Zac] got her hands on one old gaming laptop and turned it into your game console,
The first step was to disassemble the laptop and discard the parts that were not needed. [Zac] Stripped out the battery, BluRay drive, and spinning hard disk. This left him with a very small PCB that could fit in a small case. The power button was integrated into the keyboard but came via the flat cable keyboard connection to the motherboard. So by bridging a few pins, he could turn on the laptop. Next, he upgraded the RAM, WiFi card, an NVMe drive, and redeployed all the thermal paste and putty to try to keep things cool while overclocking the GPU.
The machine case made heavy use of their CNC as it was walnut with the middle part made of plywood. The top has a gorgeous cast acrylic window to look inside. Part [Zac] Was scared of fine pitch soldering. Finally he connected both wires with good connection and without bridging. Because it's just a PC at its heart, almost every game is on the table. Emulation, a few more moderate PC games, streaming from their office PCs, and cloud gaming services allow them to access most of the games they create. We love the concept and idea.
We love the aesthetic of the build, but if you prefer your console to look a little more faithful, why not Put Your Mini PC Inside a Genuine N64 Case, Video after the break.
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