Show me your gaming setup

[Kazin]

I always enjoy seeing how people set up their gaming space. I went to Ikea yesterday (a two hour drive for me, there is literally only one stupid Ikea in Michigan) and got some new shelves and some Kallax cube things to change my retro setup as such (the chair was pushed up so close in the before pic because I was moving stuff around and building furniture, so it wasn't usually that close lol):

It's not done yet... I've decided I want to buy a white backing for the Kallax cubes, because you can see the cable nightmare through the cubes, which goes against the clean aesthetic I'm going for. Also I'm waiting for another output module to arrive for the scalable video switch you can see behind the Virtual Boy - once that arrives and is installed, I'll be moving it behind the shelf out of sight. The Virtual Boy will likely move too, although I'm not sure if I'm going to reintegrate the box around the CRT that I'd had before and put it up there, or what. I also don't have my LED lights set up yet, either, since I'm going to be attaching strips to the backing when I get it and install it.

Let me see your setups! It doesn't have to be just retro, either! My modern stuff is in the living room hidden away in a cabinet, since I play with wireless controllers or portably anyway, so there's nothing to see there.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I love that new setup with the display box for each system, that's great. Mine is a lot less interesting but I'll take a pic when I get home!

 

[Kazin]

Thanks! I'm sure yours is fine! Heck, my old one was functional and wasn't terrible or anything, but this is much cleaner.

 

[Violentvixen]

Ours is also not super exciting but what the heck.

First is the guest room/my office/exercise area. My Switch lives here as well as the WiiU when I hook it up for Wii Fit as there's a bit more empty space.

The main room currently has Lumber Baron's Switch and the Xbox One hooked up, with various other consoles in there. We keep consoles disconnected unless we're actively using them to save on the power bill.

The unique thing is we drilled a hole in the wall to my spouse's office/the closet (yes, it is a closet) so the PC is hooked up both to his monitors and to the TV. Then we can play Steam stuff on the couch/TV.

Last little organizational thing is all the peripherals are in an old steamer trunk of my dad's.

 

[Kazin]

Ooh, I like that little steamer trunk. Setup is nice and clean, too, nice. I need to drill a hole in our living room wall and hook the PC up to our TV and get away from exclusively using Plex... And being able to game on the TV would be nice too. My wife's not really into the idea, though lol

I see SNES games back there though (among other carts I can't really make out) - do you have an SNES hooked up somewhere?

 

[Violentvixen]

I see SNES games back there though (among other carts I can't really make out) - do you have an SNES hooked up somewhere?

Alas it is broken and constantly pressing the R button, I have intentions of doing something about that but haven't had time/motivation. Right now it hangs out with the amiibos and our shelf of figurines.

Also here's the various game items on the closet shelf

Since our rooms are combo entertainment/office/guest room the layout of stuff is wacky to make all three uses possible, but hey it works for us.

 

[Kazin]

Yoooo, two Game & Watches! Love to see those! The R button always being pressed has got to just mean a reseating and/or a cleaning. I suppose it could be fully busted though. But fair enough! Your little figurine/amiibo setup is cool looking, too.

 

[Sarge]

I'm actually terrified to show a pic of mine right now, it's a mess. Maybe when I've gotten it cleaned up a bit (got a friend visiting in a couple of weeks so I'll be getting it in order) and maybe I'll take a snap then. Very cool shots from y'all's setup, though!

 

[Kazin]

Well, I would be interested in seeing it! I'm always looking for ideas, too, so even if it's a bit of a mess, I may get inspired by it. ViolentVixen's amiibo shelf has me thinking maybe I should dig my amiibo out and set them up somewhere... As is, they're just in a box lol. Although I'm trying to get my nerd room in a state that my wife would want to hang out with me in, part of which is making it feel less cluttered? That's difficult, but she did say my Kallax setup looks rather nice, so maybe I can get her in here sometimes once it's done lol

 

[Sarge]

This is a corner of it, anyway! Had just added that little shelf thing under the table to neaten up some of the systems. Taken before I swapped the TV out for an LG B4 OLED, roughly the same size, and a PS5 Pro on the bottom shelf under it after this pic. I've got flanking wood shelves running around a lot of the room that have most of my collection, and cabinets above the CRT that you can't see that has pretty much all my carts in there. Also, my cell phone camera is a potato.

 

[Patrick]

I have a PS4 near my TV (it's wedged between a desk and the wall), which is basically a streaming/Blu-Ray device these days, and I have one of these in my backpack:

All of my other gaming stuff is in a banker box in the basement. Retro games are a better fit for my game time right now, so I decided it wasn't worth making space for Switch, etc. in the living room. At some point in the future when we have more space I will come up with something better.

 

[Sarge]

I need to find somewhere to use my PS4 - using it as a streamer/Blu-Ray player is probably in its future since it's (almost) redundant with the PS5.

Is that a TrimUI handheld? I've heard good things about them. I use a combination of a Miyoo Mini+ and Analogue Pocket, neither of which are perfect as I have gripes about the d-pad on both of them. (Miyoo is better, but feels mushy. Analogue has pretty much no pivot point.)

 

[Kazin]

My PS4, PS3, and 360 are all in a closet, I've not used them in years lol

What're your hookups on that CRT, @Sarge? I see composite in front, but does that thing accept higher than s-video? Looks like a solid TV if so... Also I wanna see them carts, when you get around to it, those are what I'm mostly interested in rather than discs lol

Emulation handhelds are great for when you don't have space. When we lived in New Mexico for a few years, I left my whole retro collection back at home with my mom, and got by with emulation for the old stuff. I'm glad to have it all back these days.

 

[Sarge]

@Kazin: Yeah, it has two component inputs in the back, along with either one or two S-Video and another composite. I can't remember, probably only one S-Video now that I think about it. It's this model right here: https://crtdatabase.com/crts/sony/sony-kv-32fs120

It's a chonky boy for sure. I don't plan on moving it again if I can get away with it. I primarily use it for the MiSTer, which is hiding behind the NES.

I barely use the 360 these days, but I am thinking of using the PS3 a bit more since I've put CFW on it and there are some neat exclusives I'd eventually like to play (like Folklore). That's also where I have a lot of the Atelier series, of which I've only beaten one (Atelier Iris, many moons ago).

I'll see if I've got one of my shelf shots, if not I'll take one that doesn't look like a dumpster fire.

 

[Kazin]

Someday... Someday I'll find a CRT with component and s-video inputs. I don't think I've ever seen component on a CRT before lol

 

[Sarge]

The weird thing is that I have two other 20" sets, both of which have component but no S-Video! I literally bought a Koryuu transcoder so I could use S-Video on the 20" Trinitron.

Sony KV-20FS100 | CRT Database

A database of CRT-related information including specifications, common issues, repairs, service manuals, and more.

crtdatabase.com

Here was my testing pic, ha.

 

[Patrick]

Is that a TrimUI handheld? I've heard good things about them. I use a combination of a Miyoo Mini+ and Analogue Pocket, neither of which are perfect as I have gripes about the d-pad on both of them. (Miyoo is better, but feels mushy. Analogue has pretty much no pivot point.)

Yeah, it's the Trimui Brick. I'm really happy with it. It feels solid, and the controls are nice. They are clicky, like controls on a DSi. It's a bit smaller than the MM+ (3.2" screen vs. 3.5") but the screen is bright and it has a much higher resolution. That means that you can scale games to the full height or width of the screen (depending on the original aspect ratio) and not get any weird pixel issues.

I've been running MinUI and I just recently switched to PakUI (which is the same OS with some additional Paks on top of it). It comes with an awesome little app called BitPal. It's basically like a tomagatchi that you can level up by playing games in your collection. It gives you missions like play Hang On for 10 minutes, or play any SNES game for 15 minutes or whatever. I mean, I can just play random games without an app asking me to, but somehow it feels more purposeful this way. Like, I'm not starting and abandoning a random game, I'm playing BitPal. It's nice to have available for when I'm not sure what I want to play next.

 

[Sarge]

Huh, the BitPal thing sounds really interesting. Also, I like the clicky controls - my ideal d-pad for most things is like a Vita, or indeed like a DSi. I like to be able to hit my diagonals easily, and not have the pad feel mushy. A lot of modern systems just have bad pivot points, though, because the NES and SNES controllers are more than fine for my purposes as well.

I messed with MinUI briefly when setting up an RG35XX SP for a friend, but it had an audio bug that caused pretty much everything to crackle, so despite being perfect for them in every other way, I had to shift to muOS.

 

[jpfriction]

Most of it anyway. PS4 and switch sit upstairs.

Red thing is a new addition, a cheapish retron I got so my nes and snes carts can collect less dust (also got a couple new carts as swag from midwest gaming classic last weekend). SNES classic or a little pc would normally live there.

PS5 gets the most love these days but my daughter does like to come down and play some street fighter on the snes or zelda on the wii u occasionally.

 

[jpfriction]

But yeah, 90% of my gaming is sitting on the couch upstairs playing my retroid or switch while ostensibly watching my son.

 

[Kazin]

Nice! Tell me about those speakers if you don't mind, @jpfriction - I've been considering getting some speakers for my CRT just to have cool sounding retro music, but I know next to nothing about audio and have no idea, if, say, those speakers can be plugged into a 3.5mm jack or not lol

 

[jpfriction]

Nice! Tell me about those speakers if you don't mind, @jpfriction - I've been considering getting some speakers for my CRT just to have cool sounding retro music, but I know next to nothing about audio and have no idea, if, say, those speakers can be plugged into a 3.5mm jack or not lol

“Overkill for the relatively small room” would be a good descriptor. I need to keep my sound turned down to -40 on the receiver, lol.

Klipsch is the brand. I bought them as an upgrade from the tiny ones that came with that yamaha receiver in the middle there. They were a bit too tinny. They just come with speaker wire so you need something to do the talking to them. There are plenty of fancier bluetooth options out there, though. I use the receiver as an hdmi switcher too so that handles most of the communication. You can also have the tv generate the sound and feed it to the receiver though. I’m sure there is a way to make an old crt work with something like that.

 

[Kazin]

Ah, so I need a receiver and some kind of adapter (I'm not kidding, I know less about speakers than a 2 year old) lol. The only thing I really know is I need shielded speakers so the TVs don't get damaged by the magnetic field the speakers apparently put out?

 

[lincolnic]

Ah, so I need a receiver and some kind of adapter (I'm not kidding, I know less about speakers than a 2 year old) lol. The only thing I really know is I need shielded speakers so the TVs don't get damaged by the magnetic field the speakers apparently put out?

A receiver will have terminals built-in for you to hook up the speaker cables. As for the magnets, yes, all* speakers operate via electromagnetism and magnets are bad for CRTs, but as long as you're not putting them directly next to or on top of the TV you'll probably be fine.

*Electrostatic speakers do exist, but they're extremely niche to the point of basically not counting. In my nearly 20 years as a professional audio engineer I've never even seen one in real life.

 

[Sarge]

Please, no judgment. Like I said, I gotta do some straightening and whatnot - it's been in flux for a little while. Still potato pictures. This is just the cabinet areas where most of the carts reside. I don't really have a great way to display them unless I bring them out and put them on the shelves instead. Which... I might do one of these days.

Also, the corner with the more modern stuff along with PSX/GC/XBOX/PSP/DS/3DS/GBA.

 

[Kazin]

@Sarge I don't think there's any judgement to be had anyway - you have a lot of games! There's no easy way to organize the stuff even with a lot of money and space. Shame your camera is a potato, I'd like to see what some of your games are haha

@lincolnic I appreciate the advice - I asked my dad for some help (he's a big audio dork, always buying old speakers for music because he swears by them) and that I wanted to plug something into my CRT tv, and he just sent me a link to the first modern bluetooth speaker he found on eBay, which didn't help me at all (and not what I want anyway, I want something a little more retro to fit my aesthetic, but also without internet connectivity and LED lights and whatnot). Do receivers themselves have magnets in them? Should they be put far from my CRT? Depending on what I find (when I get around to upgrading my audio setup), I was thinking about putting the receiver under my CRT tv...

 

[Patrick]

I messed with MinUI briefly when setting up an RG35XX SP for a friend, but it had an audio bug that caused pretty much everything to crackle, so despite being perfect for them in every other way, I had to shift to muOS.

There is some sort of audio bug - it causes some channels to cut out when you have the audio set to low. It is not something I've noticed in practice, but it seems to bother some people. I'm not sure if that is the same as the audio bug you mentioned. There is a fork of minUI called NextUI that is supposed to have better video and audio in some way, but it does not have BitPal or the other PakUI features.

 

[lincolnic]

Do receivers themselves have magnets in them? Should they be put far from my CRT?

Mm, depends on how they're designed. If they use transformers, those aren't literal magnets like speakers have in them, but they work by generating magnetic flux within their cores. That's probably not strong enough to do anything to your CRT? You'll almost certainly be fine if they're, like, a couple of feet apart. But if the receiver is transformerless, you're good to go.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the only part of the CRT that can be irreparably damaged by magnets is the screen. There's iron mesh in there, which can get magnetized and/or straight up warped by a magnet. The good news is that you can clearly see when this is happening, because the picture gets pretty psychedelic (look it up if you've never seen this in action, it's pretty neat if it's not happening to your own TV). So if you do get a magnet close to your screen, you'll be able to see it immediately and move it away accordingly.

Having said all of that, please take any of my advice with a grain of salt because I'm not an electrical engineer. I know enough to qualify my answers with "probably", but not enough for "certainly".

 

[Kazin]

Yeah, I found this pair of dinky little Sony speakers designed for old Walkmans that aren't shielded, so putting them next to my CRT causes the part of the screen they're closest to to turn pink, so I put those away in a closet pretty much immediately lol (helps that they sounded objectively worse than the built in speakers my TV has anyway).

There's a local audio/video shop that I've gone to over the years, I may have to finally go look in their speaker section and just explain to them what I'm looking for. God knows how much all that's gonna cost.

 

[jpfriction]

I feel like you can pay anywhere from $100 to $70,000,000 for audio setups that are all pretty much identical to all but 1% of the population.