This content details the creation and components of a highly portable and versatile retro gaming emulation kit, designed to allow users to play classic games on any PC or even a smartphone, anywhere, anytime.
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This is the most ultimate portable
emulation setup. And this is the least
ultimate portable emulation setup. Don't
don't don't get this one. Get this one.
Hey there. How's it going? I'm Techweb.
Welcome. Thanks for clicking on the
video today. So, uh, this is kind of a
kind of a weird video for me to make
because I didn't actually like plan this
out. Like most things that define my
life, it it just sort of happened and I
shrugged and went with it. That's how I
got this tattoo, but we'll save that
story for another day. Today, I'm I'm
here to show you a little like kit that
I put together. This happened all by
itself. It started out as just some
things that I always used together and
eventually it evolved into this like kit
that is super useful to me. this fun
little portable retro gaming setup that
I can bring back and forth hither and
thither. I use this on all my different
PCs. I have lots of them. I use it to
play my retro games when I'm in the mood
to actually play games instead of just
making videos about doodads that play
games. I use this to record my gameplay
for my videos. I use this to bring my
save games back and forth between any PC
that I'm playing on. And I recently
upgraded the kit to give me some extra
portable retro gaming superpowers.
Basically, you can play retro games on
any screen, anywhere, at any time with
this setup in a super comfy and super
efficient kind of way. And even when I
leave the house, which I do all the
time, like when I go to parties and
stuff, parties with cute girls, I I get
invited to those like every day. And I I
also go to them every day. So, I bring
this with me to play retro games at the
cute girl parties. Real quick, before we
actually look at the individual stuff
and things and how to actually make this
and get it set up in your life, let me
give you a quick tour to show you why
this is actually a thing. The heart of
the kit is a controller and a USB stick
with my games. This stick has two
important things on it. The first is my
Retrobat build. I can plug this into any
PC and fire this up and I'm taken to
emulation station. Here is my main game
collection. This is the same game
collection that I have on all my 128
gigabyte SD cards for my retro
handhelds. I also have extra space on
here for more higherend stuff. Retrobat
has all the emulators included. It's all
set up for you. It's the simplest and
easiest way to get playing retro games
on your PC. It's basically idiot proof,
which it which is good for you. And when
you have this on a USB stick, you can
just bring this back and forth between
your PCs to play your retro games
anywhere. I use this thing all over the
place. My computer. My other computer.
My other other computer. My other other
other computer. My laptop computer. I
bring it with me when I go places. I
bring it on trips. I bring it with me
when I visit your Bob. It's a no fuss
retro emulation powerhouse that is no
bigger than a USB stick. It's it's
exactly USB stick sized. Actually, I
also have a DOSs build on here. Dweeb
DOSs with all my DOS games. I'll explain
that in a bit, but basically I can fire
up DOSs and turn any computer into a
retro DOS PC. So on this stick, I have
all my old retro console games and my
retro PC games. It's a double whammy. I
have the entire kit in this lovely
little pouch. I'll show it to you in a
bit. This is how the kit started, just
this stuff. But I made some additions
once I started using it often because I
realized that sometimes I'm not at a
computer. At first, I thought maybe I
should add a retro handheld to this
setup. That would be a fine idea, and I
recommend checking out this video if you
want to learn about the joy of using a
retro handheld as a home console. But I
don't want this kit to be a ton of
stuff. This is like a minimalist setup.
However, the minimalists amongst you
will probably know that the best
minimalist portable retro gaming console
is just to use your phone. I made a
video about that topic, too. I already
have my phone set up for retro gaming. I
always have it with me. So, I added a
few things that just lets me do phone
gaming in the best way when I'm ooting a
boot, both on the phone itself and using
the phone as an actual console that I
can plug into a TV. So, let's go over
the specific specific items that I chose
for my kit. And I'll show you some uh
alternatives that I like as well uh at
the end of the video. And of course,
I'll have links to all this stuff in the
thingy below. Those will be affiliate
links. So, if you use those links to buy
any of this, it helps me out just a
little bit. It helps me keep the lights
on and the root beer flowing. So, thanks
for doing that if you do, and thanks for
nothing if you don't. Let's start with
the star of the show, the USB stick.
This stick is a SanDisk Ultra Flare 256
GB USB stick. That's it. This is my
personal main retro game collection, at
least my portable collection. I have a
big hard drive that I use as my archive
on my main PC, but I game off of this
stick. It's nothing crazy. It's not
super expensive or over the top. This is
the stick that I settled on, though. I
really like this one. You could make
this kit a lot smaller with a smaller
controller, but I wanted a big full-size
controller, and uh I just went with my
favorite controller. This is my Ghillit
K3 Max Pro, whatever, whatever it's
called. I forget. This controller is big
and comfy. I like that it sort of has a
Game Boy DMG vibe. It's got amazing,
wonderful Hall effect sticks, my
favorite sticks and triggers. amazing
triggers, lovely feeling to the buttons,
and a great battery life. And it's just
no nonsense. It doesn't have a ton of
tricks. It just it's just a really good,
simple controller. I also like that you
can use this controller with the the 2.4
GHz dongle or Bluetooth. I bring the USB
dongle with it as part of the kit, so
that way I don't have to mess around
with Bluetooth pairing every time I want
to play a game. On the phone side, I
have three things, well, four things if
you include the phone itself. My phone
is an S22 Plus that I bought refurbished
on Amazon, but I mean, just use whatever
phone you already have, obviously. I
have this stand. I I used to use a cheap
little plastic stand, but I upgraded to
a metal stand, and it is so much nicer
to have a real stand for my phone in
this little kit. This is a UG Green uh
stand. I don't know if it has a name. I
can use this to game on a desk or table,
just using my phone as like a a mini TV
kind of thing. Or I can use this to hold
my phone while I do video out over HDMI.
Kind of like a little portable docking
station kind of thing. Speaking of
which, this is a USBC to HDMI adapter. I
had a cheap plastic one, but I also
upgraded this to a good one with a metal
casing on the plugs and it's braided.
Just kind of decking out my kit with all
the best versions of everything, you
know. And I also have this short HDMI
cable. But what I like about this one is
it's a very thin cable. Way smaller in
my little kit to have this thin,
lightweight HDMI cable in there instead
of a big thick one. The actual pouch is
probably my favorite part of the kit.
That's kind of what makes it feel like a
kit. This is the Broy travel packing
pouch. It's uh pretty expensive for what
it is. It's like 30 bucks. There's
definitely cheaper pouches out there.
However, I am nuts about this line of
Broy products. I bought their travel
sling, which I brought with me on a past
trip last year, and I love that thing.
And then I bought their daypack, which I
also love. And then I bought the
matching pouch just to have it for
pouchy things. And then I realized that
it's the perfect size pouch for this
little retro gaming kit. So, I've been
using it for that. So, with all this
stuff, I have all the retro gaming
superpowers that I need. It does
everything I need it to, and it takes up
no more space than it needs to. Now, for
making the USB thingy, I'm not going to
turn this into a big in-depth tutorial
or anything. This is more just supposed
to be about the kit, not a deep dive on
how to set up Retrobad or DOSBox. I've
made tutorials on both of those topics
in the past, though, so I'll link to
those videos if you need a hand. But,
I'll give you the quick version right
now because it is so simple that is it's
probably all you need. The first step is
to pop that USB stick into your PC.
Nice. Now, we need to download Retrobat.
The It's just an installer. You can
download it from their website, and then
you run the installer. It's pretty
straightforward. However, when you get
to the part where it asks you where you
want to install it, just make sure that
you pick your USB stick. And uh yeah,
that that's kind of it. Just let the
installer do its thing. It'll install
the front end and the emulators on the
back end and create a directory for you
to put your games. When the install is
done, just go ahead and fire it up and
make sure it worked, which which it
will. I've never had any problems. It
even comes with a few homebrew games if
you want to give some of those a try.
Now, we need to add our games. Within
the Retromat folder is a ROMs folder.
And in here is the folders for each
retro system. And you just pop your ROM
files in in those folders. If you have
ROMs from an SD card, from like a a
retro handheld or whatever, feel free to
use those. Whatever you do, don't Google
how to download ROMs from the internet.
That's a bunch of piracy stuff. And I
would never suggest that you do that
sort of thing. So just pop those ROM
files into the folders. It'll now show
your games. You can do all the usual
emulation station things. You can scrape
your art to pretty it up. You can turn
on bezels and shaders. Retrobat makes
this all so easy. Check out my video if
you can't figure this out. And of
course, you can download themes like the
TechWeb theme. That's right. You can
download this right here in Retrobat.
Yeah, that's right. I'm basically a part
of Retrobat. I'm uh I'm kind of a big
deal. And oh man, this is so cool. If
you try to run a game that Retrobat
doesn't have the emulator for, it will
download the emulator for you. It will
install it and it will set it up so you
don't have to do anything. Retrobat
makes this so dang easy. Everything you
do here, all that stuff will be
installed in the Retrobat version that
you have on your stick. So, whatever you
do here in Retrobat, it will travel with
you on this stick and it'll be exactly
the same on every computer that you run
this on. For DOSs games, the program I
recommend is Dossbox Staging. And the
version of Dossbox Staging that I
recommend is called Dweeb DOSs. That's
my own personal customized version of
Dossbox Staging that I put together with
a bunch of tools and extra features. All
you really need to do is download Dweb
DOSs and then unzip it and then add your
games to the games folder. And uh yeah,
that that's that's pretty much it. You
can run dweeb doss and be taken to a
command prompt. You can type read me if
you want to read my quick start guide or
you can just do stuff the way you the
way you would on a normal DOSs PC. If
you need to learn about this, I have
several videos on the topic, but this
video should get you sorted. I actually
teach you how to use DOSS in that one. I
spoil you, you know that. And get this,
you can also use all of these programs
on Linux. If you have a Steam Deck, you
can just pop that USB stick into a uh
USB A TOC adapter and then you just need
to add the executables for Retrobat and
Dweeb DOSs as non- Steam games and they
both work great. There are better ways
to run retro games on the deck. I made a
video about that. And I also made a a
native Linux version of Dweeb DOS, so
that's probably what you should use. But
if you do have a stick setup with all
your games and you just want to play
that on your deck just so you have all
the stuff that you already set up and
your save games and all that stuff,
nothing stopping you from doing it.
Nothing except your own self-doubt, but
your self-doubt is an idiot. Don't
listen to that guy. The phone setup is
uh quite a bit more involved because
setting up a phone for emulation is
basically just setting up an Android
device for emulation. The short version
is that you need to download your
emulators, RetroArchs for the older
stuff, Dolphin for Gamecube, Nether SX2
for PS2, PPSSP for PSP, Eden for Switch,
and Aahara for 3DS. And you'll probably
want to install a front end like Digi
Show or ESD, which is what I use to
manage your games and make it look all
pretty and feel all like a retro console
kind of thing. Too much to explain here,
but yeah, watch watch this video if you
need a crash course. Linked below. To
finish up, I'd like to cover a few
alternatives for this stuff that I chose
for my kit. If you want your kit to be
yeah, more portable if or if you have
other needs. These are other things that
have passed the does tech like it test.
Starting with the USB stick, you can get
a bigger stick. Get make get one of
whatever size you want. I like this
SanDisk one, but there's other other
brands that have different shapes. This
Kingston one that I have has a built-in
USB plug cover. I also like this tiny
little guy. This one's great for laptops
or whatever where you don't want a big
stick sticking out, pun intended. You
can also just go with a straightup
external hard drive instead. Either an
external SSD or even a mechanical drive.
That's a better choice if you want to
have lots of games in your portable
emulation setup. There's also drives
that you can get that come preloaded
with games preset up ready to rock. I've
reviewed a few of them. There's one cute
little 64 gigabyte thing that comes
preset up or a 4 terbte medium-sized
thing or even a big honking 12 terbte
behemoth packed with like every retro
game ever. Much less portable, but like
if you get a bigger pouch then nothing
stopping you. For controllers there
there's a million in one controllers out
there. Just, you know, go with whatever
one that you like the best. But my
alternatives that I'll recommend is this
8bit DO SN30 Pro which is an amazing
controller for retro games and it's a
smaller, more compact form factor, so
it's very travel friendly. You can also
get a teeny tiny itsy-bitsy micro
controller. These are actually really
neat. This would be fun to make like a
super mini minimalist kit. Heck, you
could probably keep it in a little dice
pouch or something. Or if you're
bringing this places for multiplayer
goodness, you can grab four of those
microcontrollers and you can amaze and
delight your friends by busting out some
turtles in time at your next friendship
suare. I'd totally do that if I had
friends. For the stand, there is lots of
stands. I have lots of these little
plastic guys that that do they get the
job done. And for the pouch, ju just get
a pouch. Any pouch of the appropriate
size will work. Find a cool pencil case.
Get a lunchbox or a Beimo bag or a
hippie- dippy tribal thing. Just get
something that fits everything and suits
your vibe. I'm not here to judge you on
your fashion choices. But uh yeah,
that's it. That that that's what I
wanted to show you. It's nothing crazy
special. It's just a few things that I
started using together and it it turned
into a kit. And I like having this kit
together as a as a kit so much that I
just I wanted to make a video to share
it. I hope you found this helpful or at
least entertaining. Let me know in the
comments if you uh if you have anything
like this. What is what is your kit?
What what is the stuff that you really
like having together as a kit? If you do
that and your kit is better than my kit,
you can fully expect me to steal your
idea and and make a video about it
passing it off as my own idea without
giving you credit. But deep down in your
heart, you'll know. That's going to do
it for me for today. I'm Techweb. Thanks
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