Turning an old laptop into a portable retro games console.

Now that we have our old office Dell laptop up and running it's time to transform it into something new. As a stand alone machine it’s not great at gaming but it would be the ultimate retro gaming machine.
System Spec Before:
- CPU: Intel Core i3 350M (2C/4T @ 2.26GHz)
- RAM: 2GB DDR3 (2x 1GB)
- SSD: None
System Spec After:
- CPU: Intel Core i5 540M (2C/4T @ 3.05GHz)
- RAM: 8GB DDR3 (2x 4GB)
- SSD: Silicon Power 512GB SSD
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- Silicon Power 512GB SATA SSD: amzn.to/433cz29
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- Dell Store: amzn.to/3DRC8s6
Featured Software Links:
- Batocera.linux: batocera.org/
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[@aaldrich1982]

this is really good. so many old laptops people probably have in a cupboard somewhere doing nothing , they could give to their kid and emulate a crazy array of consoles.

[@CaptainHalodude]

Good video - couple of points to consider a couple of points: Towards the end you demonstrated importing game files into the system. I would also add that BIOS files are needed for some systems, or else there may be viewers coming in with the understanding they can just nab some roms off of the internet and Bob's your uncle. Which in fact it isn't always the case. Also worth mentioning the need to connect to a scraping service to parse in those lovely game box art- when importing in game ROMs and updating the game lists it doesn't immediately show game box art or in-game preview footage - you need to query for this data separately. Instead you just get a generic icon showing the label of the game.

[@Steven-jn2cw]

Hey TechLabUK, I absolutely love watching content like this, upgrading old equipement etc. Thank you!

[@TechLabUK]

Much more to come :)

[@sxsoutcast7651]

Nice to use this old laptop instead of throwing it away. Nice change of pace on your channel.

[@Revivify]

Great to see new life breathed into the old Dell laptop. Loving the custom splash screen

[@JezyYT]

Loved it!

[@NeMsY2k]

I'm a huge fan of Dell Latitude laptops. Long lasting and easy to repair/upgrade. I still have an Latitude D810 running with Debian 32bit as an mp3 player and radio streamer in my basement.

[@TechLabUK]

They do seem to last especially these older ones. Built like tanks.

[@NeMsY2k]

Yep. The only thing which isn't working anymore is (with no surprise) the battery. But the rest is in perfect condition.

[@agemoth]

I got my Lenovo laptop refurbished off ebay, it has a SSD drive, and i just go online and play any retro games i want with online emulators. i just bought an old Atari stick joystick with 9 pin connector, and a 9 pin to usb converter that i hope will enable me to use it when playing, as i LOATHE having to use the keyboard to play, and i also LOATHE non- stick type controllers!

[@HIGH_noon]

just buy a controller like the ones 8BitDo makes... or many "off-brand" ones too. they make wired and wireless bluetooth ones, whichever you prefer.

[@SpaceTheCake21]

nice video. I got myself a free HP Elitebook 8440p with an i5 520m. I upgraded it with 8 GB of Ram, an 256 GB Kingston SSD and a new battery. For the operation system I chose Zorin OS lite, which works like a charm. I also installed Recalbox to an SD card and I can play from GB, over N64 to PS1.

[@TrexCharlieX]

I have the same setup using Kodi, launchbox, and steam added to Kodi like plugins. Great system u have tho

[@AlmostBrokeLbs]

13:19 wow thats cool

[@TechLabUK]

😄

[@AshtonGodbout]

I'm using a gateway ID49C09H laptop I picked up for $20 with Windows 10 and running older games on it like Fallout 4 and the Kerbal space program. My system specs are the Intel Pentium p6200 with 6GB ddr3 ram and a 750GB hard drive. Now it doesn't run great but I have used a Kingston canvas select plus 64GB micro sdxc card for use with ready boost I picked a dual pack up for $10 and it seems to be running better in games and basic use. It's not a bad laptop for a $30 investment. It has x4 USB ports, HDMI/VGA output, mic and headphones input and a DVD-super multi DL Drive which makes it great for buying old computer games at next to nothing. But I mainly just use it for on-the-go when I'm not at my dedicated desktop.

[@AshtonGodbout]

It's a 14.0" 16:9 HD LED LCD with a backlight mouse pad if you can believe that, it also has Dolby home theatre which helps with the aged speakers' sound and even a fingerprint bar for pausing music and movies as well as the DVD Drive eject button, I think the features of this laptop are cool for the time of its release and age today.

[@Anarchist86ed]

Yeah, but I just took my old acer aspire I got in 2013, put windows 10 on an SSD, installed retroarch, use it as an all in one entertainment center. With an old HDD it'd be super slow, but with the SSD it's much better. Using windows 10 I was able to get a sound equalizer that significantly boosts the audio, even louder than my smart TV if you can believe it. Plus with its 512MB GPU I can play tons of old games even with a 120 GB SSD, which is more than enough. I can do KZbin in 1080P, but I never go past 480.

[@tommyclarke3426]

You managed to get winders 10 running?

[@neilscragg2148]

Hi, can this be done on a laptop, in a way that it will have split use, normal laptop use and games console? Thanks

[@antattackBAM]

Yes, just will require two drives, so you will have to choose which drive you want to boot from each time by bringing up your boot options on startup

[@thereichscollector]

Great question. I was wondering the same thing. I have a new laptop but now I see I will probably just get a low priced mini or pi to be dedicated to retro gaming only.

[@Romulus_YT]

You want a dual boot system. You can add a second drive but it isn't necessary. Just use diskpart in Windows to split your main drive and assign the blank space as a bootable partition to install the second OS to. You will just install the OS to the new drive path as you would install a fresh copy of an OS to your main drive. It's really easy. Then from the boot menu you just select which OS you want to run.

[@drewbert83]

What if I also need it to function as a home theater? LibreElec is great, but isn't for gaming. RetroPie would be perfect but will not run on a laptop.

[@ProceuTech]

6:48 It's weird seeing PGA on an Intel CPU lol

[@TechLabUK]

It is lol

[@wycko0]

i got a laptop with i7 3632QM GT635M 8gb of ram dual channel it is a lenovo g780 will that laptop be able to run like ps2 emulator, wii u, ps 1?

[@wycko0]

it can run fortnite and gta 5 so i dont see why wouldnt it be able to run ps2 or wii u maybe even ps3

[@TechLabUK]

@@wycko0 PS1, PS2 no problem. Probably Wii U fine.

[@wycko0]

@@TechLabUK yeah i just watched on youtube ps3 is pretty hard to run but wii u and ps2,ps1 will

[@wycko0]

@@TechLabUK im gonna try that as soon as i get a controller

[@wycko0]

@@TechLabUK im trying to play ps2 and wii u on a 65 inch tv do you think it will work?

[@user-dt5ts8fq7j]

heloo TechLabUK.. im your subscriber, i want buy HD Game Stick Lite 4K. My laptop with : Prtocessor :Intel(R) Pentium(R) Gold 7505 @ 2.00GHz 2.00 GHz Edition: Windows 11 Home can i use HD game stick plug and play in my laptop? My laptop has HDMI port, but i dont know wheter HDMI input or HDMI ouput thanks

[@unyoutube94]

Please software name 😢😢retro game

[@R.AntonyVimalRajVimal]

Batocera