Make Your Own Retro Gaming TV Box (Guide)

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hey everybody this is russ from metro

game core so a while back i did a video

about the super console x king and that

device is basically a pre-loaded android

tv box using this box here this is the

b-link gt king now as far as android

boxes go this is one of the most

powerful you can find it runs an

s922x chipset and while i appreciate

what they've done with the super console

x king you know pre-loaded it with a

bunch of games and added some

controllers it's not the greatest

experience in the world the game image

that they used is not fully in english

and the controllers that ship with the

device are kind of junk and in that

video i did mention that you could do

this for yourself for better and

potentially cheaper and so that's what

we're going to do in this video today

we're going to take this original box

and we're going to load it up with our

own emulack version add our own games

and also our own controllers

so if you're looking for the best

android tv box experience with minimal

work this is actually going to be your

best bet so i'm pretty excited to check

this out so without any further delay

let's jump into it

okay let's start by talking prices so

the 256 gig model of the super console x

goes anywhere from 190 to 200 each and

that's gonna come with two controllers

and pre-loaded games but on a kind of

crappy micro sd card now you can buy the

gt king itself for about 100 to 110

dollars in all the express or you could

get it on amazon for about 150 bucks so

we'll go with 110 as our base price for

this for sd cards i recommend a 256 gig

card for this build so that's going to

cost you about 30 bucks for a good

reputable sd card and for controllers i

recommend this wired controller here

it's about 25 dollars it's really great

so altogether 110 plus 30 plus 25 that's

165

or if you wanted to have two controllers

that's going to be 190. so really about

the same price as a pre-loaded super

console x but with way better

controllers and a more reliable sd card

of course the allure of this super

console x is the fact that everything's

pre-loaded you don't have to do any of

the work yourself okay so let's do a

quick rundown of the components now that

i have them in hand so obviously you

want to start with the gt king itself

out of the box the only things we're

going to need are the ac adapter and

then an hdmi cable and here's the

microsd card i recommend anything from

sandisk or samsung you don't need the

fastest card in the world you just need

something that's reliable i think that

these a1 cards are perfect and for

controllers i'm going to use the b top

wired controller now this lacks analog

triggers but that's not that big of a

deal because the games we're gonna plan

here won't really use that anyway the

analog sticks work well and i really

appreciate this gamepad it feels nice

and retro it's gonna be good for both

retro and modern games okay so first

we're gonna install emyolek so you're

gonna wanna go to the emulec wiki page

and i'll have all this in my written

guide which is going to be in the video

description and here you can see the

s922x chipset is supported by emulec

so let's install it you go into how to

install and here find the s922x chipset

which is right here and then make sure

that you grab the image file that is

listed here the file name is long but

what i look for is the ng in the title

and the word generic okay so let's

actually grab that image and download it

so go to the download page find the most

recent release of emulec and here it is

right here on top it has the ng and the

generic

okay so once you've downloaded that file

let's go ahead and burn it to that sd

card insert that sd card into your

device

and then open up an app called belen

etcher you may have to download it if

you don't have it already

from here you can actually just pick the

file you don't need to unzip it

and then under select target pick the sd

card and then press flash it's going to

ask do you really want to do this

because the sd card is so large and

you're going to say yeah man i want to

do it and then depending on your windows

settings it may ask you again do you

really want to do it and of course

you'll say yes it's going to take a

couple minutes to flash the sd card it's

going to decompress then flash and then

validate it once it's done the software

is actually going to eject the sd card

so you actually need to pull out the sd

card and plug it back in

when you plug it back in you're going to

get this pop up here for the emeolek

drive and this is exactly where we want

to be go into this device trees folder

and you're going to see a bunch of

different dtb files now this might be

confusing but basically these are

different boot files depending on the

device that you're using

so let's find the right boot files for

our device again back on the written

guide i'll have a link to this page here

which will show you all the different

device trees and within here we want to

find the b league gt king and here it is

right here and here's the name of the

file we need to find g12b s922b link gt

king so back on our folder we're going

to find that file

and here it is right here of course if

you want you can always go back to that

page verify you have the right file name

yep we're good to go so now press

control c to copy that file go back to

that main emulate folder and then

control v to paste it in now we need to

change the name of this file we're going

to change it to dtb.img

it's going to ask you to confirm you say

yeah man i want to do it and if you're

not seeing the file extensions at the

end of your name what you need to do is

go into the view ribbon and then select

file name extensions here okay that's

everything we need to do for this setup

i know you feel like a hacker right now

because you've basically broken into the

matrix but we're done we need to eject

the sd card and let's plug it into our

device now you're going to want a

toothpick for this part i know it sounds

crazy but basically put the sd card into

your device and then we're going to boot

it into emulec the thing is this is an

android tv box it's going to default to

opening up android when you boot it up

so what you have to do is press the

reset button when you plug in the power

cable so in one hand hold the power

cable and then in the other hand on the

bottom there's going to be a little hole

push that down with the toothpick you're

going to hear a little click hold that

down now while it's held down go ahead

and plug the device in

and then keep holding that reset button

down until you see the boot logo after

that you should be good to go and don't

worry if you mess this up you can do

this multiple times as needed after that

you'll see the emulec logo it's going to

re-partition the sd card to make use of

all that file space that we have inside

and then it'll reboot emulack and set

things up and you'll see this video here

and that's it now you're in emu alec

from now on anytime you power on the

system with the sd card inside it's

going to boot right into emulack not a

lot to do in this first boot up but

there's a couple things so first of all

you need to map your controller and just

make sure you have it plugged in and

then press a button it'll say gamepad

detected and then just go through and

assign all of your buttons for the

hotkey enable i recommend using the

select button now if you're not plugged

into ethernet you'll need to set up

wi-fi as well but another thing i

recommend is installing drastic this is

the ds emulator this is the only one you

have to actually install manually

it'll be in the setup section and you

just go through the prompts here and

then once you're done it's good to go

one other thing we can do while we're

here is set up a different theme so

let's go into updates and downloads and

then themes and then you're gonna see

all sorts of different themes that you

can download we'll try out a few

different themes in this video we'll

start with the super sweet one so you

just go ahead and press a to select it

and then choose install another thing we

should always do is check for updates

you never know when they're going to

push some sort of small or minor fix so

to do that it's in the same folder just

go to start update and it'll let you

know whether or not there is an updated

version and then just go ahead and

select yes

okay and while that update is

downloading let's go ahead and change

out our theme go into ui settings then

theme set and we're going to change it

to the super sweet one okay and there we

go we've now changed out the theme i'm

not super happy with this one we'll deal

with that later okay once the update is

done you can go ahead and reboot the

system to apply the settings so go into

quit then restart system

from there it'll go through the update

process it's going to take a few minutes

to extract and install everything but

after that it'll boot you right back to

the main menu

okay so now we have a fresh install

that's fully up to date let's go ahead

and start adding our game files to it so

go down to quit and then shut down

system

now remove your sd card and put it into

your computer this time you're going to

see a bunch of different pop-ups come up

there's a couple windows here you don't

need it at all for example this storage

one you're not going to need it same

thing with that emulek one that we had

used earlier we only want this one here

it's called ee roms and in here you're

going to see a bunch of different

folders that correspond to different

emulators and systems and this is where

we're going to add all of our game files

now game files are copyrighted and i

can't tell you where to get them but

you'll need to find them on your own

another thing you're going to want to

find too are bios files bios files are

basically system files that allow

certain systems like ps1 and game boy

advance to work properly

so for those you're going to want to

look for a retroarch bios pack and once

you have that bios packed together like

this one here you're going to want to

just basically copy all of these over

onto the bios folder of that sd card and

you can either piecemeal together your

bios files one by one more on that later

or you can just throw in the whole pack

like i'm doing here alright so once you

have your bios files moved over now you

can start moving your game files over

and again for this you'll have to build

your own rom library so i'm just going

to work under the assumption that you

already have all of your game files and

so here are mine they're nice and

organized on the left and then on the

right is the sd card so i'm going to

just pick a system and move the files

over

we'll start with say nintendo

entertainment system

now because we have such a big sd card

to work with i'm going to move over the

whole nes library but of course you can

just pick and choose the ones you want

and honestly this is going to be the

longest and most arduous part of this

entire video you're one gonna have to

find all of your game files and then

organize them as you see fit and then

also move them over the sd card and it's

gonna take time i would expect to spend

maybe a day or two getting all these

files together and moving them over of

course if you want a small library it's

not going to take that long but if you

want something comprehensive like

something you would find on the super

console x it's going to take a bit of

time and as you build your rom library i

recommend using what they call the no

intro rom set naming convention and

that's just basically a system they use

for naming the roms that's why you see

things like usa in parentheses

afterwards so have a look at that as

well i'll put everything in the written

guide but that's going to allow you to

use things like bezels later on in this

video anyway that's really it in a

nutshell when it comes to moving your

game files over you basically just find

the folder then move the corresponding

files into that folder now you might be

wondering whether or not you have the

correct files for mu elec so let me show

you some tips with that so first go back

to that emulec wiki page and then on the

right you're gonna find a link that says

supported emulators and paths and in

here is basically a table of everything

that's required so on the left you'll

see the platform and then all the

emulators that are available the name of

the folder on your sd card and then the

specific file extensions that are

required to run those games so for

example if you want to play turbo

graphic 16 you can see here is the names

of the emulators that work with it this

is the folder you put the files in and

here all the different file types that

are supported so that's a great

reference if you're trying to make sure

you have the right files in your folders

another thing you can check is your bios

file so here is going to be a listing of

all the bios that are required for every

system the file name themselves will be

on the right here and on the left you're

going to find an md5 hash this is

actually the naming code embedded in

each of these files so if you search by

the md5 you can typically find exactly

the file that is needed for emilek now

most of the bios packs will have the

correct files anyway but if you're

trying to piecemeal together your bios

files this is the method for doing that

and not every single one of these bios

files are required for every system yes

for something like amiga you definitely

need to have bios files in order to run

the system but if you scroll down

something like game boy doesn't actually

require bios files but you can add these

and what that means if you add these

files you're going to see the boot logo

for game boy and game boy color now that

being said game boy advance actually

does need the bios files in order to

boot properly so you are going to want

that one altogether the easiest thing to

do is to use a bios pack but this is

your option if you want to piecemeal it

okay flashing forward here i've added

all my games to the sd card and i put

the sd card back in the device and so

here i am with my completed library but

like i said i'm not super happy with

this theme so let's change it out for a

different one we're going to go into

updates and downloads then themes again

and then honestly i'm just going to go

buck wild and download a bunch of them

and see which ones i like the best

and a lot of these are really great but

one of my recommendations is this one

here called artflix it looks really nice

but the thing about this is that a lot

of the descriptions are in portuguese

and as much as i love brazil let's try

something in english so this one here is

called roletta this one kind of has a

nice arcade feel to it we're going to

use this one for the duration of the

video now once you have all of your

media loaded up it's gonna look really

great let me show you what it looks like

when it's all done so for example here

you can see the games are on the left

you have your box art on the right as

well as a short video that will play

when you hover over a game and to do

that you're gonna have to set up

scraping so let me show you how to do

that i'm going to select a system here

that doesn't have any box art yet so

let's go with dreamcast and as you can

see when you open it up it just shows

the names of the files here it doesn't

show any box art or things like that so

what you want to do is go into the

scrape section and within here you can

set whatever parameters you want for box

source i like to use box 2d but it's all

up to you now to get this to work

properly you're going to need a screen

scraper account i'll have links to this

in my written guide it's very easy and

free to set up after you've entered your

username and password from that website

you're good to go from here just select

scrape now and then start and you can do

this one system at a time or all the

systems at once we're just going to do

dreamcast first so it's only going to

take a few minutes to do the 23 games

that i have in here once it's done it's

going to say update your games list to

apply the changes go into game settings

then update games list that's going to

restart emulation station and as you can

see now we now have the box art as well

as the videos that will play when we

hover over a game it's also going to fix

the names of the games as you can see on

the left

and that's scraping in a nutshell this

is something that will also take a long

time if you have a large library so this

might be something you want to do at

night while you're sleeping either way

this is how you make a really nice

looking system now let's talk a little

bit about bezels so under the updates

and download section there's a bezels

project option and within here you can

download bezels specific to a system for

this example i'm just going to do nes so

you download the nes bezel pack and once

it's done downloading it'll install all

of them onto the system and this is

going to require you to have that no

intro naming convention on your rom

files but if you have it all set up and

you've downloaded the bezel pack when

you start up a game instead of seeing

the black borders on the left and right

you're actually going to see a special

bezel depending on the game so for

example here i'm getting an adventure

island bezel it's really going to be up

to you whether or not you want to do

this extra work to make sure you have

these nice specials honestly i kind of

go back and forth about this option and

for the rest of this video i'm actually

just going to use the black bars just to

make things simple okay let's do a

little bit of game configuration we'll

start with game boy what you want to do

is press start to go into game settings

and then you can go into per system

advanced configuration from there select

whatever system you want we're going to

do nintendo game boy now there's all

sorts of options within here honestly a

lot of these are already preset to the

optimal settings but the one thing i

want to do is colorization by default

game boy shows games in black and white

but you can add all sorts of cool

colorizations to it my favorite is this

one here called special one so once you

select that colorization you don't have

to do anything else just go ahead and

back out and then let's start up a game

and so now when we start a game boy game

you're gonna see that one it's in this

colorization kind of has this green tone

to it but also i have the game boy boot

logo and that's because i added those

bios files to the bios folder now once

you're done playing a game what you do

to exit it is hold down select and press

start twice and that's really about it

you don't have to do a lot of special

tweaking for most of these systems but

game boy does require that colorization

fix

other systems like game boy color you

don't have to do anything they're just

going to work out of the box and as you

can expect these games are going to play

wonderfully on this system the cpu on

this is so powerful that this is not an

issue at all so game boy game book color

game boy advance these are all going to

play great now ds does require a little

bit of configuration and this one's a

little bit weird in order to get to the

menu i had to plug in a usb keyboard and

then hit capital m to bring up the menu

once i was in there i was able to

reconfigure the controls but i did have

to do that the first time around after

you have all that set up you can adjust

your hotkeys and everything else and so

you can set up things to play ds games

in double screen and everything else all

the menu is available to you but you do

have to use the keyboard that first time

around so i'm going to take a few

minutes and just kind of run through all

the different systems that i set up here

to show you what kind of a performance

you can expect from this system and

obviously i've done a whole video about

the super console x king and the

performance on that video is going to be

exactly the same as you're going to see

in this video but i just want to show

off some of the things you can do so in

addition to things like amiga and

turbografx cd you're obviously going to

be able to play other 16-bit systems

like genesis and super nintendo all

these are going to work wonderfully on

the default settings

you'll also have no problem with the

32-bit system so things like 3do as well

as playstation 1 they're going to play

great in general for this build i'm not

going to do any upscaling i'm just going

to play everything at its original

resolution just to kind of keep the

spirit of these original systems but

things like playstation 1 would be able

to play at a double resolution no

problem when it comes to arcade gameplay

this is actually a really good system

for arcades so you can play everything

from classic name systems over to your

favorite shooters as well as maybe your

side-scrolling beat-em-ups all these are

going to play wonderfully you can play

everything from the 90s on this

basically no problem

moving it up a notch you're going to be

able to play the entire neo geo catalog

no problem as well

and really the upper limit of the system

is going to be the killer instinct games

killer instinct 1 plays reasonably well

it will dip down here and there but for

the most part it'll stay about 56 frames

per second or higher but unfortunately

killer instinct 2 is unplayably slow

you're not going to be able to get over

50 frames per second when playing this

one so this is really gonna be your

upper limit and of course emilek has

support for daphne so you could play

some old laserdisc games too honestly

this device functions really well as an

arcade box

okay moving things up here i'm gonna do

one tweak with nintendo 64. what you

want to do is get into the retroarch

quick menu by pressing select and x then

go down to options and here under the

4x3 resolution i recommend upgrading it

to 640x480 this is going to give you

much better resolution and you're still

going to get great performance with a

nintendo 64. as always you're going to

see dips when it comes to something like

goldeneye but for the most part every

other game in the catalog is going to

work great

moving over to saturn here this is a 1x

resolution using the default yabasan

shiro core and it's working really well

all the saturn games i tested even some

of the harder ones like virtua cop 2

played at full speed so this is a really

good sega saturn box as well alright

kicking up a notch again we're going to

use the flycast core in retroward for

sega dreamcast now there is a standalone

flycast option available in this but the

configuration of it is pretty

complicated and so if you're comfortable

with doing it definitely check it out

but personally using the flycast core at

a 1x resolution looks really great and

works really well and in addition to

dreamcast you can play the dreamcast

related arcade system so here's the

naomi system running virtual tennis 2

working really well and here's a thomas

wave dolphin blue is probably one of the

harder games to run on this system and

as you can see it's running wonderfully

overall keeping things at 1x resolution

with dreamcast is going to give you that

original feel to everything those big

chunky pixels and it all plays really

well

and finally the hardest system this

device can handle is psp now i would

recommend a 2x resolution with this and

then setting up an auto frame skip of

one just in case there's a game that you

come across that needs that auto frame

skip but for the most part your side

scrolling games and 2d games they're all

gonna play wonderfully at 2x resolution

something is a little bit harder like

outrun 2006 is definitely going to use

that auto frame skip but all in all psp

is going to run really well of course

you'll have to make concessions for god

of war like you have to do with any

system but overall psp is great

so yeah that's really going to be it in

a nutshell i just wanted to show you how

to set up the super console x king

yourself using a diy method and sure

it's going to cost you about the same

amount but you're going to have an sd

card that's not going to crap out on you

over time and you're going to have

controllers that you're actually going

to enjoy using and on top of that you

get to curate it with your own game

library and it's going to open up the

whole world of emulation and

configuration and things like that

so i hope you enjoyed the video let me

know if you have any questions in the

comments below be sure to check out that

written guide that i have in the video

description and we'll see you next time

happy gaming

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