I moved to a new apartment a couple months ago and started working on my game setup not long thereafter. It's still not quite as streamlined as I want it to be, but I'm pretty content with it for now. Behold my shitty camera pics.
Ikea entertainment center. The inner doors slide to the side; the outer trays pull outward. The heaviest consoles or those requiring the most vertical clearance occupy the bottom row. From top to bottom:
Xbox 360 - model S, connected via HDMI
Wii U - launch deluxe model, connected via HDMI
XRGB-3 - the main processor and hub for most of the really old systems
Wii - connected via component / D-terminal, mostly just a homebrew box at this point
Playstation 2 - slim model, connected via component / D-terminal
Nintendo 64 - modded for and connected via RGB
Super Nintendo - model 2, modded for and connected via RGB
NES - top-loading model, modded for and connected via RGB
Gamecube - model 1 w/ Game Boy Player, connected via D-terminal
Genesis+CD - model 1 VA6 w/ region mods, connected via RGB
Saturn - model 2, connected via RGB
Dreamcast - revision 1, connected via VGA
The TV is a little reflective, but not quite as much as suggested in these snapshots.
Most of the wires are routed through the back. Since I lack an RGB switch, though, I have to connect and swap the RGB cables from the front. They're easy enough to hide away when not in use.
The XRGB-3 itself handles all 240p/480i sources and outputs a 480p VGA signal. It has the capability to scale up to 1080p, but I never really use that mode because it adds some lag and has some compatibility problems with the rest of my setup.
The top-loader NES has an RGB card installed inside and an SNES-style AV port installed on the back, making it compatible with standard SNES video cables (composite video, S-video, and RGB). No more crappy RF video output; no more inconvenient front-loader 72-pin connectors or lockout chips to fight with. There's also a palette toggle switch, but I tend to stick with the standard color scheme most of the time.
The SNES and N64 also have RGB mods.
Since my TV has no VGA input, the XRGB-3 (or Dreamcast) is routed through this VGA-to-component converter. It only changes the color space from RGBHV to YPbPr. No scaling, no unnecessary processing. This keeps the lag low.
The component switch handles 4 sources: XRGB-3 / DC, PS2, GCN, and Wii. I have official component cables and official D-terminal cables for all of my systems (when applicable), except for the Gamecube, in which case I only have a D-terminal cable. The component cables get connected directly to this component switch, while the D-terminal cables get connected to the back of the XRGB-3. One of these cables is connected to the back of its respective console, with the other cable resting behind the console and able to be swapped out with minimal fuss. For 240p/480i games, I use the XRGB-3 via D-terminal. For 480p games, I use component and circumvent the XRGB-3 altogether.
A glance at the back of the TV. 4 HDMI inputs but only 1 component input, necessitating the switch. You can see the D-terminal to component adapter I use to connect the GCN.
Amplified TV antenna, because fuck paying for cable TV in 2014.
The TV itself is a 2014 Sony Bravia (65-inch 950B model), which I purchased a little over a month ago and is actually my first HDTV ever. I am such a snob about input lag that I consider virtually all HDTVs to be garbage for gaming purposes. Video gaming is an interactive medium, and responsiveness is key, especially for the types of games that I tend to play most. You can argue about black levels or contrast or viewing angles or burn-in or whatever else, but to me, nothing sucks me out of a game or frustrates me more than the feeling that I'm not in control of my actions. And only in the past year and a half have I finally found a line of HDTVs that I think are satisfactory on that front. I even bought one of those Leo Bodnar lag testers to ensure peace of mind on this (and for other semi-professional purposes in my other endeavors):
About 8 to 9 ms slower than a CRT. I think I'm OK with this.
Check out all of this Smart TV junk that I'm never going to use.
The 3D glasses might stay in their packaging forever.
The trays are arranged to correspond to the inner shelves on the opposite side of the entertainment center. The middle-left tray holds controllers and peripherals for the middle-right shelf of consoles, in this case NES and SNES. This allows access to controllers and the system at the same time without any doors getting in the way.
My main computer desk sits to the left of the TV, close enough to hook up the HDMI-out from my laptops with ease or set-up some capture equipment without having to move everything around too much. My personal laptop is a 3+ year old Dell Vostro that's kind of falling apart physically at this point from how much travel and use that it gets. The external HDD on the desk houses a 5.5 TB RAID-0 array that's fast enough to record uncompressed 1080p60 footage on the fly.
Tucked away to the side is a WRT54G router. Absolutely ancient, yeah, but it still works like a charm, and wireless G isn't much of a bottleneck for my needs. The PCs, TV, and Xbox 360 are all connected by wire, and I have a Wii LAN adapter if I ever need to use it. Maybe when fiber becomes a reality in the Atlanta metro, I'll finally box this thing up and replace it.
The other desk in the room. The boxes all contain various equipment for my tournament streams: capture cards, webcams, audio mixers, headsets, room mics, HDMI splitters, VGA splitters, component splitters, countless cables and adapters, a mobile jetpack, etc. There are also some tripods and lighting kits in the closet. It'd take a whole other post just to show that complete setup.
The XGA CRT monitor in the corner isn't hooked up at the moment, but I'll never throw it out unless it breaks, as it still has the best picture of any display I've ever used. The colors and contrast are still a huge step up from any flat panel I've used, including my current main set, and this monitor is still free from defects and damage so far. I bought it new in the early 2000s and held onto it when I realized that the LCDs of the time left an awful lot to be desired, to put it nicely. Since the XRGB-3 has lag-free 480p VGA output, that makes it a perfect companion for these typical CRT PC monitors:
Just wonderful.
A PVM would be nice, but since I'm not too picky about accurate scanlines, I doubt that even that would be much of an improvement for me.
Some boxes in the living room closet. Visible in this shot are my LCD monitor (primarily for fighting game tournaments), arcade stick box, lots of console boxes with most of the packaging still included, and a lot of the boxes for other stuff discussed above. Not visible are two Dreamcast keyboards. You know, for the occasional
Typing of the Dead tournament.
The Dell monitor box on the floor has like a dozen Saturn controllers in it. For
Saturn Bomberman tournaments.
Despite all the money I've sunk into all of that hardware, my actual game collection is pretty modest right now. I offloaded a lot of stuff when I moved, but it's nice to have a mostly clear backlog. Makes me want to get back into trying new games out.
What I really want to know is how tariniel has lived in an apartment for a year with little to no furniture!
In my prior apartment, most of my "furniture" consisted of stacks of empty Amazon.com boxes.
>_>
