small solid state solutions

[jimmer]

What's the latest on configurable solutions to rival 60in1 ?

I've seen a few threads with diferent hardware, some threads faded, not sure if they were success or not.

Doesn't need to be cheaper than 60in1, or PC.  But something that can be just switched on and off at the main power switch, and is reliable. Running MAME is sufficient for my needs at present.

Starter for 10 is PiMame. Is that all I need?

[mgb]

There's the arcade sd board from Phoenix arcades.
http://www.phoenixarcade.com/ArcadeSD.htm

[MonMotha]

You can get little Atom or AMD E-350 type boards that are passively cooled and pretty cheap.  Slap an SSD on them (some boards even have provisions for mSATA cards), and they have no moving parts.  For Windows, enable enhanced write filter (EWF) or, for Linux, use either a flat-out read-only root filesystem or use a copy-on-write overlay (which is how EWF works), and you can safely hard power the system at will.  If you want to save high scores, savestates, and other preferences, you'll have to redirect those to a read/write partition which means you may, at some point, lose that data due to a power loss though it's unlikely with modern filesystems (worst case is that you should end up with old data).

Obviously this is a bit more DIY than something like a 60-in-1, but it comes with full flexibility that people expect from a traditional PC home arcade setup.  They're probably capable of running higher end stuff that those low-end setups, too, but don't expect to run the late-model 3d accelerated stuff on such a puny CPU.

[jimmer]

Arcade SD is more expensive than I was thinking (especially as a UK import).

Thanks for the tips on hard switch off, I'll have a look into that.

I was thinking more RaspberryPi, Tronsmart, BeagleBone type price. It can't be much more expensive than a 2nd hand small Dell.

[mgb]

Yes the arcade sd is far from cheap but you said you didn't mind if it cost more than
A 60-in-1.

You can run Pimame but its gonna be more the classics which kinda sounds like
What you're looking for anyway if you're talking about 60-in-1s