Guess Who's Making a Game Console?

If you've been reading this blog lately you would have been reading Ethan's wonderful rants about various things that he does. For a bit of a change, I'ma make a post. If you don't know me, I'm Christian, otherwise known as Pinpickle. I program most of our games, keep the website up and give design a shot every once in a while.

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My school has a bit of a project going on at the moment. Basically do whatever you want for a year and you get marked on your "process". Me being me, I've gone for the most ambitious thing possible. I'm making a game console!

Before we get into big details, here is the basic plan.

• Build a homebrew computer, doesn't need to be flash or anything.
• Install an Linux distro and get to work on making it all game consoley.
• Design a case for the console, according to the size of all of my computer components.
• Build said case.
• Put computer parts in said built case.
• Continue to work on Linux distro (most likely won't be done).
• Using wireless USB controllers as my game controllers, make some awesome games with whatever cross platform engines I can find.
• Put it on some big screens and impress my friends.

I've already made a bit of a start, currently I have a homebrew computer connected to a computer via a transcoder box that turns my VGA signal into an s-video one. And it has OpenSUSE installed on it.

Here are the specs for my computer

• Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 3.2GHz
• Memory: Transcend Hynix 2GB DDR2-800
• Motherboard: ASUS M2N68-AM PLUS AM3/AM2+/AM2
• Power Supply: COOLER MASTER Elite Power 400W
• Graphics Card: Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 5450
• Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS524
• Hard Drive: The HD that I bought has since been taken off the website I bought it from. All I can remember is that it is 160GB and quite small.
• Case: Some case my friend had spare.

Currently my graphics card isn't on because it isn't compatible with my case. My friend says he has another spare that would work.
Not the best parts in the world, but pretty much the best value I could get for my money (roughly 450NZD).

I'm sure the internet doesn't need another "This is how I built my computer" post, so I'll leave that topic well enough alone. You guys can have pictures once my computer starts agreeing with me again.

If any of you have any tips at all, I'm open. I still haven't picked an engine to use for my games, and Linux is proving difficult to grasp.