I'm sure this question has been answered hundreds of times before, but I trust the GB community more than anything else on the internet so hopefully I can get some answers here! I'm a lifelong console guy that's gotten pretty bored recently, plus I have a daughter on the way so I'm looking to cut costs anywhere. I'd like to buy a gaming PC then look to upgrade in the future. I'm mainly looking to play emulators (NES, SNES, PS1, PS2, N64) and dabble on Steam a bit. I'll probably stay on the PS4 for AAA games, so I'm guessing I won't need a powerhouse. With all that being said, whats my best alternative? Sorry if I annoyed anyone with this question or my rambling and thanks for any help.

If you are looking to save a few bucks, I would suggest you wait a few months. Both Nvidia and ATi have announced that their new generation of chipsets will have a spring release. The new GPU's coming out are going from 28nm to 14nm so this is the PC's equivalent of a new console generation. Even if you don't want the new cards, the old ones will be less expensive.

If the most difficult system you want to emulate is n64 and play some indie games then you won't need much power and a GTX 950, 8gb of ram, a current gen i3, $100 motherboard, and a 500w power supply will do the trick.

If you want to be able to play PC exclusives, then I suggest waiting until the new chipsets come out. Right now the Occulus needs a gtx 970 ($350-400) minimum to run VR, the next step down in cost is the $200-$250 range and that is going to be the next requirement baseline. Even if you aren't interested in VR right now, if I was building a new PC, I would at least be waiting a few months to get something that has the option use the peripheral without the need for spending even more money on upgrades.

Probably best to outlay your basic budget 1st, should be able to fix you up sharpish after that :)

Edit: Oh, and are you willing and able to build your own?

Congratulations on the bun in the oven fella.

If it was just emulators you're playing, any stock standard pre-built laptop or PC would be able to run those (not sure about PS2 and N64 as I haven't used them...pssst, what emulator do you use for those consoles?)

I recently had a baby girl and let me tell ya man, you can throw gaming out the window. I've since packed up my Wii, 360 and PS4 and put them into storage for a few reasons,

1. No time to play (I'm still at uni atm)

2. They're not convenient to play and can never get any time to have a decent session.

I'm just sticking to handhelds for the mo just because its easy to put them down and do baby stuff lol.

Not sure if you're crash hot with specs but have a look at this link for pc build ideas.

You won't need much grunt at all if you aren't going to play AAA games. I'd suggest looking into the Logical Increments part guide (http://www.logicalincrements.com/) and find the build that fits your price range as a good starting point, and then ask us if you have any questions.

As for waiting, my advice is always the same; if you need a PC, build a PC. If you don't, wait. If you WANT a PC, but don't need it, weigh what the next generation of parts would do for you, and in your case that isn't much.

He said he wanted to play PS2 games as well, in which case you really, really don't want an AMD CPU.

I'd get something like an i3 4170 instead. (Even a Pentium G3258 is a great choice for emulators provided you're willing to overclock it)

as someone who has 3 kids that are now 3,4, and 7. i can say that you do start to gain your free time back after a while. for the first few months after a new baby, you may be so tired between work/home life that you may not even care to play video games. Don't let that scare you though, baby experiences are different for everyone. My suggestion is to figure out stuff you can play one handed or something you don't have to be tethered to a TV or desk to play. Tablet/mobile games are a great option.

As far as the PC goes, most off the shelf PC's can emulate everything you've listed above. It's only when you get into the PS2 era and later that you need to have a good dedicated GPU to run emulators. I bought a $80 windows 10 tablet that more than able to run a SNES emulator and has a USB port for my wired 360 controller. If you're going to explore what steam has to offer though, i'd say a GTX 950 or R7 370 are your entry level cards to get into that. minimum 4gb ram but preferably 8gb, and a newish Intel i3 or better (or the AMD equivalent) will get you started.

Also, congrats on the baby! Parenting is a lot of fun and you totally get out of it what you put in. my kids are just now getting into the really fun kid toys (LEGO sets and nerf guns) and are becoming interested in different types of games. my 2 girls (4 and 7) just completed the LEGO Movie videogame in co-op for the first time. it was fun to watch them play and figure things out together.

Ooops. Best of luck with that. Don't let you mind be cooked.

Don't think you need a 900 series card like someone says above. I still have a 760 and run all the new games just fine, medium to high settings with smooth framerates. And then for emulation you're more than fine. Maybe some stuff I haven't run gets more intensive but I've emulated PS2, PSX, PSP no problem on mine.

If that's all you want you can do it pretty reasonably now. I would look to probably get something a little better than a 760 since you're just buying this thing but yeah.

Good post, especially the second part. Just get a PC if you want one. Someone is always going to tell you to wait for X or Y.

You don't need much of a machine at all to emulate NES, SNES, PS1 or N64 games. I was emulating all of those on a mediocre machine 10-15 years ago. You could probably buy a $100 junker and run those games just fine. I really don't know about the state of PS2 emulation. I haven't heard much good about it.

That said, my PC's got a 750Ti, a cheap quad core, 8gb of ram and I'm running some pretty modern games on decent settings. How much money are you willing to spend is the real question.

My advice is to use someone else's machine. Make a Steam account. Then browse through the store and look at the minimum/recommended requirements for some games you'd like to play and buy a machine based on those specs.