Rom/emulator setup on HTPC
I have a Windows 7 HTPC in the living room that I want to load some emulators/roms on to. Wife and I have been talking about how fun it would be to play through some of our old childhood games (TMNT anyone?). Mainly MAME, NES, SNES, Genesis stuff.
Few questions...
What is the easiest/best setup? Right now we run Plex, which we love. Last I looked there is no similar solution for emulators, so I suspect I'll just have to download separate emulators, use mouse/keyboard to launch/save games, etc. Not ideal, but it's what I am expecting, correct me if I'm wrong.
Emulator recommendations? I'm good on ROMs. Glad I saved all those ROM packs from high school!
Controller recommendations? Amazon is overwhelming. I'd rather go off of first hand experience.
Some of my old school favorite (other than the obvious Mario, Sonic, etc) were TMNT, Xmen, Streets of Rage, etc. What were some of yours? 
Comments
Kega Fusion or GENS
Zsnes
Project64
Nestopia
ePSXe
PCSX2
There's no Plex for emulators.
XBMC can (or at least could at one point) be set up to display and allow for the launching of emulated games. See: http://lifehacker.com/5523672/turn-your-xbmc-media-center-into-a-video-game-console
TIL. I know what I'm doing tonight.
Awesome. Gracias.
RomCenter looks nifty for sorting through a bunch of rom collections http://www.romcenter.com/
For front end I may play with one of these: http://www.maximus-arcade.com/index.php or http://hyperspin-fe.com/ - since I don't use XBMC
Any controller recommendations?
Can't go wrong with a wired Xbox 360 controller, they've kind of become the de facto standard these days. I use a Logitech F310 gamepad which works nice, but isn't as accurate as I'd like. Still, considering I picked it up for under 30 bucks, I'm not complaining.
http://gaming.logitech.com/en-us/product/f310-gamepad
For a controller I would use the 360 controller. There's a wireless PC receiver available.
I use a wireless 360 controller. It's pretty much the perfect controller for playing all past consoles. Sega Genesis is a little weird, but it works.
Of course there's something to be said for using the original controllers on the PC...
Mayflash makes some good adapters for the GameCube, SNES, N64, and Genesis/MegaDrive. They also make a USB powered sensor bar for the Wii that's officially recommended by the Dolphin emulator folks (it has Bluetooth built in too).
I thought that might have been where the OUYA was headed. Huge opportunity for a company that pacakges a good retro gaming service. The IPs are so fragmented though so it may never happen. Shame you have to cobble it altogether yourself. I haven't spent much time playing with emulators in a few years now.
Its got weird writing on it so you know its good.
This is the controller I have and use. Its the second controller one of my co-workers bought and has stuck with it. The ibuffalo controller is a fantastic USB controller.