I was curious if there was any way to run emulators on my Unraid server (gameboy, gamecube, wii, etc) and stream them to my roku somehow. I've looked around a bit and haven't found much other than BigBox but it requires Kodi and I can't run Kodi on my Roku.

Even if this was possible, you would find there would be a lag between button press and what you see on the screen due to transcoding and sending it to your roku. Best thing to do would be buy a raspberry pi for example and run something like recalbox.

Even if this was possible, you would find there would be a lag between button press and what you see on the screen due to transcoding and sending it to your roku. Best thing to do would be buy a raspberry pi for example and run something like recalbox.

would there really be much input lag you think? Like if you were to just play games like megaman/pokemon or something? I'm not too bothered if I can't get it to work, I am more just messing about since I have nothing better to do at this moment in time hah

Even if this was possible, you would find there would be a lag between button press and what you see on the screen due to transcoding and sending it to your roku. Best thing to do would be buy a raspberry pi for example and run something like recalbox.

would there really be much input lag you think? Like if you were to just play games like megaman/pokemon or something? I'm not too bothered if I can't get it to work, I am more just messing about since I have nothing better to do at this moment in time hah

My guess would be roughly a second or two delay, just because for that button to be shown on screen to you, it would have to go: button press>emulator>transcoding software>send to roku>decoded by roku>display on screen. Just seems a lot of hoops for it to jump through.

EDIT: After writing this reply, I saw that you were asking about a roku box (not an android-based box like a FireTv), which makes my reply useless, sorry.  I'll post it anyways, since I already wrote it. 

 

I have a setup running that accomplishes what you're after, but it requires IOMMU (VT-d) support, and running a Windows10 VM.

 

Here it is in a nutshell:

1. Create a Windows 10 VM and pass through an Nvidia graphics card that supports GameStream (GTX Series)

2. Install Steam

3. Within Steam, add the desired emulator application (such as retroarch) to your steam library as a  "non-steam" game

4. Install The "moonlight" android app on your destination box (FireTv, Nexus Player, etc)

 

The Moonlight application will connect to your Windows 10 VM using Nvidia's GameStream service (basically just mirroring the screen on your VM).  Through that, your Steam game library is available to be played on the destination box.  I've been playing Portal 2 on my FireTv off and on for a few days now, and it runs smooth as butter, with very little controller lag (I use a wireless Xbox360 controller connected to the FireTv).

 

Obviously a setup like mine is EXTREME hardware overkill (i7/Xeon processor, GTX video card, etc) if your only desire is to play old nintendo games, but I thought I'd share anyways.  With a setup similar to mine, you can play graphics-intensive games on inferior hardware like a FireTv.

EDIT: After writing this reply, I saw that you were asking about a roku box (not an android-based box like a FireTv), which makes my reply useless, sorry.  I'll post it anyways, since I already wrote it. 

 

I have a setup running that accomplishes what you're after, but it requires IOMMU (VT-d) support, and running a Windows10 VM.

 

Here it is in a nutshell:

1. Create a Windows 10 VM and pass through an Nvidia graphics card that supports GameStream (GTX Series)

2. Install Steam

3. Within Steam, add the desired emulator application (such as retroarch) to your steam library as a  "non-steam" game

4. Install The "moonlight" android app on your destination box (FireTv, Nexus Player, etc)

 

The Moonlight application will connect to your Windows 10 VM using Nvidia's GameStream service (basically just mirroring the screen on your VM).  Through that, your Steam game library is available to be played on the destination box.  I've been playing Portal 2 on my FireTv off and on for a few days now, and it runs smooth as butter, with very little controller lag (I use a wireless Xbox360 controller connected to the FireTv).

 

Obviously a setup like mine is EXTREME hardware overkill (i7/Xeon processor, GTX video card, etc) if your only desire is to play old nintendo games, but I thought I'd share anyways.  With a setup similar to mine, you can play graphics-intensive games on inferior hardware like a FireTv.

 

Haven't heard of Moonlight. Might have to try that one out!