@magzilla This may be a bit late since your original post was in April, but I thought others might be interested as well.

Over on the MiSTer FPGA forums there's been a lot of interest in this display:

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005001689746001.html

It's a 9.7" iPad-ish display that can run at up to 2048x1536(but supports lower modes as well). I bought one and it's extremely good value for money, although you do need to purchase some extras (a better stand, a better video cable are probably musts).

Comes in three slightly different configuration - I got the miniHDMI/USB C version. Very happy with it. So far I've tried it with a MiSTerFPGA, a TheC64 and a Raspberry Pi 4 (running Raspberry Pi OS but I see no reason it wouldn't work with RetroPie)

Here it is running on my MiSTer:

alt text

Full thread over on the MiSTer forums: https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=3373

We, meaning my brother and I, often used the Tac-2 which he had customized a bit as he was a bit of a electronic tinkerer even back then.
He had added an auto fire and a switch that froze the Amiga's clock thereby freezing the CPU and the full computer like an OP pause button.
We also used a 'bug' joystick which was nice, clicky and functional but I can't remember developing a loving relationship with that one, (who would with an insect?) THe Tac-2 wasn't really a good joystick it was a bit stiff to use its main redeeming aspect was that it was extremely sturdy. And looked pretty cool.

This is specific to the ppsspp-dev build that is inside the RetroPie-Extras GitHub https://github.com/Exarkuniv/RetroPie-Extra

In the most recent dev builds, Retroachievements now work on PPSSPP.

So if anyone wants to play with achievements on for the PSP but the retroarch core is too slow on pi3b/4 then it could be worth looking into this.

@Ashpool (memo to self & @Folly FYI) some notes/details I've encountered during the manual setup of the Desktop Environments (Debian 11).

some are (pre-)populating their panels/menus with icons to applications which aren't installed by the minimal DE setup itself (e.g. webbrowser in xfce) [note: removing orphaned start menu entries]. even if the network itself works fine, cinnamon integrates the network-manager into the desktop but that one is only managing interfaces not setup in /etc/network/interfaces and therefore always showing not connected/no connection [which may irritate most users] (?options?: any way to remove the network-interface from cinnamon? comment out the interface in above config and let the network-manager handle the connection?) some Desktop Environments aren't preinstalling a display manager (lxqt, mate). Stick to lightdm (as all other installs are using it), or is lxdm for lxqt a reasonable alternative?
At least configuring an autologin for lightdm is pretty easy and sticking to it would eventually avoid the need for different (2be documented) approaches towards that option. weird issues with the soundcard/sound-device: on most(/all manual installed) DEs it is muted on 1st startup and with the exception of mate simply unmuting it and raising the volume solve the no sound issue. For mate, the install of the package mate-media was neccessary [edit: and raising pcm value slider in alsamixer afterwards]: Further research needed why installing alsa-tools wasn't sufficient. Any benefits by using VMWares "shared folders" capability? IMHO SSH and RetroPies Samba shares are far more convinient ways of transfering files between host&guest. (VMWare Tools copy&pase somewhat the worst option as it is leaving most of the time its junk within the hosts temp folder(s).

It's not much but perhaps someone here would find the following Imgur post to be an entertaining read for creative ideas.

https://imgur.com/gallery/FfXHWYR

Not sure about the Raspberry Pi but you can run AetherSX2 on the OrangePi 5. My guess is the Raspberry Pi 4 would be too and it requires the X desktop.

If you want to test it download load the AppImage, chmod it to make it executable, and run it. Works out of the box.

wget https://www.aethersx2.com/archive/desktop/linux/AetherSX2-v1.5-3606.AppImage
sudo chmod 775 AetherSX2-v1.5-3606.AppImage
./AetherSX2-*.AppImage

I've only tried a few games with mixed results. Gauntlet and Soul Calibur II worked great.

Jonathan

It's quite fun to change a sound file and use it for the achievements. I use the gameboy Pokemon levelling up sound, I won't link to it as it's copyrighted I'm sure, but it's easy enough to find a wav or mp3 to convert online

@virginsteele Love what you done with H.E.R.O. It was one of my favourite atari 2600 games.

You shouldn't feel bad. It is just my first time with RPi and gaming.
I am pretty sure the game pad is very good. If there is timeout, then it must be the reason I could not complete the configuration.
Both my game pads are working now. Now it is time for me to learn how to play various games.
Thanks. :)

@hawkes_84 just a little bonus update on this but in the game they've mapped the iron boots and the Ocarina to left and down on the D-Pad so you don't have to keep swapping them out by pressing start all the time. Just like OOT on the 3DS

Nice touch!

Fbneo was updated to include the new accurate blitter delay function that MAME implemented. I haven't tested it on my Pi 4 yet, but from what I've read, it seems every CV1k game just needs CPU set to 50% now. I'll report back with my personal experience once I have a moment to test them.

https://github.com/libretro/FBNeo/commit/ba134d1c7f1d5bb57be7ec8e4056ad743c27353c

As long as it can run Ubuntu/Debian, you can install RetroPie on it just like on a regular PC. For a handheld device though, it looks a bit overkill.

@mitu
Thank you for your advice.

@Unknown The first Mario Kart game I played was the first in the series, Super Mario Kart on the SNES 30 years ago (EU). At that time, it was and still is very special to me. A 2 player mode racing mode and even a new Battle Mode was revolutionary to my friends and me, after F-Zero. The controls and tracks was perfect and nothing came close to it years after.

Mario Kart 64 was a burner.. for most people. I am one of those who didn't quite like it that much, even though it had really cool 4 player Battle mode and a lot of cool track designs. But I wasn't a fan of the controls somehow and tracks wasn't perfectly executed to me. Well, that's a long time ago and nowadays I think that I was too harsh on this game. Its really good.

Since then I only played sporadically Mario Kart games. Missed the Gamecube era completely, later Mario Kart 7 on my DS and Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U with friends. Mario Kart 8 is really good, I mean its probably the best ever in the series. My only gripe with the series are the extras. I know MK8 have some settings to enable or disable certain type of items, but most people don't play with my settings. So that doesn't matter then.

So did Super Mario Kart remain my favorite? Not anymore. The series evolved a lot and the recent version is probably my favorite. Shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone I guess. I never played Double Dash BTW and need to try it out.

@Floob Thanks! & Interesting indeed it is... especially that it also falls back to what I may call classical/true retro titles within the "of all time" question and is in no case (so far) mentioning "truly" inovative or otherwise noteworthy titles which may not have been among the best, but are memoriable on their own accord (sidenotes/anectodes a human writer may have opted for to supplement/beefing up the answer). Somehow I got the feeling that a) answers of other versions of this question are somewhat anticipatable and that with more questions/answers to compare they will feel more and more generic instead of genuine ones ;)