Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?

RetroFreak89

Hey all!

Ever since the Raspberry Pi single board computer has reached the market more companies are trying to compete or create something better since its selling and doing so well..

The Raspberry pi specs is not bad for the money all tho it can be improved and it has so much potential,on kickstarter we have a few new single board computers that are coming out that rivals and completely destroys the pi specs wise and its the same size something like the Dreamcade Replay thats coming out soon which has a 2.2intel cpu with 4gigs of ram and its soposed to do the samething as the Pi emulation/games.

So i think its def time for Raspberry pi to do something if they want to stay number one forever and i rly want them to be number one but im scared that the newer boards will just well be a better choice than rpi3,so im wondering will we ever see a Raspberry Pi 4 from them?
I mean i know eventually we will but it might be to late then?
Also what would the specs be anyways i would at least like to see 4gb of ram like the Dreamcade,
But if im correct i think i've read somewhere that they dont have any plans are all for Rpi 4 lol i think thats a huge mistake..

I also wonder if they will keep the price point at 35 dollars/euro's that is also very Nice the Dreamcade i believe will be around hundred but that comes complete so..

Edit
Thats weird i made a type error in the topic but i cant edit it gives me a flagged error weird....ah well

Hex

I dont think Rpi4 is coming in near future for the following reasons

Pi3 is very robust for the application is was made for : Education
Pi3 has a lot of components that are top of the line for the pricepoint
The foundations goal is to offer the best at a 35$ price point and no further
Even if components become cheaper, It takes time to get the routing done
The next Pi would have to be tested against various Hardware and software tests

Please provide the SBC that you think are worthy of competing, including their specs and price.

Lastly the Rpi's community is so vast that failures must be minimized at all costs, including time.

RetroFreak89

@hex what you mean? You wanted a link to what i think can compete against rpi 3 and its specs?
Well the Dreamcade Replay pretty much beats the rpi in specs of which are;

The system comes with an Intel Processor, 4GB RAM, Bluetooth, wireless and Ethernet networking, 32GB storage, USB 2.0 & 3.0, HDMI, VGA, and the ability to expand with up to 3 additional storage devices

Link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1329525418/dreamcade-replay-one-console-to-rule-them-all/description

So this will def perform better then the pi
Kinda sucks tho i was hoping we would see a another or faster version of Raspberry Pi.

So they will just keep on selling just the Raspberry pis 3?
Well after awhile every one will have one or theres faster boards out there no one will buy a rpi 3 anymore then down the road....
Unless they change something or keep up

Darksavior

It all comes down to support. Doesn't matter how much faster these other devices are than the pi3. Asus's attempt failed. I won't support scam emu boxes like the Dreamcade or Retroengine Sigma. People are having a greaaaat time with the Retroengine Sigma... /sarcasm.

akafox

it comes down to heat and cost...

Too many tiny "heat generators" packed into a small space..
gone are the days of fan-less PCs. I think my last "fan-less PC" was a 25mhz 486-DX2. (it had 4 megabytes of RAM and according to Billy Gates I was never supposed to need more than that ever..then windows 95 came out...)

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/raspberry-pi-future
http://www.itpro.co.uk/desktop-hardware/27763/raspberry-pi-4-google-announces-partnership-with-raspberry-pi-foundation-1
http://www.alphr.com/raspberry-pi/1005103/raspberry-pi-4-rumours-no-more-pi-until-2019

akafox

This post is deleted!

Xeon

If they do i hope they give it dedicated gpu memory and more gpu features and power including frame buffer recording

RetroFreak89

@xeon yeah those links were interesting
Its at least some what good news no new pi untill 2019 because for a minute here i thought the 3 B is all we will get..
The gpu def needs an upgrade lol
I wonder i keep hearing about this overclocking thing i do run mine with heatsink and fan its stock tho kinda scared to overclock it but does that void warrenty? And is it even worth overclocking just the gpu?

RetroFreak89

@darksavior yeah thats true
I believe there was recently a board forgot which one which had better specs than the pi but played games worse probably because of how the pi has been tweaked and worked on for so long that its performance is just better

akafox

I did some investigating. See I want to make a "mini console" so I am looking for performance and cost..and the Orangepi has gotten better traction now. Even has it's own "retropie" image and official "Armbain" distro.

Now there are many boards over there..and I'll list the three that i think can compete with the rasp pi. But they do have a $50 board with 2 gb ram. Not wanting to spend that much :P
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Orange-Pi-Plus-2-H3-Quad-Core-1-6GHZ-2GB-RAM-4K-Open-source-development-board/1553371_32516755321.html

They do however have a $10 USD board that would be perfect I think..and even a couple of boards that can "keep up" with the pi 3..so yeah the raspberry pi (these are "PIs" as well.) does have compotention now. Now the question is Orange PI with Retrorange pi or wait for the pi 4? These boards may be better now...but if and when the pi 4 comes out will it be that much better...or not?

The orange pi boards have 256 or 512 mb ram...half of the pi 3..
but the ram is DDR3 ram..the ram on the raspberry is only "DDR 1"..as far as I can tell..

The CPU on the orange pi is a A7 CPU (the step up) and the rasp pi has a A5. So logically better/faster means better and faster right? maybe..but with cell phone sbc you never know. CPUs are not created equally. lol

From what I can tell the orange pi zero will out perform the raspberry pi zero for the same price.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/New-Orange-Pi-Zero-H2-Quad-Core-Open-source-512MB-development-board-beyond-Raspberry-Pi/1553371_32761500374.html

This I think is a "raspberry pi 3 clone"..and cheaper..
(less ram better cpu)
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Orange-Pi-PC-Plus-ubuntu-linux-and-android-mini-PC-Beyond-Raspberry-Pi-2/1553371_32668618847.html

(more ram.. same cpu as the rasp pi)
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Orange-Pi-Prime-Development-Board-H5-Quad-core-Support-linux-and-android-Beyond-Raspberry-Pi-2/1553371_32803048527.html

However I did watch a video on youtube showing off the orange pi one..looks promising..and it was a couple of years ago.

Yeah I looked into the banana pi as well..really no software support there..and humming boards and beaglebones are to expensive for a "retro machine"

But the thermal barrier will be hit sooner or later and that effects every computer manufacturer..price and quality are always negotiable. ;)

(no I don't sell and nor am I pushing anything. I've not tried any of these boards. Just sharing what I found.)

here is the hardware site : http://www.orangepi.org/
here are the software sites:
desktop https://www.armbian.com/
"retropie" software http://www.retrorangepi.org/

so we have a choice..but is it worth it to wait or not?...that's the question..

herb_fargus

@akafox performance and cost are irrelevant if there is no software support.

akafox

I agree totally which is why I didn't buy an orange pi to begin with..but now there is software..now I have to wait and see how it is supported. The raspberry pi community is much larger.

Yeah my commodore 64 was great..because it had software..and I couldn't run the software without the hardware..it goes hand and hand.

hooperre

@retrofreak89 said in Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?:

@xeon The gpu def needs an upgrade lol

Would another more powerful version of the RPi be possible while not continuing the RPi # lineage? Something like the Raspberry Pi X? Maybe upping the cost to $50 but increasing the specs?

herb_fargus

@hooperre for the time being I imagine they are forced into broadcom's hardware which for the current pi is limited to the videocore IV which is essentially capped at 1GB of RAM. I'm sure at some point they'll develop a new video core but the pi has always been geared at budget/education rather than heavier gaming etc. So I wouldn't hold my breath on something like that but who knows I could be wrong.

RetroFreak89

@herb_fargus true but the pi developers might of noticed that the pi can be used for all kinds of projects and people want better faster pi's when time goes on so who knows maybe well get a pi dedicated for gaming one day itll be like a rpi x or something or rpi pro haha
Only wishful thinking...

davej

@retrofreak89 said in Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?:

@herb_fargus true but the pi developers might of noticed that the pi can be used for all kinds of projects and people want better faster pi's when time goes on so who knows maybe well get a pi dedicated for gaming one day itll be like a rpi x or something or rpi pro haha
Only wishful thinking...

There will never be a Pi dedicated to gaming as that isn't part of the supporting education goals of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and everything else Pis can be used for is secondary to that. Even Pis as a more viable desktop replacement is only useful to the RPF in so far as it makes their education goals more achievable.

Having said that, you may want to read this thread about VC5 on the official Raspberry Pi forums.

The bad news from the RPF's point of view is that the bits of VC5 that exist are the 3D and video decoding bits. VC4 includes many other things, like the camera interface, that RPF still need to provide solutions for - so they can't just use one of the existing set top box chips containing VC5.

The good news from a gaming/media centre point of view is that they only need the 3D and video decoding bits. It's also worth noting that the guy producing an OpenGL driver for VC4 is already adding support for VC5.

Xeon

I think a improved gpu is much more handy than you guys think.. not just for gaming but rendering power.
think about 3d ui, vr, ar.. much more to this than games.

Video encoding on core? leaving the cpu to really do some hard math.

maxbeanz

As has been said many times before, the Raspberry Pi was built as a low cost device for education, not for gaming. If they make it more powerful then it's going to use more power which defeats the point. I'm not sure what they are trying to sell with that Dreamcade thing. It's just a PC box which has been available for years. You could buy one now. All they are giving is a 3D printed case and a frontend. The emulators will probably be RetroArch as usual and most of all the price is a lot lot higher than a Pi.

davej

@xeon said in Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?:

I think a improved gpu is much more handy than you guys think..

I think we have a much better idea of what GPUs can be used for than you think we do.

You need to remember what the Pi is for - education. THE most important part of the Pi specification is that it cost $35. Anything that gets added to future Pis will have to live within that constraint.

Separate GPU memory is not going to happen - it costs too much for too little benefit. All mobile GPUs apart from NVIDIA's use unified memory and, unlike on desktop GPUs, their tile based architectures mean it's not as big an issue as you seem to think.

twd

@darksavior least someone said it too many dumb kids are buying thease type of things called out ETA Prime on it punting that crap