Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie

Rascas

Take a look at the odroid xu4/xu4q. I bought one xu4 more than 1 year ago to offer my father, for him to use as PC/NAS and Kodi on one of his TVs, and of course for me to tinker with it a little, but I never tried gaming emulation on it since it was not one of the objectives. I can confirm that it is much faster than the Pi, you can easily notice it browsing the web with chromium. Theoretically, if a program/emulator/whatever is able to use its 8 cores it should be at least 4 times faster! It costed me around 100 euros from Germany by the time. I am not much into new SBCs, but since it now has RetroPie support I think it would be a good option for you, take a look at it.
PS: the tinkerboard processing power, which is the most important thing for emulation, is only a bit faster than the RPi 3, odroid xu4 is much faster than both.

latreides

Ok, I ordered an ODROID XU4! Lets hope my RetroPie adventures go more smoothly with this new box!

Darksavior

@latreides Most snes games run fullspeed with the default emulator snes9x-2010 at 1080p with pi3 stock speeds. Oc to 1300 might be needed to get those special chip games running fullspeed. The optional lr-snes9x emulator is another matter and that's much slower. PS1 is also fullspeed. I play at 1080p with the crt-pi shader,though I need to try that faster shader that just came out..

If those systems are not running fullspeed then it's on you. Something's wrong on your end. A 3rd party image, messing around with configs to those "optimal" settings random fools on youtube and sites tell you, or a crappy ac adapter. The official retropie image is already optimized for the best settings. I just alter it with the crt-pi shader and output to 1080p. Most shaders are not optimized for the pi so there's that. I know for a fact it's a problem on your end since my pi2 can run most snes and ps1 games at fullspeed at 1080p without a shader.

While the odroid looks interesting, I prefer a platform where retropie gets concentrated support and that's where the rest of the devices fail at.

Keigan

I've never had a single issue running SNES on my stock RPi3. I run mine at 1024 x 896 with an overlay around it, 4x default size. It's never lagged, stuttered, anything. You may want to start from scratch and get a base RetroPie install and note all changes you make.

mediamogul

@keigan said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

It's never lagged, stuttered, anything.

Not even 'DOOM'? That's unusual for such an intensive port. I've had issues in the past with the obvious SuperFX/2 titles, but you'd be surprised at the games that have some slow down in odd places deep into game play. The Pi3 is right at the line of acceptable performance for SNES emulation. However, I've found that running lr-snes9x2010 with a framebuffer render of 800x600 keeps everything running at a smooth 60 fps. Also, seeing as how that 800x600 resolution is integer scaled to 1080p as it would be anywhere else, there's no difference in the image quality.

latreides

@Darksavior @Keigan I have the exact opposite experience, or I would not be here. I struggle to get basic SNES games like Super Mario World to run at full speed. I have to make a lot of sacrifices (like no filters and low resolution) to even make this happen.

I have already tried reinstalling RetroPie multiple times. I have tried stock settings, I have tried various walk throughs that highlight the best settings to tweak for optimal speed, and I have also tried just looking at all of the settings and making educated guesses based on the outcome I want. None of these provided a noticeable performance increase.

@Darksavior I use the official images (always), I start with stock settings, and when those don't work, I find dozens of walkthroughs on how to optimize speed. I have gone through many of them, but only after default settings were not sufficient.

I am hoping that the extra power in the ODROID XU4 will let RetroPie stretch its legs and finally get a tiny SNES box.

herb_fargus

@latreides said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

I have to make a lot of sacrifices (like no filters and low resolution

Seeing as the native res is hardly 240p I don't see the troubles, I've always found the concept of upscaling 2d games with a small native res to 1080p laughable. Only time it makes sense is if it's 3d then there are gains to be had.

As far as filters I've always been of the opinion that if I want a CRT look I'll get a CRT though I know many here feel differently.

Darksavior

@latreides said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

@Darksavior
I have tried various walk throughs that highlight the best settings to tweak for optimal speed, and I have also tried just looking at all of the settings and making educated guesses based on the outcome I want. None of these provided a noticeable performance increase.

Try a fresh image without tweaking anything. As I said, random people recommending their optimal settings are just fooling you. If you get the lightning bolt icon then it's a power issue.

dankcushions

@latreides said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

@Darksavior @Keigan I have the exact opposite experience, or I would not be here. I struggle to get basic SNES games like Super Mario World to run at full speed. I have to make a lot of sacrifices (like no filters and low resolution) to even make this happen.

this is definitely an issue with your setup. retropie defaults to 1080p for snes on a pi2, even. the ONLY snes games that will drop from 60fps at that resolution will be later levels of yoshi’s island, and apparently star fox 2.

i suspect it’s a PSU or temperature issue. do you see any symbols in the top right when these slowdowns occur?

dankcushions

@mediamogul said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

Not even 'DOOM'? That's unusual for such an intensive port. I've had issues in the past with the obvious SuperFX/2 titles, but you'd be surprised at the games that have some slow down in odd places deep into game play. The Pi3 is right at the line of acceptable performance for SNES emulation.

doom would slow down to a crawl on real hardware - that’s a seperate issue :)

However, I've found that running lr-snes9x2010 with a framebuffer render of 800x600 keeps everything > running at a smooth 60 fps. Also, seeing as how that 800x600 resolution is integer scaled to 1080p as it would be anywhere else, there's no difference in the image quality.

1080/600 = 1.8? that’s not integer scaled, so if you send an 800x600 image to a 1080p tv it will be at the mercy of a (usually terrible) scaler which will have to blur the image.

AndersHP

@latreides said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

@edmaul69 @jonnykesh
I have given up on trying to squeeze performance out of the RPi3. I spent months trying to get it to be able to play SNES games at full speed and gave up.

Can you make a shortlist of games that you have issues with? Just to doublecheck how they run on my Pi? Have a fresh install, but haven't tinkered much with SNES on it yet.

mediamogul

@dankcushions said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

doom would slow down to a crawl on real hardware - that’s a seperate issue :)

I can actually get the optimal performance of a sustained 60 fps out of 'DOOM' on lr-snes9x2010. It's just that at full frame rate it still seems to drag across the floor due to it's inherent issues. However, if I raise the framebuffer render past 800x600, the frame rate drops to 48-51 fps in lr-snes9x2010 and even lower in the later cores.

Beldar

I am not trying to be rude at all, but I am struggling to understand the problem. I have never once had a problem running a SNES game on a Pi 3B. I have built 4 Retropies from the official stock image. The only tweaking I do is to aspect ratio, applying a simple border overlay, and sometimes a scanline/gamma shader, biliniar filtering, color pallet, etc.

I have never once had a single game go under about 58fps for SNES unless I was playing with a shader that was just too much for the Pi to handle. I haven't run Doom or Starfox 2 as mentioned above, so maybe those are specific cases I haven't run into.

So, what are you trying to do? Force the emulator to output an extremely high resolution via integer scaling? If you are, you are doing it wrong. Set the aspect ratio that you want, set your preference for overscan display, and then let the core upscale the output to 1080p or 720p. If you have a 4k TV, it will upscale the image further, not much you can do about that but it is not a Pi problem.

You will not, I repeat, you will not get a higher quality image by forcing a high resolution out of the core so there is no point. We are dealing uber tiny res base files. It will not look better than just letting the core upscale the image for virtually no performance hit.

As far as shaders go, yes you are limited on the Pi 3B. But you can work within the limits of the Pi 3B and get a really nice image that is more than playable. You aren't going to get anything better unless you emulate on a modest PC and even then, it really isn't going to be that much of a difference.

dankcushions

@mediamogul said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

@dankcushions said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

doom would slow down to a crawl on real hardware - that’s a seperate issue :)

I can actually get the optimal performance of a sustained 60 fps out of 'DOOM' on lr-snes9x2010. It's just that at full frame rate it still seems to drag across the floor due to it's inherent issues. However, if I raise the framebuffer render past 800x600, the frame rate drops to 48-51 fps in lr-snes9x2010 and even lower in the later cores.

i confess i've never tried doom on my pi, but yes this makes sense actually, since it's a super fx 2 game (i though it was just regular super fx). my theory is that every super fx 2 game (there are 4 - winter gold, star fox 2, yoshi's island, doom) will have frame drops on a pi, due to the unique emulation requirements.

at the same time, i am confident that EVERY other snes game will run full speed on a stock pi3 at default retropie settings (ie, 1080p upscale, no shader, lr-snes9x2010).

Beldar

@dankcushions If I remember right the 2010 SNES core has an option for a virtual overclock on the FX chip. If I'm not mistaken, perhaps try that out? But it does make sense that emulation wouldn't be has honed for those four games. I would probably just play a better port of Doom anyway lol

dankcushions

@beldar i completed doom 1 and 2 on the GBA, as I a sadist :) the AI was so limited that if you got far enough away they would give up and just stay still! GBA version is at least very smooth, though. PSX is my all-time favourite version, thanks to the amazing music, lighting and sound effects. but yeah... SNES doom is particularly horrible

Beldar

@dankcushions Yikes! That's some dedication. I fired GBA Doom up on original hardware once out of curiosity. It was a big nope from me.

I too think the PS1 port is the best for original Doom. It feels about as good as playing it on the PC, which I think is the whole point of a port. The Jaguar version wasn't too bad either. Don't try the 32x port, the music is painful.

latreides

@herb_fargus I am not sure if you read all my comments, but I mentioned many times that I have used stock RetroPie with stock settings. I am not sure how much clearer I can be. I know this sounds terse but I have answered this a couple times, it seems to be ignored every time I say it though. I don't just go in an willy-nilly change settings, I figure that the default is usually pretty good, I only go and try and change things if the default are not satisfactory.

@Beldar I feel the same, but on the opposite side of the fence. I mention RPi3 performance issues and all I get is "Well I can emulate a PS4 at native 4k resolution on my RPi3 so it must be you" (obviously hyperbole, but thats what it feels like). What am I trying to do? I have said this a number of times: play SNES games with a reasonable resolution and frame rate. If the resolution is set too low, then its up to the display to upscale it, and thats always terrible (and often unplayable). If I up the resolution that RetroPie is using then it looks much better and is very playable (visually), but not frame rate-wise.

@dankcushions I do not see any icons or notifications of any sort during emulation or in EmulationStation. I get 60 fps with a low resolution and no filters. I up the resolution, it drops to about 50 fps, I apply (almost) any filter and it drops to < 30 fps. (some only drop it to 40 fps), and thats with games that are not too demanding, usually Super Mario World. I don't believe that it defaults to 1080p in fact I am pretty sure of it, because the first change I usually make is to up the resolution because it looks terrible upscaled to 1080p by any of my displays until I increase the resolution to something approaching 2-3 times the native SNES resolution. It has been awhile since I booted the RPi3 with RetroPie, but 1080p it was not.

dankcushions

@latreides said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

@dankcushions I do not see any icons or notifications of any sort during emulation or in EmulationStation. I get 60 fps with a low resolution and no filters. I up the resolution, it drops to about 50 fps, I apply (almost) any filter and it drops to < 30 fps. (some only drop it to 40 fps), and thats with games that are not too demanding, usually Super Mario World. I don't believe that it defaults to 1080p in fact I am pretty sure of it, because the first change I usually make is to up the resolution because it looks terrible upscaled to 1080p by any of my displays until I increase the resolution to something approaching 2-3 times the native SNES resolution. It has been awhile since I booted the RPi3 with RetroPie, but 1080p it was not.

well, it is the default. look: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/5e091d282fbd9a13282f138cfc2d37725b51d517/scriptmodules/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh#L650

what that says is, default to 'video output' resolution. video output is the resolution your pi handshakes from your TV. on an HDTV, that would be 1080p. i fancy that whatever tweak you're doing to 'raise' the resolution is either doing nothing and/or is responsible for your drops.

stock retropie runs at 1080p, 60fps with super mario world (and 99.9% of all 16-bit era games), absolutely. i've never heard of the issue you're describing and have been supporting it for a couple of years, set it up many times, on different TVs, etc.

EDIT: just for completeness, pi1 and 0 default to 640x480, rather than 1080p: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/322d5890487935693cc47ae5a16a87ccfd7c5da8/scriptmodules/emulators/retroarch.sh#L138 (but you're using a pi3, so...)

mediamogul

@dankcushions said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:

i completed doom 1 and 2 on the GBA, as I a sadist :)

Ha! Same here. Those two GBA carts were actually pretty expensive on the collector's market for a while, but it looks like they've gone down. It really is a testament to how good the original games are when you still see stories to this day of people sadistically willing to play them on on digital cameras and smart fridges. Some time before Christmas, I beat the original 'Doom' on a 3DO system. It was a lousy port, but I couldn't put it down.