Pi3+ - worth upgrading to?

chubsta

As per the title, would we see a significant improvement in emulation due to the extra speed?

tashman

Who knows? Ordered one anyway.

dankcushions

@chubsta i don’t think so. cpu is rarely the bottleneck with the pi3, and that’s the only upgrade that is relevant to emulation. as far as i know the gpu’s capabilities are the same.

bluetooth upgrades may be beneficial for those who use that for controllers.

pjft

@dankcushions I always value your perspective in these regards, as you have a better understanding of the inner workings of the emulators we use and the current bottlenecks.

What would you envision being the potential marginal improvements, or systems being improved upon?

I had one regular 3 on my Amazon basket for the past few days, replacing it with two 3B+ now, because why not. :)

Thanks.

schmulkfuster

I was watching Pimoroni's Bilge Tank this morning and they mentioned that it runs cooler than the original Pi3 so that could be a potential upside (if it runs cooler, you're less likely to suffer from throttling).

The new one can do more despite being the same kind of processor because it doesn't get as hot. This is mostly because there is some metal on it that wasn't on the old one, which pulls heat away from the processor so it can work faster. Just like when it's hot you don't feel like doing much, processors also work better when they're cool.

From: http://blog.pimoroni.com/straightforward-guide-to-whats-new/

RetroTim

I don't expect a huge difference but more power and cooler is always better. It may benefit some n64 and dreamcast games though. And who knows, we may be able to overclock it a bit to get even more power.

5GHz wifi is certainly a nice improvement.

ganondork

Is there any guide how to carry my sd-card over to a new pi? Any changes I would have to make?

Sano

@ganondork
Someone in the comments said you need a Stretch 2018-03-13 image :
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-model-bplus-sale-now-35/#comment-1414892
You may try to just swap your SD card with Jessie, but it could fail.

A beta image of Retropie built on Stretch is available here if needed :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16307/retropie-4-3-11-stretch-images-for-testing
But I don't think it's based on 2018-03-13, so I'm not sure this will work either... There has been a lot of firmware updates lately.
If the comment is correct and an up to date image is really necessary, maybe @BuZz could generate a compatible image for testing on Pi3B+ ?
You can also install the current (beta) stretch image on PI 3B, update it and then move it to the 3B+, this should work.

Anyway please report after testing :)

dankcushions

@pjft said in Pi3+ - worth upgrading to?:

@dankcushions I always value your perspective in these regards, as you have a better understanding of the inner workings of the emulators we use and the current bottlenecks.

What would you envision being the potential marginal improvements, or systems being improved upon?

I had one regular 3 on my Amazon basket for the past few days, replacing it with two 3B+ now, because why not. :)

Thanks.

i think it depends on the overclock potential of this one. we already see people running 1.4GHz overclocks on a regular pi3, so that in itself is nothing new. if it overclocks to 1.5GHz+, then maybe we start to see more accurate emulators like snes9x, or later versions of mame becoming viable. however i don't think many would care/notice that kind of thing.

the white whales of dreamcast, saturn and n64 will remain because they are scuppered by the weak gpu way before cpu becomes an issue.

pjft

Thanks all.

Oh my, I wouldn't really be keen on having to upgrade to Stretch for the new Pi. I have a lot of work put into getting a stable set up so far. Ghaa.

Sano

@pjft
My post is only based on a comment on the release article, from someone who got a review model.
It may not be accurate, but it's plausible.
Also maybe the mandatory firmwares/packages (if they actually are mandatory) can be backported to Jessie, who knows ? It's still too early to tell :)

SgtJimmyRustles

@dankcushions said in Pi3+ - worth upgrading to?:

What would you envision being the potential marginal improvements, or systems being improved upon?
I had one regular 3 on my Amazon basket for the past few days, replacing it with two 3B+ now, because why not. :)
Thanks.

Ugh, not liking that power draw. That might killed the Nespi case until they do a refresh or something.

Bobberella

I am running a retropie 3B with Kodi. And I know very little about any of this so take anything i say with a grain of salt... but here are some benefits I believe exist:

1)People using Kodi complain of slow speeds that I would assume will be fixed with the new higher connection speeds and processing speeds.

People who want to run N64 games wont have to void their warrenty getting 1.4 Ghz out of their Pie.
people like me who currently run at 1.4Ghz wont need to use a fan.
The chip is the same but it runs colder so I am gonna go for 1.5 Ghz... (fan and heat sink)
something something Internet of things is pretty excited about the 5Ghz LAN

I am curious about the LPDDR2 SDRAM...

Darksavior

I'm getting one as soon as I can find one cheap. The stock is limited right now in the US to very few shops and some like to only offer them in bundles. It will help with snes and arcade for sure.

grant2258

Now take away emulation processing power is it worth the upgrade. I would say alone for better wireless faster ethernet and a little extra cpu. if you are below a pi3 i would say yes its worth the upgrade for sure.

mauro123

I guess there's no improvement in shaders performance as well with the new model, because shaders are supposed to be handled mostly at GPU level. Anyone can refute this argument?

sirhenrythe5th

Will get one soon.
For me as a die Hard MAME Fan, 200MHz plus will help a lot! 😊

Ecks

@schmulkfuster said in Pi3+ - worth upgrading to?:

I was watching Pimoroni's Bilge Tank this morning and they mentioned that it runs cooler than the original Pi3 so that could be a potential upside (if it runs cooler, you're less likely to suffer from throttling).

The new one can do more despite being the same kind of processor because it doesn't get as hot. This is mostly because there is some metal on it that wasn't on the old one, which pulls heat away from the processor so it can work faster. Just like when it's hot you don't feel like doing much, processors also work better when they're cool.

From: http://blog.pimoroni.com/straightforward-guide-to-whats-new/

Well the CPU does have a heat spread on it this time which does lower the temps but for me i still would rely on using my dual fan on it.

drake999

I would say no, at least for me personally. I'm already running Pi3 boards at 1350 MHz, so no need for 50 more MHz. If it turned out to be highly overclockable, then I might reconsider, but I suspect that is not the case. Aside from the nice addition of a dual-band WiFi radio and a slightly better NIC, they are basically the same as the original Pi3 (when it is overclocked). I will wait for Pi4 before I upgrade.

dirthurts

My pi doesn't overlcock at all ( think I managed a 15 mhz cpu boost). So the extra few hundred mhz will really help with knocking down the SNES control lag that pops up (assuming this is the CPU causing the issue but maybe the updated bluetooth will help too).
If I can get an extra 100 mhz out of it over the 3.4 N64 games might be mostly playable.