Pi3+ - worth upgrading to?

Jono

@sirhenrythe5th sorry for not getting back sooner. You're right, he was talking graphically intensive games such as Dreamcast and N64.

ClassicGMR

Well I can't really recommend spending the money as an UPGRADE. However if you're going to buy a Pi soon anyway go for this one. Here's my $0.02:

First off I have never O/C'd the 3B and I am not doing it to the 3B+ either so stock 1.2GHz and 1.4GHz respectively. The RAM is the same at 1GB and the GPU is the same as well.

Right out of the gate: I guess a small 200MHz increase can make a difference. :)

Boot times (started timer as soon as I pushed the power button):
3B+
32GB card and RetroPie 4.3.15 image only - 24sec
32GB card and 256GB USB (90GB used) - 1min 45sec

3B
32GB card and RetroPie 4.3 image only - 25sec
32GB card and 256GB USB (90GB used) - 2min 4sec

PS1 Destruction Derby 2 and Gran Turismo 2 ran flawlessly as long as you didn't use vibration feedback. On the 3B I would get a frame hesitation here and there - extremely minor almost not worth mentioning. On the 3B+ there was nothing TO mention. I saw nothing in multiple races. Smooth running. :)

The scraper did MUCH better on the 3B+. Last time I set up I used the built-in scraper from the menu and scraped 41 Playstation games. I watched an episode of Friends on Netflix and started a 2nd before I finished. On the 3B+ I did all of them in 5min 27sec. The WiFi is vastly improved on the 3B+ and it shows.

PING yahoo.com on 3B: avg 65.405 ms with 20 packets sent 0% loss
PING yahoo.com on 3B+: avg 32.190 ms with 21 packets sent 0% loss

On a personal note I have 2 PS3 controllers - one white and one black. I already paired the black one with the 3B. I left that alone and paired the white one with the 3B+. Nice to have and easily differentiated!

Kookamunga

@dirthurts I was getting lag with input as well, and I ended up resolving it by switching to a USB bluetooth dongle. Perhaps the bus that the built in bluetooth gets over saturated? Not sure, but using a dongle resolved this for me. The input lag was especially prevalent with more than one controller present.

pjft

@kookamunga what controllers do you have? Are you using the PS3 controller drivers?

sirhenrythe5th

@pjft i use Dualshock 3 without divers since 3B+ and MortalKombat-Tournament-Sticks (also PS3) via USB.
No Problems so far.

Not working are the Streetfighter 4 Tournam Stick from MadCatz for the PS3 and the NeoGeoStick 2+ also for PS3.

Darksavior

@classicgmr Meh, boot times don't matter much between pi's once tweaked. Once I run some (not all) tweaks from https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/38bf9df7-5f96-4451-90e7-7d72c07f225b/8d57114e589b5a39147ffd9d6c5df1e0 and uninstall some stuff like usbmount, plymouth, dhcpd (I set a static ip), my pi3 non + with 128GB (like ~80GB used) USB stick boots to Pegasus (the frontend I use) in around 15-18sec. I'm using the stretch retropie image. I'l l be getting my + on friday :D

I did notice usbmount added a bit more of a boot time on stretch vs jessie, but it's just an observation from a linux noob like myself. I grew up on dos/windows in the 90s so I'm slowly catching on.

pjft

@sirhenrythe5th me as well, hence the question. On Jessie I was having a lot of lag with the ps3controller drivers.

sirhenrythe5th

@pjft me too, so i never used them wireless on jessie 😉

pjft

@sirhenrythe5th to be fair, @psyke83 's done a fantastic job backporting bluetooth drivers to Jessie (there's a thread about it), and those worked perfectly for me.

drake999

@jono Yeah that is what I suspected. Since there is no improvement to the GPU and I only emulate up to PSX with enhanced resolution, my standard Pi3 works fine for what I'm doing with it. I higher CPU clock than what I've already got with overclocking and cooling will be of no benefit. Here is hoping the Pi4 gets an updated VideoCore V GPU or something. I'll hold out and see what they have in store for the Pi4.

Ecks

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

I could tell you my setting if you want to but i broke all of the warranty. You also need a fan.

Apparently, the raspberry pi designed for 1.4 Ghz and then they lowered it to 1.2 Ghz to get rid of a heat issue.

I dont think the 3B+ pi can be overclocked... it would be nice to get rid of the fan situation. And I dont need to break any of the warrenty.

There is people that are overclocking it to 1.5 - 1.6GHz already which runs a little smooth but still needs a fan cause i believe when it was around 1.6GHz it was getting like 75°c.

Alturis

So far I have noticed a marked performance increase when transferring files over wifi. Like night and day. Feels more like you are copying files to and from your own PC when using \\RETROPIE from windows. (or it could just be the placebo effect because I haven't taken any steps to measure it)

Other than that I don't expect any games that used to run slow to run much better. The temperature seems to be considerably lower too.

drake999

@alturis Yeah that's not surprising. I think the biggest upgrade was the dual-band wireless module. Yeah we got a gigabit NIC now, but we can only use about 30 to 40 percent of it since its interfaced with the USB 2.0 controller still, so yeah its better but meh, lol. I'm far more enthusiastic about running on 5GHz wireless.

mediamogul

@alturis

I live in a decently big house with lots of brick everywhere and it's murder getting wifi to every corner. I see the Pi losing it's connection all too often as a result. Better wifi performance might actually be reason enough for me to upgrade.

Ulysses

Doesn't hurt, I mean, it's just $35. The biggest complaint right now (or at least that I have) is that there's not a lot out there for the B+. I gave my old board to my brother and now I have the newer one and there's just nothing for it. No Ubuntu MATE, Retropie is only in beta and my Bluetooth controller doesn't want to connect (but otherwise is fine). Mostly now my Pi just sits on the shelf.

If you're on a 3B, just stick with it for a while until more software options become available, once there are sufficient hardware options, then certainly a good buy. Not to mention you can do so much with these little things, you just can't have too much Pi.

drake999

@mediamogul Yeah, I live in a condo complex and the 2.4 GHz band is absolutely flooded. Literally like 30 distinct signals in range when I do a wireless scan. There's even a couple of schmuck's using repeaters even though the unit size in no way warrants it, lol. As a result my 2.4 GHz performance really suffers in my environment. I can't even get my full internet speed when using 2.4 GHz band. 5 GHz is pretty busy to but not as bad and I can get my full internet speed on it. This is why the new wireless module is the most appealing upgrade in the Pi3+ to me. I've had a difficult time finding a low-profile USB dual-band wireless module, and I have tried.

quicksilver

@drake999 Another nice thing with 5ghz band is that it doesnt travel through walls as well as 2.4ghz. This isnt good if you are in a big house but it would be nice for a condo/apartment where you wouldnt want as many competing signals making it into your home.

drake999

@quicksilver Yeah I imagine that is part of the reason my my 5 GHz band performs so much better. That and the fact that less people in my building are using that band. I use my 2.4 GHz band for low-priority stuff and my 5 GHz band for gaming and media streaming.