pi3b+ psp performance

tjsgaming

I'll be switching over to a pi3b+ for my personal system, and gifting my existing pi3b non-plus to a friend.

My question is, does anyone have any experience with the difference in performance for PSP between the 3b and 3b+ ?

Significant? Can't tell the difference?

I've been trying for over a year to get a set of settings to run the unlocked Castlevania STON game inside the PSP Castlevania DXC game, but the only way I can get it playable is with serious frameskip and sound lag. Its right on the cusp of being playable-or-not and I'm curious if the slight boost in specs for the 3b+ might make the difference.

Anyone have any anecdotal experience with psp on 3b+ ?

Beldar

I never tried on the 3b but on the 3b+ using ppsspp, you can (sort of) get a few games playable. It requires a lot of time, tinkering, frame skipping, low resolution, etc. Even then there are many games that simply will not run fast enough to play. Now, I have gotten a few games to run at moatly acceptable frame rate. Especially games that are slower paced like RPG's and such. Even then, you can tell that things aren't optimal.

It's impressive to even get that far on this tiny thing, but honestly I'm not going to be doing much of any psp emulation on it. The little pi just doesn't have the dilithium crystals to pull it off.

MajorDangerNine

Not to be that guy, but overclocking your Pi3B+ would significantly improve performance. Here are some results from overclocking my Pi3B.

Overclocked Pi3B - Public Spreadsheet

This is the one I put up on the RetroPie Wiki for anyone to edit. I have no idea what has become of it, but I will believe good things as I can't bring myself to return to it. Read this one if you want an expanded list of games to check out, though I can't guarantee how accurate the list is now.

I hope I was helpful.

ClassicGMR

@tjsgaming Just FYI - I don't overclock anything.

I have gotten 7 games to run well enough to keep playing on my Pi 3B. The upgrade to 3B+ did't change anything for the few games I "re"-tried. The GPU is the same and the RAM is the same. If you're doing any overclocking it MIGHT help but 200MHz on PSP emulation isn't going to make many differences.

Angry Birds - the only slowdown I see is on the first selection menu. Game plays fine.
Bomberman - seems to run 100%
Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles - plays fine as far as I can tell however the SotN included with this does not play at all. Jumps, slowdown, skips, freezes... you name it.
Dungeon Maker: Hunting Grounds - plays perfectly fine.
Luxor: The Wrath of Set - plays perfectly fine.
Micro Machines V4 - no slowdown that I can tell. I think this is the only racer that works in the PSP library.
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - Plays almost 100%. Once in a blue moon I get a hiccup but it's almost not worth mentioning. Which is great because I LOVE this game.

tjsgaming

Good feedback so far, folks.
It seems like a real "mixed results" situation.
My main goal is to get the unlocked SOTN in CVDXC working something close to playable, its not graphically intensive but its doing emulation inside of emulation, sooo ... :-\ Frankly it's the 'killer app' and the entire reason I got a PSP originally back in the day.

The overclocking option might be a good one. I'll play around and post some results this weekend, I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in getting this version of SOTN running clean-ish.

Beldar

The comment I made above was referring to my overclocked 3b+. I overclock just about every computer I get my hands on. I find it to be a fun part of the computer building experience.

The issue here is that I have only been able to get about 1.45-1.5ghz on the processor and only about a 100mhz surplus on the GPU and RAM. It has the exact same GPU and RAM as the 3B, that is to say not much of either.

I don't know this for sure, but the processor feels more like a factory overclock than an actual new unit. More knowledgeable posters could probably clarify that point, but there doesn't seem to be much overhead on it. Either that, or I lost the silicon lottery.

There was probably about a 5fps difference between my brief stock tests and my post overclock results. I got way more improvement by tinkering with ppsspp settings and such. I honestly didn't try very many games because there are only a few PSP games I really want to play. In the end I would say that PSP emulation works in some cases, but don't get your hopes up.

BobHarris

@classicgmr I use the PSP emulator for only three games that I was interested in and surprisingly they all work really well.

Street fighter alpha 3 max (some slowdown in 1 or 2 stages, but other than that perfectly playable)
Virtua tennis 3 (imo best tennis game playable on the Pi 3..frameskip set to 1, which is hardly noticable))
Metal slug XX (works great, even with crt filter)

I'm using a non-overclocked Pi 3, 720p video mode, PPSSPP emulator (non-libretro)

@tjsgaming Why do you need the SOTN version on the PSP when you can play it on the PS1 emulator just fine? Is it different from the PS1 game?

MajorDangerNine

@beldar Out of curiosity, what is your current overclock on your 3B+?

My original goal for PSP was to get Mega Man: Powered Up running full speed and I succeeded in that on my overclocked 3B. I followed the "Enhancements" section on the PSP, changed CPU-Governor to Performance (this removed all the performance hiccups in MM:PU when paired with my overclock and the previously mentioned settings), and added "core_freq=550" to my overclock as suggested by someone (this pretty much perfected all the dialogue in MM:PU that was getting distorted slightly).

Beldar

@eckaji I am running at 1.45ghz with on the CPU. I've pushed it all the way to 1.6ghz but that would usually end up counter productive as it would heat throttle. I'm using a Flirc case.

For GPU I'm running at 500mhz vs the stock 400. If I go past that I will get frame drops and hick ups even with good heat and frame rate. My RAM has a similar +100mhz on it, honestly I think the RAM overclock is the most beneficial. You can't crank it up too high, though, as RAM OC can get unstable in a hurry.

I'm happy with my 3B+ and will use it for hundreds of gaming hours. However, there is no real performance boost with it over even a mildly overclockes 3b in my experience.

On the positive side, the WiFi is far superior and my Buffalo controllers no longer give ghost inputs like they did on the 3B. This makes me think that the 3B had some USB power supply issues.