The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!

davej

The much higher memory bandwidth together with the boost to GPU speed will should make multi-pass and more complex shaders viable.

crt-pi was always limited by memory bandwidth as much as GPU speed.

thelostsoul

@dankcushions said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

this is HUGE news I think. it should mean fullspeed and accurate emulation for:

n64

dreamcast

saturn

i should think the new CPU should allow for full speed current MAME also, but we will see...

This sounds like a game changer! I was expecting a big step up in graphics, but didn't know the GLES think was the key. Finally N64, Dreamcast and especially my biggest complain full MAME!!

What do you think, could this new cpu also help to reduce input latency? I know its not directly tied to latency, but with optimizing settings for this kind of approach. Also using quality shaders wouldn't do too much impact now. I am very excited!

hermit

@dankcushions said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

this is HUGE news I think. it should mean fullspeed and accurate emulation for:

n64

dreamcast

saturn

and better emulators for

playstation (beetle-hw)

I hope also for Atari Jaguar and Pc-FX

JamieP

So cool but will mean I have to take a dremel to the MegaPi case :(

matchaman

@hermit said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

@dankcushions said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

this is HUGE news I think. it should mean fullspeed and accurate emulation for:

n64

dreamcast

saturn

and better emulators for

playstation (beetle-hw)

I hope also for Atari Jaguar and Pc-FX

PC-FX is possible but Jaguar is very unlikely, the only open source emulator is Virtual Jaguar and it's very incomplete even on PCs.

However there is an emulator for android called "Phoenix" that runs everything perfectly even on 2014 phones but it's closed source.

Brunnis

@thelostsoul said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

What do you think, could this new cpu also help to reduce input latency? I know its not directly tied to latency, but with optimizing settings for this kind of approach.

The additional performance will make it possible to reduce input lag, yes. There’s also one potentially very nice side effect of moving to the new OpenGL driver: The last time I tested this driver, it had one frame less input lag than the default video driver on the Pi 3. This means that there’s the potential of one frame less input lag at default settings for everyone using a Pi 4!

quicksilver

I would think 3DO emulation should be in the realm of possibility for the pi 4 as well. Last time I tested lr-4d0 on my 3 b+ it ran at about 35-50fps with multi-threaded DSP. I would think the pi 4 should likely take it to fullspeed.

thelostsoul

@Brunnis I didn't think of the driver, thats great to read, especially from you. ;-) Looking back to your old input lag investigation thread, I see you had tested the OpenGL driver alonside with the Dispmanx driver, which was always approx. one frame slower. Can we expect that difference still or do you think (speculation) won't be that a difference now, as the OpenGL backend is fixed?

To me personally, that alone would be a good reason to upgrade soon (this year, not now), which is a bigger news to me than the improvements on N64 performance. I expect that we will be able to adjust video_frame_delay, video_threaded and video_max_swapchain_images a bit on all 8-16 bit consoles. I would be happy with that. For the runahead is still not enough room, just my speculation. The only thing missing I really wish it would support is variable refresh rates of monitors.

mitu

@Brunnis That means using X.org or just the KMSDRM driver ? RetroPie - at the moment - uses the old VC4 driver (OpenGL ES), without X.org.

KN4THX

I am not sure if this has been mentioned but does the addition of USB 3.0 mean significant increases in sdcard read/write speeds?

thelostsoul

@KN4THX Yes, the USB-3 speed is mentioned and tested here: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/raspberry-pi-4-b,6193.html
Here is a quote:

With a Mushkin 120GB external SSD attached to one of the USB 3 ports, the Pi 4 B managed impressive read and write transfer rates of 363 and 323 MBps respectively. That’s nearly ten times faster than the 3 B+’s marks of 33 and 34 MBps.

Edit: I just realized you was asking about sdcard speed. A good sdcard reader should be still faster than before, depending on the card and the reader off course.

SuperFromND

I have so many things I want to test with this because of that new CPU, my goodness.
Some of the things not already mentioned elsewhere on this thread that I want to test include:

Gnash (I'm not expecting full speed obviously, but it should at least be somewhat more usable)
PC-98 (Probably gonna get some decent speeds with a decently high clock multiplier)
DOSbox running Windows 3.1 (Mileages may vary on this one, the Pi 3 is technically good enough for this, but speed improvements are still nice to see!)

Can't wait to get mine to play around with (once RetroPie gets updated for the Pi 4, at least).

Headcrab

I've read in a technical pdf that : the Ethernet packets do not need to be repacked into USB packets anymore, thus latency and processing overhead are decreased on the Pi 4

Let's see if this makes even a tiny difference in applications like moonlight or SteamLink.

A Former User

This post is deleted!

Cornervizion

@dankcushions I think the 3DO could be doable as well as some (but not all) of the Atari Jaguar's library too.

Personally, It'll be interesting to see how Sega Saturn emulation will improve but given that Mednafen's Saturn core is quite demanding I can't see the same level of compatibility happening on a Pi4 myself. Though that said, some of it's 2D games will run very nicely.

Also will the improved and updated Reicast be appearing at some point with it's Sammy Atomiswave support?

chubsta

All I am interested in is being able to play Gauntlet Legends in MAME - anyone reckon this will be possible without frame rate issues etc?

Cornervizion

@SuperFromND Hopefully DosBox running with V-Sync would be dandy.

quicksilver

@Cornervizion Currently you can enable dispmanx for dosbox and this takes care of the screen tearing issue.

quicksilver

@chubsta Only speculation at this point, so no one can say for certain. We'll just have to wait until some of the devs get their hands on one.

Marcel

What I'm thinking is: will RetroPie support dual screen? That would be great for building your own NDS. It will be quite a fat one, I'm afraid. Does some frontend support use of dual screen already? If not, how much effort will it be to add it?