The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!

Brunnis

LOTS of tests (not by me!) comparing Pi 3 vs Pi 4 (scroll left and up in the Google spreadsheet if you don't see anything):

https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/c7j150/emulation_on_the_raspberry_pi_4_vs_rpi_3/

Performance increase on 8/16 bit systems is huge, as expected:

snes9x2010: +148%
Mesen: +210%

Nintendo 64 is a more meager ~69% faster. Probably GPU related in some way. Will be interesting to see if there are some specific things to optimize here.

Anyway, the large performance increase probably means that you can use video_max_swapchain_images=2 and video_threaded=false on 8/16 bit games. If the open source GPU driver has one frame less input lag than the old closed source one, which it at least did on the Pi 3 back in 2016, the resulting input lag is roughly -2.5 frames compared to a current default RetroPie installation. That's a noticeable difference.

Nothing's confirmed until tested, though.

thelostsoul

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

Nintendo 64 is a more meager ~69% faster. Probably GPU related in some way.

It should be. As noted by someone else here, the GLES2 implementation in N64 emulator was holding it back. Do the developers need to change anything on the emulator, to use GLES3 then? Or does it use it automatically and the GLES3 implementation is not optimal too?

@dankcushions said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!: (quote shortened)

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

n64

dreamcast

saturn

all of these required GLES 3.x for full support. GLES 2.x was always holding pi3 back, for the most part.

dankcushions

i'd be fairly surprised if someone has mupen64plus standalone + gliden64 working with proper GLES 3.x pathways on the pi4 quite yet. i don't believe anyone has it working without segfaults yet. i assume those benches are with libretro mupen64plus (next?) and are probably not using gliden64, or maybe gliden64 with gles2 paths. i don't know. i think it will take some weeks before any real conclusions can be drawn for n64, so i would ignore those numbers for now.

quicksilver

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

i assume those benches are with libretro mupen64plus (next?)

This is what I was wondering as well. If it's the old libretro core that hasn't been updated in years then the test is not really that useful.

hooperre

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

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

i assume those benches are with libretro mupen64plus (next?)

This is what I was wondering as well. If it's the old libretro core that hasn't been updated in years then the test is not really that useful.

On reddit he said that it was with both lr-mupen64plus and lr-mupen64plus-next without much of a difference... for whatever it's worth.

Brunnis

My 4GB Pi is sitting idle now at the Raspbian terminal (running Buster Lite, so no desktop) at a rather toasty 61 C. The Pi is in the official case with the lid off and room temp is maybe 24 C. Looking forward to the planned firmware improvements that are supposed to lower the temp.

thelostsoul

@Brunnis I somewhere read the heat issue is only with the 4gb version? That would explain why someone else did not the issue on his 2gb. I cannot say where I read it and if it have substance, but do you think this is possible?? As I know besides the RAM, everything else is 100% the same.

quicksilver

@hooperre I think its too early to judge any of these results until we know that the emulators are fully optimized. Plus, standalone mupen64plus runs with significantly less overhead than the libretro cores so im much more interested in seeing an optimized build of mupen64plus.

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

Looking forward to the planned firmware improvements that are supposed to lower the temp.

I heard it should reduce temps by 3-5C. But even with that improvement its still a fairly warm idle temp.

Brunnis

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

@Brunnis I somewhere read the heat issue is only with the 4gb version? That would explain why someone else did not the issue on his 2gb. I cannot say where I read it and if it have substance, but do you think this is possible?? As I know besides the RAM, everything else is 100% the same.

I actually work as a hardware engineer and I don't really see how that could be the case. Board power consumption increase? Sure. SoC temperature increase? Doubtful. Just sitting idle, the memory bus is hardly exercised at all. The more likely case here is that some chips simply run cooler than others, i.e. natural variance in chip quality. That could definitely account for several degrees.

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

@hooperre I think its too early to judge any of these results until we know that the emulators are fully optimized. Plus, standalone mupen64plus runs with significantly less overhead than the libretro cores so im much more interested in seeing an optimized build of mupen64plus.

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

Looking forward to the planned firmware improvements that are supposed to lower the temp.

I heard it should reduce temps by 3-5C. But even with that improvement its still a fairly warm idle temp.

Yep, that's for the VLI chip firmware upgrade. Apparently they're also trying other stuff as well.

hooperre

@quicksilver Oh, absolutely. Just passing along the information that he did say he was using both cores.

dankcushions

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

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

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

i assume those benches are with libretro mupen64plus (next?)

This is what I was wondering as well. If it's the old libretro core that hasn't been updated in years then the test is not really that useful.

On reddit he said that it was with both lr-mupen64plus and lr-mupen64plus-next without much of a difference... for whatever it's worth.

unfortunately it's a bit academic until we're sure we're building with the right flags, and that all the features of the GPU are being used. plus the -next core is a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment if we don't have standalone to compare - retropie has been using standalone for years.

PabOu

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

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

VideoCore VI graphics, supporting OpenGL ES 3.x

this is HUGE news I think.

Yes, It's the absolute best news about the Pi4 !!! We've had to deal with so many (not really but kinda broken) wrappers until now...

retropi19

A question if i update retropie to buster is there a list of non working emulators/functions etc.

mitu

@retropi19 said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

A question if i update retropie to buster is there a list of non working emulators/functions etc.

Not at the moment, the transition will happen after 4.5 (based on Stretch) is released. Since Pi4 is only supported on Buster, it will be part of the support that will be added for Pi4.

Yarmongrel

So it seems that DevilutionX does pretty well, to the point that Modern Vintage Gamer even ported it to the Switch with full analogue stick support. Would there be a chance to include DevilutionX on Retropie?

Ecks

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

@retropi19 They don’t deliver the Pis in anti static bags anymore. The little paper like sheet below the board apparently protects it in a similar way. They did the same at least on the Pi 3 B+.

I will receive a 4GB version on Monday. I only really wanted/needed a 2GB version, but it appeared the 4GB was going to be delivered sooner, so I ordered one of each. Good call, since the 4GB got delivered earlier, at least from this supplier.

No idea where you got your 3B+ from but when i bought mine back then it came in a anti static bag so my guess would be that yours was like they ran out of the bags.

Brunnis

@Ecks No, they didn’t run out of plastic bags. Of course not. It’s even been explained by the Raspberry Pi folks.

Bearwynn

Hi i'm new here, but I've been keeping track of this thread since the pi 4 came out.

I recieved mine yesterday (4GB version)and I've spent the whole day overclocking and stress testing it, I've discovered that with an over_voltage setting of 6:

GPU caps out at 750Mhz (a 50% increase from stock!) I tested this by loading a full version of minecraft java 1.12.2 and playing for intervals. Never had any graphical artifacts and generally the higher it got the less frame dips there were and the higher the average FPS, reaching aroun 55fps average at the 750Mhz cap. It also had optifine installed and was running at a render distance of 4 chunks.

CPU as high as 2Ghz (I decided to stop there because at no point will I ever need more than that on a raspberry pi) however it definitely does lose performance after 1.75Ghz. I have no idea why that is, as the cpu can definitely go higher than that.

of course there is the fact that some people are reporting that overclocking the GPU makes the CPU perform worse regardless of clocks, so more investigation needed there. As there are games that are more intense on one or the other, it may be that two overclocking settings will need to be used (one for CPU intensive games and one for GPU intensive games). I've also managed to keep temperatures at or around 55C at full load by using a RPi 3B+ compatable cooler (the double fan one from geekpi).

Also overclocks aren't all equal, so this is just an example of what I was able to achieve. I don't know what implications this all has for the Retropie community but I hope this information helps people's speculation and analysis.

quicksilver

@Bearwynn current firmware limits the CPU to 1750mhz. Ssh into your pi while the ARM frequency is set >1750mhz and from terminal run

vcgencmd measure_clock arm

Something tells me the performance loss you are seeing is because CPU frequencies above 1750mhz are actually underclocking your CPU.

retropi19

@Bearwynn im think of taking this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Latest-CNC-Aluminum-Alloy-Case-Enclosure-w-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-Pi-4/254277987978?hash=item3b34262e8a:g:MMUAAOSwJQxdFQuL

do the fans make a lot of noise you know?

if you dont know does the double fan you used makes noise?

thanks