4 player wiring & Raspberry 4

Tim's up

Hello all,

I'm new here and I have tons of questions. Yes Sir.

I am trying to catch up and reading through posts, but there are two issues I am still not sure of.

I am setting up a 4 player arcade based on Raspberry and Retro pie, but the wiring options are still a big question mark. It's not about connecting 4 joy pads but wiring arcade joysticks and buttons. A seller told me to go for an Ipac 4 interface but I'm also reading a lot about the cumbersome button configuration process this choice entails. Somebody else suggested trying a Xinmo USB interface for player 1 and 2 and connect player 3 and 4 directly to the GPIO port of the Raspberry. Or 2 USB interfaces for players 1+2 and 3+4 ? Does that work ? What do you think is best ?

Second, I would like to hear your advice on what Raspberry to buy. I know there are words of patience all over the place concerning Retro pie compatibility with Rasp Pi 4, but, if you don't own a Raspberry yet, would you still go for a 3 B+ in January 2020 and not the more powerful 4 ?

Many thanks,

Tim

stoney66

ipac2 wiring is a bit of a process but I think in the end it's worth it as all your button feeds are custom made and tidy. I don't think the configuration process is that hard, just all the wiring. The ipac's emulate a keyboard, so each button press is ABCXYZ etc so very easy to document and map to a direction/input.

To save wiring headache, you could get two mini-pac's which have a wiring harness already made. The length of the wiring is pretty spot on to connect each button/stick if the minipac is in the middle of p1/p2 and p3/p4.

Tim's up

Thanks man. So, I would wire both minipacs to the Raspberry with USB ? One for P1+P2, the other for P3+P4.

stoney66

@Tim-s-up Yep you got it. Also the mini pac has trackball and spinner connections so you can go direct to it instead of using another usb port.

I've had the mini-pac in a setup for a few years it's been great. I setup a button as the shift key to get more functions out of the other buttons (save/load, volume etc)

Tim's up

Thanks @stoney66 . Any views on the Pi 3 or Pi 4 question ? I have both in my shopping basket and can't make up my mind :-))

stoney66

Thats a tough question, the 3b+ setup is easy and will get you running quickly. I don't have a 4 yet so can't speak on how easy/hard the setup is and who knows when full support will be there.

You might spend more time trying to get the 4 working than it's worth, my opinion would be to get the 3b+ now and get it dialed in. Then later get the 4 if you decide you want more HP.

Tim's up

The voice of wisdom. Thanks.

IceChes1

Oh, definitely get the 4. It's awesome. The manual install was easy and it emulates like a professional PC. No N64/NDS problems at all. I think it could even handle Wii. BUT it needs a lot of power to run. No piece-of-junk 3 amp PSUs. You want a 3.5 for maximum power.

Capeman

I have an iPac2 and hate it. The debounce settings are waaaaayyyy too short and it always registers multiple inputs, usually a separate input on both press and release. It was maddening. I recently pulled it and wired directly to the GPIO using Adafruit retrogame software. GPIO input is perfect, but there are likely not enough usable pins for a 4 player setup.

tpo1990

Deciding what Raspberry Pi to buy can be a tough decision.

It is easy to set up a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with RetroPie. You just download the image from RetroPie download page and use a SD Flash tool to flash the image file to your SD card, or you can use PINN which is an enhanced NOOBS to install RetroPie.

If you decide to buy a Raspberry Pi 4B then you can run Lakka which is another emulation software for the Raspberry Pi. It is quite stable as far as i have tested with my Pi 4B 4GB model. You could choose to install Lakka first and use it, then once RetroPie gets officially released for the Pi 4B, switch over and install it.

If money is no problem then first buy the Pi 3B+ and set it up with RetroPie, controllers and such, then later upgrade to the Pi 4B.

IceChes1

Lakka is garbage. It is not as versatile as RetroPie by a longshot.

mitu

@IceChes1 said in 4 player wiring & Raspberry 4:

Lakka is garbage. It is not as versatile as RetroPie by a longshot.

Lakka is not 'garbage' just because it's less versatile than RetroPie - its developers are doing good work providing an emulation system for a lot of the SBCs out there.

Tim's up

Thanks for all your replies. But I'm still with my uncertainty :-))
I could indeed go for a more future proof Pi 4 and run it with Lakka until Retropie will be compatible and then swap. More work though than going for the Pi 3. Someone told me that the processing gain of the Pi 4 doesn't help that much with emulation, only for some games. Sigh.

mitu

@Tim-s-up said in 4 player wiring & Raspberry 4:

Someone told me that the processing gain of the Pi 4 doesn't help that much with emulation, only for some games. Sigh.

That's not true, the PI4 is a step-up in processing and GPU power and it helps a lot with the emulated systems that were not fullspeed or straight up not playable on previous Pi models.

tpo1990

@IceChes1 Well even if it is not as versatile as RetroPie it still deserves a place as an alternative to RetroPie just like RecalBox. @Tim-s-up can also just manually install from the latest branch of RetroPie to a Pi 4B if he wants. I guess it comes down to wheater he wants a stable official release from Lakka, or try using the latest branch of RetroPie which is still experimental if he decides to buy a Pi 4B. Otherwise he will be buying a Pi 3B+

@Tim-s-up The extra horsepower that a Pi 4B provides will still improve performance of arcade games and emulation overall. You should get a mucher smoother gameplay and it will be more future proof in hardware. I can only tell you this, that i have tested both SNES and PSX emulation on my Pi4 4GB in Lakka and it runs really well as long as I choose the correct emulator. To begin with I had some sound issues with SNES emulation, but then i changed to the Snes9x emulator and now it works just as good as my Pi 3B with RetroPie, if not even better.

I have also tested an original Super Famicom controller(SHVC-005) with a usb adapter and it works on the Pi 4B in Lakka like it does on my Pi 3B RetroPie setup. This controller is identical in hardware with the original SNES PAL controller. This gives SNES gameplay a much more authentic experience, just like when you will be using arcade joysticks and buttons for arcade games.

Tim's up

Thanks to all. I just bought a Pi 4. Mainly because it is more future proof. I will play around with Lakka for some time, waiting for Retropie to be fully compatible.