Thinking about getting a mini-pc for emulation

chubsta

I love the performance of my overclocked Pi400, and the form factor is beautiful, but there is still some way to go regarding emulation of certain systems - I am looking for something to emulate Gamecube, PS2 and also higher end stuff in Mame - specifically Muchi Muchi Pork, Pink Sweets, Gauntlet Legends.

I see that in order to run Retropie I would need to install Linux first and then Retropie over the top of it, I have read the docs and it seems a simple enough process.

So, my question is, obviously a lot depends of the spec for the machine I get - I am currently looking at a Minisforum UM700 with the following specification:
Processor AMD Ryzen™ 7 3750H , 4 Cores/8 Threads
(Total L2 Cache 2MB , Total L3 Cache 4MB , Base Clock 2.3 GHz , up to 4.0 GHz)
GPU Radeon™ RX Vega 10 Graphics (Graphics Frequency 1400 MHz)
Memory DDR4 8×2 Dual channel (SODIMM Slots×2)

would this be a decent enough machine to do what I want it to?

also, is ES on the PC pretty much the same experience as on a Pi, except with more power available and therefore better performance - in other words would Gamecube work well?

YFZdude

@chubsta

I run RetroPie on an old AMD computer that I built in 2012. (Athlon FX-4xxx series CPU with a Radeon 7770 GPU) I started with Lubuntu 20.04 LTS and then installed RetroPie on top. (I chose Lubuntu because it is a lightweight version of Ubuntu)

I am able to run Gamecube games really well using dolphin emulator. I have only tried a handful of games to date but zero issues running them once I got past the initial configuration of the controllers. So while I can't speak to PS2 games specifically, your proposed PC should be able to handle modern emulation easily IMHO.

EDIT: As to the ES experience, once you launch it, it looks very much the same. About the only difference I have noticed is the emulator packages available to install are different due to the x86/x64 architecture compared to the ARM.

mitu

@chubsta said in Thinking about getting a mini-pc for emulation:

would this be a decent enough machine to do what I want it to?

With the specs you listed, it's more than enough.