Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?

problemkid

Hi all,

Just wondering what sort of performance people are getting on the PSX and N64 emulators on their Pi Zero. I saw a few videos on youtube but they were running the stock N64 mupen emulator without changing resolution and they didn't add the bios file for the psx.

Reason I ask is because I don't see why those system games don't run flawlessly on the Pi Zero. The PS1 had a 33 mhz CPU and the N64 had a 93mhz cpu while the Pi has a 1Ghz CPU. Of course this isn't a perfect stream from cartridge to rom file, but still, that is quite a bit more processing power.

mediamogul

@problemkid said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

I don't see why those system games don't run flawlessly on the Pi Zero.

It can be hard to imagine, but the reasons are somewhat well documented online. This particular article does a great job of explaining some of the issues involved.

problemkid

Doesn't the Zero have a faster CPU than the Pi 2 and the exact same GPU?

mediamogul

@problemkid

It's arguable that neither run N64 games particularly well. Most would say that the RPi line is due for an upgrade in the GPU department. That's not to cast too much shade on the current offerings, mind you. It's absolutely amazing what they're able to do already considering the entry price.

problemkid

My Pi 2 runs Mario kart 64 pretty good. But most other games are very laggy, but I am using the unchanged resolution and the lr-mupen64plus emulator. I thought if you change to the n64 stock resolution and use the rice emulator it runs good.

problemkid

After reading that article I've decided we must invest more energy into x86 development boards like Jaguarboard.

mediamogul

@problemkid said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

My Pi 2 runs Mario kart 64 pretty good.

I get roughly the same performance on my Pi3. However, once more players enter the competition, it really begins to crawl.

I thought if you change to the n64 stock resolution and use the rice emulator it runs good.

It's a mixed bag and changing the default settings sometimes helps on a game-by-game basis, but there's no magic bullet. That being said, I find many games to be very playable. I just try to manage my expectations because I know that a four player match of 'GoldenEye 007' is likely never gonna happen on the current hardware.

dankcushions

@problemkid said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

Doesn't the Zero have a faster CPU than the Pi 2

nope. significantly slower.

mrbwa1

@dankcushions said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

@problemkid said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

Doesn't the Zero have a faster CPU than the Pi 2

nope. significantly slower.

the big issues is that it's singe core. The multi-core Pi2 wasn't too bad at PSX (just not enough power for visual enhancement) and was okay at N64. The Pi3 has the power to do enhanced PSX and maybe a bit better with N64. Nothing really emulates N64 that well due to the complexities of the architecture. Even Rare Replay on the Xbox One has it problems is some games on much higher spec hardware than a Pi.

dankcushions

@mrbwa1 said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

@dankcushions said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

@problemkid said in Retropie N64/PSX Performance on Pi Zero?:

Doesn't the Zero have a faster CPU than the Pi 2

nope. significantly slower.

the big issues is that it's singe core.

not for psx :) pcsx_rearmed isn't multithreaded, so it only ever uses one core. the problem is that the generation of ARM cpu that the pi1 and zero use isn't as good as the one that the pi2, so even with 1GHz it is still quite a bit slower for our purposes than a 900MHz pi2.

mrbwa1

@dankcushions couldn't remember if it was multi-threaded. I just know I can do enhance resolution on the Pi3 with the speed hack @1350MHz and couldn't with the Pi2 @ 1000MHz (well it could, but at like 15 FPS).

Honestly though, I think people don't understand how hard N64 emulation is and throwing more power doesn't seem to automatically help. I don't see much difference between the Pi2 and Pi3. The biggest difference came with the emulator improvements in recent Retropie releases. N64 will probably always be buggy for a lot of games on anything bu x86-based platforms. Sadly, original N64s and their games are overpriced in the market right now due to the nostalgia craze.

I ended up with Rare replay because it runs a fair bit better than any other emulation I have tried and is cheaper than buying just one of the Banjo Kazooie games for my original N64.

If I recall correctly, Pi0/1 is Arm6 and Pi2 is ARM7 and there were significant differences in those architectures as noted. I never tried Retropie with my Pi B+ and bought the Pi2 specifically for Retropie.

mediamogul

I've never really looked into the PiZero past it's initial announcement. With it's extreme low cost, compatibility with Pi1 projects and it's small size, the benefits do actually seem to outweigh the negatives. However, I remember very well that I never could push the Pi1 as much as I would have liked and I can't imagine being satisfied running a RetroPie installation on it. All that said, it's hard to deny just how awesome the plug and play RetroPie SNES controller mods are.