Best Platform for High-Performance Set-Top RetroPie

pjft

I'm interested in this discussion, though I'm not that space/cost constrained. Obviously I'd want to be smart about it (I'm not planning on buying a dedicated high end machine for this) but I'd be interested in learning what kind of specs would it take to reasonably run the PS2 and GameCube emulators, as well as I suppose Time Crisis 2 on MAME and such.

I'm happy with my pi, but as I'm putting together a cabinet, if it's a relatively small increase in budget I can certainly consider it. I'd just not feel comfortable going at it blind as it can be quite hit and miss. But if not, I'll stay with my Pi as it does 99% of what I'm going for with the project.

Thanks!

caver01

Interesting. I built my original cocktail arcade system (2009) around an Intel Atom 330 mini-ATX board. I know, that's pretty old-school today, but it is ironic that my newer build running the Pi3 performs on par with that system. Yet, even then, the on-board GPU wasn't able to handle advanced shaders of better emulators (AAE for example wasn't playable). I was mostly doing arcade stuff anyway, so this was all CPU-bound, but I have to imagine that a modern Atom is going to perform better than what I was using eight years ago.

Rather than guessing, it would be better to talk to someone actually playing the games you cited and inquire about hardware. I guess that's what you are doing posting here, but it seems like most of us Pi users won't have the hands-on experience with those games running optimally.

thedeathstar

@pjft I run Gamecube without any problems on my old laptop: i5 4200u, integrated graphics, 8gb ram. I've only gone up to two players and haven't tried out many games, but haven't had any issues playing anything.

dankcushions

@nasp2000 said in Best Platform for High-Performance Set-Top RetroPie:

@mrmartin79 You will need a better cpu not a braswell/Atom/Celeron or Pentium.

OK it is better than RPi3 but not enough for the extra costs. Give Up man!

cpu is not the bottleneck for HLE n64 emulation. pi3's cpu is more than capable. however, the pi3's gpu is not.

as for intel gpus... depends on their linux opengl drivers more than anything. i don't know how they hold up.

mrmartin79

@thedeathstar would you be able to look up the graphics chipset your laptop has?
In Windows its, right-click Display Settings from that page something like "Display Adapter Properties".

Somewhere in there it should say which Intel Family its using 4000 etc...

It would be helpful to get an idea what is working for you? Any chance you can fire up Time Crisis or n64 Goldeneye on it and see how it looks? There are a number of mini-pcs floating around with the i5 chips. It would be great to get a benchmark on the 4000/620 series integrated graphics...

HurricaneFan

What is the most intensive emulator out there right now? Is it n64 or something like Dolphin? I'd imagine you'd want to meet the specs of that.

FlyingTomahawk

Maybe one of these could have enough power?

TMNTturtlguy

@pjft and all,

Just something to keep in mind when planning for a cabinet. Unless you still plan to use a more modern controller like xbox360 or PS3/ps4 controller, the arcade builds with joysticks and buttons are not optimal for playing games like N64 or even a lot of psx games. The arcade controls are really fun for all your mame/fba/neogeongames and they also work really well for your basic systems like nes and mega drive. SNES is fun, but in order to get comfortable controls it takes some tweaking for each individual game. When you get to N64 and psx which use triggers and more button combos it gets tough to play with a 6 button setup and a joustick. I tend to play those on my TV with my controller, so when thinking about a performance build to play ps2 or GameCube keep that in mind.

dankcushions

@hurricanefan said in Best Platform for High-Performance Set-Top RetroPie:

What is the most intensive emulator out there right now? Is it n64 or something like Dolphin? I'd imagine you'd want to meet the specs of that.

that all depends. if you want to accurately emulate n64 you need a monster desktop CPU to run angrylion, or a monster GPU to run paraLLEl.

on a set-top box, you need to be a bit pragmatic and only target emulators that have a hope of running. cemu, pcsx2 and accurate n64 are probably impossible. dolphin should be ok with a intel embedded, at lower resolutions.

mrmartin79

A bit more research and I'm inclined to believe nasp2000's rely was accurate.

Time Crisis seems to need > 3.5ghz and a perfect Goldeneye doesn't seem to be attainable at the moment. What I have been able to clarify is that trying to get either of these games running on a small form-factor probably isn't realistic at the moment.

Here are sepcs for systems I've read work for TC with HLSL=off and autoframeskip=on

AMD Phenom II x6 3.3GHz,
GTX 560 1GB

3.9GHZ Core i7
16GB Ram
AMD Radeon 7770

Also, reported no's from Core2Duo users which is what I was hoping would suffice. There are lots of small C2D boxes around for $100.

pjft

While I'm not particularly interested in N64 emulation, one of my thoughts was definitely playing some of the arcade/multiplayer games from the PS2 era. Also, Virtua Striker on the GameCube was really the only thing I was considering it for. :)

Good point on whether these would be better tailored for a controller though! I can see that being the case on some of the cases I had in mind.

As for Time Crisis, you can play the PS1 version at the moment, and I believe TC2 and 3 had PS2 versions so that could be an alternative to MAME. However, reading the comments here leads me to believe that decent emulation is not to be expected, is that correct?

There's also the question of how to get my old GCon working with the modern day TVs.

HurricaneFan

Playing Time Crisis and House of the Dead would be so much fun. I haven't seen those arcade systems in years.