Neo Geo X Build

ruckage

I've discovered that I have some major cooling issues with this build, it was regularly exceeding temperatures of 80c, particularly on CPS3 which would reach this temperature within 15 minutes. Admittedly we are having a heatwave in the UK at the moment so the ambient temperature has been much hotter than usual (around 30c) but I still think that the pi should be able to operate under these conditions so I have worked on cooling the system.

My first attempt was to add more ventilation as there is very little on this case, I didn't want to drill holes in the top for cosmetic reasons so I added some vent holes underneath where the pi sits in the hope that some cooler air would be drawn in.

This didn't really help but after further tests that wasn't surprising as even with the lid open the Pi was still overheating very quickly. It did cross my mind that maybe the pi was faulty so I bought another pi to check (I needed one anyway) but the results were the same, I knew the rpi3 got hot but it just hadn't caused any problems for me in the past.

The only solution seemed to be some active cooling so I bought a small heatsink and a 40mm fan. The fan is fixed to a board which is mounted just above the heatsink and powered by one of the 3v3 pins - the fan is rated for 5v but I thought a lower voltage would minimize noise.

I wasn't sure how well it would work as ventilation would still be an issues but it ended up working better than I'd hoped. I ran a CPS3 game for an hour and it reached 62c, that's over 20c lower than it did previously. And the fan is barely audible.

For anyone else having heat issues it really is well worth adding a small fan and heatsink.

edmaul69

@ruckage do you have a heatsink on it? If it just used some cheap double sided tape it would be a cause of the issue. I have crammed pi 3's in some small places without issues. Glad you got it cooled down though.

ruckage

@edmaul69
Thanks for the reply. No, I wasn't using a heatsink when the problem occurred and the overheating happened with 2 different rpi3s (1 brand new to rule out any faults) I imagine the current heatwave here didn't help matters though. I get the feeling that temperatures that rpi3s reach can vary quite a bit as some people report low temperatures and others report very high temperatures. Certainly seems to be a fairly widespread problem (despite Eben Upton saying otherwise) and would be nice if it was resolved somehow with an updated model of the raspberry pi 3.

My setup now uses a heatsink with 3M thermal adhesive and combined with the fan the temperature is now well under control.

TMNTturtlguy

@ruckage I had the same issue with 2 of my 3 rpi3, i did the same thing, got fans and no i run at about 38C - 41C idle and in the mid 40's for most games. Never get above about 55C even when running n64 or psx

A Former User

My Pi3, running PSX, is constitently running at 77C - 83C.

Another Pi3 that I use as a seedbox has reached those temperatures quite a few times as well.

Both have heat sinks. No fans though.

danyo

@ruckage That would be awesome. Thanks.

I had some serious overheating issues too. Tried different things but ended up to simply use the flirc case. I uses the whole case as a heatsink but without a fan.
Its perfect. I cant get it to overheat in any way.

ruckage

@LiveFastCyYoung said in Neo Geo X Build:

My Pi3, running PSX, is constitently running at 77C - 83C.

Another Pi3 that I use as a seedbox has reached those temperatures quite a few times as well.

Both have heat sinks. No fans though.

From tests others have done a heatsink alone won't achieve much if anything (unless you have a giant heatsink), you need a little bit of air flow to dissipate the heat. As @edmaul69 said you also have to be careful that the heatsink you use isn't just using ordinary double sided tape as then you just add insulation to the chip (I think you would know though as the temperature would rise extremely quickly).

@danyo said in Neo Geo X Build:

@ruckage That would be awesome. Thanks.

I had some serious overheating issues too. Tried different things but ended up to simply use the flirc case. I uses the whole case as a heatsink but without a fan.
Its perfect. I cant get it to overheat in any way.

I've heard good thinks about the flirc case, I would certainly give it a go as a standalone rpi3 case. It may even have worked in this build but I'm not sure if it would effectively keep cool when sealed inside another box as there would be no airflow around it.

A Former User

@ruckage Yeah, for my Retropie setup I use this case...

http://wdlabs.wd.com/products/enclosure-square-6x6/

Wanted it because I use a 1TB PiDrive and also liked how minimal it looks. Girlfriend would kill me if I had some ugly console looking case with cords everywhere. 😂

I have been playing with the top off most of the time lately.

ruckage

@LiveFastCyYoung said in Neo Geo X Build:

@ruckage Yeah, for my Retropie setup I use this case...

http://wdlabs.wd.com/products/enclosure-square-6x6/

Wanted it because I use a 1TB PiDrive and also liked how minimal it looks. Girlfriend would kill me if I had some ugly console looking case with cords everywhere. 😂

I have been playing with the top off most of the time lately.

Hey - less of the "ugly console looking case" please, ;) My NeoGeo, Megadrive and NES all look beautiful to me. Embrace the chaos, minimalism is highly overrated :P

Regarding your case, not sure how much space is inside it but if there is enough clearance above the heatsink it would be easy to mod it to add a small fan inside, I'm sure it would help.

A Former User

@ruckage Hahaha, the ugly case was more meant to be what SHE would say.

If it were up to me, I'd have built a big ol arcade cabinet in our living room already. 🤤

ruckage

@LiveFastCyYoung said in Neo Geo X Build:

@ruckage
If it were up to me, I'd have built a big ol arcade cabinet in our living room already. 🤤

You should do it and damn the consequences - just be sure to film her reaction for our entertainment :D

skj

@ruckage This theme looks amazing, where is the download link for the theme and loading screens?, I can't find it on here or on the Pi ES Themes 😟

meleu

@skj +1 anxious to get that theme!

danyo

@ruckage Is there any progress update of the neogeo theme? Or does any donation goal exist to apply as a beta tester? ;)

TMNTturtlguy

@ruckage is there anyway we can clone you? or maybe we can create an 8th day in the week? :) I hope all is well man, you are doing great work. Make sure to stay healthy and take some time off for yourself.

lilbud

@TMNTturtlguy Maybe is @ruckage wasn't so damn stubborn he'd let other people help out with his themes. :)

TMNTturtlguy

@lilbud there is something to be said about determination, pride, and quality control......i would venture to say that in the end he will create a far superior product for all to enjoy.

lilbud

@TMNTturtlguy said in Neo Geo X Build:

determination

DID SOMEONE SAY DETERMINATION?

ruckage

@danyo said in Neo Geo X Build:

@ruckage Is there any progress update of the neogeo theme? Or does any donation goal exist to apply as a beta tester? ;)

Hi. I have the theme working on my Neogeo build. I'm a little bit concerned about releasing it 'as is' though as I think peoples expectations are a bit too high. I think people are expecting it to support every system and currently it only supports Neogeo and Capcom (those 2 systems were my only goal when I started making it). To support other systems would take a fair bit of reworking - even if they all used the neogeo style red and white stripe background.

The main concerns I have are:

The game logos: I created custom game logos based on hyperspin wheel art which I added the border to. Now I can easily create these as I created a photoshop batch file to do that for me but I don't think every systems will have the hyperspin logos available. And although it's automated, generating the icons will take a while as some systems will have 1000s of logos (these would also need compressing using pngoo to keep the filesize as low as possible which takes more time). Admittedly this wouldn't have to all be done at once though.
It's also extra complexity for the end user as they would have to download these logos separately.
The alternative is to alter the layout and just use standard scraped marquee art but without the game logos the theme just won't look the same.

System specific backgrounds: Do I go for a purely NeoGeo aesthetic with the red with white stripes (possibly just with a different colour for each system)? Or system specific backgrounds as seen with the capcom background I made? The latter obviously would be a lot more work.

What systems to support? Do I stick to my original idea and only support arcade based systems or do I try to support everything (eventually)?

The preview window: The theme looks nice with the game preview filling that window area but it probably won't look as nice with vertical games (black bars either side) or if people prefer scraped box art as opposed to screenshots so I need to find an acceptable solution to that.

Sorry for the lengthy post but I wanted to explain why this wasn't released yet. If anyone has any thoughts regarding my concerns let me know.

@TMNTturtlguy said in Neo Geo X Build:

@ruckage is there anyway we can clone you? or maybe we can create an 8th day in the week? :) I hope all is well man, you are doing great work. Make sure to stay healthy and take some time off for yourself.

:D Thanks, yeah I will take some time for myself, I bought Crash Bandicoot for my PS4 last week and it won't play itself :).
You probably need to take some of that advise yourself as well as you've been putting a huge amount of work into the comic theme - perhaps there should be an annual themers vacation :) .

@lilbud said in Neo Geo X Build:

@TMNTturtlguy Maybe is @ruckage wasn't so damn stubborn he'd let other people help out with his themes. :)

Excuse me, I feel I'm getting old now and it's every old persons right to be stubborn ;)

meleu

@ruckage said in Neo Geo X Build:

Hi. I have the theme working on my Neogeo build. I'm a little bit concerned about releasing it 'as is' though as I think peoples expectations are a bit too high. I think people are expecting it to support every system and currently it only supports Neogeo and Capcom (those 2 systems were my only goal when I started making it)

Hi @ruckage I'm aware about those things, would you mind to release it as is in some other way (rather than the "official one": retropie-setup). Maybe a github repo with a README saying very clearly that the theme doesn't have all systems.

I would love to use the same way as you on my arcade build. And I think I can tweak the marquees with some ImageMagick sorcery to make the white borders. :-)