Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?

davej

@xeon said in Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?:

i was using the separate memory as a example.

Adding a enhanced gpu does not have to mean a full rewrite.. didn't adding support for multi cpu devices mean we now have 2 different retro pie images?

It's not about what RetroPie have to do - it's about what the RPF have to do.

I also never said it was easy.
It's also not impossible, a bit more gpu power wont end the universe really.
it won't destroy what has been built.

The current Pi chips are a complete set top box chip (the VC4) with bolted on CPUs. That's why it was relatively easy to switch to different CPUs. It's also worth pointing out that the VC4 is where the 1GB memory limit comes from. Changing the GPU essentially means throwing away the whole chip and starting again. They can't just cut a bit out and replace it with alternative bit, they'll want to move from 40nm to 28nm and you can't just shrink the existing circuit designs. We are talking £millions and years of development even if everything goes perfectly.

And it would not just be for gaming as some gpu's can do some amazing stuff on core that is not gaming related what so ever.
Just depends on how strong the gpu is

Ultimately, you have three choices:

Wait for the Pi4 and hope it meets your needs.
Put effort into developing support for alternative existing SBCs that have stronger GPU's than VC4.
Buy some sort of PC.

obsidianspider

While I would also appreciate more powerful hardware, I am also really enjoying the "constraints breed creativity" aspect of the Pi. With limited resources available people have been very creative in finding solutions. On a more powerful system you can be messier with an implementation because extra resource availability will absorb inefficiencies.

maxbeanz

@obsidianspider Yeah, I sort of agree. Because of the limits of the Pi, some emulators will be optimized to achieve the best possible performance, if we had much higher specs then the devs would just leave it and say "it works fine on a 1.8 GHz CPU".

ExarKunIv

There is no reason why the Pi guys (as i call them) will not come out with a Pi4 , but i do not see is anytime soon. everyone know that requirements change with the times. as people start wanting more and more from the Pi (not just us) they will come out with something better.

How much better and at what cost no one knows. as they say if one stands still one will die. that goes for everything in life.

so we just need to sit and wait to see what they will give us.
For now im very very happy with my Pi 3. it does more then i ever thought it could do with the size.

Xeon

@davej said in Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?:

Ultimately, you have three choices:

Wait for the Pi4 and hope it meets your needs.
Put effort into developing support for alternative existing SBCs that have stronger GPU's than VC4.
Buy some sort of PC.

Wait.... so they can swap out cpu's but not gpu's....
That sounds... so wrong on so many levels.

I also don't see any full pc's the size of the pi.

Alternate SBC's have not garnered the same support and most attempts have been futile.

However i do agree that the limits have forced efficient coding as back in the DOS days.
The rest just sounds like excuses to not improve.

I have had a extremely miserable day... with horrors that cannot be described with words.

PokeEngineer

@retrofreak89

If it is ever released, (which I doubt, just a bit) I'd say it would be released around 2018 or 2019.

Xeon

@pokeengineer
I could wait that long.
Would not expect it earlier.

I would also like to ask people to stop down voting me for no reason.
The - reputation ignites the - rage in me.

PokeEngineer

@xeon said in Raspberry Pi 4 Will It Ever Happen?:

I would also like to ask people to stop down voting me for no reason.

Well, at least I didn't downvote you! :)

Xeon

@pokeengineer
i know you didn't buddy.
So far you seem like a really down to earth chilled guy.

PokeEngineer

@xeon

Thanks.

drake999

@retrofreak89 I heard we have to wait until 2019 for it. Not sure what to expect spec wise.

Fruitybit

I'm just going to copy and paste what I put in the 'place your bets' thread here... not to ram it down your throats again, just to get your opinions:)

So, I need to understand what it means when the chip is described as having four layers. Is this the 'four cores' that defines a pi3?

Let's say, just for example, I have a pi3 on my counter at work, and a customer (regular and on good speaking terms with) says something along the lines of
"That's a pi, I work for their development. We're experimenting with a six layer chip rather than the four layer version now"
At which point I would, had this conversation happened, have replied something like
"It's rather important to me that you discuss this further with me promptly sir."
After which, noting my apparent marginal knowledge and interest, this hypothetical customer becomes rather coy and refuses to be drawn further on the subject.

Am I to infer something from this theoretical conversation? Which, in that very same theory could well have gone on marginally longer than my above (purely of course) imagined transcript.

(Redactions and theorem due to promises made, take from it what you may)