What Are The Best Single Board Computers For Gaming??

RetroFreak89

What is the best single board computer for gaming these days?
I know the Raspberry pi does have the best support but specs wise Its not the fastest out there
So im wondering what boards offer some more speed and performance if they are any that is..
Cause i was thinking of getting a second pi but if theres something better on the market i might hold on and get one of those as well...

COOL_IRON

Try ODROID. It is more powerful then Pi and still can run RetroPie.

dirthurts

@cool_iron

Odroid does look pretty good. The XU4 seems to be the best bet, and can run Retropie, but it's not (as far as I can tell) going to run the image. You have to jump through some hoops.

I found this here:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Odroid-XU4

Seems it can even run Dreamcast games pretty well.

swd120

The C2 has a retropie image - and while its not as powerful as the XU4, it still spanks the pi if you use the eMMC storage option.

mitu

@swd120 How is the cooling on the Odroid ? Does it a need a fan if running something like a N64/Dreamcast game ?

swd120

@mitu I don't own one, but from what I've seen online it seems fine.

Ranma

@swd120

Not sure about Hotline Miami, but those other two games run absolutely fine on the Pi 3. I was playing Powerstone only the other night funnily enough. Very impressive on the Pi.

Not to be a Pi fanboy (well OK maybe a bit!) but the problem for me with buying these alternative boards is we think we need more power to run emus for N64 and Dreamcast or that that would improve things, but ultimately it won't offer a dramatic improvement to the end user over a Pi 3. N64 is not really a friend of anyone unless you are running GlideN64 on a fairly powerful device and even then it's not that great (trust me I know). I agree GlideN64 is driving N64 emu right now, but you have to realise that it is becoming more demanding as development continues. Going on my own experiences it has had a very chequered history on my Android devices, where it used to run well on a decent spec device (Tegra 4, 2Gb RAM, but now is beginning to show slowdown even on the lower settings and after user amendments to settings. Heck it used to run OK on the Pi 3 when it was Glupen but not really so much now. I assume this will not get easier over time and ever more powerful devices will be needed to run it.

Reicast simply hasn't had an update in many years and is again not really worth changing over from a Pi 3 for. Until this sees a considered update it's again not worth chasing.

Just imho.