Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie
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Hello RetroPie users!
I am looking for a machine that is more than just a minor bump to the RPi3, something with roughly twice the performance, around the same physical size (bonus if its the same form factor as RPi3), and for less than $100. Of course it has to be able to run RetroPie.
Does anything like this exist yet? I have looked at many devices: ODRIOD, TinkerBoard, BananaPi, etc... (the ones that various reviews say are faster than the RPi3), and while many of these do seem to be faster than the RPi3, they are not that much faster. Not enough of an upgrade.
My end goal is to run RetroPie with SNES/GBA scaled to a reasonable resolution (with a filter on) and get full speed. Speeds that allow full speed PS1 emulation would be a huge bonus.
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@latreides So, you want a single board computer, with a modern 2.5 GHz+ CPU, a dedicated GPU, has the same form factor as a Pi and RetroPie working on it flawlessly? And for less than $100. Ha! me too, and a unicorn!
Not trying to be rude but that's quite a shopping list. You are going to be stuck in underpowered SBC territory or faster boards that have little to no support OR up your budget and get a NUC. OR buy a cheap second-hand laptop off of the web, install Linux and use that. You could get a decent specced laptop for $100. -
@latreides
Tinkerboard is the only one with the same form factor that I know of. Otherwise, you're wanting to build a PC at this point.That being said, I think tinkerboard at the moment only has full support for lakka.
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@sgtjimmyrustles tinkerboard has retropie running on it.
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Oh? They got it working?
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@jonnykesh I understand the point you are trying to make but I think thats a little bit hyperbolic, and you put words in my mouth.
There are a lot of details that go into performance, of those, GHz is one of the most useless measurements. Creating a machine with double the performance of the RPi3 easily realistic. If I can buy a tablet that can run circles around the RPi3 for $150 with all the additional technology available in it, then its not unrealistic to think that I could get a stripped down board for < $100.
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@latreides As I said, I wasn't trying to be rude and yes I was being hyperbolic.
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@latreides What tablet would be that ? I'm genuinely interested.
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I have plenty of machines more capable than the RPi3, the point of this is to have a small form factor (roughly the same size as the RPi3, but as big as the SNES mini would be fine) this means that using a (normal) PC, or a laptop, etc... is out of the question.
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@latreides said in Looking for a better machine to run RetroPie:
using a (normal) PC, or a laptop, etc... is out of the question
Not really, nowadays a PC can be really tiny - https://www.gigabyte.com/Mini-PcBarebone/GB-BKi5T2-7200-rev-10#ov. The only problem would be the price, which is definitely not under 100 $.
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@mitu To be honest the RPi3 is the worst performing machine I have for emulation. The Amazon Fire HDX ~$80 runs SNES games so much better than my RPi3.
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@latreides Genuine question. Why bother with it if you think it is the worst? Surely if you have a solution that suits you better you would focus on that.
The Pi is what it is. Trying to work within it's obvious limitations is what keeps people like myself and many others interested. -
@latreides i havent had issues with psx or snes on the pi. And i dont overclock either. What are the issues you are having?
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@edmaul69 Me neither but I didn't think that was the question, so I didn't answer it.
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@jonnykesh The entire point of the topic is that I am not bothering with it, and I don't have a solution. Thats why I am asking for a solution.
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@latreides We are a pretty "Pi-focused" community seeing as that's what we are all here for.
Other options are available obviously. In fact a few ideas have been offered. -
@latreides have you looked into an odroid xu4? I hear the run really well.
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@latreides From what I've seen, looking in the same category (SBC), Odroid-XU4 or Tinkerboard are more powerful than a RPI 3, but the software support is not - yet - on par with Raspbian.
RetroPie has support for the Odroid-XU4 and perhaps in the future will support also the Tinkerboard. Look them up and see other opinions.
Having said that, I have to agree with @edmaul69 - I didn't notice any problems running SNES emulation on a Raspberry PI (3) system. Most people wanting a speed bump usually aim for better N64 emulation with the increase in speed and performance. -
@edmaul69 @jonnykesh
I have given up on trying to squeeze performance out of the RPi3. I spent months trying to get it to be able to play SNES games at full speed and gave up. If I increase the resolution to something more reasonable, or apply a filter (or both), then the performance tanks. Its "mostly" playable if I have a low resolution and no filters. I must have run though a couple dozen how-to's and walkthroughs trying to squeeze just a little bit more out of the RPi3 to make it an enjoyable experience, couldn't do it. Easier to just upgrade the hardware.@edmaul69
That was the device on the top of my list, but the few benchmarks that I have seen didn't show enough of a boost to justify the upgrade, it is also difficult to find at the moment. It is definitely the closest to "double RPi3" that I have seen. Do you know more about how well this works with RetroPie? Does anyone here use one?@mitu Don't really care about N64 emulation, though PS1 would be pretty nice.
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@latreides What do you mean by increasing tje resolution to something reasonable? The graphics you see produced by an SNES game are limited by the data of the original artwork. The gains you will see by increasing the resolution of 2d games is going to give extremely rapidly diminishing returns. Your average SNES rom is only a couple megabytes of data. Less data than a single modern high resolution image file.
It can certainly make a difference with PS1 games. But I am running most PS1 games at double standard resolution along with a light shader at 55-60fps on a non-overclocked Pi 3B. So, I'm honestly confused about what you are trying to achieve.
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