The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!

cacophony555

@thelostsoul said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

@cacophony555 said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

No it really isn't. I don't think you know what an operating system is 😀

I think I know what an operating system is. RetroPie is a distribution, including several applications and configuration on top of an existing os. That is the definition of distribution, which is an os. Otherwise, is Ubuntu based on Debian not an operating system? Or Linux Mint, which based on Ubuntu.

Shockingly, Rasbian is based on Debian.

You could say the retropie image includes an operating system. The operating system is raspian. Retropie is not based on it. It's some programs on top of it.

I would argue that you don't know what a distribution is. Quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution

A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection

Nah, distribution isn't really the right term either, which is why you won't find that term used on the retropie site

thelostsoul

@cacophony555 Can you explain why distribution isn't the right term?? It is by definition correct. The RetroPie Image is based on an existing base os, with additional and changed software collection and pre configuration. This is exactly what Linux Mint does. At the end, whatever you call it, the RetroPie image is a functional operating system, regardless of its name.

cacophony555

@thelostsoul The definition of distro gets a bit fuzzy. Raspbian is definitely a distro. I guess retropie might be called that too. But referring to retropie as an OS sounds very wrong to me considering that Raspbian is mostly untouched.

thelostsoul

@cacophony555 But the RetroPie image is an operating system. I know it is just rebranded, but that does not change its nature. Say you have Raspbian and you make some tweaks like RetroPie did and publish it in the internet. The only difference is, that you don't change the name. Would it still not be an operating system?

Whatever, we did discuss this off topic for too long here. :D lets just says we both are right somehow, because like you said, the term is a bit fuzzy and to be honest, it does not matter. ;-) But it was somewhat nice to argue.

KN4THX

I always read in the Docs as Retropie is installed on Raspbian Lite. You can simply install Retropie itself onto a pre-existing Raspbian Lite or Raspbian full install and it would be no different as using the premade image. I don't think the kernel is modified but I could be wrong.

KN4THX

What I am curious about is if anyone has been able to test any of the emulators yet on the Pi 4 to see performance gains. That is, if any of them have been updated to utilize the Pi 4 specifically.

Darksavior

@KN4THX Hard to say since whatever's out is un-optimized. Drivers need work too. I tried Lakka. TaitoF3 games that run slow on mame2003plus and extremely slow on fbneo on a pi3 run at fullspeed on neo with slight drops.

Flycast has major graphic bugs that makes most games completely unplayable. Like, Fist of the North star (atomiswave) ran at around 50-55fps but I can't distinguish anything due to the graphic bugs.
Using the "glcore" driver instead of the "gl" driver made the menu go from ~30fps to ~55fps.
Saturn is still unplayable. If it it'll ever be, who knows. I tried the slower libretro version, though.
Overall it's not worth the time right now. Lakka corrupts itself eventually. Maybe it's my card.

mitu

@Darksavior said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

Flycast has major graphic bugs that makes most games completely unplayable. Like, Fist of the North star (atomiswave) ran at around 50-55fps but I can't distinguish anything due to the graphic bugs.

Looks like the widescreen hack produces some artifacts, the game seems to run close to 60 fps otherwise

Darksavior

@mitu Is that from a wip retropie build? It's a garbled mess for almost every game with lakka and with retropie loaded from raspbian desktop with a modified system.sh I found.

mitu

@Darksavior There's no RetroPie build atm, but tests and developments are taking place. It's just a Raspbian Buster system running RA and the lr-flycast core, under the same build conditions as on Lakka (i.e. using the KMS driver, no X.org). I think lr-flycast added some quirks for the PI4 drivers at some point, maybe an more recent version would work better.
The menus/qte are running at 20-30 fps and exhibit some glitches, but during gameplay it's 59.x FPS, without any frameskip active.

brainfrz

I'm most interested in the performance increase using shaders. I only care about systems until the 32 bit era, which all run fine enough on Pi3, but most shaders are completely unuseable on the pi3 due to the graphics chip being ancient. Would really love if the CRT-lottes shaders would run at 60fps @ 720p. :)

CRT-Royale would be even better, but that's one bridge too far i think.

MetalManTN

@Darksavior Lakka corrupted itself for me too. Before it corrupted I ran some TurboGrafx-16 games, and the speed was fine but the screen was tearing quite a bit.

Darksavior

@mitu Silly me. I was using the wrong lakka pi4 build. Now it looks fine. The crt-pi shader does seem to slow it down quite a bit. I assume that's due to the driver being unoptimized. I also see tearing. Changing to the glcore driver ~ doubles the menu fps close to 60. At least this is something I can play around with.

I am noticing the same problems I encountered on the ps classic. The usable crt shaders don't scale very good. The crt-pi shader looks fine on my 1440p monitor but not so great on my 1080p monitor. The ps classic is 720p so it looks worse. These are "slang" shaders that only work with the glcore driver.

TheRetroGamer

if there's a better model than pi 3, it's pi 4. If it can run N64 almost perfectly, then it just might support Gamecube (in a future model).

Darksavior

@TheRetroGamer From trying a few early/nightly lakka builds and whatnot, n64 runs like poo :)
I'll have a definite answer when the retropie team releases their build.

Barcrest

@Darksavior Not sure why you are having issues with N64. I watched a video where someone used an unofficial port of Retro pi and played through some games. The N64 was much improved even on this unoptimised build with unoptimised emulators. Saturn was about 8 FPS though. Dreamcast was much better too. Once things are worked on I imagine that N64, Dreamcast and to some extent Saturn should be playable. I doubt Gamecube will as that is still glitchy on my i7 SFF build with a 1050ti.

Here is the video for those interested. The guy doesn't seem to know about FPS because he thinks that saturn emu is about 30FPS. If it was it would be playable but at least you get to see that there is improvements from the faster hardware.

Darksavior

The lakka nightlies are better than whatever custom build that person's using.

jrb555

Really cool to hear the nightlies are working great!!
I don't have a Pi4 yet, but I want to get one, however... it would be wise to wait for a revision I think. (The USB C port stuff)

quicksilver

@jrb555 said in The new Raspberry Pi 4 is here!!:

I don't have a Pi4 yet, but I want to get one, however... it would be wise to wait for a revision I think. (The USB C port stuff)

The USB C port issue is barely an issue at all. It only affects "e-marked" cables which most people probably wont be using. The official RPI adapter works just fine for me and only cost $8.

Darksavior

@quicksilver Yea I really appreciate the official psu being widely available at online shops here in the US and with an $8 price tag. Not many shops have the pi3 psu and it's more expensive.