What will RetroPi run on a Zero W?

RoastMarshmallo

Hello, I purchased a Zero W a while back and haven't been using as much as I used to and saw it for gimmicks. I found RetroPi then decided that I could turn it into a mini old gen emu station. My question is what consoles will it run as I know its not the beefiest one of the bunch? I expect it to be able to emulate simple ones like GBA but will it be able to run an N64, Gamecube or PS1?

lostless

@RoastMarshmallo the pi zero is not very powerful. I use one on my handheld and it can play low end stuff pretty well up to GBA. It has to use older or buggier emulators for the most part because it doesn’t have the power to run more accurate emulators, so some games may not work as expected. mainly noticeable in the SNES and gba emulators. But are playable. Arcade mileage may very. I read the ps1 emulator runs decently, but i have yet to use it. All in all You will notice some slow downs here and there depending on the system or game.
GameCube, Dreamcast. Basically anything above the ps1 will not work. N64 will, but don’t expect any sort of decent performance.

IceChes1

I have one. It runs my favorite SNES game, Kirby Super Star, at less than ten FPS. Just for perspective.

quicksilver

@lostless said in What will RetroPi run on a Zero W?:

N64 will, but don’t expect any sort of decent performance.

I can confirm that n64 runs terrible on the pi zero. Even the most basic games don't run fullspeed.

IceChes1

If SNES runs at 10 FPS on a Zero, I wouldn't be surprised if N64 emulation set it on fire.

quicksilver

@IceChes1 said in What will RetroPi run on a Zero W?:

If SNES runs at 10 FPS on a Zero, I wouldn't be surprised if N64 emulation set it on fire.

You can run SNES using the older snes9x cores and performance is acceptable as long as you aren't trying to run superfx games. Even psx performance on the pi zero is not bad using the standalone emulator.