Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?

sirhenrythe5th

Hi Folks,

it seems something is wrong with me :D, so i decided to share my impressions here and see how you think about it and what are your experiences since retropie for the Pi4 has been released.

Why is something wrong with me? Because i still have no Pi4 and still dont want one ;)
I always bought the new pis as soon as they were released - but with the Pi4 this euphoria stopped.

Of course there are issues that may concern only me: i want AdvancMame and a working AV-Output for my CRTs.

But what i am missing much more: where are the reports about perfomance with all the games and emulators we were waiting for for so long?
I expected that after retropie is released the forum would be full of threads like "WOW - N64: everything runs now without issues and 60fps" - but there are only some words here and then, but no real experience report that points out the plus of the new Pi concerning retrogaming.

What about PSP? Does it run perfect now? 60fps even with RidgeRacer and GoW?
What about MAME and FBNeo? Do Games, that needed more perfomance on the Pi3, (STV, PGM2, …) now run with full speed?
What about PSX? Does it run now with full speed? That would be great, why does no one write about it?

And so on.
The only System which seems to be in focus is the Dreamcast (including NAOMI).
Great, i love that System and still own a DC-Collection including a sealed console, but i would like to hear from all that systems also that did not run well on a Pi3 and everyone was waiting for the Pi4 to get improvments.

So...are you totally stunned by this beast of Pi4, or do you say "it´s ok....i expected more to be honest".

Thanks a lot and kind regards to the community!

quicksilver

@sirhenrythe5th said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

Why is something wrong with me? Because i still have no Pi4 and still dont want one ;)
I always bought the new pis as soon as they were released - but with the Pi4 this euphoria stopped.

Certainly entitled to your opinion, but the pi 4 is the biggest leap forward in power so far in the history of the raspberry. The GPU is twice as powerful as previous models and the CPU from what I understand is 2-4 times as powerful. But everyones needs/wants are different so if that doesn't float your boat that's fine. I know people that still are using pi 2's because it fits their needs just fine.

But what i am missing much more: where are the reports about perfomance with all the games and emulators we were waiting for for so long?

I feel like I have seen a ton of posts here and on reddit on this subject.

I expected that after retropie is released the forum would be full of threads like "WOW - N64: everything runs now without issues and 60fps" - but there are only some words here and then, but no real experience report that points out the plus of the new Pi concerning retrogaming.

Would it shock you to know that many N64 games ran natively at less than 30fps? Zelda OOT for example ran at 20 fps on original hardware (17fps for the PAL version! Yikes!) N64 is still not perfect on the pi 4 but performance and accuracy are greatly improved thanks to the additional power and the GPU now being capable of openGL ES 3.x. Most games anyone would care to play play very well on the pi 4. More improvements are coming as well. A lot of things are still in flux for the pi 4 which might be part of the reason we haven't seen many compatibility sheets.

What about PSP? Does it run perfect now? 60fps even with RidgeRacer and GoW?

It does not run perfect but PPSSPP isn't a perfect emulator yet either. Even on a high end gaming PC there are many games with known issues. However almost all games that I have tried on my pi4 have been fullspeed with a little frameskip or could even handle enhanced resolution modes. My pi 3 by comparison was only fast enough to play a few mostly 2D titles. On my pi 4 I recently beat GoW CoO, it required a little frameskip but it was very playable. This would have been impossible on my pi 3.

What about MAME and FBNeo? Do Games, that needed more perfomance on the Pi3, (STV, PGM2, …) now run with full speed?

Mame is much improved, many games that stuttered on the pi 3 now play fullspeed. And some games that were completely too slow on the pi 3 work fine now like primal rage, hard drivin, etc. I have not tried it personally but I have seen reports that mame2016 performs well on the pi 4

What about PSX? Does it run now with full speed? That would be great, why does no one write about it?

Psx ran fullspeed on the pi2. (I can even run many psx games fullspeed on my pi zero). On the pi 4 I can use the enhanced resolution mode and still run fullspeed.

The only System which seems to be in focus is the Dreamcast (including NAOMI).
Great, i love that System and still own a DC-Collection including a sealed console, but i would like to hear from all that systems also that did not run well on a Pi3 and everyone was waiting for the Pi4 to get improvments.

Dreamcast is in great shape on the pi 4. I play all my games using redream. Naomi and atomiswave are supported through flycast, I hear performance is good. Dreamcast is pretty much unplayable on previous pi models except for a very few games which play "ok" on the pi 3. Very possible we will see some Saturn titles playing well on the pi 4 too. I hear It's possible to play some 3DO games now too.

So...are you totally stunned by this beast of Pi4, or do you say "it´s ok....i expected more to be honest".

I am completely stunned that a $35 computer can do these things :). Performance is massively improved over previous pi models and at the same price point. I have even recently gotten Doom3 running pretty good on my pi 4. This would be impossible on my old pi 3.

sirhenrythe5th

Thank you very much Quicksilver for your answer!

Certainly entitled to your opinion, but the pi 4 is the biggest leap forward in power so far in the history of the raspberry. The GPU is twice as powerful as previous models and the CPU from what I understand is 2-4 times as powerful. But everyones needs/wants are different so if that doesn't float your boat that's fine. I know people that still are using pi 2's because it fits their needs just fine.

Sure, if we are talking just about specs and benchmarks the Pi4 is a great piece of hardware.
I guess it is the software (as often) that still makes issues or throttle some projects.
There has to be a reason why everybody is talking about "Vulkan" now.

I feel like I have seen a ton of posts here and on reddit on this subject.

OK, i am not active on reddit but here i have not seen ton of threads like "WOW, PSP rocks now!, all games now run with 4k", the only thing is see are ordinary issues like "PSP mapping Problems", which we allready had with the Pi3. I would like to read about the differences Pi3->Pi4 concerning the emulators, but probably you are right and i should have a look in reddit.

Would it shock you to know that many N64 games ran natively at less than 30fps? Zelda OOT for example ran at 20 fps on original hardware (17fps for the PAL version! Yikes!) N64 is still not perfect on the pi 4 but performance and accuracy are greatly improved thanks to the additional power and the GPU now being capable of openGL ES 3.x. Most games anyone would care to play play very well on the pi 4. More improvements are coming as well. A lot of things are still in flux for the pi 4 which might be part of the reason we haven't seen many compatibility sheets.

No, not at all :D
I dont emulate N64 at all, i own two real machines (one also still brand new and sealed) and run one of them with an everdrive on a seperate CRT. I am in N64 since the start and bought my first one in 1997, so im used to the default framerates.
I should have said "do all the games run now that had issues with the Pi3?" than talking about 60fps :).

It does not run perfect but PPSSPP isn't a perfect emulator yet either. Even on a high end gaming PC there are many games with known issues. However almost all games that I have tried on my pi4 have been fullspeed with a little frameskip or could even handle enhanced resolution modes. My pi 3 by comparison was only fast enough to play a few mostly 2D titles. On my pi 4 I recently beat GoW CoO, it required a little frameskip but it was very playable. This would have been impossible on my pi 3.

Thank you for this clarification.
I also have a real PSP-Fat with CFW from DarkAlex (i am a real collcector, my flat looks similar to that from AVGN :D) but i would have loved the idea to play These games on a big screen.
Than PSP will not be the reason for me to buy a Pi4.

Psx ran fullspeed on the pi2. (I can even run many psx games fullspeed on my pi zero). On the pi 4 I can use the enhanced resolution mode and still run fullspeed.

This is intersting.
When the Pi4 was released i saw a video from "Heise" (german professionell IT-Community) who tested PSX-rearmed on base of Lakka on the Pi4.
They had framerates of 100+ and it looked much faster than what i have in my pi3.
The headline was "PSX now at stable 60fps"
I tested it with my Pi3 (non-overclocked, lr-PSX_rearmed with default Settings) and: yes, i have between 45-55 fps when i activate the display of the framerate.
Sure, it feels full speed and is playable!!!, but i dont have 60fps with my Pi3 :/

I am completely stunned that a $35 computer can do these things :). Performance is massively improved over previous pi models and at the same price point. I have even recently gotten Doom3 running pretty good on my pi 4. This would be impossible on my old pi 3.

I am sure the Pi4 is great!, thanks again for your words!!!
In the end it has the issues with the AV-Output so i will have to wait until these are solved as i am a CRT-User only.
But i am not in a hurry, maybe the next Pi will be the Pi5 for me ;)

mitu

@sirhenrythe5th said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

In the end it has the issues with the AV-Output so i will have to wait until these are solved as i am a CRT-User only.

What issues are you referring to ?

sirhenrythe5th

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/25938/retroarch-and-240p-on-crt-tv

You can surely get a Pi4 running with 240P, but it is much too complicated for me! :)
I am not that pro-coder as you and so i dont dare to tinker around this topic, i am happy that i got my Pi3 running with a CRT, that was hard enough! :D

mitu

@sirhenrythe5th said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

You can surely get a Pi4 running with 240P, but it is much too complicated for me! :)

Not sure to which issue - in that topic - you're referring, but the dynamic video switching via tvservice is not likely to be 'fixed' upstream. Sure, easier method for video mode switching may show up, but I wouldn't wait for upstream to implement one - it will be up to the individual applications to do it.

Darksavior

@sirhenrythe5th
PS1: Most games run full speed on an overclocked pi2 (I think at 1Ghz). Games with a higher native res like tekken3 still got slowdowns. You need an overclocked 3b+ for those. You can now use the 2x res "enhanced resolution" without the buggy speed hack on a pi4, though.

PSP: A good amount run full speed. Some are native 30fps. GOW does not run anywhere near full speed and I will not play it with crappy frameskip.

ARCADE: All games should be fullspeed on fbneo. I haven't tried any pgm games. This doesn't mean you should only use that. Arm devices will always require more than 1 arcade emulator due to limitations. I use fbneo first, then mame2016, then mame2010. I'm keeping mame2003plus for final fight with segacd audio. STV is still too slow. I use a saturn emulator for the saturn ports, and speed is still not great. This is mostly due to drivers. Lakka got me better speeds with saturn.

My primary purpose to get a pi4 was being able to use the latest version of snes9x with its overclocking speed hacks without slowdowns. A pi3b+ does not cut it.

I won't be getting a future pi until it can run cave games at full speed like Deathsmiles.

sirhenrythe5th

@Darksavior an @Mitu: thank you both for your replies!
I am really still happy with my Pi3B+ at the moment and will wait for further improvements, i guess there is still a lot to do and optimize.
At least this vulkan-Driver seems to be some kind of Revolution, maybe it is worth waiting.
CAVE!!! Of course! I love all the Cave and Raizing-Shmups - Deathsmiles & Co. are also games i would love to see fully playable on the Pi (4,5,...:D).
To summarize: The Pi4 is great and a lot of things have improved, but there is also a bunch of great things coming up in the future, so further waiting wont hurt ;)

dankcushions

@sirhenrythe5th said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

But what i am missing much more: where are the reports about perfomance with all the games and emulators we were waiting for for so long?
I expected that after retropie is released the forum would be full of threads like "WOW - N64: everything runs now without issues and 60fps" - but there are only some words here and then, but no real experience report that points out the plus of the new Pi concerning retrogaming.

my experience with retropie is that peoples base expectation is that everything should be fullspeed. we never(?) get messages praising the full speed of all the 8-16-bit era consoles, for example.

What about PSP? Does it run perfect now? 60fps even with RidgeRacer and GoW?

i don't know about perfect - i haven't played those games and Wipeout Pure/Pulse have a few dropped frames. however it's close enough that i fancy they could be solved by configuration/overclock/optimization.

What about MAME and FBNeo? Do Games, that needed more perfomance on the Pi3, (STV, PGM2, …) now run with full speed?

MAME covers too wide a catalogue - much of it we can never reasonably expect to run full speed on much better hardware than SBCs. i haven't tried your games.

i'm more interested in progressing our MAME version to more recent ones. current MAME runs reasonably well in our early experiments.

What about PSX? Does it run now with full speed? That would be great, why does no one write about it?

psx has run fullspeed since pi2 - can you name a game that doesn't? tekken 3 dropping frames is more of an emulation one IMO, as the core and ARM pathway is inaccurate. CPU usage is not maxed out in that scenario. the more accurate beetle-psx is very close to being viable on pi4, so that's my focus.

I tested it with my Pi3 (non-overclocked, lr-PSX_rearmed with default Settings) and: yes, i have between 45-55 fps when i activate the display of the framerate.
Sure, it feels full speed and is playable!!!, but i dont have 60fps with my Pi3 :/

can you give an example game? are you running shaders/non-stock settings? that's not correct behaviour for standard retropie on pi3 - it should do psx very easily.

So...are you totally stunned by this beast of Pi4, or do you say "it´s ok....i expected more to be honest".

i'm not stunned as such - GLES 3.x is a great improvement but it only puts on a similar level as some other SBCs that many emulators have already been targeting for years, so it's not revolution. however, the idea of optimizing for new hardware is exciting to me, and we're still not close to done there :)

barbudreadmon

@sirhenrythe5th My understanding of the pi4 is that the cpu is a big step forward, especially since you can OC it to ~2Ghz as long as you cool it properly, however the gpu is a whole other story : on the paper it's certainly more powerful than the previous one, however it still seems to lack speed for several 3D emulators (flycast, yabasanshiro, ...) and the drivers still need some debugging (see topic on yabasanshiro). The odroid N2, sold at 60$ at release (~6 months prior to pi4 release), was a better buy (more power, less issues : as a matter of fact you can play flycast/yabasanshiro at increased resolution without any glitch/slowdown), too bad its price increased that much.

sirhenrythe5th

my experience with retropie is that peoples base expectation is that everything should be fullspeed. we never(?) get messages praising the full speed of all the 8-16-bit era consoles, for example.

I see. If there is a problem: open a thread.
If everything is fine: enjoy in silence.
Makes sense, you are right that i wont find direct comparsions here.

i don't know about perfect - i haven't played those games and Wipeout Pure/Pulse have a few dropped frames. however it's close enough that i fancy they could be solved by configuration/overclock/optimization.<

This is of course my own cup of tea(!!!), but i dont like overclocking. Stock performance only for SirHenry :)
But if further optimizations do their job to get PSP even better - fine!

MAME covers too wide a catalogue - much of it we can never reasonably expect to run full speed on much better hardware than SBCs. i haven't tried your games.

i'm more interested in progressing our MAME version to more recent ones. current MAME runs reasonably well in our early experiments.

This is something i am very interested in as i am a die hard MAME-Fan since the 90s.
Great, looking foward for new ports/versions, thank you for spending so much time with it.
Dont get me wrong: i am very happy with all the arcade games i allready got running on my Pi3B+ using my combination of AdvanceMame and FB Neo, both great projects!
There are some games that would be nice if they would be playable on a Pi too, like the newer Cave-Games or STV and so on - but i can also live without them in the end...MAME started with a hand full of games, no we are talking about thousands. I allready have enough for a lifetime :)

psx has run fullspeed since pi2 - can you name a game that doesn't? tekken 3 dropping frames is more of an emulation one IMO, as the core and ARM pathway is inaccurate. CPU usage is not maxed out in that scenario. the more accurate beetle-psx is very close to being viable on pi4, so that's my focus.> >
can you give an example game? are you running shaders/non-stock settings? that's not correct behaviour for standard retropie on pi3 - it should do psx very easily.<

I dont use shaders as i hooked my Pi to a CRT and dont need further picture-processing.
And i did not change anything in the Setup but the input configuration / controller mapping which should not harm the general performance.
The game i tried for this experiment was one of those HEISE showed in their initial Pi4-Video: "Crash Team Racing".
On their screen 60fps were displayed and everything was sooooooo smooth and fast, i dont have this stable speed on my setup.
But also here: i am happy with PSX, the games are of course playable very good with 40+ fps!!!
I did not know that it was not at 60fps until i saw this video, i never had a PSX in real life.
I was just wondering if i get also this smooth gameplay with a Pi4.
At least with fast 3D like Racing-Games etc, "Castlevania SotN" will have no difference Pi3->Pi4 i suggest.

i'm not stunned as such - GLES 3.x is a great improvement but it only puts on a similar level as some other SBCs that many emulators have already been targeting for years, so it's not revolution. however, the idea of optimizing for new hardware is exciting to me, and we're still not close to done there :)

Thank you very much for your answer dankcushions!!!

AdamBeGood

@sirhenrythe5th It is far from perfect, but I do play Deathsmiles sometimes. Audio stutters quite a lot but I find it good enough to play (although of course it irritates me still)!

Clyde

@sirhenrythe5th said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

This is of course my own cup of tea(!!!), but i dont like overclocking. Stock performance only for SirHenry :)

Same here. 🙂 Even if overclocking won't really hurt the Pi 4 or limit its livespan noticeably with proper cooling, I like to leave it the way it is. That said, I tested overclocking up to 1.75 Ghz in a passively cooled Argon NEO case, but I dropped it back down to standard when I didn't notice much improvement in PSX and N64 games.

So why did I buy the Pi 4? 1. Because I could. 😉 2. My hope that it would run PSX games smoothly without any overclocking or optimizing already came true. 3. I hope that some arcade games which had lag on the Pi 3B will run better on the Pi 4 (with mame2003-plus and FB Neo). 4. Updating from source should also be quicker.

As for the title's question: Do I feel awe? Not really. Am I still happy with my Pi 4 after a month of testing? Absolutely. 😀 And my old Pi 3B will probably become a Pi-Hole for my LAN.

George Spiggott

Overclocking your CPU won't benefit N64 games. PSX games will only benefit if you are running them with the dynarec turned off. Crash Team Racing is the only game I own that needs this.

We clearly haven't reached the full potential of the Pi 4 yet, with at least half a dozen emulators expected to gain from assorted tweaks and GPU driver upgrades.

VictimRLSH

If you want to see the full potential of the Pi 4, check out some of the awesome things Pi Labs are doing on their YouTube channel.

sirhenrythe5th

@VictimRLSH i am pretty sure that you can do a lot of things with this little beast!!!
But in the end i am interested in emulation-performance only :)
I dont care if the PI4-CPU is able to calculate complex fractals within nano-seconds - "Mario Sunshine" in full speed would make my day :D

Darksavior

@sirhenrythe5th Get a used wii with gc support. It's cheaper than a pi with power supply..

YFZdude

@Darksavior said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

@sirhenrythe5th Get a used wii with gc support. It's cheaper than a pi with power supply..

This. I could kick myself for something I did a while back. My Wii quit spinning / reading optical discs. At the time I had already gotten rid of my gamecube since the Wii could play the GC games. So I bought a WiiU and threw out the Wii. I hadn't gotten into retro emulation and then discovered I could have homebrewed it and kept it around afterall.

George Spiggott

@quicksilver said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

Certainly entitled to your opinion, but the pi 4 is the biggest leap forward in power so far in the history of the raspberry. The GPU is twice as powerful as previous models and the CPU from what I understand is 2-4 times as powerful.

I've heard similar about the CPU but is that really the case with the GPU? As I understand it the GPU is very similar to the previous GPU but with a higher clock speed and access to more advanced interfaces (OpenGL 3+ and Vulcan). I'd be really interested in seeing some benchmarks and such for these things especially regarding speed improvements that the newer interfaces bring.

It may well be 2x faster, I really don't know but I'd be interested to see either way.

That brings me to my only real concern with the Pi 4. It's been out for almost a year now and the GPU drivers are still not complete. That's ok and I understand these things take time, but are we likely to have to wait as long when/if the next Pi with an upgraded GPU is released? Is the work being done on the GPU driver now potential groundwork for a future Pi 5/6/7 GPU or will the cycle begin again?

I suppose the bottlenecks in current emulation, both stable like N64 and PSP but also experimental like Gamecube or PlayStation 2) will drive what the emulation scene desires in a Pi "5". This of course may not be route that the Pi evolves in.

quicksilver

@George-Spiggott said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

@quicksilver said in Pi4 and Retropie - awesome...or did you expect more?:

Certainly entitled to your opinion, but the pi 4 is the biggest leap forward in power so far in the history of the raspberry. The GPU is twice as powerful as previous models and the CPU from what I understand is 2-4 times as powerful.

I've heard similar about the CPU but is that really the case with the GPU? As I understand it the GPU is very similar to the previous GPU but with a higher clock speed and access to more advanced interfaces (OpenGL 3+ and Vulcan). I'd be really interested in seeing some benchmarks and such for these things especially regarding speed improvements that the newer interfaces bring.

It is not the same GPU as used on prior models. In fact its the first pi to use a different one. Eben Upton stated the VC6 is at least twice as powerful as the VC4 GPU. If you wanted a link to the quote Id have to dig around for it ;P

That brings me to my only real concern with the Pi 4. It's been out for almost a year now and the GPU drivers are still not complete. That's ok and I understand these things take time, but are we likely to have to wait as long when/if the next Pi with an upgraded GPU is released? Is the work being done on the GPU driver now potential groundwork for a future Pi 5/6/7 GPU or will the cycle begin again?

They said that the Pi 4 was not originally due to be released in 2019 but in 2020. They said that basically the stars aligned and production was very swift. So instead of sit on them for a year while they were working on the drivers and such they figured might as well get them out there so people can start playing with them. Again I dont have an exact quote to reference for you but I read this on the RPI forums by one of the developers/engineers.