Is the Raspberry Pi 4 worth getting?

RedBatman

I have a pi 3B, while its four years old now it still work decent, but recently I did an in place distro upgrade and kind screwed it up a little. So I wondering if its worth getting the new one since it has 8gb of ram, does the new ram help out more?

windg

As far as RetroPie is concerned, ram memory doesn't affect performance.
The Pi4 is significantly faster than the Pi3, whether it is worth the upgrade depends on the emulators you want to run.

RedBatman

@windg Well N64 Emulation has always been an oddity. Does N64 emulation improve from pi 4?

windg

Too bad i don't play N64 games but from the comments here the N64 emulation is problematic even on Pi4. If you search the forum about N64 on Pi4 you will find enough material.

Luddo183

@redbatman
A lot more emulators can run better on the Pi 4, so it's worth checking out if you run more demanding emulators, otherwise you can stick with the 3b(I have both a 3b and 4).

brandflake11

@redbatman If you are content with how emulation is on the Pi3, then I don't think you need to spend any more money. However, if you want better n64 and shader performance, at the cost of not as good video drivers, then the Pi4 is for you.

The Pi4 is also really great at running more "desktop" software. Compiling and updating software on it is much faster, so if you want more speed with that, then the Pi4 is for you. It also has usb3, so that may be an upgrade worth buying.

RedBatman

@brandflake11 Thanks, I wanted to know that since while the PI 3 has been good to me, its not as fast as I would like it to be.

lostless

@redbatman based off my experience, the pi 4 is borderline just a tad too slow for n64. No game runs at 100% speed at all times. Your tolerance for minor slow downs will make or break your experience. But it’s Not that the cpu is too slow, just the way n64 emulation works, the bandwidth of the pi is just not there.