Orange Pi 5

RedMarsBlueMoon

I ordered an Orange Pi 5 from Aliexpress but I believe I was also scammed. There was package tracking data saying that it delivered from China to the opposite side of Canada and in only 5 days or so. It showed as delivered and signed but I never got at and the report/refund process on Aliexpress is not working out.

I made the mistake of ordering from a seller that only had 1 previous sell I should have paid more attention to that.

I'm making a second attempt with a seller that had hundreds of sales and hoping that will work out. Prices jumped a lot in the weeks in-between though.

enderandrew

@RedMarsBlueMoon I had a similiar thing happen recently when I ordered a Super King X pre-made emulation console from AliExpress. There was a legit tracking number. I followed it. It was delivered to Ohio, except I live in Nebraska. Tracking said it was delivered and done. I waited another month wondering if that was a drop shipper getting it the last leg, and I never received it.

I contested the order and showed a screenshot of how it was supposedly delivered to a completely different state.

AliExpress refunded me the money and the store I ordered from doesn't exist on AliExpress anymore.

I hope I get my OrangePi I ordered from them. I've had mixed results.

jmbooth2000

I just purchased an orange pi 5 on amazon for $82.99. Link https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BN16ZLXB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1. Hopefully it will arrive but if it doesn't I'm a lot more confident in Amazon's willingness to repay me than aliexpress. Hopefully I'm not goign to regret not buying the 4A power supply with it.

Reading up online / watching videos in the absence of an official retropie image it seems the easiest option would be to download either the android, ubuntu, debian, or orangepi images and install either retropie for ubuntu/debian or retroarch and the other emulators directly on top of that. If you are downloading the image from thei vendor it seems like you have the best chance of full support for the GPU etc. Watching the videos it seemed like hardware acceleration was supported in the android image but not in the ubuntu image yet. I assume the orange pi image will likely be the best supported but I have no idea what that looks like. I would be very interested if anyone actually has one of these boards and can report on hw acceleration on the various OS and any issues with installing retropie.

Performance wise it looks great and there are lots of videos showing at least some wii, gamecube, and ps2 games running flawlessly!

The limited USB ports is annoying but easily solved by adding a USB hub. These are dirt cheap and I happen to have one spare anyway. Most likely I'll be able to get away with just BT and a disk anyway one it's setup.

Like others I'm concerned about the BT support. Reading online it seems the linux builds offer better support for the USB BT adapters (unfortunately less for the GPU). That said I'm seeing some reports of some usb BT adapters working and plan to try a few until I find one that works. While WiFi would be nice I don't need it as I can connect via ethernet.

I'm hoping between the month or two since it was released and reviewed and when I actually get my board the driver support might have improved.

vybearz

@George-Spiggott This usb bt/wifi adapter is on official datasheet that it works out of the box
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005001632825136.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.4c1d194dMzClWp&gatewayAdapt=glo2esp

RedMarsBlueMoon

@jmbooth2000 said in Orange Pi 5:

I just purchased an orange pi 5 on amazon for $82.99. Link https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BN16ZLXB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1. Hopefully it will arrive but if it doesn't I'm a lot more confident in Amazon's willingness to repay me than aliexpress. Hopefully I'm not goign to regret not buying the 4A power supply with it.

Reading up online / watching videos in the absence of an official retropie image it seems the easiest option would be to download either the android, ubuntu, debian, or orangepi images and install either retropie for ubuntu/debian or retroarch and the other emulators directly on top of that. If you are downloading the image from thei vendor it seems like you have the best chance of full support for the GPU etc. Watching the videos it seemed like hardware acceleration was supported in the android image but not in the ubuntu image yet. I assume the orange pi image will likely be the best supported but I have no idea what that looks like. I would be very interested if anyone actually has one of these boards and can report on hw acceleration on the various OS and any issues with installing retropie.

Performance wise it looks great and there are lots of videos showing at least some wii, gamecube, and ps2 games running flawlessly!

The limited USB ports is annoying but easily solved by adding a USB hub. These are dirt cheap and I happen to have one spare anyway. Most likely I'll be able to get away with just BT and a disk anyway one it's setup.

Like others I'm concerned about the BT support. Reading online it seems the linux builds offer better support for the USB BT adapters (unfortunately less for the GPU). That said I'm seeing some reports of some usb BT adapters working and plan to try a few until I find one that works. While WiFi would be nice I don't need it as I can connect via ethernet.

I'm hoping between the month or two since it was released and reviewed and when I actually get my board the driver support might have improved.

Of course this is a constantly moving situation as its early on still but I found this thread interesting about the hardware decode.
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/25957-guide-kodi-on-orange-pi-5-with-gpu-hardware-acceleration-and-hdmi-audio/

Its generally quite interesting to look through the different threads on that forum.

Of course the HW video encode/decode might be somewhat separate from the graphics GPU so I'm not clear on if you get hw decode to work you also have good gpu graphics.

jmbooth2000

@vybearz Where did you find it listed that this USB Bluetooth adapter works with an orange pi 5. You said it was on the datasheet. Was that the orange pi datasheet or the usb adapter datasheet. I couldn't find anything stated on either. Can you send a link. Also it would be useful to know whether that was with the orange pi, UBUNTU, android, or some other OS.

Lolonois

To avoid misinformation: The USB Wifi/Bt adapter referenced a few posts above is based on a Realtek chipset (RTL8821CU). There are some issues with Realtek network adapters:

Realtek NW adapters are mediocre in general. Esp the advertised combining WiFi and BT can cause issues [1]
This chipset has recently been added to the mainline, in the (bleeding edge) kernel 6.2.x. If you run an earlier kernel, it means everytime you update the kernel you also have to recompile the driver module [2]. And if your only connection to the device is wireless and you boot into the new kernel without the providing the kernel module your wireless connection is toast.

TL;DR: You get what you pay for. The hidden costs of this RTL8821CU are tedious configuation efforts and maintenance efforts.

Better head for wireless device (e.g. multiple mi-mo/AC1200 or Wifi6) which is on par with the Orange Pi 5 and is confirmed to be just working [3].

[1] https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/USB_WiFi_Adapter_out-of-kernel_drivers_for_Linux.md#chipsets---rtl8811cu-rtl8821cu-rtl8821cuh-and-rtl8731au---ac600----usb-2
[2] https://computerbin.com/install-rtl8821cu-ubuntu-linux/
[3] https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/The_Short_List.md

RedMarsBlueMoon

I got my OPi5 delivered from the second AliExpress vendor and have been starting to try convert some software I was making work on the RPi4 (Chiaki).

I'm just starting to read on forums and see what's being used for graphics and video decode.
I have Panfrost Mesa fork with the latest Armbian right now and its working ok. But Panfrost is only about 25-40% performance compared to the blob drivers according to what people report running some common simple seeming gl benchmarking program (glmark2-es2, glmark2-es2-wayland).

As I think someone mentioned higher up here there's been some 'drama' involoving the main maker of the panfrost drivers.

I tried to build Dolphin and the build finished but I only got a black screen+crash using OpenGL. (and software. NULL ran) If anyone knows what I need to do pease I'd love to know! :)

There seems to be no Mali Vulkan drivers available at all.

I'm trying to figure out how to get an OS with the 'vendor blob' gpu drivers. I'm not really sure atm what those do and don't.

EDIT:
This is an interesting read with some contributors that sound like they know what they are talking about (stuartiannaylor ),
https://forum.radxa.com/t/ubuntu-20-02-mali-drivers/12373/43

RedMarsBlueMoon

As you're all emu people here I'm guessing you have this in your youtube stream already but this is a great video by TakiUdon showing how to play a bunch of steam games on this chipset.

I learned that something called FEX-EMU exists.

RedMarsBlueMoon

I managed to hack around the code error in Dolphin and got Resident Evil 4 GC running pretty nicely on my Orange Pi 5! :D
It seems more GPU than CPU bound.

You can follow where I posted on the Dolphin bug report here,
https://bugs.dolphin-emu.org/issues/13198?next_issue_id=13195

If you try this out you also have to tell Dolphin to use GLES instead of standard GL,

nano ~/.config/dolphin-emu/GFX.ini
add a line:
PreferGLES = True

I'm going to play a bit further now and see if it still works! :)

UPDATE: I got to the first village now and FPS are down to 15 (out of 30. I think this game is 30 locked?). Seems to be mainly from all the transparent textures of the big central fire. CPU still looks ok according to htop. If only the graphics drivers were closer to hardware performance limits. :(

Mario Kart Double Dash, ~50fps sometimes a fair bit lower depending on how busy. Crashy sound.

F-Zero GX, Very broken graphics. Completely unplayable.

Mario Sunshine, had a PAL version. In the plaza often at 25fps (full speed) but slows down now and then. Cut scenes pretty distorted. God the controls are annoying! :D

UPDATE2: I think I got slightly better fps in Mario Sunshine and Kart after flicking on some of the optimization options in the gui.

George Spiggott

@RedMarsBlueMoon Back when trying to get Dolphin to work on the Raspberry Pi 4 we managed to get a (very) short list of games that ran well enough to play. Give Worms 3D and Resident Evil remake a try.

Some potentially useful stuff here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/30174/dolphin-install/6

George Spiggott

For people more interested in having Wi-fi and Bluetooth than the M2 port there is an Orange Pi 5B being launched soon with on board Wi-fi and Bluetooth replacing the M2 port.

jmbooth2000

Just got my orange pi 5 4GB. I chose to install ubuntu Jammy desktop from the orange pi site. It had been updated in march 2023 which seems optimistic.

I unzipped the image and used the raspberry pi imager to burn the image to a sd card and it worked perfectly first time :-).

I was really happy with the case / cooler I bought off off aliexpress. Easy to fit and seems to do a good job.

I also purchased a BT / WiFI USB stick. It seems to work out of the box in ubuntu. I have the wifi up and running and I can confirm the BT is at least discoverable. The dongle is nothing special but it was advertised as working with the orangepi which is why I bought it.

I'm installing retropi. This is taking a while as everything need to be compiled (no pre-compiled images). It seems to be working great and should be a pretty good burn in test. After 15min the cooler is barely warm which is a good sign.

I'll update as I learn more. Things I want to test,

Test retropie/retroarch (particularly PS2, saturn, gamecube etc)
Connect my PS3 controller via BT.
See if GL/Vulkan acceleration is supported.
I may end up swapping to android but I wanted to try ubuntu first.

I'm very curious in other peoples experiences. My goal is a retro arcade box that can support more than the traditional emulators that the pi4 does and at least on paper it looks very promising.

RedMarsBlueMoon

Here's an updated video showing some more games at somewhat improved performance compared to my previous video.

I'm using the system tweaks I describe here,
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/27022-can-i-overclock-the-gpu-on-my-orange-pi-5/?do=findComment&comment=161522

RedMarsBlueMoon

Someone showing Model 3 emulation running quite well with the Supermodel emulator.

I do get some graphics glitching but decent framerates when I tested Sega Rally 2. The guy making the video said I should try an earlier snapshot with previous GL code so I might try that at some point to see if it improves.

UPDATE: Yep I checked out from the commit suggested 4c727ab and its pretty much good visually now, without comparing to actual arcade footage.
Now I can also use the new 3d engine but the frame rate takes a big hit so I'll keep going with their legacy3d mode.

jmbooth2000

I had another go setting up my Orange Pi 5. Things went much better this time. I started with a the ultra beta 5 build from Supreme Pi which is a minimal RetroPie installation on top of Armbian (search for the Supreme PI facebook group - the download is free). The good news most of the configuration is done for you and it works more or less out of the box.

The good

Basic install with RetroPie that works out of the box
HDMI, sound, and bluetooth worked out of the box
WiFi worked but was very slow. As it happens I switched to Ethernet anyway.
Most of the basic emulators work and some the struggled before are much faster (e.g. N64 is rock solid even at higher resolutions and with enhanced graphics).
Sega Saturn seems to work perfectly at full speed on the handful of games I tested.
Dolphin works with mixed results depending on the game
I haven't tried to get PS2 emulation working yet. Looking at videos online it seems like it should be work.
The orange pi 5 doesn't seem to be taxed at all (and/or the heat sink I bought is very effective). It doesn't get at all hot.
I think it has video acceleration but I'm not sure.

The bad

I suspect the Bt/WiFi card I bought is really slow
Still bleeding edge - very little support
Upgrading RetroPie somehow broke emulationstation -it was crashing after every game. After lots of frustration I finally uninstalled and re-installed and the problem was gone. Not sure what I broke.

Still to test / work in progress

Booting from M.2 nvme pcie drive vice sd card
PS2 emulation
Dolphin
validate video acceleration

Very happy with the Orange Pi 5 but I wish there was better support. Things are getting better but there still isn't a lot of documentation out there.

RedMarsBlueMoon

Switch emulation on Orange Pi 5 using the Skyline emulator.

ChaosEffect

Thanks for all of the info in these posts. I am now more curious about the Orange Pi 5 due to some recent action with the RetroPie-Setup script.

I know of some problematic games on Raspberry Pi 4B and am curious if anyone has tried these out yet with an Orange Pi 5:

The House of the Dead 2 (Naomi, lr-flycast): On a Raspberry Pi 4B, there seems to be no combination of settings and core options that gets this one to stay at a consistent 60fps. 45–55fps seems to be the range my Pi can handle.

Gauntlet Legends (Dreamcast, lr-flycast): Practically unplayable on Raspberry Pi 4B.

Invasion: The Abductors, Operation Tiger, Rail Chase 2, Total Vice (Arcade, lr-mame): Technically playable on Pi, but the framerate ranges from slideshow to poor.

Time Crisis, Evil Night, NFL Blitz, or any game that uses the iteagle BIOS (Arcade, lr-mame): These fail to work at all on Pi but seemingly work fine with the same emulator in Windows. I'm curious if there is some issue with the Pi hardware specifically.

jmbooth2000

@ChaosEffect Gauntlet Legends is very playable on a modestly overclocked Pi4 with redream.

jmbooth2000

Played some more with the Orange Pi 5 and all I can say is wow. It blows the pi 4 away in terms of performance. It comfortably runs all the PSP games. I'm running both the god of war psp games at 1980x1020 at 2x resolution with 60fps. Pretty much all the other games run at 4x resolution with all the other setting maxed out. N64 is smooth at 1980x1020 with 3x resolution. Dreamcast is great at 1980x1020. Many gamecube and some PS2 / Wii games run just fine.

Have played around a lot there are two easy ways to get this up and running.

The easiest is to go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/supremeretrogaming and https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1V3J2UjwXwrg3kHe8PBX7ZgAvWsUgFSfD download page. The gets you a pre-built image with most of the setup already done (with the notable exception of the ps2). They also have a patron version if you want to contribute back.

I'm also playing around with https://github.com/Joshua-Riek/ubuntu-rockchip/releases. This is a pre-built image of ubuntu with 3d acceleration, sound, bluetooth, and a bunch of other stuff already worked out. One thing to add is "export PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gofaster" in the .bash_profile in your home directory. In benchmarking this makes the oranage pi graphics driver 2-4 times faster depending on what you are doing. You can use this as a base to install RetroPie using the following commands "git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup.git" followed by "sudo ./RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh". Install the base version then compile all the optional and experimental emulators you want. Almost everything works (including dolphin and lr_ppsspp). The only two I found that don't work are ppsspp (but lr_ppsspp works and runs blindingly fast) and lr_dolphin (but dolphin works).

PS2 is trivial to add via an AppImage from https://www.aethersx2.com/archive/?dir=desktop/linux. Once you download it use chmod to make it executable. Unfortunately as I don't yet have vulkan working you need to cripple it by running "PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gl3" before you execute the AppImage.