It used to be about the games, maaaaan!

mrbwa1

@PetroRie Not a heat sink guy myself. Spent too much time dabbling with electronics and maybe a bit biased opinion that you would need a good heat pipe setup or a really big heat sink (seems like tour Idea too)

I'm a big fan of airflow (yikes, bad pun there). MY Bare Pi3 @ 1350MHz with the 500Mhz Core and GPU ccan be sufficiently cooled in an open top case by aiming a desk fan at it. Right now, I'm using the backplate and 12v fan from a dead ATX power supply wired to an old 12V wall wart. It's really loud and probably overkill, but keeps everything at about 50C under load. I would think a 5v fan alone with ventilation slots/holes would be sufficient.

PetroRie

@mrbwa1 I think with overclocking the entire goal is to see how far you can push the hardware. But is that really needed for just gaming? In my opinion it's not. The Pi runs fine without any overclocked settings.

I also seen a water cooling set for the Pi's kinda overkill in my opinion. I wonder how a thermoelectric peltier cooler would do, I just saw some of them on eBay. Oh man so many crazy ideas, I think I need to stay of the internet for a couple... minutes lol.

meleu

@mercifulhacker said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

What tweaks/hacks are keeping you busy?

The script to create launching images that I mentioned above is ready to use (there are some features to implement, but it's already perfectly usable). I posted about it here:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/7193/runcommand-launching-images-for-any-theme

mrbwa1

@PetroRie said in It used to be about the games, maaaaan!:

@mrbwa1 I think with overclocking the entire goal is to see how far you can push the hardware. But is that really needed for just gaming? In my opinion it's not. The Pi runs fine without any overclocked settings.

I also seen a water cooling set for the Pi's kinda overkill in my opinion. I wonder how a thermoelectric peltier cooler would do, I just saw some of them on eBay. Oh man so many crazy ideas, I think I need to stay of the internet for a couple... minutes lol.

I played with overclocking to get Dreamcast and PSP running. It helps with Enhanced resolution on PSX as well. I can almost get playable Daytona USA with 1350MHz. Honestly, 1400 MHz didn't do much more and not sure 1450MHz would make a big difference.

Then again, I originally transferred my sd card from the Pi2 to the Pi3 and it was running pretty good until I tried the things mentioned above. It was also running nice and cool.... Turns it it was running my previous 1000Mhz "overclock" on the Pi3. Oops!

PSP and Dreamcast aside, I see no need for an OC. Even non-enhanced PSX isn't too bad, especially with a shader.

PetroRie

@mrbwa1 The only PSP game I played on RetroPie was Patapon 3 and it ran fine with no OC. But thats the only game I tested, the rest of the PSP games I play on my modded PSP haven't touched that thing for months now especially since I got the Rp3 with RetroPie.

I think the lags etc are a software problem and not a hardware problem. As time passes by they will fix everything and it will run everything perfectly.

I played many PSX games on the Pi they ran fine. I tried Enhanced resolution on Metal Gear Solid and it lagged a little bit but the graphics did look amazing. But again that was the first and last time I used that option. I wanted to use this feature I think I would OC my Pi.

Who knows what we can expect when the release Raspberry Pi 4. I would be very happy if it could run Gamecube and PS2 games

herb_fargus

@PetroRie not a chance of that happening

mrbwa1

@PetroRie

LocoRoco on PSP has some slowdowns and absolutely maxes out my Pi causing a very quick heat lockup if I don't have the fan on. I would just play it on my actual PSP, but i develop tendon pain after a couple minutes using the PSP anymore.

Enhanced Resolution on the PSX does look great and frankly, if I don't run that or PSP, then I could have stuck with my Pi2. I may try out no enhanced resolution but a shader to see how it runs.

I don't see Dolphin (GC/wii) or the PS2 emulator on a Pi for a long time. It's just not going to be powerful enough on the graphics end. Frankly, I have an XBOX 360 and XBOX One when I want more modern stuff. The X360 still plays a lot of the better original XBOX games.

Heck, my boys are spoiled with their choice of: Xbox 360, Xbox One, PSX, N64, Wii (the version that can play GC games if I bough a GC controller) and Retropie.