Raspberry Pi 3 is Cool & Good

Psycho Punch · 02/10/2015, 09:06 PM

So my Raspberry Pi B+ just arrived. I bought this with the intention of building a mini arcade machine.

I saw a lot of arcade pi cabinet projects on the internet, so I thought it would run a decent portion of arcade games well... I should have done a more thorough research because the first thing I did was to load Outrun on RetroPie's MAME and it quickly became apparent that this wouldn't be appropriate for gaming. Hell even the NES emu was slow before I overclocked the device.

I'm not a linux guy, so I wonder what can I do on this ARM minicomputer.

Anyone with advice on running arcade games on the Pi B+? I've heard that the PI 2 is loads better and even runs PSX/N64 well but I wasn't aware of that model when I bought mine.

Dicer · 02/10/2015, 09:16 PM

You just missed the new rev, which is a shame, but the original model should handle everything 16-bit era just fine and dandy. Overclocking the thing is fine which boosts it a bit, but yeah it's $35 or whatever so they aren't exactly speed demons. It's a fun lil kit to tinker with and even makes a cool lil media box, just don't expect blazing performance from it. I have one with Retro pi on it, but I need to recompile and get a good controller solution.

technozombie · 02/10/2015, 09:56 PM

I have been looking at putting a pi 2 inside a snes as a project for me and my daughter. There is a gpio board you can buy that allows you to connect nes or snes controller ports to the pi. The pi 2 is currently hard to get.

geise · 02/12/2015, 03:30 PM

Don't know why you'd want to run MAME on a Rasberry Pi. My instant thought would be "that's going to be slow as balls". What version of MAME is it? You running MAME 0.37b5 version in MAME4ALL? That is the only version that will give you decent speeds on a Pi.

You would be better off running Final Burn Alpha for it. https://code.google.com/p/pifba/

ccovell · 02/12/2015, 05:35 PM

ARM-based devices are cheap, and they're everywhere nowadays but still can't pump out the power for full-framerate emulation*... People don't realize this until after they've bought the thing.

*unless you write optimized C code from scratch, or use the more suitable assembly.

jlued686 · 02/12/2015, 09:38 PM

I just bought a Pi2 for my son and it shipped last night. Should be here in the next few days. I'm pretty excited to tinker around with it.

geise · 02/12/2015, 09:48 PM

Quote from: ccovell on 02/12/2015, 05:35 PMARM-based devices are cheap, and they're everywhere nowadays but still can't pump out the power for full-framerate emulation*... People don't realize this until after they've bought the thing.

*unless you write optimized C code from scratch, or use the more suitable assembly.

So true and is why I got an Nvida Shield for portable emulation. That thing runs emulators like a champ. Install Retroarch and that's about all you need...and Uae4all2 for Android. Hehe nothing like Amiga Workbench on the go.

ToyMachine78 · 08/07/2015, 05:57 PM

Anybody have any updates on this? I've been thinking about picking one of these up to play most of the genesis and SNES titles I don't have the cash to buy.

Reading online it sounds like these are great for emulation using retropie. I was surprised to see punches comment above.

Duo_R · 08/07/2015, 06:29 PM

Yeah all the articles make it sound like its awesome. But I'm thinking its people that haven't played games since the days of arcades and lost their memory? Maybe never messed with emulation?

What's the killer emulation box, I hear the original Xbox is really outdated as a emulator box, is it down to PCs these days?

Psycho Punch · 08/07/2015, 06:30 PM

Well it's not really all that bad if you OC it. But you should be buying the Rapsberry Pi 2 anyway, which is miles better (it runs PSX as far as I know).

Duo_R · 08/07/2015, 06:35 PM

And this just guy out? I feel bad my friend just bought a Pi 1 at the beginning of summer for this. Lol

I'm glad I held off

BigusSchmuck · 08/07/2015, 06:39 PM

Quote from: Duo_R on 08/07/2015, 06:29 PMYeah all the articles make it sound like its awesome. But I'm thinking its people that haven't played games since the days of arcades and lost their memory? Maybe never messed with emulation?

What's the killer emulation box, I hear the original Xbox is really outdated as a emulator box, is it down to PCs these days?

I always thought the Dreamcast did a decent job emulating stuff (other than snes go figure). PSP is even better yet. Dunno if this has changed a whole lot in the past 7 years, but I used to use my Dreamcast to be a emulator whore.

ToyMachine78 · 08/07/2015, 08:17 PM

Quote from: Psycho Punch on 08/07/2015, 06:30 PMWell it's not really all that bad if you OC it. But you should be buying the Rapsberry Pi 2 anyway, which is miles better (it runs PSX as far as I know).

I've thought about buying one of these. Iooks pretty cool, and fairly cheap. I just wish there were some references

http://charlotte.craigslist.org/vgm/5161408592.html

ToyMachine78 · 08/08/2015, 12:54 AM

Just read this on techradar regarding emulation on the Pi 2. Sounds like the nes,SNES, and genesis work great, which is what I want it for. I may take a chance

Up to speed?

How good is the actual emulation? For the most part it's great. Sega Mega Drive/Gensis games run at full speed, as did all the SNES games we tried. There were some visual glitches in Super FX games like Star Fox/Wing and Stunt Race FX, but that's more down to the state of the emulator rather than anything specific to the Raspberry Pi 2 or Emulation Station.

In fact, Emulation Station actually includes multiple emulators for the trickier systems. There are three SNES emulators, two MAME emulators and two N64 emulators on hand to experiment with.

The only consistent slowdown we saw was with N64 games. Many run very well, including Mario Kart 64, but fan favourite Goldeneye 007's frame rate was inconsistent, taking a real dip in more open areas. It's playable with patience, but only just.

There are some games that flat-out didn't run though, sadly including the much-loved The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Some retro gaming tinkerers have had better luck than us, however, with videos of it working on Raspberry Pi 2 already available on YouTube.

A lot of retro games look pretty great too. Emulation Station doesn't go overboard with fancy filters to smooth out older games, but you can choose the output resolution for each system, letting you pick between a more pixelated or blurry look.

N64 is a case of various hits and misses, but every other system we tried works very well on Raspberry Pi. It really does make a great base as a retro gaming system. PSX emulation is particularly impressive, seeming virtually perfect with the handful of titles we tried.

ClodBusted · 08/08/2015, 01:55 AM

I guess the N64 is just a bitch emulation-wise. Might be due to the exotic hardware architecture, or due to the fact that Rareware needed to squeeze every inch if power out of it for good graphics and I'm sure their game engines also heavily depended on constantly streaming data from the cartridge, where only a modern solid state drive could keep up the pace.
Similar things can be said about the emulation of Ocarina of Tike and Majora's Mask when playing them on the GameCube with the Zelda Collector's edition disc. The emulation is alright for the most time, but the BGM distorts often if the game pauses or loads a new area.

o.pwuaioc · 08/08/2015, 02:30 AM

Quote from: guest on 02/12/2015, 09:38 PMI just bought a Pi2 for my son and it shipped last night. Should be here in the next few days. I'm pretty excited to tinker around with it.

We don't have a kid yet, but if/when we do, I'm going to first introduce them to the magic of the Commodore 64. Only after that, we'll take a look at the x86.

BigusSchmuck · 08/08/2015, 12:16 PM

Quote from: guest on 08/08/2015, 01:55 AMI guess the N64 is just a bitch emulation-wise. Might be due to the exotic hardware architecture, or due to the fact that Rareware needed to squeeze every inch if power out of it for good graphics and I'm sure their game engines also heavily depended on constantly streaming data from the cartridge, where only a modern solid state drive could keep up the pace.
Similar things can be said about the emulation of Ocarina of Tike and Majora's Mask when playing them on the GameCube with the Zelda Collector's edition disc. The emulation is alright for the most time, but the BGM distorts often if the game pauses or loads a new area.

It has been since the beginning lol. I remember people trying to run N64 emulators on their pcs back in the late 90s and lets say it wasn't exactly pleasant to say the least.

o.pwuaioc · 08/08/2015, 12:22 PM

Quote from: BigusSchmuck on 08/08/2015, 12:16 PM
Quote from: guest on 08/08/2015, 01:55 AMI guess the N64 is just a bitch emulation-wise. Might be due to the exotic hardware architecture, or due to the fact that Rareware needed to squeeze every inch if power out of it for good graphics and I'm sure their game engines also heavily depended on constantly streaming data from the cartridge, where only a modern solid state drive could keep up the pace.
Similar things can be said about the emulation of Ocarina of Tike and Majora's Mask when playing them on the GameCube with the Zelda Collector's edition disc. The emulation is alright for the most time, but the BGM distorts often if the game pauses or loads a new area.
It has been since the beginning lol. I remember people trying to run N64 emulators on their pcs back in the late 90s and lets say it wasn't exactly pleasant to say the least.

Late 90s? N64 was still current then. Who's running the PS4 on a computer these days? However, N64 emulation wasn't "pleasant" even in the early 2000s. I remember a laptop I had purchased in 2007, which wasn't top of the line, but was still a Duo Core, stuttered here and there. And trying to get PS2 games to work on it was impossible.

esteban · 08/08/2015, 12:55 PM

I am in the midst of a MEAN SESSION of Lemonade Stand on my RaspberryPi2 + PET emulator.

CRAP, I ran out f sugar. Third time this week.

Damn it.

jlued686 · 08/10/2015, 01:41 PM

I'm currently building a retro-arcade table with my son. I've got about 1,000 MAME games running on my Pi2 and it works beautifully; not slow at all. I've also put the entire TurboGrafx-16 library on it and they all work great. I'm using the RetroPie system. I read up on it quite a bit, and watched a bunch of YouTube videos (the best were from TheTechTipsta) and the games run perfectly. You just need to find the correct ROMset for MAME games.

I'll post pictures once the table is finished.

esadajr · 08/10/2015, 04:08 PM

are you making something like this? http://www.instructables.com/id/MAME-gaming-table-with-Raspberry-Pi/step5/null/

jlued686 · 08/11/2015, 10:47 AM

Something like that...but hopefully less hideous.

The idea is to make it a functional piece of furniture that looks nice, but also happens to have an "arcade machine" inside. I bought all the parts (buttons, sticks, IPAC board) from FocusAttack.com, and the electronic stuff (wiring, connectors, etc) from Amazon. I bought the Raspberry Pi from MicroCenter because they had the best price ($30).

Beyond that, it was just a matter of installing RetroPie on a MicroSD card, configuring it to only have the emulators I'll be using (MAME, Turbo) and installing and testing the ROMs. Once that's all done (it's a lot of freakin' ROMs), we'll be building the table and wiring the controls.

Tatsujin · 08/12/2015, 06:14 AM

I'm also getting me a RPII some days.

Ratix · 08/13/2015, 03:59 AM

The pi2 runs great even without overclocking it practically all the emulators including 32x run decent with a little sound scratching. What systems are being used the most? Personally dosbox on the latest pi board out with the quad core is very nice and a heck of a lot more manageable then the Wii port.

1st gen pi's up to b+ work great as a media center using openELEC

wildfruit · 08/13/2015, 09:07 AM

Quote from: Tatsujin on 08/12/2015, 06:14 AMI'm also getting me a RPII some days.

WB \o/

ToyMachine78 · 08/13/2015, 09:27 AM

Quote from: Ratix on 08/13/2015, 03:59 AMThe pi2 runs great even without overclocking it practically all the emulators including 32x run decent with a little sound scratching. What systems are being used the most? Personally dosbox on the latest pi board out with the quad core is very nice and a heck of a lot more manageable then the Wii port.

1st gen pi's up to b+ work great as a media center using openELEC

Good to hear. My Pi 2 arrives today. Woo hoo!

ToyMachine78 · 08/14/2015, 07:56 PM

Damn... Installing retropie on my pi2 right now. What a bitch of an installed. Its been running for 20 mins

Edit: <bikini bottom narrator voice>

Two hours later....

ToyMachine78 · 08/16/2015, 09:36 PM

Finally got the pi going. Emulation station is pretty awesome. I loaded up on genesis, nes, and pce ROMs. Only a few mame ROMs. Everything plays great. Only issue is my controller doesn't work with mame. Gotta figure that out. The graphics look a little blurry/smooth, so I gotta figure out how to adjust that.

Digi.k · 09/01/2016, 07:23 PM

I just ordered a raspberry pi 3 and putting it together when I can get it home. Hopefully I can get it working with no problems!

ToyMachine78 · 09/01/2016, 09:14 PM

I would like advice on getting the controller to work for pi mame games.

The games I have seem run to normal, but I get no response from controller.

I'm using retropie/emulationstation

jlued686 · 09/01/2016, 10:53 PM

There's a menu in RetroPie that lets you set up a controller. It's one of the main menus, like the emulators. It's actually fairly intuitive. Been a while since I fucked with it, though.

Psycho Punch · 09/02/2016, 06:07 AM

Lol there's even a pi 3 right now and yet I am still stick on the first model.

OldRover · 09/02/2016, 05:21 PM

The Pi 3 is supposed to be pretty good. I may pick one up myself for a prototype project I am thinking of.

Digi.k · 09/04/2016, 06:14 PM

I wish I could find a company that sold stuff like this in the UK at a reasonable price

https://gameroomsolutions.com/product-category/cnc-cabinets/

If anyone is looking for stuff to spruce up their raspberry pi kits you can check out this place

http://www.mausberrycircuits.com/

I just placed an order for a power switch

esadajr · 09/06/2016, 05:41 PM

I thought you weren't supposed to feed it through the gpio.

TurboXray · 09/06/2016, 07:57 PM

Ouuu.. Pi 3. I might need to get one.

Psycho Punch · 09/07/2016, 04:45 AM

Title updated :p

Digi.k · 09/07/2016, 12:45 PM

Quote from: esadajr on 09/06/2016, 05:41 PMI thought you weren't supposed to feed it through the gpio.

I'll guess I will find out when it arrives.

Managed to get mine delivered on Monday and have been tinkering around with it. To say it's exotic is an understatement especially if you have no experience with Linux!

Getting a triple boot system of Retropie Raspbian and Kodi took a while to find..

anyway I got most of my core emulation up and running but MAME is giving me issues. Most of the older stuff runs fine but later Konami/Capcom games although their rom names appear on retropie when you load them up you get a blank screen and a few seconds later you are back to the rom list screen. I also am trying to figure out how to run retropie full screen on my HDTV as it seems to be underscanning at the moment.

System card just gives a scale of things...

I might change the case a bit later on

Might change it to one of these boys.
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pibow-coupe-for-raspberry-pi-3

EDIT:

I just noticed the chip under the mobo next to the SD card slot gets quite hot so might be a good idea to stand the rasp pi on it's side.

jlued686 · 09/07/2016, 02:02 PM

Are you using the correct ROM set? There is a very specific list of ROMs that do work with RetroPie. I forget where I found it, but I was able to track down a file that had all of the compatible MAME ROMs.

If you do have the correct ROM set, I've found that I had to reload a bunch of them because they didn't transfer over correctly. I just had to test them all to make sure and log the ones that didn't work and reload them.

Digi.k · 09/07/2016, 02:26 PM

Quote from: guest on 09/07/2016, 02:02 PMAre you using the correct ROM set? There is a very specific list of ROMs that do work with RetroPie. I forget where I found it, but I was able to track down a file that had all of the compatible MAME ROMs.

I downloaded a 2gig zip file of roms in mame37b5. Well that's what the author said they were.

Digi.k · 09/27/2016, 01:52 PM

Power button. It's a bit bright but I like it.

Digi.k · 10/14/2016, 05:30 PM

Saw this on another forum but hey it's right to post it here too!

http://www.installation-international.com/nec-teams-up-with-raspberry-pi/

https://www.nec-display-solutions.com/p/hq/en/news/dp/Products/Shared/News/2016/PressReleases/Company/RaspberryPi/RaspberryPi.xhtml

One of the better Final Fight clones. Konami you should have given the pc engine a port of this!

esadajr · 12/16/2016, 11:12 AM

Quote from: Psycho Punch on 02/10/2015, 09:06 PMSo my Raspberry Pi B+ just arrived. I bought this with the intention of building a mini arcade machine.

... Hell even the NES emu was slow before I overclocked the device.

What were your overclocking settings back then? I just tried with the same Pi model last night and overclocked to 800 mhz. NES emulation improved but still struggles.

<rant>Ridiculous for a 700 mhz CPU under Linux, even Nesticle DOS under Win95 on a 486 does a better job.</rant>

I like the overall look and feel of the interface and the fact you can use a usb NES controller to load roms and even perform a (proper) shutdown. If I can get it to work acceptably it could make a nice little gift.

esadajr · 12/20/2016, 02:38 PM

For OC I went with the "almost nuclear" option of 950 mhz. Save for the occasional hiccup, all is well with the NES emulator. The PC Engine emu runs like a dream, and I like the "crappy 80s CRT TV" look of the CRTPi shader.

JoshTurboTrollX · 12/20/2016, 05:06 PM

Quote from: Digi.k on 09/04/2016, 06:14 PMIf anyone is looking for stuff to spruce up their raspberry pi kits you can check out this place

http://www.mausberrycircuits.com/

That is very rad! Thank you for the link! I have the R3, and have just left it connected to it's own surge protector switch, lol.

Need to play around with mine more!!

blueraven · 01/04/2017, 02:28 AM

Quote from: Digi.k on 10/14/2016, 05:30 PMSaw this on another forum but hey it's right to post it here too!

http://www.installation-international.com/nec-teams-up-with-raspberry-pi/

https://www.nec-display-solutions.com/p/hq/en/news/dp/Products/Shared/News/2016/PressReleases/Company/RaspberryPi/RaspberryPi.xhtml

Awesome. Thanks for Sharing Digi.k!!