Pi3 vs Zero.

Raspberry Pi hardware discussion (including peripherals)
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Holydohnut
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Pi3 vs Zero.

Post by Holydohnut » Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:35 am

I have a new build in the works and I thought I might go all out this time and got my first ever Raspberry Pi 3 today. (To go alongside the 9 Zero w's!) I installed retropie, chucked some N64 roms on, and....... Was thoroughly unimpressed with the result!

Now I know this was just a start position and you can change the driver and the emulator and even overclock the pi. But from the information I've read on github, even that won't make everything playable. Given that my build would end up needing an analog controller and teensy, in addition to the additional power consumptuon issues, and having to be bigger. I'm genuinely wondering if it's worth all the hassle?

I was never much of a fan of original PS games, though I did love the N64 and Dreamcast. Are there any other benefits to using a Pi3? Should I just stick with the zero?

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RetroRocket
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Re: Pi3 vs Zero.

Post by RetroRocket » Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:29 pm

From what I've gathered, even with the added performance of the Pi3 over the Zero, it won't be able to meet the threshold of running many more emulators; possibly MAME and a few others. In short, better than Zero, but not good enough to reach the next generation after SNES/Genesis.
If you really want N64, I'd recommend checking out the Orange Pi PC. It costs about the same as a Pi3 on eBay, and I've been thoroughly impressed with mine; the only issues I've had have been corrupt ROMs. The Plus version offers onboard storage which is wholly redundant and not worth the higher price.
The OPi Facebook group is highly recommended if not required to do some things (e.g. getting the thing to run off VGA instead of default HDMI), and usually respond to queries within a day.

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Holydohnut
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Re: Pi3 vs Zero.

Post by Holydohnut » Mon Oct 16, 2017 5:32 pm

Thanks for the comments! I was having a play tonight with the screen I have for the project, and when set in /boot/config.txt to the exact resolution of the screen, (with isn't *much* less that the lowest setting I'd tried on my telly) it actually started running pretty well! Goldeneye for example was now very playable.

I'm so torn now... S'pose I'd better get reading up on how to implement an analog stick! :)

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