Rasberry Pi vs. Dell Inspiron N5110 for Dedicated Emulation Use

[Unadan]

I am currently running Lakka on an old Dell Inspiron N5110 laptop as my mane emulation station. This computer is "on the blink" and may need to be replaced in the future. I'm wondering if a Rasberry Pi 3 with Retropie will run emulation for systems going thru to the Sega 32X at full speed. Can anyone chime in? Am I better off going the Rasberry route vs. just getting another similar used laptop as a dedicated emulation machine?

[Flojomojo]

Well, laptops are nice because they have their own screen. I can't tell how old that machine is but it seems like it's from around 2010 ...you could get a low end machine with similar specs for a lot less nowadays. Emulators don't need much power so you'd be fine either way.

 

Alternatively, Android can do everything up to SEGA 32x without breaking a sweat.

[Osgeld]

The new pi should do it no issues at all, but you need an oddball 2000000 amp USB power supply, fight with Linux to get your joysticks to work, dedicate a screen and if you dare shut it off without a proper OS shutdown in my experience its about 1 in there chance of screwing the SD card

 

 

Not my favorite system

Edited April 24, 2016 by Osgeld

[+Zeptari]

https://www.adafruit.com/products/1995

 

Just got a Pi3 yesterday. Spent day 1 installing Rapbian and messing with the gui.

Day 2 I moved my Pi3 setup closer to my router, wifi was to weak to get online and install

Hatari. But once I did I had a blast messing around with it. Downloaded a few D-bug .msa disks.

im loving it so far. Osgeld has me a little nervous about it now.

But all seems fine so far. Btw this is the power supply I ordered. Works great.

[akator]

I looked up the specs of your older Dell laptop and it appears to have come with i3 or i5 processors. Even several years old, those Intel processors have several times the processing performance of the ARM chip in the RPi. It is comparing apples to oranges. A $35 computer with a processor running on a few watts of power isn't in the same league as a full powered laptop with much more processing capability.

 

The RPi 3 should work for your needs and handle emulation fine, but it doesn't have the same level of performance as your laptop. Interface navigation, loading, frame rates, all are going to be adequate but less than the laptop.

 

As I mentioned in your other thread, don't expect the RPi to perform the same as an Intel computer and you'll be fine.

Edited April 24, 2016 by akator

[Keatah]

I prefer some sort of x68 machine with WinXP or Win7. This will afford you the most flexibility and allow emulators to shine with all sorts of amenities. I typically recommend R-Pi for when specialized systems or low power or small size are desirable. Otherwise x86 Wintel.

[Unadan]

Turned out the only thing wrong with my Inspiron was the power adapter cord - easily replaced and have to say it's a great emulation machine with Lakka running everything pretty smoothly - with the exception of some sound issues on Jaguar games.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Unadan

[Shift838]

I have a few Raspberry Pi3 computers. I have one I use to mess around with the GUI and to learn some linux.

 

My second I use as a headless server that runs Raspbian and from there I run 'tcpser' modem emulation software with a USB to serial cable. I then have my MiST system hooked up so that I can use my terminal program to get out to telnet BBS' I do the same with the Raspberry Pi with my TI-99/4A as well. (I had to slow the processor down to get accurate baudrates though).

 

My 3rd unit is really what this topic is about. I have it loaded with Retro-Pi with Emulation Station. I have it overclocked with all the heatsyncs and fans in an open case. I run AdvancedMame, 99SIM, Genesis, SNES, and various other emulators and it works great. I have not figured out the tweaks to get it to work well with Nintendo 64 games yet.

[+DrVenkman]

I have a few Raspberry Pi3 computers. I have one I use to mess around with the GUI and to learn some linux.

 

[sNIP}

 

My 3rd unit is really what this topic is about. I have it loaded with Retro-Pi with Emulation Station. I have it overclocked with all the heatsyncs and fans in an open case. I run AdvancedMame, 99SIM, Genesis, SNES, and various other emulators and it works great. I have not figured out the tweaks to get it to work well with Nintendo 64 games yet.

 

 

You won't figure them out; the RPi3 just doesn't have that kind of horsepower, at least not with current emulators. Maybe someone could write a perfectly-optimized emulator that would work, but not likely. More likely, there will be an RPi4 or 5 in a few years that'll do it. Alternately, Raspian might be re-compiled, and all the emulators might be tweaked, to support the 64-bit mode of the ARM processor inside to increase performance. That'll take time as well. So again, more likely that new, faster cheap hardware will become available.

 

In the meantime, I'm pleased as hell with my <$100 emulation system (including power supply, cheap case, video cable and speakers). I can emulate everything I want and then some, from late 70's arcade games through Genesis and 32X stuff, and everything in between.I have it setup with an X-Arcade Tankstick, an old 20" 4:3 VGA monitor and spare keyboard/mouse combo I had laying around. It sits in the corner of my gaming space and is ready to go at a moment's notice.

 

What's not to love?

[fujidude]

If RPi3 doesn't currently have enough horsepower to get N64 emulation done well enough, perhaps these might:

 

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G145457216438

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G143452239825

[Cynicaster]

I was thinking of giving the RPi a whirl for a little multi-platform emulation device, but I’m just finding it a bit hard to justify because I already have a full-sized MAME cabinet that I love for arcade games. For console stuff, I’ve already got a reasonably powerful PC permanently connected to the TV in the living room for video streaming; it’s also loaded with emulators and ROMS, and I have adapters I can use to connect real controllers for most of the systems I enjoy. I can also do console emulation on my MAME cabinet, on my main desktop PC, and on my Surface tablet.

 

Oh well, maybe someday I’ll find a good reason to try out the RPi.

 

One question – what is RetroPi exactly? I thought it was an emulator front-end type thing that runs on the Pi to help you navigate the available emulators. But people are saying “I have RetroPi with Emulation Station”. So… is RetroPi some kind of OS?

[fujidude]

RetroPi is a complete package (minus ROMs of course). It consists of OS, many emulators, and one front end to rule them all.