Finding Alternatives to the Raspberry Pi

[WelshMegalodon]

So the fact that I have little love for the Raspberry Pi is fairly well-known among these parts, and if threads like this one are any indication, I'm not alone in being disappointed by the hype surrounding this underpowered machine as the de facto standard for emulation.

The thing is... are there any real contenders for a comparably small and affordable computer that fills the same niche as the Pi? If Joe Casual wants a little box hooked up to his TV for Malleo, what should he be using for reliable Super Nintendo or Neo Geo emulation under, say, $80, the price of the SNES Classic? The automatic answer is "an old laptop", but which one(s)?

We can spot a worthless Pi build a mile away, but what can we tell them to stick into their DIY bartop cabinets instead?

Share your experiences here!

[Fudoh]

There are many extremely small x86 based PCs available - especially on chinese shopping sites like gearbest or geekbuying. $80 to $100 today gets you a Intel Atom x5-Z8350 based Min PC with 2GB of ram and 32GB flash memory built in. These aren't great Windows machines, but for emulation they already outperform the Pi3 in every aspect.

I think it's a great advantage to use a windows PC instead of an ARM-based TV box as it gives you a much greater choice when it comes to available emulators.

Here's an Amazon.com link to one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9YX3W6

[Xyga]

^ totally this.

I've been wondering if the same are sold OS-less somewhere, so you can shove a 7 Pro or something.

[Fudoh]

that's tricky because most use a free Win10 license (granted from Microsoft for low-spec PCs) which in return uses an UEFI bios that's kinda locked to the OS. Also there's zero drivers available outside the ones already installed.

[Xyga]

Oh yeah...well, it's a pain but with some work W10 can be decently tamed anyway.

[WelshMegalodon]

There are many extremely small x86 based PCs available - especially on chinese shopping sites like gearbest or geekbuying. $80 to $100 today gets you a Intel Atom x5-Z8350 based Min PC with 2GB of ram and 32GB flash memory built in. These aren't great Windows machines, but for emulation they already outperform the Pi3 in every aspect.

I think it's a great advantage to use a windows PC instead of an ARM-based TV box as it gives you a much greater choice when it comes to available emulators.

Here's an Amazon.com link to one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9YX3W6

Very nice! An x86 box at this price range is definitely preferable to something like the Pi, even if it is preloaded with Windows 10.

Dumb question, would it be possible to at least set up a dual-boot into Win 7 or FreeBSD on one of these? Considering UEFI.

[lettuce]

There are many extremely small x86 based PCs available - especially on chinese shopping sites like gearbest or geekbuying. $80 to $100 today gets you a Intel Atom x5-Z8350 based Min PC with 2GB of ram and 32GB flash memory built in. These aren't great Windows machines, but for emulation they already outperform the Pi3 in every aspect.

I think it's a great advantage to use a windows PC instead of an ARM-based TV box as it gives you a much greater choice when it comes to available emulators.

Here's an Amazon.com link to one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9YX3W6

Well of course they'd out perform the Pi3 as there like 3 times the amount of money. Thats the whole point of the Pi, its like $30 and nothing you can get in that price range can touch it.

If your not concerned with spending more then one of the low end Intel NUC systems might be of interest!?

[DirkSwizzler]

I just wish something like pi2jamma existed for higher performing boards than the pi. At the end of the day I still want to plug it into a jamma interface.

I only recently tried to get into pi2jamma for an arcade experience and spent far too much time trying to even answer the question of whether the gpio pins of an UDOO X86 Ultra would be generally compatible with the pi2jamma with a couple drivers and a pi<->arduino gpio pin adapter.

[lukilla]

Wow, I just took a look at core 2 duo´s listings in my country and there are several going for the equivalent to $7 to $10 usd. I used to run tekken tag in mame full speed on one of those

[Xyga]

I never saw the low price argument of the Pi as a valid one, I mean unless you're really dirt poor, just how cheap do you have to be to go for it?

If people are serious about building a PC for emulation they're going to look at AMD Ryzen options, with which you can build for under 200 (if you pick the cheapest mobo and psu), and there you have something that runs practically everything and features bloody damn FreeSync.

Who cares if it's 6x the price of the Pi or 2x that of an Atom box ? What matters is the actual performance/value ratio.
With a Pi you're very limited in processing power and compatibility, can't use recent MAME builds with low lag options.
With an Atom box you can play more games, even use more lightweigt shaders and use some of the lag reduction features.
With a Ryzen you can play most everything and benefit from FreeSync if you want to go the LCD way (entry level ones are found around 200 these days) instead of a CRT. Still for the latter you can also benefit from all best 15khz emulation and lag/sync management also available anyway.

The latter is not that much expensive when you look at the vastly superior possibilities and quality you'll enjoy, while, I'm sorry, but even cheap a very poor performing system in my eyes is more of a waste of money.
People are right in regards of used laptops as well, you can find plenty for peanuts. Those can fit in a bartop too and even a decade old one can easily perform better and with less downsides than a Pi.
Seriously I've removed the display of my old laptop (2002~2003 iirc) and used it for 15khz emulation and it rips the Pi apart.
The Pi 3 ? I gave it away. The reason for its success for emulation is hype period.

[nmalinoski]

Well of course they'd out perform the Pi3 as there like 3 times the amount of money. Thats the whole point of the Pi, its like $30 and nothing you can get in that price range can touch it.

If your not concerned with spending more then one of the low end Intel NUC systems might be of interest!?

For those looking to spend a little money, but not NUC prices, want something that runs Windows and Linux, and are patient with shipping from Italy, I've had a halfway decent experience with the UDOO x86.

These things run Celeron/Pentium mobile chips, and have the RAM, GPU and eMMC storage built-in (8GB of eMMC on a good chunk of initial backer units, but anything newer has 32GB). They also have modern features, like USB3, an onboard SATA port, and slots for an M.2 SATA SSD and an M.2 WiFi/BT module, HDMI and miniDP++ video ports, and they claim it can simultaneously drive three 4K displays (although good luck gaming at that res). For about $215 (without shipping), you can get an Advanced Plus model with an acrylic case, wall wart, CPU fan, and WiFi/BT module that would not only satisfy your emulation needs, but could also handle media streaming/playback (including Steam In-Home Streaming) and light gaming duty, and it can probably serve as replacement for a light-duty office or shared PC.

Now, I said I had a halfway decent experience, because I ran into some GPU overheating/lockup issues with my UDOO x86 Ultra, which does not have a CPU fan. I think part of it was crappy GPU drivers and/or throttling support with Windows 7 and 8.1, because I did not experience these issues when running Windows 10 or Ubuntu 18.04. Aside from that, it's proven to be a great light-duty PC.

UDOO also recently launched a new x86 product on Kickstarter, the UDOO Bolt, which takes the idea of the UDOO x86 and makes it a bit more like a regular PC motherboard. They're planning to give it a Ryzen APU, support for SODIMM memory (instead of integrated), and it looks like it will support bog-standard CPU coolers, so it likely won't have the same overheating problem I ran into.

Unfortunately, the UDOO Bolt is significantly more expensive, getting into NUC territory. For the low-end V3 model, you're looking at ~$420 for the board with 32GB eMMC, 8GB RAM, a WiFi/BT module, power adapter, HDMI cable, SATA data and power cables, and a NUC-like metal case; and then you're looking at another $42 for the high-end V8 model with the same accessory package.

I had backed UDOO's campaign for their their original ARM-based UDOO boards, and I was happy to back them for $300-something for the UDOO x86; and I don't know about any of you, but, if I'm going to dump nearly $500 into a PC, I'd rather put that money towards upgrades for my existing main desktop.