Newer Raspberry Pi models for serious shmups?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I've spent some time designing a MAME cab for a friend who has approval from the wife.
I kind of want to use a Raspberry Pi for the innards running something like RetroPi.
https://retropie.org.uk/

A lot of the people using it just seem to demonstrate games from the 80s.
Also the Debian version MAME has been absolute hell on Linux for shmup support (for me at least).
I get that different versions of MAME need different ROM sets but damn is it a huge mess these days.

Has anyone tried RetroPi with the newer more powerful Raspberry Pi models?
If that fails I'll just go back to running an offline Windows XP computer with Shmup MAME I guess.

My biggest concerns are playing mid 90's shmups.
I need speed and emulator support for those.

Sorry if this has been asked before as you know the search functionality of this forum is pretty spotty and I did look before posting.
Thanks for any help!

[RGB0b]

I just started messing with RPi gaming and was using Recalbox on a Raspberry Pi 2. So far, the very few games I played (Mortal Kombat, 1943) seemed fine in 1080p. I'm just starting to test it with 240p output (via an HDMI to VGA converter) and if it works okay, I'll put a full guide up on my site. It's been a gigantic pain to get working though, but if I do I'll try to just post an .iso so people can just have a working 240p solution ready for them without any annoying config.

This guy actually made a direct VGA adapter and with a simple circuit, you can actually have RGBs outputting from a RPi: https://youtu.be/gjUBQKyeWlQ

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Thanks for looking into this for me!

Which MAME emulator are you using?
I'll be purchasing a new model for my friend's cab.

[lettuce]

Premade VGA adopters have been available since the RPi 1...



https://www.pi-supply.com/product/gert- ... 0wodaOwClg

[Fudoh]

worth mentioning though that this one (in lettuce's post) breaks out to the Pi's front, while the one used in the video breaks out into the same direction as the Pi's HDMI port.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

My biggest concern is playing the Cave stuff we all know and love.

From what I've seen from various videos some chump who is totally casual about games throws together a cab and then just shows off the console emulators on it.
Probably never to play it again.

(Builds a RetroPi MAME cab) "Oh cool Super Mary-Oh on SNES works"

It's really hard to gauge how good the newest model will be for the golden age of shmups.
I'm a Linux guy and fine with the Pi itself, but there are a lot of people either just playing console games on it or very early arcade games.
The MAME devs march towards accuracy and MAME keeps getting heavier and heavier it seems.
I remember when 1.2GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM would be *AMAZING* for a MAME machine.

[Fudoh]

My biggest concern is playing the Cave stuff we all know and love.

you cannot play any of those. For CV1000 games like Futari you need a beefy CPU. Even the $100 Intel boards won't cut it.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

My biggest concern is playing the Cave stuff we all know and love.

you cannot play any of those. For CV1000 games like Futari you need a beefy CPU. Even the $100 Intel boards won't cut it.

What about the stuff from the MC68000 era? Or is that included with the "any of those" part of your statement?

[Nug]

I have no issues running donpachi, dodonpachi, ESP Ra.De, Dangun Feveron, Guwange, progear, and Espgaluda on a raspberry pi 2. Haven't gotten around to making a full romset to try the other titles.

[jandrogo]

What about cps1, cps2, neogeo and some other shmups like strikers 1945 I &II?
Are 60fps playable without lag, tearing or any other noticeable problems?
I have a useless rpi2 here in the desktop....

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I have no issues running donpachi, dodonpachi, ESP Ra.De, Dangun Feveron, Guwange, progear, and Espgaluda on a raspberry pi 2. Haven't gotten around to making a full romset to try the other titles.

Good, good. That is mostly what I'd play anyway.
Before Cave kind of went bonkers with chubby meat product girls and blushing lolis.

[tzakiel]

Which version of the MAME emulator is best to use for cave games/shmups in general? Thinking about making a bartop Pi machine but from what I have seen the romsets are limited for all of the Pi mame versions. I can't find one that supports espgaluda (1) or ketsui for example? I don't expect the SH3 games but was hoping to play all of the pre-SH3 ones.

[vol.2]

can anyone comment on the quality of the VGA out from the Pi GIOP? Is it clean/noisy/sharp/fuzzy?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Which version of the MAME emulator is best to use for cave games/shmups in general? Thinking about making a bartop Pi machine but from what I have seen the romsets are limited for all of the Pi mame versions. I can't find one that supports espgaluda (1) or ketsui for example? I don't expect the SH3 games but was hoping to play all of the pre-SH3 ones.

It depends on the Pi you're using.
The first versions aren't powerful enough to run newer MAME
"This is a MAME Raspberry Pi port based on Franxis MAME4ALL which is itself based on the MAME 0.37b5 emulator by Nicola Salmoria."

Click the link below to see what MAME software is supported.
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-se ... ed-Systems

The real problem is that a lot of people building arcade cabs for Pi are used to stuff from the 1980's.
That is kind of the association arcades have in the US since they died earlier.
So you've got a lot of people in their 40's saying "works great" who are completely unaware of Arcade games from like 2006 needing to also play.

[Guspaz]

There is a rather substantial jump in performance between the three generations.

Raspberry Pi 0: Single core 1.0 GHz ARM11
Raspberry Pi 1: Single core 700MHz ARM11
Raspberry Pi 2: Quad core 900MHz ARM Cortex-A7
Raspberry Pi 3: Quad core 1.2 GHz 64-bit Cortex-A53

Roughly speaking (and this is VERY rough), the relative performance compared to a Pi 1:

Raspberry Pi 0: 1.5x single threaded performance, 1.5x multi-threaded performance
Raspberry Pi 1: 1.0x single threaded performance, 1.0x multi-threaded performance
Raspberry Pi 2: 1.7x single-threaded performance, 6.7x multi-threaded performance
Raspberry Pi 3: 2.8x single-threaded performance, 10.4x multi-threaded performance

Those figures are from benchmarks done by the Pi foundation. In practice, the actual improvement will be highly dependent on how well threaded a given emulator is.

[KnuckleheadFlow]

All emulation introduces delay of course, but from what I've gathered this is especially a problem with the pi. Because of this I'm really interested in the UP board and other Intel Atom SBCs. None of this ARM bullshit, it's x86 so way more software compatibility. The specs, and the GPU especially (something the pi's been really behind on), are way ahead of the pi.
It costs significantly more, of course, so I'm still on the fence.

[WelshMegalodon]

The real problem is that a lot of people building arcade cabs for Pi are used to stuff from the 1980's.
That is kind of the association arcades have in the US since they died earlier.
So you've got a lot of people in their 40's saying "works great" who are completely unaware of Arcade games from like 2006 needing to also play.

People seem to remember arcade titles from the Model 2 era fairly well.

To be fair, MAME is still figuring out proper emulation for many games from the late 90s and beyond, including the aforementioned SH3 titles. It's safe to say that most serious players aren't going to attempt something like Muchi Muchi Pork! in MAME.

And the real problem is that the vast majority of people using emulators have no idea how accurate or inaccurate they are. "epsxe is perfect, i played through mgs in HD with retropi". No, your underpowered budget PC isn't going to be able to accurately run PlayStation games at full speed, much less at 4x internal resolution with cartoon shaders. It wasn't until byuu came along with that Ars Technica article that people really starting paying attention, and even then we still have instances of "cycle accuracy" being thrown around as a buzzword.

[Guspaz]

All emulation introduces delay of course, but from what I've gathered this is especially a problem with the pi. Because of this I'm really interested in the UP board and other Intel Atom SBCs. None of this ARM bullshit, it's x86 so way more software compatibility. The specs, and the GPU especially (something the pi's been really behind on), are way ahead of the pi.
It costs significantly more, of course, so I'm still on the fence.

The CPU on the UP board isn't much faster than what's found on a Pi 3 (that Atom chip is slower than a Cortex-A57, but faster than a Cortex-A53), and you'll probably find much worse software support for embedded setups with the UP board than the Pi 3. The Pi benefits from having an enormous install base when it comes to things like emulation distributions, while something like the UP board doesn't. There's a reason why the UP board is trying to clone the Pi's hardware layout down to trying to have a compatible 40-pin header.

The UP board does likely have a huge graphical performance advantage, though.

[SamIAm]

Is the Pi verified worse for input lag than a typical PC setup when it's running emulation at full speed with no advanced filtering? If it's pumping out a stable 60fps, and if the GPU doesn't have much to do, it really shouldn't be far behind. Not unless I'm misunderstanding something.

This article does a good job of explaining where input lag in emulation comes from. Where is it exactly that the Pi is tripping up? Again, this is assuming it's able to run the game/system at full speed.

I don't have a Raspberry Pi, but if emulation and modern TVs ever reach the point that there is only a negligible amount of added input lag and decent filtering options available, I have half a mind to get rid of my heavy-ass bulky-ass CRTs and racks full of consoles and controllers and simplify my life. Give me a Sega Saturn USB pad and accurate, low-lag emulation of everything 240p, and I'll be happy. I'll also have another room in my house.

[Fudoh]

Is the Pi verified worse for input lag than a typical PC setup when it's running emulation at full speed with no advanced filtering?

that's totally down to the emulation cores. Some exhibit very low lag (PC Engine for example), while others are borderline unplayable (SNES without tweaking). For Arcade stuff I used FBA which felt quite good, but I never tried MAME.

So, in general I would say that many of the cores are just not as optimized as they are running on a x86 setup. Seeing how good some perform makes me believe the others can still be tweaked.

[tzakiel]

It depends on the Pi you're using.
The first versions aren't powerful enough to run newer MAME
"This is a MAME Raspberry Pi port based on Franxis MAME4ALL which is itself based on the MAME 0.37b5 emulator by Nicola Salmoria."

Click the link below to see what MAME software is supported.
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-se ... ed-Systems

The real problem is that a lot of people building arcade cabs for Pi are used to stuff from the 1980's.
That is kind of the association arcades have in the US since they died earlier.
So you've got a lot of people in their 40's saying "works great" who are completely unaware of Arcade games from like 2006 needing to also play.

For a raspberry Pi 3 which is the best emulator for shmup compatibility? I'm specifically interested in espgaluda, ketsui, dodonpachi and other pre-sh3 cave games as well as other classics from raizing, etc.

[KnuckleheadFlow]

All emulation introduces delay of course, but from what I've gathered this is especially a problem with the pi. Because of this I'm really interested in the UP board and other Intel Atom SBCs. None of this ARM bullshit, it's x86 so way more software compatibility. The specs, and the GPU especially (something the pi's been really behind on), are way ahead of the pi.
It costs significantly more, of course, so I'm still on the fence.

The CPU on the UP board isn't much faster than what's found on a Pi 3 (that Atom chip is slower than a Cortex-A57, but faster than a Cortex-A53), and you'll probably find much worse software support for embedded setups with the UP board than the Pi 3. The Pi benefits from having an enormous install base when it comes to things like emulation distributions, while something like the UP board doesn't. There's a reason why the UP board is trying to clone the Pi's hardware layout down to trying to have a compatible 40-pin header.

The UP board does likely have a huge graphical performance advantage, though.

Perhaps so, but I know up can run at least run some games playably in Dolphin, which like most emulators, is much more CPU GPU dependent.
Of course with software it won't be as simple as "it's x86 therefore automatically compatible" but it's got me interested.

[Stevens]

How much something like this cost to get up and running?

[Fudoh]

you need:

- Raspberry Pi 3 board ($35)
- AC adapter (5V at 2.5A) ($10)
- HDMI cable (you already got that one)
- Micro SD card at the size of your choice (from $5)
- any USB or Bluetooth controller (PS3, PS4, 360 or XBO controllers are fine - or any USB arcade stick)
- a case for your Pi (well, you don't need, but you want it) (from $5)

That's for HDMI. If you want VGA you need an additional GPIO VGA shield (about $15-20). And if you want 240p instead of HD you need a sync combiner (RGBHV to RGBs).

[Stevens]

Thanks for the info sir. This may become my next project in a few months time:D

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Thanks for the info sir. This may become my next project in a few months time:D

I also plan on getting a newer one for Christmas. I have an older model and it's a great little computer for various server tasks.
I can SSH in and work in the terminal pretty comfortably.
Not sure if you've worked with Linux before, it's a really solid OS but it does require some learning, patience, and occasionally editing a configuration file.

[lettuce]

Wonder what the new RPi will bring to the table, should be out Q1 2017

[Stevens]

Not sure if you've worked with Linux before, it's a really solid OS but it does require some learning, patience, and occasionally editing a configuration file.

Spoiler

I have not worked with Linux. Or any other language. Thanks for the heads up, I'll do some research and see if I still want in on this.

[Fudoh]

Linux is the OS. For a Retropie or Recalbox setup you don't have to worry about that. You won't get in touch with the underlying OS except for some brief text file edits. Absolutely nothing to worry about.

[Xyga]

Wonder what the new RPi will bring to the table, should be out Q1 2017

[warning: slightly OT negative rant]
If it doesn't provide at least twice the raw processing, graphics, and RAM the 3 does, I'm still not interested.

Really my experience with this thing has been very frustrating, it's just a bit too weak for broader emulation use, and feels early-alpha hairpulling when it comes to OS/computer use.
At least they should quit fucking around with the regular hardware upgrades and straight-up go to trying to put as much hardware power as possible in it as long as the base board doesn't price beyond $50~50€, and also finally provide a more competent OS build/suite instead of all those weak-ass unstable shits.

So yes I'm no fan yet, I don't care about the 'spirit' of it, I'm no nerd at all so I've always been hermetic to the linuxian philosophy of "picking the weakest hardware and work your ass off making something out of it with Linux even if it takes you 10x the time and effort than it would with any cheap Windows machine".
Linux has always failed at being attractive to the greater number of users/common people, so if you're going to make the Nth commercial project around it, at least try to make it so the experience is worthwile from the beginning, not some crawling years-after-years leaving hopes of it becoming better some day in the future, dammit!

I mean the Raspberry concept does have the potential to become the 50 bucks cheap basic desktop or dedicated machine that's not a used netbook/chromebook/tablet, but to me it's just too frustrating that it is apparently not aiming to be that, since they seem to be minding only the cheapest-possible price for the board first, probably so a 'package price' wouldn't pass the 50 line.
I seriously don't care about minding the price of accessories and stuff, it shouldn't be a concern at all.
Overall I think their strategy is a mistake...unless their plan is to sell every user a new updated board every year, of course... *evil*
[/warning: slightly OT negative rant]

:p