Best mini PC / Arm Soc to play in 2018?

RetroArch Linux devices
#1

Hi Guys,

I would like to make me a gift and I would like to buy a mini pc enough powerful to play up to Nintendo 64 and Playstation (more even better).

Generally I like the arm soc but unfortunately no one is complete like a real pc, it is always missing something or are overpriced. By the other hand a X86 mini pc is easier to handle with any Linux distro you like, and that is a very time saving but the price is higher and the size bigger than arm soc.

I am very confused so I have two items that I selected, one is the well known Odroid-XU4 and the one is the Intel NUC6CAYH Mini PC, which lacks of ram and hardrive. Eventually the latter will cost more than the former.

Basically I am looking for decent performance for a budget up to $200 for a minipc with a very small size.

By the way if you have other suggestions please do not hesitate to let me know, thanks!

#2

Have you looked at the Shield TV?

#3

For $200 the Shield TV is a good option. I have the tablet and performance is very good even up to PPSSPP.

#4

Thank you guys.

Actually TV Shield is pretty cool indeed. But it is outside of my scope, if I buy something like that I will be never able to separate my son from it. I would like to stick to a Linux distro with just one scope and with more control on it.

#5

How easy do you want setup to be?

Another option: An S905 or S905X (Amlogic CPU) box.

Lakka is based on LibreElec, and you can flash either of these onto some S905 boxes (not all). You can install either Lakka or LibreElec or Both.

Pros:

  • You can get a relatively cheap (<50$ USD) box with a remote, wifi, SPIF, ethernet, USB, bluetooth, HDMI, etc. An ODroid doesn’t come with wifi or bluetooth as far as I know. If you’ve chosen a compatible box, then you get all this in one box at a very reasonable price.

Cons:

  • Difficult / time consuming / not plug and play / not for the technically faint of heart. Here’s a fairly lengthy writeup on how to, in order to give you an idea of whats involved.
  • If you get an incompatible box, you’ve got a paperweight with Android installed on it. Here’s a starting point to find if the box your interested in is compatible.

The S905 / S905X boxes are all essentially the same tech specs wise:

  • CPU: Amlogic Quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 up to 2GHz
  • GPU: Penta-core ARM Mali-450
  • The stock OS’s that these boxes ship with is garbage, so being able to overwrite it is, in my opinion, a must

The difference falls in the other bits inside:

  • Wifi/Ethernet chips can vary depending on the brand, and drivers aren’t compatible with some brands
  • RAM chips (2GB or more is recommended, 1GB just doesn’t cut it)
  • Quality of build in general in the super cheap boxes can be lacking (bad memory chips, no heat sink, etc). These can be prone to failure if you go with the no name cheapo brand from EBay

I’ve purchased a Beelink MXIII II for example, flashed both Lakka and a LibreElec/Retroarch variant (SX05RE) onto it, and they both work great. N64 and PS1 worked just fine (assuming I didn’t turn on high resolution or fancy shaders). For less than 50$ I got a pretty sweet emulation box. It did take lots of fiddling to get it just right, but thats part of the fun, right?

One more note on these Amlogic boxes. The S905 variant seems to be sunsetting and the S912 is what you find a lot more of now. I can’t speak to compatibility for S912 CPU boxes, but from what I understand, the drivers for them are currently closed source so compatibility isn’t as good. If anyone has installed Lakka onto an S912 box, I’d be interested in hearing how it handles it.

#6

Thanks man, that sounds pretty interesting, I have to check out the balance on making everything working with few steps, I am not define myself a noob but I don’t have either so much time to play to have everything working fine…

#7

Plug and play, I think Shield TV like everyone else said is the best option. Even with an ODroid you’re going to be fiddling with the OS and hardware setup before you even start setting up Retroarch.

#8

I don’t want/need a plug & play device, however there are soc that have good support and other worst. Odroid seems to have a good support, I checked the Amlogic out, the one you suggest me, and has a lot of boxes already available with android with a very cheap price. However I have still to check if there are compatibility with Lakka (you actually confirmed it) or with Debian/Ubuntu or any other distro that I could use.

#9

Looking for info and price about the amlogic s905x I found a sbc called Rock64, it is very powerful (honestly I don’t know if powerful more than the O-XU4) with a competitive price.

A lot of features like giga ethernet and ram up to 4gb, with good software support.

What do you think about that?