Hardware recommendations for balance of cost and improved performance

Libretro Lakka
#4

I’d like to put LAKKA on an old Dell PC that I have that doesn’t like to stay connected to my network. Disabled the onboard NIC, added an NIC, which does work better than the other, but the device keeps disconnecting from the network.

So that’s why this is now going to be a gaming system!

With that little back story done, here’s my question. Looking to hav e this a dual disk system. First disk is going to be the lakka system, 2nd disk is going to be, hopefully, a FAT32 disk with all the emulation files. Since I can’t reliably transfer, and Windows can’t write to the LAKKA partition, this seems the best option for me.

So here’s my question. I’m looking for the minimum disk size that lakka can use for the OS and cores. I have access to a few 1gig diisk on module boards, upto 8 gig drives, but that seems like overkill ( or is it? ) just for the lakka system files.

Thanks in advance! -Mike

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#5

This really should be it’s own thread.

I’m not sure if Lakka support FAT32, however, I can’t see why you can’t just move the data to another storage (I’d assume NTFS type since again, assuming you using Windows as your primary workstation OS) then prep your second disk with EXT2 or 3, and use a EXT2 windows program to mount and move the games to a file system Lakka supports?

#6

Lakka does support fat32 and exfat.

Could it be that Lakka also reads ntfs? I’m not sure – might work.

#7

Guess that makes life easy then.

#8

Still a good question from doogie, the use of old intel systems for example. Old quad cores Q6600, 6700 enz. Ati gpu orr nvidea? Sdd or 7200 drives? Needs a own thread (SomeGuy) for sure.

#9

Even easier: Lakka supports NTFS, FAT32 and EXT2/3/4: http://www.lakka.tv/doc/Accessing-Lakka-filesystem/.

For the record: My Gigabyte Brix model I constructed for use with Lakka uses a 256 GB M.2 SSD for the boot drive, and a 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD for storing ROMs and ISOs, and both are internal: What hardware do you use Lakka on? (Version 2.0).

Even better? You can use multiple USB drives if your machine has more than one USB port.

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#10

Thanks for the confirmation about NTFS!

I did successfully use exFAT with Lakka 2.2 on a S905X system so it seems that at least one more filesystem should be added to the docs, if someone with the ability to do that is reading :slight_smile:

#11

Raspberry Pi 3B+ is what I have today. I’m fond of it, but for N64 emulation and similar it’s quite choppy and unplayable. Is that resolved with overclocking or other tweaks? Would appreciate pointers on common improvements that can be made.

Odroid-XU4 looks promising, but limiting on USB (2) and no wifi is meh.

#12

I’m running a Pi3B and a Pi3b+

I haven’t fully tested the 3B+ yet but figured it would out perform the 3B. As for the 3B I’v eonly had issues with some titles, a good example would be Crusin’ USA which is literally unplayable.

I’ve heard over-clocking as an option specially if you have adequate cooling of course. I have not done this myself personally. Would be a neat project to try out, but i also don’t want to fry a 3B or 3b+… a pi or pi 2 maybe haha

#13

My hardware recommendation at this point?

Usually, some type of Intel NUC or Mini PC would do you just fine. My primary Lakka unit is the Gigabyte Brix I highlighted a couple posts ago.

Now if you want one that will destroy anything you throw at it…Alienware Alpha R1 equipped with a SSD. 4 USB 3.0 ports. 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. 4th Gen Haswell Intel CPUs coupled with Nvidia 750 Ti GPUs. Linux has the drivers to make those work and work they do with Lakka. You can find them cheap on Craig’s List for around $250-300 nowadays for the perfectly fine i3 model. It has the highest clock speed out of them all anyway and will benefit you.

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#14

Personal I’ve the raspberry 3b+ on my living room setup. Good for up to psx, albeit some games are a bit choppy. For the given price/performance this is a fair entry point to begin with.

I also build another more powerful box based on an old dell optiplex. These systems can be had for cheap ~100 usd and sporting 4th gen i3’s or i5’s. The igpu is fine to emulate most of the cores, if you really want to go full out ýou can up with adding a small form factor gtx 1050.

Guess the same thing as above can be replicated with used hp elite’s.

#15

Dell Optiplex, HP ProDesk and Compaq lines and Lenovo ThinkCentre PCs make for excellent gaming PCs with a 1050 Ti. Cheap and can handle up to 1080p@60FPS

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#16

My 2nd disk was going to be fat 32, but if lakka can read NTFS, and NTFS compression, there really isn’t any reason not to use it.

Still wondering on my question tho, as to my lakka system disk. What’s the, either minimum or recommend size to use, knowing that the game data is going on another disk? 2gb, 64gig, 128gb?

This seems like a good project to use some long forgotten hardware, like my compact flash to ide boards. Too small for Windows, maybe just right for Lakka.

#17

Funny thing about the system disk size/ partition.

Remember Gamessaves, Thumbnails, Savestates (which can be rather large for N64 games) all will take up space.

I first played with Lakka on a 4GB SD card, and was good using a second USB stick with all my games on it, however downloading the Thumbnail art, and starting to save a lot of savestates soon, overtook my 4 Gig size. So just take that into consideration when you are setting up the system drive.

#18

You can change where the save games are stored and put it on the larger drive. Same with thumbnails.

I just made a S905X build where the Lakka software and cores and savestates were located on the builtin MMC memory and the content and thumbnails were located on the miniSD card

This is configured in the Settings->Directories menu.

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#19

Good to know, I always consider default settings. :slight_smile:

#20

Thanks for the insight! Think I’ll go on eBay and look for a 64 or 128gig SSD. Might even consider a 32gig if it’s stupid cheap. That would probably be more than enough room for art work.

#21

Hey @Shockwave, you seem to know a lot about these mini-PC’s. What’s a good updated model in 2021 (almost '22!) to look for? Preferably something with on-board Nvidia/Amd graphics, but small form factor.

More than happy to hear from anyone, obviously…

#22

My 2c…

Not the best time to buy anything new right now IMHO, if you want something cheap buy a RPi4 as it’s still good for cores up to ~Dreamcast level, and has top tier support and the ability to run close to mainline kernel etc.

I wouldn’t recommend anything Nvidia at the moment (at least for the Linux driver aspect), though the AMD Mesa drivers are in good shape, as are most Intel NUC’s (something like a Tiger Lake i7-1165G7 would be overkill for most emulation).

#23

Lakka does better with older (think 8th/9th gen Intel, 2nd-gen Ryzen CPUs and older) PC hardware. For GPUs, think Pascal/Maxwell Nvidia stuff (GTX 10 series and older) and Polaris AMD (RX 500 series including the RX 590) cards and older, because of the way Lakka is compiled/coded/programmed.

So it would definitely be in your best interest to aim for something along those lines if you want something a bit more modern, but not too modern. Although I have got it to run with Turing-based Nvidia cards, the results have been spotty at times (the GTX 1650 had some weird artifacting at times, and sometimes it goes away). Right now, I’m about to put Lakka on an i5-8400/GTX 1050 Ti combo of spare parts I have lying around here and use that for Lakka. Just to give you an idea.

If you want an example of something I think would run Lakka great, here’s an example of something I think would do well (I haven’t tested it myself, but it’s a pretty good bet it will run): https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001556127384.html?aff_fcid=9ba28afa845b496d9693755c98288088-1623654789685-01786-_AeeIfn&aff_fsk=_AeeIfn&aff_platform=shareComponent-detail&sk=_AeeIfn&aff_trace_key=9ba28afa845b496d9693755c98288088-1623654789685-01786-_AeeIfn&terminal_id=73be68a6ba24458292afd29bda95e886&tmLog=new_Detail

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