Hardware suggestions? Mini PC, PC or Raspberry Pi*?

Libretro Lakka
#1

Hi, I would like to buy a hardware that can run lakka. I would like to spend a maximum of 50-60 euros, and I found these devices. I mostly want to play 2D 8-bit games (and maybe some PS or Saturn games, but is not so important) , it’s for my dad :slight_smile: old school games fan. Which do you recommend? Thanks you so much.

  1. Raspberry Pi Model B (with case) € 22
  2. Raspberry Pi Zero W KIT MZ2 (with case) € 27
  3. FUJITSU Futro s550-2 (AMD Sempron 200U @1.0 singlecore, RAM 1, HDD 1, GC onboard) € 30
  4. HP T5740 (Intel Atom N280 @1.66 singlecore, RAM 2, HDD None, GC onboard) € 35
  5. FUJITSU Futro s700 (AMD G-Series G-T44R @1.2 singlecore, RAM 1, HDD 1, GC onboard) € 40
  6. Raspberry Pi 2 (with case) € 40
  7. MiniPC Atom (Intel D525 @1.8 dualcore, RAM 2, HDD 160, GC onboard) € 42
  8. Raspberry Pi3 Model B (with case) € 42
  9. MiniPC ASUS eee (Intel Atom N270 @1.6 singlecore, RAM 1, HDD 160, GC onboard) € 58
  10. FOXCONN NT-A3550 (AMD E-350 @1.6 dualcore, RAM 2, HD 64 SSD, Radeon HD 6310) € 57
Your PC hardware?
#2

RPi 3B is probably your best bet. It’ll run PS1 games well, won’t run Saturn, runs some N64. Good for everything earlier.

1 Like
#3

Odroid-C2 is worth a look

#4

It is not it a bit expensive compared to the raspberry? :thinking: On ebay it costs around 70 euros.

#5

Ummm…If you’re looking at those x86/x64 type PCs, don’t bother: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-390-Desktop-PC-Core-i3-2120-3-30GHz-4GB-RAM-250GB-HDD-Win-7-Pro/202387906368?hash=item2f1f425f40%3Ag%3A42gAAOSw97xbYLwb&_sop=15&_sacat=0&_nkw=dell+optiplex+core+i3&LH_BIN=1&_from=R40&rt=nc

Does everything you need it to and then some. Less than $70, U.S. Dollars (even less than that in Euros). Saturn is even covered at full speed on this puppy for 2D games.

#6

Saturn is covered at full speed? I really doubt that. That CPU’s per-thread performance is pretty awful: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-2120+%40+3.30GHz&id=752

#7

So, allow me to correct some doubts real quick as a person who’s actually run some Saturn emulation on all types of hardware using Lakka/Retroarch (and has actually owned a Sega Saturn).

Take the humble Chromebox, which has FAR worse Benchmark scores (running a Haswell Celeron) than the core i3 you’re supposedly hesitant to run the Saturn on: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i3-2120-vs-Intel-Celeron-2955U/752vs2073

Here, ETA Prime, ironically, showing off Lakka running Dreamcast games on the Chromebox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz_la1Dl5iU.

#8

What is that video supposed to prove? Dreamcast has nothing to do with Saturn. They are completely different systems with different requirements for emulation. Dreamcast emulation generally has much lower requirements and all the emulators are hardware accelerated.

I have also tried Beetle/mednafen Saturn on my G3258 and got slowdown and frequently hit 98% CPU usage. There is no way that Saturn emulation is fullspeed on a Chromebox.

Also from the documentation: “The minimum recommended CPU is a quad-core Intel Haswell-microarchitecture CPU with a base frequency of >= 3.3GHz and a turbo frequency of >= 3.7GHz(e.g. Xeon E3-1226 v3),” https://mednafen.github.io/documentation/ss.html

I am guessing that you are actually selling that PC that you linked to.

#9

No, I actually emulated Saturn on that Chromebox. But hey, it’s your money. You do what you want. :slight_smile:

On second thought, let me go test it, since i have a Chromebox I’m using as a Kodi box at the moment. Flash a Live USB Lakka real quick and an external USB 3.0 drive with some Saturn games. I’ll get back with you in a bit.

Follow up: The LibreElec/Kodi build isn’t letting me boot the Live USB drive by hitting th ESC for the boot menu. Boo! Oh well. Too lazy to do the reflashing of all that stuff for now. Anyone else want to test it that has a native flash of Lakka on a Chromebox? :slight_smile:

#10

So…about that Saturn emulation, seems the XU4 can handle it (here’s the XU4 handling it using the Odroid Retro Arena (A custom Retropie build, using lr-yabause)): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ4tGvp-mfs.

I’ve used the XU4 for Saturn emulation on Lakka, it can do it as well.

#11

A raspberry pi3 with one of those beautiful case like the “nes” one… Easy to install, very small in size and can run all old system cores with no problems… Personally I have raspberry , mini pc and normal desktpp / laptop amd I always prefer to boot up my little pi… depends also on his needs as I mostly pl 8 and 16 bir consoles and arcade mostly

#12

Or you know, you could always just look at this: http://www.lakka.tv/doc/Hardware-support/

#13

He admits in the video that it’s not running at full speed. And this is Yabause which is much less accurate than Beetle/mednafen Saturn.

#14

I said it can do it well. I did NOT say, “full speed”. Did I?

Nope, sure didn’t. :slight_smile:

#15

Thank you very much for the answers, eventually I bought a raspberry pi 3 model B with cover at 30 euros!

I have another question for you: which bluetooth controller do you recommend for an 8-bit console? At the moment I have a wireless xbox 360 controller with usb receiver, but it is for my father and I would like a controller a bit ‘less complicated’ for him… :slight_smile: thanks a lot to all of you, you are making a dad happy! :smiley:

#16

For the Pi 3?

Bluetooth wise, it doesn’t get much better or easier than an 8BitDo controller using Lakka with the Pi 3 for simplicity’s sake. Get the SNES or NES one and you’re rockin’.

1 Like
#17

Will the Rpi 3B run with hard gpu sync frames 0? I’m not sure. If input lag is a significant concern, something a little higher powered might be called for. I’m using an Intel NUC6CAY and it’s got just enough power to run everything up to PSX with hard gpu sync 0 frames, with the Zfast CRT shader applied for scanlines and some very slight blur.

#18

No, but running Lakka in KMS mode gives GL fencing (what hard GPU sync does) for free.

#19

ok, that’s awesome. I was under the impression that there was one additional frame of lag in Linux vs Windows 10 after everything is optimized (as per this thread). Is this no longer the case? (I admit, I haven’t been keeping up)

#20

I’m not sure either, to be honest. I can’t distinguish between 1 and 2 frames of latency anyway, so either is perfectly fine to me.