Lakka on Asus N3050T

Libretro Lakka
#1

Hi.

I’m looking into buying an ASUS N3050T (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-132-732&Tpk=dc%20in) embedded motherboard to use as an emulation machine with Lakka.

I was wondering if it was the right product for me (I want something small that I can fit in a SNES casing)

I want to be able to emulate everything up to N64. PS1 and Dreamcast would be nice too but mostly old games and N64. Since I can’t find any “recommended specs”, I would like your opinion on this.

The ASUS N3050T has an Intel Celeron Dual-Core N3050 SoC onboard Processor, @ 1.6 Ghz. and I have 8 gb of RAM I can put into it.

Thanks.

#2

That should be pretty good for most things but, oddly enough, it will probably not run PS1 emulation at full speed because there’s no PS1 dynarec for x86 while there is one for ARM. N64 should be decent on it.

#3

Thanks! What about a raspberry pi 3 ? What would be the best between those 2 ?

#4

i don’t have a ton of experience with rpi3’s performance but PS1 emulation runs great on it. N64 is/was spotty with mupen64plus but I hear is much better with the now-default glupen core.

#5

[QUOTE=jpnator;48937]Hi.

I’m looking into buying an ASUS N3050T (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-132-732&Tpk=dc%20in) embedded motherboard to use as an emulation machine with Lakka.

I was wondering if it was the right product for me (I want something small that I can fit in a SNES casing)

I want to be able to emulate everything up to N64. PS1 and Dreamcast would be nice too but mostly old games and N64. Since I can’t find any “recommended specs”, I would like your opinion on this.

The ASUS N3050T has an Intel Celeron Dual-Core N3050 SoC onboard Processor, @ 1.6 Ghz. and I have 8 gb of RAM I can put into it.

Thanks.[/QUOTE]

You’ll be fine with it. I’m running lakka on an asus chromebox with the 2955U (1.4ghz) w/4GB memory and I have yet to find a PS1 game it won’t run at full speed, at least at default resolution. Goldeneye on N64 is almost always near 60fps, and I can play most if not all PSP games at 720p resolution full speed. Most dreamcast games(Power Stone 2, Soul Calibur) run full speed too!

#6

With the most recent version of Lakka on the Pi3 you get GLupeN64 which can run a good number of n64 games with minor glitches. But a good number don’t run to well.

Games tested by me 007 Goldeneye(works but laggy, didn’t play long enough to see if it crashes) Banjo Kazooie (Minor lag in some areas with a lot of polygons in motion otherwise very playable) Banjo Tooie (Runs and lets you move around, but the ground has no textures so it is hard to tell where you are.) Beetle Adventure Racing (runs good but will suddenly soft lock in race at times) Buck Bumble (Seems to work just fine with some texture errors) Castlevania 64 (haven’t played it long as I am not sure how to advance, but it launches and runs pretty smoothly) Conker’s Bad Fur Day (Extremely slow but can be played if you are a glutton for punishment) Cruisi’n Exotica (launches but goes to a black screen at the title screen) Cruis’n USA (runs fine in menus until you get to car select and it bogs down, in race it will sometimes get so slow that it’s not even a frame per second, but it doesn’t fully soft lock) Cruis’n World (Graphic glitches, slow when there are a lot of cars on the screen but otherwise almost full speed, but it is playable as long as you don’t mind the AI of the game always trying to bump you to spin you out especially near the end of the race but that’s normal for this game even on original hardware) Donkey Kong 64 (seems to work alright, but seems to have some camera glitching going on. didn’t see any soft locks yet but I stopped due to the annoying camera issue) Doom 64 (seems Playable but keymapping is going to need to be majorly changed at the lakka level to be fully usable, in game save requires two c button presses at the same time for example) Earthworm Jim 3D (seems to run good but seems to not be able to make up it’s mind for frame rates) ExciteBike64 (To slow to play in my opinion, but never got into a race due to the speed at the title screen) ExtremeG (playable but it’s a hard game) Harvest Moon 64 (actually playable with minor glitches in graphics) Legend of Zelda Ocorina of Time (playable but there is a graphic glitch that happens when hitting the start menu that has takes a few button presses to get around, otherwise seems playable) Mario Kart 64 (Works good, only minor graphic glitches here and there) Paper Mario (Painfully slow but doesn’t seem to glitch graphically so far) Penny Racers (very sluggish at times, and sometimes soft locks) Pilotwiings 64 (extremely laggy but playable if you don’t mind running slow) Shadowgate 64 (softlocks shortly after entering the sewer) South Park: (seems to work alright sluggish in spots though. didn’t play very long though) Star Fox 64 (playable but controller mapping is key to success) Super Mario 64 (near flawless with minor graphic glitches) Super Smash Bros. (Graphic glitches, Lag in some levels, seems to hang sometimes) Wave Race 64 (sluggish in time trials, didn’t test in an actual race) Yoshi Story (Background glitches out and then game hangs on the first level)

#7

Thank you so much guys, i’ve decided to go ahead with the N3050T as basis for my system. I’ll post results here when i’m done.

#8

Post some pictures too, your idea sounds cool and would be neat to see the finished project. Instead of cutting the case, consider using connector extenders so the PC can be centered in the case and the outputs/power cable can be put where you want. consider something like this if you want to try for the authentic SNES feel http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=29, or gut the controller ports and put USBs in them. Either way.

#9

That’s exactly what I want to do. I have a friend who has a 3D printer that’s going to help me with the plugs. The plan is to use the back pannel for the power, HDMI and maybe a USB or 2. I’ll try to use the front ports to put USBs there. i don’t want to use retro SNES remotes because I want to play some PS1 and N64. I already have some USB SNES remotes and USB N64 remotes so no sens for me to get the product you posted. I am a sucker for aesthetics though, so If I can’t do it in a way that seems realistic, I am not going to do it at all. So no holes are going to be cut into that case !!

i’ll take some pics throughout the project and post-it here for those interested.

Thanks again for the help !

#10

Hi again. So I received the N3050T and installed Lakka… The problem is I am stuck at the “flower” page… ! I tried running live too, since installing gave me this weird trouble and I have the same problems… I rebooted the machine and printed the verbose so maybe someone here see something I don’t ?

Lakka:~ # systemctl stop retroarch.service ; retroarch -v

RetroArch [INFO] :: === Build ======================================= Capabilities: MMX MMXEXT SSE1 SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4 SSE4.2 AES Built: Sep 27 2016 RetroArch [INFO] :: Version: 1.3.6 RetroArch [INFO] :: Git: 03241bf RetroArch [INFO] :: ================================================= RetroArch [INFO] :: Looking for config in: “/storage/.config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg”. RetroArch [INFO] :: Config: loading config from: /storage/.config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg. RetroArch [INFO] :: Resetting undo buffers. RetroArch [INFO] :: Environ SET_PIXEL_FORMAT: RGB565. RetroArch [INFO] :: Version of libretro API: 1 RetroArch [INFO] :: Compiled against API: 1 RetroArch [INFO] :: Set audio input rate to: 29970.03 Hz. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found shader “/usr/share/common-shaders/bilinear.glslp” RetroArch [INFO] :: Found shader “/usr/share/common-shaders/nearest.glslp” RetroArch [INFO] :: Found shader “/usr/share/common-shaders/stock.glsl” RetroArch [INFO] :: Video @ 960x720 RetroArch [INFO] :: Starting threaded video driver … RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Found 5 connectors. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 0 connected: yes RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 0 has 1 modes. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 0 assigned to monitor index: #1. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 1 connected: no RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 1 has 0 modes. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 2 connected: no RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 2 has 0 modes. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 3 connected: no RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 3 has 0 modes. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 4 connected: yes RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 4 has 17 modes. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Connector 4 assigned to monitor index: #2. RetroArch [INFO] :: [DRM]: Mode 0: (1920x1080) 1920 x 1080, 60 Hz RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GL context: kms RetroArch [INFO] :: Detecting screen resolution 1920x1080. RetroArch [INFO] :: [EGL]: EGL version: 1.4 RetroArch [INFO] :: [EGL]: Current context: 0x7fe4600017f0. RetroArch [INFO] :: [KMS]: New FB: 1920x1080 (stride: 7680). RetroArch [INFO] :: [GL]: Vendor: Intel Open Source Technology Center, Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel® HD Graphics (Cherryview) . RetroArch [INFO] :: [GL]: Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0-rc1. RetroArch [INFO] :: GL: Using resolution 1920x1080 RetroArch [INFO] :: [GL]: Default shader backend found: glsl. RetroArch [INFO] :: [Shader driver]: Using GLSL shader backend. RetroArch [INFO] :: Checking GLSL shader support … RetroArch [WARN] :: [GL]: Stock GLSL shaders will be used. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL vertex shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL fragment shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Linking GLSL program. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL vertex shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL fragment shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Linking GLSL program. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL vertex shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL fragment shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Linking GLSL program. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL vertex shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL fragment shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Linking GLSL program. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL vertex shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GLSL fragment shader. RetroArch [INFO] :: Linking GLSL program. RetroArch [INFO] :: [GL]: Using 4 textures. RetroArch [INFO] :: [GL]: Loaded 1 program(s). RetroArch [INFO] :: [GL]: Using GL_RGB565 for texture uploads. RetroArch [INFO] :: Using font rendering backend: freetype. RetroArch [INFO] :: Graphics driver did not initialize an input driver. Attempting to pick a suitable driver. RetroArch [WARN] :: [udev]: Couldn’t open any keyboard, mouse or touchpad. Are permissions set correctly for /dev/input/event*? RetroArch [INFO] :: Found joypad driver: “udev”. RetroArch [ERROR] :: ALSA: Failed to initialize… RetroArch [ERROR] :: Failed to initialize audio driver. Will continue without audio. RetroArch [INFO] :: Found menu display driver: “menu_display_gl”. RetroArch [INFO] :: Using font rendering backend: freetype. RetroArch [INFO] :: Using font rendering backend: freetype. RetroArch [INFO] :: SRAM will not be saved. RetroArch [INFO] :: Loading history file: [/storage/.config/retroarch/content_history.lpl]. RetroArch [INFO] :: Loading history file: [/storage/.config/retroarch/content_music_history.lpl]. RetroArch [INFO] :: Loading history file: [/storage/.config/retroarch/content_video_history.lpl]. RetroArch [INFO] :: Loading history file: [/storage/.config/retroarch/content_image_history.lpl]. RetroArch [ERROR] :: Failed to start audio driver. Will continue without audio. RetroArch [INFO] :: [KMS]: New FB: 1920x1080 (stride: 7680). RetroArch [INFO] :: [KMS]: New FB: 1920x1080 (stride: 7680). RetroArch [INFO] :: [KMS]: Missed 1 VBlank(s) (Frame: 8, DRM frame: 12581).

Thanks in advance.

#11

Can you try to change video_monitor_index to 2, please check this tutorial.

Can you paste graphic card and audio log ?

Thank you.

#12

[QUOTE=gouchi;49724]Can you try to change video_monitor_index to 2, please check this tutorial.

Can you paste graphic card and audio log ?

Thank you.[/QUOTE]

I tried changing it to monitor_index_1 before and it did not work. I just tried monitor index 2 and it works like a charm ! thanks a lot for the help !

#13

No problem, you are welcome. I am glad it fixes your issue.

#14

Hi again everyone. Still got a couple of issues, sadly…

  1. My computer seems to be crashing randomly with Lakka. It crashes sometimes (i’d say 1/10) when I try and boot a MAME game. This is not a big deal, because it happens every so often. The more serious trouble is the random crash when playing N64. It crashes randomly at any moment, not just loading time. I really don’t know what to do… I’m starting to think I ordered the wrong thing to do the job. Does someone here have any input as to what I could do to try and resolve those issues ? Should I just change hardware, Honnestly I’m a little confused as to what to do next. Thankfully, I haven’t started to put everything in the SNES shell yet, it’s still time to change Hardware… Thanks in advance for the input.
#15

You are trying with 64 bits version right ? If IIRC, there are some little issues with i386 and mupen64 core.

#16

yes, I am indeed using the 64 bits version, though I’d have to admit I haven’t tried loading a Nightly build in there. Should I ? Or do you suggest I try using another core than mupen64 for the N64 ?

Again, Thanks for the help.

#17

Try to see if you reproduce with nightly build and if possible provide a log.