Raspberry Pi Emulator Box

[quickfingers818]

Hi everyone, just wanted to know if any of you guys here on the forums have ever messed with a Raspberry Pi before or if you guys are familiar with it. It is essentially a mini linux computer the size of a credit card that can run a few different operating systems based on Linux. My cousin brought it over the other day and the OS he had installed was called RetroPie where he had almost every single old school emulator installed. What surprised me was that the thing was only 40 bucks, not to mention it is tiny and can hook up to any hdtv via hdmi! He even had a usb snes controller hooked up to it, making it feel even more authentic. I myself prefer real hardware with real games but I had to buy one cause it is so freaking cool. I just wanted to know if any of you guys have messed with it and what your thoughts were on the thing.

[Ozzy_98]

I've messed with them for that and XBMC, but I always end up wanting to go overblown and run 4xhq scalers and run psx high res or even ps2, some of the harder things to emulate, so I end up just using cheap PCs made from left over parts. 

I had one for a project I wanted that out grew the Pi, adding adapters for all console controllers (Drivers for the Pi were an issue there).  Project's on hold after buying the new house, and might be beside another mame cab.

[Doom]

Anywhere that I want to get emulation done usually isn't far from my gaming PC, which I can get working with emulators fairly easily. Now, if you live somewhere where you're not allowed to plug your PC into your TV, you might want one of these.

[Jeff]

I use my wii as an emulator box. How powerful are Raspberry Pis though? Some snes games lag a little on the wii emulator (most are fine, yoshi's island can bog down easily though) and what resolution can it output at? 720p?

[quickfingers818]

I use my wii as an emulator box. How powerful are Raspberry Pis though? Some snes games lag a little on the wii emulator (most are fine, yoshi's island can bog down easily though) and what resolution can it output at? 720p?

Raspberry Pi's are powerful enough to emulate the older consoles no problem. Almost no lag in any games i've played so far on the nes, snes, and genesis. The only game that does lag is Pocky and Rocky, but it also lags when I play the real thing on my snes. As far as output goes, I'm not sure but it does look mighty nice on my hdtv. It has to be at least 480p minimum and I'm pretty sure it can output 720p no problem. I stream XBMC and it can handle hd video like a champ

[Ozzy_98]

I don't have mine anymore, but what I always used for bench marking snes emulation were some good first gen games, Actraiser and F-Zero.  If they play fine, you shouldn't have any issues with horsepower.  Actraiser 2 is good for testing special effects, that's fog on level one, not solid white masses blocking your view.   Street Fighter Alpha 2 support means it's a very up-to-date emulator with S-DD1 support.  And Top Gear 3000 is another good test, it uses the DSP-4 chip on hardware, so only new emulators support it.

I was thinking the pi has issues on the rotating intro for actraiser, but I forget.