I am resisting the temptation to build one of these:

https://thepihut.com/products/picade-raspberry-pi-arcade-machine

Has anyone used one / able to comment on component quality? I
know there's probably a million YouTube videos on the subject, I
just don't want to subject myself to any "YouTube Personalities"
or "Influencers" (FLY INTO ORBIT AT NUKE THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE
BUTTON FROM SPACE FELLOW YOUTHS!) if I can possibly help it...

J

--
Sir Chewbury Gubbins <choobs@chewbury.net.invalid>
... Blog & Game Diary : http://www.nelefa.org
/|\ Constructed using SLRN and Vi.
/ | \ Zomoniac is Wrong. Fact.

On 05/08/2021 11:50, John Dow wrote:
> I am resisting the temptation to build one of these:
>
> https://thepihut.com/products/picade-raspberry-pi-arcade-machine
>
> Has anyone used one / able to comment on component quality? I
> know there's probably a million YouTube videos on the subject, I
> just don't want to subject myself to any "YouTube Personalities"
> or "Influencers" (FLY INTO ORBIT AT NUKE THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE
> BUTTON FROM SPACE FELLOW YOUTHS!) if I can possibly help it...
>

I bought a raspberry pi (v2 or 3 I think) a few years back with pretty
much this intention, but sent it back when I found only a cut-down
arcade emulator available (that didn't work anything like 100% of the
time for most available titles ... which was not "most titles" either).

I've since bought a RPi 4, but never tried gaming on it. I use it as a
server/ backup storage-point, with some SSDs attached. I stream videos
from it in the house, via Plex. Mostly it works well, but for most
decently-sized (8GB+ ish) video files, the Pi can't cope. I'd say I
would need an Nvidia box or something like that to do it better, but I'm
quite happy with what it does do. For now.

I suspect the Pi 4 would work better than the previous model(s) for this
- perhaps with 8GB RAM (?), but I still doubt you'd be able to play
anything like the list of arcade games that are out there from emulators
such as MAME. (assuming you own all those arcade machines /+roms already).

Best of luck with it though - and do report your findings - if you have
any success especially!

-Kevin.

On 2021-08-05, gunthergloop <news1@kevinfSPAMNOorde.com> wrote:
> On 05/08/2021 11:50, John Dow wrote:
>> I am resisting the temptation to build one of these:
>>
>> https://thepihut.com/products/picade-raspberry-pi-arcade-machine
>>
>> Has anyone used one / able to comment on component quality? I
>> know there's probably a million YouTube videos on the subject, I
>> just don't want to subject myself to any "YouTube Personalities"
>> or "Influencers" (FLY INTO ORBIT AT NUKE THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE
>> BUTTON FROM SPACE FELLOW YOUTHS!) if I can possibly help it...
>>
>
> I bought a raspberry pi (v2 or 3 I think) a few years back with pretty
> much this intention, but sent it back when I found only a cut-down
> arcade emulator available (that didn't work anything like 100% of the
> time for most available titles ... which was not "most titles" either).
>
> I've since bought a RPi 4, but never tried gaming on it. I use it as a
> server/ backup storage-point, with some SSDs attached. I stream videos
> from it in the house, via Plex. Mostly it works well, but for most
> decently-sized (8GB+ ish) video files, the Pi can't cope. I'd say I
> would need an Nvidia box or something like that to do it better, but I'm
> quite happy with what it does do. For now.
>
> I suspect the Pi 4 would work better than the previous model(s) for this
> - perhaps with 8GB RAM (?), but I still doubt you'd be able to play
> anything like the list of arcade games that are out there from emulators
> such as MAME. (assuming you own all those arcade machines /+roms already).
>
>
> Best of luck with it though - and do report your findings - if you have
> any success especially!

www.nelefa.org has been running off a pi4 for about 2 years now. I also
have a six-node PI4 compute cluster doing World Community Grid stuff :)

I should maybe have been clear - this thing would probably just
permanently boot into Pac-Man or Defender. Maybe Galaxians :)

J

--
Sir Chewbury Gubbins <choobs@chewbury.net.invalid>
... Blog & Game Diary : http://www.nelefa.org
/|\ Constructed using SLRN and Vi.
/ | \ Zomoniac is Wrong. Fact.

On 05/08/2021 15:57, John Dow wrote:
> On 2021-08-05, gunthergloop <news1@kevinfSPAMNOorde.com> wrote:
>> On 05/08/2021 11:50, John Dow wrote:
>>> I am resisting the temptation to build one of these:
>>>
>>> https://thepihut.com/products/picade-raspberry-pi-arcade-machine
>>>
>>> Has anyone used one / able to comment on component quality? I
>>> know there's probably a million YouTube videos on the subject, I
>>> just don't want to subject myself to any "YouTube Personalities"
>>> or "Influencers" (FLY INTO ORBIT AT NUKE THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE
>>> BUTTON FROM SPACE FELLOW YOUTHS!) if I can possibly help it...
>>>
>>
>> I bought a raspberry pi (v2 or 3 I think) a few years back with pretty
>> much this intention, but sent it back when I found only a cut-down
>> arcade emulator available (that didn't work anything like 100% of the
>> time for most available titles ... which was not "most titles" either).
>>
>> I've since bought a RPi 4, but never tried gaming on it. I use it as a
>> server/ backup storage-point, with some SSDs attached. I stream videos
>> from it in the house, via Plex. Mostly it works well, but for most
>> decently-sized (8GB+ ish) video files, the Pi can't cope. I'd say I
>> would need an Nvidia box or something like that to do it better, but I'm
>> quite happy with what it does do. For now.
>>
>> I suspect the Pi 4 would work better than the previous model(s) for this
>> - perhaps with 8GB RAM (?), but I still doubt you'd be able to play
>> anything like the list of arcade games that are out there from emulators
>> such as MAME. (assuming you own all those arcade machines /+roms already).
>>
>>
>> Best of luck with it though - and do report your findings - if you have
>> any success especially!
>
> www.nelefa.org has been running off a pi4 for about 2 years now. I also
> have a six-node PI4 compute cluster doing World Community Grid stuff :)
>
> I should maybe have been clear - this thing would probably just
> permanently boot into Pac-Man or Defender. Maybe Galaxians :)
>

When I tried it (on the Pi 2 /maybe 3), my main aim was to play Bomb
Jack and/or Mr. Do on my TV.
Didn't work too well. I forget the details. No doubt the Pi 4 would do
it better. Mine is in an awkward place to connect it for that purpose
easily though.

-Kevin.

gunthergloop <news1@kevinfSPAMNOorde.com> wrote:

> On 05/08/2021 15:57, John Dow wrote:
>> On 2021-08-05, gunthergloop <news1@kevinfSPAMNOorde.com> wrote:
>>> On 05/08/2021 11:50, John Dow wrote:
>>>> I am resisting the temptation to build one of these:
>>>>
>>>> https://thepihut.com/products/picade-raspberry-pi-arcade-machine
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone used one / able to comment on component quality? I
[...]
>> I should maybe have been clear - this thing would probably just
>> permanently boot into Pac-Man or Defender. Maybe Galaxians :)

I have no experience with the PiCade, but I'd be very surprised if
that can't be done.

> When I tried it (on the Pi 2 /maybe 3), my main aim was to play Bomb
> Jack and/or Mr. Do on my TV.
> Didn't work too well. I forget the details. No doubt the Pi 4 would do
> it better. Mine is in an awkward place to connect it for that purpose
> easily though.

I think modern MAME is slower at running old games than the older
versions - so older versions (or forks of them) are commonly used on
things like the Pi. One from 2003 is a common choice, RetroPie has
this available for example.

-Rus.

PS. I also managed to get ye olde xmame 0.86 from 2004 running with a
very small patch, but that's unlikely to be helpful in this situation;
it's more for running in an X window with e.g. "-s 3" in 1080p. So I'm
mostly including the patch for any search engines watching. :-)

------------------------------ cut here ------------------------------
--- src/unix/video-drivers/x11_window.c~ 2004-08-23 01:10:49.000000000 +0100
+++ src/unix/video-drivers/x11_window.c 2020-09-23 16:43:12.468527781 +0100
@@ -1339,7 +1339,11 @@
free (scaled_buffer_ptr);
scaled_buffer_ptr = NULL;
}
-
+ +/* unclear how to disable properly (is it XV or HWSCALE or both?)
+ * so just dropping entirely because I know *I* don't want it. -rjm
+ */
+#if 0
if (hwscale_yv12_rotate_buf0)
{
free (hwscale_yv12_rotate_buf0);
@@ -1351,7 +1355,8 @@
free (hwscale_yv12_rotate_buf1);
hwscale_yv12_rotate_buf1 = NULL;
}
- +#endif
+
if (private_cmap_allocated)
XFreeColormap (display, colormap);
------------------------------ cut here ------------------------------

gunthergloop <news1@kevinfSPAMNOorde.com> wrote in
news:9cROI.2522190$N5n7.645636@usenetxs.com:

> On 05/08/2021 11:50, John Dow wrote:
>
> I bought a raspberry pi (v2 or 3 I think) a few years back with pretty
> much this intention, but sent it back when I found only a cut-down
> arcade emulator available (that didn't work anything like 100% of the
> time for most available titles ... which was not "most titles"
> either).
>
I'm a bit confused by this. I have a Pi 3 running Retropi, including a
version of MAME, and that plays hundreds if not thousands of games
flawlessly. What system were you trying to use?

Tim (tm)
--
Gaming journals: http://xexyz.blogspot.com
Economics blurb: http://www.economic-truth.co.uk

On 21/09/2021 22:04, Tim Miller wrote:
> gunthergloop <news1@kevinfSPAMNOorde.com> wrote in
> news:9cROI.2522190$N5n7.645636@usenetxs.com:
>
>> On 05/08/2021 11:50, John Dow wrote:
>>
>> I bought a raspberry pi (v2 or 3 I think) a few years back with pretty
>> much this intention, but sent it back when I found only a cut-down
>> arcade emulator available (that didn't work anything like 100% of the
>> time for most available titles ... which was not "most titles"
>> either).
>>
> I'm a bit confused by this. I have a Pi 3 running Retropi, including a
> version of MAME, and that plays hundreds if not thousands of games
> flawlessly. What system were you trying to use?
>

Sorry Tim. I can't remember. Possibly I was doing it wrong, or the roms
for the particular games I was looking to play weren't optimised for
that platform at that time. Or I had the wrong roms. Dunno. \0/

-Kevin.