Raspberry Pi Zero: USD 5 computer!

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Good thing I didn't believe a single word the fanbois posted online back then - otherwise I might've ended up buying one It just didn't make sense to me that the N64 could be emulated perfectly on a Pandora. It's an immensely complicated architecture and PC emulators still stuggle when it is accurately emulated.

Well, it's playable but only on the newer 1GHz Pandora. The CC Pandora really struggles with anything except MarioKart (and even then it's touch and go, and you have to switch graphics plugins) and Mario64.

You do get some folks posting videos of games they've got running (such as the recent rash of Windows games running via exagear, or Dreamcast/Saturn stuff) proclaiming that it's playable... Yes, it is - if you like stuttering sound and timer displays that count in seconds that last as long as 3...

Pandora shines at anything PS1 and below. Anything more demanding starts to slow down.

I suppose they must be repeating that to convince themselves that dishing out that much money on a Pandora was worth it

I paid £200 for mine as one of the original pre-orders; I don't regret that one bit. It's a stunning little device.

D.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Dunny

I always found that RType Delta was a good one - it used to slow down summats rotten on the Pandora until the emulator was properly optimised.

Funny! R-Type Delta is the only game I ever owned for PSX and I was going to test that, but realized that my image of it was for the PSP and it didn't work in the emulator. I made this PSP image myself from my disc when I had a PSP, but I don't have the disc anymore (lost it ) so I guess I'll have to get one from the net.

I would LOVE to be able to play R-Type Delta again! And if the performance is good or bad I'll know right away since I know this game very well. I'll post again later today if I found an image

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

is that price for real? in the online shops I've found it, it costs 3-4 times $5..

DON'T BUY THOSE! Assholes online that got units on the first batch are reselling them at a much marked up price. The official Raspberry Pi blog explicitly mentioned NOT to feed these people. Just wait until a new batch is released. All first batch (20k of them) units are sold out. The price IS Real and you should NOT pay more than 5 USD (4 GBP) for it. Try to get the RPi magazine mentioned before, you might be lucky.

Originally Posted by Anubis

I wonder if powered USB hub can provide enough power to run RPi0 and host few other USB devices. (Akira, do you have any? )

I ordered a powered hub to test this but Amazon screwed up my order and it isn't here yet. It should be with me tomorrow and then I can test.
Given that the consumption of the RPi Zero is 160mA and that I am currently running it plus a hub plus a keyboard, mouse and a USB stick, all from a 1A phone charger, I am pretty sure any powered USB hub will power the whole thing. Powered USB hubs usually deliver 2A so you can be sure you can power pretty much everything, including USB-powered hard drives, in conjunction with the Pi Zero. The pi Zero will actually be the least of your worries.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Akira

Funny! R-Type Delta is the only game I ever owned for PSX and I was going to test that, but realized that my image of it was for the PSP and it didn't work in the emulator. I made this PSP image myself from my disc when I had a PSP, but I don't have the disc anymore (lost it ) so I guess I'll have to get one from the net.

I would LOVE to be able to play R-Type Delta again! And if the performance is good or bad I'll know right away since I know this game very well. I'll post again later today if I found an image

Depending on which emulator you're using, I have a PSP EBOOT disk image. I'm not condoning piracy or anything though so we should maybe continue this discussion via private message...

The Pandora build of PCSX ReARMed runs EBOOTs faultlessly and is amazingly quick - even at the default pandora clock of 600MHz.

D.

[Amiga1992]

So that emulator emulates PSP games too?

[edit] I just tested R-Type Delta and it wasn't perfect. There's an obvious delay, the sound is all choppy. The game doesn't seem to be running that badly, but the sound makes it unbearable.
I wonder if a standalone version of PCSX Reloaded would work better. This was using Retroarch's Libretro libray for PCSX.
Still pretty impressed it even ran. I wasn't able to look at the FPS it was running at (turned the option on but they weren't showing) but it seemed to be 45 something FPS at least.

[amiman99]

People on Ebay are charging over $40 for RPi Zero, and some are even bidding that much for one, can't they wait for new shipment???

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by amiman99

People on Ebay are charging over $40 for RPi Zero, and some are even bidding that much for one, can't they wait for new shipment???

People get stupid with consumerism. Maybe some just don't understand more will be produced. I dunno.

It's like those people making lines to get the latest smartphone, like if it's going to run out. I just don't get it.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Akira

So that emulator emulates PSP games too?

No, just the EBOOT format. It's compressed so the ISOs don't take up as much room.

We do have a PSP emulator too, and for many games it's perfect; but for many it is not. R-Type Command runs sweetly on it.

[edit] I just tested R-Type Delta and it wasn't perfect. There's an obvious delay, the sound is all choppy. The game doesn't seem to be running that badly, but the sound makes it unbearable.
I wonder if a standalone version of PCSX Reloaded would work better. This was using Retroarch's Libretro libray for PCSX.
Still pretty impressed it even ran. I wasn't able to look at the FPS it was running at (turned the option on but they weren't showing) but it seemed to be 45 something FPS at least.

Before we got PCSX ReARMed (with the ARM dynarec) it was slow as hell on the Pandora. It's 60fps now at 600MHz. There's even an option to make the graphics higher res, which looks gorgeous.

I don't know if PCSX ReARMed will compile for the Pi zero though - no NEON architecture AFAICS.

D.

[Amiga1992]

Well that would be a nice thing to have.
I just sold my Caanoo and that thing runs on it! haha :P I wasn't using it anyway and nothing new was coming out for it. Shame, as I really liked it.

Seems like someone made it compile for the Pi:
http://blog.sheasilverman.com/2012/0...-raspberry-pi/