Raspberry Pi

[Shonumi]

So, I just bought myself a Model B board, should be here sometime next month. They finally started selling them again about a week ago. I'm actually pretty excited about getting it. It's dirt cheap; even with tax and shipping, still costs less than buying a new game.

I'm planning on making this into a custom emu-console, e.g. I'll be making the case by hand, customizing the OS, and more. Eventually, I want it to sit in the loft with the rest of my consoles (Wii, 360, PS3), and all I'll have to do is plug in a USB joystick and go.

Truth be told, I'm seriously considering trying to get Dolphin to run on this tiny ARM board (no, not really :p). I think I'm going to use Mednafen to handle all of the actual emulation. I'm only looking to enjoy NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Gear, GB, GBA, and hopefully PS1 games (and yes Mednafen handles all of them ). I'm not sure if Mednafen uses a recompiler for any of those systems, in which case I'd run into trouble, but I think most of them should be fine.

Additionally, I want to program something that will keep track of what I play, when, and for how long (like the 3DS's game log). The start and end times should be easy to do with some scripting. Any thoughts or suggestions on what I could add to make it even better/take it up a notch? Any one else out there interested in the Raspberry Pi, and what would you use it for?

[ExtremeDude2]

I want :3

[YumiLovesMe]

sounds cool but like with most technology it will become outdated within a week or two :/

[Garteal]

'numi Wrote:So, I just bought myself a Model B board, should be here sometime next month.

Awesome, I'm also interested in getting one, but seeing as you already ordered it, I'll wait a bit and see what it's actually capable of.
Please post your experience with the device as how -fast- it runs, emulates, etc.

'numi Wrote:It's dirt cheap; even with tax and shipping,

Where'd you purchase it from?
Are they shipping overseas?

'numi Wrote:I'm planning on making this into a custom emu-console, e.g. I'll be making the case by hand, customizing the OS, and more.

That sounds like a fun activity. I'd like to see how your creation ends up.

'numi Wrote:Additionally, I want to program something that will keep track of what I play, when, and for how long (like the 3DS's game log). The start and end times should be easy to do with some scripting.

That sounds perfect for what we'll do with it. What language are you going to be using?

'numi Wrote:Any thoughts or suggestions on what I could add to make it even better/take it up a notch?

Hmm... still thinking. I'll let you know when something pops out.

'numi Wrote:Any one else out there interested in the Raspberry Pi, and what would you use it for?

Yup! Basically everything you've mentioned. In a nutshell.

[Shonumi]

Garteal Wrote:Awesome, I'm also interested in getting one, but seeing as you already ordered it, I'll wait a bit and see what it's actually capable of.
Please post your experience with the device as how -fast- it runs, emulates, etc.

I'll do that as soon as it comes. Been waiting for this forever.

Quote:Where'd you purchase it from?
Are they shipping overseas?

I bought mine from Newark/Element14. I'm pretty sure they ship to just about anywhere.

Quote:That sounds perfect for what we'll do with it. What language are you going to be using?

I'll probably just use bash scripts to launch games from icons. The script will dump the timestamp to a plain text file (specific to a game of course), run Mednafen, and dump the next timestamp on exit. I'll probably make something with C++, SDL, and OpenGL that'll read the text files and display the statistics.

They said it should ship on the 6th of next month, and it's coming via Fedex Ground, so that'll be like 3 business days max (used to deal with Ground at my old job so I know), probably less than that, hopefully. For now, I'll get the software sorted and the case designed.

[delroth]

(07-25-2012, 05:32 AM)YumiLovesMe Wrote: sounds cool but like with most technology it will become outdated within a week or two :/

Nah, like most overhyped technology it's already been obsolete for 2 or 3 years.

[Garteal]

It's not really overhyped. There've been other small computers ofcourse, like the Pandaboard, Cotton Candy, etc.
But the RaspBerry Pi is more accessible due to its low price and small size, which makes it interesting.

[Shonumi]

Depends on where you've been looking. It's definitely been hyped on the Linux scene and over in the UK. I was planning to get a BeagleBoard-xM, but luckily I waited for the RPi.

Done a bit of research. Seems that no distro for the RPi has X hardware acceleration yet, meaning things are slow if you doing software rasterizing. Some people have already tried Mednafen and it's still slow. However, you can still use the GPU for hardware acceleration, as long as you make use of OpenGL ES. SDL 1.2 doesn't support OpenGL ES, but 2.0 does. I might not even run an X server at all if it's not accelerated. I'll have to hack Mednafen into using SDL 2.0. At any rate, it'll be a fun learning experience.

EDIT: More research. Was able to run Mednafen headless on my laptop with SDL 1.2 (software rendering), so I imagine the same should be possible on the RPi. This is easier, and has less hacking. The RPi should be able to handle emulating stuff without X sapping away cycles. My Dingoo A320 runs Linux headless, has a CPU that's far weaker, and emulates most 2D games fine with SDL. It even does PSX games at 20 FPS (no sound though), so I'm confident the RPi will do just fine.

[Anti-Ultimate]

Is one of these babys capable of playing full hd videos with surround sound? (Alias connecting a dvd-drive to it )

[Shonumi]

(07-26-2012, 04:29 PM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: Is one of these babys capable of playing full hd videos with surround sound? (Alias connecting a dvd-drive to it )

Dunno if you can connect a DVD drive to it (through USB maybe) but it can do 1080p video with XBMC. At least, that's what I've heard (and seen in Linux Format magazine).