Its a raspberry pi3b a good option for single games?

[abispac]

So im building a bucket list. It will be many single games cabinets , in a smaill version so i can just hang them in a wall. It will be something similar as this picture i stole from the net. The diference is, i want to use real crt, so my best cheapes bet would be using 13 inch rgb moded tvs. So far i can hoock my groovymame pc and it looks nice. But since this are gonna be a singe game, i was thinking that maybe a raspberry pi 3b plus the vga666 conection would be good enough to pull this trick off. So my question is: can the raspberry pi output single games in 15khz? maybe an OS like recallbox but boting in single game? What are your opinions? thanks for reading.

[PL1]

I'm seeing two questions here.

1. Can a RasPi output a 15khz video signal?
- Yes.  Some limitations and hardware suggestions were discussed several years ago in your other thread here.

2. Can a RasPi 3b run the games on your build list?
- Maybe.  Depends on the games.
- Most of the old-school classics should run fine on a 3b.
- For some newer games you might need to upgrade to a RasPi 4 or 4B.
- Depending on the price difference, it might be worth upgrading to a 4 or 4B, especially if you want to use bbegin's "dedicated MAME Appliance" image here.  You should be able to modify the startup sequence so it boots to the dedicated game instead of the (default) MAME GUI.
- Before PBJ asks, Gauntlet Legends still won't run at 100% on any RasPi.   


Scott

[abispac]

- Before PBJ asks, Gauntlet Legends still won't run at 100% on any RasPi.   


Scott

 

[bbegin]

- For some newer games you might need to upgrade to a RasPi 4 or 4B.
- Depending on the price difference, it might be worth upgrading to a 4 or 4B, especially if you want to use bbegin's "dedicated MAME Appliance" image here.  You should be able to modify the startup sequence so it boots to the dedicated game instead of the (default) MAME GUI.

Scott

As Scott mentions, the image I propose has (now) a functionality I call AutoROM, wich is to automatically start a specific rom at startup. Ideal for a dedicated game/cabinet.

[baritonomarchetto]

Any good front end will run a specific game (or the last played, or a random one) on startup. There's nothing special on this feature in my experience

[bbegin]

Any good front end will run a specific game (or the last played, or a random one) on startup. There's nothing special on this feature in my experience

That's correct, it's basic functionality of a frontend.

The only difference is the image I provide does'nt need any frontend to implement this functionality.

[baritonomarchetto]

With only one game you can also launch it on startup with a basic autoit script, or even a two lines .cmd file. It's not a special feature, if you ask me.
Considering how fast a SSD drive loads a win OS, how cheap older PC's nowadays are, how easy it is to have any feature one want, adopting a standard PC for any arcade project is a no brainer for me

[bbegin]

With only one game you can also launch it on startup with a basic autoit script, or even a two lines .cmd file. It's not a special feature, if you ask me.
Considering how fast a SSD drive loads a win OS, how cheap older PC's nowadays are, how easy it is to have any feature one want, adopting a standard PC for any arcade project is a no brainer for me

The problem with Windows is that you have to make quite a lot of tweaks before getting a stable, performant and resource-efficient emulation operating system. Otherwise, you're bugged and annoyed with Windows Updates not installed, Explorer that becomes a resource hog, plus a lot of processes running (and consuming resources) with no real utility.

This solution is using only the bare minimum of components and has no GUI/window manager. It's basically text mode + emulation (using SDL). It's really simple to change to automatic boot ROM (MAME or Hypseus-Singe). No .cmd/.sh file to edit. The solution is in read-only mode on the flash storage media, except for a read/write partition for persistence, but with an adapted filesystem (F2FS).

[baritonomarchetto]

With 3+ Ghz multi core processors you have not to care about unwanted background processes. Leave them running, you have enought CPU and RAM not to notice them.
I have recently updated my mamecab with a 60 euros PC and win10: took me a couple of hours to have the latest groovymame up and running on the CRT and some unwanted OS service disabled. Turns on in 30 seconds and turns off in 3 thanks to the  SSD.
Considering how limited a raspy is in terms of performances and tweakability (if you don't know how to use it) there are no real advantages in adopting one for arcade projects (at least as far as dimensions are not a problem).
I obviously can see the fun in building up a personal distro: I am a tinkerer too, but honestly would not recommend it to anyone.

[bbegin]

With 3+ Ghz multi core processors you have not to care about unwanted background processes. Leave them running, you have enought CPU and RAM not to notice them.
I have recently updated my mamecab with a 60 euros PC and win10: took me a couple of hours to have the latest groovymame up and running on the CRT and some unwanted OS service disabled. Turns on in 15 seconds and turns off in 3 thanks to the  SSD.
Considering how limited a raspy is in terms of performances and tweakability (if you don't know how to use it) there are no real advantages in adopting one for arcade projects (at least as far as dimensions are not a problem).
I obviously can see the fun in building up a personal distro: I am a tinkerer too, but honestly would not recommend it to anyone.

You do whatever you do, but I think this sub-forum section is about Raspberry Pi's. In my case, a Raspberry Pi 4 was the best solution for a tabletop barcade cabinet, where the available space is tight. Add the cheap price of the Raspberry Pi 4 all-in-one credit card size computer, plus, the possibilities offered by the GPIO ports (I use a rotary encoder to control the volume digitally), and you get  a pretty neat solution. The image I provide will get almost anybody started very quickly.

[baritonomarchetto]

Even if the subforum is about raspy this doesn't mean I cannot share my personal experience. I was trying to answer to the topic main question: "yes, Raspberry pi can be an option for a single game cabinet, especially thanks to the work of nice people sharing their softwares/findings. In my experience there are better options though"