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[InfiniteStateMachine]

You may already be aware but if you decide to go the emulator route there's a cool project which works on a lot of os'es and smaller devices. 

Retroarch which is based on libretro. http://www.libretro.com/

They have an android app here too. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retroarch&hl=en

There is also a image you can use to boot into a nice preloaded set of emulators for raspberry pi called retropie http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/

[oahda]

The comments on the Android app seem incredibly negative tho. Seems it used to be good but has gotten messed up recently or something.

[gimymblert]

cool

[InfiniteStateMachine]

The comments on the Android app seem incredibly negative tho. Seems it used to be good but has gotten messed up recently or something.

The android one I admit I've never tried. I've only tried the rasp pi one. It works quite well overall.

[oahda]

I saw some YT video of a couple of emulators running on Ouya (in the default OS) and it looked like it was working well, so I guess I'll try and do what was done there.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Oh wow I didn't realize so much stuff is already essentially built into the ouya. Awesome

[oahda]

Got the adapter and it's working. Sort of. The audio cable didn't really work at all, but it wasn't a problem since our speaker supports bluetooth anyway and the Ouya paired with it successfully.

But the resolution. Apparently the Ouya is really picky and since the monitor doesn't match up with 1080 or 720 perfectly, it actually defaults all the way down to 640x480 even tho the monitor supports 1680x1050.

There are no menu options to force a resolution, but I found this: http://qandasys.info/changing-forcing-screen-resolution-on-ouya/

But I don't get it. What does it mean? Does the Ouya have a terminal I can type into, or how am I supposed to input this stuff?

EDIT:
OK, bluetooth speaker lags too much actually. How am I supposed to use the adapter? Both the HDMI side and the DVI side have audio cables (the headphone/speaker kind you put into computers) but of course there is no such opening on the Ouya since HDMI already transfers audio. But just plugging the one on the DVI side into the speaker doesn't work, so what do I do?

EDIT 2:
I think I rooted it but I don't want to download Xposed and Mod Collection from all these shady websites where people have put them. Even if I trust the uploaders, I don't trust the sites... Someone had it on their dropbox but the links are dead now.

EDIT 3:
Partial success, at least! Didn't have to install anything additional to find an N64 emulator on the regular Ouya store (tho it seems to be the only one that appears when I search for 'emulator').



The low resolution problem ceases to be a problem with old games like this, of course, but I wish it would cover the entire screen... And the audio problem still isn't fixed. Lags behind a lot on bluetooth so I need to get the cable working somehow...

[Richard Kain]

There is also a image you can use to boot into a nice preloaded set of emulators for raspberry pi called retropie http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/

I actually just put the finishing touches on a Christmas present project that I made using this approach. Retropie is a relatively easy way to build a capable emulation box using a standard Raspberry Pi. It streamlines a huge amount of the setup, and gets everything installed with very little fuss. Definitely a good idea for beginners who might not have as much experience dealing with Linux.

I'll post some pictures of what I threw together sometime in the next two days. (before I wrap up the present) It's a pretty good idea of some of the more entertaining aspects of using one of these micro-computers.

I've really been psyched about using one of these things to create a custom arcade cabinet. And not just a MAME box, I'm thinking of brand-new custom-designed software. Sadly, the Raspberry Pi that I had previously was a model B+, and not the new Pi 2. So I wasn't able to test Unity's performance on it. From what I understand the Universal App build for the Pi 2 using Unity is quite lacking in performance. This is not surprising, given the nature of the engine, and the specs of the Pi 2.

At the moment, one of the more promising engines for Raspberry Pi game development is actually Godot. While it doesn't yet have official support, I know that a few of the Godot users have managed to successfully compile and run both the engine and the editor for the Raspberry Pi. Aside from that there aren't that many options for full-featured Raspberry Pi game engines.

[oahda]

I'm a bit confused about this talk about running a program on or compiling a program for the Pi. I thought you had to install some established OS like a Linux distro anyway? Or does the Pi have something preïnstalled, or something specific that can be installed, when it's new?

[Richard Kain]

I'm a bit confused about this talk about running a program on or compiling a program for the Pi. I thought you had to install some established OS like a Linux distro anyway? Or does the Pi have something preïnstalled. or something specific that can be installed, when it's new?

It depends on what Pi you are using. The original run of the Pi mainly focused on using Raspbian, a Raspberry Pi-optimized version of Debian Linux. This was the most common OS to run on it, though you were free to install any other OS that you could get running on it. Several different versions of Linux were ported to the original-model Pi, so you have options.

The Raspberry Pi 2 is the second major hardware iteration for the platform. It bumps up the computational power and efficiency a little bit, but still costs the same as the original Pi. In keeping with the point of the Raspberry Pi project, the Raspberry Pi 2 is more of a refinement, and not an attempt to jump into the hardware arms race.

Most of the Linux distros that were compatible with the original Pi have already been ported to the Pi 2. One major change though, is that Microsoft started officially supporting the Raspberry Pi 2 with Windows 10. There is a minimalistic version of Windows 10 that has been optimized to run on the Raspberry Pi 2. If you have a Pi 2, you can download it from Microsoft and try it out. And the new "Universal App" system that Microsoft introduced with Windows 10 is compatible with the version of Windows that runs on the Raspberry Pi 2. So if you have that version of Windows 10 installed on your Pi 2, you can get Universal Apps running on it.

Unity introduced Universal App support with one of the 5.x version upgrades. Thanks to that support, it is now possible to get Unity builds running on a Raspberry Pi 2. (but not previous models, only the Pi 2 is compatible with the stripped-down version of Windows 10) From what I understand, the performance is not very good, though. I haven't done any testing myself, as I only had a Pi B+. I might get around to trying it out later this year, but I'm not in a hurry. I have other projects I want to focus on first.

Just to clarify, the Universal App builds are what will run on the Raspberry Pi 2. The Unity IDE does not currently work on the Raspberry Pi 2. So you can port projects to the Pi 2, but you cannot create or edit Unity projects on the Pi 2.

[Glyph]

I worked on a Pi 2 using the Windows IoT build this summer, but it turned out to not be what I needed. The version I tinkered with had no OS, it was just a loader that recognized and ran universal applications sent to it. It required Visual Studio to send, which was annoying. The real dealbreaker was that there wasn't even an audio driver yet, though. I didn't set up the Pi so I don't know if there is an actual Windows 10 OS or just what I dealt with. I sure hope so, though.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

I'd never heard of this universal app madness before. I would have never dreamed the first running version of unity on a pi would be through windows haha


RKain are you using the pet rock image or did you build up your own?

[Richard Kain]

I'd never heard of this universal app madness before. I would have never dreamed the first running version of unity on a pi would be through windows haha


RKain are you using the pet rock image or did you build up your own?

I'm using the Pet Rock SD card image. You don't have to go that route if you don't want to. Pet Rock also releases an installation script that you can run on top of a different Linux distro if you want to. It will install all of the same software and get things set up for you, but won't come pre-bundled with an OS.

I had no specific OS needs for my build, so I just stuck with the default Pet Rock Retropie SD card image. It was quite easy to get it up and running. The most complicated part was getting the controller set up, and customizing performance for individual games. I was focused on the SNES, and some of those games perform differently based on what emulator you're running.

The default Pet Rock SD card image is set up so that it runs Raspbian OS, but doesn't fire up the X GUI. It boots the OS, and then immediately runs Emulation Station instead, and lets that serve as the graphical front-end. This allows all of the emulators to run with a greater degree of system resources, and perform better. I haven't had any complaints so far on the general structure of Retropie. It's a fantastic way to put together a quick, cheap retro-box.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

That's the one I used too. The packaged front end I was having issues with at the time but I suspect that's a usage error on my part. It worked pretty good overall. I think it was something like certain emulators werent displaying rom lists.

I will have to take another look at it during my vacation.

[Richard Kain]

It worked pretty good overall. I think it was something like certain emulators werent displaying rom lists.

If you're not afraid of editing some text files, it is actually possible to customize the rom list displays pretty handily. I did that with the Capcom CPS section. Those packages are multi-part, and are generally a pain in the butt for displaying in a list. But if you know what you're doing, you can re-name the files, scrape the metadata and images for the files, revert the file names to their original settings, and then disable emulation station's search function for that platform. Once you've done this, emulation station will use the XML file generated by the metadata scrape for the rom list, and ignore any detected files. You can even do this with your own custom XML file if you have custom art you want to use, or custom descriptions.

Pretty much everything in emulation station can be customized to one degree or another. I'm really loving that front-end.

[J-Snake]

I am currently writing a multi-threading operating system for an 8-bit atmel chip (20 Mhz). The Pi is way too powerful:P

[Richard Kain]

I'm digging this one out of the backlog for a necro-post. Partially because there's something new I have to add to the discussion. Partially because I think the discussion is worth continuing.

There's a new micro-computer coming out at the end of July, called the Rock64. It looks fairly promising, and it's going to have a decent number of OS options available at launch. One of its strong selling points is that it will have different price tiers, based on what level of RAM you want in it. The standard 1GB model is going to be cheaper than the current Raspberry Pi, coming in at just $25. Tack on $10 for the 2GB model, and another $10 on that for the 4GB model. Quite reasonable, with some solid performance. As with most new tech, you'll probably want to read some reviews before placing any orders.

But more potentially significant, it is now possible to compile and launch Unity applications on the Raspberry Pi. It was "kind-of" possible to do this using Universal Windows Apps using an installation of Windows IOT. However, this was highly experimental, and not particularly well supported, by Microsoft or Unity.

In the past few months, Android TV has been successfully ported to the Raspberry Pi, and GPU support has been added to increase performance. On Monday, I was able to install Android TV on my Raspberry Pi 3, and sideload a compiled Unity Android APK. This is just a very small prototype, but it established that it is now possible to get a Unity application running natively on a Raspberry Pi with GPU support. I was even able to test out basic shadow-casting, which worked just fine. My dreams of assembling a miniature arcade machine with my own custom games on it are drawing closer.

[oahda]

Wow, this thread is that old?

Cool news! I still haven't found any valid reason to actually get any kind of smol compyootar nor felt like I've had the money to spare for something so unessential to my needs, so still no experience. But if a project comes along in the future that naturally lends itself to using one, I'll be on it!

[Richard Kain]

It's understandable, not everyone's project needs or is appropriate for such a device. But I've always been interested in some more hobbyist ideas that would work well with minimal specs. The big plus of using a mini-computer is three-fold. Size, cost, and access.

Size is obvious. These things are insanely small. I'm not kidding, SO small. You can squeeze them inside just about anything. They also run silent and run relatively cool. There's a reason why they're so popular with hobbyists and DIY-ers.

The cost advantage is more relative, but it's not insignificant. If you are looking to get your hands on some computing power in a tiny form-factor, micro-computers are a great way to get everything you need for a very reasonable price. The current going rate is in the sub-$40 range. The most popular of the lot, the Raspberry Pi 3, can usually be had for around $35, brand-new. And while previous versions of the RPi would often need add-ons through USB, the current RPi3 has wifi and Bluetooth built-in, right on the board. So that $35 gets you pretty much everything you need.

Access is more for the low-level coders and hobbyists, but it's still worth considering. All of the popular micro-computers essentially give you assembly-level access to everything on them. If you want to dig right down to the metal and make your micro-computer do some low-level stuff, you can do that. Most of them have an array of GPIO pins as well, which can give you all kinds of crazy features. You can wire in your own custom buttons, or even output power from these things. On one project I used them to add LED-lit buttons, and activated and de-activated the LEDs for the buttons through code.

One of the biggest drawbacks to these things is a noticeable lack of game engine support. Almost none of the major middleware companies has released targets for the RPi and its various competitors. The lack of one standard or OS to target is almost certainly part of this. But it has still held back game development on these things. Not everyone feels comfortable enough with low-level coding to dig into custom engine programming. Having the possibility of targeting Unity projects at one of these devices is a pretty big development.

[gimymblert]

Wow thanks for the news, any link to verify that? I just recently look for the gpu support and find nothing tangible! Does it works for old raspi too? I mean the 5$ version!! The thing is that it makes possible to sell "hardwareless" game directly and have custom controller. So far the controller (i mean good) is the most complex things to do, I wanted wii type of tracking and pointing, but tracking isn't mature yet.