I setup my first Raspberry Pi 3 last week.. and I'm very impressed!

Jayro

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I've got a stable 1.4GHz overclock on it, and I'm impressed with how mature all the retroarch coires perform on this cheap little thing! Best $35 I've spent on a computer. I can play everything up to PS1, all prettymuch flawlessly. I have it setup with a 1080p LED TV and a USB SNES pad clone. For PS1 games I use my wired Xbox 360 controller. It also has wireless Logitech KB+Mouse, and gets a good wi-fi signal for retroarch updates.

I'm going to build an oversized Gameboy to house it in with a 10.1 inch LCD, custom buttons, and battery for a convention I have coming up in October. I'll be able to walk around the convention wearing a playable Gameboy. I'm thinking of using a light-weight, yet hard foam of some kind, one I can cut down and sand to my needs, but also durable. I think the hardest part will be powering the LCD, as it takes 12v @2.1 Amps, and that's quite a strain on even the best power banks. So if anyone has battery cell or power bank recommendations, let me know. I'm no stranger to a soldering iron, but the cleaner the better.

I also made my own splash screen in Photoshop:

49tARYH.jpg
 
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You would go better with a few Li-ion 3800mAh batteries or just simply, smaller screen.
If you're looking to game on this thing, 8" screen will be enough. If screen is bigger then you have more power consumption and modules also consumpt some power and overally everything needs to be powered.
Raspberry Pi can take max. up to 6.6v, same with Batteries so you will have to get some power regulators and see if it works in 6.6v.
You also want to get that "Safe" module which will turn off your Raspberry Pi if there's no power.
If you want truly portable RPi, you need to solder controller inputs into correct GPIO pins.

Also you will need to create your own 3D model for your 10" Gameboy project. No such project had 10" model to print afaik and Gameboy case takes only 6"-7" screens max.
 

Jayro

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You would go better with a few Li-ion 3800mAh batteries or just simply, smaller screen.
If you're looking to game on this thing, 8" screen will be enough. If screen is bigger then you have more power consumption and modules also consumpt some power and overally everything needs to be powered.
Raspberry Pi can take max. up to 6.6v, same with Batteries so you will have to get some power regulators and see if it works in 6.6v.
You also want to get that "Safe" module which will turn off your Raspberry Pi if there's no power.
If you want truly portable RPi, you need to solder controller inputs into correct GPIO pins.

Also you will need to create your own 3D model for your 10" Gameboy project. No such project had 10" model to print afaik and Gameboy case takes only 6"-7" screens max.
Okay, this is good info, thanks. I am not too worried about portability too much, as it will porposely be oversized. I would go with a pi zero if I made a real pi Gameboy.
 
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Jayro

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DaFixer

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Great to see more and more are intrest in the Raspberry Pi.
I have 4 RBPi's at the moment, one off them I putt in a old PSX case to a RetroPie Pistation console with working PSX controller ports!
The scene is huge and info is easy to find, and on Aliexpress you can find all types off stuff for all RPBi projects ;)
 
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Jayro

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Great to see more and more are intrest in the Raspberry Pi.
I have 4 RBPi's at the moment, one off them I putt in a old PSX case to a RetroPie Pistation console with working PSX controller ports!
The scene is huge and info is easy to find, and on Aliexpress you can find all types off stuff for all RPBi projects ;)
Yeah, now that I finally have one, I'm having a blast. I'm going to be building it into a wearable and playable oversized Gameboy Color for an anime convention coming in October.
 
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Is it okay to underclock this thing? Say, restricting it to the 800MHz step? (strictly for Gameboy Color emulation)
Yeah but you will kill off half of the emulation capability but i think, even MAME should still work.
 

Jayro

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Yeah but you will kill off half of the emulation capability but i think, even MAME should still work.
I got all games up to PS1 working full speed at 900MHz maximum, with a 300MHz minimum. Everything is working great, and I hope the underclock will keep the battery drain down a little.
 

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You should tryout reicast and PPSSPP with the recent nightlies of recalbox.

I was most impressed with my Pi3 for CPS3 and MAME however I recently bought an Nvidia Shield TV: and haven't touched my Pi3 since..... it's THAT good.

Sure the shield TV was £175 and the Pi3 was £30, but the performance of the Pi is damned good for the price point.
 
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Jayro

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You should tryout reicast and PPSSPP with the recent nightlies of recalbox.

I was most impressed with my Pi3 for CPS3 and MAME however I recently bought an Nvidia Shield TV: and haven't touched my Pi3 since..... it's THAT good.

Sure the shield TV was £175 and the Pi3 was £30, but the performance of the Pi is damned good for the price point.
My stepdad works for Nvidia Labs here in Oregon and got me a Shield Portable for free, since he worked on the Tegra 4 processor (They gave everyone on the team a retail model as a thank you for working on the project). I use that for PPSSPP, but I'll give Reicast a go because I wanna try out the Dreamcast library. :)
 
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My stepdad works for Nvidia Labs here in Oregon and got me a Shield Portable for free, since he worked on the Tegra 4 processor (They gave everyone on the team a retail model as a thank you for working on the project). I use that for PPSSPP, but I'll give Reicast a go because I wanna try out the Dreamcast library. :)

I found R6 the better version to use because configuring R7 crashes a lot for me. R7 is probably better but I haven't had much experience with it yet.

Compatibility is great though. Crazy taxi and power stone run excellently.

While I think of it: check out ouyabause too for Saturn emulation ;)
 
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Jayro

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Don't forget Daytona, the normal Panzer Dragoon series and Symphony of the Night (more stages and Richter is playable from the start.) ;)
Would this SotN be considered the difinitive version over the PS1 version?
 

Jayro

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I'm going to be stuffing all this you see pictured into a foam Gameboy Color shell, and wear it at a local anime convention this October. It's a Raspberry Pi 3 with RetroPie, a 7" 1024x600 LCD, USB-powered stereo speakers, a USB power tester to monitor voltage and amps drawn from the battery, a USB power bank, and a USB SNES pad.

I am also using a C-Media USB soundcard instead of the built-in Broadcom card, for better clarity and loudness. I'll be using my phone's secure hotspot for any internet needs on the Pi.
I have made my own splash screens in Photoshop. I even figured out how to play music CDs using the Sega CD emulator. Just have your CD ISOs as .bin and .cue in the ROMS folder for the Sega CD, and then launch it like you would a game. Boots right up and plays music!

My ultimate goal was to not just make the Gameboy Color portable, but also do a 100% solderless design, which I haven't seen done before. Everything is USB-powered. Before I make the shell, I want to perfect the software side of things, get RetroPie updated, add ROMs, and tweak shaders to look good on the LCD.



19096087_1938627929752755_130498990_o.jpg


More to come soon.
 

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