Is It Worth It To Buy A Raspberry Pi 4 Starter Kit For RETRO Emulation In 2023?

Time for the reaspberry pi 5 :)

If you're only going off price, then a $20 android box can run the same emulators

EarthBound tune in the end HYPE!!!

I like this emulation system. Is it Emuelec? Is there any link to it?

What is the OS name installed in this Respberry device and does it support nested virtualization ?

Back in the Raspberry Pi 3b+ days, the Pi was an awesome device for emulation compared to what you could get back then (or even the early Pi4 days.) Now days you could get one of the other slews of single board computers, one of the different android boxes, a mini pc (the best option for something new) or a used laptop for a better price to performance.

Short answer: NO! Long answer: HELL NO! Get a 35 watt Dell or HP mini-pc! The Pi is really only useful for potato grade 90's emulation, music playback, and x264 playback.

£55 for pi4
£12 for case

Already have hdd and cables

So yeah its still perfect

I think there's groups of people buying the pis .

I play retro gams with a raspberry pi zero2, all the components are like 45 euros. I think that is the best you can have

Geekom or this.. I mean Geek is cheaper and free shipping. Beautiful machine.

What built is running on this here ?

I have an odroid xu4 and a beelink. Both are far superior options . Pi4 is not powerful enough to emulate about the Dreamcast .

I juat bought this case so I can do some overclocking on it Ill let you know how it is when it comes in the mail.

You can get mini pcs and ex office pcs now for the same price and they are much much better. Pi's were only meant for eduction and they are good for eduction. They were never ever meant to replace anything.

£220 in the UK :(

no the RPI is the exclusive domain of scalpers

Answer-No.

still can't believe the "chip shortage" conspiracy that pi foundation did to earn a ton of extra money. really shitty "non profit" organization. they were absolutely 75% of the scalpers they claimed to be annoyed at.

I recently started setting up emulation machines for my friends with Le Potato. It does everything through PS1, and my friends have been having a blast with it.

I love that everyone's argument about the high price of the raspberry pi was that you got such better software and support with the RPi that it was still worth it.

Well, you idiots kept your stuff overpriced for so long that people realized how much more powerful other single board computers were, and now they are getting software and support. The one thing you guys had to offer, and you blew it.

My Le Potato is equivalent to a RPi 3, and I paid $35 or $45? I can build the WHOLE device with a case, memory and power cord for $80.

These are tinker toys that are ALSO useful in enterprise applications. You posh folks over at RPi forgot that.

Anyone know the best way to play split screen Gameboy 2 player. For a medium tech savvy person.

I'd say absolutely a Pi 4 is still fantastic for emulation and also, learning, solving problems and gaining knowledge as you go. (If you get bored, plenty of other options for it) If however you just want to play and dont care about the learning part, maybe worth looking elsewhere. Not a fan of that kit however.

Can anyone recommend a decent mini pc for emulation.?

No

Your posting crazy prices, Pi4 in UK £35 today, with 2 Gigs ;) ordered a few today

Have the retroflag NES case for my pi4 I got a couple years ago before the stock issues

What are yall using for Saturn emulation?

Keeping it real

I have arrived to the world of Raspberry Pi late. I have been trying to get various versions to connect to the internet. Pi Zeros don't load websites and some don't have Wi-Fi. I bought a Zero bundle for £40 from an official supplier but most have been individual purchases. The prices have come down and I got individual items For just over £40. This was from Ebay and Aliexpress; for example I purchased an official case for 89p plus postage. Waiting for Xmas time to buy a PI 4, hopefully the supply situation will get better.

When it comes to emulation on the cheap, you can't beat a slim form factor retired office computer if you don't absolutely need the tiny foot print. Even a Sandy Bridge core i3 can stomp all over a Pi 4. If you get a Haswell core i3 or i5 it can run Saturn games at full speed with no issues.

Cue angry cease and desist email in 3...2...😂 Thanks for the heads up sir😊

I have p400 and think it’s quite nice because everything at keyboard. Installed Retropie and also used Amiga AGS. However never got my wireless mouse work with latest one. But it’s nice hardware overall.

Great video. Agreed with you on all the points. Brought 3 Pi 4 4GB before Covid started for about $70 each at Amazon. At one point it was over $200 just for one due to chip shortage. It is a great little device for retro emulation but at that price point just too much.

Nice that the price is coming down but it needs to come down more. And yes the kit should be cheaper not more expensive than buying separately.

The Pi4 is a bit dated. It would be better to wait.

What about comparing this against a ~$100-$150 Dell/HP SFF with Batocera?

Starting messing wirh my Pi 3 again last year, amd got it to do some amazing things with my MAME cabinet, including direct silent booting to a specific game, giving the appearance of an actual JAMMA board inside.

Definitely buying a Pi 4 next pay day with the price drops

The problem is that by about 200 dollars you can get a mini PC with 16 GB of ram and better specs that a PI 4; more so if you get it without the Windows tax. So honesty unless prices go down to about less that 150 dollars, kit included and free shipping is just not worth it.

too many mini PC and older SFF core I7 PC under that price to even consider an Rpi 4 for emulation. you can even buy a GT 1030 + an old Core I7 4th gen with at least 8 Go of RAM and a 1 To hdd or instead a 500 Go SSD.
The only thing that would make me use an Rpi 4 is a project using the I/O header.

I think it's time to upgrade to a new sbc that can run mostly everything up to PS3 at least, like the orange pi 5+ I love my raspberry pi 4, I have a nice build on it but seeing both my PS2 and PS3 drives fail within a month of each other, has made me realize that I need to find a solution to keep my library of games available, either a new soc or a PC that can do it all.

I'm a fan of raspberry pi,but, with the inflated prices you are better off with an old pc thats sitting unused in your basement.

I have an empty GameCube shell and OG XBOX shell to choose from.I was going to build a Pi4 system in at least one of them but then the pandemic, supply and stupid scalpers hit. It will happen eventually.

The only reason I see getting a pi for emulation is for a crt, an Android or Mini PC is usually better otherwise

After seeing this, I'd just buy a beelink system for a simple setup! :D
Thanks for this video!

Raspberry Pi is 🤡🤡🤡

No it's not.
Go for an orange pie instead

Always wanted a pi for the Dreamcast online but sadly was late to the chip party

i never ever use my pi4 anymore...and i have atleast 6 of them and many tb images /sd cards for it too.... nowdays just a mini pc/android box or even a retro handheld or steam deck etc is perfect....when dont want to play on pc..