Raspberry Pi Image for Pi2, Pi3 and Pi4 - with RetroPie

[verion]

Yea, surfaces are the way to go.

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I try to explain it further with that marquee example (see image below).

Your ROBOSPIN theme is resolution independent - that means all scales up or down beautifully to fit the screen (layout) resolution.
So if your CRT is displaying 640x480 layout - your marquee width in pixels (after the whole theme scales to fit 640x480 resolution) is 220px.

How can I know? I've just took your screenshot, resized it to 640x480 and measured marquee width in pixels.

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So... Your marquee on 640x480 display will ALWAYS be displayed in 220px width. It doesn't matter if the source marquee size is 400px width or 3000px width. It will always be scaled to display in 220px width.

That bring us to the conclusion that your marquee could be INITIALLY resized to 220px width - and I'm talking about the artwork that is in /marquee folder - without loosing any image quality, because it will finally be displayed as 220px image.

And finally... this maybe (just maybe) when applied to all graphical resources could help with RPi performance - because you'll feed your RPi with smaller images = faster loading time, less memory used.

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The same applies to the theme resources too. For instance my NEVATO theme has HUGE resolution artwork (like cab image and all overlays) aimed for 1920x1080. And this could be easily resized to 30% of it's original size for 640x480 screen. But I think that theme graphics resizing is not that important for performance as it is not refreshed on every game title change - but resizing all the artwork could do the trick.

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But like I've said - it's a far stretch. And my assumption is based on my xbox 1st gen experience with interface optimization - but I was dealing with another problem, because xbox has only 64MB of ram
But again - it's relatively easy to check. Just scale down all of the artwork to 50% with batch resizer and see if it is making any difference in performance.

I know that is not the best approach (resizing artwork) and it won't solve the problem for the users with RPi hooked up to HD tv - but maybe it can pinpoint the performance bottleneck and lead to AM optimization (if necessary).

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[Omamez]

so many people with wealth of knowledge 

[omegaman]

Latest robospin tested on win 10, and rpi 3. Pan-and-scan has been replaced with a flyer option for background, now. There should be a bump in performance running on the pi. For, even faster performance you can enable a listbox instead of wheel art etc...

Also, added new genre icons that are more accurate to the category and fit theme better.   

https://app.box.com/s/9i198vvan9r05g5zbsxocnyk2dng4jh2

[Omamez]

definitely try it today it one of my favorite skins which I'm usingearlier rev.

[efraimsangil]

efraimsangil-

How do you like the performance of odriod so far? I was thinking about getting one myself but there is a lot of negative reviews about driver support, kernel panic problems and spotty quality. What's been your experience so far besides driver issues?

If you want to use for Arcade System, I think that exist better systems (Orange Pi and RPI).

There are many problems with SDL framebuffer, all people use X11 to run emulators.... I've never had problems of kernel panic.

 But if you want a computer to use with Ubuntu / Debian for work, for example, XU4 is the best option. SUPER fast, USB3 ports, gigabyte ethernet and 2GB RAM. I love this machine

so you happy with xu4?

really like to see the performance on n64 and maybe reicast only interested in hand full of games for this system can you test and report back for everyone o forum

I don't forget you 

I will record two videos these days. One of N64 emulator and another of reicast (if I can make it work, because it gives me an error  ).

[progets]

Latest robospin tested on win 10, and rpi 3. Pan-and-scan has been replaced with a flyer option for background, now. There should be a bump in performance running on the pi. For, even faster performance you can enable a listbox instead of wheel art etc...

Also, added new genre icons that are more accurate to the category and fit theme better.   

https://app.box.com/s/9i198vvan9r05g5zbsxocnyk2dng4jh2

I like some of the changes you made. The larger text and moved filter info are great. Personally, I have renamed your "bkg2.png" and instead use nitrogen_widget's image from this post http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=208.msg1292#msg1292. It looks very nice with the dark scanlines.

[omegaman]

Thanks progets!

I'll add it as another background option. I like the retro feel of it.

[efraimsangil]

Hi,

I am trying my stick (ZEROPLUS P4 Wired Gamepad) and when press button to show favorites and choose anyone... when back to choose any game, the stick stops working but the buttons working 

I tried with other layout but still doing the same. I think it's an AM problem.

Any idea? 

[Misterhollyw00d]

Anyone get the problem when you exit the game it starts up the game again right after you exit out? Anyway to fix this

[omegaman]

Mister-

I think the latest AM fixes this issue.

[Misterhollyw00d]

I just got it to work. It's weird I use Floobs image I have 2 rpi3 one on my tv the other in my arcade. The TV one I use Xbox 360 controllers and works no problem. It's the arcade one that I have problems. I have it set one button to exit. Using xtension arcade joystick from recroommasters with trackball. The exit key works but after it exits comes to front end and will just restart game. I will exit multiple times and sometimes stops or when run command comes up I hit key and scroll down to exit which usually works. I just tried previous version of floobs image and the second version works just fine. Version 4 I still can't get to works. Sucks cause version 4 has more layouts and emulators.

[davisband]

MisterHollyWood, would you mind sending me your config for retroarch for your controller.  I have the same setup (and problem) you do.  I also think I have additional issues due to my retroarch config

[Misterhollyw00d]

Yea I can send it over. Email me at mpirchalamhl@gmail.com

I notice when selecting emulator and where it has exit hot key I leave this blank. Notice this causes problems if u set it the games won't load.

What I do and I'm sure there is a better way lol but works for me. If u have the same controller the select key on top works as hot key for retro arch so as default it's select and player one start to exit. What I do access retro arch menu hit select and one of the key buttons to access menu. Go to input and settings. I change to 2 controllers. Change the hot key exit to the exit button instead. Make sure u save controls as new config. Then on PC just delete retro arch file and rename ur new config as retroarch. Again probably easier way to do but that his it works for me.

It worked on version 4 but has problems where keeps restarting. Use version 2 on here of floobs image. I have yet to run to any problems. Will just need to copy directories he has on new one to add the other emulators.

You can also set hot key in retro arch menu as the exit key.

Shoot me an email I don't mind sharing what I have

[4pr0p02]

Very nice work!!

Floob, you would have an image of custom retropie without emulationstation frontend? I would like a cleaner image, only with Atract-Mode frontend + retropie  working via framebuffer without relying X11 dependency !!

[Floob]

@4p0p02
That should be possible in the next image I'll do.
v4 already works without X11.