ARpiCADE Forums

Hi all,

I want to change the RPI 3B+ for a PI4, the question is what model should I buy?

Does it help in terms of performance to buy the 8GB Model B?

Ps. is there a photo of the ARpiCADE board with a PI4?
I guess I need some other cable for the HDMI solution ?

Cheers...

Bump....

I haven't noticed any difference between the various specs of Pi4, it's possible having more RAM would help with something I haven't tried yet though. As far as I have noticed a 1gig Pi4 is as good as a 8gig for emulation use. 2 gig or 4 gig would be pretty safe in case 1 gig isn't enough for future proofing, 8 gig is heaps for the sort of things we are doing - you should be fine with less...

If you can get an older Pi4 that's your best bet at the moment. There was a silent revision of the Pi4 hardware this year and older Pi4 software won't boot on the newest Pi4s... working on a solution for it but ARpiCADE 4.3 is better (if your Pi4 can run it) than ARpiCADE 4.4 (pre-alpha release - I only released it due to this issue) due to a number of forced changes.

Thanks a lot Dee2er....

I did not know that there were multiple revisions.
it seems that the PI4 is a bit of a mess.

It seems there are several PI4 B revisions:
Revision 1.1 - Issue with some USB-C cables i.e. Apple (requires an extra resistor)
Revision 1.2 - All new 2GB and 4GB (USB-c fix)
Revision 1.3 - never released
Revision 1.4 - 8 GB models

https://core-electronics.com.au/guides/ ... pberry-Pi/

What I don't understand is that it has a software impact on ARpiCADE?

And the weirdest part about it is all those models will work, I have them all. I haven't got any Pi4 that doesn't work on 4.3; 1 gig, 2 gig, 4 gig or 8 gig all work... but I have had a handfull of reports of Pi4s bought this year that won't run 4.3 and put up some sort of message about needing newer software... the revision that has the issue doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere and is just from this year.

I initially thought it was to do with some newer Pi4s using the same chip revision as the Pi400, so I bought a Pi400 but it works on 4.3 so it wasn't that either... (as a side note the Pi400 works as a desktop computer better than a regular Pi4, I think the huge heatsink that allowed for the minor chip revision is the only real difference though).

Still yet to figure it out... with some more work and possibly some luck hopefully I will have an updated version that boots on the newer Pi4s and isn't so buggy soon. Or I, or someone else, may figure out how to make 4.3 boot on the newer Pi4s. Prior to this issue coming to light 4.4 was essentially my Sinden/Aimtrak/Gun4IR etc. lightgun build - unfortunately changes made to get dual lightguns running in RA cores caused other issues for low res so I wasn't going to release it as is... it makes a pretty good high res lightgun build though...

Pi4 has been driving me mad for years now... For the first year or so I wished there was a Pi3.5 with the CPU of Pi4 and the earlier Pi GPU that does low res without nearly as much hassle, then with 4.3 I finally got the Pi4 doing most of what the earlier models could do resolutions wise... now forced changes have broken pixel doubling/quadrupleing causing some picture curl issues for some users (so far I think it's only Wells Gardiner monitors, mine don't have the issue). Also, IMO built in firmware is dumb too... having the firmware on the SD card with the OS worked fine on the earlier Pi models and removes a point of failure (my first Pi400 arrived completely dead due to the built in firmware, apparantly - it's the first Pi I've ever had DOA in almost 9 years of working with RPis).

Hi dee2eR, thanks for giving some insights in what you are facing when working on the newer versions of the ARpiCade distribution.
Really appreciated you go through all this work to figure out how to get it working on the PI4.
I did not know the architecture of the PI4 is a bit of a mess.
You probably get a headache with all these versions, issues, etc.

They are probably a bit out of control over there at Raspberry. The PI5 got delayed with another year.

I also see other platforms catching up like Orange Pi , Banana Pi, Khadas, Rock64...