Good day

I've launched this project on Kickstarter that hopefully interest some of you:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cjiniinni/portable-retro-game-console-with-a-big-79-inch-display
For more info and pictures: https://hackaday.io/project/164930-portable-retro-game-console-with-79-inch-display

I know it's a bit more expensive than other Raspberry Pi-based consoles.
But the biggest reasons for that is the high quality IPS display and 8000 mAh battery.

All kind of support would be greatly appreciated.
If you have any questions, I will try to answer them as fast as I can.

If you're interested in buying one, you can visit: https://www.etsy.com/listing/682397120/portable-retro-game-console-with-big-79

@voljega
Ok

@voljega said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

I never said that, I said that PI3 A+ is a bad choice compared to pi3 b+

Not really. The only difference between them is the RAM. And even if it had 10 times the RAM, it would not emulate N64 games in full speed. You need a faster CPU for that.

@voljega said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

no analog and too big screen which will drain the battery very quickly => anything more powerfull than 16bits era is either not correctly playable and/or will drain battery even more
and you don't need such a big screen to play nes and and snes as they have small resolution, so such a big screen is not really usefull and is actually not good : makes the device too big, kills the battery
what I mean in one phrase is that you need to rethink the aim of your project and what user you want to target.
first if you want a portable device, size is an issue and battery life i also
then depending of what emulators you want to target, you can improve the device and add some benefits to some area : 8-16 bits, no need for a big screen, restrict yourself to a 5 or 6 inch display, you will gain in portability and battery life
you current project tries to be a bit of everything and overextend itself, especially regarding portability

On this, we just disagree. But that's fine
Thank you for your feedback.

@voljega said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

@cjiniinni this doesn't make any sense at all, you're right the pi3 isn't powerfull enough for n64 so why include something even less powerfull ?

And if you ditch psx/n64 game all together to restrict your console to 8 and 16bit era, the big screen makes even less sense, and it's even worse because such a big screen will draw so much power...

Basically your project doesn't make sense...

Well it's good to propose something but if you don't accomodate people's logical questions, it's likely you will fail your kickstarter again

If I would include something more powerful than the Raspberry pi 3, it would cost much more and draw more power.

Yes, basically you can play everything up to ps1.
So you think 7.9" is to big for playing something like nes or snes? I don't really understand what you mean by that.

@joinski
There's allready a lot of raspberry based consoles of that size. That's why I chose to make a bigger one, more like the switch or wii u gamepad(https://hackaday.io/project/164930/gallery#e09f9494afb658c9dae137001c82cd5b)

And the raspberry pi can't emulate all n64 games in full speed, and there's only one ps1 game that require analog sticks.
This is some of the reasons why I chose not to include any analog stick.

Unfortunately the campaign didn't get funded. But I'm going to try one last time, but with a much lower price tag.
I've found and contacted other suppliers, to get better deals on some of the parts. I also cut down on the quantity consoles I can make by half, so I can build most of them myself.

You can find the new link here if you're interested:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cjiniinni/portable-retro-game-console-with-big-79-inch-display

@scavy said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

@voljega technically, the pi3a+ is better than a pi0w. 4 cores than 1. 1.4 Ghz than 1.0. And same RAM.
@joinski @cjiniinni what about the heat in the console ? You can't extract it i guess. And how much time lasts your 8000 mAh battery while playing ?

@bkg2k said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

Nice projet.

Unfortunately, I see a lot of issues.

First, the Pi3A+. We already have some memory issues with the 3B+ and its 1Gb. With 512Mb, you won't be able to launch the PSP emulator (As it requires a 256Mb chunk of memory).
What about the cooling system? Not cooling a 3A+ would be a very bad idea as it may raise quicky 70°, which is now the 1st threshold of throttling (actually at 70° the 3A+ drops 200Mhz instantly)

Then, the screen. That's a nice resolution. But way to high for such boards. We recommend not to use higher than 720p resolution on RPi board. Not only because of performance hits, but mainly because of, once again, GPU memory.
Having 2000x1500 pixels requires 12Mb of memory for a single RGBA image. That means with 20 active systems running with a theme like Next-Pixels, all the VRAM would be eaten and you wouldn't be able to run any emulator!
Even with the default recalbox-next theme, things would become very complicated beyond 30 active systems.

To sum up, having a resolution that consume 3.41 times more memory than a 720p resolution running on a board with half memory seems not a good idea.

I actually have a small fan inside, you can see the air intake and outtake here:

And there is no problems with the resolution. Because I changed it in config.txt to run in 1024×768

@joinski said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

@cjiniinni said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

It already exists a lot of Raspberry Pi-based portable consoles in that size, like a Game Boy or PSP.

But with RPi3A+ there are only a few custom self made builds, and no professional ones, that you can buy like Freeplay CM3 (which is a bit too expensive and overprized in my eyes) for example.

So a small build with RPi3A+ (in a case with 4 to 5 inch display, analog sticks and not bigger then 3DS XL or PSP) to buy for everyone (as a diy kit for example) would be very nice!
If I had the opportunity (knowledge, utilities, contacts), I would produce something like that.

All cheap diy kits that you can buy online, are unfortunately only for RPi Zero (like Zero Boy, 8bcraft Raspi Boy or retroflag GPi Case for example)

Yes, you're right. And I did actually considering making one in that size first, but the problem was that I couldn't find a display that I wanted.
I looked for a 4:3 IPS display I could connect through hdmi, but unfortunately most displays in that size are SPI-based in 16:9.

If you ever find a display that meet my needs, please tell me

@ninjaw said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

wait, this is made of pi3 ? wow

@scavy said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

@ninjaw a RPi3a+ Card !?

Yep, that's correct

@joinski said in My Portable Retro Game Console with 7.9-inch display:

@cjiniinni

looks nice!
but is a 7.9-inch display with 2048 × 1536 resolution not overkill for the systems, that run on the RPi3A+?
also such a huge display makes the whole system a bit bulky and not really portable (it is too big to put it in a pocket or to carry it around much).
and it is a pitty that there are no analog sticks (would be useful for PS1 and N64).
i would prefer the size of a Nintendo 3DS (XL) or PSP (in my eyes a 4 or 5 inch display with 480p or 720p resolution should be enough and it would also reduce the costs, because such displays should be much cheaper than a 7.9 inch display with 2048 x 1536 resolution).
but that are just my thoughts about it.

Thanks!
Yes, the resolution is a bit overkill. But I didn't chose the display for that reason. I chose it because of the size, the 4:3 aspect ratio, the high brightness and the much better colour rendition(because it's an IPS display) than all the others I'd found.

It already exists a lot of Raspberry Pi-based portable consoles in that size, like a Game Boy or PSP.
That's why I wanted to build a bigger one, more like a Nintendo Switch.