Hey all!
Apologies if this has been covered to death already, I am trying to suss out the best way to emulate all of my old SNES/Genesis/etc games.
I have an Nvidia Shield TV and have been able to emulate games fine on individual emulators etc but I find having to open lots of apps quite confusing and tricky. I have tried to use Retroarch but find that it isn't very user friendly at all and I quickly get frustrated with configuring it.
I have seen things like Retropie on the Raspberry Pi 3 that look simple and have all of the emulators etc in one program with artwork etc. There are bundles on eBay with the Pi 3 already configured with Retropie and I have thought of selling my Shield and using the cash to get one of these. Perhaps I am mad to do this when the Shield is already more than capable? Is there a similar way of doing this with the Shield and if so what is the best option?
I very much want it to be user friendly and easy to set up etc so any guides or advice would be much appreciated!
Also, I have noticed that there is some input lag when using the bundled Shield controller, is this normal? Is it due to it being wireless? I tried to put my TV into game mode and the issue persisted, I noticed it also happed with my NES Classic so maybe its an issue with the TV.
Thanks in advance!
I really hate to be the one to tell you, but android is just a poor platform to emulate old consoles on. You get multiple frames of input lag just because of android. That means the Nvidia Shield TV (I have one, I thought it would be an amazing box for emulation, but I didn't know either) is just an average choice.
For people who know what input lag is, it's not the correct platform.
There has been some fairly comprehensive investigation, and as of right now Windows 10 with GPU Hard Sync or Linux KMS/DRM is the best method to get away from input lag. Windows 10 is at about a 16ms advantage over dispmanx linux, but, well, windows licence and needing x86.
There are some good choices with Raspberry Pi being able to run Linux, or some nice little SoC Atom chip devices that will get you Linux or Win10. Neither will be as much of a workhorse as the Nvidia Shield unfortunately. For that you'd likely need to get some kind of low end pentium pc build going.
The other thing I have debated trying myself but I don't even know if it can be done is installing linux on the shield tv.
If your emulation needs stop at PS1, you are in luck because the $60 Raspberry Pi build will cover everything PS1 and before. Sub in an Intel Atom SoC (Intel Compute Stick 1gb 1.0 for example) and you'll be in for even less with more options (currently $48 on Amazon).
The last thing to keep in mind is for a modern 1080p display you are going to want to output native resolution. That means 720p isn't ideal but usually the default due to easy integer scaling and lower processing requirements. The reason being, modern displays have lag (inescapable truth), and scaling from 720p adds to that inherent lag.
There really isn't a $200 box that can do PS2/N64 justice that I am aware of. (Please someone prove me wrong!).
Finally, those using original hardware and a Framemeister have a little bit less lag but you still add maybe 16ms vs. 70-80ms via emulation. That's about 1 frame vs. 5 frames to compare. No lag means CRT + those old hookups.
The one question I have always wondered is how the Wii libretro cores do vs. Linux and Win10. Theoretically Wii + RetroArch + OSSC (and likely a DVDO to get 1080p) could be a thing instead of stockpiling old hardware(?).
