Orange Pi — alternative Rasp Pi?

LowOdour

Ive been planning on building an arcade machine for ages but some bill etc always crops up that i need to spend my money on!!

so, I still plan on building a full size arcade machine. But im thinking of doing a trial run version for the kids. Was thinking about using a Orange Pi Plus/2 instead of a Rasberry Pi 2/3 as it is a bit cheaper (ill probably build two mini machines).

I was wondering if anyone had experience with them, running the RetroOrangePi etc.

Thanks

CiDeRmAn

No experience of using that myself.
I would suggest that a cheap Pi 1 or 2b might be a good idea, or even a PiZero, if you are running the classics.
If you are using an LCD panel, or similar, the Pi series will hook straight up and the controls, depending on the set up you've in mind, will work fine via a mini board and the USB.
The nice thing about Retropi is it does most of the heavy lifting for you and then it's really a matter of configuring it to your setup, with masses of support from the online community.
I've used RPi, RPi2, RPi3 and RPZero, and they are all great, in their own setting.
I've an RPi3 running in my AWSD cab and it's great, running everything from Playstation to Mame.

moonlighting

I have tested an orange pi one. a dev kit like the orange pi is fine if you have some programming knowledge or experience messing with arm dev kits. but if you want quick and easy setup spend a few extra bucks and get the ras pi. i say this because there is a good community and support for the ras pi. where as very little support for the orange pi. the pin-out and accessing thing like io, spi,i2c took a lot of work.
one good thing is that the gpu mali drivers work out of the box for the orange pi. some other dev boards i worked on didnt have this.
one more problem with the orange pi is the hardware. the cpu gets very hot so you will need to purchase a heat sink. you could get away without the heat-sink for the ras pi. one other problem i faced with the orange pi one is the power-supply connection used a small 5v circle connection. not a standard type or USB power.
One other problem i had was putting os on the sd cards. for some reason one of the sd cards didnt work in the orange pi. no idea why but it seem to be a comman problem. if you are getting an orange pi get one that supports emmc storage.

LowOdour

cheers for both replies...ive spent some time reading up on the orange pi since i posted which i probably should have done first.
It looks like building a machine with the orange pi could end up costing me more it time and extra money than a rasp—pi, but have ordered one just to play around with.

So will do my build with a rasp—pi! I a dusty old orginal model...not sure if it will be powerful enough to run anything more than standard arcade emulators?

CiDeRmAn

I had one, I donated it to a user here, and it works well with most systems 16 bit and before.
Certainly, it worked well with Mame and so on, but with caveats around the stuff that the system can throw around the screen before it stutters.
Nes, Snes, Megadrive, Gameboy, Color, Advance, NeoGeo, NeoGeo Pocket Color, Mame, Atari and so on, all work fine for me.
Plus, if you can keep the thing cool, you can overclock and squeeze a little more from the RPi as well.
At this stage, the software platform is mature and capable, with lots of support, as I mentioned.
You will probably find SD Card images with everything you need ready to go, with a little Googling, all that's needed then is a bit of configuring.
I had mine inside the rear case of a Sony 14" tv, with a PS3 wired controller popping out the front via a dremelled hole, plenty of glue gun action!
Worked a treat though, with the emulators as described.
You're not going to be running PS, PSP or N64 on that setup, but there's plenty nevertheless.

eddhorse

I would also recommend the RPi, plenty of images knocking around doing excactly you want. RetroPie is a brilliantly finished product.
I also like to factor in my time as a monetary value so the other one might not be as cheap.
It is good to play around with new equipment and devices but i would still pick the RPi.

CiDeRmAn

It'd be nice to fool about with some new hardware, and the Orange Pi sounds interesting.
But, best to do it from a position of non-frustration, so the waiting children already have a retro gaming solution to play on with the RPi.
Kids playing Pokemon on the GBA emu, while you can trick about with the other device in peace!
If you have a RPi around the place, pick up a cheap/free portable CRT to plug it into, for retro games it's far more satisfying.

LowOdour

on the advice here, i dug out my old RPi in its dusty cardboard (also at the same time found an cheap unused game controller).

Powered it up, and Pi seemed to be working! took a 4GB out of one of the cameras, installed Retropie, grabbed a few ROMs and even using the crappy controller, this evening, I managed to get it up running (in between assembling a trampoline and sprayying weedkiller...Happy Fathers day!!).

will order some arcade controls tomorrow and a sheet of ply for the casing. anyone know a decent casing for the RPi that could be mounted to timber?

CiDeRmAn

Here's a case for your Pi, and hot glue should fix it on place for you. Alternatively, a tidy couple of small counter sunk holes in the case would also fix it snugly to the timber.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00M8ZEFXS

Suckit

I have built one with an Orange Pi PC and i used Retro Orange Pi.
I bought Heatsinks from Banggood after reading that a few people recommended  to get them for it.
It is also worth mentioning that at the moment, Banggood are also doing a promotion on the zero delay Arcade Joystick and Buttons using code 20MYOG which drops the price down to €11.98.
The blue version is currently under restocking, that price drops to €11.64 when they have them.
Banggood also sell cases, but i made one myself.
I have found some small issues, but nothing major. For the price i can not complain, nor do i want to.
There is also a facebook group.
Definitely a cheap way of building your first one and easy. 
I realised after i typed this that you dug out your old RPi, but i thought i would leave this here anyway .

eddhorse

^^
Never heard of that website, another chinese one i take it?
Will take a look as i need some parts for a bartop project also.

I should really go through the mountains of stuff i have hoarded so far.

Suckit

eddhorse wrote: »

^^
Never heard of that website, another chinese one i take it?
Will take a look as i need some parts for a bartop project also.

I should really go through the mountains of stuff i have hoarded so far.

Yep. I find them great to deal with. Any issues, email them (or chat), they will ask you photograph it, send it to them and they send out a replacement.
They are having a promotion at the moment "Make your own video games"

CiDeRmAn

Suckit wrote: »

Yep. I find them great to deal with. Any issues, email them (or chat), they will ask you photograph it, send it to them and they send out a replacement.
They are having a promotion at the moment "Make your own video games"

That's nice,
Going to build an arcade stick for my NES/Famicom and one for my Atari 2600, that site will do nicely for parts.