retro games on thin client

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Have any of you ever done any retro gaming on a thin client PC? I've seen some HP Thin Clients with quad core AMD GX-415GA processor being sold for 50 bucks. This cpu gives a cpu marks score of over 1,300.

Would this make a decent retro game emulation machine for arcade games from the 1980's?

 

[TheELF]

for arcade games from the 1980's?

Well those games have very low requirements so anything should be ok, just get a good retro distro like lakka or recalbox, they boot up a barebones linux distro with a front end for retroarch and make it real easy to run almost anything.

If you can find a raspberry pi 4 at normal prices that is even smaller factor and probably more powerful than the thin client.
Actually if the GX-415GA only runs on integrated graphics I have no idea if it will be able to run any arcade game at all.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Yes, the AMD GX-415GA has integrated Radeon HD 8330E graphics, 512 MB of video RAM.
cpu - 1,386 cpu marks
video - igpu fp32 - 127 Gflops

Raspberry Pi 4
cpu - Broadcom BCM2711 - 834 cpu marks
video - videocore VI - 32 Gflops

It appears that the video performance of the thin client is quite a bit more powerful than a Pi 4, and the cpu capability is also about 66% more powerful.
The Radeon uses 15 Watts of power to do this, while the PI 4 uses 7.5 Watts.

Does the Pi 4 support more emulators, because of the installed user base?

 

[nakedfrog]

My old PII 350MHz with an 8 meg i740 ran arcade games just fine over 20 years ago, I can think of no reason to get something other than a Raspberry Pi for that use, given the robust community support for using a Pi for arcade emulation.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Well, every time I've looked, the Raspberry Pi's were out of stock, so there's that - I guess that's my main reason. But I also like the ability to upgrade to a large m.2 ssd, and upgrading the memory on the thin client.

 

[NTMBK]

It's basically a 15W Kabini chip- 4 Jaguar CPU cores running at 1.5GHz. Should be fine for emulating older consoles, just don't try emulating anything newer than the SNES.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

It's basically a 15W Kabini chip- 4 Jaguar CPU cores running at 1.5GHz. Should be fine for emulating older consoles, just don't try emulating anything newer than the SNES.

I think I'd mostly be emulating arcade games from around 1980 to 1990. Do you think this would be capable?

 

[NTMBK]

I think I'd mostly be emulating arcade games from around 1980 to 1990. Do you think this would be capable?

Probably should be fine.

 

[A///]

I've been looking for a modern revival of the old Lemmings game that came out on the Amiga in '91.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Is that the same as the Sega Genesis version that I played about that time? You might be able to get a bit of what you are looking for from "Lemmings" from the Google Play store.

 

[nakedfrog]

I've been looking for a modern revival of the old Lemmings game that came out on the Amiga in '91.

The original still holds up, IMO: https://playclassic.games/games/puzzle-solving-dos-games-online/play-lemmings-online/play/

 

[A///]

Is that the same as the Sega Genesis version that I played about that time? You might be able to get a bit of what you are looking for from "Lemmings" from the Google Play store.

Not entirely sure, to be frank with you. I played the Amiga version first, but then didn't for several years til I played the Macintosh version. Early 90s to mid 90s had some terrific vertical scrollers that still look incredible in my mind. I'm "afraid" to look into them now so many years later and corrupt my rose-tinted memory of them having incredible graphics.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I know, going back, I've found some games that I loved back in the day to seem not all that great when I try playing them now. For example, I got pretty addicted to a game, Dungeon Hack, in the early 90's. I got it cheap on GOG, tried playing it for a while, and really got tired of looking for hidden doors on the levels.

 

[A///]

I've forgotten about GOG. A lot of the true older games had multiple versions; such as space invaders or asteroids.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I think part of the issue is how many choices we have for entertainment these days, and instant gratification. Want another game? Download it in a minute. Back when we played these games originally, you had to drive somewhere, purchase the physical copy, then install it before enjoying it.