Good morning! Could you give me some guidance, please?
I recently learned about retro gaming setups with Raspberry Pi, and I saw that even with the simpler Zero model, it’s possible to emulate lighter platforms. In old news I saw that this used to be very cheap a few years ago ($5 USD, when the exchange rate was below R$4), but currently I can’t find a good option to buy. I discovered other contenders, like the Banana Pi and Orange Pi, but they suffer from the same Brazilian “price hike.” All the options I find cost way more than R$100, but I figure there must be a way to dodge that and pay the original $10 USD. My knowledge on the subject is still shallow, and looking this up on my own isn’t yielding results. Since you seem to have a good grasp on this field, could you help me out, even if just with some tips?
My goal is to put together the cheapest possible emulator that can run up to Super Nintendo, with no major requirements. Something to keep plugged into the TV’s USB and play casually with the kids at home. What do you suggest nowadays? Which board should I buy, and where? Do you recommend a platform like Mercado Livre or eBay where I can get better prices, even on used products, with relative purchase security and a lower price? I’d appreciate any suggestions!
SNES ran smoothly even on my late AMD K6/2 233MHz with 30MB of RAM and 2MB VRAM back in the 90’s using zSNES. So I believe pretty much anything should be able to run a SNES emulator.
But I’m not an expert on this. And you didn’t give me an idea of how much you want/can spend, but a Raspberry Pi 3 A+/B/B+ should be able to run it smoothly.
I just don’t recommend leaving a Raspberry Pi plugged directly into the TV’s USB port for numerous reasons, including but not limited to: power supplied by the TV, security, preventing it from falling, and so on.
For less than R$60, it’s going to be really hard to find one.
Only if you get lucky and find an RPi Zero with free shipping to Brazil, but I don’t know if Chinese stores sell RPis.
The Pi Zero is enough to run up to GBA, so it can handle SNES, Mega Drive, GBA, GBC, even some arcade games.
The Zero is supposed to be cheaper than the Zero W because it doesn’t have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and the cheapest one on ML costs R$140.
The problem is you’ll have to spend on at least a memory card big enough to store the games you want, but a 32GB card should be more than enough.
Now buying an old laptop for this will probably end up being more expensive and with worse results.
For R$60, what you’ll find are old laptops that will likely come missing at least several parts like the hard drive, power supply, RAM, and very likely with a broken screen. And video output will probably only be VGA.
So you’d have to buy replacement parts on top of the notebook itself.
I think the biggest issue is that the Zero only has 2 USB ports.
The Zero W is better in this regard because it has built-in Bluetooth, but it also costs twice as much.
I don’t know if a Bluetooth dongle would solve the problem for the Zero (you’d have to use a dongle and a USB to micro USB adapter).
Take a look at the brick groups on Facebook and on OLX, you might find a used older model Raspberry Pi at a good price.
Otherwise, your only option is to buy directly from China, shipping comes to about 15 dollars, since they’re just resellers and also have to pay taxes.