(01-09-2018, 06:32 AM)jakejm79 Wrote: Does anyone have any hands on comparison between the two; battery life, performance, heat, etc.
I find that the Zero has pretty good performance in everything but GBA (well not counting PS1, N64, etc since the controller isn't really set up for that), with GBA I find performance fine with lr-gpsp but I have a lot of compatibility problems, lr-mgba is much better compatibility wise but runs about 80% or so, I'd imagine a CM3 would fix that but would I be giving up too much battery life just to play a few GBA games.
First off, I don't have a CM3 (yet). With the available information I had though, I opted to start with a Zero. The CM3 has more power for sure, but no wifi (easily) and the fact that we simply don't have enough buttons to do N64 or (most) PS1 games put me off of it for my initial project.
I'm very happy with my Zero. I'm an fairly experienced Emulator... Been doing this for a few years on the Pi and a few other systems prior to that.
For the Zero here is what is important to know:
GBA: I am using gpSP rather than lr-gpSP. I had to set up the emulator controls properly since it isn't a libretro core. Once that was done, I was able to play away. I still haven't gotten the emulator to scale up to use the full screen, but there is only a thin border at the top and bottom. lr-gpSP didn't run smoothly.
MAME: I'm using MAME4ALL. This is the area I'm not happy with. Seems like the PiZero just doesn't have enough power to use the lr cores without major slow-downs. MAME4ALL works once properly configured, but I can't figure out how to full screen games... Particularly like DK, Galaga, DigDug etc that use a 3:4 screen ratio. They run, but my old eyes can't play them, too small. I've dug a bit into stretching the image, but it doesn't seem possible without using a modded version of MAME4ALL. You'll need to get your ROMs in order though, MAME4ALL uses the 0.37b5 set.
2600, 7800, Lynx, NES, SNES, GB, GBC, MS, Genesis, GG, TG16, Neo-Geo: All worked fine for me at their default settings on most games. I had a bit of setup to do with PiFBA (for Neo-Geo, CPS1 and CPS2 games) but completely do-able.
I was concerned about screen size with a CM3. I can barely read some of the text in some games on my Zero (SNES, Genesis)... PS1 would be unplayable for me in most cases due to text size. Additionally, I've not had great experiences emulating N64 on a Pi3. Sure, you can get a few games playable... But is it worth it?
The only real reasons I see to go with the CM3 is you'll be able to more effectively utilize the lr cores with the better hardware, and video snaps.