The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced a new Raspberry Pi 4 model with 8 GB of RAM:
Now, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has upped the ante by releasing a Raspberry Pi 4 B with a generous 8GB of RAM. Launching today for $75, the Raspberry Pi 4 B (8GB) is identical to other Raspberry Pi 4 B models in every way, except for its RAM capacity. So what do you do with all that memory, and is spending $20 more than the price of the $55 4GB model worth it?
The short answer is that, right now, the 8GB capacity makes the most sense for users with very specialized needs: running data-intensive server loads or using virtual machines. As our tests show, it's pretty difficult to use more than 4GB of RAM on Raspberry Pi, even if you're a heavy multitasker.
A beta version of a 64-bit Raspbian OS, which is being renamed to "Raspberry Pi OS", is available. The existing 32-bit Raspbian can use all the RAM, but with a limit of up to 3 GB per process.
Some changes have been made to the board:
The back of the board adds silkscreen for certifications, as well as existing modifications for Raspberry Pi 4 Rev 1.2 to avoid damaging the board when inserting a MicroSD card. But the top of the board has more modification around the USB-C port, USB Type-A ports, and a chip between the VLI PCIe to USB chip and AV jack is just gone. So it's possible further USB-C issues have been fixed, and some improvements have been made to USB host ports maybe with regards to powering up external hard drives.
[Update from Eben Upton about hardware changes:
These are the regulator changes I mention in the post. The disappeared chip near the USB connector is the old regulator. The new stuff near the USB-C is the new regulator. The input clamp component has moved across to the USB area to make room.
Several iterations of the Raspberry Pi 4's firmware have reduced power consumption and heat. A beta-level firmware update from earlier in the week added USB boot support.
Also at TechCrunch, The Verge, Notebookcheck, Ars Technica, and ZDNet.
Previously: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Launched
Raspberry Pi 4B CPU Overclocked to 2.147 GHz, GPU at 750 MHz
Raspberry Pi Foundation Begins Working on Vulkan Driver
2 GB Model of Raspberry Pi 4 Gets Permanent Price Cut to $35
Raspberry Pi to Power Ventilators as Demand for Boards Surges
Raspberry Pi Launches Camera With Interchangeable Lens System for $50
Related Stories
The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B has been launched, despite months of tricky misdirection implying that it wouldn't be on the market until 2020. The technical specifications include two micro HDMI ports, two USB3 ports, two USB2 ports, dual band Wi-fi, Bluetooth 5, Gigabit Ethernet, and either 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of RAM. Power consumption is noticeably higher than similar earlier models and the power can be supplied over USBC.
From the spec sheet:
- Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz
- 1GB ($35), 2GB ($45), or 4GB LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM ($55)
- 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz IEEE 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 5.0, BLE
- Gigabit Ethernet
- 2 USB 3.0 ports; 2 USB 2.0 ports.
- Raspberry Pi standard 40 pin GPIO header (fully backwards compatible with previous boards)
- 2 × micro-HDMI ports (up to 4kp60 supported)
- 2-lane MIPI DSI display port
- 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port
- 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port
- H.265 (4kp60 decode), H264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode)
- OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics
- Micro-SD card slot for loading operating system and data storage
- 5V DC via USB-C connector (minimum 3A*)
- 5V DC via GPIO header (minimum 3A*)
- Power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled (requires separate PoE HAT)
- Operating temperature: 0 – 50 degrees C ambient
takyon: Review at Tom's Hardware. Cons: "Key software doesn't work at launch, Poor high-res video playback". Cases for the previous Pi don't work due to the new micro-HDMI ports. Tom's measured nearly ten times better storage performance using one of the new USB 3.0 ports, and the gigabit Ethernet port can actually reach nearly 1 Gbps (943 Mbps vs. 237 Mbps for the previous model).
Also at The Verge and Ars Technica.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
Raspberry Pi 4 Can Now Overclock to 2.147 GHz. Here's How.
The Raspberry Pi 4 is much faster than every prior Raspberry Pi, but what if you could squeeze much more than the base 1.5 GHz out of its Broadcom BCM2711B0 CPU? Fortunately, it's easy to overclock any Raspberry Pi and you can do it just by tweaking a few lines of text in the /boot/config.txt file. Now, with the latest firmware, we were able to reach a speed of 2,147 MHz, which we believe is a new high.
With prior firmware, the Pi 4 B's processor was limited to a maximum overclocked frequency of 2 GHz, which is pretty good all by itself. However, the latest update let us push it up another 147 MHz. We were also able to increase the GPU clock speed to 750 MHz, a big boost over its 500 MHz stock speed and the 600 MHz we had overclocked it to previously.
Before 2 GHz, the max overclock was 1.75 GHz with the original, stable firmware.
Also at Electronics Weekly.
Previously: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Launched
Raspberry Pi 4 Has a Non-Compliant USB-C Charging Port
Too Hot to Handle? Raspberry Pi 4 Fans Left Wondering If Kit Should Come With a Heatsink
Vulkan is coming to Raspberry Pi: first triangle
Following on from our recent announcement that Raspberry Pi 4 is OpenGL ES 3.1 conformant, we have some more news to share on the graphics front. We have started work on a much requested feature: an open-source Vulkan driver!
Standards body Khronos describes Vulkan as "a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs". The Vulkan API has been designed to better accommodate modern GPUs and address common performance bottlenecks in OpenGL, providing graphics developers with new means to squeeze the best performance out of the hardware.
Be warned that the effort could take months or even years.
Also at Phoronix.
A birthday gift: 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 now only $35
In two days' time, it will be our eighth birthday (or our second, depending on your point of view). Many of you set your alarms and got up early on the morning of 29 February 2012, to order your Raspberry Pi from our newly minted licensee partners, RS Components and Premier Farnell. In the years since, we've sold over 30 million Raspberry Pi computers; we've seen our products used in an incredible range of applications all over the world (and occasionally off it); and we've found our own place in a community of makers, hobbyists, engineers and educators who are changing the world, one project, or one student, at a time.
[...] Which brings us to today's announcement. The fall in RAM prices over the last year has allowed us to cut the price of the 2GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4 to $35. Effective immediately, you will be able to buy a no-compromises desktop PC for the same price as Raspberry Pi 1 in 2012. [...] And of course, thanks to inflation, $35 in 2012 is equivalent to nearly $40 today. So effectively you're getting all these improvements, and a $5 price cut.
[...] In line with our commitment to long-term support, the 1GB product will remain available to industrial and commercial customers, at a list price of $35. As there is no price advantage over the 2GB product, we expect most users to opt for the larger-memory variant. [...] The 4GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4 will remain on sale, priced at $55.
In addition to falling RAM prices (which will hopefully continue to fall in the future), there is likely an oversupply of the 2 GB model as the 4 GB model proved to be the most popular.
Also at TechCrunch, Tom's Hardware, PCWorld, and Hackaday.
The USB Type-C resistor issue has been fixed by the latest revision of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B hardware, which is confirmed to be out in the wild. The issue prevented some USB-C power supplies from working with Pi4B:
Tom's Hardware is reporting that Raspberry Pi Foundation is increasing production of its $5 Raspberry Pi Zero to meet demand from ventilator manufacturers which are using the board in their designs. The higher end Raspberry Pi boards are also reasonable desktop units for many typical home office uses, so they are being distributed in place of laptops to many working at home for the NHS. The Raspberry Pi is a low wattage single-board computer with convenient input-output hardware suitable for embedded applications but running a full Debian-based GNU/Linux distro, Raspbian.
As the need for ventilators grows, manufacturers are looking for control boards to serve as the brains of their devices. Recently, Intel was reportedly asked to produce 20,000 Broadwell processors to meet demand from medical companies. Because of its production abilities, Raspberry Pi Foundation is able to provide those orders quickly.
"One of the main challenges with rapidly scaling manufacture of products like this is that you may be able to surge production of the air-handling elements, but you still need to provide the control element: often the components you need are on 20-week lead times and (hopefully) we'll be out of the other side of this pandemic by then," said Eben Upton, CEO and Founder of Raspberry Pi. "Raspberry Pi 'builds to stock' rather than 'building to order,' so we generally have products either on-hand or in the pipeline with short lead times."
Even though Raspberry Pi builds to stock, the organization has still experienced a shortage of Raspberry Pi Zero Units, due to demand from consumers as well as the foundation's desire to hold stock for ventilator manufacturers. Upton says that the organization produced 192,000 Zero-line (Pi Zero / Zero W) products in Q1 but plans to increase that number to 250,000 going forward.
The BBC is reporting that Raspberry Pi-based ventilators are currently being tested in several locations. No word yet on how the certification process is going.
Related:
Raspberry Pi will power ventilators for COVID-19 patients
Raspberry Pi's $5 model is powering ventilators to fight coronavirus
Previously:
(2020) Company Prioritizes $15k Ventilators Over Cheaper Model Specified in Contract
(2020) Professional Ventilator Design "Open Sourced" Today by Medtronic
(2019) Interview with Eben Upton on Studies, the Raspberry Pi and IoT
(2019) Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
(2019) Raspberry Pi Foundation Releases Compute Module 3+, the Last 40nm-Based RasPi
(2019) Raspberry Pi Foundation Announces RISC-V Foundation Membership
(2015) Raspberry Pi's Latest Computer Costs Just $5
Raspberry Pi launches camera with interchangeable lens system for $50:
Attention tinkerers: Raspberry Pi has released a new camera for its tiny single-board computers. The "Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera" is on sale now for $50, and it will be sold alongside the older Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2, which will still be the usual $25. This is a for-real camera system, so that $50 won't get you a ready-out-of-the-box Raspberry Pi camera, you'll also need to buy a lens for the—get this—interchangeable lens system that the high-quality camera supports.
Both cameras plug into the Raspberry Pi computer's camera serial interface using a ribbon cable, but the High Quality Camera looks like a massive upgrade, both in size and (hopefully) in image quality. While the $25 Camera Module V2 uses an ancient, low-end smartphone camera sensor with a microscopic lens, the High Quality Camera is a different class of product entirely. It's not a newer smartphone sensor, which is what I assumed when I first saw the news, but instead it's something that was originally intended for camcorders. It's a 12.3MP Sony IMX477 sensor with pretty huge 1.55 µm pixels and a 7.81 mm diagonal (1/2.3"-type). That's about double the sensor area of the Camera Module V2.
[...] The specs are in the same ballpark as a modern smartphone camera sensor, but the lenses for the High Quality Camera will blow your phone camera out of the water. There is an interchangeable lens system with support for off-the-shelf C- and CS-mount lenses and a back focus adjustment ring for swapping between lenses. This mount isn't as big as a DSLR lens—it's a smaller size that frequently gets used for 16mm CCTV video cameras. In addition to the native C-mount lenses out there, there are also plenty of adapters, and you can easily jump up to a real DSLR size like an EF Canon mount.
Would make for a nice camera rig on a telescope
Vulkan update: we're conformant!
In June we released the source code for our prototype driver, and last month we announced that the driver had been successfully merged to Mesa upstream.
Today we have some very exciting news to share: as of 24 November the V3DV Vulkan Mesa driver for Raspberry Pi 4 has demonstrated Vulkan 1.0 conformance.
Khronos describes the conformance process as a way to ensure that its standards are consistently implemented by multiple vendors, so as to create a reliable platform for application developers. For each standard, Khronos provides a large conformance test suite (CTS) that implementations must pass successfully to be declared conformant; in the case of Vulkan 1.0, the CTS contains over 100,000 tests.
Vulkan 1.0 conformance is a major milestone in bringing Vulkan to Raspberry Pi, but it isn't the end of the journey. Our team continues to work on all fronts to expand the Vulkan feature set, improve performance, and fix bugs. So stay tuned for future Vulkan updates!
Also at CNX Software.
See also: Raspberry Pi's V3DV Vulkan Driver Now Supports Wayland
Raspberry Pi V3DV Is Officially Vulkan Conformant, Lavapipe Also Nearing 1.0 Conformance
Previously: Raspberry Pi Foundation Begins Working on Vulkan Driver
Raspberry Pi 4 Gets 8 GB RAM Model, Also 64-bit OS and USB Boot (Both in Beta)
The Telegraph reports that Raspberry Pi Trading has offloaded stakes to Lansdowne Partners and the Ezrah Charitable Trust in a move that values the operation at around $500m. Most manufacturing is able to be done in the UK, and last year's sales amounted to 7.1m units for a profit of £11.4m.
Lansdowne Partners' presence in the list of investors is less surprising than Ezrah Charitable Trust. The latter was founded by former Goldman Sachs vice-president and Farallon Capital Management partner David Cohen in 2016 to focus "on the poorest of the poor, especially in Africa" – an indicator that it may be the work of the not-for-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation that was of interest.
The Register mentions that the foundation's 2020 financials show an income of over £95.8m, up nearly double from the £49.5m it reported in 2019.
Raspberry Pi Trading makes the hardware, the magazines, the peripherals, and so on. The Raspberry Pi Foundation runs the charitable programs.
Previously:
(2021) Two New Microcontroller Boards Released with Built In Displays
(2021) Raspberry Pi Begins Selling its RP2040 Microcontroller for $1
(2020) Raspberry Pi 4 Gets 8 GB RAM Model, Also 64-bit OS and USB Boot (Both in Beta)
and more.
Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit Exits Lengthy Beta
February 2, 2022 marks the day that 64-bit flavor of Raspberry Pi OS moves from a rather lengthy beta, into the world at large. The news, announced via a blog post by Gordon Holingworth, Chief Product Officer at Raspberry Pi Ltd sees the 64-bit OS move to being released. But this new release isn't set to replace the 32-bit version just yet.
Originally released as a beta back in May 2020, Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit looks and feels the same as the venerable 32-bit version but under the hood we get a little more horsepower for the newer models of Raspberry Pi.
[...] At this time, there is no 64-bit support for Widevine DRM. This means that we cannot play media from sites such as Disney+ and Netflix. The current workaround, detailed in the blog post, requires us to install the 32-bit Chromium browser.
[...] We asked Hollingworth if the 32-bit OS will be phased out as more 64-bit compatible models are released? "While we manufacture hardware with 32-bit processors then we will still continue with the 32-bit recommended image. (We still make original Pi model B's because we always said we would continue to do so while it was possible)," he said.
Previously: Raspberry Pi 4 Gets 8 GB RAM Model, Also 64-bit OS and USB Boot (Both in Beta)
Raspberry Pi Raises Price for First Time, Reintroduces 1 GB Model for $35
Quad-Core Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Launched at $15
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 29 2020, @12:22PM (9 children)
More interesting to me: there are new 32-bit Raspbian Busters released on 5-27. Anyone know if anything significant changed since the last release (in February 2020, I think)?
Of course I can make up applications that use more than 4GB in a heartbeat, but I'd much rather hear about more/better heat reduction in the 4GB model. Anything I do that would use even close to 4GB of RAM also tends to make the Pi hotter than it should be.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 29 2020, @02:31PM (3 children)
Nothing on these release notes [raspberrypi.org].
Power consumption and heat have steadily dropped over the course of several updates:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/thermal-testing-raspberry-pi-4/ [raspberrypi.org]
https://www.raspberrypi.org/app/uploads/2019/11/Raspberry-Pi-4-Power-Draw-6.png [raspberrypi.org]
Now it's almost, but not quite, back down to where 3B+ is. So I have it passively cooled (except I cheat by pointing a desk fan at it) and overclocked.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 29 2020, @05:51PM (2 children)
I've been running my 4s with the lid off their cases, mounted vertically for convection - and that's been enough, even before the updates.
I did buy one of those clear cases with a tiny fan - what a mistake, nasty horrible buzzy little thing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 29 2020, @06:15PM (1 child)
By passively cooled, I meant a FLIRC case [flirc.tv] that acts as a heatsink. Works great by default, but lowers temperature further with a ceiling or desk fan on.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 29 2020, @06:36PM
Very pretty.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 29 2020, @10:26PM (4 children)
Here, they wrote it up: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/latest-raspberry-pi-os-update-may-2020/ [raspberrypi.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday May 30 2020, @12:04AM (3 children)
The audio changes caused a LOT of problems very quickly. Maybe avoid updating for now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:29AM (2 children)
I've been having problems with the February release and getting Bluetooth audio to work with a car adapter, I'm hopeful that they kick it hard enough to correct that issue.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 01 2020, @12:06AM (1 child)
The ALSA changes they made disable analog output for me, and the "fixed" [raspberrypi.org] asoundrc file makes analog output work but disables HDMI output.
Then I got an unrelated crash related to video playback, which is "thankfully" widely reported: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=275489 [raspberrypi.org]
Maybe your Bluetooth audio situation has to do with ALSA, maybe not.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 01 2020, @01:44AM
I'm still hoping for the "just works" result to fall out - it does "just work" on Ubuntu desktop, but something about Raspbian February 2020 Buster (and earlier versions) allows my Bluetooth device to connect, but doesn't route my ALSA audio output to it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday May 29 2020, @01:34PM (7 children)
This is the $64,000 question here: 8GiB seems to be the minimum for a decent browsing session these days, but the Pi's CPU is still pretty anemic. What, exactly, would someone *do* with all that memory? I could see using this for a cheap personal desktop PC, but ironically, this model may be *less* well-suited to the tinkering/appliance crowd than the cheaper ones...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Friday May 29 2020, @02:27PM
Memory usage is higher than it appears, because the memory is used for caching. Which is exactly what you want to happen since LPDDR4 is much faster than a microSD or attached drive.
The browser can use as much memory as you allow it to. Some tabs (like a YouTube page) will use around 100 MB. Every Chromium tab gets its own process so you don't even have to update to a 64-bit OS (although Ubuntu and other 64-bit builds are available).
Last week I torrented about 2 GB of files and seeded them for a while, with no other applications open. Deluge kept the pieces in cache.
Other things that could benefit: compiling software, using large machine learning datasets (possibly with the new camera [soylentnews.org] they released), virtualization, running a server, NAS, or router, software-defined radio, video editing, image editing (GIMP). Or doing more of those things at the same time.
What doesn't need more memory? Emulating old games (RetroPie) or using it as a media player (LibreELEC). 2 GB is probably preferred over deprecated 1 GB.
Pricing is what I predicted it would be [soylentnews.org]. If you are using it constantly as a desktop computer, it's a worthwhile upgrade. If you are using multiple units for projects that definitely don't need the RAM, don't bother until an RPi5 comes out, perhaps in 2 years.
Because many laptops are now using soldered memory, it is rare to be able to find 8 GB that cheap. It has been segmented so that you may have to spend $200-$300 before you can even find 8 GB, and you can't upgrade yourself. Maybe RPi will help drive prices down or capacities up as it shifts millions of units with more RAM than devices four times as expensive. At the very least, it will have an effect on the SBC market.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by petecox on Friday May 29 2020, @02:59PM
Anaemic, perhaps, but they're not chasing the same high end that Snapdragon and Apple Ax occupy. We live in an era of 12GB phones and I couldn't conceive needing that much RAM for a 'toy OS'.
And yet rpi 4 is a tenth of the price and running 'proper' GNU/Linux capable of driving dual 4K displays.
For the tinkerers there's still the 2GB model...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @05:02PM (1 child)
You can run Java applications. Maybe.
<no-sarcasm>
Actually I was running Java and Jetty server on the original Pi with 512 MB and a far more anemic processor. For certain definitions of "run".
I have run small compiled Java JAR files that I wrote myself to control long strings of LED 8x8 matrix displays driven by MAX 7219 chips. That was lots of fun. Used multiple threads. The first MAX 7219 was driven from the SPI just slightly out of spec from the data sheet. That was strictly for personal amusement. I did this when Pi 3's were available. I just used my old ancient Pi because if I were to release the magic black smoke, I didn't want it to be on a new Pi. I was surprised how well it worked. No GUI was needed on the Pi. Eclipse could run an Ant script that SSH in, transfer the JAR, then execute the command to run it. So edit-compile-debug cycle was fast enough.
</no-sarcasm>
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @09:53PM
With 8GB, you might be able to compile clang/qt/gcc/boost etc on it using all threads. Compiling projects that aren't giant clusters already worked just fine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @10:22PM
How many pr0n tabs do you need opened at the same time anyway?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:15AM (1 child)
Well, I developed and still run an industrial automation controller on a pi.
Started on the pi 2b (512mb ram) and now on a 3b+.
Some idiot plugged a high current draw USB device into it (probably a phone for charging). Otherwise still be on a 2b.
Also the automation controller is written in house in java.
It runs for months at a time, only down time is power interruptions.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 01 2020, @03:52PM
Yep, me too. Java on a 512 MB Pi with anemic processor. Controlling GPIO pins in a complex way. Described elsewhere in this topic.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by petecox on Friday May 29 2020, @01:40PM (4 children)
for the things you'd normally do on an x86-64 machine that consume more than 4GB. Duh.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Friday May 29 2020, @03:00PM (3 children)
As far as I know, there's not an arm port for Far Cry yet.
Joking aside, is the new pi able to run the java version of Minecraft well enough that I could give it to the kids without them complaining about the performance?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 29 2020, @03:44PM (2 children)
Raspbian comes with a neutered version of Minecraft. Not sure about real versions.
It looks like it could work [youtube.com]. Probably better if you make sure with someone who plays it, and give the RPi4 the full overclock treatment with active cooling.
I just remembered that Nintendo Switch only has 4 GB of LPDDR4. lolwat
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @10:08PM (1 child)
There is also Minetest. https://www.minetest.net/ [minetest.net] http://www.ocsmag.com/2016/04/04/mining-for-education/ [ocsmag.com]
It works with Pi3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWli4-LIwQo [youtube.com] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHUZd_eH01Q [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @12:10AM
But the more mods and more block types you have the better cached and performant it will be. The VC4 GPU in it was pretty anemic. And I say that having run minetest on a genuine Radeon 9800 128M. That ran at around 15-30 fps if you kept the draw distance reined in, or 5-1fps if you didn't. But that should give you some idea of how well minetest scales on the hardware front. The server itself is pretty low requirements unless you add lots of big mods running behind the scenes logic, or need faster block generation (it only generates new blocks as someone moved within range, which is usually 4 blocks in any direction, makes the first run towards a mountain rather empty until you get close enough to generate it! Some of these defaults may have changed, and the game allowed generating much further out, although the block generation algorithm wasn't always the best (generating ones further away for you first rather than the closest.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aim on Friday May 29 2020, @03:17PM
I have an older planetary camera (ZWO ASI 120MC) around that's not supported in Win10 any more (unlike Win7), while my toolchain is all in Windows 10 now (as I couldn't get it all running on Linux). The cam came with a lens affording a 150° fisheye view of most of the sky.
I recently tested Thomas Jacquin's allsky project [github.com] with my original 256MB Pi B and the 512MB rev. 2 Pi B. Let's say, for the intended purpose, those original Pi are massively underpowered - building the timelapse videos almost takes more than the timespan they cover.
I've just yesterday ordered a 4GB Pi 4 B, which should handle building the timelapse videos in useful time - both thanks to the improved CPU as well as the available RAM. Networking via WLAN is built in, so no need to fiddle with an usb dongle. I also hope the generally better performance will reduce the "split frames" I got from the ASI 120MC, but that may be a ZWO SDK issue. I sort of doubt the 8GB could much improve on the 4GB model for this project.
Hopefully, I'll be able to deploy that allsky cam soon.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @05:04PM
Yeah, right.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 29 2020, @06:10PM
Confirmed as coming this year:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/8gb-raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-at-75/#comment-1530426 [raspberrypi.org]
Update of the RPi Zero seems likely eventually. Personally I think they should wait until as late as 2024-2025 before revisiting it:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/8gb-raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-at-75/#comment-1530396 [raspberrypi.org]
Eben also says "More Vulkan news coming real soon now." [raspberrypi.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]