Compared with other systems, I looked at emulation on my Pi 1 with retropie. Here are my conclusions.

– overclocked to 950 MHz and still slower emulation than Ouya. Ouya runs SNES SuperFX perfect, costs $100 but has a case and comes with power adapter and hdmi cable and an off switch.

– overclocked and still slower than old Xbox Classic. Xbox requires a softmod to run emulators but costs about $30 used and boots emulators in just seconds and runs almost everything at full speed without sound stutters, including SNES Superfx, Amiga OCS and others.

– sound stutters without overclocking.

– the controller config is not consistent between frontend and all emulators (WIP?)

– I cannot use my usb keyboard with the Amiga emulator, a computer that had a keyboard in its days

– I have to use the command line and run alsamixer to increase sound volume all the way to the red. The red color suggests that this should not be done, but the sound is too silent otherwise.

– EmulationStation takes about 40 seconds to load when a lot of roms are present

– Every emulator seems to use a different and inconsistent key to exit back to EmulationStation

– EmulationStation does ask for non-descript buttons such as “a,” “b” instead of “b (bottom button)”, “x (top button).” Which one’s should I map where? I need a picture of a typical controller (SNES or PSX) to get an idea what I should press.

– Exiting emulator and going back to ES also takes a long time

– most of the OS is not Gamepad compatible. I find myself going back to the USB keyboard a lot. Luckily mine is wireless.

At this point I would say Retropie cannot compete with Ouya or softmodded Xbox, but it is on the path.