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Is the new Raspberry Pi 4 fast enough for gaming?
And, if so, what sort of games can you play on it?
This article will answer these questions, and show you how to improve performance and measure CPU speed!
Raspberry Pi 4: Fast Enough For Gaming?
The new 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 may have made a few heads turn when it came out.
A cheap, small, microcomputer with desktop like capabilities and memory sizing.
Shutterstock/trickyaamir
But is it good enough for gaming?
Let’s start the last one (memory) first.
Raspberry Pi 4: Memory Speed
The main memory size will be fixed by your original purchase.
As with all computers, each computer has multiple levels of caching.
The fastest caches are even embedded in your CPU (Central Processing Unit) of your box.
They are called L1, L2, L3 etc.
caches, or in other words Level 1, Level 2 etc.
The higher the level number, the slower, but larger the cache.
After the CPU cache, the fastest ‘cache’ or ‘memory’ is your main memory.
Much larger then the Level x caches of your CPU, but also much slower.
After main memory, there is the disk.
This ramdisk will be volatile (i.e.
you switch your machine or Raspberry Pi off and all data will be gone!)
but it will be much faster then your attached disk or SD card.
As for actual memory speed - it is fairly fixed on Raspberry Pi’s.
SeeRaspberry Pi overclocking options in config.txtfor more information.
There is a large difference between a cheap $20 SD card (it will be slow!)
and a fast SD card, optimized for write speed, at $200.
Still more expensive are USB3 SSD enclosures with a SSD inside.
One recommendation here is to test some options and see what works best.
Furthermore, the Intel machine was under other light load while the test was running.
Let’s do another test, usingmd5sumover random input, and loop this 1000 times.
Note that this test is single-threaded.
The shorter the time, the better.
Again an impressive result for such a small physical rig!
you’re free to immediately see how playing at 120fps at 4K is simply not going to work.
So Is It Fast Enough?
As with many questions in IT: it depends.
