4 ms·
I got a pi 400 to replace a 2009 mac mini that was serving as the kids' computer but was struggling to play the online games they wanted (including scratch) bec
by Joeri 6y ago
I got a pi 400 to replace a 2009 mac mini that was serving as the kids' computer but was struggling to play the online games they wanted (including scratch) because of missing webgl support in recent chrome updates.
Performance is roughly on par with the core 2 duo in the mini, but the graphics is more powerful and fully supported by webgl, so in practice it struggles less with the scratch environment and online games than the mini did. I would however not consider it snappy, it is quite sluggish to use chromium on it. I got both netflix and disney plus to work with minimal effort but disney plus is very slow to load, it takes almost a minute to fully pop up. It does play fine when streaming video.
The kids so far are quite happy and have been using it a lot more than they used the mac mini. It does everything they want (online educational games, some digital homework, and scratch), and they're not bothered by the sluggish loading of some sites. I think they also like the way it looks, it is a very fun looking little computer.
- webmobdev 6y agoBut why are you using Chrome in the first place - it's a known memory and CPU hog! Doesn't Firefox or other Webkit based browsers support webGL fully?
- stonogo 6y agoI don't understand what "memory and CPU hog" is supposed to mean here. Chrome runs faster than Firefox on every single ARM device I've ever used, and since the parent comment is explicitly about running a web app I would guess that nobody really cares if it takes slightly more resources to deliver good performance.
- webmobdev 6y agoBut the point is that the user isn't getting the expected performance and mentions Chrome specifically. So in this case using more resources on a constrained system is the main issue.
- m-p-3 6y agoFF uses more memory on my system than Chrome now..
- heavyset_go 6y agoYou can use cgroups to limit memory available to Firefox, and systemd-run gives you an easy path to do this.
- chias 6y agoHow did you get Netflix to work with minimal effort? The 400 is still an ARM chipset, right? I know the "rip-arm-widevine-out-of-chrome-os" trick will work, though afaik the only automated way to accomplish this is via Kodi + the Kodi app at https://github.com/CastagnaIT/plugin.video.netflix https://github.com/CastagnaIT/plugin.video.netflix But I'd hardly consider that "minimal effort" in the general case. Did you find a better way? Edit: also, Chrome itself. How did you manage that?
- Joeri 6y agoIt’s chromium, not chrome, sorry for the confusion. I followed these instructions: https://blog.vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/raspberry-pi-netflix-one-line-easy-install-along-with-hulu-amazon-prime-disney-plus-hbo-spotify-pandora-and-many-others/ https://blog.vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/raspberry-pi-netflix-one...
- chias 6y agoCool, thank you!
- dom96 6y agoI did some quick testing of IO games on mine and was quite disappointed, when even Slither.io cannot be played smoothly in a browser (a relatively simple 2D game) then the experience is quite underwhelming for a machine that has had this many iterations.
- kzrdude 6y agoAnything web browser based is a disappointment on the rpi, and that's just it I think. Native apps work fine, emulated old games work fine etc.