Affordable Single Board Computers that can run Godot?

General
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I tried running Godot on an Orange Pi Zero 2W

A very tiny Arm SBC with 4 cores, Mali iGPU, 2GB RAM, and 4K 60Hz HDMI output. I built the engine without opengl to force it to run purely vulkan but it was crashing and since the board gave me the magic smoke I can’t test it anymore. Exported game builds on OpenGL did work but I didn’t test it beyond starting the game.

I’m looking to get a cheap single board computer that someone can verify runs Godot on Linux. I want to my game against test minimum specs on new hardware for science and as a distraction.

Since these boards have gotten ridiculously expensive for what they are, it’d be nice to find some assurance before dropping $50 on a mere 2GB of RAM (my 2GB OrangePi was originally $20). I’m looking at the Arduino Uno Q, Raspberry Pi 3B+, Radxa Zero, and MilkV Mars. Each have their own tradeoffs like having microUSB instead of type C, lacking HDMI/DP ports, a port that doesn’t support 4K, or simply being sold out and unattainable.

I think the Uno Q is currently the most promising since it shares a GPU in the same family as the Steam Frame’s, so Valve’s work for the Frame may benefit the Uno Q as well. If someone can vouch for it running Godot that’d be great.

Also I put this in General since it seems “Help” is 99.9% game development help rather than likely hardware discussion.

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the rpi 5 would probably work for that. I don’t think that the uno q would be great for that because it is mainly for hardware dev

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The Raspberry Pi 3B+ can hardly run 1080p video, I use it for my TV. Testing against Godot 3.6 with only OpenGL might do you better.

The Milk-V series is RISC-V, not ARM. while Godot can build for risc-v, it’s wildly under powered and experimental hardware.

The Uno Q seems to have very similar specs to the Raspberry Pi 3B, I’m sure they’re big kicker is the AL/ML integration/chipset stuff. Similarly I’d recommend sticking to the old 3.x branch and only running limited games. File I/O might be better on this board since it has some integrated storage.

Radxa zero I’ve never heard of, but sounds great for my TV! Seems to be pushed for TVs specifically? Their “Rock” series seems more in line with other Pi-like SBCs.

1 Like
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The raspberry pi 5 probably would work