I’ve been trying to run my games and other games on my Meowbit for a while now and have been coming across too many issues to dismiss. Whether it’s running out of memory, not having enough flash space to hold my games, or just bad performance in general, the Meowbit isn’t cutting it for hardware. Any suggestions? I’ve been looking at the Ovobot Xtron Pro, but the prices tend to make me look elsewhere. I just need something that looks sleek like the Xtron Pro but also has more memory and storage so I can hold just one game and have it run decently. My port of Pac-Man wouldn’t run on the Meowbit due to file size and it’s pretty small, so that’s definitely a concern. Any and all help would be appreciated!
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WOAH THAT IS A COOL DEVICE!!! That looks very very fun but yes the price is quite steep. I personally only own an Adafruit PyGamer (or two) and some Micro:bits. The Pygamer is currently running ~$45 on the Adafruit website and ~$65 on Amazon. I actually haven’t used in in a while so I’ll find it and try out a few games.
You can download a game with the device you want to put it on selected in the device menu and it will tell you if that game is too big to fit on the device, so if you have certain games in mind then you’ll want to try that out before buying the device and finding out that the game won’t fit. For example with my own very unoptimized Teeny Tiny Cat game, I can see that it would be too big to fit on my PyGamer without actually having it in my hands:
The PyGamer also appears to have even more storage than the Ovobot Xtron Pro!
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Well I have the “Retro Arcade for Education” as well as the “Xtron Pro”, and I would definitely say that neither are worth the price tag. The Xtron Pro is nice but the extra features like WiFi capabilities and some other things aren’t needed ever and in my experience I have lots of cool ideas that I just never touch even after the $120 fee. I understand that you won’t need that with this project, so DEFINITELY stay away from the Xtron. The Retro Arcade for Education is better for your wallet but it probably won’t do anything the MeowBit can’t do.
I hope this counts as “any advice”.
Good luck with everything else!
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If you already own a Raspberry Pi device, then one of Waveshare’s kits might be of interest. If you don’t already own a Raspberry Pi, then this is a less viable option given how expensive they have become lately.
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was looking at both of those consoles, lowk had no idea the Pygamer had more storage!
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The pygamer looks quite nice actually! I especially like the horizontal design rather than the Meowbit’s cramped vertical design. How big is it compared to the Meowbit? Would you say it’s more comfortable to hold?
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Thanks! Yeah I’m just looking for an option that has some more power than the Meowbit but is also versatile and sleek. I love the design of the Xtron Pro, but like you said it comes with so many more features than it really needs. I could see myself using the NES emulator maybe, but I just need a strong device to run games. If I can find it within reason to ever get the Xtron Pro without destroying my wallet, I definitely will.
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I don’t own a raspberry pi currently, but knowing what they can do does make it a viable option. I might look into this. Thank you for the suggestion!
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I didn’t know that either. I was kind of shocked that it did considering it also seemed like a simple microcontroller-esque console like the Meowbit.
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I have never held a Meowbit, but the PyGamer is quite comfortable, at least with the case. I personally bought the full starter kit:
But if you buy just the PyGamer Board you’ll probably want at least the button caps and of course a battery, probably the one recommended on the adafruit website which is this one: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4237
Unfortunately the PyGamer is currently out of stock on the Adafruit site and Amazon appears to have only one in stock for about $20 more than Adafruit is selling it for. I would wait for the starter kit to be in stock again on the adafruit website and buy that, as it’s pretty good value and comes with all the extra bits and bobs you could want like the speaker, button caps, and the same battery Adafruit recommends, not to mention the case. Even the starter kit on Adafruit is ~$5 less than the base unit on Amazon. Shipping options might be worse on adafruit but I didn’t look into that.
Purple is the best color for a case and I’m pretty sure the color options were light blue and dark blue when I got mine… 
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Anybody know of any hardware that uses the new RP2 chips, considering it looks like MakeCode Arcade is starting to have preliminary support for it 
(sorry I know this isn’t super related to your question but it seems like a good place to put it, considering the RP2350 looks really good for the price. Also, I have a PyGamer that I bought like 5+ years ago lol I don’t think I even try to target hardware anymore, but definitely not the MeowBit as I’m pretty sure its the least powerful one out of all the platforms supported)
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The GPM280 looks epic I must say. I love the Gameboy Micro design of it. That would definitely be a good option for Makecode Arcade stuff.
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I like the Pygamer a lot since it seems so simple, so this is definitely a viable option. I think I’m gonna end up choosing between the Pygamer and the Raspberry Pi GMP280 kit. Thank you all for the great suggestions! Hopefully this helps with testing purposes and running games
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GPi Case 2W with RetroPie. If you can get MkAirpos working then it’s very good. Plus it can run up to Nintendo DS for me.
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That looks incredible! I think I’m gonna choose between the Gpi 2, the GM280, or the pygamer.
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Good news! Thanks to saving up a good amount of money from work and my birthday, I might be able to constitute buying an Xtron Pro! I’m highly inclined to now, but I’m gonna do a bit more looking around first.