[PX80]

I am really loving the purity and easy to use implementation of IAGL.

My FireTV Gen2 Box plays well together with all native supported Emulators but Jaguar, Yabuse and 3DO.

Using RetroArch in combination with IAGL is great, and it even outperforms Reicast, so playing Dreamcast Games on FireTv Gen2 via IAGL+RetroArch is supeb.

My questions is, how much performance do i lose when using Kodi/IAGL + RetroArch vs. RetroArch. Does anyone have any comparision made?

Can i somehow display the FPS to compare both setups?

[zachmorris]

I am really loving the purity and easy to use implementation of IAGL.

My FireTV Gen2 Box plays well together with all native supported Emulators but Jaguar, Yabuse and 3DO.

Using RetroArch in combination with IAGL is great, and it even outperforms Reicast, so playing Dreamcast Games on FireTv Gen2 via IAGL+RetroArch is supeb.

My questions is, how much performance do i lose when using Kodi/IAGL + RetroArch vs. RetroArch. Does anyone have any comparision made?

Can i somehow display the FPS to compare both setups?

I'm guessing you meant Kodi Retroplayer vs. Retroarch? IAGL technically has nothing to do with either, since it's just a game launching addon. After the game is launched, regardless of which one you're using, IAGL is 'out of the loop'.

So, regarding the comparison: It depends on:
1) Your hardware
The beefier your hardware the less you will notice a difference. When comparing the two on an Android Box or RPi, you'll likely notice some performance hits since the those systems are RAM limited. Comparing the two on my MacBook, I can't perceive a difference between the two from playing NES all the way up to PS1 games. Both provide 60FPS:
vs

vs

2) The game addon / core you're comparing
Generally the later the system type the higher the hardware requirements. Reicast is a good example. Kodi can technically play Dreamcast games, but it really chugs. Retroarch Reicast can play them just fine. This might have to do with the core, but also likely has to do with the available video drivers available (vulkan or GL or DX etc)

3) What sort of bells and whistles you want to enable on top of the game you're playing
Retroarch standalone at this point has too many more bells and whistles to make this a fair comparison: Runahead, Overlays, Shaders, to name a few


Long story short, if you're a casual player, and you're just looking to play some games simply by 'pressing play', and you find value in a one stop shop for your video/audio/gaming htpc, then Retroplayer is a pretty good option. Once a library is in place and some of the bells and whistles are made available in Kodi (shaders and Runahead being the two big ones I would personally like to see), then it might start to make sense to use it exclusively. At this point, I mix and match depending on the system.

[PX80]

I was talking about all External Player (RetroArch) , so no core comparsion but having IAGL as jump-starter. So starting RetroArch from within Kodi. How much of resources will Kodi maintain while using RetroArch in parallel. Will Kodi free up temp. resource etc?

[zachmorris]

I was talking about all External Player (RetroArch) , so no core comparsion but having IAGL as jump-starter. So starting RetroArch from within Kodi. How much of resources will Kodi maintain while using RetroArch in parallel. Will Kodi free up temp. resource etc?

Unless your system is severely RAM limited, then it shouldn't matter at all. I'd say IAGL+Kodi is similar in impacting performance to how EmulationStation impacts performance (both are just launchers). In cases where that might make a difference, you can choose to close Kodi in the addon options. Kodi is potentially just sitting idle in the background.