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Raspberry Pi and RetroPi for retro gaming [split topic]

Started by magval, February 27, 2018, 07:31:18 AM

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magval

Anyone got a Raspberry Pi with RetroPi installed? Takes a while to set up and doing so is both physically and technically fidgety but the rewards are ace. Get yourself a decent size memory card and you can load literally EVERY Mega Drive, Nes, SNES etc game on there, with PSOne games taking up about half a gig each. Get yourself a decent controller (I've got the Switch Pro controller mapped to mine) and you're in old-games heaven. Got snowed in last October and spent the day unlocking every character in Tekken 3. It's great playing Game Boy games on a big modern telly too, and the options allow for all kinds of HD presentation and filter tricks.

Highly recommended.

madhair60


Jobey

Quote from: magval on February 27, 2018, 07:31:18 AM
Anyone got a Raspberry Pi with RetroPi installed? Takes a while to set up and doing so is both physically and technically fidgety but the rewards are ace. Get yourself a decent size memory card and you can load literally EVERY Mega Drive, Nes, SNES etc game on there, with PSOne games taking up about half a gig each. Get yourself a decent controller (I've got the Switch Pro controller mapped to mine) and you're in old-games heaven. Got snowed in last October and spent the day unlocking every character in Tekken 3. It's great playing Game Boy games on a big modern telly too, and the options allow for all kinds of HD presentation and filter tricks.

Highly recommended.

Please elaborate.

magval

The Raspberry Pi is a motherboard (I think) that has a few USB ports, an SD card slot, a power input and an HDMI output. The latest version, I think, is a 3.1. These can be bought from Amazon for about £30. They're designed to get kids into coding so's they can write apps and become billionaires.

Once you've got the board itself, you'll need to buy a housing for it. There are hundreds if not thousands of options here. You could make your own if you fancied it. This will cover protect the board from the elements. The one I bought has a little fan and heatsinks (which prevent it from overheating). Many people turn their Pis into bartop arcades or mini replica retro consoles. Essentially, the outside of it can look however you want it to.

You'll need a wired USB keyboard to get set up. I just borrowed mine from work.

You'll also need either a bluetooth-capable wireless controller (Dualshock 3 and 4 are the most common options, but for my money nothing beats the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller) or a decent USB controller. There's a rake of these available now, but I'd recommend going with something a wee bit more expensive because setting this up takes a wee bit of effort and shit finicky controllers will make it seem like it's not worthwhile.

Then it's just a case of formatting an SD card with the RetroPi software, which is essentially a great many emulators with a user interface, all of which is customisable, putting that in the Raspberry Pi board, connecting to a TV and losing many many hours at a time to old games in perfect quality.

You'll have to download the game ROMs on your own but they're easy to find and nearly every console pre-32 bit has complete packs available which feature ROMs of all available EU, US and JPN games for that machine, as well as tons of hacks and remakes and oddities like copies of Mario built for Sega machines and stuff like that.

You can remap controllers, add CRT filters, create save states, order games whatever way you like. Tons a shit.

The most recent board can handle anything up to PSOne games. It can't run N64 titles without problems (so STILL no Goldeneye), but weirdly it can handle some Dreamcast titles (though I've never bothered with this). I've had a few weird problems with PSOne games (like the models vanish when you enter the water at the start of MGS) but for the most part it works as well as the original consoles. I'm not even that technically capable - the options for optimisation are very deep and I'm sure things could be made to run even better.

It's a truly incredible thing. You can buy them already set-up from various vendors online but it's cheaper to do yourself. All told, it cost me about £70 to get up and running. The Mini SNES was released them same week and had 21 games on it. Mine had a better controller and has thousands. I'm not sure why it hasn't caught on with more 'norms' (ie, not gaming diehards), but it ought to. I couldn't be doing without it.

magval

The main thing I forgot to mention about this, and why it made all the difference to me, is because you can have it in your living room plugged into a great big telly. I never liked the idea of running emulators on a PC so I never got into it, but this has all the convenience of a modern console. I think they can even be programmed to run apps, like Kodi for standard film and TV piracy and what have you, though I've no interest in that.

madhair60

Can it do PSP? If so I'm in, if not probably still in eh.

magval

You know, I've never checked. A quick look on Reddit seems to suggest it IS possible, with some limitations.

petercussing

Yeah, i dun got one and it's boss.

magval can you map different controllers for each emulator, cos otherwise i have to map my mame arcade stick from game to game which is annoying?

Uncle TechTip

Retropie is supposed to sort out the controls, you shouldn't need to map any as the retroarch software will pass through your controller's buttons to what the relevant emulator needs to see. I did have some difficulty with some of the console emulators but mame was fine.

It is a great thing if you can find a decent controller and have a good roll call of games you can bear to play for more than five minutes.

Space ghost


magval

You can also map any controller you like to your own specification and save it as an override for that console (like the default for the Gameboy controller has the two buttons in the opposite way to how I'd like them).it's like a profile that you can then just load whenever you need it. It's easy to do but I've not done it in ages. Quick Google should sort it out

biggytitbo

PSP is about the last one it can do though. Gamecube, PS2 onwards are out of the question arent they?

MojoJojo

It's definitely worth getting a raspberry pi 3 if you're planning anything vaguely modern - I'm not sure if the faster chip makes that much difference but the Pi3 RetroPi build is a lot more optimised.

Z

If someone told me in 2006 that 12 years later these systems will have only had made minor advances from the PSP (N64 and DS support are the only major ones?), I'd have been bitterly disappointed.

Why hasn't there been a raspberry pi 4? Or a price drop for 3? It's pretty old at this point, isn't it?

magval

I'd jump at something that was capable of running Goldeneye. I'd essentially be paying for that alone. Apparently they're aiming for a 3-year cycle before the 4 is released, so that's 2019 as it was released early 2016.

AsparagusTrevor

I made one of these for my sister-in-law's bloke. He's not at all technically minded so I tried to make sure it was as plug-and-play as possible.

It had pretty much all Spectrum, C64, NES, SNES, Master System, Mega Drive games plus a selection of PSone games. I built a case out of Lego with PSone-controller adapters built into it and included a mini-wireless keyboard for the C64 and Spectrum games.

Setting RetroPie up is quite a ballache, I went in expecting something akin to Kodi but it requires a lot more effort (and a computer) to get all the settings tweaked, all the metadata downloaded and everything working in a stable fashion. The interface for the emulators isn't user-friendly at all. However, after a lot of work the result was brilliant.

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 28, 2018, 09:36:13 AMPSP is about the last one it can do though. Gamecube, PS2 onwards are out of the question arent they?
I tried some N64 and Dreamcast games on the Pi2 but they weren't really stable enough. Granted I didn't play with many settings but I could see there probably wasn't much headway for improvements.

MojoJojo

Quote from: Z on February 28, 2018, 12:17:54 PM
If someone told me in 2006 that 12 years later these systems will have only had made minor advances from the PSP (N64 and DS support are the only major ones?), I'd have been bitterly disappointed.
I don't really understand what you are getting at - the raspberry pi was first released in 2012. And it may not be clear if you haven't tried it, but RetroPi works a lot better than any emulator system back in 2006 did - no faffing configuring things to work and slick presentation.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: MojoJojo on February 28, 2018, 12:35:14 PM
I don't really understand what you are getting at - the raspberry pi was first released in 2012. And it may not be clear if you haven't tried it, but RetroPi works a lot better than any emulator system back in 2006 did - no faffing configuring things to work and slick presentation.
Unless they've made a lot of changes since I used it there's so much faffing, so very much faffing.

There's complete disparity between EmulationStation and RetroArch's interfaces so you have to configure each separately and some things need fannying with a remote terminal. I came across very simple issues you wouldn't think about, e.g. by default the PS emulator had X and O swapped around, using a proper PS pad, and the emulator menus weren't navigable using the same pad.

MojoJojo

Hmmm, well my experience doing NES/SNES/Megadrive with a knockoff - SNES controller was straightforward. Or maybe I'm just awesome.

Space ghost

I cheated and paid twenty quid on ebay for a pre configured sd card that also contained 6000 roms. The gba and neogeo emulation is a real treat too when it comes to systemz.

madhair60

Honestly I think I'm alright with my Wii still. Pretty much everything 8 and 16 bit. All I need.

Z

Quote from: MojoJojo on February 28, 2018, 12:35:14 PM
I don't really understand what you are getting at - the raspberry pi was first released in 2012. And it may not be clear if you haven't tried it, but RetroPi works a lot better than any emulator system back in 2006 did - no faffing configuring things to work and slick presentation.
Better than OpenEmu? It's pretty straightforward.

My points (they weren't meant to be read as one, sorry) were that emulation has made surprisingly little progress in such a long patch of time and that the raspberry pi is pretty overdue a new model. The Pi 3 is nearly three years old.

biggytitbo

OpenEmu remains the easiest to use there is, but unfortunately it is and probably will remain mac only.


There are PS3/Xbox360 i think the complexity and power odf those systems make them prohibitive to effectively emulate even 10+ years on, although I hear the PS3 one is making some progress. Even PS2 emulator is still pretty patchy tbh.

Space ghost

Yeah I'd be over the moon with fully functional ps2 emulation especially on something like the pi, it's the grail.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: MojoJojo on February 28, 2018, 01:30:20 PM
Hmmm, well my experience doing NES/SNES/Megadrive with a knockoff - SNES controller was straightforward. Or maybe I'm just awesome.
I am rubbish actually, maybe that was the issue.

NES, SNES, Mega Drive weren't bad, PSone was the main issue for me. C64 wasn't hugely straightforward either, as it uses a different emulator (not RetroArch integrated), so that's another interface to fanny with.


On an emulator related side-note, I recently dumped my Wii for emulating on my laptop using Dolphin. It's amazing how good HD can make some of the games look, Super Mario Galaxy in 1080p is quite stunning - it's a shame they didn't allow for higher resolution Wii games on the Wii-U.

magval

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on February 28, 2018, 02:17:57 PM
I am rubbish actually, maybe that was the issue.

NES, SNES, Mega Drive weren't bad, PSone was the main issue for me. C64 wasn't hugely straightforward either, as it uses a different emulator (not RetroArch integrated), so that's another interface to fanny with.


On an emulator related side-note, I recently dumped my Wii for emulating on my laptop using Dolphin. It's amazing how good HD can make some of the games look, Super Mario Galaxy in 1080p is quite stunning - it's a shame they didn't allow for higher resolution Wii games on the Wii-U.

A big reason I couldn't get into Skyward Sword was because it looked so rubbish on an HD TV. I'd played Galaxy before I got one so never knew the difference. I'd love those games to get HD remasters.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: MojoJojo on February 28, 2018, 10:23:21 AM
It's definitely worth getting a raspberry pi 3 if you're planning anything vaguely modern - I'm not sure if the faster chip makes that much difference but the Pi3 RetroPi build is a lot more optimised.

It's probably worth it just for the inbuilt bluetooth (most controllers use that now) and wifi.

Famous Mortimer

I use my Pi 3 for Kodi, mostly, but keep looking at Retropie...then realising I barely play enough games to warrant the effort of doing it. If there's an already-pre-configured thing to download and whack on a card, though, I'd probably do that (I'd feel bad paying £20 for the privilege).

EDIT: There are, as there are also people berating them for not wanting to waste hours of their lives configuring things. Including one person who disparages another for disrespecting the "Retropie project"...y'know, the project to allow you to play pirated copies of old games.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on March 01, 2018, 01:31:32 PM
I use my Pi 3 for Kodi, mostly, but keep looking at Retropie...then realising I barely play enough games to warrant the effort of doing it. If there's an already-pre-configured thing to download and whack on a card, though, I'd probably do that (I'd feel bad paying £20 for the privilege).

EDIT: There are, as there are also people berating them for not wanting to waste hours of their lives configuring things. Including one person who disparages another for disrespecting the "Retropie project"...y'know, the project to allow you to play pirated copies of old games.

Are you using osmc or openelec? If it's osmc it's pretty straightforward to get retropie on there. There's a walkthrough installation.

https://github.com/mcobit/retrosmc

Famous Mortimer

A mate of mine brought his Raspberry Pi w/ Retropie installed to the pub the other night so we had all sorts of fighty-game contests. He had the 8bitdo SN30 Pro controller, which is basically a really lovely Super Nintendo shaped-controller, and although he said the setup of the controller was a little fiddly, he was pretty happy with setting it up.

I've just had a look through the Github site for it, and it looks like there are fewer problems than this thread talked about (last year) with the N64. PS1 is patchy still. But, a lot of the discussion on that site relates to the Pi 2, so maybe there'll be fewer problems with the 3. It looks like there's no stable build of Retropie yet for the 4.

I think I'm going to drop a few quid on one of those controllers and see about getting a Retropie setup. I've enjoyed having the hacked PSP, but...eh, I have no excuse. I just like shiny new toys.