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Raspberry Pi Gaming thread - Cheap emulation and gaming projects

G

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
Are the turbo and clear buttons on the ibuffalo SNES controller programmable? The setup I have is in a good place, except there's no way to manage save states on the controller...
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
GDJustin said:
Are the turbo and clear buttons on the ibuffalo SNES controller programmable? The setup I have is in a good place, except there's no way to manage save states on the controller...
Click to expand...

Give the Register RetroArch Controller wizard a shot and see if those Turbo and clear buttons register. If they do the yes, if they dont then no.
 
M

MUnited83

For you.
StrangeTaco said:
If you're looking to do PS1 emulation I wouldn't suggest using a RetroPie.

Edit: The RetroPie isn't a handheld anyways
Click to expand...

hmm? If I understood the OP correctly this is a compilation of emulators. Ergo, it's software. Of course it isn't a handheld, that's hardware. But you could build a Raspberry Pi 2 handheld and put RetroPie on it...
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
BernardoOne said:
hmm? If I understood the OP correctly this is a compilation of emulators. Ergo, it's software. Of course it isn't a handheld, that's hardware. But you could build a Raspberry Pi 2 handheld and put RetroPie on it...
Click to expand...

You have understood correctly.

You can make a handheld out of the Raspberry Pi, a crude tablet for ScummVM Point and Click Adventure stuff or a portable PS1. I dont have the knowledge on how to do it but you can. I think you need a screen that plugs into the GPIO socket and a 3D printer to make your enclosure.

Look up the PiBoy for a Raspberry Pi Gameboy.
 
M

MRORANGE

Member
Picked up my 2nd Raspberry Pi, this new one was for my TV, first time installing RetroARCH on RP2 and wow...

MQdjX9v.jpg


What an upgrade compared to 1. I honestly might get a another one to replace my RP1 that I mess around with.
 
D

Daigoro

Member
damn this is pretty cool. glad i finally clicked on this thread. a co-worker was just telling me about Raspberry Pi tonight and i remembered some thread on gaf, then i see this.

how's mame running on it?

i think i need one of these... subscribing to thread, and off to watch a bunch of youtube vids on this thing.
 
Fredrik

Fredrik

Member
Daigoro said:
how's mame running on it?
Click to expand...
It's a beauty with the right games, it'll make you cringe when going back to your PS4 after seeing 60fps v-synced in just about every game :) Mame4All doesn't run all games though but PiFBA fills in some blanks, you can use google to see which work and which doesn't.
 
D

deadlast

Member
from reading, it looks like retropie supports that PS3 controller. Is that correct? I have two fight sticks that are PS4/PS3 and I would like to use them for a retro/ps4 cade setup
 
B

Big Dog

Member
I bought a Pi 2 the other day and installed all the Retro Pie stuff and some games. It's pretty fun that I got Super Mario World working perfectly so far. I have also played some Super Mario 64, but my only real issue is the sound cuts in and out as it pleases on my television. Ocarine of Time didn't go so well when I ran it though...

edit: So I searched around and found out how to edit the config.txt file and am now making sure to force my audio through the hdmi port on my board. In the process I learned that my usb power adapter (the white apple one from my iPhone 5) is limited at 1A. From what I am reading it is best to have a power adapter closer to 2 Amps? I am curious if maybe the board is not getting enough power or something but I only ever have it plugged into the television and my keyboard and controller.
 
L

Lynn616

Member
Big Dog said:
I bought a Pi 2 the other day and installed all the Retro Pie stuff and some games. It's pretty fun that I got Super Mario World working perfectly so far. I have also played some Super Mario 64, but my only real issue is the sound cuts in and out as it pleases on my television. Ocarine of Time didn't go so well when I ran it though...

edit: So I searched around and found out how to edit the config.txt file and am now making sure to force my audio through the hdmi port on my board. In the process I learned that my usb power adapter (the white apple one from my iPhone 5) is limited at 1A. From what I am reading it is best to have a power adapter closer to 2 Amps? I am curious if maybe the board is not getting enough power or something but I only ever have it plugged into the television and my keyboard and controller.
Click to expand...

You might find this helpful. Talks about the power requirements.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/faqs/#powerReqs
 
E

eznark

Banned
Just started working on this. SNES and Atari games working great! Struggling to get the GBA games up and running, getting a bios error. Do you need to do something in addition to flashing the microsd for that particular emulator?
 
B

Blergmeister

Member
eznark said:
Just started working on this. SNES and Atari games working great! Struggling to get the GBA games up and running, getting a bios error. Do you need to do something in addition to flashing the microsd for that particular emulator?
Click to expand...

You need to copy a GBA BIOS file to the retropie. It should be named gba_bios.bin. The instructions said it should work in the /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS folder but this didn't work for me. It did in the /opt/retropie/emulators/gpsp folder and now I can run GBA games fine. However I can't play them fine due to controller issues.

I'm using an xbox 360 wired controller. From what I can tell when I load GBA it uses the gpSP emulator, which gets its controls from not the standard Retroarch controls that most everything else uses. I can hit F10 from within a GBA game and configure my controls from there but for some reason it won't recognize my DPad directions. I don't want to use a joystick because it's wayyyy too touchy, on top of my preference for the DPad anyways. Anyone know what's up?

I'd like to try one of the other GBA emulators that do use the Retroarch standard controls but I don't know how to switch? Some Youtube video said to hold X on the keyboard after starting a GBA game and from this menu you can change emulators. I must have downloaded an old version of Retropie because this option isn't available to me... so if anyone has any ideas?

The other thing I'm working through is Playstation games. I've ripped all my PSX games to my PC and copied them over to Retropie but I don't know how to name multi-disk games so that it works nice. Using Final Fantasy 7 as an example, I ripped all the disks naming them FF7 (disk 1), etc. I now have .BIN and .CUE files named accordingly. In Retropie I just see 3 copies of FF7, no disk names. I load up a random one, start a new game to test it out, and it says insert disk one. So...???
 
Fredrik

Fredrik

Member
Lettuce said:
This is just shameful....

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...l-in-one-retro-game-console-raspberry-p/posts

so you basically paying approx £45-50 for a case, psu, cheap usb pad and 8GB SD card!!
Click to expand...
Hmm it's just a default RetroPie setup with a custom splash screen from what I can see, why does he need all that money to "produce" that? What's next, a stretch goal to add a wireless 360 pad? (As in change id to wid in the standard rc.local xboxdrv line posted all over the net. Save. Reboot. Done. 1 minute work) :/
 
L

Lettuce

Member
I just feel sorry for the idiots who have backed it, that said i guess anyone who has backed it wouldn't have the know how how to setup something like RetroPie and Emulation Station anyways so i guess their non the wiser......still a piss take though
 
C

Chairhome

Member
What's a good place to buy the Raspberry Pi 2 model B? Probably just going to pick it up from Amazon for $45 with prime shipping if there's not a cheaper/better place.
 
H

HBP

Member
So how to I install additional emulators? I used the image file linked in the OP but I only have like 4 of them.
 
Fredrik

Fredrik

Member
HBP said:
So how to I install additional emulators? I used the image file linked in the OP but I only have like 4 of them.
Click to expand...
Copy a game ROM file into the specific folder for the emulator you want to use and reboot EmulationStation and the emulator and game will show up in the menu.

Likewise, delete the games in the specific folder for the emulator you don't want and reboot EmulationStation and the emulator and games will be gone from the menu.

So if you only want SNES games in your menu for example you can just delete the games in the other folders or move the files somewhere else. Not the smoothest way to get the menu you want but not the worse way either.
 
H

HBP

Member
Fredrik said:
Copy a game ROM file into the specific folder for the emulator you want to use and reboot EmulationStation and the emulator and game will show up in the menu.

Likewise, delete the games in the specific folder for the emulator you don't want and reboot EmulationStation and the emulator and games will be gone from the menu.

So if you only want SNES games in your menu for example you can just delete the games in the other folders or move the files somewhere else. Not the smoothest way to get the menu you want but not the worse way either.
Click to expand...


Ah ok that makes sense. Sorry I just got this yesterday and didn't have much time to mess with it, thanks for the help!
 
eso76

eso76

Member
Probably should have bought one of these instead of the Pipo X7 which

A) has no heatsink whatsoever, which translates to CPU throttling like crazy after a few minutes of emulation (I've seen the frequency drop to 0,05 GHz, rendering the thing completely useless)
B) Isn't fast enough for anything beyond standard scanline filters on anything beyond 1985 anyway.
C) tends to cut audio output to HDMI when I turn off the TV, making it mostly useless as a Kodi / Spotify music player.

The trustworthy Raspberry 1 was great, if a little laggy, as a music and video player and more reliable and I'm sure the Raspberry 2 is at least as good as light emulation station, without the throttling issues. Will get
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
Might turn this into a general Raspberry Pi gaming thread since we have Recalbox and Lakka gaining some traction. Will edit my 2nd post and get a title change when I get home.
 
H

HBP

Member
I plan to get mine all setup the rest of the way by the weekend. I went to Microcenter and got a Pi 2, case, USB Wifi and already had keyboard/mouse, 16GB SD Card, power/HDMI.


If all goes well I think I will get a BT adapter to use my PS3 controller wireless, seems to be working at least in the menu's through USB.
 
M

MRORANGE

Member
Nice work on the OP Gez, keep it up.

HBP said:
I plan to get mine all setup the rest of the way by the weekend. I went to Microcenter and got a Pi 2, case, USB Wifi and already had keyboard/mouse, 16GB SD Card, power/HDMI.


If all goes well I think I will get a BT adapter to use my PS3 controller wireless, seems to be working at least in the menu's through USB.
Click to expand...

16gb might be a bit tight if you start dumping PS1 games, but your should be good to go, tell us how it goes.
 
S

Seagoon

Member
I've settled on Recalbox for my setup after dabbling with RetroPie for quite some time. Recalbox has worked really well with only a few bugs such as text input in the emulationstation frontend requiring a keyboard and limited support for WiFi dongles. The latter can be solved with an $8 adapter from a site such as DX so it isn't a huge problem. The text input is only really an issue if you have scraping issues or want to setup WiFi.

Recalbox has made additions to the emulationstation frontend which make joining a Wifi network easy (assuming your adapter is supported). Connecting a bluetooth controller (such as a PS3 controller) is simply a matter of connecting a micro usb cable for 10 seconds. It also has an automatic update function which is nice. None of the emulators require any configuration (bar disabling smoothing, which is a global option)

Retropie to me at least, lacks polish and relies on the user to spend a lot of time editing configuration files. Every release seems to reduce the reliance on editing these files but there are still fundamental issues such as not being able to reconnect PS3 Bluetooth controllers after they disconnect without rebooting (unless you add some lines to rc.local to allow for that). Every time you launch or exit a game, you see the Linux command line which can be jarring if you are after that console experience. The latest release has a RetroPie menu that allows the configuration of controllers, but these are just shortcuts to configuration scripts or tools which require a keyboard.

I don't hate RetroPie - it was one of the first (maybe even the first?) out of the gate and if your are new to Linux it can be a great way of learning the basics. As time becomes more of a commodity in my life, I'm more interested in playing the games rather than refining the system they run on, Recalbox has been a blessing in that regard. Lakka looks extremely promising as well, although it seems to have a long road ahead of it.

The beauty of the RPi community at the moment is that you have options. Retropie is definitely more hackable compared with Lakka or Recalbox, but it depends what you are after. If RetroPie is your preferred distro - check out TechTipsta - his videos are invaluable https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0j9NXPwJTa-_aPgyF1_eLg

The Recalbox wiki can be found here: https://github.com/digitalLumberjack/recalbox-os/wiki/Home-(EN)
 
W

wwm0nkey

Member
HowJust set up my recalbox.... How the hell do I access my Roms folder? I see it on the other partition through EaseUS but Windows doesn't want to open up that partition -_-

Also WiFi isn't working atm so I can't add Roms remotely.
 
S

Seagoon

Member
wwm0nkey said:
HowJust set up my recalbox.... How the hell do I access my Roms folder? I see it on the other partition through EaseUS but Windows doesn't want to open up that partition -_-

Also WiFi isn't working atm so I can't add Roms remotely.
Click to expand...

I'm using Ethernet to load my roms onto Recalbox, until I order a WiFi adapter that works at least. Recalbox AFAIK is supposed to use FAT32, so you should be able to load roms through Windows, I'm not sure why it isn't working in your situation though - maybe have a look at the official forums: http://blog.recalbox.com/forums/forum/english/troubleshooting/
 
M

MRORANGE

Member
wwm0nkey said:
Also WiFi isn't working atm so I can't add Roms remotely.
Click to expand...

Seagoon said:
I'm using Ethernet to load my roms onto Recalbox, until I order a WiFi adapter that works at least. Recalbox AFAIK is supposed to use FAT32, so you should be able to load roms through Windows, I'm not sure why it isn't working in your situation though - maybe have a look at the official forums: http://blog.recalbox.com/forums/forum/english/troubleshooting/
Click to expand...

Have you both tried in shell

Code: 
lsusb

to see if the wifi module is loaded?

you can then use

Code: 
wpa_cli

Code: 
scan

Code: 
scan_results


You can then just change the wpa_supplicant file if you can see the network listed with that adapter.
 
S

Seagoon

Member
MRORANGE said:
Have you both tried in shell

Code: 
lsusb

to see if the wifi module is loaded?

you can then use

Code: 
wpa_cli

Code: 
scan

Code: 
scan_results


You can then just change the wpa_supplicant file if you can see the network listed with that adapter.
Click to expand...

My adapter (a Realtek something or other) is detected, but I get errors regarding missing firmware when I try and connect to my SSID. I had a look on the forums and some other people had the same issue, but I couldn't find a working solution. It works in Raspbian so I know it works in Linux - I figured the issue was more to do with Recalbox.
 
W

wwm0nkey

Member
Seagoon said:
I'm using Ethernet to load my roms onto Recalbox, until I order a WiFi adapter that works at least. Recalbox AFAIK is supposed to use FAT32, so you should be able to load roms through Windows, I'm not sure why it isn't working in your situation though - maybe have a look at the official forums: http://blog.recalbox.com/forums/forum/english/troubleshooting/
Click to expand...

Basically when I put my MicroSD in my PC it says I only have 400+MB. But if I use EaseUS I can see the other partitions and the other partition has the roms folder on it.

EDIT: Also resorting to ethernet for now.
 
W

wwm0nkey

Member
Okay got everything set up now and I'm loving it.

Kind of annoyed at Windows for not letting me look at multiple partitions on the SD card but I can deal with network transfer for now, hope the newest update will fix my WiFi issues.
 
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