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Raspberry Pi Gaming thread - Cheap emulation and gaming projects

R

Radiant Silvertuna

Neo Member
Any tips on getting more stability out of N64 emulation, beyond overclocking? My wife really wants to play Mario Party 3; it runs fine for the most part, but every once in a while it'll just crash. Where it crashes is inconsistent and seemingly unpredictable. We've gotten a few full games in, though.

KojiKnight said:
I don't think this is actually true... It's the theory that new ones have issues... but my DS4 that came with my PRO worked perfectly out of the box with my Pi Zero W. I think it really is just more luck of the draw.
Click to expand...

If true, I'm unlucky then. For kicks I updated my retropie install and tried both controllers again: no dice.

Oh well, connecting via usb isn't unbearable.
 
A

AHappyPanda

Member
oni-link said:
I can use my PCs keyboard, then I'll try and do the initial set it up with a USB connected DS3, then once that's done, I should be able to use the Pi's bluetooth to set up an 8Bitdo NES30 Pro Wireless Controller

That should work, right?
Click to expand...

Yup, as long as the keyboard is USB.

Pro tip: When you configure the input on the DS3, make sure to assign a hotkey to Select or something. Not sure what the defaults are on the DS3, but on the Wii U Pro con, the default button combos for resetting, save states, loading states, is some combination of down on the dpad + a button, VERY annoying when you don't realize it at first.

Also, if you happen to have a lot of BT devices around, the Pi may take a couple tries to detect the NES30, but just keep trying. Took me about 3 searches to find my Wii U Pro con last night.
 
O

oni-link

Member
AHappyPanda said:
Yup, as long as the keyboard is USB.

Pro tip: When you configure the input on the DS3, make sure to assign a hotkey to Select or something. Not sure what the defaults are on the DS3, but on the Wii U Pro con, the default button combos for resetting, save states, loading states, is some combination of down on the dpad + a button, VERY annoying when you don't realize it at first.

Also, if you happen to have a lot of BT devices around, the Pi may take a couple tries to detect the NES30, but just keep trying. Took me about 3 searches to find my Wii U Pro con last night.
Click to expand...

I have a Wii U Pro already but I use it with my Wii U so I don't want it to keep turning the Wii U on while I'm using it with the Pi

Can the NES30 be used wired? If so I might be able to use it wired before I can set it up wirelessly?

How does it charge?
 
Bloodember

Bloodember

Member
oni-link said:
I have a Wii U Pro already but I use it with my Wii U so I don't want it to keep turning the Wii U on while I'm using it with the Pi

Can the NES30 be used wired? If so I might be able to use it wired before I can set it up wirelessly?

How does it charge?
Click to expand...
Yes the nes30 can be used wired. It charges with the included usb cable so if you using it wired, it's charging also.
 
Harlock

Harlock

Member
oni-link said:
I have a Wii U Pro already but I use it with my Wii U so I don't want it to keep turning the Wii U on while I'm using it with the Pi

Can the NES30 be used wired? If so I might be able to use it wired before I can set it up wirelessly?

How does it charge?
Click to expand...

The DS3 you used wired? Because I had to uninstall the DS3 driver to my bluetooth find other devices, like the snes30. Some kind of conflict. If you pi bluetooth don't find any device, try that.

Also, very useful the browser menager:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgQDg6SzBDg
 
P

plainr_

Member
Radiant Silvertuna said:
For those of you using Dualshock 4's wirelessly, how long have you had your controllers? According to this, newer DS4 bluetooth doesn't work without extra trickery. We got our controllers in late 2016 and they do not run out of the box. And installing ds4drv proved to be a waste of time - our DS4's can connect now but the latency is unreal. We ended up buying a few really long usb cables.
Click to expand...

We bought a blue DS4 about a month ago that worked with Retropie out of the box. No fiddling with code or anything.
 
O

oni-link

Member
Bloodember said:
Yes the nes30 can be used wired. It charges with the included usb cable so if you using it wired, it's charging also.
Click to expand...

Ah nice, If I can use that wired I'll get that and if I need to connect that way for set up, I will

Then I can try and get the wireless to work after I'm up and running

Otherwise I was looking at a Buffalo SNES replica controller

How have you found the NES30?

Harlock said:
The DS3 you used wired? Because I had to uninstall the DS3 driver to my bluetooth find other devices, like the snes30. Some kind of conflict. If you pi bluetooth don't find any device, try that.

Also, very useful the browser menager:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgQDg6SzBDg
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, and I was only planning on using a DS3 with a USB connection as apparently it's easier to do the initial set up via a wired controller. If the set up can be done with a NES360 plugged in then I'll just try and set it up with that
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
show me your skeleton said:
fantastic.
i only want to run kodi as a local media server and have it as a retro gaming machine. is it possible to have the two operating systems (or applications?) on the pi and choose which one to boot/run as necessary?
Click to expand...

Emulation station and KODI are just two programs that sit on top of an OS. You can easily install KODI from the Retropie menu or download emulation station from the OS's repositories (going to the command line and doing a 'sudo apt-get'). The former is probably the easier option, but I'm not sure just how integrated KODI is to the UI as I haven't tried it myself.
 
O

oni-link

Member
Finally got my Pi and got it up and running!

However I realised I don't have a USB stick, so yeah...

The menus are nice at least
 
S

ScOULaris

Member
oni-link said:
To put games on it?

Is there a way to do so without using USB?

I'm really new to this, pretty amazed I got this far to be honest
Click to expand...

If your Pi is connected to your home network (over wi-fi or hardwired), you can simply go into your file explorer in Windows and type \\retropie into the address bar.

You should see a ROMs folder there. Drag your ROMs into the appropriate system folders and away you go.
 
O

oni-link

Member
ScOULaris said:
If your Pi is connected to your home network (over wi-fi or hardwired), you can simply go into your file explorer in Windows and type \\retropie into the address bar.

You should see a ROMs folder there. Drag your ROMs into the appropriate system folders and away you go.
Click to expand...

Thanks everyone, I got everything up and running

It's beautiful

20451987_1576778222353854_223268776983335189_o.jpg
Click to expand...

Just need to work the bluetooth out now and then figure out save states etc

Thanks everyone who offered me help and advice, it was actually a lot easier than I thought
 
L

LegitMcfalls

Member
As the dream of acquiring a NES classic dies and the potential for a Super NES preorder looking grim. I think this may be a fun project to take on. Is the OP all up to date or is there somewhere I can go with up to date instructions on how to build one?
 
M

M.J. Doja

Banned
LegitMcfalls said:
As the dream of acquiring a NES classic dies and the potential for a Super NES preorder looking grim. I think this may be a fun project to take on. Is the OP all up to date or is there somewhere I can go with up to date instructions on how to build one?
Click to expand...

Just gonna echo this post. I'm planning on making a couple of these for my older brothers as Xmas presents. Seems straightforward but I'm not very crafty so I'm not sure how I'll make it look nicer than the basic black box and whatever it boots into.
 
Z

zoodoo

Member
oni-link said:
Thanks everyone, I got everything up and running

It's beautiful



Just need to work the bluetooth out now and then figure out save states etc

Thanks everyone who offered me help and advice, it was actually a lot easier than I thought
Click to expand...

few tips:

For bluetooth get a wired controller ready to navigate the menu, no need for keyboard or mouse.

To setup default controls for any emulator go to emulator menu (select +X on snes30) then quick menu -> controls. After changing the controls dont forget to select remap for core to save it as default for all the games using that core.

On snes30 default button for save state is select+R and load select+L
 
A

AHappyPanda

Member
M.J. Doja said:
Just gonna echo this post. I'm planning on making a couple of these for my older brothers as Xmas presents. Seems straightforward but I'm not very crafty so I'm not sure how I'll make it look nicer than the basic black box and whatever it boots into.
Click to expand...

There's a number of different cases you can buy; Amazon has several.

You can also load different themes onto RetroPie.
 
Harlock

Harlock

Member
oni-link said:
Thanks!
Click to expand...

Or using that web manager I put the link.

One advice for people thinking in buy a 8bito controller, buy the pro version, with analog sticks. For arcade games, the analog sticks works way better. Playing After Burner arcade with d-pad is not good.
 
O

oni-link

Member
zoodoo said:
few tips:

For bluetooth get a wired controller ready to navigate the menu, no need for keyboard or mouse.

To setup default controls for any emulator go to emulator menu (select +X on snes30) then quick menu -> controls. After changing the controls dont forget to select remap for core to save it as default for all the games using that core.

On snes30 default button for save state is select+R and load select+L
Click to expand...

Thanks

Harlock said:
Or using that web manager I put the link.

One advice for people thinking in buy a 8bito controller, buy the pro version, with analog sticks. For arcade games, the analog sticks works way better. Playing After Burner arcade with d-pad is not good.
Click to expand...

I did get the pro, I posted a pic of it a few posts up
 
S

stangend77

Member
Picked up an Orange Pi One to try out making an even cheaper setup to give out as a gift, and it seems pretty solid with RetrOrangePi running on it.

Definitely a little rougher around the edges than running RetroPie on the Raspberry 3, but totally doable for a little side project for laughs!
 
O

oni-link

Member
Well getting the bluetooth to work only took about an hour, who knew you needed to restart?

My gf is playing Pokémon now so I'm hoping it just connects the next time to turn it off and back on again

Now are Neogeo games on the Pi3, do you need to do anything special to get them to work?

I mainly got this for NES/SNES/GBA titles, but what else can the Pi do without much extra fiddling around?
 
Bloodember

Bloodember

Member
oni-link said:
Well getting the bluetooth to work only took about an hour, who knew you needed to restart?

My gf is playing Pokémon now so I'm hoping it just connects the next time to turn it off and back on again

Now are Neogeo games on the Pi3, do you need to do anything special to get them to work?

I mainly got this for NES/SNES/GBA titles, but what else can the Pi do without much extra fiddling around?
Click to expand...
For neogeo I believe you need a neogeo bios, which you can find on the internet.
 
A

AHappyPanda

Member
oni-link said:
Well getting the bluetooth to work only took about an hour, who knew you needed to restart?

My gf is playing Pokémon now so I'm hoping it just connects the next time to turn it off and back on again

Now are Neogeo games on the Pi3, do you need to do anything special to get them to work?

I mainly got this for NES/SNES/GBA titles, but what else can the Pi do without much extra fiddling around?
Click to expand...

It will auto-connect, just turn the controller on after you turn the Pi on.
 
Z

zoodoo

Member
oni-link said:
Well getting the bluetooth to work only took about an hour, who knew you needed to restart?

My gf is playing Pokémon now so I'm hoping it just connects the next time to turn it off and back on again

Now are Neogeo games on the Pi3, do you need to do anything special to get them to work?

I mainly got this for NES/SNES/GBA titles, but what else can the Pi do without much extra fiddling around?
Click to expand...

Neogeo, psx, sega cd need bios. Just drop them in the bios folder and you are good to go. No more fiddling needed. They all run very well. I was actually surprised with psx running so well. N64 on the other is not worth it. The emulators are bad.

Dont forget fba for other arcade games like the capcom fighters. No bios needed.
 
Bloodember

Bloodember

Member
zoodoo said:
Neogeo, psx, sega cd need bios. Just drop them in the bios folder and you are good to go. No more fiddling needed. They all run very well. I was actually surprised with psx running so well. N64 on the other is not worth it. The emulators are bad.

Dont forget fba for other arcade games like the capcom fighters. No bios needed.
Click to expand...
I run n64 games just fine. What you having problems with.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
LegitMcfalls said:
Is there a prefered kit to buy for a RPi 3? Or is it better to purchase piece by piece?
Click to expand...

Personal taste. If you don't want to do the research, the kits aren't bad... but unless you have a specific task in mind you likely won't need anything to do with the GPIO for instance. Likewise you may not need an SD card, since they justify the poor memory size with pre-installed outdated OS files.
 
L

LegitMcfalls

Member
KojiKnight said:
Personal taste. If you don't want to do the research, the kits aren't bad... but unless you have a specific task in mind you likely won't need anything to do with the GPIO for instance. Likewise you may not need an SD card, since they justify the poor memory size with pre-installed outdated OS files.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the help! I think Ill grab a kit to build my Kodi/Retropie box.
 
O

oni-link

Member
zoodoo said:
Neogeo, psx, sega cd need bios. Just drop them in the bios folder and you are good to go. No more fiddling needed. They all run very well. I was actually surprised with psx running so well. N64 on the other is not worth it. The emulators are bad.

Dont forget fba for other arcade games like the capcom fighters. No bios needed.
Click to expand...

The bios files can just be found via google?

I read there is no elegant way of switching discs for PS1 games, and that puts me off a little

How do PSP games fair?

What does FBA stand for? I'm not always sure which files need to go where, there are a lot of folders called MAME and then another called Arcade
 
D

Dizzy-4U

Member
oni-link said:
I read there is no elegant way of switching discs for PS1 games, and that puts me off a little
Click to expand...
You can grab a multiple disc game and convert all the discs into a single PBP file. You can also assign hotkeys for swaping discs so you don't have to open the retroarch menu.

For example, the way I have it is when I reached the end of disc 1 and it's asking me to change discs, I press select + Up (this emulates opening the disc tray); select + left or right (this selects the next disc) and finally select + Up again to close the tray.

So it's select + up + right + up. It's very fast and you don't have to go into any retroarch menu.
 
G

grounded_dreams

Member
oni-link said:
The bios files can just be found via google?
Click to expand...

Have a look at this page , click on whatever platform you are interested in. Scroll down and it will explain what BIOS file name is needed - then you can 'google' that file name and download it. The above linked site explains where to place the BIOS file.

HTH
 
Z

zoodoo

Member
oni-link said:
What does FBA stand for? I'm not always sure which files need to go where, there are a lot of folders called MAME and then another called Arcade
Click to expand...

I personally only use the fba for arcade, so I use the fba folder only and ignore the other ones.
 
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