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I'm thinking about getting a Raspberry Pie 2 and setting it up with a RetroPie SD card to make a little emulation box for my living room. Besides what I've read about on the project's site, I've got a couple practical questions: 1.) I assume most USB controllers will work just fine for it? For now I have a 360 controller that I use for my PC and would prefer to stay with that in the short term, but long-term I may grab a couple retro controllers in the SNES style (or N64 for some 64 emulation). 2.) When running an emulation box like that, is heating an issue if I take the standard case (or one of the ones linked to on Etsy in the last few pages)? Will I need to overclock to be able to get a smooth experience on any/all games? 3.) I kinda want to make it modular. I'd like to use it as an emulation box, but then in the future maybe also as a little HTPC to pull video files off my NAS / stream Netflix. Is that really as simple as switching out the SD card used? (one SD card with RetroPie, and one with whatever home-theater specific OS and apps) 4.) Would a RetroPie box provide other functions besides just straight up playing the game like a normal PC emulator would, like savestates and speed-up and whatever? 5.) Any compatibility issues with getting a Bluetooth keyboard or wireless controller for it? Or can I just plug in the USB-Bluetooth dongle and we're good to go? 6.) Do I have to be on the lookout for any specific types of SD cards in order to keep games smooth? I read somewhere about making sure that the card has good random read/write speeds, but I'm not sure if that's totally necessary for what I want to use it for. Will I be impacting performance any if I get a 16GB card as opposed to an 8GB one? 7.) So there's no built-in power switch on the thing. In that case I'd have to either make my own using some components off Amazon, or just plug it in when I want to use it and unplug it when I'm done? Does that have any risk?
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Apr 24, 2015 08:21
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Excellent, thanks for all the feedback. Between that and reading up some more today / watching guides and tests on Youtube, I'm sold. I just ordered my Pi 2 on Amazon for delivery tomorrow.
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Apr 24, 2015 13:12
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Got my Pi 2 today and set up the RetroPie image on the SD card. It froze on me once while trying to configure controls for the PSX emulator and I was forced to hard boot, which corrupted the SD card. Reformat and a lot of time later, I'm back up again. Probably the best way to save my effort is to make an image of the SD card as a backup I guess? Because right now I really really want to play some PSX stuff but I'm too afraid of corrupting poo poo again by running them and trying to set up the proper controls again.
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Apr 25, 2015 17:44
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How will a Pi 2 react to a bluetooth keyboard with a built-in touchpad (or even a nub, if those still exist), something like the Logitech K400? Besides driver stuff, would the Bluetooth be any sizeable drain on power over a corded keyboard?
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Apr 26, 2015 11:34
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Captain Hair posted:I used mine just fine, iirc I used it to configure my pi and get xbmc installed, then discovered my tv remote worked with the pi so I removed it. But I did use it for a good while and if I wanted to use the pi for Web surfing or anything keyboardy I'd say it's a good choice. n0tqu1tesane posted:I use that exact keyboard with my various Pis. Awesome, just ordered it based on that. Now to get KODI installed on it and I can have a sweet wireless home theater Pi that also lets me play DOS games 
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Apr 27, 2015 15:11
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So last year I set up my Pi 2 with the then-current version of Retropie and, after a lot of fuddling around over a long weekend, finally got it sorted out and configured for all of the games I wanted to play at the time (mainly some SNES/Genesis stuff, as well as Windjammers/Metal Slug/194x/KoF for Neo Geo). I haven't loaded any new roms onto it since then, and today decided to import a bunch of new stuff to it via FTP. Importing worked fine and all the games are working, but I'm having an issue scraping the metadata. The data itself scrapes just fine (cover art, etc.), however whenever I shut down / reboot the Pi, none of the changes to the metadata stick. The only titles that currently have working metadata are those that I saved months and months ago, nothing new is going through. Anyone have any ideas on what's up with that? I could just reformat the SD card and put the most-current version of Retropie on there, but I really don't want to spend a weekend loving around with keybinds and emulator settings again when the currently installed version is working perfectly, minus the somewhat annoying metadata issue.
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Jul 30, 2016 21:35
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doctorfrog posted:This was fixed. You can update RetroPie from RetroPie-Setup.sh (see the site wiki for details), and probably want to back up the card first. You might also be able to just backup ~/home for pi and accomplish the same thing without having a backup file the exact size of your card. Cheers for this, I figured it was a version-specific bug. I'm running through an update via RetroPie-Setup.sh first to see if it works, since my SD card reader on my PC is on the fritz. It's taking forfuckingever to update though (it's been nearly 2 hours now), but I assume the scrolling code on my screen means it's still running through and there's no cause for concern. Worst case scenario, it eventually errors out and I go buy an SD card reader or something to re-image it with the newest version.
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Jul 31, 2016 08:48
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Another Retropie question: I need to re-image my microSD card today with a freshly downloaded image. How can I go about saving all of my stored metadata first, so that I can then re-import it all after the new image has been written? I spent a few hours over the weekend scraping the correct box art/info and I'd like to avoid having to do that again if I can. If I just copy out my entire ~/RetroPie/roms/ folder to my PC, will that also carry the metadata with it? Or is the metadata stored separately in some other folder on the Pi?
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Aug 2, 2016 07:15
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Are you using the EmulationStation scraper or the sselph one (https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/scraper) available through the Retropie setup script/menu? Yeah, I just said gently caress it and did this. It's worked pretty much perfectly so far.
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Aug 5, 2016 08:59
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I just upgraded my RetroPie setup from a Pi 2 to a Pi 3, so now I have to find a use for the old 2. Choice is either: a second RetroPie for the bedroom, or setting the Pi 2 up as a content hub for accessing TV shows/movies/etc. that live on my Synology NAS. Issue is that between a Chromecast and the DSVideo app on my phone & tablet, I already have very little issue with playing the content from my NAS. The only problem I do have is that DSVideo doesn't support some codecs, which makes about half of my .mkv files unplayable. Is support for that better on any of the Raspberry Pi-focused home theater setups? Which one is the go-to these days?
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Nov 2, 2016 08:35
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Serenade posted:Do you notice any significant performance gains going from 2 to 3? I'm considering upgrading my retropi set up, but I'm comfortable where I am if it doesn't fix any of the issues I run in to. I've not had time to extensively test it yet, but I have noticed general improvements. PSX games were smooth before, but are generally smoother now. There's also an improvement in SNES games that use the Super FX chip (StarFox). And it boots up into EmulationStation much faster than before, which is a plus. I haven't played around with the Bluetooth or Wifi settings yet though, since  When I switched out the hardware and used the same microSD card, it forgot some of my controller settings -- I had to reconfigure my keyboard in EmulationStation, for instance, since it no longer recognized it. Took like three seconds to do it though. At some point I'm going to do a fresh RetroPie image to iron out any kinks anyway, probably whenever I bite the bullet on a 128GB microSD card. I'm on 32GB right now and kinda want the extra space, since PSX games are a huge hog.
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Nov 11, 2016 08:45
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SMB specifically seems to have latency issues when you have a smart TV. See if your TV has a Game Mode and activate it. The postprocessing built into a lot of modern TVs introduces a noticeable amount of input lag, which is why Game Mode exists (it disables most of the post-processing)
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Dec 5, 2016 07:25
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I recently replaced my living room RetroPie setup (a Pi 2) with a Pi 3b, now I'm trying to think of good uses for my old Pi 2. I'm thinking of sticking it on the bedroom TV with Kodi or whatever the hot multimedia platform is. The issue is that I have no LAN in the bedroom, and the Pi 2 doesn't have wifi. So two questions: -Is getting wifi set up on a Pi 2 with a tiny little USB wifi dongle relatively simple? -What image should I be looking at slapping on the Pi? I'd be pulling videos in .avi/.mkv/.mp4 and audio in .mp3 down from my NAS, and would also like to be able to easily pull Netflix/Amazon Prime/Twitch/Youtube/GiantBomb. Otherwise I'll just grab a Chromecast or something.
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Feb 6, 2017 08:19
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Still haven't done anything with my spare Pi2 after I upgraded by RetroPie box to a Pi3. Has anyone personally done one of those projects to build a standalone internet radio, using either the LED or touchscreen TFT kit? I'm thinking that might be a fun thing to do, especially if I can find an old, cool-looking vintage radio that still has speakers that sound good and just switch the transistor (or tube?) guts out for a Pi, and find a creative way to integrate a screen into it. Mainly thinking about something for the kitchen I guess.
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Mar 14, 2017 13:56
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Friend posted:it got stuck, so I unplugged it Ya done corrupted your SD card, you're outta luck. I switched to storing my ROMs and savedata on a tiny little 128GB USB drive instead of keeping them on the SD card, so my poo poo is always completely safe from SD card corruption. If the SD does get corrupted, I just reflash it with a fresh image, and all of my stuff is still there when I plug it back in.
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Mar 15, 2017 20:44
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Friend posted:So I'm definitely screwed? Yep. Just flash a fresh RetroPie image onto your microSD and move to using a setup like this and never look back: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive With the latest version of RetroPie it's super simple to set up (in the past it was kindof a pain) and there's no reason not to do it this way anymore. 128GB USB sticks can be both super tiny (I have teenytiny little Bluetooth-dongle-sized one from Samsung) and aren't terrible expensive at around 30 bucks.
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Mar 16, 2017 07:04
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apropos man posted:At least if you're in the US you don't have 20% VAT, right? Though to be fair, with the currency conversion rate between GBP and USD these days, that's not nearly as outlandish as it once was (like ten years ago when the ratio was around 2-to-1). Take out the VAT and the price is pretty much identical.
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Mar 20, 2017 08:37
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I've got an old nonfunctional MacBook Pro (summer 2009 model, 13"). Is taking the screen out of it and using it for a Pi project something that's feasible, or does Apple pretty much completely lock that poo poo down and make it impossible to reuse this display for any other purpose?
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Apr 8, 2017 11:46
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How's the performance on the Adafruit 5V cooling fan? I'm thinking about picking one up for my RetroPie setup... since it's getting to be summertime in my unairconditioned apartment, the thing is running hotter than usual.
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Jun 5, 2017 16:55
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fishmech posted:It's one of the biggest thing I'm hoping they'll change in the Pi 4: either eliminating the "almost everything goes through USB 2.0" restriction altogether, or at least changing that to run off USB 3.0 which gives a ton more leeway in what you can do for now. Everything going off the USB 3.0 bus would allow a true gigabit network port and rather decent disk access to occur without issues. is the Pi 4 even a thing that is happening? I thought the foundation had said publicly that there are no plans for a Pi 4 in the future, and that they'll be concentrating on the software side of things for awhile?
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Jul 4, 2017 07:22
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So this may be a shot in the dark, but maybe there's some intersect between Raspberry Pi goons and goons who also happen to know a thing or two about audio. For awhile now I've been wanting to use the spare RPi2 that I have lying around to build an internet radio box. My requirements are:
The last time I researched this, it seemed like that HiFiBerry Amp+ would come close to giving me what I wanted easily -- except the sound quality wouldn't be wonderful, and powering an LCD display from the same power supply would be tricky. Then I saw that HiFiBerry recently released the Amp2, which seems like it would make the job easier. Since the Amp2 has GPIO pins and more power than the Amp+, I should be able to hook the Adafruit display up to it with no issues, so long as I use a beefy enough power supply, right? Everything (including the Pi) gets powered directly through the Amp2. After that, I assume it's just a matter of finding some passive speakers. There are tons of tiny, cheapass speakers out there, but I want something with a little bit more quality. So I've been looking at finding cheap used speakers on eBay. Will there be an issue with the lack of magnetic shielding once I put everything in the same case (and if so, how can I ameliorate this?) Or if I repurpose an old commercial radio from a thrift shop, I should just be able to plug the speakers directly into the HiFiBerry Amp2, right? Drone fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Oct 23, 2017 |
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Oct 23, 2017 12:15
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Probably the wrong thread for this, but I didn't see a more general microcomputing thread anywhere. Is there a microcomputer in the same class as a Raspberry Pi that is built specifically with Windows architecture in mind? The background is that I kinda want to stick this WS4000 simulator onto a Pi-sized device and plug it into my TV for a my own private retro-authentic Weather Channel. Otherwise I'll have to wait until the developer releases v4, which apparently has compatibility with debian-based Linux, so I assume it would run OK in Raspbian.
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Nov 10, 2017 10:36
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me your dad posted:I've got a Pi 3 (Canakit) being delivered today. It will mainly be used for SNES games. Can I expect it to run the Mario games, Zelda and Secret of Mana pretty well? Our six year old will be the primary player and while she won't be picky, I want to make sure it won't be frustrating to play. Just go with the default RetroPie image. It'll run pretty much everything you ever wanted it to run out of the box, without necessarily needing to switch emulators. It'll run everything from the SNES/Genesis/TG16 generation perfectly (though I've heard Mario All Stars has some issues?), and 90% of the PS1 library will work fine for it too. Neo Geo and MAME stuff both work very well but can be a bit tricky to set up. The only platforms I've found that the system really has any trouble with (at least without significant tinkering) are N64 and Sega Saturn. Any home console newer than that is obviously also not gonna work, but handhelds of the PSP/DS generation are fine. One thing you'll need to keep in mind is if you have a smart TV, to put it in Game Mode (pretty much all of them have this setting). Otherwise you'll experience some significant input lag on stuff like Super Mario World. Game Mode disables postprocessing built into your TV and reduces input lag down to where it should be. Drone fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 16:07
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CascadeBeta posted:It ran Windjammers and Neo Turf Masters perfectly, but had some slowdown with some of the Metal Slug games due to weird overclocking hacks on the original neo geo (if I remember right). There was a bit of slowdown natively on Metal Slug games iirc. Could be wrong there though, it's been ages since I played them on original hardware. There's some of that in the SNES library as well, particularly with really frenetic games like SHMUPs. Stuff like UN Squadron had slowdown even when played on an actual console.
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Jan 9, 2018 17:19
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