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The Raspberry Pi and Retropie discussion thread


toptenmaterial

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It occurs to me that many of the questions that I've asked on this subforum pertain to the Raspberry Pi, so why not consolidate everything into one thread? I'd like to use this thread for us to answer questions relating to the Pi and Retropie software. I'd be happy to share some stuff that I've figured out.

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OK here's one that seems over my head for now:

 

I have all sorts of avi snap and screenshots for my GameEx setup. How do I make the Raspberry Pi scrape my existing files rather than download them all from the internet again?

 

I hate the intro videos that TheGamesDB uses. Kudos to the people that went through the trouble to try and make videos for all the games but it's painfully obvious that most of the avi snaps are from people that don't know how to play the game. It can be very annoying to look at. I downloaded gameplay videos from other sources in most cases and cut out 30-45 second pieces for my setup. It took forever but I like what I have vs what I have found on the internet.

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Why not add your content to thegamesdb and improve it.

 

Most of the video files I use aren't mine. I clipped them from various sources - mostly YouTube videos.

 

As an aside:

 

I am trying to get Intellivision running with a Vision-Daptor. I followed these steps as recommended by the vision-daptor page and it screwed everything up.

 

 

Thank God for backups. :)

 

Any ideas? Google is not my friend on this one. Have looked for a few hours now. Cannot play Tarmin without a proper INTV controller. :P

Edited by ClassicGMR
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I'll assume you have your retropie running Intellivision roms okay and your vision-adaptor and Intellivision controller functions as a usb game controller with 15+ buttons. Note that the keyboard hackfile example below assumes the intellivision controller is the first system game controller available, so unplug all other game controllers for testing.

 

Edit the following file to add support for a jzintv keyboard hackfile (ie. button mapping file)

/opt/retropie/configs/intellivision/emulators.cfg

 

Modify the command that launches jzintv so it adds support for a kbdhackfile like the following example.

jzintv="/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q -z3 -f1 -v1 --kbdhackfile=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/kbdhackfile.kbd %ROM%"

 

If you don't have a keyboard hackfile for the vision-dapter you can create one with a text editor that has something like the following.

MAP 0
; first system controller defaults to left emulated controller
JS0_BTN_00 PD0L_A_T
JS0_BTN_01 PD0L_A_L
JS0_BTN_02 PD0L_A_R
JS0_BTN_08 PD0L_KP1
JS0_BTN_09 PD0L_KP2
JS0_BTN_10 PD0L_KP3
JS0_BTN_11 PD0L_KP4
JS0_BTN_12 PD0L_KP5
JS0_BTN_13 PD0L_KP6
JS0_BTN_14 PD0L_KP7
JS0_BTN_15 PD0L_KP8
JS0_BTN_16 PD0L_KP9
JS0_BTN_17 PD0L_KPC
JS0_BTN_18 PD0L_KP0
JS0_BTN_19 PD0L_KPE

JS0_BTN_03 PAUSE
JS0_BTN_04 RESET
JS0_BTN_05 QUIT

 

; second system controller defaults to right emulated controller

JS1_BTN_00 PD0R_A_T

...

 

 

edit:

The official instructions found at the following link aren't bad but you can skip the first part. https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Mapping-a-Controller-for-Intellivision

Edited by mr_me
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I will give this a go over the next few days thank you mr_me! This is honestly the last thing I want to get done with the system itself.

 

While playing with the Pi system I added the transition files as shown HERE. It really classes up Emulation Station!

 

I added background music capability HERE so I could use the arcade ambiance file that I also use in GameEx. It sounds fabulous - like I'm standing on the arcade floor at Funspot! :)

 

I have to admit that ETA PRIME's videos have helped me out imensely with things I wanted to try.

Edited by ClassicGMR
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Is it bothering anyone else that I misspelled "immensely"? It is bugging the CRAP out of me that I can't go back and fix it. :-o

 

ANYWHO... RetroPie 4.3 seems to have made it incredibly easy to use a PS3 controller. All the tutorials show edits and plug and unplug methods but the whole thing is easily done now from the driver. Once I noticed I COULD NOT connect it with the tutorial I looked at what was on the screen and it was obvious. It really was almost idiot proof (and I'm the idiot). Only had to add one line of code to the lr.local file to make it persistent through reboots.

 

Now to find a non-outdated tutorial on how to get better resolution out of systems like the GBA. Those need to NOT be full screen. Too blocky and the text looks "runny". :P

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I have been playing some games on my RetroPie the last couple of nights. It strikes me that the emulation is great for some systems, yet sorely lacking for others. For example, last night I was playing some Sega 32X, and the emulation is very good. On the other hand I was also playing some Vectrex, and it had some sound and graphical glitches. The real killer, though, is that the Vectrex emulator doesn't even attempt to try to fake the glow and delay of the Vectrex phosphor screen, which is emulated half-decently by ParaJVE.

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I have been playing some games on my RetroPie the last couple of nights. It strikes me that the emulation is great for some systems, yet sorely lacking for others. For example, last night I was playing some Sega 32X, and the emulation is very good. On the other hand I was also playing some Vectrex, and it had some sound and graphical glitches. The real killer, though, is that the Vectrex emulator doesn't even attempt to try to fake the glow and delay of the Vectrex phosphor screen, which is emulated half-decently by ParaJVE.

The issue I've been having is lag between emulators. For example, SNES doesn't seem to have perceptible lag, while NES is the worst. keepdreamin posted some vids about lag solutions in another emo thread but I haven't checked them out yet.

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The issue I've been having is lag between emulators. For example, SNES doesn't seem to have perceptible lag, while NES is the worst. keepdreamin posted some vids about lag solutions in another emo thread but I haven't checked them out yet.

 

 

well yea everything has not been optimized to the same degree, let alone for an arm cpu with about as much horsepower as a 20$ go-phone or a 19 year old PC

 

while my experience in retropi on the pi3 has been mostly acceptable dont ever bother yourself with the x86 install, on my slow spec target pc it takes about 4 hours to compile, fails to download like 3 pages worth of dependencies and locks as soon as it starts. Which ok, but you cant ask a question as you will be scolded for not using an image that doesnt exist for x86 and promptly told to go to the wiki page you started from, which is a huge bummer

Edited by Osgeld
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... in another emo thread ...

 

emo-hairstyles-for-guys.jpg

 

hehe sorry couldn't resist. :)

 

I haven't played enough games yet to notice slowdown or lag. Been mostly playing Advance Wars on GBA. I used it to test some settings the other night and - just like the first time I played - I can't put it down! :) What's the worst game you're run into so far?

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well yea everything has not been optimized to the same degree, let alone for an arm cpu with about as much horsepower as a 20$ go-phone or a 19 year old PC

 

while my experience in retropi on the pi3 has been mostly acceptable dont ever bother yourself with the x86 install, on my slow spec target pc it takes about 4 hours to compile, fails to download like 3 pages worth of dependencies and locks as soon as it starts. Which ok, but you cant ask a question as you will be scolded for not using an image that doesnt exist for x86 and promptly told to go to the wiki page you started from, which is a huge bummer

Why bother compiling. You can get all the components, EmulationStation and the emulators, already compiled for x86 or x64 Linux and Windows. You'll have more emulator options with Windows.
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Why bother compiling. You can get all the components, EmulationStation and the emulators, already compiled for x86 or x64 Linux and Windows. You'll have more emulator options with Windows.

 

One can recompile optimized to the exact processor and the exact hardware config (skipping unused drivers). One can also put more modules in the kernel. These changes can improve performance drastically. I only recommend this for those comfortable recompiling the kernel and researching the gcc and kernel build options.

 

I was an embedded controller developer / tester a few decades back.. when 60 Mhz processors, 4M memory were common. I spent most of my time optimizing the OS and applications to get the most out of the limited hardware.

Edited by thetick1
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Why bother compiling. You can get all the components, EmulationStation and the emulators, already compiled for x86 or x64 Linux and Windows. You'll have more emulator options with Windows.

 

I was trying to avoid having to deal with a handful of config files and fiddle farting around with getting it all to play nice, but that is what I ended up doing

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I re-imaged my RPi 3 a few weeks ago.

 

Does start + select no longer exit out of any emulator like it used to? It does nothing for me on a few consoles I tried. Closest I can do is hit some key combo to get the retroarch menu and exit out via there.

 

I always liked start+select to get me out of there. It worked about 80% of the time. Some games(not even emulators, but standalone games) require a dang keyboard to exit.

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I realize the majority here uses RetroPie, but there are a few alternatives if you want to check.

 

A brief warning: I haven't used either of these, so I can't really add any input.

 

https://www.recalbox.com/ - This one is supposed to be super easy and little effort, but you lose a lot of configuration capability that you have with RetroPie.

 

http://www.lakka.tv/ - This is basically an OS Build of RetroArch (IE what RetroPie is using behind EmulationStation). It would probably offer the largest variety you could want, but I have a feeling the support is slightly less than RetroPie and frontend would lose some zazz.

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lakka uses the now standard XMB interface of retroarch, its basicly a minimal linux with retroarch installed, and you got to set it all up with cores and yadda yadda (+ on a pi 3 its got really bad performance without tweaking it)

 

recall box uses all the same stuff as retropi so I dont see how you loose configurability, you just got to do it by hand (and there is no installer for x86)

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On a whim I plugged my Logitech K400 keyboard from my GameEx cabinet into my Pi and it worked right "out of the box" so to speak. What other keyboards would you recommend? I'm using a PS3 controller so a Bluetooth keyboard is not an option.

 

I can't keep this one it has to go back to its home soon. :)

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Has anyone had luck getting the game scraper to work? It is painfully slow, and quite often throws up the failure dialog. There's no auto-skip function.

 

I had to run mine several times.. overnight usually. I do recall there being a way to skip though! Are you sure there's not? One thing I noticed about it is for some obscure games it would pull up the (very) wrong info. :lol:

 

I'd check it out but I'm scared to update my Rpi3 / Retropi.. I spent a lot of time banging my head against the wall trying to get it working in the first place, and then I did get it working, and then spent weeks tweaking it exactly to the way I needed it to work and adding games. Well, now it's over a year later and I forgot how to do everything! :lol: So I don't know if it's worth bothering with.. Everything in it still works fine.. it's holed up in a barcade.. so maybe I'll leave it the way it is. Kind of like a house of cards I sealed up so I can't disturb it. :P Maybe if I get a new unit that would serve as a standalone emulation unit for tvs I'll get my confidence back.

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