Raspberry Pi Gaming thread - Cheap emulation and gaming projects

Bought a screen for my Pi.
m7LkEj7.jpg
Click to expand...

Also, my experience with MAME on Wii was pretty poor. Flaky and slow. Much, much better on Pi
 
superjona said:
Got a Pi 3 and installed Retropie, but I'm having some issues pairing my DualShock 3 controllers wirelessly. Installed the extra DS3 driver and it worked one time, but hasn't worked since...

Any ideas or should I probably just start over again?
Click to expand...

It worked for me pretty easily, once I solved the problem of accidentally setting up a keyboard as a default controller.
 
Is lbr-mame2003 performance a lot better on the Pi3 compared to the Pi2? I'm running my Pi2 overclocked, and several games that I've tried so far run pretty poorly. NBA Hangtime, for example.
 
Rich! said:
Modded Wii:

- true 240p output via component and, if using a PAL system menu, RGB SCART.

- choices between Retroarch, individual emulators and the official VC

- Native Wii and GameCube support paired with USB hard drive capability for storage. Nintendont also allows native support for the Wii U Pro Controller and Dualshocks.

- Takes all of ten minutes to set up and then it's done. No more tinkering.

- N64 emulation is very, very good (official VC and ROM injection. not64 is good too)

- everything just works




I have set up numerous retro pie setups, and I'm confident in saying that the Wii is the better decision every time for most people. Hell, you can even buy them for half the price of the Pi2 nowadays. The only downside is a lack of grunt for PS1 games and heavier arcade titles.
Click to expand...
Rich! Thanks! I've been reading through your 8bitdo SNES thread too. What arcade games are considered heavier?
 
So I have a question for you purists. I am working on Commodore 64 for the RetroPie, and I'm running into a pretty surprising issue. I did not grow up playing Commodore 64 games, and I bought Wii Virtual Console Commodore 64 games before Nintendo took them down. The Wii Virtual Console versions of C64 games load quickly. Unfortunately, C64 games on RetroPie running VICE load very slow, sometime taking up to 5 minutes. Is what Nintendo did to make their games load so quick on Virtual Console not possible on RetroPie?

Also, running into a bit of trouble getting the games controlling right, but that's another issue.
 
C64 games famously loaded slowly back in the day.i haven't dug in to see if that's something that can be changed in the Pi.

Overall, the computer emulations are a lot fussier than the consoles.
 
I have Retropie installed on a Raspberry Pi 2+ and I am experiencing input lag to the points that it bothers me A LOT. Especially on SNES games.

I played NES Tetris and I feel it at faster levels (10+) and a lot on Super Mario World, a game I'm very familiar with. In SMW you can press and let go of the jump button before Mario jumps.

Can I tweak the emulators have less input lag or are there specific emulators with less input lag?

Yes, I have set my TV to "game mode".
 
sp3ctr3 said:
I have Retropie installed on a Raspberry Pi 2+ and I am experiencing input lag to the points that it bothers me A LOT. Especially on SNES games.

I played NES Tetris and I feel it at faster levels (10+) and a lot on Super Mario World, a game I'm very familiar with. In SMW you can press and let go of the jump button before Mario jumps.

Can I tweak the emulators have less input lag or are there specific emulators with less input lag?

Yes, I have set my TV to "game mode".
Click to expand...

Here's what solved input lag for me whilst not sacrificing performance to a noticeable degree across NES/SNES/Genesis/FBA/Neo-Geo... etc.

  • Overclock your Pi 2+ in Retropie Menu > Raspi-Config > Overclock (the 1000Mhz setting)
  • Edit opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg and change the frame_delay setting to 10
  • Update both lbr-snes9x-next and lbr-fceumm to the latest binaries (they recently received updates that lessen input lag)
  • Make sure lbr-snes9x-next and lbr-fceumm are your default emulators for the SNES and NES cores, respectively
I just recently finished trying dozens of different approaches to eliminating input lag from my RetroPie setup because I'm very sensitive to input delay, and this is what I ended up with that yielded the best balance of performance and responsiveness.
 
Hey guys

So first off I am a layman when it comes to these sorts of things. The NES mini has motivated me to finally go after one of my dreams - having a tiny console that can use NES or snes style controllers and has all of the games I've bought for those two systems (and Genesis) in one place.

The whole buying and set up process is a little overwhelming though. So I have a few questions:

1. Are the raspberry pi setups that come with NES/SNES controllers and retro pie on an sd card the way to go?

2. For someone that doesn't code at all and would be classified as a beginner in those sorts of areas, how much difficulty will I have setting up and using the emulators?

3. Once I get the emulators set up, how much difficulty will I potentially have with downloading a rom and installing it?

4. How many NES/snes/Genesis games can you install on a pi?

5. Are there save states and how easily workable is the ui when going through your catelog?

I realize that is a lot of questions but I would appreciate some input on even a couple of them.
Thanks! A little intimidating but exciting stuff!
 
I'm looking to build an arcade machine that can play classic arcade and console games including more modern stuff like Namco System 256 and 357 games. Is the Pi 3 good for that? If so, is there a tutorial on how to build a cabinet and get the stuff working? If not, what should I do?
 
Cloud7 said:
I'm looking to build an arcade machine that can play classic arcade and console games including more modern stuff like Namco System 256 and 357 games. Is the Pi 3 good for that? If so, is there a tutorial on how to build a cabinet and get the stuff working? If not, what should I do?
Click to expand...

In a word no, the RPi3 can play ALOT of arcade games but seems to struggle on newer stuff, i think even some of the later Metal Slug games dont play 60fps.

You could look at getting a system like the Intel NUC, its no where near as cheap as the RPi but alot cheaper than a PC
 
mstevens said:
Hey guys

So first off I am a layman when it comes to these sorts of things. The NES mini has motivated me to finally go after one of my dreams - having a tiny console that can use NES or snes style controllers and has all of the games I've bought for those two systems (and Genesis) in one place.

The whole buying and set up process is a little overwhelming though. So I have a few questions:

1. Are the raspberry pi setups that come with NES/SNES controllers and retro pie on an sd card the way to go?

2. For someone that doesn't code at all and would be classified as a beginner in those sorts of areas, how much difficulty will I have setting up and using the emulators?

3. Once I get the emulators set up, how much difficulty will I potentially have with downloading a rom and installing it?

4. How many NES/snes/Genesis games can you install on a pi?

5. Are there save states and how easily workable is the ui when going through your catelog?

I realize that is a lot of questions but I would appreciate some input on even a couple of them.
Thanks! A little intimidating but exciting stuff!
Click to expand...


1. These are just all in one bundles where someone collects the parts, then charges a premium to pay for their time. You really should do it yourself, it's kind of the heart of the Pi experience

2. You don't need to code at all, there are a lot of really smart people who've already done that kind of thing for you. All you need to be able to do is copy and paste to an SD card and know how to handle configuring things like emulators on PC

3. If you have the means to dump your games, it's just that then copying them to the right directory on your SD card.

4. As many as you have room for on your SD card. If you have an 16GB SD card (which should only be a few dollars on amazon) you should be able to fit all of them comfortably.

5. Yes and generally fairly easy, though there are more complex setups out there if you want to experiment.
 
Lettuce said:
In a word no, the RPi3 can play ALOT of arcade games but seems to struggle on newer stuff, i think even some of the later Metal Slug games dont play 60fps.

You could look at getting a system like the Intel NUC, its no where near as cheap as the RPi but alot cheaper than a PC
Click to expand...

Appreciate the reply. MAME doesn't currently support most, if not all Namco System 256 and 357 games so if I end up getting the Intel NUC, would I fruitless in getting these games working anyway or is there another way?
 
Well I'm up, with Retropie. Having issues with my Neo Geo games, though. Any particular emulator someone would recommend with Retropie?
 
Vince McMahon said:
Well I'm up, with Retropie. Having issues with my Neo Geo games, though. Any particular emulator someone would recommend with Retropie?
Click to expand...

Neo-Geo games should pretty much all run flawlessly with lbr-fba-next on a RPi2 or higher. What issues are you having?

Just make sure you have the neogeo.zip BIOS file in your neogeo ROMs directory, and go to town.

Protip: If you go into the RGUI (hold select + press X) while using FBA-Next, then Quick Menu > Core Options, you can select an overclock setting that gets rid of slowdown that was present even on the original Neo-Geo hardware (e.g. Metal Slug games). If you are experiencing slowdown in Metal Slug and are assuming that the RPi or the emulator is to blame, it's actually just the original hardware experience being emulated faithfully.

I keep my Neo-Geo overclock in FBA-Next set to 200.
 
ScOULaris said:
Neo-Geo games should pretty much all run flawlessly with lbr-fba-next on a RPi2 or higher. What issues are you having?

Just make sure you have the neogeo.zip BIOS file in your neogeo ROMs directory, and go to town.

Protip: If you go into the RGUI (hold select + press X) while using FBA-Next, then Quick Menu > Core Options, you can select an overclock setting that gets rid of slowdown that was present even on the original Neo-Geo hardware (e.g. Metal Slug games). If you are experiencing slowdown in Metal Slug and are assuming that the RPi or the emulator is to blame, it's actually just the original hardware experience being emulated faithfully.

I keep my Neo-Geo overclock in FBA-Next set to 200.
Click to expand...
Preciate it. I'll take a look.
 
KojiKnight said:
1. These are just all in one bundles where someone collects the parts, then charges a premium to pay for their time. You really should do it yourself, it's kind of the heart of the Pi experience

2. You don't need to code at all, there are a lot of really smart people who've already done that kind of thing for you. All you need to be able to do is copy and paste to an SD card and know how to handle configuring things like emulators on PC

3. If you have the means to dump your games, it's just that then copying them to the right directory on your SD card.

4. As many as you have room for on your SD card. If you have an 16GB SD card (which should only be a few dollars on amazon) you should be able to fit all of them comfortably.

5. Yes and generally fairly easy, though there are more complex setups out there if you want to experiment.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! Sounds doable. I've never actually gotten the hang of setting up emulators for pc, how hard is that to figure out? I messed around with them about 10 years ago probably but I'm sure it's come a long way since then.

Also - if I don't go with one of the bundles, what's the best and easiest way to get as authentic as possible NES, snes and Genesis controller to work with the pi (either wireless or wired, I'm not too picky there)
 
Rich! said:
Modded Wii:

- true 240p output via component and, if using a PAL system menu, RGB SCART.

- choices between Retroarch, individual emulators and the official VC

- Native Wii and GameCube support paired with USB hard drive capability for storage. Nintendont also allows native support for the Wii U Pro Controller and Dualshocks.

- Takes all of ten minutes to set up and then it's done. No more tinkering.

- N64 emulation is very, very good (official VC and ROM injection. not64 is good too)

- everything just works




I have set up numerous retro pie setups, and I'm confident in saying that the Wii is the better decision every time for most people. Hell, you can even buy them for half the price of the Pi2 nowadays. The only downside is a lack of grunt for PS1 games and heavier arcade titles.
Click to expand...


Was going to go the raspberry pi route, but this sounds interesting as I have a spare Wii lying around. Any websites you would recommend to learn about getting this all setup?
 
Okay I ordered my raspberry pi 3 model b and all the accessories I needed. Excited! Also got the 8bitdo snes controller.

Any good, easy to follow videos that could guide me through the entire set up process beginning to end? The original post in this thread makes it look so simple but the two videos I watched had people needing to type commands into dos like (I guess Linux? Like I said, I know nothing) menus.
 
Does anyone here have a snes style 8bitdo controller? I'm hearing it has a hard time pairing with the Rpi3, and I'm wondering if the wired mode works with Rpi3 well just so I can use that until I get Bluetooth figured out? I assume so but I wanted to check.
 
mstevens said:
Okay I ordered my raspberry pi 3 model b and all the accessories I needed. Excited! Also got the 8bitdo snes controller.

Any good, easy to follow videos that could guide me through the entire set up process beginning to end? The original post in this thread makes it look so simple but the two videos I watched had people needing to type commands into dos like (I guess Linux? Like I said, I know nothing) menus.
Click to expand...
Check out Floob's YouTube channel. He pretty much covers everything across all of his videos.

Once you get it all set up, I highly recommend checking out his Video Manager script as well. It'll give you some nice preset shaders/overlays if you want to simulate that old CRT look for console emulation.
 
ScOULaris said:
Here's what solved input lag for me whilst not sacrificing performance to a noticeable degree across NES/SNES/Genesis/FBA/Neo-Geo... etc.

  • Overclock your Pi 2+ in Retropie Menu > Raspi-Config > Overclock (the 1000Mhz setting)
  • Edit opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg and change the frame_delay setting to 10
  • Update both lbr-snes9x-next and lbr-fceumm to the latest binaries (they recently received updates that lessen input lag)
  • Make sure lbr-snes9x-next and lbr-fceumm are your default emulators for the SNES and NES cores, respectively
I just recently finished trying dozens of different approaches to eliminating input lag from my RetroPie setup because I'm very sensitive to input delay, and this is what I ended up with that yielded the best balance of performance and responsiveness.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I will try this
 
Does anyone else have issues with the bluetooth in the Raspberry Pi (in my case, RP3) when trying to pair Dualshock 3 controllers? I can get the Dualshock 3s to pair, but it stops the bluetooth driver from responding at all, meaning I can't use my SNES30 pads.
 
Reverb Shock said:
Does anyone else have issues with the bluetooth in the Raspberry Pi (in my case, RP3) when trying to pair Dualshock 3 controllers? I can get the Dualshock 3s to pair, but it stops the bluetooth driver from responding at all, meaning I can't use my SNES30 pads.
Click to expand...

Hey - would you mind answering a quick question. I know that the snes30 is kind of a pain to pair Bluetooth... Does it work straight away if you just use it wired?
 
I bought a Pi 3B kit from Amazon Prime day. It came with a small case and a couple of heatsinks that you can stick on, but doesn't really discuss any of this in the instructions.

Are the heatsinks necessary? Is it ok to stick the thing in the case? Guessing the heatsinks help with that..
 
Weevilone said:
I bought a Pi 3B kit from Amazon Prime day. It came with a small case and a couple of heatsinks that you can stick on, but doesn't really discuss any of this in the instructions.

Are the heatsinks necessary? Is it ok to stick the thing in the case? Guessing the heatsinks help with that..
Click to expand...

The heatsinks aren't necessary, per se, but there's no reason not to put them on. Just stick them on there before you put the Pi in its case, and then you can overclock to your heart's content without being concerned about temps getting too high.
 
I'm using Recalbox and when I put my sdcard into my computer it is telling me I don't have permission to add / delete files on it. I'm using Ubuntu, and as I recall, I used to be able to simply copy files over into my rom folders with no issues.

Any help is appreciated!
 
mstevens said:
Hey - would you mind answering a quick question. I know that the snes30 is kind of a pain to pair Bluetooth... Does it work straight away if you just use it wired?
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you use it wired it works instantly. Pairing it via bluetooth is annoying, but once I followed this guide everything worked perfectly.

Sorry about not replying to your earlier post, I guess I didn't see it. I only just bought the SNES30 controllers and a Raspberry Pi3, so far (even with the issues) I am loving it. Would be great if I could get the Dualshock 3 controllers working, but if not I won't be too upset.
 
stangend77 said:
I'm using Recalbox and when I put my sdcard into my computer it is telling me I don't have permission to add / delete files on it. I'm using Ubuntu, and as I recall, I used to be able to simply copy files over into my rom folders with no issues.

Any help is appreciated!
Click to expand...
Two things:
SD card write protect tab could be on?
SD card could be bad and OS refuses to allow writes.

I've seen both.
 
Rich! said:
Modded Wii:

- true 240p output via component and, if using a PAL system menu, RGB SCART.

- choices between Retroarch, individual emulators and the official VC

- Native Wii and GameCube support paired with USB hard drive capability for storage. Nintendont also allows native support for the Wii U Pro Controller and Dualshocks.

- Takes all of ten minutes to set up and then it's done. No more tinkering.

- N64 emulation is very, very good (official VC and ROM injection. not64 is good too)

- everything just works




I have set up numerous retro pie setups, and I'm confident in saying that the Wii is the better decision every time for most people. Hell, you can even buy them for half the price of the Pi2 nowadays. The only downside is a lack of grunt for PS1 games and heavier arcade titles.
Click to expand...

I never thought about getting a Wii for emulation until I saw this. But now I may have to consider it.
 
Very interested in using a modded Wii as an emulation hub. I've already got an old Wii modded. Is there a guide to further expand the setup?
 
This is a little off topic from the emulation discussion, but after realizing it's impossible to stream 1080p video over wifi to my PS3, I'm interested in getting a Rasberry Pi 3 to use as a cheap HTPC. Has anyone tried this, and is it powerful enough to play HD video off a local HD? It's a trivial thing to do on modern PCs but I know the Pi is a lot less powerful.
 
Reverb Shock said:
Yeah, if you use it wired it works instantly. Pairing it via bluetooth is annoying, but once I followed this guide everything worked perfectly.

Sorry about not replying to your earlier post, I guess I didn't see it. I only just bought the SNES30 controllers and a Raspberry Pi3, so far (even with the issues) I am loving it. Would be great if I could get the Dualshock 3 controllers working, but if not I won't be too upset.
Click to expand...

No problem, thanks for answering! I'm going to order a second one then!
 
So I'm just about ready to start this project, in the next day or so. Last question I have for now:

Is there a list of recommended settings for all the emulators in retropie, or do they all work pretty well right out of the gate. I'm also curious how hard it is to get cheats to work for some emulators just for the novelty of it.
 
mstevens said:
So I'm just about ready to start this project, in the next day or so. Last question I have for now:

Is there a list of recommended settings for all the emulators in retropie, or do they all work pretty well right out of the gate. I'm also curious how hard it is to get cheats to work for some emulators just for the novelty of it.
Click to expand...

In terms of settings, you won't need to tinker with many for any of the emulators. If you're into cool overlays and shaders that mimic playing on old CRT TV's or handhelds, then I recommend downloading and running Floob's video manager script. It will auto-apply some really cool overlays and shaders to all of the appropriate systems, and I think that they all look fantastic.

Otherwise all controls are already configured automatically thanks to Retroarch, so any other tweaking that you might want to do will be highly dependent on your personal tastes.

See my post a little ways up this page about some settings you can change to eliminate input lag as well.
 
ScOULaris said:
In terms of settings, you won't need to tinker with many for any of the emulators. If you're into cool overlays and shaders that mimic playing on old CRT TV's or handhelds, then I recommend downloading and running Floob's video manager script. It will auto-apply some really cool overlays and shaders to all of the appropriate systems, and I think that they all look fantastic.

Otherwise all controls are already configured automatically thanks to Retroarch, so any other tweaking that you might want to do will be highly dependent on your personal tastes.

See my post a little ways up this page about some settings you can change to eliminate input lag as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks I'll give it a shot!
 
Need help!

Just installed a Raspberry Pi 3 using the kit from Amazon. Went smoothly and SNES and Genesis games play fine.

However I can't get PSX games to launch. I have the images in the directory but when I go to launch it just goes to the Blue Screen with different emulator options. I have put a PSX BIOS into the BIOS folder.

What am I missing?

Same thing happens when I try to launch GBA games.
 
CrichtonKicks said:
Need help!

Just installed a Raspberry Pi 3 using the kit from Amazon. Went smoothly and SNES and Genesis games play fine.

However I can't get PSX games to launch. I have the images in the directory but when I go to launch it just goes to the Blue Screen with different emulator options. I have put a PSX BIOS into the BIOS folder.

What am I missing?

Same thing happens when I try to launch GBA games.
Click to expand...

You need a BIOS for GBA called gba_bios.bin. Make sure you have the right BIOS for PSX. I think it's SCPH1001.BIN
 
MiketheBSG said:
You need a BIOS for GBA called gba_bios.bin. Make sure you have the right BIOS for PSX. I think it's SCPH1001.BIN
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip on the GBA BIOS.

I solved the problem with PSX- evidently I needed both a .bin and.cue file present. However that creates a new issue- Emulation Station lists each game twice since there are 2 files present for each but I can only launch it using the .bin file. Anyone know how to make it so each game is only listed once?
 
CrichtonKicks said:
I solved the problem with PSX- evidently I needed both a .bin and.cue file present. However that creates a new issue- Emulation Station lists each game twice since there are 2 files present for each but I can only launch it using the .bin file. Anyone know how to make it so each game is only listed once?
Click to expand...
Yep, if you've set up Putty, boot that, then enter
mount -o remount,rw /
Click to expand...
then
nano /recalbox/share_init/system/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg
Click to expand...
Scroll down to where the PlayStation entry is, then on the line that starts <extension>, delete the .bin and .BIN entries. Save and quit then reboot your Pi.
 
Running into a lot of issues trying to get controllers to work. Every time I come back to emulation station for some reason my A and B are switched. Also, hotkeys are not working at all (can't save state or exit games). This happens both with the wired 8bitdo and wired PS3 controller.

edit: Okay I did a fresh install of the whole thing and for now the A and B buttons aren't switching, but I still can't get the save state to work.
 
Sorry to bump but I really need help with this. I've reloaded retropie twice now and no matter what I do I can't get any hot key stuff to work (besides quit game for some reason). Holding select and pressing R does not work. I'm using an FC30 controller and I'm using the newest version of retropie.
 
I am interested in using a Pi 3 for emulation up to and including N64 & PS1. Would overclocking be necessary to ensure a smooth framerate? If so, what case / fan / heatsink do you recommend? Also, is there a bluetooth controller considered best in class for the Pi?
 
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