RetroPie General Discussion

[PeterJ]

Having recently spent far to much time trying to setup RetroPie to my satisfaction I thought it may be worth setting up a general discussion thread to see if other people use it and what their problems (if any) are.

For those who don't know RetroPie, it runs on the Raspberry Pi (although there are Odroid and PC builds available) and lets you emulate many platforms. You can use anything from a £10 Raspberry Pi Zero W, to a Raspberry Pi 400.

It uses EmulationStation and RetroArch. The main page is here:

https://retropie.org.uk/

Documentation is here:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/

The list of emulators is here (Note some of these don't run on the Raspberry Pi).

[PQR]

I've been using Retropie on a Raspberry Pi 3B for a few years now. Earlier this year I replaced it with a Raspberry Pi 4B.

Yes - sometimes it requires quite a bit of tinkering to get everything to work as desired. And some familiarity with command line Linux does help. But having a small device that can run a multitude of systems directly on my TV using a Bluetooth controller definitely makes it worth the effort.

Biggest hurdles I encountered:
• Getting Dualshock 4 controllers to work via built-in Bluetooth. On my Pi4 I had to downgrade the Bluetooth driver first. And it always takes multiple attempts for the Pi to recognise the controller when trying to pair. But once it's paired it's fine.
• Getting the right rom sets for FB Alpha/FB Neo/MAME. Argh! (This is not a Retropie specific problem of course.)
• Using emulated systems that require a keyboard, or ones that do not have a Libretro port. Everything works easiest when only a controller is required which can be configured in Retroarch.
• Figuring out the button mapping in LR-Fuse. It took me some time to discover that LR-Fuse can handle A-B-X-Y-L1-R1-Start as inputs and that you can map them to any key on the Spectrum keyboard. For some games like Head Over Heels I created a custom button mapping in order to play the game with a controller.

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]PQR[/mention],

Very useful tips. I have some experience in Linux so I think it did help. I had the same problems as you with everything defaulting to joystick controllers, and getting the keyboard to work. So far I have ZX Spectrum, Dragon 32, C64, Atari 8 Bit, and CPC working.

I also find after doing updates the controller configuration seems to get corrupted and my start button, becomes the right trigger! So I have to redo the configuration.

I'm currently struggling with WHDLoad and Amiberry:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/304 ... ck-screens

Edit. Having done some more research I think those WHDLoad files don't contain the game files. Will check in morning.

[Sparky]

I've been using mine with a Pi 3B for quite a while now (and even on a zero earlier) with a Logitech USB controller and a Logitech (again) BT keyboard. It's been working great for the Speccy, but other 8 bit systems I have some trouble with like Dragon 32 and some Atari 8 bit stuff. But as far as game consoles (which don't interest me as much) I've had no problems with them.
I can see how the setup procedure might be a little confusing to total newbies, but If you follow YouTube examples , especially from ETA PRIME it isn't that difficult. I work with Linux computers, so for me it was very easy.

[Magic Knight]

I'm currently struggling with WHDLoad and Amiberry:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/304 ... ck-screens

Edit. Having done some more research I think those WHDLoad files don't contain the game files. Will check in morning.

Have you tried using Pimiga separate from Retropie?

This is a good introduction to setting it up:
https://amigax1000.blogspot.com/2020/04 ... pi-4b.html
(Edit: He describes setting up version 1.2, the latest is 1.5)

It needs an SD card of at least 32GB but it does comes with many games that can be run through iGame. I am having graphical issues, for instance with Rick Dangerous and Dynamite Dux, so I'm trying to work out how to set it up for them, but it's pretty straightforward to use otherwise. (Edit: I got them to work by setting the speed to that of an Amiga 500.)

It even comes with the ZX-Live emulator.

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]Magic Knight[/mention],

I will give that a go.

[Pegaz]

Thanks @Magic Knight,

I will give that a go.

PiMiga is good but very demanding and requires pi4
There are also other preinstalled solutions, I think something like this would suit you:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OObqOI12ryU

Edited by PJ

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]Pegaz[/mention],

I appreciate the other options. I do have a 4GB Pi4.

[akeley]

I'm currently struggling with WHDLoad and Amiberry:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/304 ... ck-screens

Edit. Having done some more research I think those WHDLoad files don't contain the game files. Will check in morning.

It's been a long time but I seem to recall that you need to use the exact Retroplay lhas, others might not work: ftp://grandis.nu/Retroplay%20WHDLoad%20Packs/

Also make sure that you have all the kickstarts from the guide (not just 3). If after that it still does not work, check that Kickstarts are symlinked, Rescan Paths, and as a last resort, Restore Ownership.

[PeterJ]

Thank you for the assistance. I was using 'empty' WHDLoad files. Amiberry is now working perfectly. It's obviously an age thing, but like many users I moved from the Spectrum to the Amiga, in what I call my wilderness years, but I can't remember what games I played. I just remember the Fred Fish disks, and using ProText for College work.

[PeterJ]

Well, since we're here - anyone managed to get TS2068 games running on the Retropie? I just tried Frogger with lr-fuse, which has three Timex-machine options (TC2048, TC2068 and TS2068), but all of them just squished the display up into a little corner of the screen and crashed to the Sinclair Research screen immediately on loading.

The TZX works for me (screenshot below), but I get the same results as you with the TAP file. Have you run updates as lr-fuse now has Fuse 1.6

[PeterJ]

So far I have ZX Spectrum, C64, Atari 8 Bit, Atari ST, Amiga, Dragon 32, Amstrad CPC, Oric and MSX going. It was a late one last night.

What I really love is being able to access it on the network, so I can spot a game, copy it over, restart Emulation Station and play it.

[Sparky]

Peter, how exactly did you get the Dragon working?

[PeterJ]

Peter, how exactly did you get the Dragon working?

Hi [mention]Sparky[/mention],

I followed the notes here:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Dragon/

You just need to find the ROM and name it exactly as indicated. Any problems, please PM me.

[Sparky]

Ok. I think I may have placed the ROMS in the wrong path. Thanks.

[PeterJ]

The most unusual award goes to the French Thomson MO/TO

This is Asterix et la Potion Magique

[PeterJ]

I’ve had much better results running the Tandy CoCo (through AdvMESS) than the Dragon, although they’re basically identical.

I played Tea Time without problems last night. Made me so happy my parents got me a Spectrum! Those Dragon games make my eyes bleed!

[PeterJ]

Not quite sure why you would want to do it, but ZXDS starts fine via RetroPie and the DraStic emulator. I could not get the touch press to work though.

[PeterJ]

Has anyone got very far with the Dragon 32 Emulation with XROAR? I can load games, but the keyboard and controller seems completely unresponsive.

Because it's not a libreto package you can't configure in in the normal manner.

Edit:

Sorted. Added the text in bold to /retropie/configs/dragon32/emulator.cfg

xroar-dragon32 = "/opt/retropie/emulators/xroar/bin/xroar -vo sdl -joy-right kjoy0 -ui sdl -ccr simple -fs -machine dragon32 -run %ROM%"
default = "xroar-dragon32"

[PeterJ]

Anyone had any luck getting this to work in Retropie?

Report this to the author of the core [mention]Rev_Stuart_Campbell[/mention] as I did with your Frogger issue (which he later identified as an issue with the TAP file and he provided a fixed version):

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2038&hilit=Libretro

[PeterJ]

I've got the following systems running on RetroPie:

Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari 800, Atari ST, C64, CoCo, ColecoVision, Dragon, Intellivision, Master System. MegaDrive, Thomson MO/TO. MSX, NES, Oric, SG-1000, SNES. VideoPac, and Spectrum.

I've got the favourites going too.

If anyone needs any assistance please drop me a message.