Raspberri Pi as an emulator

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

21 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

@Simple Rick

I'll probably just get a smaller-ish microSD (16GB probably just to be safe) and see how it pans out.  Oddly enough, despite having a ton of devices that could use them, I've never really handled SD cards before... so I'm a bit out of the loop about their reliability.

 

I started early on microSD cards because of my tendency to show holiday pictures through my phone. I also have one 128GB SD card in my SLR camera (should keep me going for a while), and one 128GB microSD card for my Switch. Been using SanDisk since I started using SD cards, they're reliably fast and I haven't had any problems as of yet (knock on wood).

 

21 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

As for controllers, I guess I'll give my wireless Xbox 360 adapter/gamepad a try initially.  If I can go wireless that'd be nice... but now that I'm thinking about it, a USB SNES controller (with a USB extender most likely) would be awesome for that old school feel.  Maybe get one USB pad of each (NES, SNES, N64) just for funsies, if its not too expensive.  Until the idea for an arcade cabinet materializes anyways.

 

I have realised now that I have three PS3 controllers (got them along with my used PS3), while in the relare event that I use my PS3, I play single player. So I'm going to connect two PS3 controllers to the Pi through Bluetooth. If that proves to be too much of a lag, I'll try getting a Dualshock 4 wireless adapter, or I'll just buy a wired Switch Hori Pad controller.

 

If enough N64 games work, I'll get an N64 USB controller. Would cost €25 over here. My SNES one was about €20 and a NES one would cost €15.

[MMDE]

4 minutes ago, Simple Rick said:

 

I started early on microSD cards because of my tendency to show holiday pictures through my phone. I also have one 128GB SD card in my SLR camera (should keep me going for a while), and one 128GB microSD card for my Switch. Been using SanDisk since I started using SD cards, they're reliably fast and I haven't had any problems as of yet (knock on wood).

 

 

I have realised now that I have three PS3 controllers (got them along with my used PS3), while in the relare event that I use my PS3, I play single player. So I'm going to connect two PS3 controllers to the Pi through Bluetooth. If that proves to be too much of a lag, I'll try getting a Dualshock 4 wireless adapter, or I'll just buy a wired Switch Hori Pad controller.

 

If enough N64 games work, I'll get an N64 USB controller. Would cost €25 over here. My SNES one was about €20 and a NES one would cost €15.

 

Worth noting, make sure you don't get some fake SanDisk though.  Tons of cheap fake brand SD cards, and some of them are horrendous. Never had any issues with any of my SanDisk SDs either, fast and reliable.

Edited January 31, 2018 by MMDE

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

5 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

Worth noting, make sure you don't get some fake SanDisk though.  Tons of cheap fake brand SD cards, and some of them are horrendous. Never had any issues with any of my SanDisk SDs either, fast and reliable.

 

@Dreakon13 I agree with this, it's official SanDisk or no sell.

 

For things like camera and Switch, what kind of SD card you get also matters (for reading and writing speed) but I don't think it matters at all for RetroPie emulation.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Simple Rick

[Dreakon13]

22 minutes ago, Simple Rick said:

I have realised now that I have three PS3 controllers (got them along with my used PS3), while in the relare event that I use my PS3, I play single player. So I'm going to connect two PS3 controllers to the Pi through Bluetooth.

 

I, too, have an excess of PS3 controllers that are likely just going to collect dust.  Input lag aside, that could be another route I go before I invest in some of those wired USB pads.  I forget I'll have Bluetooth to play around with, and the dpad on those DualShock 3's are great for 2D games.

 

12 minutes ago, Simple Rick said:

I agree with this, it's official SanDisk or no sell.

 

My first thought is always to go to eBay with this stuff since it's typically half the price of the retail stores and often even a deal compared to Amazon, but it'll be hard to tell the official ones from the fakes if they're "officially" branded either way (unless trusting US sellers with good feedback is enough).  Maybe I'll just pick up a 8-16GB SanDisk microSD from Best Buy and be done with that one.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Dreakon13

[MMDE]

Speaking of controllers, I got an arduino I can use for controller input to my PS3.  

 

I'm tempted to use this raspberry pi clone dev chip I got, that I think has wifi and bluetooth for PS4 controller input. Yeah, I know about Win 10 + remote play, but would be cool to avoid the streaming.

Edited January 31, 2018 by MMDE

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

8 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

 

I, too, have an excess of PS3 controllers that are likely just going to collect dust.  Input lag aside, that could be another route I go before I invest in some of those wired USB pads.  I forget I'll have Bluetooth to play around with, and the dpad on those DualShock 3's are great for 2D games.

 

I think using Bluetooth also takes more effort than USB so there might be slowdown, which is what I tried to get at, not just lag. We'll see soon enough though. A PS3 controller is easily connected with a USB cable so it's a quick check if there seem to be problems with wireless control.

 

8 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

 

My first thought is always to go to eBay with this stuff since it's typically half the price of the retail stores and often even a deal compared to Amazon, but it'll be hard to tell the official ones from the fakes if they're "officially" branded either way (unless trusting US sellers with good feedback is enough).  Maybe I'll just pick up a 8-16GB SanDisk microSD from Best Buy and be done with that one.

 

I can buy 128GB ones through an official store for about €50 (price to GB, it's the cheapest card) so personally I don't feel like going through non-official or second-hand sources is worththe €5-€10 I would be saving on this.

[savageamusement]

Going to do this myself this year I think - my SNES mini is great, I missed out on the NES mini although my brothers original NES console is somewhere still (I'll bag a NES mini on the next batch released later this year)

 

I was always a Mega Drive / Mega CD fan (my Mega Drive was the first console which was bought for me so its my first love if you will )

 

I still have my Mega Drive / Mega CD set up (as well as my N64) but the ease of access from the PI is too tempting along with the added benefit of not looking terrible on a HD TV

[Z1MZUM]

Sd2snes is fantastic and ed64 is great for n64, I use an AV to Hdmi box for both of these. Switching on the Super famicom and having the entire Jap, U.S and Pal collection with translations and homebrew is very easy for me though maybe cost more than a Pi. However I am interested in grabbing one because a megadrive one on a Sega cd 2 with a 32x is ugly as hell and 3 power supplies? Also would like to play neo geo roms rather then using those massive carts, and the Neo Geo controllers are horrible though the pads are ok.

 

I'm down for ordering one of these and I'll do a custom case with old console parts, I want to be as genuine as I can with the older consoles but having a Dc on Vga, a Saturn, Sfc, N64 and 3d0 on av to HDMI, plus the new consoles, I don't have any room left.

 

[soniq]

On 31.1.2018 at 8:00 AM, Simple Rick said:

Personally, I already have a SNES USB controller and if enough N64 games work fine then I'll also get an N64 USB controller. I'll probably try using my PS4 controller as well as that's just a very comfortable controller in my opinion, but technically any wireless controller that does wireless through a USB receiver should work. I'm going to look into this if I've set up everything else, as it would be really great to be able to do most everything with just one wireless controller.

Let me know which N64 pad you get. I want one too, but I haven't really looked into it. Mostly found ugly approximations, that look like cheap knockoffs, but I only want one that looks and feels as close to the original as possible. A Gamecube USB pad would be even better though, as I prefer that for playing N64 games. ^^

 

As for SNES controllers, I recently got a Buffalo Classic USB Gamepad, which is basically the SFC/PAL SNES pad with additional turbo modes, and it looks and feels almost like the real thing. Shoulder buttons seem a bit smaller, but I'm not sure if that's how they were on the SFC in Japan.

It's wonderful and I use it not only for playing emulated games, but also all indie games about running, jumping and hitting things. ?

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

13 hours ago, savageamusement said:

Going to do this myself this year I think - my SNES mini is great, I missed out on the NES mini although my brothers original NES console is somewhere still (I'll bag a NES mini on the next batch released later this year)

 

I was always a Mega Drive / Mega CD fan (my Mega Drive was the first console which was bought for me so its my first love if you will )

 

I still have my Mega Drive / Mega CD set up (as well as my N64) but the ease of access from the PI is too tempting along with the added benefit of not looking terrible on a HD TV

 

Feel free to recommend some Mega Drive games. Never had one myself. There's a whole bunch of ROMs you can actually get legally even if you don't own the physical games - the SEGA Mega Drive collection on Steam has ROM files for all games, I've been told.

 

2 hours ago, Z1MZUM said:

Sd2snes is fantastic and ed64 is great for n64, I use an AV to Hdmi box for both of these. Switching on the Super famicom and having the entire Jap, U.S and Pal collection with translations and homebrew is very easy for me though maybe cost more than a Pi. However I am interested in grabbing one because a megadrive one on a Sega cd 2 with a 32x is ugly as hell and 3 power supplies? Also would like to play neo geo roms rather then using those massive carts, and the Neo Geo controllers are horrible though the pads are ok.

 

I'm down for ordering one of these and I'll do a custom case with old console parts, I want to be as genuine as I can with the older consoles but having a Dc on Vga, a Saturn, Sfc, N64 and 3d0 on av to HDMI, plus the new consoles, I don't have any room left.

 

 

I wanted to use my broken N64 to create a casing for the Pi, but I couldn't find it yesterday. I have too much junk.

 

8 minutes ago, soniq said:

Let me know which N64 pad you get. I want one too, but I haven't really looked into it. Mostly found ugly approximations, that look like cheap knockoffs, but I only want one that looks and feels as close to the original as possible. A Gamecube USB pad would be even better though, as I prefer that for playing N64 games. ^^

 

As for SNES controllers, I recently got a Buffalo Classic USB Gamepad, which is basically the SFC/PAL SNES pad with additional turbo modes, and it looks and feels almost like the real thing. Shoulder buttons seem a bit smaller, but I'm not sure if that's how they were on the SFC in Japan.

It's wonderful and I use it not only for playing emulated games, but also all indie games about running, jumping and hitting things.

 

You and @Z1MZUM and others, beware that N64 emulation probably does not work satisfactory on the Pi, it's not tough enough to manage it. Anything 8-bit or 16-bit should be fair game though.

 

Some low key games like Super Mario 64 might work though, I'll tell you when I find out.

 

@soniq there's basically just one look-alike N64 controller easily available over here, as in that I can go to the store and see it before I buy it. Also available in grey.

 

[Z1MZUM]

1 hour ago, Simple Rick said:

You and @Z1MZUM and others, beware that N64 emulation probably does not work satisfactory on the Pi, it's not tough enough to manage it. Anything 8-bit or 16-bit should be fair game though.

 

Some low key games like Super Mario 64 might work though, I'll tell you when I find out

 

Thanks man, I'll keep using N64 as mine works fine and has the SD Cart thing so all is good.

 

Just neo Geo and MD/Sega cd. Ahhhh, what about pc engine? I only have a hand held.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

17 minutes ago, Z1MZUM said:

Ahhhh, what about pc engine? I only have a hand held.

 

Probably because of me not being a native English speaker but I don't understand what you're asking/saying here.

[Z1MZUM]

15 hours ago, Simple Rick said:

 

Probably because of me not being a native English speaker but I don't understand what you're asking/saying here.

 

Turbo FX / Pc Engine emulation, I have one of these http://www.retrogamingcollector.com/Old-Handhelds/PCEngineGT.html

 

Never owned a pc engine console apart from that one, I found this and it looks pretty good.

 

 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Well, I set everything up and it all works like a charm!

[soniq]

On 1.2.2018 at 9:07 AM, Simple Rick said:

 

@Z1MZUMFeel free to recommend some Mega Drive games. Never had one myself. There's a whole bunch of ROMs you can actually get legally even if you don't own the physical games - the SEGA Mega Drive collection on Steam has ROM files for all games, I've been told.

 

 

@soniq there's basically just one look-alike N64 controller easily available over here, as in that I can go to the store and see it before I buy it. Also available in grey.

Thanks, that's the one I found too but reviews seem to be mixed. Some say the controller works fine, others that the buttons are stiff and the stick doesn't work correctly, so I'm a bit hesistant to just order it.

 

As far es Mega Drive games go, I can recommend

 

• Quackshot
• Mega Probotector (or maybe it was just called Probotector, not sure; Contra: Hard Corps in the US)
• Rocket Knight Adventures
• Alien Soldier
• Ristar
• Story of Thor (Beyond Oasis in the US)
• Soleil (Crusader of Centy in the US)

 

List got a lot longer than planned. ?

The Shining and Phantasy Star games are supposed to be excellent JRPGs, but I never had the time to play any of them.

Edited February 5, 2018 by soniq

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

12 minutes ago, soniq said:

Thanks, that's the one I found too but reviews seem to be mixed. Some say the controller works fine, others that the buttons are stiff and the stick doesn't work correctly, so I'm a bit hesistant to just order it.

 

N64 emulatuon, like expected, isn't exactly awesome. Super Mario 64 runs fine (though it froze after I defeated the boss in the second world) with only a bit of slowdown when a lot comes into view at once.

 

It's nit enough for me to actually buy an N64 USB controller for.

 

In the end, I went with a wired Switch controller, an official Nintendo one with no console logo on it and images of lots of Mario power-ups. Seemed made for RetroPie, and seeing as my opinion is that the Switch Pro controller is the best current gen first party controller...

 

 

12 minutes ago, soniq said:

As far es Mega Drive games go, I can recommend

 

• Quackshot
• Mega Probotector (or maybe it was just called Probotector, not sure; Contra: Hard Corps in the US)
• Rocket Knight Adventures
• Alien Soldier
• Ristar
• Story of Thor (Beyond Oasis in the US)
• Soleil (Crusader of Centy in the US)

 

List got a lot longer than planned.

The Shining and Phantasy Star games are supposed to be excellent JRPGs, but I never had the time to play any of them.

 

That's not a super long list though... Have never heard about any of those

 

I am probably going to buy this collection on Steam when it's on sale for under €15:

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/102625/

It includes ROMs for all the games. So it's a legal way of playing all kinds of Mega Drive games even though I never owned the console and as such don't have physical copies of the games.

[soniq]

25 minutes ago, Simple Rick said:

In the end, I went with a wired Switch controller, an official Nintendo one with no console logo on it and images of lots of Mario power-ups. Seemed made for RetroPie, and seeing as my opinion is that the Switch Pro controller is the best current gen first party controller...

 

That's not a super long list though... Have never heard about any of those

 

I am probably going to buy this collection on Steam when it's on sale for under €15:

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/102625/

It includes ROMs for all the games. So it's a legal way of playing all kinds of Mega Drive games even though I never owned the console and as such don't have physical copies of the games.

Where did you find that controller? It's beautiful!

Edit: Found it. Costs almost the same as an official Nintendo controller over here. :/ I'll just keep using what I have for now.

 

That's a pretty pretty good selection of games on Steam. A pity that they never released Hang-On or Outrun too.

Edited February 5, 2018 by soniq

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

9 minutes ago, soniq said:

Where did you find that controller? It's beautiful!

 

It's an official Nintendo controller, I just bought it at a local game store and it should be available at most places. Just google 'Switch red controller wired" or something like that, but I'm guessing that whatever game stores are near you, any of them that sell Nintendo stuff should be able to order one for you if they don't already have one at the store.

 

9 minutes ago, soniq said:

 

That's a pretty pretty good selection of games on Steam. A pity that they never released Hang-On or Outrun too.

 

Yeah, it's pretty much a 'definitive' collection of sorts.

 

 

P.S. everybody with a RetroPie installation: did you realise what the scraper option is for? Because I found out yesterday and I love how the menu looks now!

[Z1MZUM]

I found a box full of dvd's with roms and iso's from "Back in the day" so I'm good to go. It looks like Mame is quite good on the Pi as well.

 

Edit: Bought my Pi from a store near work and it came with a case, they didn't have the psu though so I'll see what I can find around the house. I think this will be the emulation answer for me though I'll keep using the SFC with SD2snes. I have allot of sega cd games and almost a full set of 32x.

 

Edit Edit: the Pi 3 needs 5v and preferably 3.5a, Mine is powered off a regular powerboard with usb sockets as my samsung psu didn't have enough power. At this stage I have all of my PS1 games running extremely well, My mega Drive and 32x roms work extremely well, Neo geo for some reason lags a bit until you turn off all filters and smoothing. I do own a neo geo system and allot of the games lag in the real world like metal slug 2 and shock troopers 2. I also have all of the Capcom CPS1 roms running off fba which are of course pirated. I thought I'd give reicast a go and have both Shenmue and Shadowman running with no problems. I don't really need this as I have a DC or 3 running through VGA just fine. Not trying to hijack your thread here Cool Rick, this was a project on my mind for a while which became real after your initial post.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Z1MZUM

[Dreakon13]

Finally got all the pieces for my little Pi machine (holy shit is Amazon's non-Prime shipping slooooooow)...

 

Pros:

- Setting up only took about 2-3 hours or so, from scratch.  Probably would've been even less but I bumbled through a lot of it.

- My PS3 controller is working through the bluetooth.  Probably stick with that for a bit.  (RetroPie exposed one of my PS3 controllers as a cheap knockoff lol, despite looking really legit IMO.)

- It's at a point now where I can boot the thing up, turn on a controller and play some games with relative ease.  Pretty cool.

- Picture is crystal clear and the games look great.

- Menu's look sweet once you have things setup, and scrape the roms.  Very functional and include box art and descriptions for the games.

 

Cons:

- There's still an uncomfortable amount of setup to do every time I turn the system on.  Bluetooth when it works is great, but seems a little flakey... and RetroArch keeps resetting my inputs to EmulationStation settings despite me changing them in the RetroArch settings, which doesn't really work out since every console needs a few slight comfort tweaks.

- I keep shocking myself when I touch the Pi/case when its on.  The case is probably at fault, the one I got is nice and sturdy... but I don't think that's supposed to happen.  It actually resets itself if the shock is bad enough.  Can't be good for me or the device.

- I don't like that the device itself doesn't really have an on/off switch.  I'm not comfortable leaving it on/plugged in at all times... so I have to unplug it when I'm done each time.  Kinda annoying (especially since I keep getting shocked lol).

- I like that it retains the 4x3 aspect ratio, but I don't like that it doesn't at least blow up the picture to the edges of my HDTV.

 

Lots of my issues can probably be resolved through settings, just don't have enough hours in one night to tinker with it all.  The shocking and "always on" stuff are disappointing though... not 100% sure what to do about them.  If I can't figure something out, I may end up having to shelve the idea for a bit.  I don't really have enough HDMI spots available for the Pi in my living room anyways.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Dreakon13

[Z1MZUM]

Hey Dreakon, Here's how to remove borders.

 

Go to retropie config menu

Select Raspi-Config

Choose advanced options

Select Overscan option, Mine was A2

Then select No on the "Would you like to enable Compensation" screen

 

I can't imagine why you're getting a shock from the pi, This can't be good. And Can't you just shutdown the system and disconnect from the wall? That shouldn't shock you though I'd be taking it apart and checking how it sits.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Z1MZUM

[Dreakon13]

8 hours ago, Z1MZUM said:

Hey Dreakon, Here's how to remove borders.

 

Go to retropie config menu

Select Raspi-Config

Choose advanced options

Select Overscan option, Mine was A2

Then select No on the "Would you like to enable Compensation" screen

 

I can't imagine why you're getting a shock from the pi, This can't be good. And Can't you just shutdown the system and disconnect from the wall? That shouldn't shock you though I'd be taking it apart and checking how it sits.

 

Thanks for the suggestion on the borders, I'll have to try that next chance I get.

 

The surge protector sits behind my TV stand in the living room, so it's tough to get back there to unplug it from the outlet.  Much easier to unplug it from the device itself... but even if that didn't shock me, it feels a little odd to me.  Not like I'm unplugging my PS4/Xbox One every time I'm done with it.  Maybe once I get comfortable that my setup is stable and not overheating or due to start a fire on me, I'll just leave it plugged in.  Or get a power adapter with a switch built in.

 

And maybe I'll reach out to the people who make the case I bought and see if they have any suggestions for the shock.  I can't imagine the Pi is sitting in the case improperly... since it's screwed in and everything is lined up correctly, there aren't many wrong ways to do it.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Dreakon13

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

On 06/02/2018 at 3:51 AM, Z1MZUM said:

Not trying to hijack your thread here Cool Rick, this was a project on my mind for a while which became real after your initial post.

 

No hijacking needed when it was intended as a general discussion thread from the start I had some questions a year ago but I've had a RetroPie myself now for over a week, so for all I care this is a thread to discuss RetroPie stuff anong ourselves and to inform others about the possibilities.

 

@Dreakon13 glad you like it so far. Shame it doesn't all go super smoothly but I guess that's part of the charm of such a system; figuring how to make it better along the way.

 

Personally, I've put general emulation settings on use of the CRT shader and viseo smoothing together, so it looks really cool now (I mostly play SNES games for now).

[Z1MZUM]

12 hours ago, Cool Rick said:

 

No hijacking needed when it was intended as a general discussion thread from the start I had some questions a year ago but I've had a RetroPie myself now for over a week, so for all I care this is a thread to discuss RetroPie stuff anong ourselves and to inform others about the possibilities.

 

@Dreakon13 glad you like it so far. Shame it doesn't all go super smoothly but I guess that's part of the charm of such a system; figuring how to make it better along the way.

 

Personally, I've put general emulation settings on use of the CRT shader and viseo smoothing together, so it looks really cool now (I mostly play SNES games for now).

 

Those shaders and overlays are awesome imo, as well as the ps1 settings for video. I like the fact that you can make an individual core file for each ps1 game as simple as clicking on "Create file for game". I'm a bit of a barbarian with retro gaming and have used 16:9 for years, these individual settings are in "Configuration Editor" Just in case you guys are interested.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

5 hours ago, Z1MZUM said:

 

Those shaders and overlays are awesome imo, as well as the ps1 settings for video. I like the fact that you can make an individual core file for each ps1 game as simple as clicking on "Create file for game". I'm a bit of a barbarian with retro gaming and have used 16:9 for years, these individual settings are in "Configuration Editor" Just in case you guys are interested.

 

16:9? BOOOOOOO!

 

I keep any game on its original aspect ratio. I also use a CRT shader because that's the kind of screen those old games were made for and it really shows in my opinion when you don't use it, with graphics that are 'off' and too bright an image.

 

As long as we're talking fun stuff to do with RetroPie, I love that scraper thing for game info, it makes the menu seem a lot cooler. I don't scrape ratings though, because fuck other people's opinions.