Raspberry PI emulation station (aka RetroPie)

[superuser88]

Hello all

I would like to share with you a project I've been working on for some time now... The RetroPie Project.
First off I have to say that NOTHING except the case setup is my own work, the operating software etc.. are all from third parties. and the ROMs are of course from the good people at theoldcomputer.com

This project has taken me about 2 weeks to get to this stage (still debugging at the moment)

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwjdjB5UVhaRVlPMkE/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwjaGdQNzJmbU9CVlU/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwjRFd0cDdpUnJ2OVE/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwjWjRTdEVSTVdBS0E/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwjb0ZvZ3ZDcFRHMWc/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

The box is 20cm x 15cm x 3.8cm, white matte finish ABS plastic, comes in two halfs with screws and screw caps (£9 inc P&P)
All the internal cables were sourced at the local pound shop and cut to size.
The HDMI connector is a belkin flexible adapter, was about £2 on amazon.
The raspberry pi computer costs about £29.99 from most good retailers and from the pi foundations website
(profits from Rpi sales go to charity, to help kids to learn how to program etc..)
The xbox 360 wired controller RRP today i believe is around £25 - £30
The 16GB Class 10 San-Disk SD card cost me £9.99 at my local ASDA.
All the other materials i had lying around the house, epoxy putty, dc barrel jack connectors, wires.. etc...

At the moment i only have 4 emulators running, (Genesis, Master System, NES & SNES) this is just personal prefrence, the retropie software actually can run over a dozen different emulators, including N64 and PSX. The front end is Emulation Station, keeps it simple, nothing too fancy, might change the theme / skin later in the project.

thats all i have for you so far.

If you would like to attempt this yourself, google: Petrockblog retropie. for a full installation and set up guide

[PMJPlay]

Love it!

[Hot Trout]

Good Avatar, Great project and post and I want want to review once you have it finished.

'Come get some'

[superuser88]

thanks for the comments guys.

Should be finished by end of next week. just waiting on some more materials to tidy up the box and some decals to stick on.
was going to paint it, but decided to stick with the original white finish.

@ hot trout. A single download pack for sega genesis roms would help me out a lot in finishing this project.

I would also be more than happy for you to review it.

Currently trying to get N64 and PS1 to run on it... having over clocking issues. have tried most settings but still cant get it to run smoothly.

Any input from anyone with experience in this type of project is most welcomed.

[Hot Trout]

thanks for the comments guys.

@ hot trout. A single download pack for sega genesis roms would help me out a lot in finishing this project.

I am creating this 7zip pack now. I will upload later on today.

[Hot Trout]

The full Mega Pack of Sega Megadrive has now been uploaded. Enjoy.

[superuser88]

The full Mega Pack of Sega Megadrive has now been uploaded. Enjoy.

You are an absolute gem

Will PM you later about reviewing this machine Hot Trout.

[Bumcake]

Hey look's good, how much mileage are you getting out of your overclock?, I played around with the PI that I have here with Mame and found that it did a pretty decent job with older titles like Pacman & Donkey Kong etc, but chugged quite a bit with more complex titles even overclocked
My son bought a Cubieboard and whilst it's twice the price of the PI and from what he's shown me it stomps all over my PI, thats annoying!.
But after reading your post I'm going to give my PI a whirl again, I'm all for the underdog

Nice project, keep it up!.

[superuser88]

Thanks very much for the comment Bumcake

I was having a lot of trouble getting complex titles to run on MAME also, but found it was due to downloading incorrect ROM sets (Lots of different versions of MAME emulator, all require their own ROM sets)
The Pi uses Mame4All, mainly used on android OS, which essentially is a modified Linux distro, Which is what the Pi is designed for.
There still are a few demanding titles on MAME which the PI will certainly not run... not a snowballs chance...
With the latest versions of Mame4All, i believe there is a "Frame Skipping" option, which will allow you to smooth out the graphics, however, the sound drivers are just not up to the challenege.
But all in all it's turning out quite nicely.
I have my Pi overclocked at the following settings: ARM Freq: 1050 Mhz, Core Freq: 500 Mhz, SD-RAM Freq: 500Mhz, Overvolt: 6
and i have the 512MB of RAM in a 50 / 50 split between the CPU & GPU.

With these settings, I've had to add heatsinks to the RAM, CPU & GPU and i do believe i'm going to have to put a fan in there too

Lifespan is reduced when over volting past manufacturers spec, MAX reccomended over volt is 4

If you're looking into an ONLY MAME option for your Pi, I suggest googleing the PiMAME project, full tutorial on set-up and trouble shooting there, and i hear a lot of folks have had a lot of success doing it that way rather than the RetroPie option.

I've removed MAME from my project for the moment, while i try and get N64 & PS1 up and running.

Having trouble with some of the SNES games at the moment, most likely due to the crappy programming of the the PocketSNES emulator, going to change it out for SNES9X as it's more reliable.

As for Genesis(Mega Drive), Master System and NES... all running without problems.

At the moment i'm configuring each of the afore mentioned emulators to display correctly via HDMI, having issues with overscan at the moment, should have that sorted by tomorrow hopefully, then i can get back to sorting out N64 & PS1.
Also adding Bluetooth connectivity for PS3 controllers everything is better with bluetooth :-D

UPDATE: game box artwork is being added to the menu as i'm typng this... going to take a long time, so i'm going to leave it to run while i sleep. will let you know how it turns out tomorrow guys

[superuser88]

As promised guys... Frontend with game box art

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwjZExzMllldW9LZXc/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwja0pmVlNkWDBxR1E/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

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[url]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0za6dSnaCwjQWNRQi1tNjdCblE/edit?usp=sharing[/url]

Let me know what you think folks


Heading to my local Maplin today to pick up some switches and LEDs, I have a Shutdown button and Reset button to add