Happy Friday! – First Edition – Fun With RetroPie
Happy Friday! – First Edition – Fun With RetroPie
Hello all, this is the first in a series of vBrisket posts dedicated to “Fun stuff” in tech. I am planning to have at least one fun semi-IT related “Happy Friday” post a month.
Fun stuff… Wooo!!!
For those of you that joined us at our second vBrisket event, you know that aside from the great discussions we had surrounding home lab (thanks again Michael White – Twitter: @mwVme – Blog: notesfrommwhite.net ), we gave away a Raspberry PI configured as a retro gaming machine named RetroPie.
We love Raspberry Pi/RetroPie at vBrisket and I wanted to make sure that anyone that would like to build one of these awesome gaming machines has the resources available. The RetroPie project started from the Pet Rock Blog group ( blog.petrockblock.com ) and the current image is available for download for free at:
From there you will need the following hardware:
Raspberry PI B+ board and case: http://amzn.com/B00LAA91R2
Micro SD card with adapter: http://amzn.com/B00DYQYLQQ (16GB you need a minimum of 4GB for the image and ROMs)
SNES style USB controllers: http://amzn.com/B002JAU20W ( I would get a minimum of two, so you can play with a friend. Max four controllers based on the number of USB slots on the Raspberry Pi B+ board).
Mini wireless keyboard and mouse: http://amzn.com/B00KF9LHUI ( You need a keyboard for setup and to escape games. Additionally, its good to have a mouse for the X GUI included with RetroPie/raspian OS)
Optional
USB wireless adapter: http://amzn.com/B003MTTJOY (The drivers for this cheap adapter are included in the RetroPie image)
Total investment with optional parts and two controllers: ~$75 (this cost is subject to changing prices on Amazon)
Long story short, awesome gaming machine for under $80!
After you build and configure your RetroPie just load up your ROMs and you are good to go. Here are some very helpful links to to aid in the configuration of your RetroPie:
Step-by-Step Build:
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-turn-your-raspberry-pi-into-a-retro-game-console-498561192
http://blog.petrockblock.com/forums/topic/updated-for-2-3-step-by-step-guide/
Audio Setup:
http://lofi-gaming.org.uk/blog/2014/04/03/switching-audio-output-between-jack-and-hdmi-on-retropie/
How to Add ROMs:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-install-game-emulators-on-the-raspberry-pi-si/
Feel free to reply to this post with any questions. I am working on a deep dive dedicated to all things Raspberry PI and list of cool things you can do with this amazing little computer. Stay tuned!
Thanks for sticking with me on my first blog post!
Bohack - February 6, 2015, 9:01 pm
Excellent little project that you could knock out in a weekend. I built one for my son for Christmas. We used an xBox 360 USB controller which is a little harder to setup. Mainly because all the emulators have to inherit the settings from the retroarch.cfg and they changed the location where it’s located from the documentation. If you put locate on the distro to find the location make sure you turn it off when your done. That little RPI lags when the background task starts to index the SDCard.