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Emulate consoles and home computers on the Raspberry Pi with RetroPie

RetroPie (http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/) is a distribution that makes the slim, cost-effective and energy-saving Raspberry Pi a game console and a classic home computer. The following hardware is recommended:

  • Raspberry Pi, preferably the new Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. Older models Raspberry Pi (A, A+, B, B+) do not always offer the best performance.
  • An SD card with at least 8 GiB memory. Since the operating system, emulators and games are read by the SD card, it is recommended to use a memory card as fast as possible - e.g. SDHC Class 10.
  • A HDMI cable for display on the monitor or TV.
  • At least one game controller with USB port, best of the PS3 or Xbox 360.

The RetroPie distribution is a coordinated bundle of various projects. Without much effort, you can convert the Raspberry Pi to the console or home computer with a preconfigured image on the SD card. RetroPie itself has more than 40 emulators for consoles and home computers. RetroPie uses Libretro, a program interface for abstraction over the hardware, and this is in turn served by RetroArch, a graphical interface for configuration. The uniform chic interface for access to the games and emulators comes from EmulationStation (http://www.emulationstation.org/), an open-source software that is also available for Windows. The user does not have to deal with complex settings and adjustments, it remains with the key setting of a joypad/joystick.

RetroPie can be downloaded as a Pi image from the website http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/retropie-downloads/ It contains the complete operating system including emulators and a few classic games like DOOM. For the Raspberry Pi 1 and 2 there are extra optimized versions, such as retropie-v3.0beta2-rpi1.img.gz for the new Raspberry Pi 2.

The SDHC memory card is first formatted with FAT32. In order to bring the image to the SD card, the open source additional software is available Win32DiskImager (http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/); it unpacks the RetroPie image and initializes the SDHC card with the Linux and all software. If you then insert the SD card into the Raspberry Pi, it boots the operating system.

To make administrative changes to the RetroPie, either a connection should be made via SFTP or SSH to the Raspberry Pi. SSH allows access to the Linux interface to make basic settings on the operating system and also to end emulators. The SFTP connection allows for quick copying, downloading and changing directories and files. On Windows, the (S)FTP program WinSCP is a good choice. The login process requires user name and password as well as host name and port of the Raspberry Pis. The latter identify the IP address of the Raspberry Pis in the network:

  • Host name: 192.168.xxx.yyy
  • Username (by default): pi
  • Password (by default): raspberry
  • Port: 22

Software for the home computers and consoles is called a ROM in Pi terminology and is essentially a software image. There are different sources for the ROMs. However, it should be clear that many ROMs are of legal concern. Many games offered are illegal pirate copies, and downloading and sharing is punishable and can be fined by the legislator with high fines to prison. The range of illegal ROM providers is inconceivable. Legal and varied offers are hard to find. A positive example is the page http://mamedev.org/roms/ , where familiar games are reimplemented and shared, although activity falls far short of what the creators would like.

40 emulators are pre-installed on the Pi, including, C64, Amiga, Sinclair, SNES, NES, Sega Game gear, GBA, GBC, GB, N64, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 800, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari Lynx, Atari ST, MSX, Neo Geo, Macintosh, Sega Master System, Mega Drive, Playstation. If a ROM exists, it must be included in the RetroPie library: The software for the emulated computers/consoles comes into a suitable subdirectory \home\pi\RetroPie\roms.

For the Amiga RetroPie brings the emulator, but not the operating system AmigaOS. Kickstart-ROMs are necessary to run Amiga software legally. These can be purchased for 79 cents at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cloanto.amigaforever.essentials&hl=de in the Google Play Store. After the purchase, the ROMs are copied from the mobile phone/tablet to the Pi. If the PC is connected to the mobile phone/tablet, you will find in the directory Android > data > com.cloanto.amigaforever.essentials > files > rom the files. The emulator requires at least one kickstart file (e.g. amiga-os-120.rom, four versions come in total) and the rom.key-File. After copying, rename the four .rom files to kick12.rom, kick13.rom, kick20.rom and kick31.rom — rom.key remains unchanged. The Amiga ROMs are transmitted to the Pi via SFTP: the four ROMs and the rom.key come to the folder \home\pi\RetroPie\BIOS.