RetroPie Setup


Description

RetroPie is a operating system for the raspberry pi that is capable of emulating almost any game to a degree. As long as the raspberry pi has enough processing power to run both the emulator and the actual rom of on the emulator it can basically run it. Keep in mind almost all games can be run with this setup with the exception of most modern games due to the fact a lot of games especially older ones don't take hardly any processing power to run.

MakeIt had acquired a raspberry pi with a RetroPie OS onboard after a MakeIt Labs member by the name of Noah Schreiber had donated it to the labs. If you have any question regarding the setup you can slack him or shoot him an email at noah.schreiber@makeitlabs.com. It is located upstairs next to the tv. It is the wooden box with the joystick controls on it.

The Raspberry Pi has several components to it that you need to be made aware of in order to understand it's functionality.

  1. The sd card.

  2. The raspberry pi 3 b+.

  3. Game controllers.

These will be explained in more detail in this article.


SD Card

The micro SD card in the pi should not be removed period. There is absolutely no reason why it should be removed from the pi period. On it contains all the emulators, games, and the OS on board for the pi. Don't mess with it period.


Raspberry Pi

The raspberry pi contains a few things needed to use it. It has a psu, on off switch, and a hdmi cable. The hdmi cable is plugged into the tv upstairs to use it. Just plug in the green cable in order to use it to the pi and make sure the tv is selected to hdmi 2 or 1 (I don't remember off the top of my head) and volume is set to below 10% because the device does have volume set to very high on the pi. For this reason anything above 10% volume on the tv is very loud while playing with the retropie so be weary please.

Do not by any means shut power off the pi without shutting off the RetroPie first. What this means is in the main menu in order to shut off the the device you do the following.

  1. On the SNES game pads that are stored with the pi press "select" and "start" at the same time to exit any emulator. Or press the two white buttons on the wooden box at the same time to exit a game. Or press "select" and "start" (the white buttons) on the wooden arcade box to exit a game as well.

  2. Press start with the SNES controllers and you will be taken to the options menu. Or press the player 1 button on the arcade box.

  3. You can completely shutdown the pi by clicking "Quit > Shutdown System".

  4. Turn off the power switch.

  5. Put everything away and stored properly the way you found it in the container on the DVD shelf.

Game controllers

Majority of all games besides NDS, N64, and PS1 can use the controllers that come with the pi. The reason being is the RetroPie setup does not come with analog controllers so you are going to have to use your own. In order to setup a new controller with the RetroPie you must do the following.

  1. Plug in the controller to one of the USB ports on the pi.

  2. Start up the RetroPie properly as described above.

  3. You will be prompted with a menu for configuring the controller. Follow all the instructions until you reach the hotkey button configuration

  4. On the SNES controllers the hotkey is the select button. If you have no buttons available that are not used already you may press the select button on your remote to use as a hotkey. Keep in mind buttons can serve a dual purpose on the RetroPie. If not you can use another button on your remote to use as a hotkey which will need to be pressed along with the start button at the same time to exit almost every emulator besides the NDS.

  5. If you screwed this up this is an easy fix. Plug in the arcade box controller to the pi. Press start. And from there click configure controller and follow the directions by using the controller you want to reconfigure. Do not change any of the existing controller configs because otherwise Noah Schreiber will have to go fix it.

Conclusion

If there is a game you want installed don't hesitate to shoot Noah a message. If there is something wrong with the RetroPie don't fix it yourself. Leave it up to Noah. Thanks!


Enjoy!