A good starter bundle?
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Hi all, first post (deep breath veterans!)
I have just came within a whisker of buying a pre-built Pi off of that there Facebook (it will never catch on) and before being progressed to the vendors webpage (credit card was in hand) I paused and enjoyed a flashback to my attempts at configuring MAME in its very early days - ahh the pain, the pain, the pain, the slightly less painful bits and then the SHEER JOY OF GETTING ALIEN SYNDROME TO WORK (after realising that the ROM set I had was borked).. anyways where was I? Oh yeah, so i thought feck this im going to look up how you do this and several Youtube videos later here I am :)
So I am going to buy the kit / configure it and no doubt enjoy many hours of searching through posts asking for help to fix the teething problems i get. But before I embark on this journey I wondered if anyone could recommend any suppliers of Pi bundles (Pi3 / controllers / other useful paraphernalia)? Or is it just Amazon.
One other thing; looking at amazon all the bundles seem to come with a 32gb memory card. This seems quite small to me if i head down the route of newer emulators with larger ROM sizes. In general is 32gb enough? Any issues with a 128 gb card?
Much obliged good people :)
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@icomeinpeace I see lots of good works spoken about Canakit and Vilros. Amazon is as good as anywhere to be honest. 32GB should be more than plenty unless you want full MAME sets and disk based games.
I have one Pi that has around 2500 games from various systems on it. They are on a 32GB card and there is over 4 GB to spare. I just have a very limited selection of larger CD based games.
Good on you for not paying the inflated price for free software and lining the pockets of scum. -
@jonnykesh - Thanks bud. Will have a look at those people.
I had an almost full MAME romset back in the day and still have them somewhere burnt on to DVDs. I reckon my son will want the PS1 / Dreamcast stuff and me the old school.
SO no known issues with having larger sd cards?
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@icomeinpeace Lots of people use 128GB cards. Another idea is a decent sized SD and then keep all the ROMs on a USB thumb drive. Normally about half the price for equivalent storage size.
Controllers are a personal thing. The 3 I use are IBuffalo SNES, Xbox360 and PS4.
PS1 works really well, Dreamcast not so much. -
@jonnykesh - so you can boot roms straight off of USB drive? Theres the answer, cheers again :)
Yeah x2 Buffalo and x2 ps3/4 controllers were my plan of action.
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@icomeinpeace You can boot off a USB and have everything on there OR you can boot from the SD and have your whole OS there but just the actual ROMs on an external drive, USB thumb drive or even an external HDD / SSD. I've seen some people say they are using 2TB external drives... For what, who knows???
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@Icomeinpeace
I recently embarked on setting up my own Raspberry Pi with RetroPie. There's lots of great resources online so I'm sure you won't run into any problems along the way!I saw those Pi bundles you were talking about too but I ended up just buying the pieces that I needed. I already had a few things like a HDMI cable, micro SD card reader, and a power supply. So I just picked up the things I needed off Amazon for the cheapest price and they all work great. I'm only using a 16gb card for NES and SNES games so I can't comment much about the memory card.
Good luck!
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@courtesybear Thanks for your reply :) I ended up buying a pack + some buffalo controllers, all of which will arrive tomorrow. Thats my afternoon plans made!
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@icomeinpeace
I agree on using a usb stick for your roms and save files. Makes some things a lot easier.
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-driveAlso people have some problems with the Buffalo controllers:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/8187/gamepads-making-involuntary-movements-in-emulation-station/76
I use a Dual shock 4 , it's pretty much perfect in every way. -
@bobharris - thanks for your thoughts m8. Hopefully I wont have to many issues with the Buffalo's - plenty of options if I do - I have ps3 and 4 controllers which will get used in time.
Appreciate the link for running roms from USB - I am starting with a truck load of MAME stuff i got backed up on DVD but will quickly move onto USB.
Roll on tomorrow when the Pi arrives :)
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Congrats on walking the righteous path; you've already saved yourself loads of time by not buying a pre-built package because they're near impossible to troubleshoot and difficult to find support for (but you already knew that). I will second the recommendation on keeping your roms on separate media from the OS- it pays off in spades down the road when you need to change configurations, upgrade to a new version, or just blow away everything and start from a new image (especially useful if you're the type that likes to try out every emulator/p that you can get to work and there are many). I started out buying large Samsung micro-SD cards , then switched to large USB thumb drives and eventually landed on using 2.5" 1TB drive powered by a USB hub. Lots of spare space for disc images and such. Good luck and have fun!
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I too contemplated going the package root, but then by reading places like this, and watching videos decided to take the plunge and build piecemeal. I may be 51 but I love tinkering around when I am not working, trying new things like scrapers, and looking at new themes. I am now in the process of trying to get selective titles showing video snaps for only that particular game. Just trying to find where and how to put the individual mp4 file is the next step. Have fun!
Oh and thanks for link to github. Is it called github, because most of the issues are a right git to sort out ;)
Have a good weekend all -
@impman66 inventor of Linux Linus Torvalds helped develop git for version control of the Linux kernel. He's a bit of a right git himself but I'd say he's earned it
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@herb_fargus said in A good starter bundle?:
@impman66 inventor of Linux Linus Torvalds helped develop git for version control of the Linux kernel. He's a bit of a right git himself but I'd say he's earned it
LONG LIVE Linus Torvalds and PENGUINS EVERYWHERE! :D
As for the OP:
It's not the idea of having a retropie system for most of us, but more the building our own. It's like a car or a house..you take the time to "tweak" it and "perfect" it so that it is yours and so that you can feel the accomplishment and individuality of it..the rest of it is just fun and games... ;)
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Just to update; all set up and working :) the trickiest bit was that my windows 10 laptop doesn't like / run Win32 disklimager - had to boot an old Windows 7 laptop up to burn the image onto the sd card.
Some little niggles which have largely worked out, however gutted to learn that The Main Event isnt working :( I used to peddle some ten pences into that beauty back in the day.
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@icomeinpeace said in A good starter bundle?:
my windows 10 laptop doesn't like / run Win32 disklimager
Etcher could have saved you a bit of trouble ;)
If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/
Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
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@herb_fargus said in A good starter bundle?:
@icomeinpeace said in A good starter bundle?:
my windows 10 laptop doesn't like / run Win32 disklimager
Etcher could have saved you a bit of trouble ;)
Yeah but it sure was nice to use Windows 7 again........ :P
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Ok now im cooking with gas and want to have a look at scraping. Is this guide to using Stephen Selphs scraper still on the money??:
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@incunabula said in A good starter bundle?:
Congrats on walking the righteous path; you've already saved yourself loads of time by not buying a pre-built package because they're near impossible to troubleshoot and difficult to find support for (but you already knew that). I will second the recommendation on keeping your roms on separate media from the OS- it pays off in spades down the road when you need to change configurations, upgrade to a new version, or just blow away everything and start from a new image (especially useful if you're the type that likes to try out every emulator/p that you can get to work and there are many). I started out buying large Samsung micro-SD cards , then switched to large USB thumb drives and eventually landed on using 2.5" 1TB drive powered by a USB hub. Lots of spare space for disc images and such. Good luck and have fun!
Just looking at a USB Hub and had a question you could likely help with or recommend a guide?
SO if i have multiple flash drives in a Hub, would you need to format each drive using the process mentioned here: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive
i.e. Format your USB drive to FAT32 per directions above & Create a folder called retropie-mount on the USB driveThen add the ROMS manually to each drive?I guess in theory you could have one drive for PS1 one for MAME etc?
Thanks in advance for any advice :D
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I haven’t tried to use multiple usb drives mounted at once so I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you, sorry. I use a powered usb hub more to ensure a smooth power source for the hdd so it’s not relying on the pi to provide the hdd’s power over usb.
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