New RetroPie x86 install on dedicated PC - any tips on OS and other stuff?

movisman

Hi all,

I have recently acquired a small Lenovo Thinkcentre M93p which is running a Quad Core i5 and has 8gb of RAM.

I've got a desktop Picade arcade machine set up at the moment using a Pi 2, and everything works great. However i'd quite like to have a permanent machine hooked up to the TV for emulation, which is more capable of running things like Gamecube, N64 and Dreamcast emulation at a stable speed.

I have read the guide on the wiki regarding installing Ubuntu 16.04 x86 and then Retropie on top, but I was wondering, as this is a brand new install, would I be better served installing a later version of Ubuntu, and is it ok to install an x64 version? This machine will be a dedicated emulation platform so I don't plan to use it for much else. Or should I be sticking with 16.04 for this project?

I noticed in the wiki some notes regarding HDMI audio and Pulseaudio 8 on 16.04, and although for setup purposes the machine is currently plugged into a monitor via DVI and i'm using the 3.5mm output into headphone to test audio, eventually it will move to the TV area and I would want the audio to be passed through HDMI. I would like to avoid potential issues with HDMI audio, and i'm not sure if this is something which is likely to crop up by installing 16.04.

Any tips or tricks anyone can offer in addition to what's on the wiki here, especially when it comes to choosing an OS to base the install on? If anyone has any guidance that would be awesome.

I have tried Batocera but I had real issue changing resolutions, and because my TV is 4K emulation was just dog slow and I just couldn't figure out how to force something like 720p across the board. I have also played with Lakka for a quick 'plug and play' solution, but on the build I installed I am having trouble using the buttons on the mouse (they just do not work), so Amiga and ScummVM type emulation is a challenge. I haven't fixed this yet, but apart from that most stuff did run pretty well. I am not too fussed about a Windows 10 and Launchbox type environment, as this will take an age to set up from scratch.

I am quite familiar with Retropie from my previous Picade install, and I love the project so I have no real reason to use anything else - if it works well on a PC and I can boot straight into the emulation environment, and do things like bring it out of suspend with no issues.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

movisman

Hi all,

Just thought i'd follow up with what I ended up doing, in case it helps anyone else starting out with Linux who wants to use RetroPie on a PC.

As I am generally a Linux novice (I only know a hatful of terminal commands for my other RPi image), I ended up installing the latest version of Linux Mint 18.3 (x64). Everything works fine so far and RetroPie installs flawlessly - I still have some work to do to get things how I would like, as ultimately I am after a Pi type experience where my system boots straight to ES in full screen (whilst still retaining a stable clean OS sat underneath in case I decide to do anything else with the machine).

Here are some of the changes I have made so far, in order to make the overall experience a bit more seamless - if anyone has any other tips they can share with me that would be great.

So, after installing Linux Mint, make sure all updates are applied, and make sure any drivers are applied via driver manager (Intel, Nvidia etc).

Follow this first:
https://github.com/retropie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Debian

As documented in the above link, you can disable sudo password requests (stops root password request when running RetroPie-Setup and shutting down/restarting ES):

open terminal
type sudo visudo, and add to the end of the file:

youruseraccount ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

(replace youruseraccount with your account name)
Write the changes (write out)

This will stop the sudo password requests which crop up in ES.

Here are some other basic changes which are mainly for people who want ES to autostart and want a plainer desktop which is barely noticeable on boot:

Set up OS to autologin
Auto Hide the taskbar
Change desktop background to black
Disable desktop icons (computer, home, etc)
Disable screensaver and lock when put to sleep/when screensaver starts
Disable additional system tray icons (optional)
Disable notifications (optional)

Autostarting ES
If you want RetroPie to launch on boot, you can do this as follows:

Open RetroPie Setup from inside emulationstation
Go to Setup / Configuration and enable autostart

This will put an entry in to the Linux Mint Startup Applications list.

Important:
You need to change the startup delay to "2" seconds for ES. If this is left as "0", when the machine boots you will just get a blank terminal. No idea why this is, perhaps some UI elements need to load first. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this. I tried "1" second and whilst it worked most times, sometimes it would still just display a blank terminal and not launch ES. I would recommend "2" seconds and i've had no issues with using this figure.

You can do this as follows:

open Linux Mint menu, search for 'start' and click 'startup applications'
find the rpie entry and edit it
change the startup delay to '2 seconds'

Tidying up the terminal so it looks much nicer in fullscreen and 'blends' into ES
By default, the terminal in Linux Mint is transparent, has scrollbars, and doesn't look too great when runcommand is loading ROMS. You can create a special RetroPie profile and add it to the startup so it looks better in ES, without affecting your default terminal 'look'. You can do this as follows:

First, open a terminal and create a 'RetroPie' profile (preferences > profile), changing the following options in the new profile:

Colours tab

untick use colours from system theme
untick use transparent background
change background colour to black
change text colour etc to preference

Scrolling tab

untick show scrollbar

Save the profile.

Then, assuming you have already enabled autostart as above, you need to adjust the startup command slightly so it loads your terminal profile when launching ES at boot.

open Linux Mint menu, search for 'start' and click 'startup applications'
find the rpie entry and edit it
change the command so it reads as follows:
gnome-terminal --full-screen --hide-menubar --profile=RetroPie -e emulationstation

Note the added "--profile=RetroPie". This loads the RetroPie profile for a opaque, black, no scrollbar terminal. The rest of the command is the same as before.

You can also disable other startup applications from here if you wish, such as Flatpak, mintUpdate, mintwelcome and Support for NVIDIA Prime. This is optional of course and up to you. I have left mine as is for now.

So there we go - these are just some very basic tweaks I came up with to get me up and running and thought i'd share them. This is for Linux Mint and the above changes are simple ones any user can make. I am still working on it and if anyone has any other tips for using RetroPie as a full screen experience on x86 let me know!

I will be making a separate post for Gamecube emulation as i've got Dolphin working well, but you need to make quite a few changes initially in Dolphin's GUI to get things working nicely. I will share my findings and perhaps update the WIKI as it needs some further information adding to it which is not currently there.

I am not against changing distros eventually depending on the final use of this machine, but for now Linux Mint seems like a good choice for a beginner. If anyone has any advice on what would work best for a dedicated living room emulation machine, please feel free to make suggestions.

Cheers

PocketTim

Zombie reply but it’s just to say thanks. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for as I’ve just acquired an MSI e45. Significantly less powerful but I just wanted something more console like to sit under the TV along with the XB1 and PS4 pro.

I’m concerned Mint might be a bit too heavy for my setup but it’s my fave distro so I’ll see how I get on. Your additional arguments for a seamless boot up sequence however are a godsend.

If you made any more changes which may be beneficial to know I’d love to hear them.

Cheers.

movisman

@pockettim

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, glad this helped you out!

I have been very quiet on the forums for the last number of months - many other things took priority in life and i've not had any time at all to dedicate to the x86 box. Hopefully towards the end of the year I will get back on it. Will probably start it again now to be honest, as my install will be seriously stale. This is the first time i've logged in for ages and just picked up your upvote. After my above post I ended up trying Ubuntu MATE too, which I also got working nicely and was a bit lighter in weight. I made myself some proper documentation for the tweaks and changes I made, in case I wanted to come back to it later (so I didn't forget what i'd learnt!), I did the same with Gamecube stuff. It will need updating now i'm sure though. I remember getting Xubuntu Core working as well, this might be a good shout for you if resources are scarce. Lubuntu works too. With these distros I had to do a couple of window management tweaks to make the fullscreen experience better, so that when loading roms you don’t get a flash of the terminal window or any panels you have set up. If I was to rebuild it again I might try using a lighter weight distro, if/when this happens i'll update my documentation and post it here.

It's all a bit hazy now as I stepped away for a while - I need to get back on it at some point when I have quality time.

Cheers

PocketTim

@movisman good to hear you're going to go back to it!

In the end the e35 wasn't powerful enough and required legacy AMD drivers. I ended up with an ASRock AIO board rocking an Intel J3160 and it is flying.

After a huge amount of experimentation Linux Mint XCFE was my final distro. Light enough to keep performance high and startup times low but feature-full enough that I can back out of ES and use it for other things should the mood take me.

My RPi3 kinda got abandoned in the end due to hitting SD card limits or poor performance in PSX and 64 games so with this x86 install giving me that extra oomph, I'm fully invested again!