Any ETA on Raspberry Pi 4 Pre-Made Images?

Jiryn · 11 Oct 2019, 01:33

So, is there any ETA on Pre-made PI 4 images?
I grabbed the 4GB Pi 4 the day it was available, and have been watching the pre-made images like a hawk, but unless I'm oblivious (which could be the case), I've not seen any real support or pre-made images for the system.

So I was wondering if there are any in the works, or if I have to go through I didn't tab on the site, or what.

Thank you, and I apologize for being oblivious if that's the case.

hooperre · 10 Nov 2019, 02:57

@Jiryn Pre-made images are not supported whatsoever here (I’m speaking a bit for the devs) unless you’re referring to the official RetroPie image.

That being said there is no official support for Pi 4, no ETA, but you are able to install the fkms source build over Raspian Lite at this time to use the Pi 4 as it stands.

Not to be a jerk, but this is asked so frequently that you may not get another response (like once a day). I suggest you use the search tool next time.

ETA: Here’s a link for an explanation to install the fkms build.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-4-game-emulators,40102.html

Skip the Lakka section, write the latest Raspbian Lite image without an OS/desktop to an SD, and pick up at #4.

Jiryn · 11 Oct 2019, 02:05

@hooperre
Yea, I was asking for the official images or WIPs.
Yea, I was scrolling through the list to see if there was anything.
Most I could see was that the Pi 4 not working with a Xbox controller, or certain arcade games.

Which is why I asked if there was anything official yet!

Thank you for your help btw!

hooperre · 11 Oct 2019, 02:08

@Jiryn I’m using a wired Xbox 360 controller with the fkms Build and pretty much everything runs well.

Jiryn · 11 Oct 2019, 02:25

@hooperre said in Any ETA on Raspberry Pi 4 Pre-Made Images?:

@Jiryn I’m using a wired Xbox 360 controller with the fkms Build and pretty much everything runs well.

What I mean was I did do a minor precursory search to see if there were builds, just not with the search function.

I'll be using an 8bitdo controller when I get it up and running!

As I said, you've been a big help.

Darksavior · 11 Oct 2019, 02:53

With all these garbage 3rd party builds, I wouldn't mind wip official builds.

Russ_T · 11 Oct 2019, 11:38

Maybe as this is such a busy topic it would be worth making this a sticky post?

I'm in the same position, I bought two Pi4s on release for a PiCade and a SNES build, then realised my mistake :)

First up I wanted to say thank you to the people contributing to the Pi4 branch on GitHub. I watch it daily to see how progress is being made :) https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/tree/fkms_rpi4

Tonight I'm going to try two things, one taking a premade image and upgrading it to a Pi4 branch build, and when that fails I'll go for a clean build and see what I can do.

I'll try to document it here if it deviates from the guide linked to above. I'm hoping I can get something running, and then as new commits are made I can pull down the latest, rebuild, and get all the latest updates. No idea if this is possible but I'll give it a go.

Cheers

mitu · 11 Oct 2019, 11:41

@Russ_T said in Any ETA on Raspberry Pi 4 Pre-Made Images?:

Tonight I'm going to try two things, one taking a premade image and upgrading it to a Pi4 branch build, and when that fails I'll go for a clean build and see what I can do.

I don't think they'll be compatible and we don't support them. If you want to try out the RPI4 RetroPie branch, start with a clean Buster Lite image and install manually from that branch.

Russ_T · 11 Oct 2019, 11:56

Thank you mitu. I suppose what I'm trying to maintain are the custom front end images, roms and such of the premade images I have in mind. Possibly I can port some of this across, although not really essential.

If by the end of the evening I can get my PiCade finally playing a few games I will be happy :)

Cheers

Jiryn · 11 Oct 2019, 21:59

@Darksavior
Thank you!
This is part of the reason I watch the Retropi site like a hawk to see how far along the build is, or if there is any news at all!

Spatchcock · 14 Oct 2019, 14:24

@mitu Hi, for the RPi4 branch - aside from the extra usage of space is there any disadvantage to using a Buster full image (booting into command line, not desktop) rather than Buster lite?

I've already got it installed but I'm wondering if there's likely to be any performance hit because I'm using the full image.

mitu · 14 Oct 2019, 14:32

@Spatchcock said in Any ETA on Raspberry Pi 4 Pre-Made Images?:

any disadvantage to using a Buster full image (booting into command line, not desktop) rather than Buster lite?

No, there's no disadvantage or performance hit.

backstander · 14 Oct 2019, 18:23

I found this interesting article about the V3D driver progress for the RPi4:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/vc4-and-v3d-opengl-drivers-for-raspberry-pi-an-update/

And in the comments they mention:

Alejandro Piñeiro says:
For now we are focusing on progressing the GLES driver only. The hardware is capable of doing Vulkan though so of course we would like to work on that as well in the future.

Romstar · 15 Oct 2019, 03:12

@backstander Vulcan as in Star Trek ?.. That's the new symbol for the Rpi4, live long and prosper.

Spatchcock · 15 Oct 2019, 05:46

@mitu OK, cheers!

matchaman · 17 Oct 2019, 11:18

Silly question: will a RetroPie installation over Lite keep up with an official release if updated via RetroPie-setup or future GLSL /Vulcan/etc drivers will require a clean stable install?

mitu · 17 Oct 2019, 11:42

@matchaman I think it should work, but I can't be sure if the final install image won't require a reinstall. As for drivers, those are usually distributed with Raspbian, so if anything gets updated on that part, they'll be automatically installed as part of a normal OS package update.