What are your favourite RetroPie customisations?

mattrixk · 8 Jun 2020, 07:32

Hi all!

What are your "must have" RetroPie elements?

I recently had to rebuild my system (I think the SD card finally died) and I want to make sure my new setup has all the best stuff on it.

So far I've started a fresh install, set up SSH/Wifi, fixed my overscan, set up the main systems I want and got my PS3 controller working. I also have the roms running from my NAS drive, and Kodi is set up how I like it.

So, it's currently perfectly usable, but it's not enough.

I'll also be setting up overlays and scanlines, along with Meleu's Joystick Selection script, and custom startup and selection images.

Are there any big things I've missed?

What Ports do you see as essential?
Has PS3 controller support for ScummVM gotten any better than it used to be? (I remember the button configuration was bonkers and I had to jump through flaming hoops to change it)
Is Grid view a fully supported feature? When I last looked into it, it was still a niche idea. Are their any good themes to highlight it?

I realised that I've been away from this community for a long time, so there's probably been a ton of development around interesting things to do with RetroPie that I haven't even considered. Are there any new and wonderful things that I haven't mentioned?

xFJSx · 6 Aug 2020, 09:21

@mattrixk yoa can take a peek at pegasus-frontend which is pretty fast an use gameOS as theme for it. But use the latest build for the frontend, you can find it under the experimental section of the retropie packages.

wmarcio · 8 Jul 2020, 02:33

I like to add some BGM on retropie, and i have my .ogg music list.

simpleethat · 7 Aug 2020, 02:38

A few little things I always do that I think really add to the experience:

For launching images I like to have game cartridges/discs
Customizing the es_systems.cfg to be in a more logical order (I usually organize by year of release but sometimes do consoles/handhelds)
Overlays
Shaders
Meticulously edited gamelists (I'll be honest, I've yet to actually complete this as it gets to be rather daunting, it's on-going) to include:
a. Games in a series grouped together in the appropriate system
b. Correct number of players
c. Genres formalized
d. Consistent game descriptions (I may never succeed at this but a guy can dream)

Other things I like the idea of:

Personalized splashscreens (especially videos that can fill the boot time)
Background music (not my cup of tea but I like the idea)
Removal of all that bootup text for a cleaner looking start (I have this on one of my builds and like it but everything else is still being worked on as it's kind of a last thing to me).
Dynamic marquees on a secondary display that show the game/system being displayed (really awesome in my opinion but I haven't come up with good way to pull it off in my living room so it doesn't look out of place).

mitu · 7 Aug 2020, 04:32

@mattrixk said in What are your favourite RetroPie customisations?:

Has PS3 controller support for ScummVM gotten any better than it used to be? (I remember the button configuration was bonkers and I had to jump through flaming hoops to change it)

Try the SDL2 variant, it might have better support for gamepads.

Is Grid view a fully supported feature? When I last looked into it, it was still a niche idea. Are their any good themes to highlight it?

Yes, it's baked in the stable release now. Try one of @ruckage's themes:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/19016/neo-geo-mini-theme

mattrixk · 7 Aug 2020, 05:29

Thanks for the answers everyone.

@xFJSx Completely changing the front-end seems like a lot of hassle, and I'm not really sure what the difference will be. I like making my own themes, and I don't know if they'll work on that new front end. Thank you though, maybe something to look at in the future.

@wmarcio I don't really like noise while scrolling through. I've removed all sound effects and even considered muting any videos I get (but I don't currently use videos).

@simpleethat Some of these I've done, and some are on the cards. Editing the game list is something I hadn't thought about, so thanks for that (but yes, it is a bit daunting)

@mitu Oh, great, I'll give that a try! Nice to hear about grid view. I'm looking to get back into theme building, so it will be great to have some examples. Hopefully I can find an updated Windows version of ES that will run them.

wimpy · 8 Jul 2020, 17:31

At the moment my fav customisations are what I just completed for my setup:

Updated retroachievement + savestate information which is generated into game specific images (using <marquee> for this artwork). This happens when you quit a game. A custom script is run from runcommand-onend.sh for this task.

Future customisations I'm contemplating are:

Second screen to display artwork/banner of game playing etc. If it pans out it's not possible to do this via the second HDMI on RPI4 I will create a solution to use a PIzero or a second RPI3/4 to display these images and update it over network with runcommand-onstart.sh and runcommand-onend.sh scripts.
Retroachievement custom improvement to display up to 4 other friends to compare scores. (reason I've left some space in the custom <marquee> image shown below:
Create custom dynamic launch images using custom retroachievement/game-related artwork,. Which will mean once launching a game a lunch/splash screen will be generated (if any changes since last) to display artwork,screenshots and retroachievement information, system logo ++ etc.
Further improve my own gamelist/synopsis system, which is a system I created to be in control over what ends up in my gamelist.xml and a system which I use to curate all my xtras (game-artworks etc)

Cool to see what other custom solutions are out there! :)

wimpy · 7 Aug 2020, 16:39

Here is an example of a game that has savestates and unlocked achievements for comparison.

Hopefully I can de-attach this so it can be used by others sometime soon. Or someone else will pick up the idea and beat me to it :D

wimpy · 7 Aug 2020, 16:54

@mattrixk in regards to Ports I've always enjoyed installing and playing the following:

SuperTux
Super Mario War
Doom, Doom II

and for some reason I really enjoyed playing Dinothawr the other day :)

sirhenrythe5th · 8 Jul 2020, 18:32

I renamed all my games to sort them.
For everything but MAME i sorted the games by genre, so i.e. "RPG - Zelda: A link to the past".
I furthermore sorted them logical, i.e "MERCS became COMMANDO II: MERCS".
In MAME i sorted the games by developer starting with ATARI.
A lot of work indeed but worth every hour, me and my buddies love it.
You dont get this with just using a scraper and there is not a single "in da houze"-prebuilt offering this.
As we are talking about scrapers, i also exchanged every scraped image against an own searched in the WWW.

Clyde · 7 Aug 2020, 18:41

@sirhenrythe5th You, sir, are my kind of addict. 🧐

sirhenrythe5th · 7 Aug 2020, 18:47

@Clyde yep, it seems i am guilty 😄

ts-x · 8 Aug 2020, 01:45

Opinions may vary, but to me DXX-Rebirth (Descent 1 & 2), Cannonball (Outrun), UR-Quan Masters (Star Control II), and Super Mario War are must have ports. Cave Story, Mari0, Openblok, and Tyrian are worth a look as well.

rilight · 10 Aug 2020, 15:20

@wimpy I would absolutely love documentation on how you got all this working! It looks amazing, and I'm definitely hoping I can get something like that set up on my install in the future :D