NesPie birthday build for my brother. Tips?
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Hi, I've just ordered the NesPie 4 and Raspberry pi 4 8gb, and plan to surprise my younger brother on his birthday with a RetroPie build with all the games we grew up with, and all the series/movies we liked. I am not very familiar with raspberry pi and Linux based systems, but I think I can figure most of it out through guides and googling. Here is what I envision:
I plan to keep RetroPie and all the games on the SSD and boot straight to the RetroPie emulator screen. I plan to keep the movies and a separate OS on a microSD... Something that boots straight to KODI or something? It would be nice if I could run Netflix and Amazon prime from there as well, but I don't know if that is currently possible. I want to make this as simple for him as possible... insert SSD/casette for games. Insert microSD for movies/series.
As I said, I'm not very familiar with these kinds of builds... I've only ever built PC's in the past, so I would like to know if something like this is feasible as I imagine it or if I have to tone it down a bit or change my plans. Any suggestions or tips (software, tools, hardware I might need) would be appreciated. I have approximately 2 months until his birthday, and I assume this project will entail much trial and error.
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Is there a reason you want to use a SSD? Pi's run fine on a microSD and if you're planning on just doing the NES collection, you really don't need much storage. You just need to flash Retropie onto the MicroSD card, plug it into the pi, connect to wifi/ethernet, ect. Type the IP into your PC, then drag the roms to the correct folder. Also the 8gb is way overkill for what you're trying to accomplish, in my honest opinion.
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The main reason I want to use the SSD, is to get the feeling of putting in a game cartridge. I have a 120gig SSD lying around i thought I could use. I also want to keep the game element, and the movie/series element of the build separate, to make it easier to switch between them. Just pop in the cartridge (SSD) for games, and remove it, and put in the microSD (256gig loaded with movies and series and the needed OS/software) for watching movies. I know the storage might be overkill, I don't know how many gigs all compatible ROM collections take. I plan to fill it with all the games I can find, but mainly NES, SNES, SEGA, NeoGeo, GBA, GBC, and N64 and PlayStation if those ROMs run well on pi 4. I want this to be as simple as possible, easily controlled with a controller like the 8BITDO SN30 Pro Bluetooth controller or something, both for movies and games. I want to avoid the need for keyboard and mouse, and boot straight to the console selection screen in RetroPie with the cartridge(SSD) inserted, and boot straight the the Movies/series selection screen with the microSD card inserted...
If this is at all possible. Time will tell, I will try at least.
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You don't actually want to do that with the cartridge as it will wear down the connectors but also, it's not very easy at all to remove the cartridge once it's in there anyways. It's clearly not meant to encourage you to keep swapping it in and out and mainly just for show.
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