It's time...

Danorak1981 · 17 Oct 2016, 08:48

Hello all,

I'm venturing into the world of RPi and Emulation. I have a few retro consoles, want a few more, but eBay is pricing me out of the market unfortunately. I've been doing some research and I know what I'm going for, but have a few questions incase there is anything else I can add to my shopping basket so I can have everything I need from the off.

After much research, I stumbled across this guide: it makes the whole process look quite simple and well within my skill set. Is there anything else i need to consider/anything that may cause problems or that they have missed out? Pocket Lint RPI Retropie.

My questions are more hardware based I think-all centred around the build in the link:

Does the RPi need a fan? I've seen cases with fans built in, but will it need one?
I keep reading that the RPi is a pain to turn on and shut down. Will it need a physical switch or can it be done through the OS? How would I turn it on?
Controllers: I'd like to use my original control pads. I know that you can get USB to SNES controllers fro example-will this work ok?
I think I've also read two controllers running at the same time isn't possible-is this correct? I'm assuming there is a workaround if not?
What is the Lifespan of the RPi likely to be?

I think thats it for now. My main consoles of interest will be NES/SNES/Megadrive, and eventually N64/Amiga 1200 (possibly Gamecube in the future too-I know the A1200 is a little more complex). It's not going to be a gaming machine and run all the time: it's very much an occasional device.

I'm ok on my Mac doing simple terminal commands, but coding etc is a bit of a scary avenue for me, so I'm trying to avoid as much as possible, although I've always wanted a RPi but never had a use until now-so I'd like to understand it a little more.

So to get me started, I've been looking at these:

...and the casing I'm not sure about as I may need one with a fan in.

Can anybody tell me if there's anything else I need to consider or should be looking for? My budget is around £60, I can't really go much higher than that for the initial outlay, although I'm happy to add components at a later date if I don't necessarily need them right away.

Thanks in advance!
Dan

GtBFilms · 17 Oct 2016, 09:28

@Danorak1981

I'm using an Rpi3 in a picade cabinet, and no fan was needed. I added heatsinks to a couple of the chips, but I hadn't actually encountered any heat/throttling issues.

I have a test Rpi in the red and white box shown on your link and with the lid on, the Rpi does occassionally give the yellow square heat throttling warning onscreen. Taking the lid off the box solved the problem when it occurred. I'm still to add a heatsink to that pi though.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-Raspberry-Pi-Model-Foundation/dp/B01CCPKCSK

The pi is easy enough to shutdown using the RetroPie front end, the issue is that there's no way to turn it on again rather than pulling the plug out the wall and plugging it back in, or the power cable out of the pi and back in. It's not really a problem, but a nicer solution would be to have some sort of power switch. That's easy enough to put in, but you probably want some sort of intelligent switch - just cutting the power is likely to corrupt the sd card eventually.

I purchased a PowerBlock as a solution - when the button is pressed the pi shuts down cleanly before the power is cut. Pressing the button again powers the pi back up.

http://blog.petrockblock.com/2015/07/04/powerblock-another-power-switch-for-the-raspberry-pi/

Controllers: I'd like to use my original control pads. I know that you can get USB to SNES controllers fro example-will this work ok?

I have USB to PS3 controller adaptors and they work fine. If you can get a USB adaptor for a controller, I reckon it will work fine.

I think I've also read two controllers running at the same time isn't possible-is this correct? I'm assuming there is a workaround if not?

I have had no issues running two controllers at the same time, each with their own USB adaptor. You have to set up the controls in the emulator you're using though.

I am using this micro SD card, which works fine:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00WIMBZHK

I have also used this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00OHJWYFO

So you could get yourself double the capacity for not much more than the one you mentioned.

On the other hand, if you want to back it up and store the images on your PC, then remember that the images will be the total capacity of the card, regardless of whether it's full or not - so every backup img of a 64GB card requires 64GB on your PC to store it.

You might want to get yourself a little keyboard and mouse/trackpad, you don't need it much with retropie but sometimes when setting things up it's useful.

This one is small, cheap, wireless and works fine with the Rpi stright out the box. Although I wouldn't try writing a novel with it, it's useful for quick commands.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00GTQ0J4G

I wouldn't worry about a case with a fan, especially if you are happy to run the pi with the lid of the case off. The problem with adding a fan is you are going to have to power it, which you could do off of a USB socket, but you are increasing the power load on the 2.5A power supply, which comes with it's own issues when the Pi has too many power-draining peripherals plugged in. Plus it uses up another precious USB socket and before you know it, you need a separate powered USB hub as well! Nah, stick with passive cooling unless it becomes an issue.

Danorak1981 · 18 Oct 2016, 18:36

@GtBFilms I'll expand on this when I have a bit more time: but snowed under right now-but thank you for the response, didn't want to just post then not acknowledge the response!

GtBFilms · 19 Oct 2016, 09:21

@Danorak1981 No problem, happy to help.

I've stuck a heatsink on my test Rpi3 now, the one in the little red box. I used this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262414460350

Works fine, I no longer get the little orange square to indicate throttling due to heat build-up even with the lid of the box on. I left it running, playing video clips, for a couple of hours last night and it was fine. Just passive heatsink cooling, no fan. It's not overclocked.

Danorak1981 · 19 Oct 2016, 19:00

@GtBFilms

Thanks for the comprehensive response earlier, it answered all the major questions that I had.

I had looked at keyboards, and specifically those style as Amazon recommended them, but I need to stick to my budget, so for the time being, I've borrowed a USB keyboard and Mouse from work so I can set it up over half term. I did wonder whether my keyboard and mouse would work with it (Apple wireless keyboard and mouse), but didn't want to take the chance. Im hoping that I might be able to find a way to pair them though once set up as it'd be really handy to be able to use them: but I'm going to stick to the basics for now.

Memory Card wise, I opted for the smaller 32GB: £7.50 delivered. Its the b-word again: budget! I opted for this kit from the Pihut in the end. I took the 8GB card with Kodi installed as I'm hoping to be able to utilise that at a later date. I'm not too fussed about backup size at 32GB, I have a 1TB internal drive which isn't even half full yet, so I've got plenty of space. I also took on board what you said about cooling, so rather than add a fan I opted for a heatsink as it was only £1!

Thats good to hear r.e. 2 pads: I didn't want to have to start buying loads of add-ons: I saw the Controlblock and thought I was going to need that too-I'd have had a hard job justifying that: although I will be adding a Powerblock at a later date as that makes sense to me.

The other thing I wasn't sure about was WiFi. Does it really need to be connected to WiFi? Are there any benefits to doing this?

The Pi has been dispatched so hopefully it'll be with me fairly soon. Quite excited about it to be honest!

GtBFilms · 20 Oct 2016, 09:57

@Danorak1981 I reckon that 32GB card will be fine, it was only when I started adding loads and loads more systems, and all the metadata, and a selection of different startup videos, messing around with attract mode, installing KODI and various plugins etc. that I decided I needed a bigger card (and I hadn't actually even run out of space at that point).

So 32GB will be fine.

Regarding the wifi, it doesn't need to be connected to wifi, but it does make things easier - I move ROMS etc from my PC to the Rpi using WinSCP over wifi. Also I use it to edit config files on the pi from the PC.

When I copied LOADS of ROMS over, I used a wired network connection.

You can of course just do it all using a USB stick and edit files etc directly on the pi commandline if you prefer. If you have a proper USB keyboard plugged into the pi that's probably a lot easier than using the tiny little keyboard I have plugged in.

So basically you don't need to put it on wifi, but if you do, you don't have the (small amount of hassle) of plugging keyboards and USB drives into the pi and manipulating things there, you can pretty much do it all remotely on the PC over wifi.

Danorak1981 · 21 Oct 2016, 16:58

@GtBFilms Thanks for the info. I had a look at the ROM libraries I have for the emulator on my Mac and they don't even total 1GB, so that will give me plenty of room for other 'stuff'.

I've borrowed a keyboard from work so I have that and the memory card in my possession: the RPi was delivered today but whilst at work, so it's at our local depot.

Looking forward to getting my hands on it and getting started now: I have the Retropie installer downloaded and Retropie itself, my ROMS are all in situ and ready to go: so now it's just a case of build, install/setup and hopefully I'll be good to go!

I like the idea of having it connected to WiFi, I'm not going to install a tonne of ROMS, just my old faves and a few never-played titles, so being able to transfer one or two wirelessly now and again would be really handy. Plus it is 2016, so really WiFi setup should be a given!

Thanks for your help: no doubt I'll have more questions thrown up after installation, but fingers crossed it all goes ok!