Emulating a Pi... try before I buy!
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Hi folks, I have only just found out about retropie, and I have to say the retropie project looks like the perfect project. Exactly what I have wanted in a retro console for years.
BUT, I would like to try out retropie before I buy a pi and start my own little build.
I want to check how easily the USB controllers work, how easy is it to add games and emulators, etc. etc. Do the scrapers work etc.
I downloaded the retropie img file and tried to open it with QEMU. But it doesn't run either the pi 0/1 image or the pi 2/3 retropie image.
Is there any other pi emulator? Is there any way of trying out the retropie software without buying a pi? I know it's not a huge outlay money wise. But there are a number of threads with people are having problems and needing help. So I would really like to try the software out and see if I hit all the same problems or get lucky.
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@CargoRunner an emulated environment never fully replicates the hardware and it's so cheap you may as well just buy one and see. With over 170,000 downloads for this release alone I think you can be pretty confident it's working for most everybody
The majority of the people who have issues either are too lazy to read the documentation that is readily available, are trying something custom, or have some janky hardware. For the most part you should just be able to plug and play.
It is Linux so it's a learning curve for everyone who has never had experience with Linux but the pi was designed with learning in mind, not as a ready made console- though we've tried to simplify the process as much as possible. if you run into trouble the documentation should answer most of your questions, if not theres this forum, and also it's Linux so if it's broke likely you'll be able to fix it with a little googling.
Also if you want to try it and have a Linux pc, you can also install RetroPie on any Debian based distro. There are some specific modules for the pi only but you can get the main idea with the pc.
If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/
Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
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One recommendation to be made that will insure a positive experience is to make sure you choose a controller with the highest level of compatibility. This is probably a source of some debate, but it seems as though the Logitech controllers, alongside the XBox USB options seem to have the least amount of trouble.
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@herb_fargus All I can say is 'Amen to that Brother!!' I think of this as a hobby and digging thru the docs is relaxing. If I uncover a nugget of wisdom I try to spread the word. Thanks for all the time and effort you admin guys put into this project.
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Well, I took your advice and spent £50 on a pi kit. The retropie software is very smart. The installation and ability to copy the roms using a USB stick is very easy. You can get up and running very quickly.
On the down side, I don't know if the 360 controller driver is reliable on the pi. I have had problems with the community made 360 drivers on the mac, maybe the pi is the same. Or maybe I just don't know how to use retropie (I am totally new to retropie). I have only had one evening with retropie, but with all 3 emulators that I have tried pc engine, vectrex and atari 2600. I have to randomly mash the controller buttons to get a game to start from the game title screen. The vectrex sound is more bursts of white noise - maybe that is what the real console sounds like, or maybe my roms are all corrupt. And a couple of times I could not exit a vectrex rom. The rom was still running but I could not use start and select button to exit to the menu. None of the controller buttons did anything. I had to pull the power cord out of the pi. I am sure that is not good for the pi!
It would be nice to have retropie in an emulator so that I could test controllers and test roms very quickly and easily. It would also be good so that I could test out different configuration options. I am worried about pulling the power cable out of the pi too often. I guess it could corrupt the operating system files/memory card.
p.s. I am using a genuine microsoft wired 360 controller which works 100% flawlessly on the PC with all my steam games.
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@CargoRunner said in Emulating a Pi... try before I buy!:
Here's the dig in part Herb mentioned. ;P You have a lot going on there. I use both wired and wireless (with official XBOX dongle) controllers and they DO work flawlessly on the RetroPie too! The 2600 no issues either. Played both for hours. I haven't used PC or Vectrex. It might not be your controller it might be the emulator itself causing the issue.
When my controller was lagging in response to input (like exiting an emulator) I believe it was a power issue with a 3 meter USB cable for me. I just had funky stuff happening. You might have something else going on like a config issue or a combination of something. Watch the upper right hand corner of the screen for a square. Different colors mean different things.
Make a backup of your Pi image for restoring and pull the power until you get your controller working to do a proper shutdown. I don't think you can wreck the Pi itself (I've seen the power connector itself come loose from the board from excessive plugging and unplugging so I unplug from the wall) but you can corrupt the image which isn't a big deal.
You might have to research Vectrex or Youtube to see if it was white noise on the original, verify your ROMs with a ROM manager.
I am not sure why you would need a Pi emulator. I setup WinSCP and Putty on a laptop (or a desktop if you want) while playing. It allows you to dump files, tweak configs, everything you need in seconds from your PC while using an actual Pi which is better than an emulator it's the real deal.
There's 10's of thousands of hours of combined experience in all emulators on the forums and if it can't be fixed you have a seriously unique issue. Once you get everything setup and configured it's amazing and worth the effort.
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@CargoRunner said in Emulating a Pi... try before I buy!:
I don't know if the 360 controller driver is reliable on the pi.
Have you enabled 'xboxdrv' through the RetroPie setup menu?
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Setting-up-the-XBox360-controller
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OK problem solved! I have the official raspberry pi kit, which comes with a 2.5 power supply. But with two 360 controllers and a memory stick plugged in to pi the controller input is not reliable.
If I have a single 360 controller plugged in, I can play games reliably. Pressing start on the controller actually starts the game!
If I plug everything in again, it is hard to start a game. The start button doesn't seem to work and I have to randomly mash buttons on the controller. Weird!
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@CargoRunner Glad to hear you got it sorted out!! Powering the Pi with a usb charger is right on the harry edge as we use'd ta say. Also folks don't think things like controllers or keyboards or mice take power.
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The PI external power is very minimal. One thing I HIGHLY recommend for any PI user is a powered USB hub, even if to natively isolate your PI. Xbox controllers SUCK huge amounts of power because you are running LEDs, motors, etc.
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@monel_funkawitz said in Emulating a Pi... try before I buy!:
The PI external power is very minimal. One thing I HIGHLY recommend for any PI user is a powered USB hub, even if to natively isolate your PI. Xbox controllers SUCK huge amounts of power because you are running LEDs, motors, etc.
They should still be limited to the USB 2.0 power output spec (which is around 500 mA depending on manufacturer) but probably less as nothing is 100 efficient so that drops it down probably another 10 or 20% of usable power. I've never had an issue using four wired 360 controllers with the recommended power supply. You could always go wireless and leave the power draw on the controller save for the dongle. :/
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@Riverstorm How much power does the wireless dongle draw?
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@glennlake said in Emulating a Pi... try before I buy!:
@Riverstorm How much power does the wireless dongle draw?
I don't know for sure. I could take a look at the receiver tonight to see if it lists any power specs. I know it lists USB 2.0 as a requirement but the actual draw I'm not to sure.
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