Problems getting pi 3+ to load front end

Lugzyboy82

Good evening

I have been using a pre built front end on my pi 3 model b. I had an accident with this unit and thought I would upgrade to the pi3 b+ but I cant get anything to work. Im using a 128gb sd card which keeps trying to partition itself. I have used and sd formatter and guiformatter to override this. I load the front end on to the unit but I just get a rainbow screen and lighting flash in the top right. I have tried installing the noobs software and then retropie 4.4 on top of this followed by the front end but no joy. Can anybody help?

mitu

@Lugzyboy82 Have you tried with the image from retropie.org.uk/download ?

Lugzyboy82

@mitu Thank you for your reply. No I haven't. Is this just a case of downloading, installing then install the front end afterwards. Im not sure if I have an issue with the sd card or the actual front end at the minute.

mitu

@Lugzyboy82 I'm not sure what you call 'front-end' - just try the regular RetroPie image and see if it works.

Lugzyboy82

@mitu a front end is a pre built theme with images and roms pre installed. But I will try the link you suggest. Fingers crossed.

Lugzyboy82

@mitu yes this download works. Progress. How would I get my image to work with this? Could it be null and void with the pi 3+?

Efriim

@Lugzyboy82 many of the pre-built images I imagine have an older kernel revision and no support for pi3b+. Also 3rd party images are not supported here, one of the reasons being this.

If you meant front-end like NOOBs, I think NOOBs downloads the latest image from retropie and that is supported. Retropie images have EmulationStation pre-installed as a core-package, and the package manager developed and maintained here for retropie can install the latest upcoming Pegasus-FE.

Lugzyboy82

@Efriim Thanks for your reply. The frontend/image I refer to was downloaded from [some site]. So basically I need to download retropie from here and build my own theme??

mitu

@Lugzyboy82 Yes, we don't support 3rd party images. And please, no links to sites with ROMs, copyrighted material, etc. Re-read the forum rules and https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

Efriim

@Lugzyboy82
Well yeah and if the image doesn't have pi3b+ kernel. Sorry if you can't find the theme you want though.
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/themes
I like the switch theme and space oddity theme the best.

I have never used a bezel
https://github.com/thebezelproject/BezelProject

And a scraper will get boxart videos and info for games.
I use skyscraper, some of the videos it gets from screenscraper.fr aren't that great but at least they are uniform.. for the most part, and have a huge collection.

Lugzyboy82

@Efriim that's great. You have been a great help. Do you know if these themes can be edited?? For example change the system images?

Efriim

@Lugzyboy82
Yeah the themes are located at /etc/emulationstation/themes/ they are in xml format. So it would help to have a notepad+, and setup winscp to access the filesystem.

Lugzyboy82

@Efriim sorry for the questions. So, the list of themes on your link are all pre installed on retropie. Is that correct? Or do I have to download them individually?

Efriim

@Lugzyboy82
There is a theme manager, I forgot to mention. It is accessible from the retropie menu and in emulationstation. Themes are around 14-60mb to download, only the carbon theme is installed initially.

Lugzyboy82

@Efriim ok. So this is done through the pi unit itself once retropie is installed.

Efriim

@Lugzyboy82
Yeah. It is a lot of manual stuff but the retropie scripts are there to help automate everything.
Snes-mini and Retrorama are really good themes too. There is also the pegasus front end that has been developed recently, I don't know the latest updates on it. It looked nice last time I checked it out, there were no themes for it yet, I think it is a thing on android too.

Lugzyboy82

@Efriim thank you for your help. Its much appreciated. I will start on this this afternoon. Is it straight forward enough to transfer roms?

Efriim

@Lugzyboy82
oh yeah, just get it connected local network. Or use the USB Rom service,

Lugzyboy82

@Efriim thank you for your help.

Lugzyboy82

@mitu sorry sir