Need a bit of guidance…

NatLofthouse

I’ve just ordered a Pi 400 to run Retropie and I need a bit of guidance on the following steps please.

Which Micro SD card should I go for?
Do I then go to Arcade Punks and download an image? If so which one?

I’ve been gaming since the Intellivision so I’d like a mix of most of the platforms but I don’t necessarily want all the games for the sake of it but if it’s easier then that’s fine.
Thanks in advance

muldjord

@natlofthouse said in Need a bit of guidance…:

I’ve just ordered a Pi 400 to run Retropie and I need a bit of guidance on the following steps please.

Which Micro SD card should I go for?

I think most cards work these days, so it mostly depends on how much data you plan to put on it. For a pure pre-Playstation system, you could probably get away with just 32 GB.

Do I then go to Arcade Punks and download an image? If so which one?

Grab the official RetroPie image and do it yourself. It's a fun learning experience and not that hard. As long as you use the official image, people will gladly help out. 3rd party images aren't supported, so you will need support elsewhere if you go down that route for 2 reasons:

3rd party images are often modded to hell and back, and we can't know what has been done to it, and neither do you.
Since you didn't learn anything by setting it up yourself, it also means you know little about the system, making it harder to help you.

We generally appreciate it if people spend time learning instead of just making other people do the work for them. :)

I’ve been gaming since the Intellivision so I’d like a mix of most of the platforms but I don’t necessarily want all the games for the sake of it but if it’s easier then that’s fine.
Thanks in advance

It's the age-old emulation question: Do I get all of the roms for the platform, or do I cherrypick... No easy answer. :D

NatLofthouse

@muldjord
So the ones on Arcade Punks aren’t official images. I’ll follow your advice and go the official route and learn from there.

When I have the official Retropie on my SD card it will be empty of games?

Thanks very much for your help, this is what I needed.

jamrom2

@natlofthouse

Hi. Welcome to the forum. Each emulator will require its own list of tweaks and files to get it working correctly. Some need specific BIOS files where correct naming is vital. Some will require other files to assist in mapping buttons...etc. Do one emulator at a time, pick each one in order of importance to you this way you're a little more motivated to get it to work.

Roms... We have a rule about asking where to get them... We don't ask. But the almighty Google can definitely assist you.

None of the emulators have pre-loaded roms. You have to get them and load them yourself....which I DO hand pick mine as I only want working/popular games and not a ton of useless crap on my build ... But I'm picky. Lol.

muldjord

@natlofthouse said in Need a bit of guidance…:

When I have the official Retropie on my SD card it will be empty of games?

Yes, RetroPie is all about the emulators and tying them together using a neat packaging system and using EmulationStation as a default graphical frontend to launch the games. There are no ROMs on there from the get-go. There's a bunch of public domain roms you could grab, but how to get commercial roms is, of course, not allowed to be discussed on here.

I would direct you towards the official docs which gives you a great starting point to get going with everything you need. It's pretty easy.

NatLofthouse

@jamrom2
I've just found in a drawer a
16gb Micro SD card and reader adapter
16gb USB Stick
A Logitech F310 joypad (I used it with my mac)

I've used etcher to put Retropie on the SD card.

Do you think 16gb will be enough to get started at least?

muldjord

@natlofthouse 16 GB is fine to get started and maybe even enough overall.

NatLofthouse

@muldjord
great, I wish it was arriving today, got to wait until Tuesday.
I just need to find the ROMS.
thanks for your patience - I didn't want to take the wrong path early on.

jamrom2

@natlofthouse depending on the systems you want to run, 16 may or not be enough.

First do that..meaning decide what you want to run. 70's to 80's? 80's to 90's? Make a list of systems that are priority to you. Start there because some are not just dumps ROMs in and work. The require BIOS files, and other minor configs. Try to use Libretro based emulators (they all start with lr-xxxx), they are the easiest to get working and offer a lot of fun effects like shaders and overlays so you can literally make it look like you are staring at an old TV in your living room.

Any Daphne (Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Cliff Hanger, etc.) will suck up space. Amiga CD32, PS1, Sega 32x and Sega CD games are big.

If you want to upgrade the artwork to higher end images, maybe a hi-res theme, maybe run videos...etc. All takes space.

I'd go with 120G and never worry about running out of space.

NatLofthouse

@jamrom2
you're right - I'll get a large capacity card ordered up now.
cheers mate

Clyde

@natlofthouse said in Need a bit of guidance…:

@muldjord
I just need to find the ROMS.

There's a thread about Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie. Note that the thread starter can't keep up with updating the list in the opening post with the stream of suggestions from others there. So, after reading the list, you should also skim the thread backwards from the end to see the most recent suggestions.