Is it possible to run retropie headless? (because I'm failing!)

walliswizard

Hi all

My main machine is running Windows 10. I don't have a mini hdmi cable, nor a spare monitor.

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero W 2. MicroSSD is 32GB.

I downloaded retropie-buster-4.7.19-rpi2_3.img.gz from the weekly images (today). Burnt this to the disk using the raspberry imager.

I then make two changes - one to put "ssh" on the disk and two to add the wpa_supplicant.conf file with my wireless details.

Now boot up the pi.

I then use the windows command line to ssh into the pi. That works. I've done no other updates at this time.

But what I see is a colourful text-based welcome screen just telling me the date, uptime etc. and I'm at a command line. I expected to see "retropie", or whatever that is.

Anyway, I did the usual investigation.

So I run "emulationstation". I get a completely black screen.

I've tried all sort of other things, nothing appears to work.

Before I go down a rathole, is what I'm trying to achieve even possible? Or do I need to connect the pi up to a monitor via hdmi for it to work?

Help!

mitu

@walliswizard said in Is it possible to run retropie headless? (because I'm failing!):

Before I go down a rathole, is what I'm trying to achieve even possible? Or do I need to connect the pi up to a monitor via hdmi for it to work?

I'm not really sure how do you intend to make this work - without a display RetroPie and the included emulators/front-end will not display anything. How do you expect to play games ?

walliswizard

@mitu Using my main pc via something like rdp or vnc?

If I build a raspberry pi os onto the unit I can connect to it no problem at all, run the desktop in a window on my main machine etc.

If I try the same with retropie, no joy. The issue I described above was a "from scratch" scenario, but I've also tried all sorts of other things, none of which have worked.

So the initial question is, I guess, is anybody else able to do this?

mitu

@walliswizard said in Is it possible to run retropie headless? (because I'm failing!):

@mitu Using my main pc via something like rdp or vnc?

RetroPie doesn't use the desktop for something like VNC/RDP to work - see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/FAQ/#where-did-the-desktop-go.

If you intend to use your Windows system for display, why don't you install the emulators and a front-end on your Windows system ? What's the point of using RetroPie and a Raspberry Pi ?

walliswizard

@mitu For starters, I have a spare pi that I want to get some use out of!

I think I tried installing PIXEL before. I'll try again now that I have a fresh version installed.

dankcushions

@walliswizard to be clear having the desktop installed still won't allow you to do what you want - it's not supported to run retropie via the desktop and i don't believe VNC will forward rendered graphics anyway (and if it did the latency/performance would be horrendous)

walliswizard

@dankcushions Yeah I think I've just discovered that for myself.

Oh well, I think I'll abandon that idea, stick a stock raspberry pi instance on instead.

Many thanks all.

mitu

Why don't you use something like RetroBat, which provides a similar setup as RetroPie (emulators + front-end + configuration), but for Windows ? No need to complicate things if all you want is to emulate old games on your existing system.