Why do people buy ready-made kits?

Clyde

@billyh said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

Unless I misunderstood some texts on this site, a Pi is always "on" when plugged in unless you create an off-switch yourself. Would a Pi then have a "sleep mode" where it doesn't try to send any info to my television and just work on PiHole? It feels weird to constantly leave a computer on to me, though I guess I could always unplug it when we go to sleep and plug it back in when the first one of us gets back from work.

Yes, the Pi doesn't unpower completely after a shutdown. There are different addon boards or cable adapters available to remedy this, but I've settled for a simple power cord with a manual switch.

I don't understand your question about PiHole. Care to elaborate?

BillyH

@clyde said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

I don't understand your question about PiHole. Care to elaborate?

What I meant was this:
Say PiHole and RetroPie can work satisfactory next to each other on the same Pi (which I don't know if that would actually work). This means that I would need to keep the Pi turned on even if I'm not using RetroPie.

What I was wondering was this: when I'm not using RetroPie, could I then place the Pi in some form of power saving mode, where it doesn't try to push a screen to the television, and just works on PiHole? Kind of like how PS4 has a 'rest' mode in which it doesn't communicate with the television, but can still download games, and doesn't use as much power as when you would leave the console completely on to finish a download.

darklordenron

I see it as you have a few different subsets of people. Those who love tinkering full time and HAVE the time, and those who don't want to bother and like experiencing more in life and just want to play some games. Then, you have those who, when they do have time, perhaps want to tinker with it too. You also have people who tinker for a living and the last thing they want to do when they get home is more tinkering.

I fall into the "I'll tinker if I have to, but these days I'd rather be doing something else or actively playing a game instead of messing about." So, I bought a sort of premade kit that came with a power supply and a case and everything that I needed because

I wanted to get up and running quickly so as to...play games on it.
It was cheaper than sourcing everything separately by about ten or twenty bucks.
I can always add to it later or get a new case or something.

After being involved in IT for over a decade, the last thing I want is to mess with things to GET it working after a long day. (Unfortunately, I'm tinkering trying to solve controller issues at the moment though..) In the end, I would have messed with it anyway to learn about it. After playing my games for a few weeks, anyways.

Clyde

@billyh said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

What I was wondering was this: when I'm not using RetroPie, could I then place the Pi in some form of power saving mode, where it doesn't try to push a screen to the television, and just works on PiHole? Kind of like how PS4 has a 'rest' mode in which it doesn't communicate with the television, but can still download games, and doesn't use as much power as when you would leave the console completely on to finish a download.

I don't know pi-hole at all, but as I understand its website, it doesn't need a desktop environment (DE). If it does, see these instructions to install the Pixel desktop on Retropie. You could then just use Pixel's power management to disable the monitor if it isn't needed. However, even an invisible running DE should consume more power than no DE.

So, if pi-hole doesn't need a DE, you could just switch off the HDMI output after exiting from Emulation Station with this command:

/opt/vc/bin/tvservice -o

This command should turn HDMI back on with the preferred (-p) settings:

/opt/vc/bin/tvservice -p

To see all options, just enter /opt/vc/bin/tvservice alone.

Attention: On my Retropie, turning the monitor back on doesn't restore the command line screen, but nevertheless it's there awaiting commands. So I can just enter exitblindly and Emulation Station loads up visibly. If I then quit ES again, the command line screen is back, too. :) Judging from a quick web search, tvservice seems to have different "side effects", maybe depending on the monitor model.

phantomthrill

My opinion on the matter is that both sides are right. If you don't want to spend the time building something but want to use it, that is completely up to you, however others very much like many of y ou have stated love to build things. I started messing with computers at age 5 when my parents would take me to the store and I'd go into the electronics part and mess with the early ugly green desktop programs. However as I got older and fell in love with Windows 3.1, STILL THE BEST O/S in my opinion as far as Microsoft goes, I couldn't help but want to learn how files were installed, how do you move files, how do you make this thing work before and even after you did something so simple as install memory. Who remembers the parity vs. non-parity days huh? I'm glad we don't have that any more. Recently though, I was working with Daphne trying for a week to figure out how to get the picade controller to work. After doing what we all do, "research," I found and put the pieces together of how to make it work. Every time I do something like that I feel more accomplished and smarter and go gee maybe I'm not as stupid as I think I was, am or whatever. I may not get paid to work on computers or pi's but I love doing it for the shear purpose of staying sharp and learning new things. For me, that is the pay-off. Learning new things, doing other projects like hyperspin and reading technical language a whole lot. I could see some people's head exploding after five minutes with a technical explanation, but I welcome the challenge to let it bother me until I get the job done. Thank you everyone for providing help and answers in this forum, and thank you to all of you who support this community.

ruthless4u

Sorry to dredge up an old topic,( especially as a noob) but searching the web trying to learn more about retro pie and emulating games it came up. I'm looking into trying retro pie out, but am about as computer illiterate as you can get it seems. So I can see why someone like myself would buy a ready made kit. I like to be able to fix things myself, but the more I try and read on retro pie the more lost I get. So I'll be honest, ready made is tempting, but I want to do it the right way as well, if that makes sense. Heck I don't even understand how to start, and with limited time it's more frustrating lol.

If I decide to try it will be posting a lot of questions in support I imagine, will see what happens after I do more reading.

dankcushions

@ruthless4u i think the issue is that even a pre-built system will need much tinkering - likely more as a most seem to be badly configured, and worse - no-one here will be able to help you as we won't know how they're set up (nor inclined to find out, frankly!)

there's no 'consumer friendly' retropie box. we still have work to do :)

if you don't want to learn, i totally get that, but for that products like the NES / SNES classic are a much better prospect.

Fruitybit

@ruthless4u Do have a go- you’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain! Start off small, a couple of your favourite systems/games, each little step adds so much and it just gets easier and easier:)

ruthless4u

@dankcushions said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

@ruthless4u i think the issue is that even a pre-built system will need much tinkering - likely more as a most seem to be badly configured, and worse - no-one here will be able to help you as we won't know how they're set up (nor inclined to find out, frankly!)

there's no 'consumer friendly' retropie box. we still have work to do :)

if you don't want to learn, i totally get that, but for that products like the NES / SNES classic are a much better prospect.

Time available is more an issue than desire to learn. With our 2nd child due Tuesday my free time is going to take a hit, but more than worth it.

I'm no good with computers, just ask my wife when I try and fix something computer related lol. My past issues is what has me worried, but I do see a lot of people here willing to help.

If worse comes to shove might have my 9 year old do it, good experience for him.

XVO

Congratulations on your 2nd child.
The easiest way to start is just download the image from here and burn the image file on a SD card.
Put it in your raspi and let it run.
Grab a ftp client and put some roms on it.

It's not even 15 minutes of your time. 😉

matchaman

To answer the topic's title:

The fear of the unknown and the convenience that satisfies their laziness.

I would like to make clear that I don't want to offend anyone who has ever used a pre-made set. Truth be told, for me those are the only excuses not to make it yourself.

Advanced troubleshooting aside, the main setup is extremely easy for literally any person with basic computing skills.

And then, there are people who use the excuse "I don't have any free time". I respect that but there are products for that need out there such as the Nintendo classic minis.

Clyde

@matchaman said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

The fear of the unknown and the convenience that satisfies their laziness.

That's true for most new things people don't do, or on a larger scale why societies change only very slowly.

And then, there are people who use the excuse "I don't have any free time". I respect that but there are products for that need out there such as the Nintendo classic minis.

My usual answer to that is, "if we don't take the time, we'll never have it."

DougA

@ruthless4u I know there are a lot of questions from people posted here, but the basics really are not difficult. I can tell you how I started (all of 3 months ago) - I went online and bought a basic hardware kit (PI, case, PSU, heat sinks, HDMI cable, 32 GB card) plus a USB controller, which was cheaper than buying the parts separately - if you get them from a reliable supplier, then you know your hardware should be fine and that is one less thing to worry about. Then follow the instructions on this site to download the image and put it on your SD card and then you install your ROMs. It is pretty straight forward. I had everything up and running within an hour or so.

My plan was to mess around and start digging into the dirt a bit, until I was comfortable with some of the simpler nuts and bolts of RetroPie, and if I was happy with how I was doing, build a cabinet to play 1980s arcade games, which is what I am doing now. I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoy tinkering, and this is a great way for me to waste some time :-)

ruthless4u

@douga
One issue I do have is I see a lot of kits for sale from places like Amazon to Walmart. Some of them look like they require soldering which I have issues with due to unsteady hands. I hope to buy a kit soon and give this a try.

DougA

@ruthless4u you shouldn’t have to solder anything to run RetroPie. The cheaper versions of the Raspberry Pi Zero ($5-10) have a header that needs to be soldered on if you plan to I nterface any electronics, but a standard RetroPie setup doesn’t need that. I would suggest you get a beefier Pi ie the latest 3B + ($35) if you plan to run anything more modern than SNES games though.

Clyde

@ruthless4u said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

@douga
One issue I do have is I see a lot of kits for sale from places like Amazon to Walmart. Some of them look like they require soldering which I have issues with due to unsteady hands. I hope to buy a kit soon and give this a try.

Well, if only some look like that, buy the others who don't.

I would recommend buying from specialized arcade shops rather than Amazon anyhow. Most of them gladly answer any questions you may have about their products.

Eldrethor

@clyde Or even just the individual parts. To get started, all he needs is five things: the Pi 3, a simple case, an HDMI cable, an AC adapter, and a micro SD card.

DougA

@eldrethor
I would add an adapter to put the full-sized SD card in a PC/Mac and at least 1 controller. Having a USB keyboard and mouse on hand would be useful too. The case could be skipped, though as @ruthless4U said he has children, maybe not such a good idea.

I found that buying a reputable kit containing what you listed plus the SD card adapter was cheaper than getting the individual parts, but if you shop round, it may be possible to get them all individually for a better price. I would definitely be careful to ensure I got a reputable power supply though.

Clyde

@douga said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

I would definitely be careful to ensure I got a reputable power supply though.

That can't be stressed often enough, as many problems come from insufficient power.

ballboff

@clyde said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

@douga said in Why do people buy ready-made kits?:

I would definitely be careful to ensure I got a reputable power supply though.

That can't be stressed often enough, as many problems come from insufficient power.

One thing i've noticed is that the pi doesn't seem to run off a standard 5v supply. I connect it to a samsung or amazon charger and it works fine. I think they are slightly more than 5v at 5.1v or something...