Retro Pi Box

monquixote

Thinking of putting together a retropi setup for my kids over Christmas as they love old arcade games.

Anyone got any tips?

So far I'm thinking a pi 3 b+ and one of these jazzy SNES cases http://retroflag.com/SUPERPi-CASE-J.html

I pondered a tinkerboard but I can't be doing with something not well supported.

MattBanshee

Works great and super easy to set up, I did mine in about half hour following a YouTube video.
Make sure you've got a USB keyboard to hand - you shouldn't need it once set up, but you may need it during the setup process for wifi passwords etc.

Veganic

Don't bother.  Kids find this stuff a bit naff and uncool in my experience.  

Get them a ZX81 instead.

monquixote

Veganic said:

Don't bother.  Kids find this stuff a bit naff and uncool in my experience.  

Get them a ZX81 instead.

They are little 4& 6 and really enjoy stuff like pacman. If it was a Fortnite obsessed teen I wouldn't bother.

PVO_Dave

Make sure you get the correct MAME ROM set or it's a nightmare getting the (arcade) games working - things like the SNES, Megadrive etc.. generally are easy to find and work well

joneve

PVO_Dave said:

Make sure you get the correct MAME ROM set or it's a nightmare getting the (arcade) games working - things like the SNES, Megadrive etc.. generally are easy to find and work well

This. Half my MAME roms don't work, which is annoying. Everything else is generally good though. 

FX_Munkee

Remember to leave yourself a couple of hours to go through your mame roms, testing each one. You'll find some of them only work with one emulator, if you can use libretro (lr-) build emulators that's preferable as the controls will be mapped the same as all your others.

If you really want to go to town, get some MDF and build some proper arcade controls. It's great fun making it and then watching the kids hammer the crap out of them, just like arcade controls should be used (the pics of my control setup are around somewhere, I'll see if I can find them...)

Edit: here you go http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/113649/raspberry-pi-ness/p3 

there's some pics and lists of suppliers for stuff towards the bottom of the page.

Edit part deux: if I was doing it again, I'd buy joysticks that you can lock between 4 way and 8 way from the top (on most you have to open it up and move the lock plate from the inside). Pacman is quite annoying with an 8 way joystick!

vasselmeyer

I did one with a bunch of original arcade controls. They use Cherry switches in the buttons and on the joysticks, I have a decent optical trackball etc. You don't need to go as far as I did, as any generic game controller will work well, but it's fun to fire up a quick blast from the past playing Robotron or Defender with the original controls.

My main suggestion would be to look for the torrent with the MAME 2003 set of ROMs. That's the one that works best with the Libreto core used the current RetroPie frontend and works best with a device with as little CPU power as the Pi.

joneve

Also, would recommend using PS3 bluetooth controllers, as they work great. 

FX_Munkee

Oh and Phoenix, kids love Phoenix (nearly as much as I do).

RedRabbit

I dug mine out at the weekend and spent quite a bit of time with it.

As mentioned above - old consoles are dead easy.  Mine is built on the raspberry pi 3b+.  Everything up to PSX works well.  N64 can be a bit patchy depending on the game. 

I've a few MAME games set up but I just can't be bothered with the hassle.  

If you've got a gaming PC then you might want to look into the Steam app which is now available for retropie.  My Steam Link died so the retropie now handles streaming duties.

If you want a retro style controller I can recommend the 8bitdo sn30 pro - basically a SNES controller with dual analogue and extra a couple of extra shoulder buttons (and can also be paired up with a Switch if you've got one). 

guitartango

RedRabbit said:

I dug mine out at the weekend and spent quite a bit of time with it.

As mentioned above - old consoles are dead easy.  Mine is built on the raspberry pi 3b+.  Everything up to PSX works well.  N64 can be a bit patchy depending on the game. 

I've a few MAME games set up but I just can't be bothered with the hassle.  

If you've got a gaming PC then you might want to look into the Steam app which is now available for retropie.  My Steam Link died so the retropie now handles streaming duties.

If you want a retro style controller I can recommend the 8bitdo sn30 pro - basically a SNES controller with dual analogue and extra a couple of extra shoulder buttons (and can also be paired up with a Switch if you've got one). 

You are better off with the Tinkerboard for N64 games, I just install Android and now have access to all of my google apps.