Install RetroPie on Raspberry Pi 4B

RetroPie turns the Raspberry Pi (or PC) into a retro-gaming machine. It builds upon Raspbian, EmulationStation, RetroArch and many other projects to enable you to play your favourite Arcade, home-console, and classic PC games with the minimum set-up. Details of how it works can be found in the RetroPie Docs.

• Download some code
  • Raspberry Pi Imager, the easiest way to install Raspberry Pi OS and other operating systems to a microSD card
  • Games ROMs, as required
• Update Raspberry Pi to allow boot from USB
  • Run Raspberry Pi Imager
    • Operating System: Misc Utility Images / Bootloader / USB Boot
    • Storage: SD Card
    • Write image
  • Extract SD Card, and boot in Raspberry Pi
  • Wait until consistent blinking LED / green screen to know Raspberry Pi firmware updated
  • Remove SD Card
• Install RetroPie. Refer to this article and this
  • Run Raspberry Pi Imager
    • Operating System: Emulation and Game OS / RetroPie / RetroPie 4.8 (RPI4/400)
    • Storage: SD Card
    • Write image
  • Extract SD card, put in Raspberry Pi and boot
  • At the Welcome screen use buttons/joystick to setup against controller settings
    • When get to “OK” at the end, use the button configured as “A” to select
  • Used wired Ethernet in lieu of WiFi since metal case reduced WiFi performance
  • In the RetroPi menu, select Raspi-Config, option 5 Localisation, and set L4 WLAN Country to GB. This is required to be able to setup WiFi
  • In the RetroPi menu, select WiFi, select SSID and enter password. An IP address should be obtained
• Install Pixel Desktop
  • Goto RetroPie Setup / Config Tools / raspbiantools / Install Pixel Desktop
  • Restart the Pi, goto system Ports and select Desktop
  • Found that Pixel Desktop did not have the SD Card Copier installed so needed to add, in Terminal:

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install piclone
    

    • Running SD Card Copier to copy SD Card to SSD gave error “Could not create FAT”, so re-ran with “New Partition UUIDs” ticked and worked fine
    • Shutdown, remove SD Card, restart. All OK
• At this stage it should be possible to leave the Raspberry Pi, goto the PC and connect to the Raspberry Pi over Ethernet (name = RETROPIE) to transfer some ROMs
• To look at log files and other “internal” RetroPie files use FileZilla
  • Need to enable SSH in RetroPie
  • Need to get IP Address from RetroPie
• OPTION : Run RetroPie from SD Card and ROMs from USB drive (more reliable than microSD cards and cheaper for bigger drives). Refer to this video on YouTube
  • Configure the Raspberry Pi
    • In the RetroPi menu, select RetroPie Setup
    • Then select Configuration / tools
    • Scroll down to usbromservice and select
    • Select Enable USB ROM Service
  • Format a USB drive as FAT32
    • Add folder “retropie-mount”
    • Insert into Raspberry Pi and restart (Quit -> Restart in menu). This will copy the RetroPie folder and ALL of its contents to the USB. Any installed games on the SD Card will also be copied across
    • Shutdown, transfer USB drive back to the PC and transfer ROMs, etc, as required
• Images can be added to games with the Scraper option within Emulation Station

Retro-Arcade Navigator
Retro Arcade Machine
>> Install RetroPie on Raspberry Pi 4B
RetroPie – EmulationStation
RetroPie – Themes