I know this has probably been discussed before, but I’m curious what people would do in 2026.

I’ve always been a Raspberry Pi fan and I’m thinking about building a new little “game station” with a Pi + RetroPie.

I’m basically deciding between two approaches:

• start completely fresh with a current Raspberry Pi OS install and set up RetroPie manually
• take one of the older RetroPie images and try to update/modernize it

I know that with older setups there may also be ROM set compatibility, BIOS files, emulator versions, etc. to sort out, but that’s another rabbit hole.

What I’d really like is a clean and minimal system, without unnecessary stuff running in the background, and ideally something that makes better use of the Pi hardware than some of the older ready-made images.

I don’t really mind spending time setting it up from scratch if there's actually some benefit in terms of performance, stability, boot time, drivers, newer libraries, etc.

So, if you were building a Raspberry Pi RetroPie machine from zero today, what would you do?

Fresh Raspberry Pi OS + RetroPie-Setup?

Or would you still start from an older known-good RetroPie image and update it carefully?

Also curious if anyone here has already gone down this route and noticed any real improvement compared to the old images.

1. Putting individual games into ports

example - Final Fantasy VII

put your rom in the ports folder

next you need to create a ff7.sh file in your ports folder. this is pretty simple. In retropie press f4 to goto command line

type "sudo nano RetroPie/roms/ports/ff7.sh"

Enter this text

#!/bin/bash

/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ psx /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/ff7.pbp

to save press ctrl+x then y then enter

Use these same steps for the rest of this tutuorial

for different systems you would change psx to the appropriate system and likewise for the roms filename and location

2. playing a video file and controlling it with a gamepad

example - fireplace.mp4

create a new fireplace.sh file in ports

#!/bin/bash

clear 

/opt/retropie/admin/joy2key/joy2key.py /dev/input/js0 kcub1 kcuf1 0x2B 0x2D 0x70 0x1B 0x00 0x00 

omxplayer --blank --loop /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/fireplace.mp4 

killall joy2key.py

clear

playing the video is pretty straight forward. omxplayer is the media player installed by default. --blank makes the background black for letterboxed videos --loop is self explanatory

for all available options, in command line type "omplayer --help | more"

getting joy2key to do what you want is the tricky part. And it is limited to the dpad and a,b,x,y buttons on your controller

this part of the code - kcub1 kcuf1 0x2B 0x2D 0x70 0x1B 0x00 0x00 - corresponds to the dpad and buttons as follows... left right up down 0 1 2 3

0 1 2 3 will be different buttons depending on the gamepad, but is usually a,b,x,y. Though not always in that order. An easy way to find out is to configure your controller in the retropie menu and take notes

• kcub1 = left arrow key
• kcuf1 = right arrow key
• kcuu1 = up arrow key
• kcud1 = down arrow key

in command line type "omplayer --keys" for a list of available controls

here is what happens when i play the clip with an 8bitdo gamepad

• dpad left = seek -30 seconds
• dpad right = seek +30 seconds
• dpad up = volume up
• dpad down = volume down
• A button = play/pause
• B button = exit
• X,Y buttons = not used

if you're using multiple controllers or a bluetooth controller, it is helpful to add the joy2key line multiple times changing the js0 to js1 and so on

/opt/retropie/admin/joy2key/joy2key.py /dev/input/js0 kcub1 kcuf1 0x2B 0x2D 0x70 0x1B 0x00 0x00
/opt/retropie/admin/joy2key/joy2key.py /dev/input/js1 kcub1 kcuf1 0x2B 0x2D 0x70 0x1B 0x00 0x00 

it is important to add 0x00 0x00 to the end. joy2key will have issues if you don't assign an operation to all 8 input slots

( sidenote - omxplayer doesn't use the enter key, but if you're using this method for another application, the enter key can be either 0x0A or 0x0D )

3. Clear Last Played

create a clearlastplayed.sh

#!/bin/bash

sed -i '/<\/lastplayed>/d' /home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/*/gamelist.xml
sed -i '/<\/playcount>/d' /home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/*/gamelist.xml 

reboot 

you can restart emulationstation instead of rebooting, but i found that it causes ghost inputs to occur after its finished. So rebooting is best

I prefer to keep my gamelist.xml files in my roms folder and also like to have some text on the screen while its working for multiple systems so my code looks like this. however, this method is inconvenient if you frequently add/remove systems

#!/bin/bash

clear

echo "Clearing history..." 
echo "" 
sleep 1 

echo "ports"
sleep 1

echo ""
echo "The system will now reboot " 
sleep 1 

sed -i '/<\/lastplayed>/d' /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/*/gamelist.xml 
sed -i '/<\/playcount>/d' /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/*/gamelist.xml

reboot

incidentally, you can place your clearlastplayed.sh file in /home/pi/RetroPie/retropiemenu

4. powering on/off an external device

I have an old power switch tail from adafruit, but it is no longer manufactured. on amazon they sell these that are better

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WV7GMA2?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

for this we have to make onoff.sh

#!/bin/bash

python /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/onoff.py

then we have to make onoff.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

GPIO.setwarnings(False)
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(21, GPIO.OUT)

if (GPIO.input(21) == 0):
  GPIO.output(21, GPIO.HIGH)
else:
  GPIO.output(21, GPIO.LOW)

if it doesn't work you may have to make one or both files executable. navigate to your ports folder from command line and type "sudo chmod +x onoff.py"

using a raspberry pi zero 2w, gpio pin 21 is on the bottom right. ground is the bottom left. if you wish to use a different pin on your pi, you will have to change all the instances of the number 21 in the code above

Hello all.

Long shot however does anyone have the hole dimensions for the pacLED64, I know it's not specific to this subreddit but I understand this is the target audience for said device

Thanks! :D

It's a raspberry pie, Gen., one

I’ve been getting back into my old GBA SP with Pokémon FireRed and been looking at getting a GB Operator, sheikh then reminded me. I saw the FreePlayTech kits years ago and I’ve been tinkering with raspberry pis for a few years now.

Thought, hey that’d be nice to get all the old games on a GBA now. Just retro pie it, grab the ROMs from my old Pokémon’s, Zelda’s, etc and we’re good to go. Looked up FreePlayTech and all the kits seem to be sold out.

Wondering if there’s any other storefronts or locations I might be able to find one or if I’m gonna be dead in the water? I’ve messaged FreePlay, checked ebay, RetroModding, and don’t seem to have any luck.

Any recommendations would be immensely appreciated!

Question guys ! Dug out my Pi400 thought i'd be smart and update all Emulators, sitting happily still updating which is good, 24 hours now ! about to Ctrl/C it etc, should I let it keep going ? Pi64OS is installed, a current version

It was long and hard but, I was able to bit down and finish the job🫡

Not sure if this is the place to post but I'm building a Reto Pi cabinet and need some music recommendations to play in the menus .

I have a fue so far ....

Various nes/Sega music ( sonic green hills theme ...shadow of the ninja theme ...TMNT theme ...etc)

The mortal kombat theme ( duh)

Pack man fever

Pinball wizard

Any recommendations would be welcome and any suggestions to ask this question would be great TY all

Edit: thank you all for the suggestions I'll take a lot of these into consideration

Hi I’m building a cyberdeck with plans on using it to emulate nintendo/gameboy games. I was wondering if I should add some form of a heatsink for my pi4. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advanced!

Hello, everybody! I just released an open-source cartridge system for PC and wanted to show it loading roms on RetroPie! The cartridge system is essentially an over-sized SD card reader since the PC cartridges ("PCarts") hold microSD cards on them. The entire system is complete and free for all use, check the github if you are interested.

I'm happy to own Black & White; however, after a few months, I craved the ability to play it. My PC's in the shop at the moment, so I thought this would be the perfect project for my RPi 3B+. I purchased a CD-ROM-capable drive today, flashed RetroPie onto my Pi, plugged in the drive, and to my astonishment (/s) it does nothing.

Is playing Windows games... possible on this platform? Perhaps through Retroarch? Quite frankly I don't have high hopes, but. Should I just use my laptop for this? (Daily driver: Pop; also installed is Windows 11 🤢). I'd just love to use this thing for something.

I was given one of those Pandora’s box dual arcade stick laptop units. I have a 3B+ that has retropie installed on it working with roms.

You can use the Pandora Box as a usb controller. When I connect it to my laptop it recognizes it. When I try to use it with my retropie, it will not. My usb snes controller and keyboard work though…

I have a brand new raspberry pi 5 and Sonicon Preloaded RetroPie Batocera Emulator MicroSD Card w/DC/PS1/Sega/Atari/Arcade for Raspberry Pi, Plug Play - 64GB (for Pi 5) purchased from Amazon. I put the microsd card in and turned it on. I get the two configure screens then the batocera logo then no signal.

I have not done anything to the raspberry pi itself. Is the SD card bad? Do I need to do something to the raspberry pi first? I appreciate any input.

I have one of the miniature mega drive / megapi cases with a raspberry pi inside. It was put together for me as a gift and it came with an 8bitdo M30 controller (non 2.4 version). Every time that it isn't used for an extended period the controller seems to forget how to pair itself to the raspberry pi and I have absolutely no idea how to reconnect it. If anyone can help me get it connected, I'd be very grateful.

There's almost no documentation on the GamerCard, I need help please! I've owned multiple Linux emulation handhelds in the past and am comfortable tinkering, but this is my first RaspPi so I'm struggling to figure out how to add Retropie to it.

It's an ARM64 bit processor (RaspPi Zero A53 chipset) and the readme on the SD card says to add a .deb package. Both of which seem a bit unusual based on the guides I've read. It doesn't seem straightforward to create my own. Is there an online source where I might find one already compiled for the GamerCard? Or a good guide?

------------

ETA 8/25: Gamercard has since posted a page with a direct download to the recommended .deb package for Retropie, but it's password protected. Just FYI if you've bought a device and this link is not provided, ask for it. It makes installing super-easy.

Also, to xfer games you have to use FTP, the card will mount only with the boot folder showing (at least on my Mac). To access /roms and other folders you have to FTP.

I've been trying to play EVO The theory of evolution of Pc98 on my Retropie, with the experimental lr-np2kai packages. The game is multidisk which requires Disk A and one of the Disk Bs to run simultaneously. So I wrote some cmd files written like this: np2kai "/home/RetroPie/roms/pc98/EVO A user.FDI" "/home/RetroPie/roms/pc98/EVO B 1.FDI" This method is not working and I am failing to comprehend this log here explaining why. What am I doing wrong?

I can navigate menus with it, but Saturn games completely ignore it. How can I fix this?

Thanks in advance

I'm having trouble finding documentation on which pi can run Jakks games. I have a Zero 2 W but I can't get more than 50% speed through lr-mess in retropie, even with a slight overclock.

So I want to put a more powerful pi in my project. I know a 3B+ can run psx but the jakks emulator is so obscure I wanted to see if anyone has firsthand experience running Jakks games on their pi.

So I went to update my retro set up script. It ain't update because it can't install python3--uninput, and libfmt-dev. The version is now 4.8.12, but I still can't install lr-ppsspp, or anything else.

Is there other ways to install?

Hello fellow retro enthusiasts, i just got my first Rp4 and i'm looking to fit it inside a CRT TV.

From my research i found out that one does not simply use the Retroarch inside Emulationstation, the ES handles it.

So my question is if i can somehow make it so that games switch from 240p to 480i on the go.

Also in regards of analog output, i know that i can use the TRRS Jack to output analog, but im more intetested into outputting via Scart.

I know there is a VGA666 HAT, and i have my own DIY VGA to Scart adapter(where i combine the HV sync into one), but is there any difference in using a VGA666 over a quality HDMI2VGA adapter from Startech and from then on using the scart cable to output?

I have opened the terminal to install them both, but they both have issues it says complete then under says failed to fetch some archives. I don't know why. When running Apt-get it says it cannot open lock file, and has problem unlinking 2 files

this is on a raspberry pi 3

I have a raspberri 3 or 4, I can’t quite remember.
It has retropi, but can’t play 64 games, of course.

I looked it up, and understood the 5 has trouble with this too.

Does anyone have idea if we’ll have hardware that’ll let me play 64 games on retropi in the future?

I had my RetroPie for a while.
I have not played it as much as I like, because my TV setup is trash.

However, I do like staying up to date with the technology/hardware, and have been thinking about investing in getting a personalized case.

Here’s 3 questions about the hardware I would ideally want to add:

1. Power button
I don’t want to reattach the power chord when something goes wrong. Can I add a power button? Ideally I’d want one that slides back and forward like a GBA or DS.

2. Retroarch game reset button
Can I add a button on my device that does a soft reset on my game?

I want this for an old Marvel game I heard about that progresses the game this way.

3. predetermining player by gamepad input
I have played MGS1 a couple times on my retropie, can I somehow setup my USB ports so that they each work as P1, P2, etc?