Setting Up SD Card

Since we're using the same controller setup at the CupCade we're also going to use the same SD card image! Download this image which has NES support

This is a big file (about 840 megabytes) and will take a while to transfer.

After downloading, the disk image needs to be installed on an SD card (4GB or larger). If you’re new to this, the process is explained in Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 1.

Configuring Pi

Attach a keyboard to the PiTFT+Pi and insert the new CupCade SD card.
The Pi may boot and reboot to finish the configuration (such as expanding the image)
Once you boot the Cupcade you'll notice that the display is vertical. You'll have to rotate the screen!

Press Alt-F3 to drop out of the GAMERA software and to the shell. Log in with pi/raspberry and edit /etc/modprobe.d/adafruit.conf with sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/adafruit.conf
and change the fbtft line to this:

options fbtft_device name=adafruitts frequency=80000000 fps=60 rotate=270

options fbtft_device name=adafruitts frequency=80000000 fps=60 rotate=270

Then sudo reboot to have the new rotation activate!

You can always nicely shutdown with a keyboard attached by typing ESC which will quit the emulator/GAMERA

Upload ROMs

Your PiGrrl can run MAME ROMs as well as NES! We have documenation on how to install ROMs over on the cupcade tutorial page

For MAME ROMs, you'll only be able to play 'horizontal/landscape' style ones!

For NES ROMs, you need to use .nes file format (not .ZIP!) and place them in the following directory path.

~/BOOT/fceu/rom

All of your NES ROMs need to be in this folder in order for the emulator to run them!