RetroPie

Download the RetroPie image and burn it to a micro SD card. I recommend using the BitTorrent link. The latest version (Dec, 2014) 2.3 features Emulationstation.

Emulationstation

Emulationstation is a multi-platform front-end for managing a library of emulators. It's a lot like a slick TV interface. The RetroPie Project provides an easy way to install over 30 different emulators on the Raspberry Pi, using EmulationStation. This is one of the easiest ways to get your Raspberry Pi ready for some retro gaming goodness.

Burning Retro Pie to SD Card

You'll need a micro SD card with minimum storage of 4GB. It can be new blank or contain existing data, just note you're going to completely erase anything that may be on the SD card.

There are SD card burner tools available depending on your operating system. Use Win32DiskImager on a windows machine. On a Mac, use ApplePi-Baker or RPi-sd card builder. These tools will properly format the SD card so the Pi can boot and run a setup script.

HDMI Configuration

Once the RetroPie image has been successfully written to the SD card, you'll need to edit the config.txt file located in ~/boot/config.txt

Copy and paste the values into the config.txt and save the file. This will allow the Raspberry Pi to format the operating system to match the resolution of the 5" HDMI display.

hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=1
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0
arm_freq=900
core_freq=250
sdram_freq=450
over_voltage=2
avoid_safe_mode=1
gpu_mem=256
overscan=1

Testing SD Card

Follow the next page to setup the HDMI screen to the Raspberry Pi.

This guide was first published on Jan 14, 2015. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Software) was last updated on Dec 22, 2014.

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