Original subtitles

With just a 15lb Raspberry Pi computer,

you can turn your TV into a retro gaming

system and play all the games from all

the consoles from the '7s, 80s, and

'90s. With thousands of fantastic

classic games to choose from, you'll

have hours of retro fun. So, let me show

you how.

[Music]

Hi and welcome to Bites and Bits. Games

consoles have been developing since the

1970s from the very first generation of

Pong style machines through the classic

Atari VCS era and then onto the Nintendo

and Sega Wars and now then with the

three-way battle between Sony, Nintendo,

and Microsoft. Now, over that time,

literally thousands of great games have

been released. Many of them now sitting

unplayed unless you have an old working

console. But emulation is the retro

gamer's best friend. With just a very

cheap Raspberry Pi, you can turn your TV

into any console you want from the 8,

16, and 32bit eras of the 1970s, 80s,

and '90s. Add some legally obtained ROM

backup files, and you can play any game

ever written for these fantastic

machines. So, in this video, we'll take

our 15lb Raspberry Pi02 and turn it into

a retro console emulation powerhouse.

So, let's see how it's done.

Now, for this project, we'll be using

the same setup as my Pi Zero Arcade

emulation setup. And indeed, you can

simply add this project onto the end of

the other to have all the arcade games

and all the console games in one

fantastic system.

So, I'm going to quickly run through the

basic setup and installation here. If

you want more in-depth instructions, do

please have a look at the arcade video.

Um, just leave out the bit where we

install the arcade game ROMs.

So, to get started, you're going to need

some components. So, so the main

computer that we'll use is the Raspberry

Pi 02. Now, now this is my favorite

Raspberry Pi as it gives us a fully

powered Linux PC for only £15, at least

here in the UK, and it's about the same

power as a Raspberry Pi 3B. Um, so so

nowhere near as much processing power as

one of the latest Pi 5s, but more than

enough for what we're going to be using

it for. Now, on top of this, you'll also

need a micro SD card. Now, if you're

just going to be loading console games,

then a 64 GB card will be fine. But if

you want to install both the arcade

games as well, then I'd opt for a 128 GB

just to make sure you've got enough room

for all of the ROMs and all of the media

files. Now, the Pi 0 also uses smaller

USB and HDMI connectors. So, you're

going to need a micro USB to standard

USB converter and a mini HDMI to

full-sized HDMI port converter. Now, if

if you buy the Raspberry Pi Zero

Essentials pack, um you'll get all of

that all in one nice neat little

package.

Now, after that, you'll need a Raspberry

Pi compatible power supply and a game

controller. Now, I'm using this Games

Sur G7 Pro as it's a great quality game

pad. But if you do need to keep the cost

down, you can use pretty much anything

that has a full set of buttons. So, by

this I mean a D-pad, the four main

action buttons, a start and select

button, and then two shoulder buttons.

Now, as we're only going to be able to

emulate up to around about the

PlayStation 1 era, you don't actually

need any analog controls. So, I've got

this Super NES style controller, which

only costs around £6, and that works

great for all of the old consoles. So,

so all in all, with all these bits,

you're probably looking at around about

£30 to get all the parts. Again, if you

don't already have some.

So, once you've got the parts, uh, we

need to build the SD card and get it

ready for the Raspberry Pi. So, for this

project, I've been using Batsera, which

is a full Linux gaming front end. Now,

to get this set up, all we need to do is

to download the Raspberry Pi 02 disc

image from the Batser website and then

flash that onto our SD card. So, so to

do this, you're going to need a flasher

application like Etcher or the Raspberry

Pi imager that I'm using here. Now, now

there aren't any special settings that

you need. just flash the downloaded

image directly onto your SD card and

we're ready for action. Again, if you're

not sure how to do any of this, then

please do refer back to my arcade video

setup um which goes through the process

in much more detail.

So, once the SD card is ready, um you

need to make sure that your Raspberry Pi

is not connected to the power. Then you

can pop in the SD card. Then connect up

the HDMI display and then connect your

game controller using a USB cable or or

or a USB wireless dongle if you have it.

But we do need to be connected over USB

at least until we get up and running. Um

because obviously we haven't yet set up

our Bluetooth connection.

Once that's all connected, you can then

just power on the Raspberry Pi and wait

for Batsera to boot up. Now, now this

will take a couple of minutes um but you

should see the software running through

some initial initialization processes

before finally booting up to the main

screen. Now, at this point, you need to

press a button on your controller to get

Batser to recognize it. Then, then just

hold down a button so it can recognize

which controller we're going to be

setting up and then it will start the

mapping process. So, so for this just

follow the instructions and press each

button on the controller as indicated on

the screen. When you get down to the

hotkey button, then just press your

select button on the controller and

we'll set that then as the hotkey.

So, we're now running Batsera and you

should be able to use your controller to

move around the interface. So, you can

select items using the D-pad. Uh, that

lets you move around and then use the

south button on your controller, which

will be sort of the A button on an Xbox

controller or the X button on a

PlayStation device. Uh, that that lets

you then select something. And then if

you use the east button, um, that will

then let you cancel or or or go back a

menu. So, so great. We're now ready to

go.

The next task then is to get some games

onto our SD card. Now, now for this

we'll need to connect Batosera to our

home network so that it can both access

the internet but also so that we can

connect to it from our other computers.

So, so in Batasera, press the start

button to bring up the settings page.

Then select network settings and then

move down and enable Wi-Fi.

Now, if it looks like nothing has

happened, just click the back button and

then go back into network settings. And

you should now see down the bottom that

Wi-Fi has been enabled. And there should

also be some options to enter your Wi-Fi

credentials.

So, you need to simply go in and enter

those credentials. Then, once you're

connected up, you should be able to come

back out to the network settings screen,

and you should now see an IP address and

host name. Now, you do need to make a

note of these as we're going to need

them in a while.

So, we've got everything set up. We now

need to jump back onto our normal

computer.

So, to play games, we we need some game

ROM files. Now, these are the actual

code dumps from the original game

cartridges. So, so using these means

that we'll be playing the original games

exactly as they were released on our

Raspberry Pi. Now, now these files are

scattered around the internet, so you'll

need to track them down. Um, but try

searching for ROM downloads or for a ROM

mega thread. So, I'm going to assume

that you have done that and you've gone

out and found some ROMs. Now, now do

make sure you do check um the legality

of what you're doing. Um, so these files

will all be under copyright somewhere.

And now, I did make a video on uh retro

gaming copyright rules. So, please do

refer to that just to make sure that

you're not um breaking any of these

copyright laws. But again, once you have

got some files, um you should then be

able to store them on your computer. And

I've stored them here on my computer um

with a folder for each of the different

systems that I have got files for. So if

I have a look inside here, you can see

that in my Atari 2600 folder, I then

have my Atari 2600 ROM dumps. So all we

need to do now is to transfer these

files across to the Batosera system on

the Raspberry Pi SD card.

Now once we connected Batosera to the

network, it actually automatically

shared its hard drive with other

computers on the same connection. So, so

it uses something called a Samba network

share. So, if we go on to our computer

and then open up your file explorer

application and again I'm using Windows

here. Then in the address bar or or path

box, you simply need to enter in the

host name or the IP address that we

found on our Batsera system. Now, now do

make sure that you add two backslashes

in front of the host name so that your

Explorer application knows that you mean

a network name. Now, you should now be

able to see the SD card of the Raspberry

Pi popup as a share folder. Now, if you

open that up, inside you'll find a ROMs

folder and then inside that folder

you'll find subfolders then for each of

the different systems that Batser can

emulate. So, all we need to do is to

copy our game ROMs from our computer

into the relevant folders on the SD

card. So, so here I'm going to copy

across my Atari 2600 games and I'm going

to drop them into the Atari 2600 folder.

So, once you've got all those copied

over, that's all of our games installed.

Now, there is one last thing we need to

do on our PC. Um, so, so we will want

our game collection to look great. We

don't want to scroll around through text

lists trying to find the games we want.

We want to have images and videos so

that we can see what the games actually

look like. Now, to get these, we'll need

to set up a free account with some sort

of scraper site. And the one I'm using

here is screen scraper.

So, if you head across to the screen

scraper.fr FR website. All you need to

do is to make an account. And again,

these are free to set up. Um there are

obviously paid options which allow you

to download more and faster. Um but for

for the moment, let's just just set

yourself up with a free account. That

that'll cover us for what we need to do

at the moment. So once you set that up,

make sure you make a note of your login

credentials as of course we're going to

need those in a second.

So, jumping back across to a Raspberry

Pi in Batisera, uh, we now need to tell

it to look for all of those new games

that we've just copied across. So, so

back into the settings page with our

start button and this time select game

settings and then update games lists.

So, this will get Batosera to scan all

of its games folders looking for the new

ROM files.

So, if we now go back out to the main

screen, you should find that there are a

number of new systems listed. Again,

each one that you copied ROM files

across for should now be listed out

here. So, simply find the one that you

want to have a play with and select it.

Um, and you should now find a list of

games in there. Um, but again, they're

going to have default ROM cartridge

images. Um, so we haven't yet got any

game N. So, so let's go and get that

downloaded.

So, back into our settings page and now

we need to go down to scraper.

Inside here, then you should find a

scrape from setting. And that should be

set probably to screen scraper. But if

it's not, just use the left and right

D-pad buttons to change that again until

we get then to screen scraper.

After that, we can go down to scraper

settings. And here we can set up

whatever types of images we want to

download. Now, if if you're not sure,

then just leave them at the default

settings. But but I'm going to go down

the list here, and I'm going to turn on

video downloads, and this will try and

get a short game video for each of the

titles, so that we can actually get a

little preview of the game play.

Now, down at the very bottom, then

you'll see the options to enter your

screen scraper login details. So, just

go through and enter those.

So once you've got those put in and we

can come back out to the scraper page

and then we can select our scraper

filters.

So we want to get the missing media

files.

The ignore setting can just be left as

it is. And we then want to specify the

systems that we want to include. So just

select that. And in here then we can you

can see check boxes for each of the

systems that it um knows we have. And we

can either check everything or we can

just simply select specific consoles

that we want to scrape. So, so here I'm

going to select just a couple so that we

can see it working a bit faster. Um,

this process can take a while,

especially if you select lots of ROMs as

it is going to have to go off for each

individual game and download the files

and videos and so on. But once we've got

that set up, we can then come back out

and to our scrape options. And we can

now hit the scrape now button. So this

is going to set Battle Sera talking to

the screen scraper.fr website, grabbing

hold of images and downloading those

videos. And you should then see up in

the top right corner a little progress

dialogue appearing. So So just let that

run through.

So once that's finished, or as you can

see here, mine's nearly finished. We

just need to go back up to our game

settings and refresh our game lists. And

now we are ready to play some games. So

just simply back out of any of the

settings menus until you get to your

main system selection screen. And then

we can go off and choose one of our

consoles.

So inside there again, if you've loaded

in some games, you should find a list of

these, but they should now be listed

with some images. And again, that just

makes our whole interface that much

better. the the videos that we

downloaded. Again, here I'm I'm using

the the um default theme. So again, we

have things called themes in Batisera,

which dictate how all the game

information is laid out. And then this

one just lists them as a a sort of

matrix of of the sort of screenshots.

But again, I'll I'll take you through

using themes in a little bit, and that's

where we can start to make it look

really good. So, at the moment, if if I

want to play a game, all I have to do is

to highlight it with my D-pad and then

just press my south button to select it.

Now, now Battle Sera comes preloaded

with all the emulators and they're all

set up and ready to go. So, you should

see it um open up an emulator and then

drop you straight into the game.

So once you finished with the game, uh

we can use a hotkey combination to exit.

So again, if if you set the hot key to

the select button when we first map the

controller, then then hold that in and

then press the start button. And what

that will do that that combination of

button presses tells Batasera to exit

from the game and it should drop you

back out to the system game selection.

So congratulations, you've now got a

full retro gaming system on your TV.

So from here, there are a whole range of

options you can start playing around

with. Now, as I mentioned earlier in the

first part of this video series, I

showed you how to set up arcade gaming.

So, if you want to play the real arcade

hits from before 2000, and that pretty

much is um quite a few thousand arcade

games, then do make sure you have a look

at that video. And all you've got to do

there is to just simply follow the

process of finding a a ROM file set and

then installing those pretty much in

exactly the same way as we have just

done here. And then you can start all

playing all of those fantastic arcade

hits. Now, now also in that video, I

showed you how to set up themes in

Batosera. And that lets you fine-tune

the system and the game select screens

to make everything look much much

better. And as I mentioned earlier

there, that some of those themes then

allow you to preview videos so you can

find out a little bit more about the

game before you then play them. Um, what

one of the things of when when having

these big retro systems is that there

literally are thousands and thousands of

games for you to play and check out. So,

you're never quite sure what some of the

games are. So, having a bit more

information, a little bit of a video

play of the game just lets you see

whether you actually do want to have a

go at that or not. So, so do make sure

you have a look at that first video on

arcade systems um just to get hold of

these the information how to set up

themes and so on.

But for now then um obviously we've got

everything set up um just so just browse

through your new game collection and

have fun with all of these classic retro

games.

So, I hope you found this video useful

and enjoyable. Please do click that like

button and don't forget to subscribe to

the channel for much more retro gaming,

making console modding and uh

electronics projects. I look forward to

seeing you again very soon. And bye for

now.

For more games, programming, electronics

projects, and retro gaming, please make

sure you like this video, subscribe to

my YouTube channel, and visit my

website.