Original subtitles

What if you could play every retro

arcade game ever made directly on a

family TV? With a 15p Raspberry Pi and

some free software, you can. So, let's

turn your TV into the ultimate arcade

cabinet.

[Music]

Hi, and welcome to Bites and Bits.

Classic arcade games are one of the best

casual gaming experiences you can get.

They are specifically designed to allow

you to jump straight into the action,

have some great fun, and then finish the

game without any of the bother of game

saves or ongoing campaigns. Want another

game? then just put in another coin and

start again. So, for me, this makes them

an ideal fit for adding extra fun to

your family TV. And best of all, you

don't need any fancy high-powered

computers. A simple 15lb Raspberry Pi

will do just fine. So, let's set up an

arcade gaming system.

So, for this project, we're going to

need a few bits and pieces. So, we'll be

using the Raspberry Pi 02W. Now, this is

my favorite Raspberry Pi as it gives you

the full Linux PC system, but in a

fantastically small and budget friendly

package. So, so yes, uh obviously it's

nowhere near as powerful as the latest

Raspberry Pi 5 boards, but it will

easily cope with what we want to do in

this project. Now, to get that working,

you'll also need a micro SD card. So,

I'm going to be using a 64 GB one here,

which is more than enough to cope with

all the games we're going to put on it.

You're going to need a power brick with

a micro USB connector output. A mini

HDMI to full-sized HDMI cable, or you

can use little adapter plugs to convert

one end of your normal HDMI cable into

the mini HDMI that the Raspberry Pi

needs.

You're also going to need to be able to

plug in either a keyboard um and mouse

or or or a game pad over USB to begin

with. Um so the Raspberry Pi 0 uses a

micro USB connector. So you may need a

micro USB to the full-sized uh type A

adapter if you want to plug something in

there. But again, this is only as we get

things set up at the beginning. So, so

once we're up and running, um you'll

also then need a an actual game

controller to both navigate the front

end system and also to play the games.

So, for this project, um company called

Games have sent me over one of their G7

Pro try mode game pads. Now, this is a

great fit for this project as it comes

with a charging station so you can both

store your controller and have it fully

charged and ready whenever you want to

play. So, I'm going to set this up so it

just sits to the side of my TV. So, we

can just pick it up and go whenever we

want. The controller itself then is

built to the same high standards as all

of the Gamester devices that I've tested

so far. So, you've got drift proof hall

effect sensors on both of your joysticks

and on the analog triggers. And then

these really responsive push buttons for

the rest of the controls. Uh you also

get an interchangeable D-pad cover. Um

so you can either have um this standard

one here or there are a couple of others

which you can then just just to match

your various preference.

Now the controller also has a couple of

extra buttons on the underside here and

these can be programmed to mimic any of

the other buttons. So you can really

just get these then to give you sort of

quick access to to various functions

that you might sort of have a bit of

trouble pressing all at once on the top

surface. Now all of that is controlled

through the games app and again all of

the games devices do connect up to this

this app on your mobile phone and that

lets you do things like setting up these

programmable buttons uh just checking

everything's working okay setting up

various parameters and also then

updating the internal software for your

controller as well. Now, now one of the

really useful features of this

controller is its ability to connect to

just about any device you want um using

the various three modes of connection.

So, so we have got a wired connection

over USB 3. Uh again, if if you need

sort of ultimate response times with

your device. Um it also has a wireless

dongle which gives you sort of very much

um a very easy wireless setup. And of

course that then mimics a controller

being plugged into your computer. So you

don't need to sort of worry about

Bluetooth and so on. All of that

connection is handled by the game

controller itself. And of course we do

have full Bluetooth connection. And

that's the connection technology that

we're going to be using today. So again,

that will need a little bit of setup

when we get into our our main software.

So So um I I do highly recommend this

game pad or in fact any of the games or

devices. And I'm I'm very I'm very

impressed with what they produce and it

will really give a nice finish to this

project. Uh so um again with these

controllers again you can of course use

them of course with all of your other

computers, phones and tablets as well to

really bring those to life as um and and

get gaming going on those. So with with

all these bits now assembled, it's time

to start building our actual emulation

machine.

Now, there are a number of different

emulation systems that you can use on

the Raspberry Pi. Um, but for this

video, I'm going to be using something

called Batera. So, so Batasera is one of

the applications which is still under

constant development and and as such it

offers in a great user experience and it

can make the best use of the limiting

processing power in these smaller

Raspberry Pi Zero boards. Now, now if

you do fancy using something like Retro

Pi or or Recall Box or Laca, um all of

these are fine and the setup to be

honest is is pretty similar to the

process that we're going to be going

through in this video. Um but again, if

if you do want me to do something with

those and do do leave some comments down

below and we'll see if we can sort of

slot those into some future videos. Now,

to get hold of Batosera, you simply need

to go to the batosa.org org website and

then just click on the download link. So

you'll see that there's a lot of options

here. So you just simply need to select

the computer uh so the general computer

that you're going to be using. So of

course we're going to be working with an

a Raspberry Pi or the RPI here. Um

you'll see then that Basera um does get

customized to work with the resources on

each type of the Raspberry Pi. So, we do

need to download the specific version

for the Pi02 or or if you are using a

different model, of course, download the

one specific to your model. So, that's

going to come down as an image.gz file,

which is just a a compressed image file.

So, just see if that's somewhere

sensible on your computer.

Now, next, of course, um once we've got

our emulation front end, we're going to

need some arcade game ROMs. and and and

these are the actual game code files

from the real arcade cabinets. So, we're

going to be using a piece of software

called MIM um which can take the real

code and build a virtual arcade cabinet

in software inside your Raspberry Pi and

that way we can then play the games

exactly as they would have been on the

old arcade machines.

Now, MIM ROMs can be a bit difficult to

understand and I have made a few videos

on how uh they work and how to use them.

So, so please do check out those if you

want to have a bit more background

information about what we're doing here.

But but in this video, we're really

going to take the easy route and we're

going to install a full ROM set so that

we can get a fully working version of

well pretty much every arcade game ever

released up to about the year 2000. Now,

to get hold of these ROM packs, um it it

does take a bit of searching online, but

if you look for a MIM 2003 plus

reference set, then you should get some

useful results.

uh when you do download it um you you'll

either get it come down as a single zip

file um which you will then have to

extract. Uh so again save that somewhere

safe on your computer and you should end

up with a set of files that sort of

follow this general structure where we

have some some some some folders with

files in them. Um some actual zip files

um and then you may have also a separate

folder with some sample files in it. But

this then is a full MAM ROM set.

So we've now got all the software that

we need. So let's start putting it onto

our SD card. So So first of all then

we're going to need to flash the

Batosera image. Uh so to do this we're

going to need a piece of software like

Etcher or or as I'm using here the

Raspberry Pi Imager app. And again you

you can download this one from the main

Raspberry Pi website. Right. And again,

I'll put links to that down in the

description. So, so to use this imager,

um, you simply need to have your SD card

attached to your computer and then click

on the choose device option. So, so from

the list then choose the Raspberry Pi

02W or again whichever one you're going

to be using. Then we need to choose an

operating system. So, click on that

button and you should then get a list

popping up. And we need to scroll down

to the very bottom here and select

custom cuz we're going to be using our

own custom ROM, not one that can be

automatically installed by the Raspberry

Pi Imager.

So, we now need to go off and browse to

find our downloaded Batasera image file

to just find that and select it.

So once that's connected up to our

imager software, we then need to choose

the storage and click that button. And

here it will ask you which device you

want to burn this image out to. Uh so

again, make sure you select your SD card

here and do be very careful that it is

the correct drive. Um you really don't

want to be flashing this to one of your

hard drives. So so make sure that's all

connected properly. Then then finally

click the next button. And again, uh,

just follow any prompts here. Uh, and if

you're happy with the settings, then

just click continue to flash the image

out to your SD card.

So, once you've got your SD card all

flashed, it's ready to actually build up

the system and give it its first boot.

So, take your SD card and pop that into

your Raspberry Pi.

We then need to get everything all

connected up. So, we're going to need to

connect our game controller to our

Raspberry Pi. Initially, we're going to

need to do that over a USB connection.

So, I'm going to use my USB adapter

here. And again, you'll find there are

two um USB ports on the Raspberry Pi 0.

So, one is for power, and it's marked

power in, and one is the USB connection.

So, this um connector then is going to

go into the USB connector. We're then

going to use a USBC cable and I'm going

to plug that then into my game

controller. So, we now have our game

controller connected directly over USB.

We need now an HDMI video output. So,

again, I'm using a full-sized HDMI cable

over here. So, I need to use my mini

HDMI to um full HDMI sized uh connector

here. So, that will plug into my

Raspberry Pi 0 uh over here. So, we got

my Raspberry Pi 0. And then I can use my

HDMI cable to plug that in on there. So,

we now have our USB controller plugged

in. Our HDMI plugged in. Our SD card is

plugged in. So really all we need to do

now is to grab our power supply, plug

that into the power um supply USB port,

and we're now ready to boot up.

So when you first power on the Raspberry

Pi, uh Battle Sera is going to do a bit

of setting up. Again, this is the very

first time it's booted up. So the image

that we've put onto the SD card doesn't

actually use the whole SD card. So it is

going to go through um install itself,

expand itself out so it can actually use

the whole storage space and then it runs

through another few bits of setup. So so

don't worry if you get a black screen

for a while. Just let that sit there and

run through and eventually then Bat Sera

will boot into the actual application.

So once we've got booted through to the

main interface, the first thing we need

to do is to map our controller so that

we can actually control this um menu

system. So if you press a button on your

controller and then hold a button in, it

should detect the controller that we've

just plugged in over USB.

So all it's asking us to do now is to go

through each of the buttons and press

them as indicated on the screen. And

that will allow it then to map the

buttons and axes on your controller into

the actual game itself.

So when you get down to the hotkey

input, um, usually we use the select

button for that. So click okay. And that

is now your game controller mapped. You

should now be able to use your

controller to control the interface. So

if I use my D-pad, I can move across and

scroll through the various options here.

If I want to select an option, I will

use the south button, which is the A

button, or the X button on some

controllers.

And then I use the east button, which

would be the B on an Xbox controller, or

the circle button on a PlayStation

controller to come back out again. So,

so south button to select east button to

um back out. You should now see down the

bottom of the screen there are a number

of other options as well. So, one of

those is the menu option, which is the

start button. So, if I press start, that

lets me sort of set up the the Batisera

interface here. So, so first of I'm not

a fan of the um music going on all the

time. So, I'm going to come down to

sound settings, press my south button to

select that, and then come down here and

turn off my front end music. So, when I

press the back button, that will save

those settings, and I should now have

the music turned off.

Next, we need to connect the Raspberry

Pi to our network. So, we're going come

down to network settings, and I'm going

to enable Wi-Fi. Now, when you select

the enable button, it may take a little

bit of time to turn on the Wi-Fi. So,

I'm going to press the Wi-Fi button.

Now, I'm just going to wait to see if

that actually gets it um enabled.

We just take a couple of seconds just to

enable the Wi-Fi system. And there we

go. So, we can now then connect that up

to our um network. So, I'm going to

select my Wi-Fi network

and then I'm going to set my password.

So, once that's set up, if I hit my back

button,

that should then connect out to my Wi-Fi

connection. And then we have Wi-Fi

enabled. So if I go back in again,

we should now find that we have an IP

address and that our internet status is

now connected. So that's us connected up

to our Wi-Fi connection.

So with a network connection, obviously

Battle Sera now has access to the

internet and that will allow it to sort

of download updates, but also then to

download game art and images and videos.

Uh, and those will be used in our main

interface to make our game collection

look look really cool really. Um, but it

also then allows us to use what's known

as a network share. So, so Batosa will

actually share its hard drive over our

network connection and it does that

using both an IP address. So, on our

network settings, you can see we have an

IP address for our connection and also a

host name. So, make sure you take a note

of your IP address. And the host name by

default is Batsera. And we can then jump

onto our PC and connect to the hard

drive on our Raspberry Pi. And this is

how we're going to transfer files from

our computer to the actual Batasera

installation. Now, now you can also do

this using USB uh USB drive and so on.

Uh but obviously the Raspberry Pi only

has that single USB port. So, if you

have your game controller plugged in or

something else plugged in, then that

makes it more difficult. You have to buy

a USB hub and so on. So, we're going to

do it over a network share.

So, on your computer, you'll need to

open up your file explorer application

and then in the address bar, we're going

to get it to access our Batosa share.

So, again, you can see I've already

typed it in before, but it's slash and

then bat oah.

And if we go there, that should get our

computer to have a look on the on the

network. It will resolve that domain

name and then should connect to the

Batosera installation. Now, if you find

that it's not able to resolve that

Batsera um network share name, then just

use your IP address instead and that

should give you just a direct

connection. And there you can see that

we are now looking actually this is

actually the Raspberry Pi um SD card

that we're looking at or at least the

shared part of it. Obviously we can't go

in here and then sort of mess up our

Batsera files. So we have this share

folder and inside that share folder is

where we can put all of the various bits

of information that allow Battle Sera to

play the games.

So you can see there's various folders

in here for for various parts of the

system, but we want to install some game

ROMs. So there is a ROMs folder here. So

if we go into that, you'll see that you

then have a folder for every single

system that Battle Sera can emulate. And

again, there's a lot more than we're

going to be working with here. So, we're

going to be working with Mim and Arcade

systems, but you can see here that you

can then expand the system out um pretty

much in indefinitely into whatever

system you want to emulate.

So, inside here, we do have a MIME

folder. So, if I open that up, this is

where we're going to put our MIM game

ROMs.

So, if I open up a second tab here, so

this is the MIAM ROM set that I

downloaded. And if I look inside there

again, we have our ROMs folder and our

samples folder. So these are the folders

that we need to copy across onto our

Batosa hard drive inside that ROM's MIM

folder. And all I do there is I can just

simply highlight those. I can drag them

across and drop them in here. And that

will then start that copying process.

Now, as you can see, we have got 35 GB

of data to copy over. and it's going to

be going across at our network speed

which is not massively fast to be

honest. So that is going to take a

little bit of time. So we just need to

let that run through.

So once those files have all copied

across need to come back onto our

Raspberry Pi and go back into our menu

then go to our game settings and update

our games lists and say yes. That will

tell Batser to go off and scan for any

new files that we've loaded in. So, you

should find now if we go across here

that we have a MIME folder. And if we

select that, we should find all of our

games sitting in there. So, these are

all now ready to play. So, let me find

one that um is worth playing. So, let's

come up here and find um Aerrow

Fighters. And if we select that with the

A button, we should find that we can now

play our arcade games.

And there we are with our aerrow fighter

starting up. So once you get into a

game, um there's a few buttons you need

to be aware of. So again, um arcade

systems you needed to use coins. So it's

asking us to insert a coin here. To

insert a coin, we use the select button.

And then you can see I've now got one

credit in there. And then to start the

game, I use the start button. And that

should now start the game actually

playing.

So once we're in here, then of course

it's the D-pad and our normal fire

buttons. So we can come through here. We

can start to select all of our things.

And we are now ready to play our game.

[Music]

So once you finish playing your game, we

need a way of getting back out to Bata.

So in MIME we have a shortcut. So when

we set up our controller we um created a

hotkey which was our select button. So

if I hold down my select button and then

press the start button that should then

give us the exit command and that will

take us then back to Batisera back to

our main interface inside our main

category. So we can either go off and do

something different or or play a

different game.

So that's our games all imported and

ready to play. But at the moment our our

interface doesn't look very interesting.

We just have all these um sort of

placeholder images. So let's sort that

out. So again, we want to go back into

come back out of here and come back to

our main menu. Then we're going to go

into our actual menu itself. So press

the start button and we're going to come

down then to something called a scraper.

And what this is going to allow us to do

is to go off and grab hold of various

images and media to make our interface

look just one hell of a lot better. So

first of all then we need to set up

where we're going to be getting these

images from. So we see here we have the

scrape from and it says screen scraper.

So there are a number of options in

there and but screen scraper is the one

that we're going to use.

To be able to use ScreenScraper, you do

need to set up a free account. So, if

you head over to screenscraper.fr,

you'll come to this page and there is a

link over here which you can use to go

and register. Now, obviously the free

account does have daily download limits

and it has a slower download speed, but

you can then take out some very

cost-effective memberships here from as

little as €1 per month. And again, that

will increase your daily number of

downloads and the actual speed at which

they come down. So, register your

account and then we can head back over

to Batsera.

So, on our scraper menu, we need to go

to our scraper settings. And then if we

scroll down to the very bottom, you'll

see that there are some entry here for

our username and password. So, simply

select those and go and enter your

screen scraper username and password.

So once we got that entered in, we can

then start coming up through here. And

you can see there are lots of different

options as to what you can actually

scrape for. So as we go up here again,

you'll see there's lots of different um

types of media. So we can download some

sort of video sources if we want. Um so

let's turn those on. Uh the community

rating. Uh up here we then get towards

the actual images which are going to be

shown in the main menus. So our main

image shot here will be a screenshot. We

will download some box art. We'll

download some logos for for use in

various parts of the thing and so on. So

again, you can really go through here

and set up whatever you want. But once

we have finished that, we've we've got

all the scraping settings all set up

now. So if we come back out, we can then

just simply come down. We want to say

that we want to script um g for any

games which are missing media. and then

um all the systems that we want to

include. So let's go to games included.

So at the moment here um we want to only

scrape for our main games cuz those are

the ones we've just loaded in. So if I

say select none and then come up here

and just tick my main games. Um we

should now be able to just scrape for

that one system. So that's everything

set up. So we just click on scrape now.

And then we should see in the top right

hand corner the scraping progress

dialogue coming up and it's showing us

how far it's got to go. So again, we've

got quite a few games to scrape and that

will take obviously an amount of time to

run its way through. So really just

leave that running now for a while until

it's finished that process.

So, while we're waiting for our scraping

to finish, we can actually set up our

controller on Bluetooth so that we can

disconnect it from our USB port. So, to

do this, um, you're obviously going to

have to have something else plugged in

to the USB port for now, just so we can

actually then control the interface. So,

I've got a USB keyboard plugged in. Um,

or you could just use another

controller. But once we're in here, so

in the main menu, we need to come up to

our controller and Bluetooth settings

and go in there, we then want to pair a

Bluetooth device manually. So if we turn

that on, we have our Raspberry Pi is now

scanning for Bluetooth devices. So all

we need to do is to actually put our

controller into pairing mode

and then hopefully our Raspberry Pi will

pick up on that.

So, let's just wait and see if it

refreshes itself and it should then pick

up my game controller.

So, there we have our game controller

coming up. So, I simply go down to that

and I select it and that should then

allow it to pair the two devices.

And there we have it now connected up to

our G7 Pro controller. So, I should now

be able to just simply use my controller

to move around and navigate. So, one of

the first things we need to do then

after we've paired it as Bluetooth is

just make sure that our controller

mappings are all set up correctly. So,

I'm just going back into here. I'm

holding down a button and I'm just going

to go through that um configuration

again.

And that is our controller now connected

over Bluetooth.

So, let's just wait for the rest of

those um media files to download and

then we'll see what we've got.

So, once you've got all of your media

files downloaded, we just need to make

sure that we go back into our game

settings and then update our game lists

again.

So, this should allow Batser to go off

and scan all those new images, link them

up with the actual games, and hopefully

when we come into our meme section now,

we should have all of our games with

their little video clips and their

screen captures and so on. So, if we go

down here, we should see sort of various

things happening. So, again, this helps

us just make our interface just that bit

more interesting.

Now, at the moment, obviously, we simply

have a large matrix of our games being

displayed. Um, which isn't isn't a great

way of showing it. So, let's have a look

at how we can use something called

themes to make that display just a

little bit better.

So, from our main menu, if you go back

to the actual start menu, we can scroll

down to the updates and downloads. And

this is where we would do any of our

sort of updating uh of off the system.

You can see the various updates down the

bottom, but we can also then download

certain content and themes. So, if we go

to themes,

it'll bring down a list of all the

available themes.

So, what we need to do here is just

simply scroll down until we find one we

like the look of. So, again, there's

there's a lot and lots of themes in

here. If you want to find out what they

um look like in more detail, you can

actually go to the Batosaura website and

have a look in there. Uh, and you can

see there's actual links in the

description of each of these themes

here, which takes you off to the actual

developers GitHub repository. And quite

often they have some extra photographs

there or or some screenshots. But I'm

going to give this one here a go. So

what we need to do is to simply select

it with our A button and then install

it. So that will now get and you can see

up in the top right hand corner there

that Battle Sera is actually downloading

the files to install this theme. So we

just need to let that run through.

So once that's finished downloading, we

can come back out of here and back up to

our main menu. And if we go up to our

user interface settings, inside there,

we have an option for theme set. And

this allows us to select the theme that

we want to use for our main user

interface. So if we um select that, you

can see there it's got the two themes.

So the the theme carbon is the one

that's installed by default. And then

the one that we've just installed now,

which we can now activate by just

selecting it. So if we come back out of

here,

you'll see that battle then reloads and

it comes back then into our new theme.

So the way in which we see it all now

has has changed. So, if we go back into

our main menu, you can see we still have

our various system selections and but

now if we go into our main section,

you'll see that our game display. So,

we've got a list of games down the side

and then we have our game artwork, box

art, and the video in the center. And

again, we have some information about

the game as well. So, it gives us a much

more sort of rounded more information

about the game. and we can see exactly

what we're going to be getting into when

we play that game. And as you saw, there

were a whole range of other themes that

we can use. So really, it's a matter of

searching through to find one that

really sort of appeals to you. Now,

obviously, we're only touching the

surface of what you can do with Batosera

here. So, say we've got lots of other

setup options, and of course, there's

loads and loads of other consoles and

computers that you can emulate in here

as well. But that should give you now a

fully set up arcade gaming machine for

your TV using this little Raspberry Pi

02W.

So really the last thing to do then is

to get this all plugged into my main

family TV and let's see what it looks

like actually in that family room.

So this is my setup in our family area.

As you can see, we've got a couple of

game consoles already connected. But if

you look down in this bottom right

corner, that's where I've installed the

Raspberry Pi and the game controller.

And again, um, I've put it inside a

little box. That's one of the official

Raspberry Pi Zero boxes. And you can see

there that that just sort of hides away.

And again, that that could just simply

move in behind the TV. It doesn't need

to be sat out there on display. And

again, having that rechargeable game pad

and the game controller there um just

means that I can just simply pick up the

game controller. I know it's going to be

fully charged and I can then just play

whenever I want. So, if we now look at

the actual screen, you can see there

we've got full screen display on the TV.

So, let's start jumping into some games

and see what it can do.

As you can see here, um I'm looking at

the MIM games and I'm just scrolling

down through. And we really do have

access to pretty much any game ever

released in the arcades during the 70s,

80s, and '90s. So, it really is just a

matter of scrolling down through there,

finding the ones you want to play, and

just playing them. Again, you can create

favorite lists. Again, just look at the

buttons down the bottom there. It tells

you what to do. Uh, so you can just

quickly get to the games that you love

playing. And again, here I've made my

own favorite list of the games I like.

So, that's our TV now turned into a full

arcade machine using this very cheap,

simple Raspberry Pi 02. So again, we can

expand out Battle Sera as you saw. There

are lots of other systems that can re um

emulate all the consoles. So the 8 bit,

16 bit, uh 32-bit consoles, all of those

will work fine on the Raspberry Pi. So I

hope you've enjoyed this. Do give this

project a go. It does really bring some

great retro games into your family room

and makes them easy to play. If you like

what I do, please don't forget to click

the like button and subscribe to the

channel for more gaming, modding,

electronics, and making 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

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website.