Raspberry Pi 3 (& RetroPie)

[Hitesh]

Thinking of a mini project for the next few weeks. Should really be sorting out my cabs but my back is a bit fragile so best not move 29" monitors....

I know almost nothing about the Raspberry PI.

Q1 : Is £50 for a Raspberry 3 "Official" Kit about the right price?

Q2 : Should I order an extra Micro SD Card. The kit comes with a card but it has NOOBs on it (Whatever that is!)

Q3 : Is there any do's / don'ts or other info for a newbie.

Basically I want to hook it to my TV and play retro games....

Thanks

Hitesh

[Brettster]

All you need is a pi a decent 2amp micro USB charger and a micro sd card
If you intend to use retro pie then no point in getting the noobs sd card as you'll be overwriting it with the retro pie software

You'll also need a USB joypad and a hdmi cable

Noobs is a pre setup sd card with a menu that lets you install a version of Linux or kodi etc
Great fun but also make sure you have a USB keyboard too as you'll end up doing a bit of console typing to get things how you want them set up

[cools]

Just set up one myself for 8/16-bit console shenanigans on the plasma.

It works well enough. Key points:
1) Enable integer scaling
2) Force libretro to render in 1280x720
3) Enable scanlines - there's an rpi/1280x720 overlay.
4) Use a wired USB pad rather than a bluetooth. BT works but stuff likes to not connect on boot which is exceptionally irritating.

Took me a while to figure out why I was getting juddery scrolling - had to force the video output to 1920x1080 60hz, it was auto selecting 50hz.

Running Master System, Mega Drive, SNES, NES at the moment. Need to sort out a Top 100 for TurboGrafx/PCE next.

[cools]

Had a Tinkerboard doing nothing lying around. Tried Lakka. This is what I always wanted RetroPie to be. Yes, it's RetroArch and I have issues with that environment but they have done an excellent job with Lakka - RetroPie felt like something was inevitably going to fall over every 10 minutes, whereas Lakka is practically idiotproof.

[arcnl]

Is there a menu plugin or whatever that does away will all the **** and just gives you a list of games? I’d prefer something more robust than retropie but i just can’t live with retroarch’s bloat. Turning off the video etc menu items just makes it slighly less horrible

[cools]

Maybe, haven't looked too deeply. A list + quick quit/reselect would be neat.