New to RetroPie. Need some advice.

[napoli986]

Hi all,

I am a first time poster and new to RetroPie. I am in need of some expert advice.

Recently I have gotten into the world of retro gaming thanks to my cousin who pulled out his old dusty SNES console. It made me think of the good old days, playing Sega Master System and Super Nintendo as a kid, then into Playstation as the years went on.

Unfortunately many years ago, I made the silly decision to sell my SNES console at a garage sale. A google search or 2 has brought me to this wonderful site, as well as many RetroPie videos on YouTube of some of the set ups that people have. It has made me rather jealous and very eager to get involved.

What I am considering is this – Purchasing a Raspberry Pi 2 console, loading some Roms onto it and connecting it to my new, 1 week old smart TV. Link attached below.
http://hisense.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SPEC-65K3500PW-FINAL.pdf

From some of the reading that I have done so far, I have come across people experiencing problems with the resolution when connected to a new TV. I am new to all this so I would not have the slightest idea about aspect ratios and the like.

So do I purchase the console and give it a go? I am keen on playing games on all platforms such as SNES, Sega Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, Atari, N64, PlayStation1, etc. Will the console work well with my TV as in, will the games run smoothly as if I were just playing with the original console? I don’t want to waste money and time if it is not worthwhile.

Also, where should I look at buying the console and how much should it cost me. There are loads for sale on eBay.

Any help/feedback/advice is much appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[jeffdamann]

Yeah it will work fine, however the games will be more pixelated because you don’t have crt image qualities distorting the picture, and instead they will be crystal clear.

Also nothing will be as smooth as a crt because refresh rates just arent the same for it.
You can have frames dip all you want on a crt and not see a noticable difference in picture quality as long as the frames arent super low.

However this doesnt mean that it won’t be smooth on your tv, its just nothing can be as smooth as a crt.

[napoli986]

My main concern is not the picture quality, I can go without a crystal clear display. I just want the games to run smoothly ie: when pressing a button the game will respond as normal and not be delayed.

Is there a step-by-step tutorial on how to set it up with a new TV, from unboxing the console all the way to playing the game?? As I said, I am new to all this and could do with expert advice on setting it up.

Thanks for the reply mate.

[herbfargus]

Welcome!

Don’t waste your money on premade retropie consoles. They mark them up and are selling retropie illegally at that. Save yourself some money and consider donating to the retropie project instead as it will actually be going to making retropie better rather than someone profiting from others hard work. Retropie is free and always will be.

I’d recommend the canakit (which you can get on amazon) and then you can get ibuffallo controllers if you want some snes controllers or you can get other cheaper USB snes controllers (I got some super cheap ones from aliexpress) it also works with my old xbox360 controllers. It would also help to have a USB keyboard at least for setting things up (like wifi or to use the pc based emulators)

The TV should work fine. Retropie has settings to change resolution And aspect ratios dynamically.

You can see this page to get an idea on getting retropie set up for the first time:

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/First-Installation

[jeffdamann]

Well napoli there will be input lag, but thats the case even with ps4 and xbox one or anything you use on a new tv. You can set your tv to game or pc mode and turn of all postprocessing effects(noise reduction edge enhance etc) and greatly reduce the lag.

I play on a tv and while there is slight input lag its nothing gamebreaking or horrible. Ive beaten 100’s of difficult games playing them this way. I only noticed a real difference when hooking my pi up to a crt.

[napoli986]

Just the answer I needed. Thanks very much for the replies! And especially thank you for the link to the tutorial. I will buy the device asap. Can’t wait!

[Floob]

Here are some different ways of applying visual effects to RetroPie

[napoli986]

Thank you all for the replies. Much appreciated.

Just need help finding what to buy exactly.

How about this one?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/201385350646?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[herbfargus]

Looks decent enough, should give you most of what you need. I buy from amazon before I buy from eBay but idk the availability of stuff in Australia.

[napoli986]

Would you kindly give me a link of what you would buy from amazon? That way I can compare to stuff on eBay in Australia.

[herbfargus]

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