Noobie questions, please help (Update)

[playxray]

Hi everyone,

I’ve just bought my first Raspberry Pi, and I’m trying to use it as an all-in-one emulator running on my TV. I am quite familiar with Windows and OS X desktop environments, but I have only very limited experience with the Linux command line (mostly from web servers). I would therefore like to do as much as I can through the command line, though I do have the Raspbian GUI installed if necessary.

I bought a blank 16GB microSD card, which I formatted and copied the NOOBS installation files onto. I then ran this on the Pi, and installed the Raspbian OS. I then used the RetroPie setup script to install all the emulator stuff. I am outputting everything via HDMI to my TV, and I am using an Xbox 360 wireless controller.

I am now stuck at several points, and given my lack of basic understanding of the Pi/Linux environment, I think I need to establish some basics before going too much further. I therefore have a few questions:

1) I seem to have used RetroPie to install Emulation Station. Is RetroPie simply the name for the setup script?

2) Is Emulation Station simply a program that acts as a front-end for the various emulators?

3) How does RetroArch fit into all of this? I’m sure I’ve seen references to this within the RetroPie setup.

4) My controller works fine for the Emulation Station menu and for Genesis games, but acts really strangely in SNES games. Do I need to configure SNES9x independently of the Emulation Station setup?

5) All the graphical filters appear to have been pre-set. Can I disable/change these?

6) Pressing the left analogue button in seems to quit SNES games but not Genesis games. Is this something I need to configure per emulator?

7) None of my MAME roms appear to work – do I also need to install/configure cabinet files or something like that?

I’m sorry for such a barrage of questions. Even if you can answer just a couple of these I would find that very helpful.

Thank you.

Update: I posted this on Friday but (I presume) due to the weekend’s issues they’ve been restored from a database backup some time on Friday before I created my account – my original account and post therefore disappeared. I even managed to get two replies to the original topic, but they’re gone too :(

[playxray]

Sorry for the bump but I’m really stuck here and lost the replies to my original topic – can anyone help?

[jrodger]

1) RetroPie sets up everything emulators, emulation station etc.
you can run the setup script from RetroPie-Setup/ .retropie_setup.sh here you can install/update the different components.

2) Yes, ES is basically a front end for emulator selection. works very well.

3) Retroarch.. not sure.

4) Some emulators yes, i.e. Fba – opt/retrogame/emulators/pifba/fba2x.cfg
or opt/retrogame/emulators/pisnes/snes9x.cfg

i guess it depends on the emulators. but someone correct me if im wrong.

5) Not sure on filters.

6) as per configs.

7) Not all the roms work, i prefer using pifba, and i use the 37b5 mame rom set. but you will have to try them. i also added the neogeo.zip bios in the rom folder for the neogeo games.

not sure if that helps.

[playxray]

Awesome, thanks for the answers. I still have one or two things to clear up, but that’s a big help, thank you.

[Author]

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