Build Your Own Raspberry Pi Retro Gaming Rig – Howchoo (2024)

For around 50 bucks, you can build your very own vintage gaming rig that will hook up to any HDMI-enabled TV or monitor. This guide will show you everything you need to do to get playing.

For this build, we’re going to useRetroPie, an awesome software package that handles all your emulation needs.

What is RetroPie?

RetroPie is a software library used to emulate retro video games on the Raspberry Pi computer. It’s one of the most popularRaspberry Pi projectsout there and the most popular emulation system for the Raspberry Pi. RetroPie features a user-friendly interface and an even friendlier setup process.

RetroPie runs Emulation Station and supports all major retro video game emulators, allowing you to play games from the NES, SNES, Genesis, Atari, and more on your Pi, thus becoming your own Raspberry Pi emulator. I always wondered why the developers called itRetroPieinstead ofRetroPi… but I digress.

Which Raspberry Pi should I use for RetroPie?

Any Raspberry Pi model can run RetroPie, but I recommend using theRaspberry Pi 4since its more powerful GPU, CPU, and RAM capabilities will maximize the range of games you can play. I recommend the 2GB version of the Raspberry Pi 4; RAM doesn’t matter too much beyond a certain point for emulating retro games. In other words, at a certain point, the limitation is on CPU and GPU, not RAM.

1 – Place your Raspberry Pi into its case

The Raspberry Pi ships by itself, without a case. I recommend you buy a case to avoid damaging your Pi. Using a screwdriver, place your Raspberry Pi into its case. Some cases do not require the use of a screwdriver — however, I prefer cases that use screws to secure the Pi for extra stability.

If you’re using the Raspberry Pi 3 or 4, I recommend choosing a case with a built-in heatsink. I highly recommendthis FLIRC casesince it provides passive cooling for the Raspberry Pi 4. Basically, the entire case is a giant heatsink, keeping your Pi cool. There’s also a versionfor the Raspberry Pi 3.

If you don’t use a passive cooling case, you’ll want to pick up a case that comes with heatsinks. If you’re using a Raspberry Pi Zero, you can alsouse an NES cartridge as a case for your RetroPie gaming rig.

Pi Cart: a Raspberry Pi Retro Gaming Rig in an NES Cartridge

2 – Download the RetroPie SD-card image

RetroPie is a software package for the Raspberry Pi that is based on the Raspberry Pi OS, a Linux distribution. It combines a full suite of tools and utilities that will allow you to quickly and easily run retro game ROMs for various vintage gaming emulators.

We’re going to perform our RetroPie setup using an SD card image — essentially a snapshot of an entire working installation of RetroPie rather than doing a manual RetroPie install.

Because the Raspberry Pi doesn’t have an internal hard drive, it uses a microSD card for storage of the entire operating system and all files contained therein.

To set up RetroPie, Download and unzip the latestRetroPie SD-Card Image. There are two versions of the RetroPie SD-Card Image:

• One for the Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W, A, B, A+ and B+
• One for the Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3
• One for the Raspberry Pi 4

Select the appropriate image for your Pi.

3 – Format your SD card to work with Raspberry Pi

First, you’ll need to format the SD card as FAT. Insert the SD card into your SD card reader. Your SD card will now show up as a mounted drive on your computer.

Format Type

If your SD card is32GB or smaller, we’ll format it asMS-DOS (FAT). If your SD card is64GB or larger, we’ll format it asExFAT.

Formatting on Windows

Open up Explorer, locate the SD card, right-click it, and select Format from the context menu. Select the desired format and click the Start button.

Formatting on Mac

Open Disk Utility by navigating to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select your SD card in the left pane. Click the Erase button, select the desired format, give it a name, and click the Erase button. For OS X Yosemite and older, you’ll need to navigate to the Erase tab first.

4 – Install the RetroPie image

To install RetroPie, we’ll use a third-party utility calledEtcher. Etcher works on both Windows and Mac.

Download and install Etcher, open it, and select your SD card drive and downloaded image to “flash” the image to your SD card.

5 – Put the SD card into your Raspberry Pi and connect your peripherals

Safely eject the SD card and slide it into your Raspberry Pi.

Next, connect your USB game controller and connect the HDMI cable to a monitor or TV. Finally, connect the MicroUSB power supply. Always connect the power supplyafterconnecting your other peripherals so that your Pi will detect all of the peripherals properly on boot.

Your Pi will now boot!

6 – Connect your Pi to the Internet

I recommend connecting your Pi to the Internet to more easily add game ROMs and access additional features such as game rating and description scraping. Also, connecting the Pi to your network will allow you to access it remotely via SSH to perform remaining configuration without needing a keyboard.

If you have a Raspberry Pi ZeroW, 3, or 4, you have built-in Wi-Fi!

To connect, simply select the RetroPie menu icon and then selectWIFI.

Then,connect to your Pi remotelyvia SSH by opening Terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Windows) and then running:

How to Connect to a Raspberry Pi Remotely via SSH
The preferred (and most common) method of connecting to your Pi to run commands.

ssh pi@retropie# default password: raspberry

Note: If you’re using an older Pi or one without built-in Wi-Fi, you can stilltransfer ROMs via USB. But if you still want to add Internet functionality to one of these older Pis, simply connect an Ethernet cable or USB Wi-Fi dongle.

How to Add ROMs to RetroPie Using a USB Drive

7- Expand your SD card to utilize all usable space

If your SD card is larger than 4GB, you must expand it before your Pi can use the remaining space. To do this, you’ll need to launch the Raspberry Pi configuration tool (raspi-config).

You can use the Retropie interface to do this. On the main screen, select the RetroPie menu icon and then selectRASPI-CONFIG.

Then, choose eitherExpand Filesystemorexpand_rootfsfrom the menu (this option will vary based on your Raspberry Pi model). You now need to restart your Pi. You may have noticed there’s no reset button (unless you’ve added one).

8 – Connect to your Pi

We now need to connect to your Raspberry Pi from your computer so that we can copy over game ROMs and easily edit configuration files.

Again, this step is optional as you can also transfer ROMs via USB and accessing your configuration and other additional features isn’t strictly required.

There are numerous ways to do this; my favorite method is via SSH/SFTP using an FTP client. As far asfreeFTP clients go, I recommend FileZilla since it’s very well documented and supported and is available for both Mac and Windows.

Download FileZilla from theirdownloads pageand install it. I recommend you uncheck all the “additional components” that FileZilla will ask you to install, such as the Yahoo search page and toolbar crap.

**Note: As of the latest version ofRaspberry Pi OS, SSH is disabled by default for security purposes; you will need toenable SSH on your Pibefore proceeding. Thankfully, this process is super easy and painless.

Use the following credentials to connect to your Pi. Thedefault Pi username and passwordarepiandraspberry, respectively.

Host: <your pi's IP address> (see below)Username: piPassword: raspberryPort: 22

For security purposes, I highly recommend youchange the default Raspberry Pi passwordto something else. It only takes a minute.

How to Change the Raspberry Pi Password

To find your Pi’s IP, open Terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Windows) and enter the following command to ping your Pi and return its network IP:

ping retropie

or, for older versions of RetroPie, use:

ping raspberrypi

It may take a few tries to get a response. If you see a “Request timeout” response when you run thepingcommand, then the command has failed. If you have a USB keyboard handy, you can boot up your Pi, press F4 to get to the shell, and run the following command:

 ifconfig

This alternate method will list your Pi’s IP immediately afterinet addr:undereth0.

9 – Configuring your controller

You’ll now want to configure your USB gamepad to work with your Pi. I recommend theBuffalo Classic USB Gamepadsince it’s inexpensive, highly compatible with the Pi, and comes in sweet Japanese packaging. You can find an Amazon link to that USB controller at the top of this guide.

You can use any type of USB controller — including a USB NES controller, though your games are more limited since it has fewer buttons than most newer games use.

Be sure to check out our guide to thebest RetroPie controllers!

The Best RetroPie Controllers – Top 10 (2023)
Don’t skimp on your RetroPie controller—get the best!

To configure your controller to work with the menu system and games, boot up your Pi. Your Pi will automatically launch the RetroPie UI where you will be prompted to configure the controller. If you mess up, don’t worry — you can access this configuration menu again later by pressing Start in the RetroPie UI.

10 – Finding game ROMs

A ROM is an entire port of a particular video game. RetroPie contains a copy of EmulationStation, which both provides the user interface for your new retro gaming rig and interprets these ROM files appropriately. RetroPie comes with a few games preinstalled — such asQuake,Duke Nukem 3D, andCave Story. These games are best played using a keyboard, however, since the gamepad doesn’t have enough keys to map the controls for some PC-ported games. You can emulate just about any console using the built-in RetroPie emulators.

A Legal Note

Most retro games are owned by a company (yes, even the very old ones!) and are protected by copyright laws. Thus, unfortunately, downloading ROMs for those games constitutes piracy.

While you can find tons ofRetroPie ROMson any Torrent site, keep in mind that you should not download any copyrighted titles.

Where to Find and Download RetroPie ROMs (Free and Legally)
Let’s find something to play!

Free ROMs

Luckily, there are some free ROMs out there that we can use for now!MAMEdev.orghas a nice list of these free, legal ROMs. We’ll use these as examples and you can find more ROMs on your own.

Our list of thebest of the video games from the year you were borncontains links to some old arcade ROMs.

Let’s useGridleeandSuper Tankas examples. Download each ROM.

11 – Installing game ROMs

ROMs can be installed via SSH/SFTP (over your network)orby plugging a USB flash drive into your USB port. Additional methods for copying ROMs to RetroPie can be found on theRetroPie Wiki.

I wrote a separate guide oninstalling RetroPie ROMs using a USB drive. Or, if your Pi is connected to the internet, you can use the instructions below.

How to Add ROMs to RetroPie Using a USB Drive

Reconnect FileZilla and browse to the following directory:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms

Unzip each game ROM and upload each game folder into its respective game system folder. For example, if you had a Super Mario Bros 3 ROM, you would upload the game’s folder into the “nes” directory.

Gridlee and Super Tank go in the “mame” directory since MAME handles the arcade emulation for most vintage arcade-style games that don’t belong to a specific home video game system such as the NES, SNES or Atari.

After you’ve copied these directories over, restart your Pi.

12 – You’re ready to play!

Your Pi will boot into RetroPie automatically. Bask in the glory of simple graphics, bolstered by highly addictive gameplay. Whether you’re playing on your couch or building a RetroPie arcade cabinet or bartop arcade, I hope this guide was helpful to you!

Looking for that perfect controller?

Want a great classic or contemporary controller to play those new RetroPie games? Check out our list of thebest PC gaming controllersthat will work with your new setup.

The 10 Best PC Gaming Controllers (2022)
Customize your PC gaming experience.

13 – Exiting an emulation (game)

To exit a game, press the START and SELECT buttons at the same time. This will bring you back to the RetroPie UI.

14 – Saving a game

Check out my other guide onsaving games in RetroPieto learn how to save and load saved games!

How to Save and Load Saved Games in RetroPie
No more marathons. Unless you want to.

15 – Optional: Back up your Raspberry Pi’s SD card

Now that everything is configured and working splendidly, I recommend you back up your Raspberry Pi’s SD card image. This way, if you’re feeling adventurous and want to attempt some further Retropie customizations, you have a safe restore point.

I’ve written a short guide onhow to back up your Raspberry Pi.

16 – Questions?

Post in the comments section below and I’ll be sure to help you out. Also, stay tuned for more guides on customizing your RetroPie installation.

Did you know you can play games on RetroPie with your friends? Check out our guide to learn how to set upmultiplayer on RetroPie.