1.2.1 Retropie Installation and Configuration

Retropie Installation and Configuration

In order to emulate the games that we want to play we need an emulator called: dolphin. Unfortunately, the GUI that comes with the software, cannot be controlled with a controller input. Therefore, we want to have a good-looking minimal emulator frontend system that can be navigated with a physical game controller. This also enables us to choose between games in a great looking way.

Retropie comes with a custom version of emulationstation (emulator frontend) as well as many other great customization features that we want to use. In addition, retropie features a great dolphin integration making it the ultimate software solution for this project. (Retropie can also run on x86 systems!)

Retropie Installation/Configuration

We just visit the official retropie website and follow the installation instructions for "Debian/Ubuntu". It is crucial to install retropie with "sudo" as the primary user that was created during the ubuntu initial installation!

Non-Interactive Mode

Retropie scripts also features an non-interactive mode that lets us execute retropie script from within another script without having to interact with dialog windows.

The mode can be accessed by adding a "non-interactive parameter" as well as the desired retropie module to the script call.

$ __nodialog=1 ./retropie_packages.sh setup basic_install
$ __nodialog=1 ./retropie_packages.sh dolphin

$ __nodialog=1 ./retropie_packages.sh esthemes install_theme <repo> <theme>
$ __nodialog=1 ./retropie_packages.sh retropiemenu remove

Let’s take a closer look at those commands:

• basic install

  • Perform a basic retropie installation on a fresh system. We do not want to call this as we already installed retropie. (Like it is stated above.)

• dolphin

  • Installs (Compiles) the dolphin emulator and integrates it into retropie. (Of course, this command could be altered to install other supported emulators. The list can be found within the retropie setup repo at: "scriptmodules/emulators/". Doing so would also change a few default file locations like where the games for the corresponding platform should be located.)

• esthemes install_theme

  • Installs a custom theme from the list of available retropie themes. The list can be found within the retropie setup repo at: "/scriptmodules/supplementary/esthemes.sh"

• retropiemenu remove

  • Removes the emulationstation menu entry/console entry that lets the user access retropie configuration utilities. (This does not remove the window that comes up when you press START on a controller within emulationstation. It removes the "retropie joystick" menu entry seen on the screen where the user can choose between different consoles.)

Further Retropie Configuration

Set Custom Default Theme

First, we want to set our custom theme as the "default" theme for emulationstation. To do this just create a file with the following contents at: /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_settings.cfg

  <?xml version="1.0"?>
  <string name="ThemeSet" value="<theme>" />

Do not forget to change "<theme>" with your custom theme name.

Customize/Configure "runcommand"

Runcommand is another great retropie utility that can customize how the different emulators are called from the emulationstation frontend and what the user can do when starting a game for a specific console. As we only have one emulator (dolphin) we can customize the global "runcommand" behavior for all possible emulators. Edit the following parameters at: /opt/retropie/configs/all/runcommand.cfg:

disable_menu = "1"
image_delay = "1"

The first parameter disables the bios-like menu from which the user can choose between different settings/emulators for the chosen game and its respective platform. The second parameter decreases the default time delay in how long emulationstation/retropie should wait until it calls the emulator to one second.

Make sure all created/edited files have the correct permissions/ownerships:

$ chown -R <PRIMARY-USER>:<PRIMARY-USER> /opt/retropie/*

Replace the <PRIMARY-USER> with the username that was created during the initial ubuntu installation.

Conclusion

We should now have a fully configured/customized retropie installation with dolphin support.