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Justin Peacock edited this page Jun 21, 2018 · 17 revisions

Thank you.

First of all, thank you for purchasing this Custom Gameboy Zero. A lot of time and effort went into creating this device for you, so please enjoy!

Operating System

The device comes with RetroPie 4.3 installed with some modifications that allows the controller, audio, and other optimizations to function. If you need to re-install or upgrade your SD card in the future, please go to https://github.com/sixteenbit/gameboy-zero/wiki/Reinstalling-RetroPie for more information.

Setup Wi-Fi

Before inserting the SD including with your device, you’ll need to setup WiFi, so that you can transfer games. There are a few ways to accomplish this but the easiest is to plug the SD card into your PC/Mac. Create a file called wifikeyfile.txt in the root of the SD card. Add the following to the file and update it with your credentials.

ssid="NETWORK_NAME"
psk="NETWORK_PASSWORD"

Place the SD card into the device (Contrast port) but be careful not to miss the slot and drop the card into the Gameboy Zero. The top of the SD card should be facing you if you're looking at the screen of the Gameboy Zero.

Next, power on the Gameboy Zero. Once it’s at the menu, press A to select the RetroPie logo. Scroll down and select WiFi, then select "Import wifi credentials from /boot/wifikeyfile.txt". Reboot, and you should now be connected to your network.

More Information

ROM's

ROMs stand for Read Only Memory. ROMs are essentially digital versions of old game cartridges which allow you to play games on emulators (software that mimics your old gaming consoles.)

Recommended Emulators

These handhelds are able to play these systems (but not limited to):

  • Atari 2600
  • Atari LYNX
  • Nintendo
  • Gameboy
  • Gameboy Color
  • Gameboy Advance (In order for GBA to work, you'll need to Google for the GBA BIOS and place it into the /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS directory. More Information)
  • Sega Genesis
  • Super Nintendo

Supported Systems

Transferring Roms

There are three main methods of transferring roms: via USB stick, via SFTP, and via Windows (Samba) shares

USB stick

  1. (ensure that your USB is formatted to FAT32)
  2. first create a folder called retropie on your USB stick
  3. plug it into the pi and wait for it to finish blinking
  4. pull the USB out and plug it into a computer
  5. add the roms to their respective folders (in the retropie/roms folder)
  6. plug it back into the raspberry pi
  7. wait for it to finish blinking
  8. you can now remove the USB stick.
  9. refresh emulationstation by pressing F4, or choosing quit from the start menu

SFTP

SFTP or SSH File Transfer Protocol also called Secure File Transfer Protocol is a network protocol that allows you to securely transfer files over a network. Naturally both your PC and Pi will need to be connected to the same network via Ethernet or Wifi in order to successfully transfer your files.

There are many SFTP programs out there:

ftp

Connection settings:

  • Protocol: SFTP
  • IP address: To find the IP address of your RetroPie, go into RetroPie options from the main menu, and select the last option Show IP address. You can also find this information from the terminal on retropie in the bash info or with the command ifconfig
  • Username: pi (default)
  • Password: raspberry (default)

Where to drop the files*

Simply drop the files in the ~/RetroPie/roms/$CONSOLE folder, where $CONSOLE is the name of the target console, e.g. snes or arcade.

You can also log in as root if you wish to change more files than just the roms, but you first need to enable the root password by typing sudo passwd root into the terminal and choosing a new root password.

Samba-Shares

Samba is a software suite that allows you to access file systems over the network. Naturally both your PC and Pi will need to be connected to the same network via Ethernet or Wifi in order to successfully transfer your files.

  • if on windows type \\RETROPIE into the computer folder. You can also replace RETROPIE with your Raspberry Pi's IP address

samba

  • if on MAC OS X open finder, select "Go" menu and "Connect to Server". Type smb://retropie and hit "Connect".

More Information

Overclocking

Add the following to the end of /boot/config.txt

# Overclocking
arm_freq=1000
gpu_freq=500
core_freq=500
sdram_freq=500
sdram_schmoo=0x02000020
over_voltage=2
sdram_over_voltage=2
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