Pages

About

A Set of Scripts and Tools For a "Ready-To-Go" RetroPie (for Raspberry Pi, model B+ recommended) with PS3 controls ready and configured to work with Bluetooth or USB on multiple games and game system emulations.

A Recent PS3 Controller Layout / Quick Reference:

PrimeStation One theme for EmulationStation github repo:

NOTE:

primeStationOne images / installations older than v0.951alpha can not be automatically updated to the latest by simply running the quick update script. They must run the following commands to purge and recreate the git repository, since it has been recreated on GitHub for v0.951alpha and later:
        cd ~/RetroPie-Setup
        sudo git reset --hard
        cd ~
        rm -rf primestationone
        git clone https://github.com/free5ty1e/primestationone.git
        cd primestationone
        bin/installPrimeStationOneFiles.sh
        quickUpdatePrimestationOneFiles.sh
ADDITIONALLY, with v0.951alpha comes the decoupling of the primestationone theme from the repo. The theme will be available separately in the same share as the PrimeStationOne image (below). The theme no longer overwrites the Simple theme, there is a Primestation theme to select in the EmulationStation menu now.

NOTE: Bluetooth utilities package "Bluez" updated from 4.99 to 5.28 ONLY FOR Primestation v0.999 through v0.9993 beta.

This brings native sixaxis support and some much better autopairing. The same script,pair_ps3_controller_currently_on_usb.sh, from the Emulationstation Settings page, will now guide you through the process of introducing your particular PS3 controller to this Primestation One and current bluetooth interface. Once this introduction / trust relationship has been built, the Primestation will always remember and autopair your controller. If you use your controller on a real PS3 and it takes over the pairing, simply connect the controller to the Primestation via USB, wait 5 seconds, then unplug it and you should be able to connect wirelessly again.
This new Bluez 5 was abandoned as of v0.9994 beta, for now, for intermittent reliability issues. We have gone back to Bluez 4.99 and qtsixad to pair PS3 controllers over bluetooth. There are still supporting scripts for Bluez 5 functionality, but they are currently unused until these issues can be isolated and worked out.

BASIC USAGE

Download the latest primeStationOne image archive (and any other modules / tools you are interested in) from the following MEGA (mega.co.nz) share: http://goo.gl/RPKAr1

If you have managed to obtain one of these releases, extract the .7z archive so you have the .img file.
Here are the commands to write the image file on Mac and Linux with a progress bar as well. The v0.960 alpha release archive is used for this example, adjust accordingly if you have a different version. You will need a minimum of a 2GB SD card to begin using the PrimeStation One (although, in that form, it won't quite yet do all the things yet. However, it's the quickest and simplest way to get started so here we go!):

Install on Mac: (brew install pv if you don't have pv. If you don't have Homebrew, too bad for you.) Replace the device /dev/disk1 with your SD card desingation (disk1, disk2, disk3...).

        pv --size 2048000000 primeStationOne2gSdV0.960alpha.img | sudo dd bs=2m of=/dev/disk1
...or, I suppose you COULD do it without pv and just watch a blank cursor and guess how fast it is transferring and how far along it is and how much longer it will be, by typing:
        sudo dd bs=2m if=primeStationOne2gSdV0.960alpha.img of=/dev/disk1

Install on Linux: (sudo apt-get install pv if you don't have pv) Replace the device /dev/sdb with your SD card designation (sda, sdb, sdc...).

        pv --size 2048000000 primeStationOne2gSdV0.960alpha.img | sudo dd bs=2M of=/dev/sdb
...or, I suppose you COULD do it without pv and just watch a blank cursor and guess how fast it is transferring and how far along it is and how much longer it will be, by typing:
        sudo dd bs=2M if=primeStationOne2gSdV0.960alpha.img of=/dev/sdb

Install on Windows: Follow this instruction.

First time running PrimeStation One from ready-to-go 4GB SD card image

Starting with v0.995, the full-featured 4GB SD card image is ready to use! Just follow steps 1 and 2 in the below "First time running PrimeStation One from lightweight 2GB SD card image" and you will be good to go! Feel free to follow step 4 for additional roms if you have the space...

First time running PrimeStation One from lightweight 2GB SD card image

Starting with v0.995, the lightweight 2GB SD card image will be as ready to go as reasonably possible in the compact 2GB starter image, but some emulators / ports / features are not yet compiled or installed. First, decide if you want to run the PrimeStation One from the SD card only or do you have a USB drive you'd like to dedicate to the system?
  1. Either expand SD filesystem to fill your >2GB SD card (sudo raspi-config -> Expand Filesystem) or transfer root filesystem to USB (usbRootFilesystemSetup.sh and follow the instructions when prompted)
  2. Reboot
  3. Execute primeStationOneFirstTimeSetupAndReset.sh to actually initiate the install of the PrimeStation One now that we have enough space to proceed (you DID transfer to a 4+GB SD or 4+GB USB, didn't you?) -- Be warned, THIS step will require a good 20 + hours (possibly less if you also overclocked during the previous sudo raspi-config step) to complete, but you will end up with a fully functional PrimeStation One. : NOTE! It may not be necessary for you to execute this step to fully enjoy your PrimeStation One; since v0.997 the 2GB image has gotten many more features / updates / emulators closer to the 4GB image to reduce the gap. You will still be missing LXDE / Windowed Mode and the latest Raspberry Pi firmware updates, for instance. You should still at least run quickUpdatePrimestationOneFiles.sh && quickResetPrimestationOne.sh to ensure you get the latest updates and fixes, which will not take long -- a couple minutes.
  4. If you have at least another ~5GB free on your root filesystem, you may optionally auto install the "binsnroms_large" PrimeStation One module (the smaller "binsnroms" package would have already been installed by this point, along with the "themePrimeStationOne" package) by typingmegaInstallBinsNRomsLarge.sh
  5. Optionally attach a wifi and / or a bluetooth dongle as both should be pretty well supported by this point
  6. Attach PS3 controller via USB (can pair via bluetooth from the Emulationstation Settings screen or by typing sudo sixpair)
  7. Reboot, behold splashscreen and possibly videos (depending on what we have at the server had when you updated) during startup... and then Emulationstation themed for the Primestation One and a full list of active emulators.

Expanding your SD filesystem to fill your SD card > 2GB

...this is the "normal" method of running a Raspberry Pi, directly and only from an SD card. SD card space is typically slower and more expensive when compared to USB storage, and it's great to have more space for ROMs, so we recommend you follow the next section and transfer your root filesystem to a dedicated USB drive. However, if you'd prefer to run off SD only, simply run the following command:
sudo raspi-config
...select Expand Filesystem from the menu, exit, and follow the prompt to reboot your Pi. This ONLY works for SD card root filesystems.

Transferring your PrimeStation One SD root filesystem to a USB drive:

...is typically faster depending on the USB drive itself vs the SD card you are using, and handy since USB storage space is normally less expensive and more available than SD card storage space. USB storage will probably also last longer, as it was designed for more write cycles. This way, you'll only end up needing to dedicate an SD card with > 16MB (yes, megabytes) of storage to your PrimeStation One and you can have all the roms you can cram onto your USB flash or hard drive.
The PrimeStation One v0.951alpha introduces a new usbRootFilesystemSetup.sh script to handle this process almost completely for you, save for some instructed keystrokes.
Yes. Plug in your USB drive, and type usbRootFilesystemSetup.sh in order to start the guided process. In some rare cases, you may find (by typing df -h) that your USB drive has mounted twice, in both/media/usb0 and /media/usb1 for some reason. In this case, you can type sudo umount /dev/sda1until it complains that sda1 is not mounted anywhere.
This process takes about 20-30 minutes, depending on the speeds of your SD card and USB drive.
I heavily recommend starting with a fresh PrimeStationOne SD imaged with v0.951alpha or later, and transferring to USB first thing instead of expanding the filesystem on the SD card first for any reason (via the sudo raspi-config menu, only works for SD cards, DON'T do this if you are going to USB).
Part of the guided process is to expand the USB filesystem from the initial 4G to however large your USB drive is.
Plenty of space for ROMS now!! xD
If you have trouble booting from your USB drive after a crash or other issue, your USB filesystem may need to be checked / cleaned / fixed. To workaround the issue, wait until your Pi gives you some error message about the USB drive during startup (gotta let it sit for a good 25 seconds or so), then you can pull out the USB drive and reinsert it. This should enable the PrimeStation One USB to continue booting. Once you're in, get to a command prompt (F4 to quit EmulationStation), and type the following and answer Yes (should be default for ENTER) to all prompts to fix:
sudo e2fsck -f /dev/sda1

PrimeStation One MEGA.co.nz module auto-install scripts (as of V0.960alpha):

The PrimeStation One's modules are now released through mega.co.nz's awesome cloud by running more automated scripts!
(NOTE: If any of these installation scripts ever fails on you, be sure you try running aquickUpdatePrimestationOneFiles.sh as this will ensure you have the very latest module version download links.)
First, type installMegaTools.sh to handle building and installation of the very handy MegaTools, which are required for any module installations.
Then, type any or all of the following (megaInstallAllModules.sh will go through and install them all for you if you are lazy. Always update your Primestation One first by typingquickUpdatePrimestationOneFiles before trying to install a Mega Module, since the contents and mega download links in the scripts change all the time!):
megaInstallEntireRetroPieFolderBinaries.sh
megaInstallBinsNRoms.sh
megaInstallBinsNRomsLarge.sh
megaInstallThemePrimeStationOne.sh
Note that the megaInstallEntireRetroPieFolderBinaries.sh module includes bothmegaInstallLibretrocoresBinaries.sh and megaInstallOtherEmulatorsBinaries.sh, which may also be installed individually if desired (but there is more than just these two modules contained within.)
Installation of each module may take up to 20ish minutes, depending on your connection speed and overclock settings (7z max compression is a bit intensive on the Pi).
The goal here is, after installing all modules, you should have a theme for every emulator and at least one working thing for every emulator.

Amiga emulator (uae4all) on the PrimeStation One:

Since v0.962, usage of the megaInstallBinsNRoms.sh script will also install a special WORKING version of the Amiga emulator (uae4all) from the following post on the Raspberry Pi forums:http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=80602
The important thing to remember is that dispmanx MUST be disabled for the uae4all emulator in order for this emulator to function! You can do this from the RetroPie Setup menu (available through the Settings page in EmulationStation).

Netplay for RetroArch / LibRetroCore-enabled emulators

As of v0.976, a handy netplay configuration / enable / disable script is provided on the EmulationStation settings page! Or, you can type netplayConfigForRetroArchLibretrocoreEmulators.shto launch from the terminal.
From here, you can enable / disable and configure netplay functionality on libretrocore enabled emulators, a list of which is located in the repository here: !ListOfNetplayEmus
NETPLAY -- IMPORTANT!:
When launching an emulator capable of NETPLAY, you must hit the x key pretty much immediately after emulationstation's interface dissappears; there is a brief prompt asking you to press this key for options. You need to go to this menu and choose the Launch with netplay support (or hotkey z) then ENTER to actually launch the emulator with your netplay settings enabled.
If you start in Host mode, your emulator will appear to freeze during startup until a Client connects.
Start your host first, then start the client(s). You can watch them connect and the screens sync up. Awesome!!
There is also a button combination mapped on the controller to allow you to swap netplayers, though this is experimental. Look for it on the splashscreen / quick reference screen (also above) and try it out!

Troubleshooting

Some of the previous versions of the PrimeStation One may or may not have inadvertently caused some ownership issues in the user file structure, and / or left unused or outdated scripts lying around where they can cause confusion. The best way to ensure that things are really set as they should be, and that you have the absolute best starting point to move forward, you should run the following script. Be prepared to lose your cached gamelists, custom emulationstation input adjustments and general settings:
quickResetPrimestationOne.sh

Building emulators from source / downloading binaries (RetroPie)

Type the follwing to get into the RetroPie setup menu, where you can choose individual or multiple emulators to install or build from binaries or source:
sudo ~/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh
SOON: List of emulators PrimeStation One recommends / works best for most situations. For now, just recommend build ALL emulators from source and give it a good 30ish hours to do so, then build each experimental item so you can support all the things (another 3-4 hours, mostly on that MSX emu build)...
IMPORTANT: If you plan to build and use the N64 emulator (mupen64plus), you will need to change your memory split to 128MB for the GPU and 384MB for the CPU for smooth emulation, and of course will need to overclock to the "Turbo" setting (both of these things can be done from the sudo raspi-config menu). With this much load on the Pi, consider at least a 2 amp power supply and some heat sinks and / or fan(s) to avoid overheating. You may check the temperature in both *C and *F of your Pi's CPU and GPU at any time by logging in via SSH (its in the welcome message), and also by typing one of the following (all perform different types and speeds):
pitemp
pitemp.sh
pytemp.py

BELOW IS NOT RECOMMENDED / OUTDATED INFO!! CONTINUE IF YOU WANT TO START FROM A FRESH RETROPIE IMAGE INSTEAD:

Install RetroPie (https://github.com/petrockblog/RetroPie-Setup) by writing from an SD card image downloaded from their site (http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/retropie-downloads/).
Once you can type 'emulationstation' from the command line and get into the basic EmulationStation interface and see one or two entries, you can continue with the PrimeStation One overlay scripts.
Clone the github repo for the primeStationOne to your Pi home folder and start the setup. (git pull is included in case you want to copy / paste the entire block below and paste into an SSH terminal window, to update if you've already cloned)
        cd ~
        git clone https://github.com/free5ty1e/primestationone.git
        cd primestationone
        git pull
        bin/primeStationOneSetup
Once this script completes, you should end up in the RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh menu, and you can just exit at this point if you'd like and restart (as your Pi may or may not have updated its firmware in the process as part of the self updating stuffs). Note: You can now type restart to restart the thing or off to turn off the thing.
At this point, there is a menu entry in the EmulationStation Settings menu page (script page) toupdatePrimeStationOneFull.sh, which you can also type in a command terminal. It will perform a git pull to retrieve the latest verison of the setup script and supporting files, and run thebin/primeStationOneSetup again to ensure the latest things are thinged for your maximum thingness.
There is also a quick update, which takes care of only git repo updates for primestationone and RetroPie-Setup, installs primestationone files to correct locations, installs primestationone cronjobs and configures mplayer. This all happens far faster than the full setup command. Also: it happens every reboot via a cronjob. Neat! Type quickUpdatePrimestationOneFiles to execute the quick update (it is also in the Settings page in Emulationstation for convenience)
The ~/splashscreen.png file can also be shown by typing splashscreenQuickReference.sh, or selecting this script from the Settings page in Emulationstation. This also shows the layout of the PS3 controller for the auxiliary and management functions of RetroArch for most emulators (those with libretocores, of course).
So far mainly tested with the RetroPie image v2.3 downloaded from their site and written to SD card using a dd command. Not sure if the very latest RetroPie built from sources will work correctly with these files, but we plan to test it soon!

FUTURE

  • Add the opt/vc/src/hello_pi/* demos to the Settings / Tools menu, or even a new Demos menu as these are neat to show off and why not?
  • Menu system to handle running services, both for the current session and for all future sessions (services enabled / disabled upon startup). The PrimeStation One can do a lot, and sometimes its nice to turn some unused features off!
  • Add START + SELECT to request a soft reboot of the Pi for panic / crash situations. This might just end up pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL if we continue to find this actually does work like we think it does...
  • Add new Pi port https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags Adventure Game Studio
Comments / suggestions / contributions to the code welcome!
Credits:
  • Chris "Prime" Paiano (Founder, Lead Developer) - Twitter: @ChrisPaiano
  • "Circuit Static" (User Experience, Quality, Development & Marketing) - Twitter: @CircuitStatic
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)