Its called 12k, but we really do think this is 24k !! However, the 12k represents the number of games all perfectly placed on this absolute killer image – using Batocera (which Wolfanoz is clearly loving!) and running your Pi on a pocket money Mirco SD with maximum banked gains! (whose just got back from Vegas!).
FROM THE AUTHOR:
I imaged and tested this with Win32DiskImager with no problems about five different times with different cards. It will take less than 1-3 minutes to self expand (auto process with visual steps included) depending on card used. I personally prefer SanDisk (I use the Extreme variety), Samsung EVO or PNY microSD. The faster the card model as well, the better.
As for the 12K Gold name, this image has exactly 12,000 games and we all know anything (and everything) retro is pure gold to the majority of us.
All the arcade sets, console game libraries you know and love with a personal best of selection of most CD based media games. (Can’t fit them all on a size like this but I did my best for what were personal favorites vs. internet consensus top choices.)
Totaly prefer this over every other Pi 4 platform at the moment as the speed is there vs. having all the menu aspects at a button press for changes. There’s some imperfections in regards to some things but as the majority of things in life, nothing is perfect.
What’s different from previous efforts, you ask?
-Batocera v32 (I think it’s now my favorite as much as Retroflag is just as good). More options in the menus for you and BezelProject is also able to be used in the menus for all selected systems. Also a download section for games they add. 95% of changes can be done from the main menus. Again, did I mention BezelProject is installed by default? And all bezels are active. You can turn it all off from the menus themselves if it’s not your bag.
-Cave Story is here in full. (Also requested with all the other usual Ports games)
-Dragon’s Lair (Daphne) was modified to play as originally intended from the drawbridge scene instead of skipping around to various scenes. Also has scoreboards now (also working with Space Ace).
-More refined arcade controls and added games. I think I missed a few with the 32GB but that library is here with some added games. Jurassic Park and Area 51 / Maximum Force being a couple off the top of my head in that category.
-Newer OpenBOR games with some of the original classics. All play without having to set controls. Incredible. All games are must plays.
-The Saturn games I tested that run mostly decent are here. No Nights into Dreams or Burning Rangers *sad face as they are personal favorites* as they don’t run great on the Pi still. (PC is king for this right now pushing games that are 3D due to the hardware vs emulation that needs improvement). The 2D based games run fine. It’s the emulation that needs updating as Dreamcast mostly runs great but PC pushes all this having beefier specs. What do you want for an SBC board? It gets much better for each iteration.
-SNES MSU-1 select classic games. (They are also very large CD sized in space from about 200GB to 1.5GB in some cases)
Some games have FMV scenes along with orchestral music updates. Feels like the ultimate versions of these classics. You’ll be blown away by how good/improved they are if you haven’t yet played them.
-Sufami Turbo SNES games are mixed in with the SNES category. I chose not to seperate them out as the category for Sufami doesn’t show anything with any of the Batocera themes. You however can seperate them out from the game collections menu if it doesn’t bug you.
-Select PC platforms (and favorite LucasArts ScummVM games) all run from controller and the Select button brings up a virtual keyboard. Amiga loads much faster now as well after a bit of tweaking. Most of the Sierra games are also included with the Amiga library.
– Any game can be launched from the screen saver by pressing Start as a side note.
Login / Case Details –
– With batocera, the Login is root, password is linux
– It’s ready to go for anyone just using the RPi 4 B at the moment (don’t have a Pi 400 but still should work).
– \\batocera\share\roms from Windows to remove anything you may not want or may want to add. I use Skraper as my scraping tool from my main PC with the Pi connected to my network but the built in one has options for marquees, videos, etc. Seems to work well!
As for using this with image with a case of your choice (in this case Retroflag Pi 4), you’ll need to do the below after booting:
For the Retroflag Case
1) Make sure to enable the Safe Shutdown Switch on the internal PCB! This small switch depends on the used housing, refer to the shipped manual from Retroflag how to do this.
2) When your Pi is up and connected to your network, from your PC bring up PuttY and type batocera into the hostname and connect
2) Edit batocera.conf and set the correct switch mode.
You can edit the config file from SAMBA share with your dedicated text editor (vi or nano)
or use SSH and you can edit the config file with nano /userdata/system/batocera.conf
or use the GUI mode, you need SSH for this method, too.
3) Activate or Select the correct powerswitch -> system.power.switch=RETROFLAG (uncomment the line (remove the # sign))
4) Reboot, this will activate the Safe Shutdown feature of the Retroflag case
IMPORTANT – There are links to other cases you may have in that same batocera.conf file just above the line you are to edit.
Just copy and paste the link in that area in your browser for set up asssistance and set the
system.power.switch= in the file like above with the RetroFlag case after you follow the links instructions as extra steps may be needed.
-If you have sufficent cooling, I would recommend a bit of an overclock (to at least 1.8GHz) as it’s currently at standard clock. It’s not needed but it will help with some of the more 3D intensive based games. It’s easily accessed in the menus.
-There’s about roughly 1.8GB of space leftover for saves / controller settings / etc depending on the quality of your microSD. I packed this thing so tight I didn’t include music and left enough room for expanding (should always leave at least over 1GB from personal experiences).
Potential Troubles / Troubleshooting –
As a head’s up, the sound may potentially cut out from the main Emulationstation menu on occasion but as from reading the forums, they’re going to a new form of sound configuration with Pipewire (sound and video management) and is causing issues here and there. If the sound cuts out, load a game and back out and you should hear it again, if not reboot. Also, play around with the sound settings under system settings if you’re not hearing anything but it’s set to HDMI by default so depending on your set up, it’s worth it to tinker around with it if you’re still having issues.
I figured out the problem with House of the Dead, something changed the CUE file contents for it under the Saturn ROMs folder. All you have to do is open the CUE file for it with a text editor and change the name from “House of the Dead.iso” to “The House of the Dead (USA).iso” (with the vi editor using CLI or notepad or notepad++ via Windows) and save it. Not sure why it changed the contents but there’s your fix. It’s a fairly easy one. Also, if you decide to update to the new Batocera via the menus, you will have to reconfigure the game collection categories as some will “disappear”. So far I’ve noticed that it changed Game and Watch to LCD Games and groups all the SNES and MSU-1 categories into one SNES category. You can separate them back out using the check boxes via the menu. Also fairly easy.
FINALLY
Some folks choose to use as is (which is why I left check for updates for new Batocera version unchecked so there’s no “oops” updates but you can do a manual update), some prefer to see how updates are. Just giving you all some options.
Well folks, it’s been a fun ride with the Pi 4 over the past few years and mainly getting N64 mostly to work (as some games are still iffy) but most work great (and without an overclock) which I feel is my personal accomplishment from all this go ’round tinkering under the hood with the Pi 4.
Going to go into hibernation for a while until the Pi 5 arrives. Hope you all enjoy and stay safe.
Take care and God bless!
-Wolfanoz
Title =”[128gb]-12K.Gold.Batocera.Rpi4-Wolfanoz”