Stock LibreELEC and retro gaming?

You want to add gamestarter repo by bite_your_idols

From his repo you can install retroarch on stock libreelec.

It also come with 2 front ends to choose from, emulationstation and advance emulator launcher.

Happy gaming

another way you could do it would be to use internet archive emulator launcher from a repo by the name of zachmorris.

This add-on works really well, it has many of games on it and will work with the new Kodi retroplayer or retroarch from the gamestarter repo.

It will download a rom as you need it and delete it after, this saves space but if space isn't a issue you can have it download a rom permanently to save keep downloading your favourites.

Google and YouTube are your best friends for setting any of these up.

If you get stuck give us a shout

Tried following the Internet Archive ... but seems was too complicated (read: too many steps to execute) for me - perhaps I will return trying that later. Also eagerly awaiting that there comes some LE wiki stuff written on gaming support and how to do it.

//t

If you have Libreelec 9 and roms on your HDD you don't need anything...you got retroplayer builtin...

The internet archive game launcher is pretty straight forward. You pick a game and as default it will download and launch the rom with Kodi retroplayer.

If you go into the settings of IAGL you can choose a external launcher, choose gamestarter (if you installed retroarch from that repo) and then select your system folder which is the folder with bios files in.

Then on the left hand side if you go down a couple of times you will see a setup wizard, run that and it will be configured to run with the retroarch.

Retroplayer will get you started as Mario77 suggested but in my experience PlayStation games are choppy on retroplayer but retroarch they are almost flawless for most.

Well explained robmcc83 ..

Also if you want to use your roms already on your hdd you can get Advanced emulator launcher from the Gamestarter Repo...there you can add artwork to your games which looks nicer then just a bare retroplayer...from AEL you can launch games in both retroarch or direct on kodi with retroplayer

Quote from Da Flex

Do you have a link, which emulators the built-in retroplayer supports?

Do I need a separate BIOS for every emulator, which retroplayer supports (like a special BIOS for C64)?

Is there a default location, where retrplayer will search for ROM's / BIOS'es (if I want to copy files from my PC)?

retroplayer supports the libretro cores..C64 needs vice_ and no bios as far as I know..although I don't use c64 so better check.. .other bios's in the usual storage/emulators/bios..

retroplayer doesn't search for roms...you add roms from the games section in th UI...like adding movies or tv shows but no artwork yet..

The day I find a "step-by-step guide for dummies" I'll give it a try.

I'd really like to try to play all those ancient Mario/Super Mario games again.

Quote from Jocke.Sve

The day I find a "step-by-step guide for dummies" I'll give it a try.

I'd really like to try to play all those ancient Mario/Super Mario games again.

Try Gamestarter repo it's the easiest way if you don't want to dual boot to another OS...another option is retroplayer but not everything is smooth yet..I gave retro player a go myself after few years using gamestarter's retroarch and I can say that roms look much smoother on Gamestarter retroarch...also I noticed some roms looks far more pixelated on retroplayer using same cores..

There is expected to appear an article for Wiki about "Gaming" at some point, but timing unknown. Also the gaming experience in Kodi 18 is not the best yet, but definitelly a good start. So seems that Gamestarter is the one option, Internet Gaming Archive the other.

Quote from moroi

Thank you, robmcc83 I got it playing SNES roms via AEL/Retroplayer. The whole process was confusing, at least for a newbie like me who's missing a lot of context.

Also had to mess around for a bit to get my no-name PS3 compatible controller to work correctly in-game. Not that it works flawlessly with the LE interface either...

No artwork for now, as it's looking to take too much effort.

I'll see about geting the PSX roms to work, this one has the added complication of having to supply as bios as well..

Ok so regarding the bios this to is also simple.

I use gamestarter repo with retroarch and this is how I do it.

I use lakka website for reference of which bioses I need for the systems I use just Google lakka bioses. The version of retroarch in lakka is the one that is compiled for our gamestarter repo.

Now all you have to do is get hold of the bioses the lakka recommends again Google will help with this.

Then over samba or sftp/FTP login into your libreelec, From there your looking for directory /storage/emulators.

If you have already loaded up retroarch it will have created 3 folders. bios,roms and saves.

Just copy the bios files you have obtained from the internet to the bios folder and that's it happy psx gaming.

I'll have a bit of spare time shortly so I'll try write something up for you to help you out, I'll do each system as to how I have done it all in the past because I've spent many of hours getting everything to work flawless.

I spend many weekends with friends and family having lots of 4 player fun on many psx games and the good old micro machines turbo tournament for the mega drive

Ill start with retroarch now as this one is probably the quickest.

Start by downloading the gamestarter repo.

Just by a Google search you will easily find it.

Copy over the repo to your libreelec device your preferred way (this repo only works on generic/rpi)

Install repo like any other then navigate to the repo and from program add-ons install retroarch.

Once retroarch has confirmed it has been installed go to the program but do not launch, firstly click configure.

From there select download libretro cores full package, this will make sure you have all cores for all supported systems.

Now connect you preferred controller as retroarch will autoconfig it when you launch.

Launch retroarch, if you've done all of the above you should have the retroarch interface. Job done

Now what I usually do from here is exit retroarch and reboot my device. The reason I do this is because in the past if I load a game straight up after installing retroarch I get no sound, but doing a reboot has always fixed this so I'm only telling you what I've always done for things to work.

Now look at lakka bioses on their website, find the bioses you think you will need for systems you are going to use.

Copy them over to libreelec at location /storage/emulators/bios

That's pretty much it for getting retroarch up and running any other settings will be personal preference.

installing internet archive game launcher (IAGL) and getting it to run with retroarch.

In this part i will only explain how to configure 1 system as it will be the same with others and im sure you will understand how it works afterwards.

Start by installing zachmorris repo (again google this and you will find it).

Go to the repo and find IAGL, once installed load it up and leave it a short while as it configures a few things for you (you will see notifications as it fetches gamelist).

Once finished exit the program then find the program in your addons again but do not launch click configure instead.

From here go to external launchers, for system type select gamestarter addon, then below select your system folder which if default and you have not changed anything is /storage/emulators/bios. If you are in doubt or want to double check this is the correct directory then load retroarch and navigate to directories within the retroarch gui. There you will see the system dircectory that retroarch is using and this is the same path that you put into the IAGL Addon.

After setting the above go down 2 options on the left hand side to setup wizard (might be different for different skins but its setup wizard you want).

For emulator launcher choose external, then select execute setup wizard, leave it a short while whilst it is configuring everything for you (you will see notifications whilst it updates gamelists with new settings) and thats it.

Now you will be able download and launch a game via IAGL and it will run with retroarch.

This is a basic guide to get it running there are many other features but alot of these again are personal preference but ill tell you a couple that i change.

With the above setup roms will download as you play them and delete afterwards. This is good if you are short on space but annoying waiting for a psx game to download everytime you want to play.

How i get around this. I have a external hard drive connected to my pi with all my media, you can tell IAGL to download to specific directory and it will save that game on your storage so in the future if its a game you play alot its stored locally so it will not need to re download.

To do this find the system you want to change download location for, i will use psx as a example here as they are cd based games so larger files.

Highlight for example "playstation" press you context button which is the letter "c" on your keyboard or what ever you have it programmed to on your remote, select update download path and select the location you wish the games for this system will be downloaded to. It will update everything for you and games for that system will always store locally afterwards.

You can repeat this for as many systems as you like, but to make things easier maybe create yourself a file structure that simplifies everything.

On my external hard drive i created a directory called roms i then created folders inside that directory for the consoles, for example snes, megadrive, psx etc and chose them for my download paths for each system i wish to emulate.

Also from that same context menu you can hide systems you will never use, you can view list settings which will tell you where roms download, which core is used etc. And if you wish to change which core is used for that system you can use update launch command.

Apart from everything above i dont really change much more within the settings of IAGL but like ive said personal preference you might decide to do so.

If this doesnt get you started then you really shouldnt be using this stuff, a basic knowledge of how it works is always helpful, or try things out on a spare sd card so not to break your current setup, then when you confident with it all set it all up on your main setup

Hope this helps all.

Rob

Running games that you already have stored loacally.

There are 2 options that are best here and that is AEL or emulationstation.

This is the way i used to run my setup before i found IAGL.

I chose emulationstation as i had much knowledge of this as a long time user of retropie.

Either one of these frontends can be installed from the gamestarter repo.

So after i installed emulationstation the first thing i would do is configure the addon, to do this find the addon in your programs select it and select configure.

The first options that pop up allows you to download extra themes, you can go ahead and do this if you like. Again personal preference, i had one backup theme from the retropie days that i had edited to my liking so i just copied that over.

After this go down to es_systems here you select where your rom directory is and which cores you would like to use.

To get you started just select your rom directory and then select update the es_systems.cfg leave all the core settings unless you know what you are doing and which cores you actually have.

you must have you roms directory console names match the same as retropie so for example commodore 64 is "c64" nintendo is "nes" etc, Again do a little google research to find out how the naming of your roms directory should be.

With you preferred controller connected you can now launch emulationstation on first launch it will ask you to configure your controller, after that all games will show in emulationstation and you can just launch form there and have some retro fun

Again there are further things you can do to enhance your experience, like i had all my roms scraped images and metadata using universal xml scraper, then selecting a theme that has metadata gives you a amazing looking system with boxart, screenshots, description of the game etc but im not going into all of this as all im trying to do is get you all up and running.

Thats pretty much all i can tell you about getting games to run on libreelec, there is much more options you can adjust to your liking so if you come across anything your unsure of just give me a shout and hopefully i can help

Happy Retro Gaming