Guide for myself and others to get RetroArch running on the new Raspberry Pi 4 while projects like RetroPie get an image out for the rpi4.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert and this may not be the most optimal build possible, but it works.
Inspiration taken from:
- This gist showing the basic steps for building and configuring for raspberry pi 3.
I'm new to Raspberry Pi and RetroArch myself so this was super helpful and I recommend looking through it.
https://gist.github.com/AlexMax/32e5d038a66ce57253e740ea75736805 - This Reddit post showing the performanc gains over the pi 3b+
https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/c7j150/emulation_on_the_raspberry_pi_4_vs_rpi_3/
- I used 'Raspbian Buster with desktop' installed from NOOBS
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/ - I used the OpenGL driver (Enabled by default)
sudo raspi-config
Advanced Options -> GL Driver -> G2 OpenGL desktop driver...
- Update everything and restart - skip if you know this is done already
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
shutdown -r nowInstall some needed packages - check the gist I linked for an explanation
sudo apt install build-essential libasound2-dev libudev-dev libgles2-mesa-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxxf86vm-devDownload RetroArch source code - This guide will use the .tar.gz
https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/releases
wget https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/archive/v1.9.0.tar.gz
tar -xf v1.9.0.tar.gz
cd RetroArch-1.9.0To fix undefined reference to XF86VidMode... errors change this line in Makefile:
#OLD line 24
LIBS :=
#New
LIBS := -lXxf86vm -lpthread
Configure with additional options to work with rpi4
CFLAGS='-mfpu=neon -mtune=cortex-a72 -march=armv8-a' ./configure --disable-opengl1 --enable-neon --enable-opengles3 --enable-opengles --disable-videocoreIf no errors, build
make
sudo make installLaunch RetroArch fullscreen
retroarch -fGo ahead and update assets within RetroArch
Online Updater -> Update AssetsThe gist for rpi 3b+ will tell you to update the retroarch.cfg file with a url, but those cores did not work for me so this guide will walk through building them.
All cores likely have multiple options to choose from but this will just go over what I've done so far.
Compiled core files end in .so and are kept in ~/.config/retroarch/cores/
Create directory to build our cores
cd ~
mkdir cores
cd coresThis could probably use optimized CFLAGS but it works as is
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/libretro/libretro-fceumm.git
cd libretro-fceumm
make -j4Move fceumm_libretro.so to cores dir
This could probably use optimized CFLAGS but it works as is
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/libretro/snes9x2010.git
cd snes9x2010
make -j4This core is no longer being updated so you should use mupen64plus-libretro-next, but keeping this here just in case.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/libretro/mupen64plus-libretro.git
cd mupen64plus-libretro
platform=rpi4 make -j4git clone https://github.com/libretro/mupen64plus-libretro-nx.git
cd mupen64plus-libretro-nx
platform=rpi4 make -j4git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/libretro/pcsx_rearmed.git
cd pcsx_rearmed
platform=rpi4 make -j4
Hi - much respect and thanks for maintaining this guide.
I'd like to report the retroarch (1.7.3+dfsg1-1) binary installed from the Raspberry Pi OS (12-2-2020 release) package manager appears to run fine (at least for SNES) using a corresponding bsnes package also available on the package manager, on the Rpi 400.
In the retroarch config menu, the Audio Driver needed to be set to alsa to enable sound - otherwise, this appears to work out-of-the-box for me.