GamePi43

GamePi43 A portable retro video game console based on Raspberry Pi

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Onboard Interfaces Raspberry Pi Audio

Related Products Game HAT GamePi43 GamePi20 GamePi15 GPM2803P0 GPM2803P1 GPM2804

Overview

Notice

Please take care of the direction of poles when mounting the batteries. It may damage the charge circuit if you reverse the batteries. And please use the same types of batteries, different types/brands of batteries may cause charging issue.

Features

• Raspberry Pi controller, available options:
  • PI3B+, 64-bit 1.4G frequency quad-core CPU, 1G RAM.
  • PI4B-2GB, 64-bit 1.5G frequency quad-core CPU, 2G RAM.
• 60 fps smooth gaming experience.
• Compatible with Raspberry Pi A+/B+/2B/3B/3B+4B (external HDMI adapter is required for Pi Zero/Zero W/Zerao WH).
• Integrates battery charge circuitry, powered from 18650 lithium batteries (NOT included), plays anywhere anytime.
• Battery life indicator.
• Onboard speaker and earphone jack, listen to the familiar BGM from the old days.
• Volume and backlight adjustment keys, adjust the device status according to a specific game, better experience.

User Guides

Hardware connection

1. Insert the GPIO of Raspberry Pi into GamePi43.
2. Connect the HDMI port of GamePi43 to Raspberry Pi by HDMI connector.
   • If you use Raspberry Pi Zero/Raspberry Pi Zero W, you should use an HDMI cable.
3. Turn the power switch to OFF and mount 18650 batteries.

You can use GamePi43 in two ways: Method 1, using the pre-installed driver image. Method 2: Install the driver for the system.

Method 1: Use pre-configured Image

1) The image of the pre-installed driver is provided here, decompress and write the image to the TF card (open the Win32DiskImager.exe, select the .img file, and click "write" to program the image).

OS	Revision	Raspberry Pi	User name/Password	Link
Retropie	V4.8	Raspberry Pi 4B	pi / raspberry	Google Drive
Retropie	V4.6	Raspberry Pi 4B	pi / raspberry	Google Drive
Retropie	v4.4	Raspberry Pi 2/3/3B+	pi / raspberry	Google Drive
Retropie	v4.4	Raspberry Pi 1/Zero/Zero W	pi / raspberry	Google Drive
Recalbox	6.0-DragonBlaze	Raspberry Pi 2/3/3B+	root / recalboxroot	Google Drive
Recalbox	6.0-DragonBlaze	Raspberry Pi 1/Zero/Zero W	root / recalboxroot	Google Drive
Recalbox	7.1-DragonBlaze	Raspberry Pi 2/3/Pi 3B+	root / recalboxroot	One Drive
Recalbox	7.1-DragonBlaze	Raspberry Pi 4	root / recalboxroot	One Drive

2) Write the image to the Micro SD card. Then insert the SD card into Raspberry Pi. Turning the Power switch ON to start Raspberry Pi.

1. If batteries are low, Raspberry Pi will fail to boot. In this case, you can connect a 5V 3A power adapter to the Power port for charging. Indicators are flashing when charging. (You can play when charging, however, Raspberry Pi will reboot when inserting/disconnecting the power adapter.)
2. If batteries are enough, the LED of GamePi43 will prompt the current battery level and start the system.

3) After booting, you can select emulators. In Retropie, button "A" is OK, and "B" is the return. In Recalbox, button "B" is OK and "A" is the return.

4) You can press "Start" to start games.

5) If you want to exit games, press "HK" and "Select" or "Select" and "Start" at the same time.

6) To adjust the volume and backlight of the LCD, you can use the buttons on the bottom of GamePi43.

Method 2: Install driver manually

Install Driver on Retropie

Download the Retropie image from Retropie website.

1) Download the image file to the computer and unzip it to get the .img file.

2) Connect the TF card to the computer, open the Win32DiskImager.exe, select the .img file prepared in step 1, and click write to program the image.

3) After the programming is completed, use WordPad to open the config.txt file in the root directory of the TF card, add the following code at the end of config.txt, save and eject the TF card safely.

max_usb_current=1
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0

4) Connect the TF card and USB keyboard to the Raspberry Pi, turn on the power switch, start the Raspberry Pi, enter the system and press F4 on the keyboard to enter the terminal.

5) After entering the terminal, there are two ways to install the driver, and you can choose one of them to install.

• Method 1: Install the remote sensing driver that comes with the system.

【Note】: The Raspberry Pi must be connected to the network, or else the driver won't be successfully installed.

Enter the following command to enter the configuration interface of RetroPie-Setup:

cd RetroPie-Setup/
sudo ./retropie_setup.sh

Select the Manage Packages option in the following interface, and then press "Enter".

After entering the following interface, select the Manage driver Packages option and press "Enter".

Select mkarcadejoystick in the following interface and press "Enter".

After entering the next interface, select install from the source. After the driver is installed, Ctrl+C can exit the RetroPie-Setup configuration interface.

Then enter the following command in the terminal to modify the configuration.

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/mk_arcade_joystick_rpi.conf

Modify the statement in the file to

options mk_arcade_joystick_rpi map=1

After saving the file and restarting the system, the keys can be mapped normally.

• Method 2: Use the driver provided by us and install it in the following way.

Download driver of GamePi43: GamePi43-210127 Driver-Support Retropie-v4.7
Download the GamePi43 driver and copy it to the /boot directory of the TF card (you can also use a USB flash drive or network to copy the driver file to the RetroPie system), and perform the following operations: After opening the folder where the driver is located.

tar xzvf /boot/GamePi43-210127.tar.gz
cd GamePi43/
sudo ./GamePi43

After restarting, you can enter the system normally.

6) Press and hold the "A" key (other keys are also available), and you will enter the key mapping interface.

Press the corresponding keys according to the instructions to map. Long press the "A" key (other keys are also available), and you can skip the mapping of redundant keys. After all key mappings are complete:

1. Press "A" to save the configuration and configure the interface.
2. Press the "B" or "Start" key to abandon the configuration and exit the configuration interface.

After that, you can play the game normally.

Install Driver On Recalbox

Download the latest image from Recalbox website. (Choose the corresponding version according to your Raspberry Pi.)

1) Unzip the files download to get the .img file

2)Connect the TF card to the computer, open the Win32DiskImager.exe, select the .img file prepared in step 1, and click write to burn the image.

3) After the programming is completed, copy the GamePi43 driver to the root directory of the TF card (you can also use a USB flash drive or network to copy the driver file to the mirrored file system).

4) Then open the config.txt file in the root directory of the TF card, add the following code at the end of config.txt, then save and quit the TF card safely.

hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=1
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt 800 600 60 6 0 0 0
hdmi_drive=2
display_rotate=0
avoid_warnings=1

5) Connect the TF card and USB keyboard to the Raspberry Pi, turn on the power switch, start the Raspberry Pi, press F4 on the keyboard after entering the system, press Alt+F2, enter the account: root, password: recalboxroot, and enter the terminal (also You can log in to the terminal control interface through the network).

6) Enter the following commands in the terminal to configure the keys.

mount -o remount,rw /
 mount -o remount,rw /boot

Edit the recalbox.conf file.

nano /recalbox/share/system/recalbox.conf

Modify the line controllers.gpio.enabled=0 in the file to

controllers.gpio.enabled=1

After modification, save the file and exit the editing. After entering reboot to restart the system, you can use the buttons normally.

WIFI Networking

Retropie and Raspberry Pi OS Set WIFI Networking

• Download the following files, and extract the wpa_supplicant.conf file, open the wpa_supplicant.conf file, modify the SSID and password of WIFI and save the file.
  • Wpa supplicant.zip
• Put the modified wpa_supplicant.conf file in the boot directory and restart the Raspberry Pi. (Connect the TF card to the PC through the card reader, and the opened root directory is the boot directory).

recalbox Set WIFI Networking

• Press START to enter the main menu.
• Select network settings.
• Change "Enable WIFI" to "On".
• Select "WIFI SSID" and enter your network name.
• Select "WIFI Password" and enter your network password.

• Once WiFi is connected, RecalBox will immediately check for system updates:

Others

Please refer to retropie user manual.

Interface

【Note】 NC: not connected

PIN	Symbol	Description
1	3.3V	3.3V power input
2	5V	5V Power input
3	HOTKEY	BCM=2, WPI=8
4	5V	5V Power input
5	NC	NC
6	GND	Ground
7	UP	BCM=4,WPI=7
8	TL	BCM=14, WPI=15
9	GND	Ground
10	X	BCM=15, WPI=16
11	DOWN	BCM=17, WPI=0
12	Y	BCM=18, WPI=1
13	LEFT	BCM=27, WPI=2
14	GND	Ground
15	RIGHT	BCM=22, WPI=3
16	TR	BCM=23, WPI=4
17	3.3V	3.3V Power input
18	B	BCM=24, WPI=5
19	START	BCM=10, WPI=12
20	GND	Ground
21	SELECT	BCM=9, WPI=13
22	A	BCM=25, WPI=6
23	NC	NC
24	NC	NC
25	GND	Ground
26	NC	NC
27	NC	NC
28	NC	NC
29	NC	NC
30	GND	Ground
31	NC	NC
32	NC	NC
33	NC	NC
34	GND	Ground
35	NC	NC
36	NC	NC
37	NC	NC
38	NC	NC
39	GND	Ground
40	NC	NC

Resources

• Panasonic_SDFormatter
• Win32DiskImager
• putty
• wiringPi & bcm2835 C LIB
• GamePi43-190717 Driver-Supports Retropie-v4.4 and Recalbox6.0-DragonBlaze
• GamePi43-200730 Driver-SupportRetropie-v4.6
• GamePi43 Assemble Manual

FAQ

Question:I can't play NEO-GEO games on my own system, what should I do?

 Answer:

Put neogeo.zip under the system bios/ and roms/neogeo/ (note: do not unzip), and then restart the system to try.

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Question:How long is the battery life when playing games all the time?

 Answer:

2-3 hours, different games will be different.

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Question:What emulators are supported and where to look?

 Answer:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/ Select Emulators in RetroPie Docs to view.

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Support

If you require technical support, please go to the Support page and open a ticket.