Adding ROMs

Getting the precious content on to your vintage gaming box.

In retrogaming parlance, files that contain a complete game are called ROMs, even if the original medium might have been a floppy disk or tape, for example. Lakka supports the full complement of expected ROM transfer methods. Samba sharing is automatically set up and worked fine in our tests. SSH, and therefore SCP file copying, can also be used. You can also directly copy the ROM files on to the Lakka boot medium from a Linux PC or plug a flash drive with ROMs into a Lakka PC. Once the transfer is complete, the target directory must be scanned for valid ROMs. It’s possible to scan the directories of the host PC.

As ever, there are a few extra steps involved when working with RetroPie. Enabling Samba, for instance, involves visiting a built-in text-mode configuration tool. The ROMs folder is buried in the home directory of the default user. If you’re hosting RetroPie on a Linux desktop, then you add files to the system as you would on any other Linux system. The same can be said for self-hosting RetroArch. The Batocera shared partition uses a convenient scheme whereby the ROM and BIOS directories are in the root of the partition, and this partition can support formats such as exFAT so that it can be used on OSes other than Linux. Batocera features OD-Commander, a fairly conventional looking dual-pane file manager that is suitable for operation by a game controller and can access internal hard drives and plugged in flash drives.

Recalbox allows direct transfer of files on to its boot medium by plugging it into a PC, or transfer via the network by using the Samba protocol.