CONTROLLERS AND RETRO GAMING

While you’ll need to manually install drivers on the Raspberry Pi for native gaming with game controllers, using controllers with Retropie, Recalbox and so on, is easier. Whether you’re using a full disk image or have manually installed the retro gaming suite on your operating system, the drivers are included.

However, this doesn’t mean you can simply plug and play. Rather, you’ll need to take the time to detect and calibrate the controller. To illustrate, let’s look at configuring a game controller in Recalbox.

Start by connecting the USB game controller. If you’re using Bluetooth, put the device into pairing mode, then with a USB controller, open Start>controller Settings and choose Pair a Bluetooth Controller. Select the controller from the list, then confirm.

Once detected, Recalbox will prompt the button mapping process. This involves pressing buttons for each displayed option. For instance, consider the ABXY buttons, triggers, D-pad and so on. It’s worth noting that if you make a mistake, you’ll need to restart the process for the controller in question.

Usually this doesn’t take too long – once the buttons and direction controls are mapped you’ll be ready to start playing retro games.