RetroPie on Banana Pi M1 (SD image + manual install)

Banana Pi SBCs design BPI-M1/M1+/R1(A20)
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— Update October 2020 —

While this still works, I consider it obsolete and advise against installing it. I noticed that it has no audio over HDMI and an annoying screen tearing / scrolling lag issue that makes this Retropie setup not fun to play.

Instead, I strongly recommend using Lakka for the Banana Pi. It runs a lot smoother and comes with the latest versions of RetroArch and all the available cores. You can download it here: Lakka image for Banana Pi M1 - Libretro Forums

— Original Post —

Hi all,

I made an easy to understand guide how to install RetroPie on the Banana Pi M1. It is based on Armbian 5.90. It shows how to configure the system and build RetroPie yourself.

I also uploaded an SD card image with everything already installed.

The guide and image file are available on my GitHub page:

1 Like
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Is it possible to use on banana pi zero?

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The image file will only work for Banana Pi M1. But you can try the manual installation guide, it should work for all boards that use an Allwinner chip and the Mali 400 GPU. But you need to install an operating system for your board that uses the legacy kernel (3.4.x). It will not work with systems that use the newer kernels 4 and 5.

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i just wanted full working kodi and some neo geo games still o luck!

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I fixed an error that prevented the controller configurations from saving. If you have already installed the image, please download again.

6

This is brilliant thank you!

How would I get audio out over hdmi please?

Also it’s working on the bananapro

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Don’t follow this guide. It’s garbage and I will mark it obsolete. The reason is that I noticed there is laggy scrolling in the games with this method. I am currently working on compiling Lakka for the Banana Pi, I have already built the old version of Lakka 2.1-rc5 with current versions of Retroarch and some updated cores. This has also working HDMI audio, I believe. If you are interested, I will upload it in the next days.

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Its working really well on the pro with no screen tearing, it’s playing PS1 no issues looks amazing don’t scrap it yet

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I will try to upload an image of Lakka in the next hours for you to test. I am pretty sure that it will run better, at least that’s been my observation so far. Something is off with this RetroPie build, I just never noticed because I only tested it on an old CRT television, but when I tried it on a computer monitor over HDMI there was scrolling lag and screen tearing.

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Look forward to the lakka Thank you

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Downloading now Thank you

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Sorry I forgot about this, I managed to enable audio over hdmi and the screen tearing was never an issue, to enable the audio I f4’ed out and booted into the desktop put a MP3 on usb to test… And enabled the hdmi audio with the ??pulseaudio mixer??

Reboot and sorted

Thanks

Still used daily

15

hi, if I try to login with pi / pi it does not enter but with root / pi it enters but I cannot start emulationstation

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Brian_hogg and ilBatti, please do not use this anymore, it is obsolete and has poor performance. Use my build of Lakka for the BPi instead, I have added a link in my first post.

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please help me to how to transfer roms, via ethernet cable, I need to see on my windows networks, what is the password or user name ip?

I see this tutorial: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/SSH/

any idea???