A Raspberry Pi Retro Box: What to Buy, What to Run and What It Can Handle

A Raspberry PiRaspberry PiA small, cheap single-board computer that runs Linux. Hobbyists put them inside just about everything.More: Building a FieldStation42 Cable Box plugged into the TV is still one of the cheapest ways to get a shelf of old consoles into one small box. It's also a nice little Linux computer, which is a bonus if anyone in the house wants to learn.

This is what I'd buy, what I'd run on it, and what I'd expect it to handle. The short version: it's excellent at anything 16-bit and older, good at the 32-bit era, and it runs out of steam around the Nintendo 64.

The parts

Part	What to get
Board	Raspberry Pi 4, 4GB. Enough for retro gaming without paying for RAM it won't use.
Storage	A microSD card, 32GB at minimum. More if you want disc-based systems (see below).
Power	The official power supply. Underpowered Pis do strange things.
Video	A micro-HDMI to HDMI cable. The Pi 4 has micro-HDMI ports, not full size.
Controllers	USB or Bluetooth. Xbox and PlayStation pads work, and 8BitDo controllers are made for exactly this.
Case	Optional, but it keeps the board safe and cooler.

A Pi 4 kit ran about $100 to $150 when I priced one. The board also has gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so moving files to it over the network and pairing wireless controllers both just work.

Note

If you're buying new now, the Raspberry Pi 5 is the current board and it's noticeably faster. Check that the OS you want has an image for it before you order. Batocera and Recalbox do.

The software, all free

OS	What it's like
RetroPie	The best-known option, with a big community and years of guides behind it.
Batocera	Often the easiest to get going. Flash it and it mostly just works.
Recalbox	Another free option with a friendly interface.

Setup is the same shape for all three:

1. Download the image from the project's own site.
2. Flash it to the microSD card with Raspberry Pi Imager, which is also free.
3. Boot the Pi, set up a controller, and add your games over the network or from a USB stick.

That's the whole cost of the software: nothing. Which is why the paid services that sell subscriptions or preloaded cards full of games are a bad deal on every level. You're paying for something free, the games on them aren't theirs to sell, and a Pi kit is a one-time purchase that does the same job.

Heads up

The games are your responsibility. Homebrew from places like itch.io and open-source games are fair game. Backups of cartridges and discs you own sit in a gray area that plenty of people are comfortable with. Big "complete sets" from random sites are neither.

What it can handle

How well	Systems
Excellent	NES, Master System, Game Boy, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy Advance, most arcade games (MAME, FinalBurn), PlayStation 1
Good	Most Dreamcast games, most PSP games, Nintendo DS
Hit and miss	Nintendo 64. Lots of games run well, and the demanding ones struggle. Some PSP games need per-game tweaking.
Not really	GameCube, Wii, PS2 and newer. That's handheld PC or desktop territory.

How much storage you actually need

Kind of system	Size per game	For a full library
8-bit and 16-bit carts (NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy)	Kilobytes to a few megabytes	Usually under 10GB, all of them
Disc systems (PS1, Dreamcast, PSP)	100MB to 1.5GB	32GB and up
GameCube and Wii	1 to 8GB	64GB and up (not that a Pi 4 can play them)

In practice, a 64GB card covers the cartridge systems plus a healthy pick of PS1 and Dreamcast games. If you want more than that, put the games on a USB drive or a network share and keep the card for the system.

Tip

Compress your disc images to CHD. It's lossless, most emulators read it directly, and it can cut a PS1 or Dreamcast library down a lot. Multi-disc games get tidier too.

Where it fits

A Pi box is the "plug it into the TV and hand someone a controller" option. For a bigger screen and a real stick, I went a different way with the 4:3 arcade cabinet running CoinOPS. For something in your pocket, emulation handhelds by chipset sorts out which ones play what. And when you're dumping and filing your own games to feed it, preserving your own collection covers how to keep those files safe.