Powering On Your Retropie Console
Plug in one of your controllers to the Console and connect your Console to your TV using HDMI cable, set up correct HDMI port and turn your TV on then power on your Console.
After a while it will boot directly into EmulationStation.
You can navigate through your RetroPie with just your controllers, they will work in both the emulators and in RetroPie itself. On top of controlling basic movement, you also get a number of “hot keys” so you can quickly do certain actions from inside games:
Select+Start: Exit a game
Select+Right Shoulder: Save
Select+Left Shoulder: Load
Select+Right: Input State Slot Increase
Select+Left: Input State Slot Decrease
Select+X: RGUI Menu
Select+B: Reset
Not all of these shortcuts are useful for everyone, but you should at least know
how to exit a game, create a save, and load a save.
When you’re first browsing RetroPie, you’ll notice that not all the emulators are available.
Don’t worry! The other emulators will show up as you add games.
Set Up Wi-Fi
RetroPie has a built-in system (Retropie Tab) where you can access all your Raspberry Pi settings, tweak your memory, and more right from EmulationStation. Most of these settings are for advanced users, but one pretty much everyone will want to set up is Wi-Fi:
Scroll down to the Configure WiFi option and tap the A button. Select “Connect to WiFi Network” and choose your network. Type in your password and select okay. Configuring Wifi requires a keyboard connected to the console to enter password. That’s it for the base setup.
If you want to tinker around some more, this is where you’ll do it. You can edit the theme of RetroPie, set up a Bluetooth controller, manage files, and much more in this area.
Transfer Your ROMs from Your Primary Computer
For this step, we’re going to assume you already have a bunch of ROMs on your primary computer that you want to transfer to your Raspberry Pi. This is super easy to do:
Make sure your Raspberry Pi is on, and connected to your router. The RetroPi folder should appear automatically as a shared folder. If not, you can load it manually. From Windows open up the file manager and type \\retropie into the folder location. On Mac, open up finder and Select Go > Connect to Server. Type in smb://retropie and click connect.
From here on out, you’ll be able to easily copy ROMs to the Raspberry Pi remotely through this method, so don’t worry if you want to add more down the line.
Once the file transfer is done, reboot the Raspberry Pi.