Batocera Arcade USB Drive

Batocera Arcade USB Drive

The thumb drive is running software called Batocera.  This software runs dozens of emulators, which means that it can act like your favorite home gaming systems (Atarti, Nintendo, and Sega to name a few) from the old classics to more modern systems.


Batocera works on most computers manufactured in since 2010.  Most retro gaming systems do not need a powerful computer to run, so even an older computer should work.  Newer systems like the Wii and newer PlayStation systems will require more computer power to run well.

Controllers

Batocera works with many USB controllers - generic Xbox controllers give you the most control, but you can also get retro USB NES controllers, SNES controllers, Sega controllers, Atari/Commodore controllers, etc...

Starting the arcade

To start the arcade, put the USB stick into a USB port of the computer and reboot.

You may need to press a key when the computer reboots to bring up the boot menu - commonly this would be the F8, F9, or F12 keys.  This will bring up a list of available drives to boot from - select the 128 GB PNY drive if it's listed, or just look for whatever looks like a USB drive.

If those keys don't work, simply Google your computer manufacturer and "how to boot to USB"  e.g. "how to boot HP to USB" or "how to boot dell to USB".  You can Google your exact model number for even more detailed examples.

Secure Boot

Some of the newer computers have a feature called "secure boot" which prevents anything but Windows from starting the computer.  This feature needs to be turned off in order for Batocera to work.  If you Google your computer brand and "disable secure boot" you will find instructions on that.

Navigating the menu

Click here for a guide to the menu.   There are instructions on screen.  When you select a game to play, holding down the button instead of tapping will bring up a menu of extra features - you can adjust video settings to look like retro TVs for example.

To exit a game press the center X button on an Xbox controller, or Start & Select at the same time on any other controller. 

Adding games

You can add or remove games from the drive.  It includes most, if not all, of the old game system games (Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision, Nintendo, Sega, and more) but newer games take up a lot more space, so there are fewer on the drive.  You can add or delete as many as you want to the limit of the USB storage, and there are loads of videos online showing you how to do this.  

Duplicating the drive

Passmark ImageUSB is a free utility that will allow you to duplicate the drive.  Just make sure that the blank drive is at least as big as the original drive.







Comments