Have a question for us? This page will be updated with the ones we receive most often.
Does the Venture (or any other product) include any games?
Sorry, we do not sell game roms. We build the hardware to be able to enjoy the hobby of retrogaming.
However, let’s face it, game roms are easy enough to find with your favorite search engine.
We’ve all seen sellers who sell hundreds or even thousands of roms with their products. You should view those individuals with great suspicion, as this is highly unethical. Anyone can download thousands of games and put them on an SD card, and often these sellers don’t even take the time to make sure each game works properly.
Further, as people in this hobby often learn for themselves with experience, you probably don’t want a “kitchen sink” library of games anyway. Believe me, your friends and family are not going to want to scroll through thousands of games trying to find something worth playing.
In my opinion, you’re much better off building yourself a smaller but high quality library of greatest hits and personal favorites. It takes a little extra effort, but you’ll be much happier with the end result.
Where can I find game roms?
First, I have a moral obligation to say that we don’t condone piracy. You should only use backups of games that you personally own.
That being said, I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t an endless supply of roms available online, or that people aren’t going to seek them out no matter what we say. So, I can at least try to save you some time and frustration.
Here are a few basic suggestions to help get you moving in the right direction:
For all cartridge / non-disc-based console systems (Atari, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Gameboy, etc) what you want to find is the “No-Intro” collection. These collections are periodically updated, but since very little changes between releases, you don’t need the absolute latest version. The naming convention for each game is standardized, and unlike other collections, there is only one rom per game. This is the preferred method of playing the earlier home console games.
The No-Intro collections can be found in many places. Probably the easiest solution is searching the Internet Archive, which is a vast, non-profit digital library.
For disc-based games (Sony Playstation, Sega CD, etc), since each game is substantially larger and console collections like the PS1 could have thousands of titles, you’ll need to be a little more persistent in your Google searches. If you’re able to find it, the “Redump” collections are probably the best way to go. It seems fairly easy to locate most CD games individually as well.
For classic arcade games, you’ll need games from the exact same version number of MAME that you’re using in Retropie, typically MAME .078 or MAME 0.139. I can’t stress enough how important it is that you use a matching set.
You’ll also want to locate the latest Final Burn Neo set, as many games (like Capcom fighters) are emulated faster and better in FBNeo.
Again, try searching the Internet Archive first for whatever you need, and only play what you legally own.
Which frontend software do you recommend using with the Venture? Retropie or Recalbox?
Retropie, hands down.
Although Recalbox is perhaps a little more user friendly, Retropie has a much larger community. A larger following of modders continually creates new artwork, themes, and scripts.
With a larger user base, it’s also much easier to have your questions answered if you ever want help with an issue.
If I purchase a RetroPie card loaded with games on Ebay or download one from another site, will it work in the Venture?
If the version of RetroPie installed is for the Raspberry Pi 4, then most likely it will work just fine.
The Venture is designed from the ground up to work with RetroPie. You would just need to run through the controller configuration first so that it properly recognizes the Venture’s hardware. Then it would just be a matter of adjusting the image to suit your own preferences. There are countless tutorials and guides available online for just about anything you might want to do.
Keep in mind however that people selling RetroPie cards with thousands of pre-installed games is frowned upon for the reasons stated above. And, the quality of those images can vary wildly. There’s simply no way to tell ahead of time if the image is well done and everything works, or it’s problematic garbage.
If you run into any issues or have any questions, understandably the RetroPie community will not be willing to assist you with anything but the official RetroPie image.
Basically, if you purchase or download a third-party RetroPie image and need support, you will need to go to the individual who sold you the card.
This hobby really is much more enjoyable when you dive in and learn how to create your own retrogaming library. The hard part is finding the best hardware and building something that meets your needs and is also expandable.
The Venture Retrocade takes care of that for you, saving you a great deal of time and effort while providing a high quality system personalized just for you.
Can you put Retropie on my Venture?
Sorry, we do not pre-install the Retropie software on your SD card. For licensing reasons, the authors prefer that users download the image directly from their website.
Note that the Venture is powered by the Raspberry Pi 4, so be sure to select the correct image to download.
Retropie is completely free and easily installs in minutes. Once you download the Retropie image, burn the image onto your SD card. I recommend using Etcher, but Win32 Disk Imager is another good choice.
Once that finishes, just pop the SD card into your Venture and follow the official RetroPie first installation tutorial.