Once you go down the retro gaming rabbit hole, that's it, you're not getting out without putting together your own gaming console. It all began with my hacked PSP, which I was running emulators on. Then I wanted to run them on my big screen. Unfortunately I have the first gen PSP that was sold in Australia, which means no chance of AV out. Then I discovered the Raspberry Pi 3B+, and everything went onto the big screen in a giffy. Then, of course, I wanted everything I had on the big screen back on the small screen, and that's how I ended up putting together the Game Hat from WaveShare.
The Game Hat itself was a gift, but it also needs a Raspberry Pi 3 B+, an 18650 battery for portable power, and a memory card of course - I'm using a 32GB Sandisk I already had. As builds go, it's more an assembly.
1. Remove the coating paper from the acrylic layers
2. Checking you've correctly aligned the + and - with the right ends, put the battery in first. It's a bit easier that way
3. The Raspberry Pi connects to the hat via the GPIO pins. Just be careful and make sure they're all lined up before pressing the two pieces togather
4. Next the HDMI "U" connector goes in. Be careful again to make sure you have both ends in the sockets and push the connector in gently. It's a snug fit, but don't be heavy handed or you could break something
5. Now it's just putting the screws in the right places. You use the small stand outs on the top side of the section with the screen, as there's an acrylic layer to go on top of that. The long posts go in the Raspberry Pi side of the board.
6. Make sure you have the cut out on the back lined up with your SD card slot on the Pi.
7. Connect the joystick
That's it for the assembly, except for one thing I added. I've put big rubber bands around the acrylic, 80mm x 12mm fit well, though are a little fiddly to get on. These make a big difference to the sharp edges of the acrylic. They also stop the cats knocking the console off smooth surfaces easily. I've seen people cover the acrylic with carbon fibre vinyl, and some have made 3D printed cases for it, but I'm happy with the setup as is. If I were more energetic I'd pull it apart and use some wet and dry sandpaper on the sharp edges to round them off, but I'd rather be playing games.
I've seen people running Hyperpie2 on it, but I just wanted to get straight to playing games. So I used the WaveShare image, which includes Retropie 4.4 with the drivers ready to go. There are many YouTube videos dedicated to setting up the SD card. THe only thing I was a little confused by was the lack of OSO emulation on their image, but that's very likely because of the aspect ratio of those games. They wouldn't fit well on the Game Hat screen. It works beautifully with retro emulation up to PSX. I find most N64 games don't play well on the Raspberry Pi and generally don't bother with them.
Some people have complained about the throw on the joystick, but I haven't had any problems with it. Perhaps I'm a less earnest gamer, but I can still play beat 'em ups without any problem. The buttons are clicky, not soft touch.
It was a breeze to put together, and setup. I can play for a couple of hours and still have 25% of the battery left. It's a great project to make, and a fun console to use. I've used it every day since I put it together.
