Making an external physical reset button with Rpi

Libretro Lakka
#1

I am using a SNES controller with Lakka on an RPi 1 B.

It’s not great, the SNES rom audio is choppy and NES noms don’t load, but I’m going to be getting an RPi 3 which I hope will address this.

Irritatingly though, the setting to change what pad combo loads the menu (L3 + R3) never saves for me, meaning when I forget to change it I have to pull the power to get back to the menu (SNES pad doesn’t have L3/R3)

I would like to have a physical momentary button on the RPi case to quit to desktop - has anyone done this? is it possible on the GPIO pins? I know the RPi 3 has a ‘reset power’ header, but I was hoping to have something a little softer than that.

#2

Try changing what the button combo is to something that you can do, then make sure to save the configuration before launching a ROM.

As for the s NES not working, did you get a No-intro set from 2016? If so you likely have headerless ROMS which don’t play nice with the emulator core. Try a set from 2015. If that is not the case, then the issue may be more serious and might need you to provide a log of what is going on when you launch the NES core.

That said yes it is possible, but last I heard, Lakka doesn’t have the Python scripting in it. I know retro pie projects have had success in doing that sort of thing.

#3

Have you tried save current config in the menu …

#4

I have not, I don’t think. But the physical button question kinda got me more excited as I’ve a nes shell just begging to be repurposed.

I’ve dabbled in pi coding and assume I could load py capabilities to read the pins and press the relevant key, all a good learning exp.

#5

Look up the GPIO pins on the RPi3 board. They’ll have the function you wish to accomplish with the reset button. Pin 6 on the GPIO pins is the GND pin (called RUN on the Pi 3 board). There will be two holes next to them. Connect 5 and 6 together and you have your Reset button.

#6

Wouldn’t that sort of reset be a hard reset and therefore rough on the SD card of a Pi?

#7

Yup, it would run the risk of corrupting files on the SD card.

#8

Then I would probably go with the method of somehow getting python into Lakka (compiling a new version with it I guess) and coding up a reset switch that links to a physical button on the GPIO and waits for the button to be pressed to execute the simple command of reboot. It would be far less damaging on the system and wouldn’t require a SSH command from an external computer to pull off. For the longevity of the system of course.