Setting Up Recall Box: A Comprehensive Guide to Retro Gaming on Your Raspberry Pi

If you're looking for a hassle-free way to play your retro games on your Raspberry Pi, look no further than Recall Box. This operating system is specifically designed for retro gaming and makes it easy to manage your collection of classic consoles and games. In this article, we'll take you through the process of setting up Recall Box and show you how to get started with playing your favorite retro games.

To begin, you'll need a USB stick with enough storage space to hold all of your games and BIOS files. We recommend creating a folder on your USB stick called "Recall Box" where you can store all of your system files, including the ROMs, cheats, extractions, Kodi media, music files, saves, screenshots, and system files. This folder will serve as the hub for your retro gaming setup.

Once you've created the Recall Box folder on your USB stick, plug it in to your Raspberry Pi and follow the on-screen instructions to set up the operating system. The process is simple: click "OK" when prompted to close the system, then select "Reboot" to initiate the boot process. Your Raspberry Pi will now reboot, and you can begin transferring files from your USB stick to the Recall Box folder.

As you transfer files to the Recall Box folder, you'll notice that a new set of folders appears on your USB stick. These include games, cheats, extractions, Kodi media, music files, saves, screenshots, and system files. Each of these folders serves a specific purpose, making it easy to manage your retro gaming collection.

For example, the ROMs folder is where you'll store all of your classic console games. You can transfer individual games from your PC or other storage devices into this folder using an emulator like RetroPie. Similarly, the system files folder contains configurations and settings for each system, including BIOS files and cheat codes.

As you fill up your USB stick with ROMs, BIOS files, and other system files, you'll be ready to start playing your favorite retro games on your Raspberry Pi. To do this, simply plug the USB stick back into your Raspberry Pi and navigate to the system menu. From there, select the game or console you want to play from the list of available options.

Once you've selected a game, press "Start" to begin playing. The game will launch in its original format, complete with box art and menus. To access additional features like cheat codes or save files, simply navigate back to the Recall Box menu and select the relevant option.

One feature that sets Recall Box apart from other retro gaming systems is its ability to scrape box art for games that don't already have it. This process involves connecting your Raspberry Pi to the internet using Wi-Fi or Ethernet and selecting a game to scrape. The system will then search for available artwork online and download it to the relevant folder.

For example, if you select the NES console from the Recall Box menu, the system will prompt you to connect to the internet and scrape any missing box art for games in that console's library. Once complete, the game will display its new box art when launched.

To access additional features like artwork scraping, simply navigate back to the Recall Box menu and select "Scraper" from the list of options. From there, you can choose to scrape only missing images or all games in your collection. The system will then automatically search for available artwork online and download it to the relevant folder.

Finally, to exit a game, press "Start" and then the hotkey (usually "Quit") on your controller. This ensures that you're fully exiting the game and returning to the Recall Box menu.

In conclusion, setting up Recall Box is a straightforward process that requires minimal setup and configuration. By following these simple steps, you can start playing your favorite retro games on your Raspberry Pi in no time. Whether you're a seasoned gamer or just looking for a fun way to spend your free time, Recall Box is the perfect solution for anyone who loves classic gaming consoles and games.

Note: The author recommends using a Raspberry Pi 3 model B or later for optimal performance with Recall Box. Additionally, ensure that you have enough storage space on your USB stick to accommodate all of your games and system files.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on guys Ct a-prime back here again today I'm gonna show you how to install a recall box 4.1 on your Raspberry Pi I'm also gonna go over running games from a USB Drive I'm using a Raspberry Pi 3 but this will work on a Raspberry Pi one two or three before you get started there's a few things you're gonna need obviously a Raspberry Pi a micro SD card I'm using a 16 gigabyte microSD and a USB stick now in this picture I have a 16 gig but I'm actually using a 32 I'm also using a dual fan heatsink this is not necessary but I'm going to leave a link to Amazon down below if you want to go ahead and pick one of those up you'll also need some type of controller now I'm using the game search e3s one of my favorite controllers to use with the Raspberry Pi it comes with a 2.4 gigahertz dongle you'll need a micro SD card reader if your laptop or PC doesn't have one and a 2.5 amp power supply everything will be listed in the description below you can go ahead and pick them up on Amazon fairly cheap with the hardware out of the way it's time to move on to the software I'm gonna be moving over to my PC I'm gonna show you where to go to download everything and how to set this up let's move over there now now that we have all the hardware out of the way it's time to flash the recall box image to our SD card so we can boot it up on the Raspberry Pi we're gonna need to go ahead and grab two things the recall box image and etcher I'm gonna leave links in the description for you guys you can head over to the recall box archive page now these are the releases for recall box 4.1 I'm on the Raspberry Pi 3 but this will work on the Raspberry Pi 1 2 or 3 I'm going to download the recall box dot IMG now we need to get a program to flash it to our SD card I'm going to be using etcher etcher is very easy to use it does support Windows Mac and Linux I'm on Windows and I have a 64-bit operating system so I'm gonna grab the etcher for Windows x64 portable it's gonna download real quick for us my recall box image is almost finished wait for everything to download when you have everything downloaded go ahead and drag it to your desk for easy access I have etcher here this is the portable version and I also have the recall box image I'm gonna extract the recall box image I'm gonna right click and I'm going to extract it with WinRAR I'll leave a link in the description for that program also so now we have the recall box image right here recall box dot IMG it's a disk image file I already have my 16 gigabyte SD card inserted into my PC it is Drive F 16 SD f totally empty we're gonna launch ature run this is a very simple program we need to select the image so i'm gonna click select image i'm gonna navigate to my desktop open up the recall box IMG we just extracted and double-click for the device it automatically detected my SD card but you really need to make sure remember I said - Drive F I'm sure that this is my SD card you can always change the drive here but remember to note the drive letter of your SD card you don't want to flash this than anything else continue and click flash this is going to go ahead and put the recall box image on our SD card so we can boot it up on our Raspberry Pi give it a little while this could take some time so sit back and relax our flash is now complete our SD card is ready to be inserted into the Raspberry Pi and booted up before we move over there like I mentioned in the beginning we're gonna be running our games off of a USB stick I just closed HR down now I'm gonna insert my USB stick into my PC and format it NTFS and I'm also going to rename it so I know exactly which one I'm choosing in recall box I'm gonna go ahead and open it up new volume the drive letter is V I'm gonna right-click format from the drop down menu here NTFS and I'm just gonna name it something I'll remember like USB recall you can name it whatever you'd like as long as you remember what it's named click start ok it's gonna format the drive for me format is complete click OK and exit now it's time to move over to the Raspberry Pi I'm gonna place my freshly flash SD card into the PI I'm gonna plug in my controller and I'm gonna power it up the first boot of recall box could take a little while this really depends on the speed of your SD card as long as you see this you're good to go just sit back and let it boot up now we have recall box 4.1 running on a Raspberry Pi 3 I've already plugged my controller in if you're using an Xbox 360 controller it should already be set up for you I'm using a game Sergey 3's controller with a wireless dongle I'm gonna hold a on my controller it's gonna bring up the configure input menu just read the prompts hold my a button this is my d-pad up-down left-right my left joystick up my left joystick left my right joystick up my right joystick left a B X Y start select l1 r1 l2 are - these are my analog sticks you press them in l3 r3 and the hot key I set up as select but if you're using an Xbox 360 controller or Xbox one controller use the middle Xbox button when you get to ok press the a button so if we go through here there are some pre-installed games that are free to use so you can start playing right now if you'd like to we want more games on here so I'm gonna be running my games from a USB stick I'm gonna go ahead and grab my USB stick that I formatted NTSF and I'm gonna plug it into the pie wait about five seconds press Start on your controller go to system settings from here we want to scroll down to storage device and change it to our USB stick remember I named mine USB recall if you want to run your games from an SD card that's totally fine you'll have to make sure this is set to internal and you have to transfer your games over network I find it easier for new users to just use a USB stick so I chose USB recall I'm gonna go down to close the system will now reboot click ok what this is gonna do is make a folder on our USB stick that we can stick all of our games and BIOS is in press ok let it reboot now that it's rebooted our USB stick is ready to put roms on I'm gonna move back over to my PC plug that USB stick in and I'll show you the folders that recall box just created for us let's move over to the PC now all right so I'm back at the PC I'm gonna go ahead and transfer some games to my USB stick I'm gonna open up my USB stick inside of that USB stick there should now be a folder called recall box we're gonna open that up we have our bios's cheats extractions kodi music roms saves screenshots and system we're gonna be focusing on the roms folder open it up I also have some roms on my PC here so on the left is my recall box USB stick on my right are my games I have on my PC I'm only gonna transfer a couple here so what I'm gonna do is go to my SNES folder on my recall box USB Drive then I'll find some SNES games now these can all stay zipped I'm just gonna transfer a few over I'm gonna back up on my USB stick and my PC I'm gonna find NES and I'm gonna put some NES games on my USB stay you can continue doing this until you fill everything up it's really up to you now if you want to play Dreamcast or Playstation 1 or gameboy advanced you will need a BIOS I can't show you where to get roms or bios's but if you do a quick Google search you should be able to find everything you need now that I have some games on my USB stick I'm gonna move back over to my Raspberry Pi plug the USB stick in reboot one time I'm gonna show you how to get some artwork and then we're gonna play a game let's move back over to the Raspberry Pi now so I just plugged the USB stick back into my Raspberry Pi when you press a button on your controller it might ask you to reconfigure the controller that's because we transferred all of the configuration files over to the USB Drive it's totally fine it'll only ask you this last time press Start on your roller scroll down to quit restart system yes now that the PI's rebooted if we go to one of the systems that we added games to we should see them in here these are the games I added and I don't know why I added Beauty and the Beast it was just something I pulled over either way I'm going to show you the NES folder also so you might have noticed we don't have any artwork for the games we just added we can fix that very easily but we need to be online you can either use Wi-Fi or Ethernet to use Wi-Fi press start on your controller scroll down to network settings make sure enable Wi-Fi is on from here you have to put the Wi-Fi SSID that's the name of your Wi-Fi plus the password then you'll be connected to your Wi-Fi I'm gonna plug in a a thern Eck cable because it's so much easier now I have my Ethernet cable plugged in we're gonna go ahead and scrape the systems we don't have any artwork for press start under your controller like I said you need to be online for this to work we're gonna scroll down to scraper scrape from screen scraper or the games dB I use screen scraper scrape now you can choose the systems you want to scrape you can also choose only missing images or all games I'm going to leave it at only missing images I'm going to scrape all I'm gonna scroll down to start this will automatically find the boxart for us and place it in the correct location my 13 games were scraped successfully one with skip it probably couldn't find the artwork for that game it's totally fine with me I'll press okay and now when we go back to the selected system we have box art for the games we added I'm going to go ahead and start Joe and Mac one of my favorite games of all time you're now playing your favorite retro games on your Raspberry Pi 3 running recall box 4.1 go ahead and start this game real quick if you want to exit your game you need to press Start and your hotkey so that's it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching recall box is a really good operating system for retro gaming very easy to use and in my opinion some of the stuff just works better in recall box than it does in retro PI if you need any help with bios's or anything like that you need to do a quick google search I'll also leave a link to the recall box forum down below like always thanks for watchinghey what's going on guys Ct a-prime back here again today I'm gonna show you how to install a recall box 4.1 on your Raspberry Pi I'm also gonna go over running games from a USB Drive I'm using a Raspberry Pi 3 but this will work on a Raspberry Pi one two or three before you get started there's a few things you're gonna need obviously a Raspberry Pi a micro SD card I'm using a 16 gigabyte microSD and a USB stick now in this picture I have a 16 gig but I'm actually using a 32 I'm also using a dual fan heatsink this is not necessary but I'm going to leave a link to Amazon down below if you want to go ahead and pick one of those up you'll also need some type of controller now I'm using the game search e3s one of my favorite controllers to use with the Raspberry Pi it comes with a 2.4 gigahertz dongle you'll need a micro SD card reader if your laptop or PC doesn't have one and a 2.5 amp power supply everything will be listed in the description below you can go ahead and pick them up on Amazon fairly cheap with the hardware out of the way it's time to move on to the software I'm gonna be moving over to my PC I'm gonna show you where to go to download everything and how to set this up let's move over there now now that we have all the hardware out of the way it's time to flash the recall box image to our SD card so we can boot it up on the Raspberry Pi we're gonna need to go ahead and grab two things the recall box image and etcher I'm gonna leave links in the description for you guys you can head over to the recall box archive page now these are the releases for recall box 4.1 I'm on the Raspberry Pi 3 but this will work on the Raspberry Pi 1 2 or 3 I'm going to download the recall box dot IMG now we need to get a program to flash it to our SD card I'm going to be using etcher etcher is very easy to use it does support Windows Mac and Linux I'm on Windows and I have a 64-bit operating system so I'm gonna grab the etcher for Windows x64 portable it's gonna download real quick for us my recall box image is almost finished wait for everything to download when you have everything downloaded go ahead and drag it to your desk for easy access I have etcher here this is the portable version and I also have the recall box image I'm gonna extract the recall box image I'm gonna right click and I'm going to extract it with WinRAR I'll leave a link in the description for that program also so now we have the recall box image right here recall box dot IMG it's a disk image file I already have my 16 gigabyte SD card inserted into my PC it is Drive F 16 SD f totally empty we're gonna launch ature run this is a very simple program we need to select the image so i'm gonna click select image i'm gonna navigate to my desktop open up the recall box IMG we just extracted and double-click for the device it automatically detected my SD card but you really need to make sure remember I said - Drive F I'm sure that this is my SD card you can always change the drive here but remember to note the drive letter of your SD card you don't want to flash this than anything else continue and click flash this is going to go ahead and put the recall box image on our SD card so we can boot it up on our Raspberry Pi give it a little while this could take some time so sit back and relax our flash is now complete our SD card is ready to be inserted into the Raspberry Pi and booted up before we move over there like I mentioned in the beginning we're gonna be running our games off of a USB stick I just closed HR down now I'm gonna insert my USB stick into my PC and format it NTFS and I'm also going to rename it so I know exactly which one I'm choosing in recall box I'm gonna go ahead and open it up new volume the drive letter is V I'm gonna right-click format from the drop down menu here NTFS and I'm just gonna name it something I'll remember like USB recall you can name it whatever you'd like as long as you remember what it's named click start ok it's gonna format the drive for me format is complete click OK and exit now it's time to move over to the Raspberry Pi I'm gonna place my freshly flash SD card into the PI I'm gonna plug in my controller and I'm gonna power it up the first boot of recall box could take a little while this really depends on the speed of your SD card as long as you see this you're good to go just sit back and let it boot up now we have recall box 4.1 running on a Raspberry Pi 3 I've already plugged my controller in if you're using an Xbox 360 controller it should already be set up for you I'm using a game Sergey 3's controller with a wireless dongle I'm gonna hold a on my controller it's gonna bring up the configure input menu just read the prompts hold my a button this is my d-pad up-down left-right my left joystick up my left joystick left my right joystick up my right joystick left a B X Y start select l1 r1 l2 are - these are my analog sticks you press them in l3 r3 and the hot key I set up as select but if you're using an Xbox 360 controller or Xbox one controller use the middle Xbox button when you get to ok press the a button so if we go through here there are some pre-installed games that are free to use so you can start playing right now if you'd like to we want more games on here so I'm gonna be running my games from a USB stick I'm gonna go ahead and grab my USB stick that I formatted NTSF and I'm gonna plug it into the pie wait about five seconds press Start on your controller go to system settings from here we want to scroll down to storage device and change it to our USB stick remember I named mine USB recall if you want to run your games from an SD card that's totally fine you'll have to make sure this is set to internal and you have to transfer your games over network I find it easier for new users to just use a USB stick so I chose USB recall I'm gonna go down to close the system will now reboot click ok what this is gonna do is make a folder on our USB stick that we can stick all of our games and BIOS is in press ok let it reboot now that it's rebooted our USB stick is ready to put roms on I'm gonna move back over to my PC plug that USB stick in and I'll show you the folders that recall box just created for us let's move over to the PC now all right so I'm back at the PC I'm gonna go ahead and transfer some games to my USB stick I'm gonna open up my USB stick inside of that USB stick there should now be a folder called recall box we're gonna open that up we have our bios's cheats extractions kodi music roms saves screenshots and system we're gonna be focusing on the roms folder open it up I also have some roms on my PC here so on the left is my recall box USB stick on my right are my games I have on my PC I'm only gonna transfer a couple here so what I'm gonna do is go to my SNES folder on my recall box USB Drive then I'll find some SNES games now these can all stay zipped I'm just gonna transfer a few over I'm gonna back up on my USB stick and my PC I'm gonna find NES and I'm gonna put some NES games on my USB stay you can continue doing this until you fill everything up it's really up to you now if you want to play Dreamcast or Playstation 1 or gameboy advanced you will need a BIOS I can't show you where to get roms or bios's but if you do a quick Google search you should be able to find everything you need now that I have some games on my USB stick I'm gonna move back over to my Raspberry Pi plug the USB stick in reboot one time I'm gonna show you how to get some artwork and then we're gonna play a game let's move back over to the Raspberry Pi now so I just plugged the USB stick back into my Raspberry Pi when you press a button on your controller it might ask you to reconfigure the controller that's because we transferred all of the configuration files over to the USB Drive it's totally fine it'll only ask you this last time press Start on your roller scroll down to quit restart system yes now that the PI's rebooted if we go to one of the systems that we added games to we should see them in here these are the games I added and I don't know why I added Beauty and the Beast it was just something I pulled over either way I'm going to show you the NES folder also so you might have noticed we don't have any artwork for the games we just added we can fix that very easily but we need to be online you can either use Wi-Fi or Ethernet to use Wi-Fi press start on your controller scroll down to network settings make sure enable Wi-Fi is on from here you have to put the Wi-Fi SSID that's the name of your Wi-Fi plus the password then you'll be connected to your Wi-Fi I'm gonna plug in a a thern Eck cable because it's so much easier now I have my Ethernet cable plugged in we're gonna go ahead and scrape the systems we don't have any artwork for press start under your controller like I said you need to be online for this to work we're gonna scroll down to scraper scrape from screen scraper or the games dB I use screen scraper scrape now you can choose the systems you want to scrape you can also choose only missing images or all games I'm going to leave it at only missing images I'm going to scrape all I'm gonna scroll down to start this will automatically find the boxart for us and place it in the correct location my 13 games were scraped successfully one with skip it probably couldn't find the artwork for that game it's totally fine with me I'll press okay and now when we go back to the selected system we have box art for the games we added I'm going to go ahead and start Joe and Mac one of my favorite games of all time you're now playing your favorite retro games on your Raspberry Pi 3 running recall box 4.1 go ahead and start this game real quick if you want to exit your game you need to press Start and your hotkey so that's it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching recall box is a really good operating system for retro gaming very easy to use and in my opinion some of the stuff just works better in recall box than it does in retro PI if you need any help with bios's or anything like that you need to do a quick google search I'll also leave a link to the recall box forum down below like always thanks for watching\n"