Retro Gaming on a Budget – Part 2

Next Up: Booting into Batocera and Installation — Part 2

It’s time to turn your GMKtec K5 mini-PC into a full-fledged Linux-powered retro gaming machine. This is where the fun begins, the moment your budget box becomes a time-traveling pixel factory.

Grab your USB stick, your newly forged sword of retro destiny and plug it into the K5. Hit the power button, and as it wakes up, hammer the F7 key like it owes you money. That’ll bring up the boot menu. From there, choose your USB drive and hit Enter.

Now, don’t panic. The screen will go black for a bit while Batocera expands the USB partition and adjusts itself to the mortal plane. The system will then reboot. When it does, smash F7 again and select the USB stick one more time. After a short wait, you’ll be greeted by the Batocera front-end  the clean, simple, gorgeous launcher where all your future nostalgia will live.

At this point, you have two options:

• Run Batocera from the USB stick. It’ll work, but it’s slower than dial-up in a thunderstorm. Miss the next steps and move onto install of the Gamepad / Joystick.
• Install Batocera to your internal NVMe drive. This is the recommended route it’s cleaner, faster, and permanent.

If you’re brave (and you should be), press the spacebar. A menu will appear. Using your arrow keys, scroll to System Settings and hit Enter.

1. In the next menu, scroll all the way down to Install on a New Disk. Hit Enter again. You’ll now see a new menu with Target Device at the top. Select that.
2. If you’re using the standard K5, you should see your 1TB NVMe drive listed. That’s the one you want. If you see something smaller, congratulations “you’ve been scammed”. Back out, return it, and try again.
3. Highlight the NVMe drive (not the USB stick unless you enjoy pain) and press Enter.
4. Next, ensure Target Architecture is set to X86_64. If not, fix it. This is critical you don’t want Batocera trying to install itself for a Commodore 64.
5. Now scroll down to ARE YOU SURE? and press Enter and flip the switch so it turns white and slides to the right.
6. Scroll once more to Install and press Enter.
7. At this point, the NVMe drive will be wiped clean and Batocera will begin its installation. This part takes a few minutes use the time wisely. Make tea. Reflect on your life choices. Wonder how you got here, converting a palm-sized PC into a retro gaming portal while Windows screams in the digital afterlife.
8. When it’s done, you’ll get a simple “OK.” Press Enter, then tap ESC once to go back. Scroll down to Quit, press Enter, then choose Shutdown System and Guess what press Enter.

( I have been asked why no pictures, my answer is ““Because this isn’t a crèche for overstimulated adults who can’t read more than three lines without a cartoon mascot holding their hand.”)

Remove your USB stick. It’s done its duty. You’ve successfully installed Batocera onto your K5’s internal drive.

When you power it back on, the system might restart itself once more to resize the partition don’t worry. That’s just Batocera stretching its legs and preparing to deliver a thousand volts of retro joy directly to your face.

Congratulations — you’ve just turned a cheap mini-PC into an emulation powerhouse.

Windows is gone. The future is old again.

Getting the Joypad (or as we used to call them Joystick) Working

Once upon a time, these were called joysticks a proud, wobbly stick with one red button that squeaked like a dying mouse and cost you three lives if you breathed too hard on it. Now they’re “controllers,” “gamepads,” or “input devices,” because marketing departments killed fun somewhere around 2004.
Anyway. Let’s get yours working.

If you’ve plugged in a USB joypad and it’s already letting you move left and right, congratulations you’re halfway there. If it’s dead, don’t panic yet. We’re going to teach it some manners, specifically how to pair a Bluetooth joypad like the 8BitDo SN30 Pro, or a PS3, PS4, Xbox, or any other flavour of controller you prefer.

First, you need to get your controller into Bluetooth pairing mode. This part is where most people give up and start drinking. Don’t.

For the 8BitDo SN30 Pro:
Press and hold the Start button to turn it on. When one of the little green LEDs at the front lights up, flip it over and press the Sync button on the back. The lights should start flashing back and forth like it’s trying to flag down a taxi. That’s pairing mode your pad is now desperately yelling “notice me!”at your mini-PC.

Now on your keyboard, press the Spacebar. This brings up the Batocera main menu. Use your arrow keys to wander down to Controller & Bluetooth Settings, then hit Enter.

Scroll to Enable Bluetooth and make sure the switch is white and sitting smugly on the right-hand side. If it’s grey, it’s as useful as a chocolate heat sink.
Then scroll a little further to Pair Bluetooth Pads Automatically and press Enter.

If the retro gods are with you, you’ll see your controller’s name pop up in the top-right corner, maybe even with a satisfying rumble from the pad that’s Batocera saying, “Hello old friend.”

If it doesn’t show up, don’t scream yet. Recheck that your pad’s still in pairing mode. Those flashing lights time out faster than your attention span on TikTok. Try again, calmly, perhaps with mild profanity if it helps.

And if you’ve been reading all this while your controller is plugged in via USB… well, you didn’t need to do any of this, did you? In that case, I admire your commitment to wasting time. You’re clearly one of us.

Getting Your Controller Fully Mapped and Working Properly

Now that your joypad is connected, we need to teach Batocera what all those shiny buttons actually do otherwise, you’ll be jumping when you meant to shoot and pausing every time you sneeze.

Head back into the Controller & Bluetooth Settings menu. This time, scroll down to Controller Mapping and hit Enter on your keyboard. You’ll see a short bit of text explaining how to map your buttons. Don’t skip it — it’s not decorative.

Each controller has its own “special” button that starts the mapping process:

• On the 8BitDo SN30 Pro, it’s the bottom-right button.
• On a PlayStation pad, it’s the PS logo button.
• On an Xbox controller, it’s the Xbox logo button.

Once you’ve read the instructions, press OK, and Batocera will start guiding you through the mapping sequence. Just follow the prompts  press each button when asked, and make sure to go slow enough that it registers properly.

When you’re done, Batocera will store your layout so every game in your library knows exactly what to do when you mash “A” in panic or accidentally throw a grenade instead of crouching.

This part might feel tedious, but it’s worth it get this right, and every emulator, from Atari to Dreamcast, will just work. Think of it as training your digital weapon before heading into battle. There are some Emulators you may still require a Keyboard and mouse, when you find one just Jump on to the Batocera Wiki page and read up on it.

General Navigation (Menus and Game Lists):

• D-Pad / Arrow Keys: Move through menus, lists, and categories.

• A (Enter / Return): Confirm or launch a selection (open console list, start a game, confirm option).

• B (Escape / Backspace): Go back one level or cancel a choice.

• Start (P): Opens the Main Menu — where you can reach Network Settings, Game Settings, Scraper, etc.

• Select (Right-Ctrl or Space): Opens the Quick System Menu — options for sorting, adding favourites, or refreshing game lists.

• Y: Opens the Game Options Menu for individual titles (metadata, artwork, advanced settings).

• X: Opens the View Options (change list view: grid, video, detailed, etc.).

• L1 / R1: Switch between systems (NES, SNES, Mega Drive, etc.).

• L2 / R2: Fast scroll through long lists.

• Hotkey (default: Select) + Start: Quit the emulator and return to the main menu.

• Hotkey + B: Reset the current game.

• Hotkey + X: Open RetroArch’s quick menu (for emulator tweaks).

• Hotkey + Y: Save game state.

• Hotkey + A: Load game state.

That’s the essential layout. The logic is console-centric e.g  A confirms, B backs out, Start manages, Select curates. Once you’re fluent with that rhythm, Batocera feels more like an instrument than an OS.

You’ve conquered the setup. You’ve installed Batocera, tamed the Bluetooth beast, mapped your controller, and probably shouted at a keyboard or two along the way. Congratulations your system is now alive, humming quietly, waiting for one thing: games.

This is where the real magic begins. Without games, Batocera is just a beautiful interface staring blankly into the digital void. We’re about to fix that.

Adding games (or “ROMs” as the nerdy archaeologists of gaming history call them) is surprisingly simple Batocera is designed to handle the chaos for you. Whether you’re adding a few old favourites or constructing the entire history of video games in one glorious hoard, the process is roughly the same.

In short, we’re going to feed your system. Think of it like shovelling coal into a steam engine except the coal is 40 years of gaming history and the engine runs on pure nostalgia.

Get your storage device ready, loosen your thumbs, and prepare to unleash decades of pixelated joy.

Connect to Wifi

Adding Games to Batocera

Keep that keyboard and mouse close we’re about to peel back Batocera’s glossy retro façade and wander into the secret tunnels beneath. Don’t worry, this isn’t hacking; this is tinkering with style. By the end of this, you’ll look like a command-line sorcerer who speaks fluent Linux after three cups of coffee and a mild existential crisis.

First, press the F1 key.

This opens Batocera’s File Manager, the dusty backstage area where all the magic actually happens. On the left-hand side, you’ll see directories think of them as little digital cupboards. On the right-hand side, you’ll see the contents of whatever cupboard you’ve opened.

Using your mouse, click on Applications. The right-hand side will now fill up with icons, each representing a program living inside Batocera. Ignore the shiny ones and hunt for XTerm it’s your gateway to the command line, the heart of Linux, and the reason IT departments walk around feeling superior.

Click XTerm. A new window will open black, minimal, and intimidating, like something from a 1980s hacker movie. You’ll see the prompt:

[root@BATOCERA /userdata]#

That’s your system waiting for instructions. Type this command exactly as shown below (yes, every symbol matters Linux has no sense of humour about typos):

curl -L bit.ly/rgsx-install | sh

If you’re wondering where the funny vertical bar | is hiding it’s usually above the backslash (\) key, and you’ll need to hold Shift to summon it.

This command fetches and runs a script that helps you install a game management tool directly into Batocera think of it as downloading a retro librarian who knows where to shelve everything from Asteroids to Zelda.

Once it runs, you’ll see a blur of scrolling text lines of code, progress messages, system updates don’t panic. That’s just Linux doing its thing, moving faster than Windows ever has.

By the end of it, you’ll have the perfect foundation to start installing and managing your game files properly. And when people ask how you did it, you can smile knowingly and say, “I used a shell script.”

They don’t need to know it only took one line.

What this little line of magic just did was install a program called RGSX into your Batocera setup, a beautifully sneaky piece of software that gives you direct access to a massive library of retro games.

No mess. No faffing around with dodgy zip files. No paying £70 for a glorified ROM that originally cost £3.99 on cassette. Just pure, simple plug-and-play retro goodness. RGSX acts like your personal game concierge, it fetches, installs, and organises titles straight onto your storage drive without the usual pain of file hunting or command-line juggling. You click, it downloads, it works.

In short: it’s the one part of the process that feels like it was designed by someone who actually likes gamers.

Now, back in that black command-line window the one that makes you feel like you’re defusing a bomb  simply type:

reboot

Then hit Enter.

Sit back and let the magic happen. Your system will restart itself faster than Windows can say “Installing updates, please don’t turn off your PC.”

When Batocera loads back up, you’ll find RGSX quietly tucked away inside a section called “Ports.” It doesn’t shout or flash or demand attention, it just waits there patiently, like a secret retro vending machine ready to serve up classics on demand.

Congratulations — you’ve now armed your mini-PC with direct game installation power. No discs, no downloads, no dodgy torrents just click, install, play, and pretend you’re a 1980s hacker saving the digital universe one joystick at a time.

 

NEXT UP – Retro Gaming on a Budget Part 3 – How to install games and Scrape them.