Ready to play your favorite retro games on your PC?

Batocera Linux is an operating system focused on video game emulation and can be flashed to a USB stick. In this tutorial, we discuss how you can install Batocera on a USB flash drive. Furthermore, we detail how to place your games on the flash drive. Finally, we show you how to boot into the flash drive and start playing your favorite retro games!

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Batocera is a Linux-based operating system with a focus on retro gaming. The OS is designed to run on virtually all computers, from desktops to laptops to single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi.

In addition, Batocera can be installed on a USB flash drive (or SD card), which allows you to boot your device directly from the Batocera USB. Having all of your games and settings already configured like controller preferences effectively turns the USB drive into a portable video game emulation powerhouse – all you need is a computer, a screen and a controller. Ultimately, this allows you to avoid altering your hard drive in any way, which means that the existing operating system can stay intact.

Also read: Best iOS and Android Games With Controller Support

Also read: 5 of the Best GBA Emulators to Play GameBoy Advance Games

Once you have all of the elements listed above, you can get started. Download the Batocera OS from its website.

The goal is to create a portable installation of Batocera on a USB drive that can be booted on multiple computers. Therefore, consider locating the architecture of your device (e.g. x86_64 for most PCs) and downloading the OS image file. You can download the appropriate file for your device via a direct link or torrent.

Note: the OS file will be a compressed .img with the extension .gz.

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Once you have downloaded the Batocera OS image file, you’ll need to install a piece of software that will write it to your USB flash drive. We recommend balenaEtcher, as it has a good reputation for low rates of failure. There are other utilities that will create bootable USB flash drives from an OS image, so feel free to use an alternative.

Also read: How to Use External Game Controllers with Steam Games

Now that you’ve downloaded the Batocera OS image file and have balenaEtcher installed on your PC, you’re ready to put them to use.

Note: balenaEtcher will completely erase the selected drive. Ensure that you are selecting the correct target drive.

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Now that the Batocera OS has been flashed onto your USB drive, you’re ready to boot into it. There are a couple of ways to do this, and this is the easiest.

4. Select the USB that was flashed with the Batocera OS image file and press Enter. Your PC will reboot, but this time it will use the Batocera USB as the startup disk instead of the normal Windows OS disk.

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If you don’t see the boot option discussed above, or if you are running an older OS like Windows 7, you’ll need a few extra steps to boot into your Batocera USB. This requires access to your PC’s BIOS, where you can alter some basic settings, like the boot device. To access the BIOS, you need to hit a specific key before the PC loads the operating system.

Unfortunately, not all BIOS look the same and not all of them use the same language. This might necessitate some hunting around on your part. Alternatively, consult the website of your PC/motherboard’s manufacturer for documentation on how to change the boot device within the BIOS.

Note: practice caution when changing values within your PC’s BIOS. Many of the settings within the BIOS alter how your PC behaves.

Also read: 17 of the Best Linux Games in 2022

Booting from a USB on a Mac is quite simple.

When your PC reboots using the Batocera USB as the startup disk, you will see the Batocera splash screen. Depending on whiich build you have flashed to the USB, the splash screen may look different. However, all of them utilize some variation of the Batocera logo. Upon first boot, Batocera automatically creates the necessary partitions for ROMs and configures other settings. Give it time to finish.

Also read: Playing Old DOS Games on macOS with DOSBox

Once Batocera has finished setting up, it’s ready to use. If you navigate around the UI, you’ll notice that Batocera comes with a handful of games preinstalled. These mostly consist of various homebrew games and freeware. These are nice editions; however, you may want to add your own collection of ROMs to get the most out of Batocera.

There are a couple of ways to do this, including transferring your ROMs to Batocera over your local network. However, there is a much faster and easier way.

Also read: How to Emulate PS2 Games on an M1 Mac with AetherSX2

A digital copy of a game is known as a ROM (Read-Only Memory). ROMs can be acquired in a number of ways but the legality is often debated. One way to get ROMs is to “dump” them yourself. It requires you to have a physical copy of the game that you use to make a digital copy. The process to dump games varies significantly from console to console, with some requiring special hardware, while others necessitate more complicated methods, like running custom firmware on a console.

Downloading game ROMs is arguably the easiest way to get your hands on them, but downloading games you do not already own physical copies of is considered illegal. Yet there are ROMs that are free and legal to download, as they either fall in the public domain or their copyright holders have allowed them to be distributed freely.

Batocera supports keyboard controls, so technically you don’t need a controller at all. Yet, virtually all of the consoles supported by Batocera were designed to be used with a controller, so we highly recommend that you get your hands on one.

Think of a video game console as a computer. Like any computer, the BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System. This initializes the hardware and operating systems of the console before it can be used. When emulating a console, the correct BIOS files can ensure accurate emulation of individual games.

In some cases, you’ll be able to run the game without the BIOS file that corresponds to the console. However, in other cases, you won’t be able to launch the game at all. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, we can’t tell you how to get your hands on the BIOS files. However, if you navigate to Batocera’s System Settings menu and select “Missing Bios,” you’ll see a list of all the BIOS files that are missing from your build. With this information, you should be able to track down the ones you need. Once you have the BIOS files, simply copy them to your Batocera USB’s BIOS folder using the same method you used to copy your ROMs.

Yes! If the PC in question is really old, then chances are your newly minted Batocera USB won’t work, as modern PCs use a different architecture.

However, the Batocera team has compiled OS images compatible with 32-bit CPUs, low-powered processors like the Intel Atom, and PCs with old Nvidia legacy drivers. To find them, head to the Batocera download page and scroll all the way to the bottom. After you download the correct file, simply follow the instructions outlined above to make a new Batocera USB that will work on your old PC.

Image credit: Batocera Wikiand Pexels

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