Introduction: Raspberry Pi Gaming Emulator Instructions

By The binary translator!
About: I like coding, making thing based on ARM processors, IOT stuff and other things connected to development and IT.

Everybody love playing. Even when we do some serious work. And it's natural because everybody deserves to rest, leisure or free time. And, of course, we can hardly refuse ourselves to have played our favorite game.

I remember the time when some type of SNES like Nintendo or Sega looked like a technical miracle and a lot of boys and girls were wasting their time in front of TV screens going into Mario Bros, Donkey Kong or Killer Instinct!

After that, a PC era has come to its power. And all of us have discovered Doom, Dune, GTA, Counter-Strike and another endless list of great PC games we've been really into.

Today, we've got a lot of perfect, to say so, polished stuff. We can't be astonished by this mysterious 8-bit cubical graphic anymore. Neither by the most up-to-date and advanced special digital effects. And among this all modern digital noise we are really like getting back to its basics and reminisce playing rather old but undoubtedly great PC games.

Being really into ARM technologies, I'd like to share my experience in creating a really powerful gaming machine on Raspberry Pi boards.

Step 1: Setup an Emulator

Emulation, emulation, emulation... This is what really makes my day! :)

Of course, it's impossible to run the major part of PC games on RPi without some additional help. By saying that I draw your attantiion back to Wine+Emulator synergistic alliance which has been helping us reach different goals throughout the whole experience of different projects made on Raspberry Pi. I, personally, use ExaGear Desktop (google to find it). You can try different ones. I am also aware of Qemu, but it seems too slow to me.

1. So, first of all, let's download and setup the emulator:
Download from emulator from the official website

2. Get inside the proper directory:
cd home/pi/Downloads

3. Unpack the emulator's archive:
tar -xvzpf exagear-desktop-rpi3.tar.gz

4. Install ExaGear emulator:
sudo ./install-exagear.sh

5. Switch on the x86 environment:
exagear

6. You should see the result: Starting the shell in the guest image /opt/exagear/images/debian-8
After that I always recommend to track the success:
arch

If you see: i686 - so keep on going further as everything is great!

Step 2: Setup Wine

It's pretty simple as Wine is a setup ready app for almost all Linux or ARM devices.

1. Update the guest x86 system
sudo apt-get update

2. Install wine:
sudo apt-get install wine

Step 3: Enable Virtual Desktop Function

3. Then you need to run wine to enable the function of a virtual desktop emulation
winecfg

4. You'll see the popup window. Tick the “Emulate a virtual desktop”.

5. I also recommend to check if everything is correct, especially if you work with ExaGear, because the Wine version should be Eltechs build:
wine --version

If you see "wine-1.8.1-eltechs" - everything's correct!

Step 4: Port Pharaoh and Cleopatra to RPi

Now, let's get to the most interesting thing - porting games to our ARM device. For the exa-ple I've chiosen three of my favorites: Pharaoh and Cleopatra, Stronghold Crusader and Might and Magic 6.

Let Pharaoh and Cleopatra be the first.

1. Download the game. I strongly recommend you to use only licensed content and do not download the cracked versions, though there are a plenty of spots on the Internet to do that. Her is the official link (not affiliate and absolutely safe) to the game: https://www.gog.com/game/pharaoh_cleopatra

2. Never forget to do inside the download directory where all of possible files are downloaded on the Pi:
cd home/pi/Downloads

3. Install the game using Wine:
wine setup_pharaoh_gold_2.0.0.12.exe

4. Follow the instructions offered by the installer as if you were working on x86 Windows Desktop device

5. As soon as the installation is finished, you can run the game directly by double clicking on the game icon. Wine will be working automatically.

Step 5: Port Might and Magic 6 to RPi

Here comes the Might and Magic 6 (MaM) next!

1. Get the proper content by following the ling (not affiliated and safe) https://www.gog.com/game/might_and_magic_6_limited_edition

2. Never forget to do inside the download directory where all of possible files are downloaded on the Pi:
cd home/pi/Downloads

3. Install the game using Wine:
wine setup_mm6_2.1.0.42.exe

4. Follow the instructions offered by the installer as if you were working on x86 Windows Desktop device

5. As soon as the installation is finished, you can run the game directly by double clicking on the game icon. Wine will be working automatically.

Step 6: Port Stronghold Crusader to RPi

And, finally, Stronghold Crusader!

1. Here is the link (not affiliated and safe) https://www.gog.com/game/stronghold_crusader

2. Never forget to do inside the download directory where all of possible files are downloaded on the Pi:
cd home/pi/Downloads

3. Install the game using Wine:
wine setup_mm6_2.1.0.42.exe

4. Follow the instructions offered by the installer as if you were working on x86 Windows Desktop device

5. As soon as the installation is finished, you can run the game directly by double clicking on the game icon. Wine will be working automatically.

Step 7: Sum Up

So, this is it. Enjoy!

If you need ExaGear Emulator to follow my instructions, you can get it from my affiliate link - ExaGear (its affiliate to support me and it's safe).