How to Turn an Old PC Into a Retro Gaming Console With Batocera

What Batocera does​

Batocera bundles emulators and handles most of the configuration you would otherwise do by hand. EmulationStation lists your games in one library and launches the right emulator when you pick a title. Singh says Batocera also applies your controller mapping across supported emulators, so you don't remap buttons for each console.

The author lists what you need:

• a supported PC
• a drive for Batocera and your games
• a controller
• a TV or monitor connection
• a keyboard for setup and troubleshooting

Batocera's wiki says the PC image is "x86_64 for most PCs". Other devices usually have their own specific images.

Choose games first, then judge the hardware​

Singh's most useful point is that the consoles you want to emulate matter more than the PC's age. In his words, NES, Mega Drive and SNES titles are easy. PS2 and GameCube titles need much more processing power, and higher rendering resolutions add more load.

His own machine has a Ryzen 5 processor and plenty of storage. That is one person's experience, not a minimum specification, and no benchmarks were published. The sensible approach is to test the games you care about on the actual machine before committing to anything.

Storage: 16 GB minimum, 32 GB recommended​

Singh says Batocera needs at least 32 GB for full functionality. The official wiki is slightly different. It calls 16 GB the minimum and 32 GB recommended for full functionality. An older revision of the guide made the same kind of distinction at lower capacities, noting that updates can't be downloaded automatically with the minimum. Treat 32 GB as a sensible floor for the system drive.

Your game library comes on top of that. Cartridge-era games are small and disc images can fill a drive quickly. The sources give no universal size figure, so measure your own collection.

Step by step: try it from USB first​

1. Download the image. Use Batocera's website and pick the build that matches your hardware. The download page also offers separate x86-64 PC builds. One is labeled for old desktops and laptops and a newer one is labeled for desktop PCs and laptops. The page I checked listed version 43.1 as current in the supplied material. If your PC is truly ancient, read the labels before assuming a single x86_64 build fits.
2. Write it to a USB drive. Singh uses Raspberry Pi Imager with the "Use custom" option and selects the USB drive as the target. The wiki says to confirm the destination carefully, because all existing data on that drive is destroyed.
3. Boot the PC from the USB drive. Open the boot menu. The wiki gives F10, F11 or F12 as typical keys, and says UEFI is preferred but not required.
4. Let the first boot finish. The first boot expands the userdata partition and reboots. The wiki warns that switching the machine off during this step risks data corruption.
5. Test it. Check that the display, controller and your intended systems work before installing anything permanently.

Secure Boot and BitLocker​

Singh says that if Secure Boot blocks startup, you can enroll Batocera's key or disable Secure Boot. He also says to have your BitLocker recovery key ready.

The wiki explains why. Batocera v39 and later on x86_64 systems have streamlined Secure Boot support. Batocera's Secure Boot page says its enrollment process installs Batocera's certificate into the machine's Machine Owner Keys. That lets its signed bootloader run with Secure Boot still enabled. If a blue screen reports a verification failure, you haven't enrolled the key yet.

The enrollment is keyboard-driven. In the MOK management screens you choose "Enroll key from disk", select the BATOCERA partition, pick the enrollment certificate file, and confirm. Then you reboot. If the TPM is enabled, a "Boot Option Restoration" screen may appear. Choose "Always continue boot" to get past it.

Changing these settings can trip a TPM measurement. If BitLocker is on, Windows may then demand the recovery key. Windows will detect the tampering and ask for the BitLocker recovery key before it will boot. Locate and copy that key first. If the PC is managed by an employer, recovery may need an administrator. Batocera's own documentation says to install it only on systems you own and manage.

Also note that some office-oriented PCs block booting from removable media entirely. If your USB drive never appears, check the firmware's removable-media and boot-order options. The wiki lists these among its known BIOS fixes.

Adding games and BIOS files​

Batocera won't show your collection automatically. The wiki says it ships with a selection of freely distributable ROMs, which are enough to test that everything works. For your own files, the wiki describes several routes:

• On x86 PCs, press F1 on the system list to open the built-in file manager. Then copy files from a USB drive plugged into the running machine.
• Use the network share. It is on by default, and you reach it from another computer at \BATOCERA\share, or by the machine's IP address if hostnames fail.
• Copy directly onto the SHARE partition from another OS. This is the awkward one. Windows can't read Linux-formatted filesystems by default, and the wiki warns of user reports of failed copies.

Some emulators need BIOS files, and the wiki says they aren't included because they are copyrighted. You supply your own, in the bios folder. Batocera's System Settings has a missing-BIOS check that shows exactly which files are expected. Not every flagged file is required, though. Batocera hides systems that have no ROMs, so a new console appears only once you add games and refresh the game list.

Artwork and video previews come from the scraping tools. Scraping videos takes a lot of bandwidth, and the wiki notes it can dramatically increase scraping time for large collections.

Installing to the internal drive​

Once you're happy, Singh says to connect to the internet and open System Settings > Install Batocera on a New Disk. Pick the internal drive and the x86_64 architecture.

• This is destructive. The wiki says all existing data on the target, including a working operating system, will be overwritten. Singh makes the same point.
• It downloads a fresh image. Batocera doesn't copy files from the USB stick the way many live distributions do. It downloads, extracts and installs the image as a whole. You need a working internet connection and enough free space on the USB stick for the download. Your tested USB setup isn't cloned, so add your games again afterward.
• Don't pick the drive you booted from. The wiki warns that this will corrupt your USB stick.
• It may not boot afterward. The wiki says some motherboards can't boot Batocera from the internal drive even though USB worked. It advises keeping another computer on hand to recover. If you only want somewhere to store ROMs, it suggests using a large drive as external storage instead.

Daily use​

The payoff is the controller-first experience Singh describes. You can browse by cover art, read descriptions, or use the All Games collection to look across consoles.

Per Batocera's hotkey documentation, you press Hotkey plus a button on player one's controller. Hotkey + Start exits the emulator and returns to the menu. Other combinations save or load a state and select the save slot. A few caveats apply:

• The wiki says the shortcuts don't work in 100% of emulators, and that they work best with Libretro emulators.
• They can vary by architecture and options.
• If you assign Start itself as the hotkey, the emulator will exit instantly whenever you press Start.
• RetroAchievements' Hardcore mode blocks save and load shortcuts.

Treat save states as a convenience, not a replacement for a game's own save system.

For shutdown, the main menu's Quit section has Restart System and Shutdown System. Singh uses the controller for all of this. The keyboard stays handy for setup, Secure Boot enrollment and troubleshooting.

Verdict​

Batocera is a reasonable way to give old hardware a job. The risks aren't in the emulation. They are in the firmware settings, the drive you select for installation, and the files you have to supply yourself. A safe order of work:

1. List the systems and games you want.
2. Download the right x86-64 image for your PC.
3. Boot it from USB and test representative games.
4. Back up the BitLocker key and anything else you want to keep.
5. Add your own legally obtained ROMs and any BIOS files.
6. Only then consider wiping the internal drive.

If a step doesn't go as expected, you can still pull the USB stick out and boot your old OS.