A python script to run background music in EmulationStation for Retropie, inspired by the script posted in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/347/background-music-continued-from-help-support, but focusing on a script with well-written code, trying to follow good design practices and putting special attention on testability
Enter the RetroPie console (you can reach it by pressing the F4 key when EmulationStation is running) and run the following commands:
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [trusted=yes] https://repo.fury.io/rydra/ /" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/es-bgm.list'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python-pygame python-es-bgmThese commands will update your sources and install the python-es-bgm package which will run your music. Afterwards, place your music in the music folder (as described in the How it works section and either restart EmulationStation or reboot your Raspberry. Enjoy your new EmulationStation with background music.
sudo rebootAfter the reboot, a daemon service called bgm will be running in the background, playing your music when EmulationStation is actively running and fading down when you start an emulator.
Place your music in .mp3 or .ogg format in the folder that will be created in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/music. You can change the folder where you place your music in the settings.
If you want to manually execute the application you can execute the following command:
The configuration file that you may find in /etc/bgmconfig.ini contains the following content:
[default]
startdelay = 0
musicdir = /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/music
restart = True
startsong =
| Option | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| startdelay | 0 | How much time in second you want to wait once EmulationStation starts before playing the first song |
| musicdir | /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/music | How much time in second you want to wait once EmulationStation starts before playing the first song |
| restart | True | How much time in second you want to wait once EmulationStation starts before playing the first song |
| startsong | Empty | The exact name of the song you want to play in first place. Leave empty to let the player decide randomly |
If you want to override these settings, you can create a file in your personal folder called .bgmconfig.ini (so, in the path ~/.bgmconfig.ini) containing [default] in the first line and override any option you want.
There is a make task that will do this job for you:
make debian-package