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HELP

Thunder is initially easy to use, but here we'll go over the basics. If what you need help with isn't discussed here, create an issue on Thunder's GitHub repo.

Adding A Game

First, click the "Add" button on Thunder's menu bar. And then click "Add Game". Soon a terminal will appear with nano ready for you to add games.

Adding A Source

Please view Thunder/SOURCE.md for info.

Changing Themes

Select Thunder->Configuration. Then select what color you want. After that, Thunder will close and you'll need to open it again for the theme to be applied.

System Information

Select Thunder->System Info (config.txt). Thunder will then fetch the contents on the config.txt file. If you're on Ubuntu (or any other distro where config.txt isn't located at /boot/config.txt), you'll need to modify Thunder's code to change where it fetches its data from. On Ubuntu, the config.txt file is located at /boot/firmware/config.txt. To find where the code is at that needs changed, simply open a text editor and try Ctrl+F, and type in config.txt. The location should come up for you to change it.

If you're not on a Raspberry Pi, select Thunder->System Info (all platforms).

Retro Games in Mednafen

If a retro game is failing to boot, try running this command outside of Thunder:

mednafen /path/to/game/

If an error comes up about a missing file, you're likely missing the BIOS/firmware. You'll need to obtain the BIOS/firmware, but we won't document how here :). Then you'll need to rename the file to what Mednafen is saying is missing, and move it to the directory Mednafen says it's missing in.

If it's still not working and/or it didn't say anything about a missing file, the game probably just won't work in Mednafen.

Steam Games

Not all Steam games run on the Pi, so here are some things that should help you know either if the game doesn't work or if there's something you need to do to get it to work:

Unimplemented opcode: ## ## ## ## ## | Box86/64 currently cannot run this game
Error loading one of needed lib (no such file or directory) | You need to install an additional library
Error: Global symbol ###### not found, cannot apply ###### in ###### | Box86/64 currently cannot run this game
Segmentation Fault (core dumped) | Something made the game crash, possibly too low-profile OpenGL version. You may need to fake a higher-profile OpenGL to run the game (documented in Box64's readme).
The game crashes without errors | You may need to fake a higher-profile OpenGL to run the game (documented in Box64's readme).

Using Thunder from the CLI

To use Thunder from the CLI, run this:

thunder-cli

It will print off enough to get it up and running for you.

Running Games from Platforms not Supported in Thunder

Currently the best way to run games for platforms currently not available in Thunder (like an emulator or cloud-gaming service) is to create a BASH script:

#!/bin/bash
/path/to/emulator /path/to/game

#!/bin/bash
chromium <cloud-gaming service address>

There are 2 examples above for an emulator and a cloud-gaming service, so that should get you started.

After you make the BASH script, run in a terminal chmod +x /path/to/bash/script.

Finally, add the game with "linux" as the platform and the ID as the path to the BASH script.

Creating a Desktop Shortcut

Select Add->Create Desktop Shortcut. Thunder will then use the same data as the config it reads for a game to create a desktop shortcut. You can choose which game it will create a shortcut for. On some systems (e.g. Ubuntu) you will have to right click the shortcut, select Properties, then allow the file to be executed.

Updating Thunder and thunder-cli

Select Thunder->Update Thunder. A terminal window will appear, and will pull from GitHub the latest version of Thunder. Please make sure you update frequently, or else you might have bugs because of how Thunder's version is checked. For example with v1.0.1, as of the time that this section is being written the latest is v1.0.3, so it will skip v1.0.2, so you'll need to manually apply the v1.0.2 patch. We're working on a way to fix this though, but if you have trouble just create an issue on the GitHub repo.

What's all of this about "Virtual Cartridges"?!

Please see the following link:

https://github.com/hadcl4/Thunder/wiki/Virtual-Cartridges

Platforms

This is a list of platforms supported by Thunder:

  • Steam (Runner Name: steam)
  • Mednafen (Runner Name: mednafen)
  • Wine (Runner Name: wine)
  • Linux Applications (Runner Name: linux)
  • Chromium and Firefox (Runner Name: browser)
  • Flatpak (Runner Name: flatpak)

Steam

  • ID: The game's Steam ID

Mednafen

  • ID: The path to the game ROM

Wine

  • ID: The path to the .exe or .msi file

Linux Applications

  • ID: The command you run in a terminal to launch a game (you can also run games for other platforms this way too, for example mgba-qt /path/to/rom)

Chromium and Firefox

  • ID: The address for the game

Flatpak

  • ID: Game's URL (for example: net.sourceforge.ExtremeTuxRacer)

License

Please view Thunder/LICENSE.md for info.