Elf Files for Raspberry Pi0

[fsiaux]

I’m trying to build an arcade cabinet for the classroom and followed the directions on the website but I can’t download any of my student’s games with the .elf files, they always get downloaded as a uf2 file (even when I choose Pi0 as the hardware). I’ve chosen every different hardware in the download section and the files are always downloaded as uf2 no matter what…

(https://arcade.makecode.com/hardware/raspberry-pi/setup)

[robotosaurus]

Doesn’t say anything about .elf files. When i tried with uf2s on my pi0 it works.

[Vegz78]

Hi @fsiaux,

Sorry for my late reply, did not see your post here until now.

There are at least 2 ways to get MakeCode Arcade games to run on an arcade cabinet with a Raspberry Pi.

1. Either the firmware method on a RPi Zero, which you linked to above, which requires the games to be downloaded as UF2-files from the editor, or

2. Using McAirpos on a vanilla Linux installation or a retro games system, like RetroPie, Recalbox or Batocera on any Raspberry Pi model, presumeably also any SBC with the same ARM architecture:

MakeCode Arcade on Raspberry Pi (including RetroPie, Recalbox, Batocera etc.)

With reference to previous correspondence with @richard and @peli, and happy to announce that McAirpos now supports running MakeCode Arcade games natively and with controller support on Batocera retro-gaming distro in addition to RetroPie, Recalbox and the Raspberry Pi OS console and presumably other similar ARM hardware and Linux flavours, as well as a new working Ansible playbook template that allows quickly scripted installation onto several devices in parallel in e.g. a classroom, collaborat…

Here, you still(I have some distant plans to support uf2) have to download the MakeCode Arcade games as .elf files, which you could get help generating from a MakeCode Arcade share link here:

Welcome to McAirpos

Or, doing it manually yourself in the editor like this:

McAirpos and elf files

It’s kinda goofy, but you have to use a special link or append the end of your URL with a bit of code. Once you do that, then when you download your games, they will download as .elf instead of .uf2. Here’s a link you can use: https://arcade.makecode.com/?nolocalhost=1&compile=rawELF&hw=rpi# It’ll take you to the dashboard and look like normal, but you’ll see that ‘compile=rawELF’ part in there that lets you know your downloads will come through as .elf files now. Hope that helps!

[Vegz78]

I see you found the solution yourself…:

Makecode Arcade Cardboard with Rasp Pi Zero - Need help adding games

Don’t know if you ever found a solution, but I did. Here is the link to download the games as ELF files.