RetroPie Status Overlay

Based on gbz_overlay script by d-rez

This repository contains a script to display status icons on top of your RetroPie games and emulationstation menus

Features

• display battery level (Requires appropiate Hardware)
• display WiFi state
• display Bluetooth state
• display Audio state
• display warning if under voltage, frequency-capped or throttling
• gracefully shut down the Pi after 60s from when voltage goes below 3.2V of low voltage detected (abort shutdown when power is restored)
• show a big imminent shutdown warning when the counter starts ticking
• Set icon transparency while in game
• Shutdown from button press
• Custom icon colours

Battery Level Detection Support

• Low Voltage GPIO
• Texas Instruments ADS1015/ADS1115 (Also available as Adafruit breakout board)
• Microchip MCP3008
• PiJuice HAT / PiJuice Zero
• PiSugar (requires testing)
• Serial interface (such as Arduino)
• Simple plugin system to add your own ADC / Battery monitor

Read how to configure battery detection for your setup at adc/README.md.

More Screenshots

Overlay on TFT theme at 240p

Overlay on Carbon theme at 1080p

Overlay on terminal

Battery Critical icon

Automatic Install Instructions

SSH into your device, or access the terminal using F4.

Run RetroPie Status Overlay

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/bverc/retropie-status-overlay
cd retropie-status-overlay
bash install.sh

Follow the onscreen instructions

retropie-status-overlay will run as a service automatically at boot, and is called "retropie-status-overlay"

You can stop and start this service by running:

sudo service retropie-status-overlay stop
sudo service retropie-status-overlay start

Manual Install Instructions

SSH into your device, or access the terminal using F4.

Install pngview by AndrewFromMelbourne

mkdir ~/src
cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/AndrewFromMelbourne/raspidmx
cd raspidmx/lib
make
cd ../pngview
make
sudo cp pngview /usr/local/bin/

Run RetroPie Status Overlay

Install psutil module:

sudo apt-get install python3-psutil

Download the code:

cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/bverc/retropie-status-overlay
cd retropie-status-overlay
cp config.ini.example config.ini

Colorize Icons:

sudo apt-get install imagemagick
cp -r overlay_icons colored_icons
mogrify -fill "#7d7d7d" -colorize 100 colored_icons/*black*.png

Replace "#7d7d7d" with preffered color in HEX in quotes or as a word (e.g. blue) without quotes

Test the code:

python3 overlay.py

You should see the overlay added to your interface

Now to get it to run at boot:

sudo crontab -e

At the bottom of the file, add the line:

@reboot python3 /home/pi/src/retropie-status-overlay/overlay.py

reboot

(Optional) Script to Toggle Status Overlay in retropiemenu

Copy shell script to retropiemenu:

cd ~/src
cp retropie-status-overlay/toggle\ status\ overlay.sh ~/RetroPie/retropiemenu/

Make script executable:

cd ~/RetroPie/retropiemenu
chmod +x toggle\ status\ overlay.sh

You can now toggle the overlay on and off from the RetroPie menu.