/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4877809
>literally locks itself out of playing on Wii U if you choose the wrong controller by mistake, have to delete the .cfg file to get it working again
>will get randomly stuck by updating online
>took 5 years to get a decent UI, it's a XMB ripoff with shitty mouse support
>acts like a 1998 software when you close it, have to save config manually each time or you lose the fucking saves because it will crash on a whim
Everything is convenient if you spend 12 hours setting it up.

In the same time you can download snes9x and a bunch of roms and finish them.

>>4877809
>comfy emulation
>The interface is easy to use
>It just werks
This emulator's user interface is a steaming pile of cowshit, and that's me being generous. It makes me want to off myself whenever I need to use it. Setting it up is a pain in the ass as it is anything but intuitive. You can tell right away it was made by hyperautistic loonixfags who understand that customization is important but have not a single idea about or any interest in creating a comfortable user experience. How they were able to resist the idea of just using command-line and editing text files for configuration is beyond me.

As already said, the UI is terrible. I tend to use the standalone emulator wherever possible for numerous reasons. Retroarch is not shit by any means tho. I'm glad it exists.

>>4877841
>download standalone emulator
>configure gamepad buttons
>start it next day
>all my configs get reset because the gamepad wasn't connected at the moment I started the program
>can only have one input config at a time
>go to display options
>no proper scaling, just whatever the dev intended for fullscreen

This is why RA is a godsend, emulator devs don't know what the fuck they're doing. I can have a million configs for every system and game in RA, make it look however I want and switch games without getting off my couch. Standalones can fuck off.

>>4877853
It's great for scaling and adding filters. I agree, but I've never lost a button config.

>>4877857
Nestopia fucks up your gamepad config if you start it up without one connected. I'm sure there are others but I've deleted them since.

>>4877809
RetroArch is a cancer on emulation.

>>4877865
Crappy Windows GUIs are a cancer on video gaming.

>>4877861
>he doesn't use Mesen

>>4877865
Elaborate

>ok, let's setbuttons for convenient use
>where is button config
>WHERE IS BUTTON CONFIG
>wait, it only switches between XYBA buttons
>what XYBA buttons over Genesis, where are C and Z?
>what XYBA buttons over PSX?
>how do I exit from menu option?
>NOT PROGRAM, MENU
>why game doesn't load? oh, no BIOS. where do I set BIOS?
>WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T ENTER THE OPTION OF BIOS AND CHOOSE THE PATH?
>ok, let's play some other game from the same console
>WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO BIOS? I PLACED ALREADY BIOS, YOU ALREADY PLAYED THE CONSOLE
>what config file? am I setting up emulator or linux server?

>>4877878
>WHERE IS BUTTON CONFIG
Input settings...? Maybe it doesn't have the exact name you were looking for?
>wait, it only switches between XYBA buttons
The fuck are you on about? You can set up every button
>what XYBA buttons over Genesis, where are C and Z?
Have you tried pressing the buttons or maybe switching them? There's a way of both changing input settings on a game and core basis. Hell I didn't even need to configure PS1, it's the same exact layout (geez I wonder where the triangle button was on the original ps1 gamepad I guess it was down?)
>WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T ENTER THE OPTION OF BIOS AND CHOOSE THE PATH?
But you can, it's called "system path"
>WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO BIOS? I PLACED ALREADY BIOS, YOU ALREADY PLAYED THE CONSOLE
Anon, how do you fuck this up? I'm curious, did you set a path and somehow crashed the emulator so it didn't save settings or what?
>what config file? am I setting up emulator or linux server?
Nah I guess programs shouldn't have configuration files at all so that you could complain some more about not being able to do X, Y or Z.

Seriously you seem to suffer from severe duckling syndrome. Have you used the same software for 20 years? Does the close button on macOS cause you migraines?

>>4877819

Retroarch is a straight-up horror on Wii/Wii U, the standalone emulators are good enough that I only have to use it for like one system but configuring it to work at a functional resolution with the controls you want is like playing 4D chess with an unstable, unintuitive robot people gave up on trying to to fix years ago.

>>4877838
>How they were able to resist the idea of just using command-line and editing text files for configuration is beyond me.
If you followed Shitpusher as he astroturfed his barely working shit on 4chan back then they were actually pushing for people to run it exactly like you said, the XMB for Windows came after a looooong time, meanwhile other porters already put a shitty barely functional UI on Wii and such.

>>4877962
Wasn't RGUI made fairly early? I still use it over the other ones, it's fine.

>>4877962
And to add to this, they were insulting "gui retards" left and right all the time.
Evidently they realized that the Google Play advertising store bucks were so sweet that making a GUI was not such a bad idea after all...

>>4877968
Yes but it was done for the Wii port and then as an after tought for PC, because their reasoning was that you should compile all your shit on PC.
There should be some old archives of when he used to post on the emugen in /vg/

>>4877978
I do remember those posts, and the insults thrown at Windows users. Pretty funny stuff. Regardless, the usability has improved a lot compared to a few years ago, so I don't care if the devs want to worship GNU/Linux or whatever. They've fixed the major annoyances I've had with RA - configuring 1.0 was definitely a nightmare.

>>4877962
Jesus fuck I'm not even surprised

It's been 5 years since v1.0?
I remember the v0.98 update drought.

I'm with you on many of your usual complaints, specially the awful error handling that makes it instantly crash and lose settings every time you set an incompatible option or miss a parameter on launch. But it's undeniable that it has come far over the years

>>4877994
Isn't there an option that circumvents the crashing nowadays?

>>4878002
Use standalone emu lol.
Jokes apart, I'm >>4877819 and I was just fuming at the OP, but I do reconize the improvement over the years.
The problem though is that it's still not the optimal choice, on android you can use standalone emus and do better(as shit as android emulation is anyway, I finished Megaman X2 on a Huawei with a 8bit do controller so it's definetely doable), on Sony consoles you have psn games or injections which work better, on Wii you have standalone emus, in Windows you have the standalone but I have to admit that I had the easiest time running NeoGeo, CPS1/CPS2 and MAME games to work on fucking Retroarch for some reason.

Maybe if I had a retropi instead of my pc hooked to the main TV I would consider it.

>>4878017
MAME is without a doubt better on RA, it works on a toaster that can barely open MAME outside of it, and you have various core options. For instance I ran Virtua Racing comfortably on my shitty 2Ghz, 6 years old laptop, the thing can barely function on standalone. Then again it might just be a quirk on my end but I don't think so, I also get better performance in VBA-M, Mednafen and bsnes. Whatever it is they do to optimise the cores, I'm sold on it.

The amount of options for using shaders far outweighs the work in figuring it out IMO

It's really not hard once you get the hang of everything.

>>4878054
Are these shaders really so important?

>>4878054
Once you figure out how it works it takes like 5 minutes to set it up again. People seem to have a really hard time understanding that they have to download cores for emulators before trying to play a videogame on said emulators.

>>4878060

If you're on a modern display, yes. It triggers me to play with raw pixels.

>all these complaints
Jesus, I set it all up using one youtube video for reference, and I know fuck all about computers. And the GUI is fine, it's like the playstation 3.

>>4878080
>.002 has been deposited in your libretro account

>>4878080
My grandpa thought a half-minute load time after opening My Computer was fine too.

does libretro have anything to do with ghanoo slash linocks?

>>4878071
Fair enough, I do most of my emulation on my Wii so I never considered

>>4878080
It's the same people who think DOSBox is too complicated to use lol. Meanwhile 15yo kids handled it just fine even before there was a comprehensive wiki available.

>>4878103

If DOSbox is too hard imagine them trying to use real DOS without a GUI.

>>4878084
You need at least an i7 to run retroarch properly. Please stop being poor.

Has the IQ around here dipped recently or is it just me?

>>4878125
It's not your intelligence your parents love you for, eh

>>4878127
It's summer, what do you expect?

>>4878127
It's just you

>>4878136
>le summer time may may xD

>>4878148
>s-summerfags aren't a real thing, guise

>>4878103
>>4878120
With the small, small difference that DOSbox is emulating an OS, Retroarch is about fucking game consoles and there are alternatives around that work just as well, when it's not the same case with DOSbox.

If I set myself up to emulate an old OS I will do all the right research, if I want to emulate a fucking megadrive I will expect to open a program, set up the controls, load a rom and play.

>>4877809
>>>/vg/emugen

>>4878192
>I will expect to open a program, set up the controls, load a rom and play
Add "select a system" to this, and it's exactly what you do in current RetroArch out of the box.

Wtf are you all talking about here, you just have to literally drag and drop your exe into DOSBox, you don't need any research and shit unless you want to tweak it a little. It's pretty normie-friendly.

>>4878127
This, but it's been going on for a while already

>>4877838
this 100% its nice that a million options exist (they really need descriptions for what they all do though) and XMB is designed for something lite not for something with millions of options

luckly better front ends exist so you can set up arch then use a different frontend

>>4877895
Did you design the user interface? Only reason I can see anyone defending that shit. Every other emulator you can get a controller set up in seconds, legit its fine on RA once you figure it out but it took me least 3-4 goes to get a config for a non standard shaped controller. and fuck me if you wanna swap controllers next time you boot you gotta set up shit again, and 2 controllers? good luck

>>4878417
This might sound difficult to believe, but the interface, as ugly as it is, is not complex. It takes switching an option to switch between controllers for an user. Not to mention it's quite convenient to be able to be able to set profiles for each game and not have to bind shit all over again, or keep 3-4 different folders for the same emulator so I don't have to keep binding keys everytime I want to play a specific game that doesn't have the controls I want. The only place where controllers give me a little bit of trouble is on Linux and that's more of a general issue than just RA.

Seriously, I get that XMB is not the best choice, RGUI looks primitive, but it's really not that complex of an emulator.

>>4878470
>to be able to be able to
Damn I need to check shit before I post.

>>4878417
settings > input, how is this difficult

yes, the GUI is keyboard/controller based but how retarded do you have to be to not be able to do what I described above

>>4877819
>>4877956
If you're dumb enough to use a Wii U you deserve this fate

>>4877809
>but is there really a better option for comfy emulation nowadays?
For everything up to and including generation 5 it's the best way to emulate, hands down. (Except for home computers like msx/commodore etc).
The people who can't understand the UI are just braindead and wouldn't survive in the wild.
>>4877819
>Everything is convenient if you spend 12 hours setting it up.
It takes about 2 mins to setup RA from install, that includes setting your paths, syncing your monitor refresh rate etc. You must have severe mental problems. Imagine if you tried to use some actual professional workstation software. You'd piss your pants and we'd have to drive you home sitting on a towel.
>>4878060
Yes

>>4877809
standalone emus > retroarch
however if you're setting up a frontend or game cabinet/station, retroarch is great as every system is the same.

cores are a good idea and make emulation much easier for more obscure systems, but cores themselves are always lacking some options the standalone emulators have.
as others stated there's the UI issue which makes everything much slower than it should be on pc. its also become a bit bloated and some legacy options exist that haven't been phased out yet.
in the end retroach ends up being a "config once behind the scenes" thing and run everything through a launcher.

>>4878103
dosbox isn't worth using unless you have a gsync display anyway

>>4879246
>as others stated there's the UI issue which makes everything much slower than it should be on pc
It's literally the opposite, not factoring in low specs standalones have their own UI which sometimes slows things down, the cores have sync options that makes them a lot faster.

>>4879246
As I've come to understand it, if you are keen on shaders, have a low-end pc running linux and don't want to run anything well past the 16bit systems, retroarch is your best bet.
>config once behind the scenes"
This could be said about pretty much anything

>>4878470
Its complex because its ugly and nothing has descriptions.

>>4881081
Pressing shift when highlighting a menu element literally brings up a description on what that element does.

It's only complex because you're retarded.

>>4879246
>standalone emus
>better than RA

Maybe specific instances, but specific cores and accuracy are being exclusively developed for RA. You can't find them anywhere else.

>>4881118
Thanks for telling me something that should just happen, shame the interface is just a clusterfuck.

>>4881118
>It's only complex because you're retarded.
Learn to take critism of your product dude.

I love RA and glad it exits, but you really need to overhall the frontend.

>>4877809
>but is there really a better option for comfy emulation nowadays?
For the elite of us, yes. OpenEmu has:
>gorgeous UI that easily works with mouse
>endless customization options
>homebrew portal (entirely optional and can be hidden on command)
>steady updates and community support
>auto quit/load savestates
>works with any controller you throw at it out of the box
The only thing is needs is PS2/Saturn/Dreamcast emulation and it will be perfect.

>>4881281
>emulation
>elite

>>4879601
when people complain about the ui, they're talking about the extra steps needed to move around in it making it much slower than other emulators.
ps3 ui wasn't meant to juggle options within options and 30+ systems (with some using multiple cores due to game compatibility). it just had a single games tab and it showed all the games on the system.
like mentioned earlier, retroarch is best used behind the scenes with a frontend on pc. launchbox basically looks like >>4881281

>>4881339
>OpenEmu is an open source multi-system game emulator designed for macOS

Seriously?

This will sound super lazy from me but...
Is there some pre-made Retroarch pack for 3DS with cores, emulators and roms ready to use?

>>4877809
retroarch's small pros do not make up for all the stuff that it does wrong

mednafen can have my baby

>>4877809
It's not comfy, but it's the best outside of using real hardware. Sharp bilinear filtering, per game/console configs, and multiple ways to mitigate input, display, and audio latency simply makes the games more playable.

Pic related was with vsync on, a 50" 60hz LCD TV, and Wii U Pro controller connected with a Mayflash adapter. Go ahead, play the Samurai mini game in Kirby Super Star and see what your average response time is with your current emulator setup. You'll probably conclude it's time to spend a few minutes learning how to use RA.

Fucking captchas make me lose track of everything, shit's ridiculous, anyway...

I use Retroarch with RGUI for everything that it can do. Being able to control the scaling directly in a standardized way for every emulator is a godsend.

I get that it's too complex for your average norm, but I would rather have a finicky UI that actually gives me the options I want over an easy to use UI that can't do what I need it to do.

I need some help, I have this on my PS4 but can't get multiplayer to work at all. Only player one is recognized.

I just wanted to play some Bomberman 5 with 4 other friends :<

I need some help, I have this on my PS3 but can't get multiplayer to work at all. Only player one is recognized.

I just wanted to play some Bomberman 5 with 4 other friends :<

>>4882290
Completely agree. Standalones are fine for casual playing but they just lack the options.

>>4878417
i setup my controller in retroarch in seconds, though i dislike the ingame percore settings option. for one it doesn't sensibly change around your buttons based on core so they are always wrong ingame (for everything but snes) until you fix them but that is rather minor for me since the changes are permanent and it only takes like an extra minute

>>4881081
>ugly
man just say the software isn't for you and drop it. obviously it is trying the be controller friendly as nothing else is and that is it's niche which it excels at. ugly is the last thing i would describe retroarch as

I've never seen or felt the need to stray from the setup I've used for the past couple decades (shortcuts in a folder). Quick, simple, no issues, etc.

I get the appeal, but I'm not concerned. And about those dedicated shitposters, they're the worst. A couple years ago you couldn't mention emulation without the RetroArch shitposters calling spectrum/cuck on everyone who wasn't using RA. Glad they're dying off.

RetroArch is serviceable, but in almost every case I'd rather use a standalone emulator. Configuring RA is a fucking nightmare, it's not even that it's difficult, it's that your options are a 2k line config, or an absolutely awful configuration UI.

>>4884052
open the ingame menu and then click core options, it lists everything in the configs

>>4884062
I don't know if you realize this, but there's more to making a good configuration UI than just listing all the options.

>>4884064
but your complaint was that you had to open a text editor and manually change everything. and what else could they do? the options are binary and transparent. sure it isn't categorized but the options are all core relevant and therefore few

>muh UI
Retroarch got a recent update with a menu bar in windowed mode, so it's feels a lot more like a standard emulator. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

>>4877809
I don't know jack shit about this thing. Can I use it to emulate the Saturn? How do I set shit up exactly?

>>4884076
>>but your complaint was that you had to open a text editor and manually change everything
No it actually wasn't, do you not speak English?

>, it's that your options are a 2k line config, or an absolutely awful configuration UI.

>>4884103
your posts ooze vitriol, i made a mistake that i noticed but my message still stood so i figured it wasn't worth addressing. your post answered nothing and added nothing to the conversation so why even press send

>all these replies and no discussion about retro games
>some posts even discussing non-retro consoles
Jesus christ mods. Make these fags fuck off to >>>/vg/emugen already.

>>4884321
https://docs.libretro.com/
it goes over everything. there are actually two sega saturn emulators, go to their core page (beetle saturn for example) and it will tell you what bios you need. i dont know where retroarch looks for bios by default but i just set a path to a bios folder and used that

>>4884331
sorry wrong quote
>>4884090

Ok it's easy.

You have a core, which is like an emulator. You download the core, you download the bios for the core and you put the bios on the system folder. You open a ROM and unless you have multiple cores for the same file extension, it just opens it up.

You want to go back to the menu? It opens a quick menu that has options for that specific core and/or game. Like shaders, input settings and some core specific options. You want global options, you get out of that menu and get to the main menu.

Is this too hard? Maybe you would need something like this >>4881281
that has savestates, 3 filters, outdated cores for anything that isn't saturn and frame drops if you use a non standard refresh rate of 60.01 instead of 59.94 or something stupid like that because you happen to use external monitors. Oh right, and your dualshock 4 to be detected all the time as 2 gamepads instead of 1, that's some fun shit too.

can't tell if troll thread or incredibly stupid. either way, total entertainment. let's see, i can play along....


yeah! retro arch is so bad! i hate consolidating emulators into one place! i just want to take out all my anger here on reddit err i mean 4chan! gahh it's so frustrating because linux!

>>4884504
>because linux
youve activated my trapmeme

My only issue with it is the controller configuration being annoying for MAME.

cue el.

I dislike RetroArch because of its inability to map diagonals. Literally every other emulator, I can map up-left, up-right, down-left and down-right to whatever I want. It's a down-right shame.

>>4886463
light-feather tickling is acceptable.
4/10

>>4877809
Once you start treading into "comfy" territory, there's no acceptable answer for you. It could be literally anything and everything at that point.
I don't know why stupid shits like you bother even using that term.
The board generally is more into collecting than emulating, but we all do it anyway. The problem with Retroarch sometimes is the cores aren't updated as often as the standalone emulators, so you don't get any improvements until months later, if ever.

>>4888339
I use this board as a recommendation on what games I should be playing. I rarley go on the crt or collector threads but honestly I only got into collecting physical n64 shit once. I can see a huge problem for storing these games, and even old hardware.
I honestly would love to make a cheap old linux wine build for my old school pc gaming wants, but that's about it in terms of getting physical hardware.

>>4877809
Retroarch is trash. Garbage UI.
It is the Dwarf Fortress of Frontends.

>>4888780
The Dwarf Fortress UI is perfectly cromulent, you're just afraid of text.

>>4888804
>excuses Dwarf Fortress
>uses Retroarch
I see a trend.

>>4888812
I don't use retroarch, which uses the playstation UI anyway. Dwarf fortress is fine as long as you can read text that's on the screen. You sound like a blithering mongoloid.

>>4888746
Honest question, what emulators even see frequent meaningful updates to an extent where cores being behind would have an actual impact on the end user?

>>4878127
It has definitely dropped

>>4888869
I'd say maybe dolphin or mednafen. We don't have cores for shit like rspc3 or cemu atm as far as I know but yeah those 2 are kind of behind when it comes to cores. Especially mednafen being behind because that thing runs things very well for the most part on the newer updates.

>>4888869
pretty much anything that isnt considered retro, really

>Use OpenEmu
>It just works
idk guys

>>4877809
I always had troubles with it not finding my CD images and not loading them even if I load the file directly. It seems awfully picky with what roms and ISOs it actually wants to load for whatever reason and because of that I usually give up and download a standalone emulator so I can just play the game.
I can see it being neat if you take the time to set it up, but I don't have the patience for it.

>>4889318
.cue files really aren't that complicated. And if they still don't work, find a better rip