/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.10306286]

Why do I need Retroarch or some frontend like Launchbox when I can just use my desktop or make a folder with large shortcuts for my preferred superior standalone emulators and call it a day?

[Anonymous No.10306287]

>>10306286
nooo you simply cannot do that

[Anonymous No.10306290]

>>10306286
its messy

[Anonymous No.10306292]

>>10306286
For some systems, the only active emulator is the libretro core.

[Anonymous No.10306297]

>>10306292
Such as?

[Anonymous No.10306298]

>>10306286

[Anonymous No.10306302]

been asked a lot.
yes, RetroArch can feel very clunky when you don't know how to use it. but it's incredibly useful when you can.
it works on about any platform. you have all your shaders, settings, features like rewind and latency reduction etc. available for ALL your cores—instead of having some standalone emulator without any shaders, its own key weird mappings, quirks, settings, etc.
the unification is what makes it great. if you don't need it, no one forces you to use it.

[Anonymous No.10306305]

>>10306297
not him but mega drive is one

[Anonymous No.10306306]

SNES9x > ZSNES
FCEUX > Nesticle
mednaffen > SSF, VBA, ePSXe, Kega

[Anonymous No.10306307]

>>10306302
I only use Windows though and I don't really give a fuck about eye-cancer shaders, also all of the emulators I use are far more intuitive to set up controls for than trannyarch and most of them have soulful, comfy Windows-style menus.

[Anonymous No.10306312]

>>10306305
>mega drive
But Kega works just fine

[Anonymous No.10306323]

>>10306286
>Nesticle
Do I even want to know

[Anonymous No.10306325]

>>10306297
3DO

[Anonymous No.10306326]

>>10306323
>You have to be 18 or older to post here

[Anonymous No.10306352]

>>10306326
>anons still posting this not knowing it's an edit

[Anonymous No.10306358]

>>10306286
I got RetroArch on Steam, then used Steam to create shortcuts to launch ROMs via Steam using the Steam version of RetroArch. If I could nest it even more internally than that, I would.

I like cloud saves.

[Anonymous No.10306361]

That's how I do it. Sometimes you miss out on having nice shaders, but a surprisingly amount of emulators have good CRT ones even without retroarch these days. Retroarch is a last resort.
>>10306297
I used it for Sharp x68000, just because I'm on Linux and all the good emulators that weren't libretro cores were Windows only. I could (and did) run one of those through Wine instead, but I just ended up using the core.
>>10306305
BlastEm.

[Anonymous No.10306371]

>>10306326
Thank you for the reminder, janitor. It’s nice to have people like you here to help enforce the rules. Without you this place would be a jungle I tell ya! You keep up the good work.

[Anonymous No.10306378]

>>10306352
>>10306371
Holy shit the Saturday school brigade in full force, how frightening. So, you guys are just proud of having shit for brains? Good to know.

[Anonymous No.10306405]

>>10306378
I’m congratulating you on enforcing the rules, my good man. There is no need to be upset.

[Anonymous No.10306416]

>>10306405
I’m still surprised that you don’t know what nesticle is on a retro videogame board. I was obviously using a 4chan idiom when saying “you must be 18 to post here”, but I can see you’re doubling down on being retarded.

[Anonymous No.10306420]

>>10306416
Retarded?! I’m arguing with a complete stranger on the internet. What’s so retarded about that? That would make both of us retards.

[Anonymous No.10306425]

>>10306420
No it wouldn’t. It would makes the retard that doesn’t know what nesticle is on /vr/, double retarded. Like I said in my last post.

[Anonymous No.10306445]

>>10306286
I mean, you don't "need" it, no one does... but it's quicker and more convenient in every way. I always used them in standalone forms, but after giving RetroArch a shot... it's just so much easier, everything in one place, quick, easy to setup my preferences for every single console once in the same software instead of having to do it a bunch of time for standalone... it's also great if you're into shaders and/or want to experiment tons of emulators, or cores in this case, quickly, also a few very good emulators are in RetroArch only, like Genesis Plus GX Wide, which makes Genesis ROMs play in 16:9 without simply stretching it, I know many find RetroArch hard to setup or clunky, but I couldn't disagree more, you install it, download all of the cores you want right then and there, set them up in any way you wish, and then you can change controls, keys or shaders if you want, and you're good to go! It's so simple and quick, there's also a major community to help in any issues one might have. I get not liking it and/or simply preferring standalone emulators, like I did before, but I don't get the hate RetroArch often receives here, it sets out to have it all in one convenient place... and succeeds.

[Anonymous No.10306461]

>>10306297
Well, Diddy Kong Racing, Zelda... Mother

[Anonymous No.10306463]

>>10306286
standalone is fine until you have 10+ systems, and realize every single one works different and has different shortcuts/features/ui.

retroarch standardizes all of this and not only gives them a shitload of new options, it standardizes them and brings them up to date.
for instance every system can function properly with dual monitor, when most other emulators can act weird when taking up 1 display.
configuring can be a nightmare though. and good luck trying to change screen ratios per game. feature creep is real and not all the option locations were planned properly.

[Anonymous No.10306498]

>>10306461
I can only play Diddy Kong Racing, Zelda, and Mother on Retroarch? what?

[Anonymous No.10306508]

>>10306307
I’d say good for you but that smug picture makes me want to punch your lights out.
Fuck off back to /v/ with your shit attitude and even shittier thread

[Anonymous No.10306521]

>>10306416
It hasn’t been in active development since the 90s. Even though this is a retro board it’s not like most of us still use old emulators because they’ve gotten way way better since.
>>10306323
One of the first if not the first NES emulators. I’m pretty sure it was originally on DOS it’s so old. I remember getting really nervous installing it on my family computer because the mouse cursor was a penis and testicles.

[Anonymous No.10306524]

>>10306286
RetroArch is more than just a front-end.
They really should not call it such on their homepage.

[Anonymous No.10306534]

Im only about 3 years into finally using mednafen for ps1 and I still despise it. So much so that the idea of switching anything else in my emulationset up just makes me mad about mednafen again.

[Anonymous No.10306536]

>>10306534
Just use Duckstation.

[Anonymous No.10306568]

>>10306325
Phoenix Emu works fine, even if it is in glorious Russian.
>>10306361
What's wrong with the Neo Kobe collection of emus on the Internet Archive? Every emulator for a system in perfect working in order, so you can play every Jap PC game from 1982 to 1998. Also a Linuxfag, so WINE isn't quite an excuse.

[Anonymous No.10306578]

>>10306568
Why would I download an inactive emulator in a language I don't speak when I can install RetroArch and the core in English for the same amount of work?

[Anonymous No.10306581]

>>10306286
Retroarch generally allows for decent netplay depending on the console, that would be a huge pain in the ass otherwise.

[Anonymous No.10306621]

>>10306286
You can and I recently tried it. It didn't work for me cause I wanted a completely portable option and was unable to do it with N64 emulators. Also I still had to tweak a shit load with gamepads and bindings anyway.

I also was annoyed that I was unable to standarize shaders. I want all console systems to have the same CRT shader and all portable ones to have the same pixel shader. Retroarch does that very well.

I do think the amount of options and how everything is all over the fucking place is an objectively bad thing, I am the kind of gamer who just wants to play, doesn't need a million features. Recently found Ludo libretro and want to try a dedicated old laptop with all gamepads for that and see how it works. For now I'm on the launchbox train.

[Anonymous No.10306624]

>>10306286
Counter question:
Why do you fucking care?

[Anonymous No.10306642]

>>10306292
Then I simply won't play those games, nothing worth it if there isn't a standalone emulator

[Anonymous No.10306665]

>>10306578
Most of the emulators are in English though, and anything you want to run is guaranteed to work.

[Anonymous No.10306678]

>>10306307
Cool blog post bro.

If you aren't going to actually listen to other people's answers but jerk yourself off why ask? Harvesting yous.

[Anonymous No.10306684]

>>10306286
>>10306287
>when you don't have an arcade cab

[Anonymous No.10306693]

>>10306307
It's all about preference.
Me here wishing I didn't throw my windows 98 machine in a landfill years ago. It was a beastly tower from hell with a commercial motherboard and a voodoo card. It utterly wrecked the specs of other, purpose-built gaming PCs.
God I miss that. Being able to make a monster gaming rig with commercial, office PC parts.
Slap a GPU in and call it done. When things went south for voodoo, amd had a card.

Still ran with the pack. Frankenstein PCs are something that almost doesn't exist now.

[Anonymous No.10306720]

>>10306307
Then this product isn't for you. Glad we could all come to this realization and move on.

[Anonymous No.10306819]

>>10306326
18 years ago was 2005

[Anonymous No.10306895]

>>10306307
>soul
>comfy
Opinion discarded

[Anonymous No.10306947]

>mameUI32

[Anonymous No.10307063]

>>10306819
This scares me.

[Anonymous No.10307183]

>>10306290
write an alias

[Anonymous No.10307213]

>>10306568
>What's wrong with the Neo Kobe collection of emus on the Internet Archive?
I didn't check. What one do they provide for x68000? When I glanced at the emu wiki it felt like just using the RA core was the most sane choice in this case.
I do have np2kai for PC-98 which is linux native and works great. Haven't looked into PC-88 or MSX but I plan to sometime soonish.

[Anonymous No.10307310]

>>10306286
Use Retroarch. Everyone is using it. That is why it is good. It has all the options. CRT shader engaged. It gets the update. Other emulators do not get the update. You are not a retro gamer. I am a retro gamer. Go back to r*ddit. End communication.

[Anonymous No.10307332]

>>10307310
But why would you want to use a "FOMO" when "FOMO" N E T P L A Y O N E V E R U C O N S O L E. no of course I'm not lying "FOMO". NOW, why don't you come and get upgraded with me "FOMO", fellow annoner.

[Anonymous No.10307334]

>>10306286
>not gens
>not snes 9.x
>not emurayden
ngmi

[Anonymous No.10307341]

w-what if I have original hardware? should I still use retroarch?

[Anonymous No.10307350]

>>10307341
There is only the arch. There is no "real hardware". What you speak of is the retro minds pervasive telepathy waves, implanting false memories of people playing consoles, in order to make the need for the arch stronger. Videogames never existed, its always, only been the arch. You feel nostalgia for the arch, now sleeeeeep ...

[Anonymous No.10307363]

imagine getting filtered by retroarch settings lmao, off yourself you baiting nigger

[Anonymous No.10307365]

Surprised OP isn't banmed yet, this shit used to be shilled hard on here and I got banned for saying 'Retroshart'.

[Anonymous No.10307371]

This is about as embarrassing a thread as that cunt who bought a dell shit box from the early 00s to use it with a modern Linux for emulation.

[Anonymous No.10307373]

>>10306286
for me it's the taskbar except for ones i use for one game like vb wario land or just singular games in general
i tried retroarch, seems solid but afaik you can't transfer saves so

[Anonymous No.10307421]

RetroArch is handy if you want every emulator to function the same way; universal settings and all that.
But some people enjoy every emulator feeling distinct, too.
There's no right or wrong answer here, just pick the way that works for you.

[Anonymous No.10307423]

>>10306286
How are you going to show people you're gay if you don't use a front end?

[Anonymous No.10307456]

>>10306286
>Why do I need Retroarch

Two reasons:

>Saturn
>AI translation tool that translates the Japanese text on the game screen directly with the press of a button

That's it. Everything else you should use standalone.

[Anonymous No.10307475]

>>10307456
If you're going to go through the effort of doing that, just learn fucking Japanese. You can literally learn it by playing the games that would require you to do that in the first place. You're literally peak retarded.

[Anonymous No.10307478]

>>10306286
No one said you couldn't.
I often fire up good ol' snes9x for SNES games, and my Atari ST emulator isn't really retroarch-able at all anyway.
But retroarch makes it easiest to get my shader action going, especially on some systems like PSX. There are certainly a lot of downsides to finagling retroarch's generally terrible UI, but it's all about balance.

Not sure why you feel the need to passive-aggressively brag about why doing X instead of Y for your entertainment free time needs is some kind of moral victory.

[Anonymous No.10307481]

>>10307475
>If you're going to go through the effort of doing that, just learn fucking Japanese.
Not him, but as someone who actually speaks Japanese and has lived in Japan for multiple decades, that's a very false equivalence. "Go through the effort"? What effort? An hour or two of work? You can't learn Japanese in an hour or two. He's chosen a remarkably simpler strategy. It might not be equivalent to having full mastery of the language, but it seems to sufficiently satisfy his entertainment needs. Your post doesn't really work.

[Anonymous No.10307495]

>>10307481
As someone who has lived in Japan for a decade, I'm calling you out as the dekinai English teacher that you are. Shut the fuck up, your opinions on language learning aren't valid.

[Anonymous No.10307537]

>>10307481
>he didn't learn japanese in two hours
shiggy diggy

[Anonymous No.10307589]

>>10307475
What effort? The effort to taking 2 mins to install retroarch? The effort of playing a button when you play the game?

You are stupid and probably misunderstood/have no idea what I was talking about. It's a built-in feature of the emulator. You press a button, shit translates on screen. There is no effort and that's the entire point.

[Anonymous No.10307601]

>>10306287
this. so. much

[Anonymous No.10307634]

>>10307589
Enjoy your machine translated slop

[Anonymous No.10307658]

>>10306286
Swap Nesticle for FCE Ultra and PJ64 for 1964 and I'd say you have a good selection. I'd almost argue for Snes9x instead of ZSNES as well, but we all know how much soul ZSNES's UI has.

[Anonymous No.10307781]

>>10306693
You can do the same with an Optiplex

[Anonymous No.10307784]

>>10307371
You can do it though. Retropie runs on shittier hardware.

[Anonymous No.10307785]

>>10307634
Dude just wants to play a game you stupid weeaboo faggot.

[Anonymous No.10307794]

>>10307421
/thread

[Anonymous No.10307805]

>>10307784
HE'S HERE
DUMBASS

[Anonymous No.10307838]

>>10306286
The real answer is because customizing retroarch or similar becomes a big part of the hobby itself.

Just like retro collectors obsess over building good looking shelving and making their systems aesthetically pleasing instead of just dumping 1000s CDs and carts on the ground.

/autism :0

[Anonymous No.10307848]

>>10307838
I have spent more hours this week configuring shortcuts than playing the games they link to. Kill me.

[Anonymous No.10307857]

>>10306286
I fucking hate retroarch but even i have to admit, the preconfigured version on steam is the best option for emulating saturn and n64... without going through menu and reddit hell to get some standalone bullshit configured.

[Anonymous No.10307878]

>>10307857
What's wrong with SSF and Rosalie's Mupen GUI? SSF version 26 works fine for me and has no virus problems either btw.

[Anonymous No.10307930]

>>10307878
SSF’s input lag is horrible, Mednafen + Mednaffe is the way to go for Saturn emulation.

[Anonymous No.10307941]

Didn't this board use to hate RetroArch? What changed?

[Anonymous No.10308000]

>>10307213
Among others, XM6 Pro-68k has worked well with what I've put through it. Everything is in English and you can get save states for the really bullshit titles.
>MSX
Good luck anon, that system is some proper bullshit to get running. Be prepared to not only figure out what system you need to run a particular game, but what kind of add-ons you need so you can save and don't get sound that sounds like road construction.

[Anonymous No.10308069]

>>10306325
Is there even anything worth playing on 3DO that I can't play on other consoles?

>>10307941
>What changed?
Zoomers, probably.

[Anonymous No.10308116]

>>10306578
>Why would I download an inactive emulator in a language I don't speak when I can install RetroArch
I can't speak for you, but for me, I'd do it because I have an irrational hatred of RetroArch. Even the term "core" brings my piss to a boil.

>>10307363
I didn't get filtered, I just like my standalone emulators more.

[Anonymous No.10308156]

>>10308116
>I have an irrational hatred of RetroArch.
I feel like this sums up a lot of the thread, RetroArch just works well for a lot of people, it sets out to do something simple, keeping it all in one place with universal settings if needed, and it succeeds, and for those that don't want that, then downloading standalone emulators is still the option for them. I'll never get the hatred RetroArch gets...

[Anonymous No.10308372]

Reminder there is NO alternative for the features and customization of RetroArch, and you WILL be missing out if you get filtered and can't figure it out (you only learn it once; RetroArch is same across all devices/OS)

People use it for
>consolidated UI/settings/hotkeys for hundreds of emulators instead of relearning & adjusting for every emulator
>run-ahead tech to reduce input lag, even lower than original hardware if you want
>full rebinding + turbo for every game
>VRR, BFI, and sync to exact framerate (match exact framerate of a game, e.g 54fps for Raiden FJ, or 61.68fps for TGM)
>massive amount of shaders, filters, overlays you can change on the fly
>unlimited save states w/ screenshot previews, undo save state + undo load state, pause/rewind/fast-forward/frame advance
>rollback netplay for worldwide co-op or PvP games
>50+ hotkeys and full rebinding w/ hotkey mode toggle
>Retro achievements that are uncheatable with optional hardcore mode to disable save states, cheats, pause, rewind, and fast forward
>some cores more up-to-date than standalone or don't even exist as standalone and are best way to emulate those consoles (Genesis Plus GX, MupenN64Plus-Next, Beetle PCE, Beetle PSX, etc.)
>set any custom aspect ratio, refresh rate, rotation (rotate just the game, or both the game and the UI)
>recording/screenshots/streaming (lossless recording at exact res and framerate, records only in-game audio, and pauses recording when in menu)
>input recording/playback for every core
>MAME core has save state support, rewind, & run-ahead for ALL games, even those with no save state support in MAME standalone
Most importantly, you can save ALL OF THESE, as well as core options and settings on a per-game, per-core, per-directory, or globally. This means EVERY SINGLE GAME can have its own rebindings, shaders, volume/audio setting, run-ahead, core options, rotation, aspect ratio, etc.

There is no reason to use anything else for Gen 5 or earlier (plus GBA, DS, and Dreamcast)

[Anonymous No.10308374]

>>10306461
litcherally the first thing I thought of

[Anonymous No.10308376]

>>10306286
For me it's "Windows key + R"

[Anonymous No.10308912]

>>10308372
People like you are one of the reasons I hate retroarch.

[Anonymous No.10308934]

>>10308372
People like you are one of the reasons I like retroarch.

[Anonymous No.10308974]

>>10308934
Very funny, but for real, this is just insufferable.

>Reminder there is NO alternative for the features and customization of RetroArch
>you WILL be missing out if you get filtered and can't figure it out
>There is no reason to use anything else for Gen 5 or earlier (plus GBA, DS, and Dreamcast)
I don't care. I'm still not using it, get fucked.

[Anonymous No.10308985]

>>10308974
Very funny, but for real, this is just based.

>Reminder there is NO alternative for the features and customization of RetroArch
>you WILL be missing out if you get filtered and can't figure it out
>There is no reason to use anything else for Gen 5 or earlier (plus GBA, DS, and Dreamcast)
I don't care. I'm still using it, get fucked.

[Anonymous No.10308990]

>>10306286
You need a cool custom mouse cursor first, like a pizza or something

[Anonymous No.10308996]

>>10308372
>There is no reason to use anything else for Gen 5 or earlier (plus GBA, DS, and Dreamcast)
Honestly I wish every emulator I used had a proper RA core. But PCSX2 and Dolphin are just not good on RA, much as I wish they were.

[Anonymous No.10309017]

>>10306498
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hPVYkL-3pE

[Anonymous No.10309045]

>>10306524
It is a frontend, though not in the way most people understand the term. Rather than a frontend for standalone emulators like, say, Launchbox, it is rather a frontend for the libretro API, which is what all its cores run on. The cores cannot do anything by themselves, and thus need a libretro frontend that can load them, with RetroArch being by far the biggest, though there are others (for example, Ludo, Kodi, and even BizHawk).

[Anonymous No.10309052]

>>10306621
Ludo is fine is you want a very minimalist version of RetroArch, but unfortunately I'd say it's a bit too stripped down for my taste, or at least it was the last time I tried it. It's also not fully compatible with all cores last I checked.

[Anonymous No.10309065]

>>10307373
Wut. The majority of RetroArch cores don't use unique saves at all. All you gotta do is rename the extension from SRM to whatever the other emulator is using, and it's almost sure to work. I believe one of the only exceptions is N64, though. Luckily, there's a save converter.

[Anonymous No.10309084]

>>10308156
Some of it is just contrarianism. Some of it is brainlets who try it out because it gets brought up a lot or they want to try out the shaders only to get filtered by the UI. Some of it is from MAME or Stenzek dickriders who hate it only because said emudevs have a personal bone to pick with RetroArch. Some of it comes from people who had a negative interaction with RetroArch's lead dev, who admittedly is a humongous douche who has no idea of how to lead a project or even code properly.

Notice how only one of those scenarios involves the actual program.

[Anonymous No.10309109]

>>10306286
being able to quickly overclock cpu's and add run ahead makes retroarch just plain better than anything else. A lot of times its better the original, like getting rid of the slowdown in snes shmups, or smoother frames in Star Fox.

[Anonymous No.10309132]

>>10306286
Having standalone emulators can be useful if you just want to quickly test a ROM (e.g. manual ROM hack patching), since you can set file associations.
This doesn't seem to work with Retroarch.

There can be use cases where Retroarch is the preferred way of playing a game. For DS games, I'm pretty sure the libretro core for MelonDS works better than the standalone program, since the former can take advantage of various video render and configuration settings (before diving into shaders etc).
I recall performance just being more reliable via Retroarch for MelonDS.

Like another anon said, best Genesis / Mega Drive emulator is now done via Retroarch.
KEGA Fusion is outdated as fuck and doesn't play nice on newer hardware.

[Anonymous No.10309137]

>>10309065
I think I've had odd occasions where save files generated between different cores for the same platform weren't compatible, I might be thinking of GBA.

This was a retro handheld use-case like RG351P, where it doesn't quite have exactly enough performance to get some of the more demanding GBA games to run full speed.

Some cores might prefer to write SRM files, others might write SAV files.

[Anonymous No.10309184]

>>10309132
Does patching change the file extension?

[Anonymous No.10309434]

>Chankast
I've never seen that one. Is it like some toaster-friendly Dreamcast emulator?

[Anonymous No.10309754]

>>10306326
>>10306416
Any other old fags remember Connectix Virtual Game Station emulator?

[Anonymous No.10309779]

>>10309434
Yes, back in the day Chankcast could run on my 2002 rig while the later NullDC would struggle. It was never as good of an emulator though, just serviceable.

[Anonymous No.10309782]

>>10309754
Connectix was 10/10. Played all the good shit in 2001? Don't know why bleem got any attention.

[Anonymous No.10309785]

>>10306463
I just deleted retroarch for being fucked on dual monitor. It's multiple UIs aren't helping it. Need to remember what function key displays the real UI. Opens on one monitor, move screen to other monitor, make it fullscreen; next day UI is now fullscreen, no obvious way to make it stop. Next day UI just gone entirely, where is it opening, who the fuck knows. Deleted it AGAIN. One of the worst programs of all time.

[Anonymous No.10309787]

>>10306521
Even with the name, this looks like a hand.

[Anonymous No.10309797]

>download thumbnails
>error
>error
>error
Why even have this fake option?

[Anonymous No.10309827]

>>10306352
>check manual
>you're right
it's over. i was the real zoomer all this time

[Anonymous No.10309851]

Speaking of Retroarch, does anyone else have issues saving when playing DS games? Every other console for me works, but it's not actually saving when I play DS games and I don't know how to fix it.

[Anonymous No.10309986]

>>10309132
> best Genesis / Mega Drive emulator is now done via Retroarch.

The best MD emulator is done via MiSTer

[Anonymous No.10309991]

>>10306461
Thank you for the list of libretro cores in video games

[Anonymous No.10310139]

I'm a little stupid, so can anyone explain to me what's the difference between RetroArch and LaunchBox?

[Anonymous No.10310152]

>>10310139
See >>10309045

[Anonymous No.10310154]

>>10310152
I see... can you use RetroArch with LaunchBox as your frontend then?

[Anonymous No.10310179]

>>10310154
Yes, you can.

[Anonymous No.10310182]

>>10309785
f1
f
windows+shift+left or right
its a program, things don't magically change. rage quitting is whatever but it makes you look stupid.

[Anonymous No.10310190]

>>10306286
that project 64 contains a virus

[Anonymous No.10310204]

>>10309827
Still accurate

[Anonymous No.10310205]

>>10310139
launchbox is just a fancy program launcher. i've got another one for hentai games and one for javs. it's main appeal is automatically finding game covers and making launching your games with whatever emulator easy and automatic. highly configurable.

retroarch is an emulator all-in-one type of program where you can download whatever emulator core you want on the fly.
the benefit is that every system has the same options and a lot more than normal.

both work well together but you can still use standalone emulators in launchbox.

[Anonymous No.10310258]

>>10306286
You'll miss out on retroachievements and Discord integration (so that the two people you are in contact with can see what you're gaming).

Also:
Snes9x>Znes
Duckstation > ePSxe
Mesen>Nesticle
Mupen64+>P64
and finally
VBA-M > VBA
I bet you're still on that 1.8.0 Beta3 that was released like a million years ago, heh.

[Anonymous No.10310301]

>>10310258
>VBA-M > VBA
mGBA > VBA-M

[Anonymous No.10310423]

>>10307838
>>10307848
Shit this is too real. Last week I updated and returned to default all retroarch configurations. Made sure all games are properly linked to it and... Did not play a single minute. Keep fantasizing about Earthbound and Mother 3 and watching reviews of Chrono trigger.

This week I plan on applying universal shader settings and not playing again. I also got Undertale and probaby won't play it either.

[Anonymous No.10310657]

I don't get why RetroArch's famous for it's tough UI and for being difficult to figure out... I mean, I didn't use it for the longest time because I kept hearing about how cumbersome it was to setup and navigate the thing, but after I did due to me being curious... it was fine, I just opened it, then downloaded a bunch of cores, messed around in the settings tab for a little while to choose all my preferences, no different from other emulators and how they work, scanned my ROMs folder... and there I was, playing and enjoying it... I've also never gotten the hate for XMB, it's a fine UI.

[Anonymous No.10310685]

>>10310657
>I don't get why RetroArch's famous for it's tough UI and for being difficult to figure out
Most people are retarded, I was able to configure and use RA without issues as well.

[Anonymous No.10310714]

>>10310258
>so that the two people you are in contact with can see what you're gaming
My parents don't have a computer and they can do that anyway by coming into my room.

[Anonymous No.10310808]

>>10310657
A lot of it comes from people used to standard Win32 mouse-and-keyboard-drivern GUIs with a toolbar with dropdown menus at the top, whereas RetroArch primarily uses menus meant to be driven by a controller. The hotkeys are different from most Windows games and emulators, too (Esc exist RetroArch instead of exiting fullscreen or opening a menu, and you press F to go full-screen instead of Alt+Enter, to give a few examples). So baby duck syndrome, essentially: it's different from how my old emulators work, so I hate it.

That said, some things can be unintuitive rather than just different. The basic functionality stuff like loading games is fine, but if you want to configure shit at a more advanced level, it's really not the easiest thing to figure out. Settings are all over the place, sometimes in menus you might not expect, and sometimes you'll see duplication as well. For instance, here's two controller setup menus, a global one to set up your gamepad, and a core menu to setup the aforementioned gamepad bindings to what the core expects. If you don't know what you're doing and fiddle with the wrong thing, you might end up fucking something up and not knowing what the fuck you did unless you know the program forward and backward or can decipher error logs. In that case the solution is just to delete the config file so it'll reset back to defaults, but most people won't know to do that and will blame the program for breaking on its own. Yes, it's retarded, but it's part of the reason people get filtered by it.

[Anonymous No.10310832]

So is the /vr/ consensus that RetroArch actually is the best way to play retro games? Should I delete all of my standalone emulators in favor of the superior Libretro cores and join my Discord brethren once and for all?

[Anonymous No.10310960]

>>10310832
>So is the /vr/ consensus that RetroArch actually is the best way to play retro games?
I prefer RetroArch, but even I admit that there's no such thing as a /vr/ consensus, a lot of people here feel very differently about RetroArch, it's all up to you wheter you should use it or not, try it out and see if you like it, if you don't then give up on it, if you like it then keep it, it's really just that simple.

[Anonymous No.10311020]

>have to configure your special snowflake gamepad setup 9 times when you can have one program that works with whatever you need for all the systems at once

if you're a simpleton who is content with emulating with outdated windows based program you're not a target audience of retroarch, like if you wouldn't install linux if all you need is browser and games

[Anonymous No.10311027]

>>10306286
Mednafen and Mupen64Plus are both a bitch to set up without Retroarch, and you can't tell me you're still using any of those XP ass emulators.

[Anonymous No.10311051]

>>10311020
XYBA do not map properly to BA controllers, they are rotated counterclockwise when clockwise is the only way you can press both buttons comfortably with your thumb at once. So right there you have to remap half the controllers in custom core settings.

[Anonymous No.10311170]

>>10309754
Emurayden allowed you to play backups, but many games crash the PC.

[Anonymous No.10311246]

>>10306326
That's a geemer you fucking neeger

[Anonymous No.10311253]

>>10310258
>Discord integration
Why the fuck would anyone want this? I know you can turn this off, this isn't a complaint about RA, but I seriously don't know why people would want to broadcast to the world how they choose to waste their time.

[Anonymous No.10311258]

>>10310258
>Duckstation > ePSxe
I'm using PCSX-R. Albeit through RetroArch but still.

I get it with Mupen, N64 emulation is atrocious and I get why there's that endless struggle to find one that works, but I don't understand choosing one PS1 emulator over the other they all do the same fucking shit who cares. I've used Beetle, PCSXR, Duckstation and mednafedn PSX at various points and I've noticed exactly zero difference.

[Anonymous No.10311261]

>>10306286
That's a decent selection except for Chankast and Nesticle, both have been surpassed many times over even before the frontend crap started happening.

also I'd go with pSX instead of ePSXe, or maybe even xebra.

[Anonymous No.10311269]

>>10306463
>standalone is fine until you have 10+ systems, and realize every single one works different and has different shortcuts/features/ui.

That's like saying having standalone consoles is fine until you realize they all have different controller layouts / video outputs / input formats, and it's better to use whatever is the current most popular all-in-one emulator retropi so you can play anything on one go.

[Anonymous No.10311275]

>>10311269
> That's like saying having standalone consoles is fine until you realize they all have different controller layouts / video outputs / input formats
Yeah, it’s why everyone plays all their other games on PC too. And also why they demand everything be on Steam and don’t want eleventy-seven launchers. Because of that exact reasoning: the desire to have one common library and one common interface.

[Anonymous No.10311283]

>>10308372
>consolidated UI/settings/hotkeys for hundreds of emulators
The only settings you need is maybe screen resolution and the only hotkeys you want to set up is a pause and a full screen button.

>run-ahead tech to reduce input lag,
only a problem for full autists

>full rebinding + turbo for every game
there are xinput driver mods that allow you to do that for every game system wide.

>VRR, BFI, and sync to exact framerate
Not an issue with a CRT.

>massive amount of shaders, filters, overlays
don't need that when using a CRT.

>unlimited save states w/ screenshot previews,
you don't need save states, go and play like a real man.

>rollback netplay
if I wanted to play online I'd be playing some random AAA fighter on steam.

>50+ hotkeys
Of which you need to use 2 maybe 3 total.

>Retro achievements
video games are for having fun, not to get a 1000+ gamerscore

>some cores more up-to-date than standalone or don't even exist as standalone
that doesn't really matter.

>set any custom aspect ratio, refresh rate, rotation
I can just use the original ones with a CRT.

>recording/screenshots/streaming
every gpu driver has that built in nowadays

>input recording/playback for every core
this only matters to TAS fags

>MAME core has save state support, rewind, & run-ahead for ALL games
MAME can't even run all games I want to play, so what is the use of that?

fucking yawn.

[Anonymous No.10311294]

>>10306292
Then use retroarch for those.
>>10306286
Lazy as shit, especially when switching computers. I keep standalones for romsets and retroarch for one offs.

[Anonymous No.10311482]

>>10309782
I still have a version I downloaded in late 2000.
Was so good back then to be able to emulate PS1.

[Anonymous No.10311552]

>>10306325
4DO exists

[Anonymous No.10311601]

>>10311552
Yeah, and the only active version of it is the libretro core.

[Anonymous No.10311664]

>>10306445
Good post, anon

[Anonymous No.10311681]

>>10310832
I just check the emulation general wiki and use what they recommend.

[Anonymous No.10312704]

>>10308116
autism

[Anonymous No.10312708]

>>10306286
>zsnes and not snes9x

[Anonymous No.10312736]

>>10308156
Did RetroArch ever make it so that pressing Esc brings up a menu instead of exiting to the desktop?

[Anonymous No.10312737]

>>10311051
I've always hated that about RetroArch.

[Anonymous No.10312805]

>>10306286
>i can just use my desktop
My desktop has 2 running hard disk that are getting old plus noisy fans, if i want to play some emulated games i prefer a chink handheld/just my phone/my new 2DSXL that has no running parts and need a battery change at most

[Anonymous No.10312951]

>>10312736
You can rebind it so it does so.

[Anonymous No.10313287]

>>10312951
True. Wish it were that way by default, because their default is ass backwards.

[Anonymous No.10313731]

>>10306286

The front end of aspect of Retroarch is probably the least important reason why you should use it. Low input lag and shaders are the main reasons

[Anonymous No.10313761]

>>10306286
I find it a pain to setup 6-button controllers on this, it's clearly made with a diamong layout in mind, still good software I recommend, but its the one part about it that really sucks for me...

[Anonymous No.10313847]

>>10312805
>My desktop has 2 running hard disk that are getting old plus noisy fans,

You bought a crap computer. My desktop is silent enough that I can sleep with it running in the room, it has 6 drives and something like 7 fans in it (if I count the PSU and GPU ones too). Plus nowadays you can get mini PCs that run fanless and are strong enough to run every emulator fine.

[Anonymous No.10313959]

>>10306286
>nesticle in 2023
Nice fucking larp
seriously though retroarch is shit software fuck everyone who uses it.

[Anonymous No.10313978]

>>10313847
Well, it's 5 years old, it's not new anon. I guess you are right about mini pcs and i have a raspberry PI if i wanted to play games on it

[Anonymous No.10314020]

>>10313959
>seriously though retroarch is shit software fuck everyone who uses it.
why so much hate against people that use it? it works well enough.

[Anonymous No.10314030]

>>10314020
This. Once fully configured to your liking, RetroArch becomes maximum comfy.

[Anonymous No.10314046]

>>10314030
>RetroArch becomes maximum comfy.
As someone that loved the XMB back in the PS3 days, before Sony ditched it, RetroArch is a joy to navigate in... I don't get why so many hate its UI, I guess it can be confusing to have tons of options and things to tinker, but you don't have to do it, I can simply download RetroArch, some cores, put up a few ROMs and play, but for those that want to tinker, the settings are there... and when the time comes when you're satisfied with how you set it up, UI, shaders, ROMs, controls, etc... it's a joy to open it up and start playing, I also love how they added cozy music to the XMB, just like PS3.

[Anonymous No.10314105]

If you sit at your desk with constant access to keyboard and mouse while you emulate, you can do anything you want. I find retroarch and other front ends particularly useful for couch play using a controller. Launchbox does kinds help me pick out games at random since I have gameplay videos and screenshots downloaded, but I think that's a separate issue.

[Anonymous No.10315182]

>>10314046
Yeah, the biggest problem with RetroArch is the confusing UI.
What I found that really helps though is to go to the settings and just disable the visibility of every setting to the bare minimum, slowly enabling the visibility of any settings that you may need along the way.
What also helps is to change the menu style to the one similar to the Nintendo Switch UI. The PS3 menu style tends to confuse people more.

[Anonymous No.10315206]

>i am to 100% offended at this little software i will never use and have to express my opinion about it on a board full with strangers

[Anonymous No.10315424]

>>10310258
>retroachievements and Discord integration
i get it, you have to include a reaction picture because nobody will ever take you seriously

[Anonymous No.10315676]

>>10315182
>the biggest problem with RetroArch is the confusing UI.
>disable the visibility of every setting to the bare minimum
>PS3 menu style tends to confuse people more.
ill never get this, its not rocket science, its a menu that should take few seconds to figure out for anyone smarter than a monkey, whats with this meme of it being hard and confusing, if you dont want the option, if you dont want to tinker, all you have to do is ignore it, and if you do want to tinker, its good to have the options you want.

[Anonymous No.10315692]

>>10306290
your mom likes it messy

[Anonymous No.10315756]

>>10308996
>But PCSX2 and Dolphin are just not good on RA
neither is swanstation which is an inferior version of duckstation, and those 3 are what i currently play the most, I only have RA installed for megadrive games right now

[Anonymous No.10316617]

>>10315676
The extra options in general make everything feel cluttered and take longer to navigate. A lot of stuff the average player will never touch.
But at least they give you the option tp hide those menu items.

[Anonymous No.10316856]

>>10315756

PS1 RA cores are more than sufficient.

[Anonymous No.10316998]

>>10311253
This option is also in the mGBA settings. It looked like one of dumbest things to implement.

[Anonymous No.10317005]

>>10306286
it's nice once you get it set up but the cover system is obnoxiously retarded
>your file is named slightly differently
>okay now rename hundreds of roms

[Anonymous No.10317048]

>>10306642
>on a board about playing games
>proudly states that he won't play games when the option is there

god

[Anonymous No.10317149]

>>10306286
For me I'd rather it be like this in terms of emulation of home consoles and handheld systems:
Atari 2600: Stella
Atari 5200: Altirra
Atari Lynx: Handy
Game Gear: Kega or Ares
Colecovision: CoolCV or Bizhawk
NES/Famicom: NESten and Nestopia
SNES/SFC: Either Higan or preferably, SNES9X
Sega Mark III/Master System: Kega Fusion, Bizhawk, Ares, or Smsplus
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive: Kegan Fusion or Gensplus
3DO: 4DO and Phoenix
NEC PC engine: Nitrografx or Ootake
PS1: Duckstation or Beetle
N64: MUPEN64 +
Sega Saturn: SSF or Mednafen
GBC: kigb and BGB
Dreamcast: Flycast
GameCube: Dolphin
Xbox Original: Xemu or cxbx-reloaded
PS2: Psx2

[Anonymous No.10317262]

>>10311253
>implying discord users are using their time wisely

[Anonymous No.10317301]

>>10307495
Sorry, I've never been an english teacher in my life. I don't know why you feel the obsessive need to imagine I am. I suppose insecurity of some kind?

[Anonymous No.10317535]

>>10316856
for you

[Anonymous No.10318841]

>>10317149
Or you could just use RetroArch and have most of these in the same place with universal settings among them...

[Anonymous No.10318959]

>>10310258
>VBA-M
Retrotards are disgusting subhumans for even considering VBA-M. Luddites, the lot of them.

[Anonymous No.10320412]

>>10315206
I don't get why RetroArch causes so much seething...

[Anonymous No.10320570]

>>10306286
People who use shit like RetroArch or whatever just spend more time jacking themselves off about their configs/frontends/whatever than actually playing the games on them. Unless you're trying to emulate something whose only good emulator was last updated in 1997 and only runs on Windows ME or something, it'll probably have a good enough input system, and most emulators nowadays come with a few good enough shaders. And if they don't, you could always use something like Shaderglass, which can apply almost any RetroArch shader you fancy to nearly anything.
I can't stand it when emulators come with really obnoxious fancy shit. All I want is a Win32 window with 1. the fucking game on it and 2. maybe a menu bar or something. I don't really mind game selection menus like the one in Dolphin, though, since at least it's normal-sized and respects your system theme.

[Anonymous No.10320992]

>>10309785
It has a bone in it, it's a hand.

[Anonymous No.10321076]

>>10306352
It's funny, who gives a shit

[Anonymous No.10323160]

>>10307456
That's pretty clever. I need to look into that.

[Anonymous No.10324430]

>>10306286
Well, it depends... would you prefer to have all of your emulators in one place so you can quickly switch from one ROM set to another in the same menu? Or perhaps you'd like to have universal settings across all of your emulators while only setting them up once for all of them? Maybe you just want a vast selection of shaders for all of your libraries? If any of these sounds interesting to you, then by all means give RetroArch a try, it has all of this and can be quite convenient for it.

Now, there are some details... the UI is not a fan favorite, I personally think it's fine, especially the XMB since I loved PS3, but for many the UI, any of the options for it, aren't intuitive or good for desktop use, also too many options can be quite overwhelming for many, I personally don't mind, even prefer it, but if you don't, there's a menu that allows you to choose which options appear, and which don't. After that just download your cores, maybe some BIOS, and scan your ROMs.

[Anonymous No.10324976]

>>10306286
Whatever you want to do noggie

[Anonymous No.10326056]

>>10307456
>AI translation tool that translates the Japanese text on the game screen directly with the press of a button
Wait... that's a thing? HOW DO YOU USE IT?

[Anonymous No.10327107]

I don't get the hate RetroArch often encounters here... I mean, it's a software with an idea, being this single solution for all of one's retro needs, I think it achieves that quite well, having cores of most emulators that are widely well received in every console, a bunch of settings you only have to set once and it can work for all ROMs of all of your different emulated consoles, customization is excellent and you can make everything how it feels ideal to you, quickly go from one console's ROM to another completely different library in seconds... if you don't like it, just don't use it...

[Anonymous No.10327250]

>>10308000
>Good luck anon
Took me a bit but I figured it out. OpenMSX is nice. Time for some muhfuggin ASHGUINE.

[Anonymous No.10327486]

>>10327250
This AshGuine 2, and it sucks. The first was an awful sidescroller. It's like they did a reverse Zelda, except the Zelda games are good.

[Anonymous No.10328453]

>>10327486
Yeah, I played it for about an hour and left it at that. Pretty stylish, but no substance. And the first game is just like Simon's Quest if it demanded you grind on every screen. Third one's not very impression either. Funny that all 3 were made by different dev teams, with the third one by Microcabin, the guys behind Xak, Fray, Dragon Master Silk, the PC98 Dragon Half game.

The effort to get this shit set up didn't really feel worth it in general. I've heard MSX has the "best" version of some early japanese games (I forget which) but overall the library feels pretty underwhelming to me.

[Anonymous No.10328456]

>>10307785
this might be the first time i've seen weaboo used correctly in at least ten years, jesus fucking christ

[Anonymous No.10328509]

>>10327107
you just play the little mermaid that's why you have no objections

[Anonymous No.10328526]

>>10328509
Ah, most Little Mermaid titles are surprisingly decent, so I've played a few, but I play a ton of stuff besides it. I'm not saying I have nothing I dislike about RetroArch, just saying that I see tons of hate for it that doesn't feel deserved.