Lordmonkus

Pretty long winded post to essentially state that you don't really have a good basic grasp on computers and how to operate them. Now I am not making fun of you or coming down on you for that but emulation is something where you really do need the basics of computer use. You picked out the PS3 emulator which is one of the more problematic and confusing emulators to use and because of it's disk image format it makes it a real pain to import into LB but nearly all other emulators and rom sets are quite easy to use and import. Another issue and not one that is your fault is the fact that while emulators themselves are legal the roms and bios that are required for emulators to function are not so naturally those cannot be provided by Launchbox. Those are always on the end user to supply themselves and this is true for any emulation software or frontend. ETA Primes videos are generally pretty spot on with the information required to get the emulators up and running through Launchbox. Maybe some of the older tutorials are out of date, I have no idea. At the same time though some information he may leave out could be some basic computer knowledge which is tough to add into a video because we can't be teaching people basic computer usage in the same video as adding an emulator to Launchbox. If you feel that Launchbox is difficult to use you really should try some of the other options out there such as HyperSpin, AttractMode, Playnite or even a Raspberry Pi image. None of them provide roms or bios and only a Raspberry Pi image will provide the emulators but what that will emulate is very limited in comparison. Now, you could look around the internet for someone elses pre-made setup but those are highly illegal and we will not provide support for them. Or worse yet you could throw your money away on a pre-loaded hard drive which is even more illegal and very unlikely to even work. If you are having troubles please post here on the forums with any questions or hit us up on Discord. Remember though the first thing you should always do is make sure that your games are working in the emulator first before importing to Launchbox. It makes helping troubleshoot issues much easier. We also have a thread with links to written tutorials which should all still be relevant information:

Yes, I saw but still zero details given beyond "it doesn't work", that is never helpful.

Well when you provide zero details it makes it impossible to actually try and help you.

No they aren't. Or at least not any more different than the differences in various consumer CRTs. The only really different arcade CRTs would be the vector CRTs used in games like Asteroids and Tempest. They may have been slightly higher quality and built for 1000s of hours of usage but the tech itself is identical. You keep asking the same question over and over, which is asking what shader is the most accurate or what settings to tweak and the answer is always the same thing. CRT TVs have a wide variety of looks and there is no "most accurate". Also, how a shader looks is very dependent upon the display you are using, TN vs IPS vs OLED panel, 1080p vs 4K, brightness and contrast levels, it all has an impact on impact on how the shader is shown. There are quite simply way to many variables to give you a good answer beyond what has been said already, try the different shaders out until you find one you feel is correct for you. You can also head over to the Retroarch forums and look around the various shader threads there, people have posted many screenshots and some have even posted custom settings. Maybe you will find something there that you like. I have already given you my choice shader, crt-guest-dr-venom.

lol no, even with that info we cant help you

How do we know what shader you need to replicate the exact CRT that was in a Gauntlet Legends cabinet ? We don't have the actual cabinet and CRT to do a side by side comparison to tell you the exact settings.

You aren't listening, there is no most accurate. So many TVs and so many evolutions of the tech means there are just so many different possible looks. Yeah, you can dial a shader into a very specific make, model and year of a CRT TV but that is only accurate to that specific TV and none of the others. Try the different shaders out til you find one you like and you think looks authentic. A 1978 General Electric is gonna look different than an 1986 RCA and then a 1992 Sony will look very different again.

It means it is trying to replicate a TV from a different era, we are talking TV tech that changed over a 20-30 year span. Nope, I wouldn't be able to tell you at all. Just go through the different presets in the CRT folder and see which one you like the most. Don't get hung up on what you think is "the most accurate".

It's probably close but I couldn't say for certain, it's been 30+ years since I have even seen a low grade CRT let alone a TV from the late 70s / early 80s. I have a 20" Samsung from the early 2000s that I use for my consoles (2600 using RF, Genesis and N64 using composite) and MiSTer using component and it does not look anything like that shader.

I honestly couldn't recommend a shader based what you are describing what you want because it has been so long since I have messed with shaders that I forget the names of them all. I like the dr-venom shaders personally, a good representation of an upper middle tier consumer grade TV with a good connection. I don't want to replicate the garbage of an RF or composite signal or an old 70s TV. I grew up on those TVs and they were awful.

CRT-Royale is trying to replicate a PVM / BVM, not a consumer grade TV. Again, there is no "most accurate" TVs all looked different, you just have to go through and decide on the look you want and like. There are many shaders replicating all sorts of different styles of CRTs and then on top of that many shaders are tweakable to customize it even more to your taste and the display you are using. A shader that looks great on one modern display may look completely different on another display. You are asking for "what is most accurate" when the answer is "there is no most accurate", only what you want and like. It's subjective. Some people want a pristine high grade consumer grade TV or PVM / BVM while others want to replicate a janky 1970s TV with horrible colours and fuzzy picture and everything else in between the 2 ends of the spectrum. Another thing to consider is how good a TV looked back in the day came down to the video connection, RF, composite, s-video, RGB. RF had a lot of noise in the signal, composite had less but still had some, s-video was a big step up but RGB looked amazing.

Wow, what a first post, a total wall of text but i'll try and answer what I can. 1. Loading times are system dependent, who knows what you got going on but RA doesn't take that long to load for me. 2. Damn, just ask for accurate cores for every single system when a lot of those only have 1 core. We have threads here on the forums with recommended cores and emulators. Retroarch isn't the best at everything though it is for a lot of things. 3. 4:3 is the most accurate aspect ratio of course because that is what old CRT TVs are. I use Core Provided personally and it works great. "Pixel perfect crap" isn't about what the devs intended, it's about having 1:1 aspect ratio on the pixels themselves to prevent shimmering when games scroll. This shimmering is something many people find extremely annoying but generally speaking it is only something that is a problem when not using any shaders, shaders hide the shimmering. 4. Some games are just that way, has nothing to do with the system, it's just how the game was. 5. Same as #4. 6. Bezels / borders are a subjective opinion. What I find good you may not like and vice versa. 7. With a lot of manual tweaking. 8. There is no such thing as "most accurate overlays/borders". This is not something that was in the game, you just use whatever suits your personal taste. 9. There is no such thing as "most accurate crt shader". Every TV was different, some people like the more lower grade consumer TV look while others prefer a more higher end TV look like a Sony Trinitron or even a commercial grade PVM / BVM. Also personal preference. 10. There are some handheld specific shaders, you just have to look through the shaders and find the one you prefer. 11. Same as the previous responses and the reason shaders don't look like how you remember is because shaders are not perfect recreations. A lot of how a shader looks is very much dependent upon the display you are using. Typical monitors and TVs are not capable yet of replicating a CRT TVs look. They are getting better though with 4K and 8K OLED displays. 12. This is true though it can depend on the shader. Some shaders are better suited to non integer scaling, it will adjust the scanlines to they are even but generally speaking you should have integer scaling on. It is a shader by shader thing though. 13. CRT-Royale is designed to look best at 4K and with integer scaling on. Obviously you can use it at lower resolutions but you won't get its full intended look, 1080p just doesn't have the detail required for the shader. 14. Yes, integer scaling on a 1080p display will have a small border at the top and bottom or cut off the image. This is due to how math works, typically these old games are 240 pixels high. If you scale 4x that equals 960 pixels leaving you a border, if you scale 5x that gives you 1200 which pushes the image off the top and bottom edges. Scaling at 4.5 will give you 1080 pixels high but now you end up with uneven pixels. It's all a trade off on a 1080p display, if you want integer scaling and going to the edges of the screen you need either a 1440 or 4k display. 15. Another personal preference and your display question. You set it up to your preference. 16. Depends on the emulator, check its settings.

If you go with an integrated CPU / GPU go with an AMD Ryzen system, Intels integrated graphics is trash. You obviously do not need to get the highest end CPU possible, I only say get the most you are willing to spend on. More CPU power than required doesn't go to waste when you use something like Retroarch or Mame with frame delay. You can dedicate the extra power to higher frame delay setting to reduce input latency.

Good to hear, I have never had an issue with any PS1 games using Mednafen or Duckstation.

There have been many threads about this over the years and the answer is always the same. Get the fastest CPU you can afford, CPU power is the single most important factor when it comes to emulation. Modern Ryzen AMD or Intel are both perfectly fine, pre Ryzen AMD CPUs are not recommended at all. A video card is less important but you should get something reasonably modern. For most emulation it won't have much impact but anything that is 3D and if you upscale the resolution the video card will have an impact. As for storage I would use an SSD for the OS, Launchbox and all the emulators but for all your games a large HDD will be perfectly fine. External drive for game storage shouldn't have much of an impact but I am only relaying what others have said, I have never used an external drive for anything other than backup storage.

Try it in Mednafen or Duckstation, those are both superior emulators to epsxe.

Ah yes, interesting bumps to your thread that no one has an answer to. Retroarch netplay is finicky at the best of times. One time me and a buddy had it working properly one night and the very next night with zero changes and only loading through Retroarch on its own it did not work and nothing we tried would make it work. It's a broken mess and functions when it wants to with no rhyme or reason as to why it does and doesn't work.

Add it in yourself, just type it in when it asks.

Welcome to the forums but first off this is an emulator issue and not a Launchbox issue since Launchbox doesn't have anything to do with the controllers once in the emulator. What you want to do is load up Retroarch and setup your controller and save out a config file. This should now default to that controller whenever you start Retroarch. If your controller is wireless you will want to make sure that it is on before you start Retroarch.

In the audit tool window one of the columns you can sort by is "broken".

Use any set you like but match the rom set to the emulator version. The latest rom sets are super easy to find nowadays since PleasureDome shut down their private tracker and have migrated over to their new github page. A simple Google search for "pleasuredome github" will have the site you want. The sets are now easily gotten without any registration or share ration requirements.

Setting up Mame for it is not that difficult though I would suggest setting up a 2nd install of Mame and entry in LB just to keep things separate and easier to troubleshoot. You will need to have very specific and correct bios for each system you wish to emulate and Mame needs to know where those bios are located but you can put them in the bios folder of the 2nd Mame install. From there you need to set up each command line parameter for each platform and there are a lot of possible systems. You can use this old guide here: Look at the screenshot for examples and the pastebin link for a complete table of possible systems.

The way to make them work takes a lot of extra steps and is extremely annoying. There is a thread somewhere here on the forums. You have to download and setup stand alone Mame and copy over certain folders and files to the Retroarch folder. I have managed to make it work and it simply is not worth the time and effort when stand alone Mame is so much easier.

Don't use Retroarch Mame to emulate console and computer systems, it is a royal pain in the ass and not worth the effort. Use stand alone Mame instead, it is much easier.

Mame does mapping on a General level which is your all purpose mapping and then there is the This Machine which is just that, for that specific hardware. For console and computer emulation in Mame it won't do per game controls.