Part 4 - Quick Menu, Core Options and Cores
This will be the last part of the guide barring some unforeseen circumstances and if something comes up I will either edit previous parts of the guide or I will make some notes here of if I need to I will make a part 5.
The Quick Menu is a wonderful feature of Retroarch. This menu is accessed by pressing the F1 key on your keyboard, the XBox button on and XBox controller or if you are using a Playstation controller the PS button. This is also the same place you loaded shaders above in the last part of this guide. In the Quick Menu you can manage save states, take screenshots, manage disks for multi disk games and modify your controller settings.
Most cores have their own "Core Options" or "Settings". These will be very specific settings to that system and not apply to other cores. To access these "Core Options" when you have a game loaded for a specific system access the Retroarch Quick Menu and go to the "Options" entry. This menu will look different for every system and some may not have anything in here and since we have been using the Genesis GX core all this time here is the Core Options for the Genesis GX core.
There are a lot of cores to choose from in Retroarch and which ones you use are up to you and your needs and what your system is capable of. Different cores for the same system can have different system requirements, the SNES is an example of this. While BSnes-Accuracy is hands down the best core in terms of quality and compatibility it requires a 3 GHz CPU to fully take advantage of while the Snes9x core on the other hand has much lower system requirements but you won't be able to play 100% of all the games. The BSnes-Balanced core is a good middle ground. Then of course there is the issue of bios files, BSnes-Balanced and Accuracy both require special chip dumps from certain games to play them the BSnes-Mercury series of cores does not need these extra chip dumps. You can use them if you want to but you do not need them since the core is able to emulate them on a high level.
Obviously I cannot tell you what cores you should use, you will have to decide that based on your needs and system but I will give you my recommended cores.
Arcade - FB Alpha (without the year)though if you have an older rom set the older ones may be better for you. This core is very good for Capcom and NeoGeo games and I wouldn't try and dissuade anyone from using it but I prefer the stand alone version of Mame.
Arcade - Mame same as above, use the core with no year unless you have an older rom set that need it. I also prefer stand alone Mame over Retroarch.
Atari 2600 (Stella) and Atari 7800 (ProSystem) - Both are excellent and I use these over stand alone options.
Dreamcast (Reicast) - Just don't use it, it is in very early stages and very buggy, use a stand alone option such as NullDC or Demul preferably.
Gameboy Advance - mGBA is the best core hands down.
NES - Both FCEUmm and Nestopia are excellent and pretty much equal though Nestopia may have a very slight edge in compatibility it also requires an .xml database file for full compatibility.
Nintendo DS - DeSmuME the core isn't bad but overall quality goes to the stand alone, the RA core does however have the ability to use the right analog stick on a controller for the stylus.
Nintendo64 - Use the GLupeN64 core, recent testing has shown this core is really good and a huge improvement over the standard Mupen64 core. It may even be better than the stand alone version of Mupen64 and Project64. Certain games may require some "core settings" tweaks such has Rogue Squadron needing RSP set to LLE and Perfect Dark you need to disable memory packs for all but player 1 controller. N64 emulation has a whole is bit messy but GLupeN64 seems to be in the lead for now.
PC Engine / TurboGrafx 16 / CD - I use the Mednafen SGX core, this one core handles all of it. North American and Japanese hucard and cd games along with the 6 SuperGrafx games. The Mednafen PCE Fast core is perfectly fine as well though it will not do the SuperGrafx games.
Playstation - Mednafen PSX core is the one I use but you can try the Mednafen PSX HW one if you like. It isn't quite as well developed but is getting better all the time and handles internal resolution scaling on a hardware level so it's faster.
PSP - The PPSSPP core isn't bad but there is no reason at all to use it over the stand alone version of PPSSPP.
Sega Genesis / CD / Master System / Game Gear - Easily the best core is the Genesis Plus GX core, it handles all but the 32X and does it with 100% compatibility and practically flawless.
Sega 32X - PicoDrive is your only option if you want to use Retroarch but Fusion is the the better emulator if you want to emulate this system.
Sega Saturn - Mednafen Saturn is your only choice here if you choose to do it through Retroarch. The Yabause core isn't even worth looking at, it is no where close in quality. The one downside with the Mednafen core is it still lacks analog controller support and for that the stand alone version of Mednafen is better for games that use the analog stick. However for games that don't use it the RA core is very good, though you may have to turn on Threaded Video to get 100% speed. This is pretty CPU intensive core.
Super Nintendo - Basically you have 3 viable options here and I even talked about it above. Basically I recommend for most people to use the BSnes-Mercury Balanced, this gives you 99% compatibilty and decent system requirements. Use BSnes-Accuracy if you got the CPU to drive it and want 100% game support. If neither of these cores works for you then Snes9x is your best bet and just like the FBA and Mame cores use the one that has no year in the name, those are older cores and serve specific purpose.
Any core I didn't talk about I simply do not use and I am not even remotely qualified to even give an opinion on.
Well I hope this guide can be of some use to people that are new to Retroarch. There is a lot more stuff in Retroarch but to get through all of that stuff would require a whole other "Advanced" guide and probably be about as along as this one was or longer. If someone reading this guide finds any mistakes or wrong information please either leave a message below or message me directly and I will make the necessary edits to correct the errors.
Part 5 - Controllers
This part is a late addition by request and I apologize in advance for this part not being as in depth as the previous sections but because so many people use such a wide variety of controllers and have personal preference it would be impossible for me to cover it all. When setting up your controller if using something that Retroarch detects out of the box such as an XBox 360 controller it should just work automatically and be all setup. However if you need to change settings it may be a little confusing (depending on which version of Retroarch you are using).
The main thing to remember when rebinding controls the left hand side of the screen represents the controller of the system being emulated and its button naming while the right hand side is the controller you have physically plugged into your PC. With an older version of Retroarch like 1.3.6 this will be somewhat confusing until you wrap your head around it. With a newer 1.4.1 build the devs have made some effort to label the buttons on the right hand side to match up with the controller you are physically using, for example if you are using a Playstation controller the right hand side buttons should be labeled like a PS controller with Square, Triangle, Circle and X.
Here is the controller configuration page along with pictures to help you out to understand. https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/retroarch-configuration
