Lordmonkus

ePSXe is a nice emulator, especially since the 2.0 update. I use it on my lower end PC that isn't fast enough to use Retroarch's Playstation core. I would prefer to use Retroarch but such is life lol.

Does it act that way even when using the default view (the one with the text list down the side)?

I am not sure if ePSXe will load m3u files. I just did a quick test of it and it did not work, no idea if it was something I am doing wrong or not. I don't use ePSXe extensively, I only use it on my other, lower end PC that isn't fast enough to run the Retroarch core for Playstation. For disk management in Rteroarch though if you go into the quick menu with the PS core running you will see near the bottom an entry for Disk Control. In there you can open the tray, change disks and close the tray when the game prompts for the next game disk.

Well unfortunately Amiga emulation beyond the very basics is out of my area of expertise so I am of no use to you. Hopefully Zombeaver pops in and is able to help you out with it.

Paging @Zombeaver He's the man right now for Amiga stuff and just in case you may have missed it he did a tutorial video.

Windows 7 performance for me is fine though even on my relatively crappy spec HTPC, once the images cache in it's fine. The best view to use is the one with the text list of games down the side, the views with more images like the clear logo wheel or the ones with all the box arts is a tad slower but not really a problem once cached.

LOL, yeah no shit, I thought the OP meant emulating the Playstation on Mame. Too many damn variants of Mame out there to keep up with.

Well I am glad it did have some benefit for you, too bad it's not where you were hoping for.

Your settings in Launchbox look right and if the game is loading straight through Retroarch it should work in theory. But I have had very little luck with using the Mame core in RA to run stuff outside of arcade games. I have gotten them to work but using that guide I posted from their forums. I just use stand alone Mess for systems like the Colecovision, it's just so much easier.

If it's working directly through Retroarch for you then you could have something wrong in your emulator command line parameters in Launchbox.

This thread here over on the Retroarch forums is an example of what is needed. While this thread is for the Atari 5200 the very same principles would apply for the Colecovision. https://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5069&highlight=atari+5200

Loading console games through the Mame core in Retroarch is very tricky and not something I recommend. Personally I recommend using stand alone Mess which Brad has done videos for, just not for the Colecovision itself I don't think. It is possible through the Retroarch Mame core but you really have to jump through hoops to make it work. It is not just a simple load rom with the Mame core, there is a lot of specific folder and file creation steps involved.

Some people were reporting over on /r/emulation that they were able to do the 10$ + 20$ upgrade.

Get the Mame core that doesn't have a year after the name, all the ones with years are the older ones and built off of Mame code of that time.

If you got room to work you could probably put something together for a decent price with a micro atx motherboard and an Intel G3258 CPU. Here is a parts list I put together a little while back for a system I would build Intel Pentium G3258 Asus H81M-K or ASRock H81M-HDS LGA 1150 Motherboard G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 EVGA 400W ATX Hard drive and Video card of your choosing. For a video card I would put something with 1 gig of GDDR5 vram in it so it could handle HLSL or BGFX shaders without issues.

Retroarch will give you far more shader and effects options over the stand alone Mame if you are going to use any sort of CRT type of shader. The Retroarch CRT shaders are meant for horizontal oriented games and look bad on vertical ones. But if you aren't using a CRT shader with scanline effects that shouldn't be an issue. If you are looking for the "smoothed" look there are some options in the Retroarch shaders. Personally I cannot stand the smoothed look at all, I much prefer the CRT look. Resolution scaling is not really an option.

No problem.

Check in the controller settings in BigBox mode, they are separate from each other.

Retroarch Mame controls suck because you got the Retroarch controller config and then you got the Mame controller config fighting each other. This is another one of the reasons I really dislike Retroarchs Mame over the stand alone.

Indeed these are very nice looking. I'd classify them as "Digital Box Art" or "Digital Store Box Art" or something along that line for scraping and categorizing.

When it comes to something like a bartop build you have the 3 way tug of war between price, power and size. You can have any of the 2 but you cannot have all 3. If you want cheap you can have small but limited power and lower your expectations. If you want small you can have it cheap or powerful but not both.

Yeah I wouldn't know using Mame itself, I could only get Mess to load stuff outside of arcade games, either way I highly doubt that the emulation quality of the Playstation would be anything worth talking about at this point in time.

If you want to use a PI I would just suggest EmulationStation and keeping your rom selection small and selective. You would also need a very specific Mame romset for it. If you google Mame4all romset you should find it. That would keep things cheap. Otherwise depending on how big the bartop is going to be you might be able to work something in there depending on your budget as well.

So it does load but it's not in anything resembling a usable state.

I haven't tested this out personally but others have said that the Intel Compute Sticks are decent enough for emulating up to 16 bit systems. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883800012&ignorebbr=1 That's the cheapest one with a 1.4 GHz cpu which should be fine depending on which emulators you use. For SNES you will have to stick with Snes9x, it's not fast enough for BSnes at all.