Lordmonkus

The one big advantage stand alone Mednafen Saturn has over Retroarch right now is the analog controller support which shouldn't be too much longer coming into the RA core.

Now that's weird. Are you running some sort of AHK script that hits alt + enter or something ?

But it isn't any more complicated than any other system that requires a bios file like TG16-CD, Sega CDor Playstation. Drop your bios in the right folder and you're good to go. If it isn't working then you have bad dumps, wrong bios or bios in the wrong place, just like any other CD based system. Yabause supports fewer games and it plays less games correctly, Darius Gaiden for example has no sound effects. SSF requires the same bios and mounting of disk images which is more work. You will be waiting an awful long time for something more simple to come along.

Indeed, if it wasn't for his video I wouldn't have even touched the Amiga emulation.

Sonic 3D Blast works fine in Mednafen for me, both stand alone and Retroarch core. Better on the stand alone with analog controls though.

Yeah the hardware PS core is much further along. Hopefully Cen64 comes along a bit quicker soon and maybe that will be a better N64 emulator.

If you are willing to spend a little bit of money I would recommend buying a PS3. You can get used games cheap and they are fairly easy to find. I have one and I love it. It's the only modern console I actually own.

Oh shit, I totally forgot about that part. Not sure if there is another way to fix your flashlight at all.

Right, v-sync off isn't terrible, there is some tearing but nothing even close to what is displayed in your video. If you want to see a perfect example of what I am talking about in Mame load up Samurai Shodown 2 and at the character selection screen look at the shadows beneath the characters. With v-sync off they should flicker at a constant rate giving a good illusion of transparency. The turn on v-sync and load up the game again and look at the shadows. They will flicker inconsistently giving an awful look. NeoGeo games run several Hz under 60 and with v-sync on you are forcing the game to run @ 60 Hz which is too fast.

Use the dev build, not the stable. orac31 was using the dev. When I followed his guide I made the mistake of using the stable as well, made the switch to the dev build and it works perfectly.

For N64 the Retroarch cores aren't as good as the stand alone options. Mupen64plus and Project64 are both better than the RA Mupen core and the new paraLLeL Vulkan core. But N64 emulation is a finicky sumbitch either way you slice it. I set up each game for a different emulator because none of the options is a viable option for everything. For Saturn if you aren't playing anything that uses the analog controller then Retroarch is the better choice but it does not support the analog controller yet. Shaders will definitely be a personal preference deal. As Brad stated he doesn't like scan line shaders and I absolutely love them. There's a pile of other options in RA as well like the xBR shaders which try and round everything which I think looks good on certain types of games like Yoshis Island on the SNES but in a game like Chrono Trigger it looks like a steaming turd. No matter what your preference is in shaders Retroarch will have something for you.

Atari 2600 and 7800 NES, SNES, GBA Genesis, 32x, Sega CD, Master System, Saturn Playstation could go either way. Personally I cannot stand 3D polygon games of that era so my PS collection is 98% sprite games so I use Retroarch. ePSXe 2.x however is a perfectly viable option and you can save individual game configs easily so you can use Petes OpenGL and upscale the resolution for 3D games and use the standard GPU core for 2D games with Lottes shader. Edit: The NES is one emulator where you could use a stand alone like puNES, Mesen, or stand alone Mednafen because they are all slightly higher rated in accuracy than the Nestopia and Fceumm cores but the differences are extremely small. The reasoning for this is that there are a ton of custom mapper chips used in many games and no emulator to date emulates all of them. No NES emulators at all can properly run the Tengen version of Ms Pac-Man yet.

Well looking at your list of platforms you posted you have quite a few 2D 16 and 32 bit systems so I would still setup Retroarch for those.

Dreamcast, N64 and PSP are all better emulated through through the stand alone emulators. Mame is equal in terms of quality but stand alone is better for other reasons. When it comes to 3D era systems and more specifically 3D polygonal games stand alone emulators with upscaling they will look better. When it comes to 2D sprite based games very few stand alone emulators can match Retroarchs shader options to find the exact look your prefer. There are some standalones such as puNES that support Retroarchs shaders but most do not, they may have their own built in generic shit scanline options or some basic filters but they don't even come close to what RA can do.

Config > Video > Check Start in Fullscreen

There is quite a lot of leeway with rom version and Mame version. It doesn't necessarily have to be exact. I have stated in previous threads that I use a 151 rom set with a 174 version of Mame without issues. Mess isn't all that bad once you wrap your head around the way it works but I found it easier to set a stand alone version than trying to use Mame. With the stand alone just dump the necessary bios files in the \roms folder in Mess. Make sure your mess.ini rompath is set to where your actual game roms are and then it's a case of the correct command switches which varies from system to system. Brads screenshot above really shows off the main stuff.

Quoting this for the truth. Avoid the Retroarch Mess core and use either Mame or a separate Mess install. I use a separate Mess install just to keep things more organized and simplified and avoid any possible headaches and damaging my Mame setup.

Yeah just go with it off and live with the relatively less obnoxious tearing and enjoy the benefits of less input lag and proper speed Mame emulation.

Ouch, that really is awful. That's with v-sync on ? If so then from what I remember about v-sync off you are much better with it off. That really is unfortunate that it is a video card issue. Hopefully it is something that can be fixed with a driver update.

Are you getting tearing with v-sync on ? What I always used to do and still do to a certain point is in my Nvidia Control Panel I set most everything to app controlled rather than blanket control it with the control panel. Then in Retroarch turn on V-Sync and Hard GPU Sync and set the frame delay a few frames, 4-6.

Personally I just turned off V-Sync and dealt with the screen tearing which wasn't all that bad. It is a trade off though. With it off you get less input lag and Mame just runs better because you aren't forcing games to run at 60 frames per second instead of their natural refresh which varies from game to game. One other option and it isn't cheap is to buy a G-Sync monitor. I bought one and absolutely love it. Best 1000$ I even spent on any single item for my computer.

That's up to you. Personally I wouldn't bother with a full set. There are maybe 3 or 4 exclusive games like Crossed Swords 2 and a yet to be english translated Samurai Shodown RPG. Other than that though a few games did have some minor changes. Here is a web page with a list of games and differences. http://www.gamefaqs.com/neogeocd/916662-neo-geo-cd/faqs/51773

Yeah, same game.

Are you using the UI version of Mess ? I know @Zombeaverhad this issue and he figured out how to hide it but I can't remember how he did it. I just use the command line version.

Yeah if you look past the glut of fighting games on the system there are a few really good hidden gems in there. Ganryu is one of my favourites, kind of a Shinobi style ninja game but more platforming. Last Resort gets a lot of flak for being an R-Type ripoff but I personally like it better.