Lordmonkus

Just a word of warning to anyone using an older build of Retroarch and thinking of making the upgrade to 1.3.4. Do not overwrite your older working version. Make a new folder for 1.3.4 and play around with it before hand. I have been messing around with 1.3.4 now for the last couple of hours and it has some bugs in it that for me make it near unusable as it sits right now. I am not saying the build is a total mess, I am only saying be very careful with it. The CG_Shaders menu is broken, as well as CG_Shaders loading in general though it can be somewhat worked around. They changed where it stores the games save files by default so if you load a game expecting your save file to be there it may not be. I have my older version set to store the save files in the same folder as the game itself and this newer version wants to store them in the saves folder in the RA install folder. Have not figured out yet how to get it back to the way I want it. Still gonna work on things some more to see if I can sort out some of these issues.

Yeah it's not quite done yet but it is close enough for now at least. Then again I don't think anything involving emulation is truly ever done, lol. On a side note for anyone interested there is a great sub forum over there for GrooveyMame which I highly recommend as the Mame build of choice. It's mainly designed for people running proper CRT displays but there are also enhancements in it that even modern non CRT display users can take advantage. It's the Mame I use in my Launchbox setup and I love it. If you are using a dedicated setup for your Mame you cannot go wrong with GroovyMame + Asio4all sound drivers. 0.1 millisecond audio latency is just plain awesome.

For possible no sound fix look in the Driver menu and change the audio setting. It should be Xaudio but you may or may not need something else. Also look in the Audio menu and make sure Audio Enable is set to "On", Audio Mute is set to "Off" and the Audio Volume Level (dB) is set to 0.0 which is the proper volume, you may have set it to a negative value at some point. For possible speed fix enable Vsync in the Video settings, this isn't an ideal fix however and should only be enabled if you have really bad screen tearing. You can also go into the Frame Throttle menu and set Maximum Run Speed to 1.0x, also turn Throttle Menu Framerate to "On" otherwise your Retroarch menu could be too fast. This may or may not work. I know I have had this issue of games running super fast before but I cannot remember how I fixed it. If these don't fix your issues you can try the Retroarch forums, they are generally very helpful and friendly.

First off let me state that this is not my list / lists at all. I am merely posting this to direct people to some very good and time consuming work done by someone else. I have been following this series of posts over on the arcadecontrols.com forums for a while and it's now to a point that it's near completion enough to point some people new to Mame and all the great arcade games. Basically a guy over there has been polling and compiling a list of each type of game into the best games that are actually worth playing without all the chaff that really isn't that good. So if you are looking at putting together a streamlined playlist of games without going through each and every game yourself to see what you like and don't like head on over to the thread http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149708.msg1563036.html#msg1563036. He has included batch files to copy out the necessary roms from your collection but they may or may not work with your exact sets so be careful and read his info over there. It's at least a good starting point for people who are maybe new to the arcade classics and want a good guide on what to check out.

They will still be in tact. Launchbox is only a front end for launching the games. You still need to configure each emulator on it's own. You are good to go the way you want.

Tinkering is also just going to be a big part of emulation setup though unfortunately. This is avoidable because everyone is using a different computer to run stuff, different controllers, different monitors and then of course everyone has different tastes in how they want their games to look and how and how to access them. There is no easy one size fits all solution unless you get into something like the Raspberry Pi and RetroPie / Emulation Station. You can go overboard with the tinkering though and I am very guilty of it but I also enjoy tinkering with computer stuff. As soon as I finish one tinker project I am looking for my next one.

If you are looking to download a big Mame rom pack you need to make sure it is for a version of Mame that matches close to the version of Mame you are using. It does not need to be perfectly matching but you should be really close. For example I use a Mame pack for version 154 I think it is but Mame is now up to 171 or 172 (can't remember). All my roms still work fine. But if the Mame pack is significantly older a lot of games won't work.

DiegoBRRSPF said Hello guys! First of all, I have no intentions to offend anyone And, additionally, I must praise all the (really) incredible work the shader's creators have done for the emulation community (and happy users around the globe). But I saw this thread and wanted to give my contribution... Some months ago, I was struggling daily with my head in order to find "the perfect shader for my taste". I spent much (but think "much") hours testing, trying, thinking etc. about the really nice effects the available shaders give to us, the much better images they generate. And in the (very) few moments I PLAYED the games (well, it should be the priority ) I always had that feeling of "well, but this game will be EVEN better with THAT shader", and here I go... So, at some point I just realize: I'm just testing things, and completely forgot the MAIN reason I spend time with this: to play and have fun. So, I just leave behind all my shaders tests and now just play with the "natural resources" - of course, if we can set a higher internal resolution, it's quite fine Again, it's just a matter of taste and this is just mine. I don't want to disencourage anyone to don't use the shaders. My point is remember that the main goal is to play and have a great time with our beloved games. My best wishes for everyone. You are absolutely 100% correct. Testing things can get way out of hand and you end up spending more time tinkering that actually playing. Internal resolution bumps do help with 3D polygon games but it really does nothing for the 2D sprite based games. Finding the right shader can a royal pain in the ass especially when you find one you really like but you can't actually use it because your system just cannot handle it. I ran into that problem on my laptop. I don't want to recreate the old crappy TV from the 80s, I want to create the best balance of the newer high resolution while maintaining an older retro feel with out destroying the original artwork and that is why I settled on the CRT-Royale Kurozumi edit. Once I settled on this shader all is right with the worls Here's a screenshot of Pier Solar @1440 using CRT-Royale Kurozumi edit. View it as big as possible to see the full effect.

I wouldn't necessarily say RocketLauncher is difficult as much as it is overwhelming with all the different tabs and menus. It's just crazy how much stuff there is in it. Once you spend a few minutes wrapping your head around it all it sort of starts to make more sense. It's a very deep program but to do all that it does it has to be.

There's only one option, find a new job

I only use it to mount and unmount my Saturn disk images. I don't really xpadder extensively. Figured it would be possible though to use the additional apps for it though.

Just out of curiosity but is it possible to load an xpadder profile using the "Additional Apps" feature within LB ?

I would say start small with the games you really want to play and get the emulators for each system up and running and then add to it from there. Easy to play test the roms to make sure they work until you feel comfortable with where you get your games and then you do the large quantities.

Oh geez this is not a simple answer at all. Are you looking at using a CRT or a modern display ? What kind of budget are you thinking of ? If you are thinking about a CRT then you are correct resolution does not matter. If you are on a tight lower end budget (a couple hundred bucks at most) then you are basically going to be getting 1080 at 27". Now comes the more complicated part of what I will tell you. Every thing I say after this pertains to buying a modern LCD type display. I will say first, I highly recommend doing some research and at least get a monitor with the lowest input lag as possible. It will make a difference in reactionary games such as Street Fighter. High input lag will make pulling off combos difficult. If you are going to 27" look for something that will do at least 1440 (4K is better) resolution. It will make the GLSL shaders look way better than 1080. If you can afford it and you are willing to drop the cash on it I would recommend going with a G-Sync or Freesync monitor (determined by your graphics card and support). This makes a huge difference in the quality of emulation and I will explain why. ***WARNING: TECH CRAP INCOMING*** Many older arcade games do not run at the same speeds. When you load a game and you see that first screen with the game info about resolution and HZ that tells you how fast the game actually runs at. Many games do not run at 60 HZ, they usually run slower. Now you could tell the emulator to sync the game to the display but you will end up making the game run too fast. The side effects of this range from so minor they don't matter to making certain games acting funky. The other side effect of this is input lag and in fast action arcade games it sucks. You can turn off the sync and let the game run at its natural speed which is preferred but you now end up with screen tearing. So the trade off of tearing vs input lag is going to be a personal choice matter. I would take the tearing over input lag myself but that's me. The beauty of a *Sync tech monitor is that you sync the monitor to the game which in turn removes the tearing and input lag and runs the game at the proper speed. I recently purchased an Asus ROG 27" G-Sync @ 1440 resolution monitor and while it was not a cheap purchase it makes emulation amazing. Mame runs incredible, the high resolution makes Lottes CRT shader look great. The low input lag makes fighting games feel like playing on a CRT. The scrolling of faster paced shooters is just buttery smooth. It really is a true joy after playing on a a generic 1080 @ 60 HZ monitor. It's one of those things that you don't think would matter but it really makes a huge difference once you experience. For me it was a thousand bucks after taxes worth the price of admission. OR You can just buy a video card that outputs to VGA and get a CRT TV with VGA input and not worry about all of that. But now you have a monstrosity of a CRT. Damnit, this got long winded. Sorry I guess it all boils down to what your budget and requirements are. Tight budget / just want it to run = get what's in your price range. Mid budget but want something without breaking the bank = get something that does 1440 and low input lag. High budget and you want the best experience = 1440 or 4K resolution with G-Sync or Freesync based your video card.

I don't use it but I know there are some people who do. It does have some benefits like the loading and pause screens, the xpadder profiles like you mentioned and you can switch frontends with little hassle. If those are features you want then it's a great idea. Personally I just don't need those features so I don't bother with it.

I know it's not a good answer but a lot of the older computer emulation requires some set up of keyboard type of stuff. Sometimes that is binding some key to emulate a key or sometimes the implementation of an on-screen virtual keyboard. My best guess as to what is happening is that it is waiting for some sort of of confirmation to continue so maybe it wants you to press "Enter" either on your keyboard or through a button bind. Check in the menu in Mame when you press Tab and see if there are some bindings for things in there. Console emulation is generally fairly straight forward when it comes to controls since they were really simplistic. When you get into the computer (especially older computer) side of things it gets to be a real mess. Every computer system had their own way of doing things since there was no rule book of the best way to do things. Things also varied from system to system based on the type of media, cartridges, floppy disks and cassettes were all common on these older systems. You really are diving into the deep end of emulation now when it comes to systems like the TRS-80. Most people just don't care enough about it so you have a much smaller knowledge pool to pull from on how to get it all working.

Lol, the TRS-80 = Trash-80. Not my name for it. That's a name it was given when it was new. I remember as a kid my uncle who was into computers calling it that and I heard that term for it many times since then too.

Here is a raw PNG screen shot what it looks like with the CRT-Royale (Kurozumi Edit) shader. View it in its full 1440 resoluion if possible to get the full effect and not have the scanlines looking funky.

There is 3 styles of graphics choices they put it. A pure 16-bit, a hybrid of 16-bit and HD and then there is an HD+ but it's just the hybrid but with an extra smoothing shader over it. All 3 look like ass to me compared to the 16-bit + CRT-Royale shader. Personal preference thing.

No problem.

Tools > Manage Emulators and make sure you have PPSSPP in there as an emulator. Then in your PSP Platform select all games with Control + A. Right click any of the games and select Edit, that will bring up the bulk editor. Click next, then in the drop down menu select Emulator. Then in the drop down menu that appears select the PSP emulator and not Retroarch. Then finish out the bulk edit and you should be good to go.

I agree you should buy it. I have the PC version but I honestly hate the way they mixed the high rez graphics with the 16bit graphics. To me the best look overall is through Retroarch with the CRT-Royale shader, it really looks the best this way.

Hehe yeah when I first started using Retroarch with version 1.2 I had troubles with my bios and the folder being set right in the Directories settings. By the time I got to 1.3 and got used to setting everything up I was able to just dump my bios right in the /system folder and its been good since. Glad you got it sorted out. On a side note I was reminded of one extra small but cool reason to use the Genesis GX core for Sega CD games. Keep in mind this is a very situational reason but it is one none the less. The game Pier Solar is a game that utilizes both cartridge and CD, it runs the game from the cart but plays music off the CD and Retroarch is the only emulator that will replicate this functionality. Like I said very much a situational since as far as I know it is the only game to have this feature.

Bios are not optional for Sega CD in Retroarch (or any other Sega CD emu that I know of) and he is running into the problem when just loading the game through RA itself and not Launchbox. (At least that's how I am interpreting what he is saying so far. It's always possible I am mis-reading). It's one of 4 things at this point. Bad bios, bad cd image, incorrect setup in RA, or a corrupted RA core cfg file. I have seen the cfg files get corrupted and cause crashes before. I have had them happen to me when I was learning to setup RA and had it happen to a friend while helping him and deleting the cfg file and letting RA create a new one has fixed it.

Ok then it is either the bios file or the cd image. I think I know what bios files you are using and if it is I know for a fact that bios file is correct and named correctly. The bios files are not in a zip file correct ? They are out loose in your Retroarch/system folder ? Something else to try is go into the Retroarch/config folder and delete the genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll.cfg file. I have noticed sometimes something can go all funky while setting up RA the first go arounds and causes a core to crash on game load and deleting the cfg and recreating a new one fixes it.