How to add PPSSPP?

[Zombeaver]

Just now, ckp said:

ps1
super nintendo snes
sega cd 
sega 32x 
nintendo entertainment system nes
nec pc engine 

These are all covered under Retroarch, so yes. http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123&p=854&viewfull=1#post854

I'm not sure about Daphne.

[ckp]

I really don't like RetroArch or Rocketlauncher. Currently I'm migrating all my stuff from RL to LaunchBox. 

Ideally I would like to throw out all launchers and Xpadder if possible, but still be able to use both my xbox360 and x-arcade in all my games.

This would mean I only have to use LB and emulators. No other bits and pieces to deal with or worry about. 

It sounds as if this is possible based on what I'm hearing. So, it seems I would probably have to try to set this up in each of my emulators, although I'm not currently sure how easy or hard that will be.

So I'll take ps1 first as my experiment to see if I can get it (ePSXe) to work with both my x-arcade and xbox 360 and no Xpadder. I have MAME working this way already but probably never would have figured it out if not for finding a controller config file for this.

 

[SentaiBrad]

RetroArch is technically a front end to Libretro, but I utilize RA just for the menu's and otherwise don't utilize RA for much else. Think of RetroArch as the emulator, because it is. It's just powered by Libretro underneath. I made the tutorials for users who don't understand RA, and it's actually not all that difficult. In your case, I would actually say RetroArch is the best solution. Not that stand alone emulators can't work in the situation you need them to be in, because they most usually can, but RA makes controls a lot easier. I would give the Beginner SNES Tutorial a watch and see if it's something you can wrap your head around. There is a bit of a hump there, but once you know it, you know it.

 

 

[ckp]

i opened up epsxe emulator and went to config gamepad. i can set 1.directinput (as it currently is) or 2.xinput.  And this way my xbox360 does not work unless I run Xpadder. So, if I choose 2.xinput and configure that one, will that make the 1.directinput setup got away and lose bering able to use my x-arcade?

[ckp]

I didn't want to deal with RA because: 

- I may not want to use the specific emulators and settings it offers for some platforms. 

- I feel that there will always be better stand alone emulators and stand alone video/other configurations than what is included in RA

- I feel like I have a handle on stand alone emulator video/other configs and what they mean, but i'm clueless with RA and don't really want to learn everything in there.

- I don't want yet another layer of abstraction in my setup.

 

[timekills]

6 minutes ago, ckp said:

I didn't want to deal with RA because: 

- I may not want to use the specific emulators and settings it offers for some platforms. 

- I feel that there will always be better stand alone emulators and stand alone video/other configurations than what is included in RA

- I feel like I have a handle on stand alone emulator video/other configs and what they mean, but i'm clueless with RA and don't really want to learn everything in there.

- I don't want yet another layer of abstraction in my setup.

 

This is perhaps a bit off topic, but your point #2 (better stand alone emulators) may be true for a short time, but that's the beauty of RA's cores. Most - definitely most significant - stand alone emulators get a core version in RA. So you're getting the capability of the stand alone with the convenience of a common configuration for controllers, adding visual effects, etc.

[ckp]

I originally looked at RA, but I think it was one of the posters on this thread that told me in his reply: but for emulator x it's probably better to use stand alone x, and for emulator y, it's probably better to use stand alone y, etc. So I just couldn't see the point in RA if I still need to use some stand alone's that the posters were saying would be better than RA. 

Whenever I try a stand alone emulator, I check the video settings because I want the games to look as good as possible (i have a high end gaming pc). It was usually fairly easy for me to know which video settings would give me better looking games at least for some of the settings. In RA, I really have no idea, and if those same shared settings would be equally as good across every single emulator in RA.

My full list of platforms is attached below. These are the ones I want to look the best and have at least some of them work with both x-arcade(keyboard) and xbox 360, but all with xbox360 at a minimum.

My most used platforms out of these are: MAME, Gamecube, Wii, Dreamcast, Saturn, ps1, ps2, psp. 

 

 

[Lordmonkus]

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.

 

[ckp]

yeah i think that's why stand alone is better for me. i seem to like mostly 3D games plus MAME stuff which is better stand alone anyway as you suggest. so it doesn't seem like much benefit for me to work with RA. maybe if i find that i'm playing some 2D games and feel they don't look very good, i'll try RA for it.

I'm not super picky with the very old games and consoles, For example, out of box MAME settings seem fine to me for MAME games. But for MAME I want to try out @lordmonkus Mame HLSL Settings file posted in another thread that i saved just to see the difference.

[Lordmonkus]

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.

[ckp]

From my screenshot, which of those would you suggest i put in RA? i will give it a go. thanks!

[DOS76]

Atari Lynx, NeoGeo Pocket, NeoGeo Pocket Color, Wander Swan, Wonder Swan Color, TurboGrafx 16, TurboGrafx CD, SuperGrafx, PCFX and Virtual Boy are all examples of emulators where the sotand alone is not up to par with RetroArch. These are just hands down examples there are even more debatable ones as to if Gens GX is currently better than Kega and I say yes but Kega is still solid there are enough NES emulators that a few are probably good enough to be better than the RA core but by how much who knows. I remember when these guys were beating me up with just use RA it so much better and I would some time get a little pissy about it because when you don't want to use RA the last thing you want everyone to tell you when you ask for advice is use RA, I understand that the things is though they were right and I was just being stubborn about. So as some one who used to be  in your shoes just learn how to use RA and you will be like oh shit why didn't I just do this to begin with.

[Lordmonkus]

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.

[SentaiBrad]

Someone actually asked about this in another thread: This is how I have everything set up and it is my earnest recommendation for mostly everything. http://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/33264-can-i-get-a-list-please/?do=findComment&comment=202249

 

For 3D systems that RetroArch emulates, I use PPSSPP instead. Everything else on my list doesn't have an RA counterpart (the later stuff). For PS1 and N64, RetroArch is actually on the forefront on changing them up signifigantly. Saturn has the help of Mednafen now, and the Mednafen cores in RetroArch are all completely equal in RetroArch.

In terms of making your games look better, for 2D games I use the Nearest Filter or the Pixellate filter. I personally don't care for the Scanlines. For 3D, I honestly haven't found a super great solution, so it depends on the system.

[Lordmonkus]

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.

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, N64 is a crap shoot all the way around, but efforts are being made. I love the recent PS1 and N64 updates in RetroArch. They're not really usable yet, but promises of a brighter future.

[Lordmonkus]

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.

[ckp]

best i can tell for my list, i will put these guys in RA:

atari 2600, atari 7800, nes, snes, gba, genesis, sega 32x, sega cd, master system

these are not my favorite games and platforms anyway and I doubt I will play much from these ones.

i'll leave saturn with ssa in rocketlauncher for now because it works on my Win10 box as-is and i don't want to mess with it since i hear so many people on the RL site say saturn doesn't work on win10 because of daemon tools lite scsi cd driver install issue. and the couple games i tried with new mednafen didn't work at all for me.

the rest i'll leave with stand alone emulators.

i think that's my plan. so basically i just need to add RA back to my LB and add those platforms and cores to it.

once i do that, @SentaiBrad, which video related setting changes and shader do you think i should make in RA to make me RA list of games look better (i don't care for scan liens either)? i'd like to start off with your suggestion since i just have no idea what to change in RA.

 

[Zombeaver]

ePSXe is okay but it's not as accurate as Mednafen. There are some games that even now just don't work/look quite right, such as Jumping Flash 2. Upscaling is a complete non-issue for me for PSX because while it vastly improves PS2 and even DC games, it typically just looks awful (to my eyes) for PSX games. More often than not it just sucks the life and character out of the visuals and makes it look weird - they're just not designed to be viewed at those kinds of resolutions; more often then not it just makes them look... weird. When you add in shaders on top with Retroarch, it's no contest whatsoever. I'm a PSX nut for the record.

Keep in mind this is coming from someone that, echoing the sentiments of @DOS76, was highly resistant to RA in the beginning. I'd used standalone emulators for years and years and years. I was using ZSNES back in the late 90's. I knew what worked best for what, tweaked and fiddled with them all individually, then tweaked them some more, read message boards, piddled around Zophar's Domain... When I first came across Retroarch it just seemed like this gigantic, impenetrable, non-intuitive, non-user-friendly mess (it could still use some work in this regard, in my opinion). But, I have to tell you, after knuckling down and just using it and figuring out how to use it... it's an absolute godsend. Again, coming from myriad separate emulators, and having tweaked and prodded them all for years... I've ditched almost all of them for RA. There are a few exceptions where you might be better off with something else but by and large, if it's supported in RA, RA is usually what I'm going to be using. It's a genuinely awesome tool once you get a handle on it. There are just so many amazing features packed, it's crazy. Take the plunge my friend!

[Zombeaver]

10 minutes ago, ckp said:

i'll leave saturn with ssa in rocketlauncher for now because it works on my Win10 box as-is and i don't want to mess with it since i hear so many people on the RL site say saturn doesn't work on win10 because of daemon tools lite scsi cd driver install issue. and the couple games i tried with new mednafen didn't work at all for me.

Mednafen is better than SSF. SSF was the go-to for a long time but Mednafen is better. If you're having trouble with it we can help.  It's more than likely a problem with your rips, though there are ways to fix that (in most cases). I've got about 70 games using Mednafen and there are almost no issues among them. SSF was alright but I couldn't make that claim for it.