Getting the NEC PC-FX working in Launchbox with Retroarch

[GuroDragon]

I Watch @Jason Carr's video on "Emulating TurboGrafx 16 & CD"  and he explained not being able to get the PC-FX working through Retroarch. 

Here is  a very simple way to set up.

 

The Normal steps

1-Download RetroArch

2-Download cord "mednafen_pcfx_libretro.dll" in Retroarch

3-Imporant your PC-FX games- Unzipped (zipped they wouldn't work), Add games by their .Cue files

4- Set RetroArch as the default Emulator

5- Under Associated  platforms NEC PC-FX set the Default to Command Parameters  to -L "cores\mednafen_pcfx_libretro.dll"

 

The Important part

6- You need a Bios pack which you might be able to find somewhere like emulationparadise.me. Hint hint.

7- Download the bios pack and disregard the "fx-scsi.rom" and place the "pcfxbios.bin" and "pcfxv101.bin" into the "system" in your Retroarch directory.

 

With these settings the PC-FX worked excellent out of the box with my Dualshock 4 controller on 20 different games. The emulation qaulity is very good to excellent, beyound just playable.

This is MUCH easier than using mednafen directly. MagicEngine- FX is a poor working emulator some how, cost $15 and is much harder to use.

 

Hopefully a fellow Otaku found this helpful.

Edited February 6, 2017 by GuroDragon

[GuroDragon]

3 hours ago, bundangdon said:

Very helpful! I haven't tried any of the pc-fx games yet. Are there any good ones which are available in English?

Kishin Douji Zenki FX Vajura Fight is a good one. Chip Chan Kick! is an excellent bullet game but a little......weird! I downloaded 74 games but haven't played them much yet, just using them to test and make sure everything works before I posted. I'm new to this system too!

 

The PC-FX seems like another "Anime Machine" like the NEC PC-9800 with a lot of interactive media like a lot of the early CD-rom based machines. 90% of its games are Manga in art style.

Edited February 6, 2017 by GuroDragon

[SentaiBrad]

Jason doesn't make the tutorials, I do. And my issues with PC-FX are more than likely bad BIOS files. It's hard to find the right BIOS for some systems, especially for the more obscure stuff.

[Thatman84]

The bios needs to be pcfx.rom afaik it changed recently from .bios

just rename the one from MAME set

[GuroDragon]

On 2/6/2017 at 5:16 AM, SentaiBrad said:

Jason doesn't make the tutorials, I do. And my issues with PC-FX are more than likely bad BIOS files. It's hard to find the right BIOS for some systems, especially for the more obscure stuff.

Good to know, you guys do great work. I just assumed it was marked as less important due to the PC-FX being kind of obscure. Are there any plans for mobygames scraping eventually? I saw they launched their API.

[GuroDragon]

On 2/6/2017 at 8:06 AM, Thatman84 said:

The bios needs to be pcfx.rom afaik it changed recently from .bios

just rename the one from MAME set

Thanks for the info!

[Cody0]

I followed everything and imported as .cue but the games won't launch?

[JamesBond@ge]

On 2/6/2017 at 4:06 PM, Thatman84 said:

The bios needs to be pcfx.rom afaik it changed recently from .bios

just rename the one from MAME set

This was a valuable piece of information. Have a thumbs up on me.

[Nyukki]

On 2/7/2017 at 12:06 AM, Thatman84 said:

The bios needs to be pcfx.rom afaik it changed recently from .bios

just rename the one from MAME set

A year and a half later and this bit of info helped end a decade long mystery of how to get PC-FX emulation working. Thanks dude.

[Thatman84]

1 hour ago, Nyukki said:

A year and a half later and this bit of info helped end a decade long mystery of how to get PC-FX emulation working. Thanks dude.

Glad it helped!!

It was one of the only times I have adb logged retroarch on my Shield TV and fixed it with the above change lol

[RottenRotz]

i cant find this bios on web or in mame bios pack for the life of me!What the hell is it?some kind of military secret??

 

Nevermind,found it

Edited December 20, 2018 by RottenRotz

[DOS76]

how old is your version of RA this is from the info folder in RA its the mednafen_pcfx_libretro.info file you can see plainly that CHD is one of the supported file types for the system.

[tallpr24]

i got this to work but the controls dont work, im using xbox controller, all other retroarch cores work with this controller, but not with nec pcfx. i get the game to launch and i see the game in the middle of pcfx menu but the little hand is stuck on the eject button and I cant move it. any ideas?

[depooter]

On 2/24/2023 at 1:09 PM, tallpr24 said:

i got this to work but the controls dont work, im using xbox controller, all other retroarch cores work with this controller, but not with nec pcfx. i get the game to launch and i see the game in the middle of pcfx menu but the little hand is stuck on the eject button and I cant move it. any ideas?

any luck...can't get gamepad controls to work either....