evh1977 Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 Hello and good evening to all of you,my name Is Jason from Milwaukee,WI. I hope everyone on here is well and feeling great on this Thursday night. So like it says in my title, I am a noob when it comes to all of this awesome emulation stuff. With my tax return I purchased 2 plug n play out of the box,ready to go emulation stations. First one is a Raspberry Pi 3,not sure which version it is,all I know is I paid 140.00,it has 18000 games,all the handhelds,consoles up to ps 1 no gamecube or anything,older arcade stuff and old computers like armstrad and z81 spectrum along with amiga and c64,all run fine and smooth but there are a bunch of missing titles I want as well as a few of the computers don't load directly to the game and you have to mess with them and im totally out of my comfort zone and am worried I will mess up the entire emulator. I also purchased an Odroid XU4 emulator for 220.00,it has 48000 games, pretty much everything from Atari up till PlayStation 1 and all the arcade emulators as well as the computers, but once again there are some missing titles and also I would like to see if I could get some better set up systems or ... My questions to all of you much smarter people then I is this,I see all these loaded SD cards online with thousands and thousands of games that say plug in your system and play,and it lists versions of the raspberry pi or some other kind of emulators that it is compatible with so with the 2 systems that I have already can you help me towards which cards,if any,would be able to be used with my systems. Also I am interested in purchasing what I like to call the Be all end all emulator systems like I have been seeing online,built with a computer that can run more newer systems as well as having the better looks and all that cool stuff that comes with it. I honestly cannot wait to hear back from as many of you that care to help me out and post some awesome answers to my questions. I am 42,an old school gamer that started with intellivision and Atari and hasn't stopped yet and thru all the new stuff my heart has always stayed back in the arcade early 1980's era up until and thru the 16 bit era and death of arcades in the USA. Anyways cant wait to see what you all have to say,have a great night!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 First off, welcome to the forums and the world of emulation. Here you will find all sorts of helpful information regarding emulation in general but mostly about Launchbox specifically. Now for the part where you may think I am being a bit of a jerk though I don't mean to be. We are not a Pi or Odroid support site, there are other sites out there that cater to that crowd. We also do not support those who buy pre-loaded emulation setups, they are illegal and profit off of other peoples work so we will not condone or support that behavior. We also have no clue in the world what is in those setups and there are nightmare stories out there where these pre-loaded sellers install viruses and key loggers to steal information from buyers. If you want help with Launchbox and getting yourself setup and running with it by all means stick around and we will do what we can to help you out. We have a ton of guides here on the forums and our YouTube channel to help you get started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bundangdon Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 To reiterate what Lordmonkus very well pointed out, you're totally in the wrong place for anything related to raspberry pi. However, Launchbox and BigBox are a whole lot better in my opinion, while using a standard PC/laptoo setup. Having said that, it will take some time and effort to get it set up on your computer, but it's well worth it in the end. There's plenty of helpful people here as well as youtube tutorials and such. Good luck with your new adventures in emulation! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evh1977 Posted April 19, 2019 Author Share Posted April 19, 2019 I am so sorry for posting something like this in this site,I typed in emulation and rom forums and this came up in the first few choices and this looked like a great site with lots of helpful people. Once again I apologize for asking what is a really stupid questions in here but now that I know and you didn't bite my head off and throw my carcass out like most trolls on the internet would have done to me for posting that on a site that disapproves so thanks much for that! Now,I would love to learn how to set up something from scratch myself but am not the biggest computer person and have no idea on how to wire and sodder things,not saying I cant learn but when your dealing with expensive electronics that come in the mail I don't wanna mess something up that I waited a minute to get and lose the money on it too,that would be very discouraging to me lol But could you guys maybe give me a little rundown of the way you guys do things opposed to the other way that people are doing the emulation thing these days with the plug and play systems or the computers and hyperspin drives that I see websites advertising for anywhere between $1000-1500 dollars for a supposed hig class gaming pc and full arcade emulation station. They make it so easy if you have the cash and lets face it,when you are starting out in this hobby and want to start building a system like me and then see all the technical work that goes into it,can be very overwhelming. So please if you aren't too busy or don't mind helping a noob like me out,i would love to hear what you all have to say and learn from you all,I am but a Padawan to your Jedi or Sith Lord Powers lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 No worries, you caught me on a good night Since you are new to emulation I would suggest you start off with my Beginners Guide to Emulation: 3 minutes ago, evh1977 said: have no idea on how to wire and sodder things No soldering is necessary at all. You can get that deep into it if you wish but it is by no means something anyone ever needs to do, I sure as hell don't 5 minutes ago, evh1977 said: But could you guys maybe give me a little rundown of the way you guys do things Start off with my guide above and get one of the simpler systems and emulators up and running, Snes9x for SNES or Mesen for NES emulation is a great starting point. Once you get games working in an emulator then you can move on to getting that all hooked up in Launchbox. We have our channel and ETAPrime, he does awesome guides on getting emulators and games all working in Launchbox. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSIht6UXIEXIgz4eXAEShxA 8 minutes ago, evh1977 said: $1000-1500 dollars for a supposed hig class gaming pc and full arcade emulation station This is a weird topic of discussion because yeah you can get into emulation on low budget hardware or you can spend a lot of money on a high end rig. It sort of all depends just how far up the chain of systems you want to emulate, the further you want to go with the more modern systems such as Wii U or PS3 the more powerful the hardware you will need but older lower end systems you can get away with much lesser hardware. Now having said that I would never recommend the lowest of low end you can get for emulation such a Pi. While the Pi can do some stuff adequately there is more input lag because of settings that have to be sacrificed for speed. More powerful hardware will also allow you to use much better emulators which have fewer graphics or audio glitches. It really comes down to budget and how much you are willing to put into an emulation system, @ETAPRIME has great videos showing off some budget friendly builds that won't break the bank while provided enough power to have an enjoyable experience. 13 minutes ago, evh1977 said: They make it so easy if you have the cash and lets face it,when you are starting out in this hobby and want to start building a system like me and then see all the technical work that goes into it,can be very overwhelming. There are several issues with pre-build drives and images, especially the PC ones for HyperSpin or Launchbox. I mentioned above the legality and possible virus, malware and keyloggers but also WHEN, not if something breaks you have no clue how it all works so you can't fix it. It really isn't all that difficult to learn how to do it all and you will know how to fix it when something goes wrong. You will also know how to update it with new games or emulators because there are always new and better emulators coming along. As always you are welcome to ask questions here, we have a very active and helpful community here on the forums and our Discord channel as well if you want to jump in and chat and ask questions: https://discord.gg/SPBTqj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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