Retroarch. Is it Necessary?

[tbergman]

Another noob question.  Do you have to use Retroarch with Launchbox?  WHat is the advantage of doing so, or the disadvantage of not using it?

[sundogak]

No, you don't have to use Retroarch (RA). From Launchbox view, RA is just another emulator.  I use RA for about 80% of the my setup (all legacy consoles [not PS3, PS2 for example] and handhelds).  I don't personally use RA for MAME games since I had a working setup and didn't feel like messing with RA core for MAME. 

The advantages of RA is that although can be a bit daunting at first to learn, once you do have that down each core (or emulator) is similar as far as controller setups and the overall setup interface to get a emulated platform up and running.  Plus, you don't have to setup each individual emulator other than a core install.  For consoles and handhelds it works very well.

From disadvantage view (and this is just my observations) is that you have to wait for the "cores" for RA to be coded from the "upstream" emulator (i.e., the original emulator code).  The RA folks do a good job of keeping up but can have some feature/bug fix lag. You may not have the full granular control you would in a standalone. There are also no RA cores for certain emulators.  So you would need to continue to use the stand alone emulator in that case.  MAME along with most computer emulators (i.e., Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8-bit) I find are usually easier to setup with their standalone counterparts; although I have RA in some cases also setup.  LB then gives you the ability to launch from either with one you can setup as primary. 

I am sure others may weigh in with other observations but that is my 2-cents. 

Edited June 7, 2019 by sundogak