Nooby questions for starting out

[jlister]

Hi

I saw some youtube videos about launchbox and it looks amazing.  I really would like to get a system set up that can relive my childhood with emulation  of BBC Micro, C64, Amiga, Megadrive to start out with then add on things a bit more taxing like Mame, Nintendo 64, Steam etc. 

1)
Currently my PC spec is a system from 2013 designed for a media centre HTPC, if I wanted a system that could do everything, bit like ColPipes1978 video on youtube, what kind of system would I need to get?  
Intel G3220 - 3Ghz Dual Core 
8GB DDR3 Ram
Onboard Graphics
3TB SATA HDD
400W PSU

2)
It looks like the best way to set up launchbox is to use retroarch for majority of emulation, for those it can't do, for example BBC Micro emulation, should I configure that in a) Launchbox, b) via RetroArch or c) other options such a RocketLauncher?

3) 
The in-game videos I have seen on youtube of launchbox, is that with standard launchbox and a premium emumovies account?  Or does that require Bigbox, very happy to upgrade to BigBox anyway, just for testing wondering where to start.  

4) Can you recommend any youtube/articles to get up to speed quickly

Many thanks








 

[neil9000]

26 minutes ago, jlister said:

Hi

I saw some youtube videos about launchbox and it looks amazing.  I really would like to get a system set up that can relive my childhood with emulation  of BBC Micro, C64, Amiga, Megadrive to start out with then add on things a bit more taxing like Mame, Nintendo 64, Steam etc. 

1)
Currently my PC spec is a system from 2013 designed for a media centre HTPC, if I wanted a system that could do everything, bit like ColPipes1978 video on youtube, what kind of system would I need to get?  
Intel G3220 - 3Ghz Dual Core 
8GB DDR3 Ram
Onboard Graphics
3TB SATA HDD
400W PSU

2)
It looks like the best way to set up launchbox is to use retroarch for majority of emulation, for those it can't do, for example BBC Micro emulation, should I configure that in a) Launchbox, b) via RetroArch or c) other options such a RocketLauncher?

3) 
The in-game videos I have seen on youtube of launchbox, is that with standard launchbox and a premium emumovies account?  Or does that require Bigbox, very happy to upgrade to BigBox anyway, just for testing wondering where to start.  

4) Can you recommend any youtube/articles to get up to speed quickly

Many thanks








 

1) That system should be fine for most things up to around PS1 N64 era at there native resolutions, you wont be able to do any upscaling on the 3D systems or use any shaders though due to your lack of a GPU.

2) Emulator choice is a personal preference thing. Personally i use retroarch for most of my systems and use the standalone emulators for some select systems, like PSP, MAME, Dreamcast, Gamecube/Wii, Wii U, although those last four will probably not run with your system specs. RocketLauncher is not a emulator, its a backend, so you would still need to setup the emulators, so i would ignore it as it adds a extra step and added complexity, but if it has a feature you desperately want/need then feel free, i personally avoid it. 

3) Gameplay game video snaps come from Emumovies and require a premium account with them to scrape in Launchbox, the Platform videos are available from within Launchbox. I should state though that you do not get video playback of any sort with the free version, videos are a Launchbox Premium feature only.

4)  This is the tutorials playlist from our youtube channel.

 

 

 

[neil9000]

29 minutes ago, jlister said:

I really would like to get a system set up that can relive my childhood with emulation  of BBC Micro, C64, Amiga,

Also i should add that those systems are some of the trickiest to get going, old computer systems can be problematic and have strange quirks. You would be better off doing consoles first as you learn the program. Consoles are usuall a case of adding the emulator pointing Launchbox at its .exe then pointing Launchbox at that systems rom folder. Computer systems can need a lot of tweaking and options checking to get working correctly. Start simple with consoles and work your way up to computer systems.

[jlister]

Just now, neil9000 said:

Also i should add that those systems are some of the trickiest to get going, old computer systems can be problematic and have strange quirks. You would be better off doing consoles first as you learn the program. Consoles are usuall a case of adding the emulator pointing Launchbox at its .exe then pointing Launchbox at that systems rom folder. Computer systems can need a lot of tweaking and options checking to get working correctly. Start simple with consoles and work your way up to computer systems.

Thanks very much for our feedback that’s awesome   yep initial thoughts are things like having multiple disks to swap with the computer systems going to be a bit more tricky

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, jlister said:

Thanks very much for our feedback that’s awesome   yep initial thoughts are things like having multiple disks to swap with the computer systems going to be a bit more tricky

Yup, as well as things like different Kickstart versions for Amiga, some games will require loading to specific bios versions and while that is totally doable it is more on the advanced side of things to get it so that just double clicking a game in Launchbox loads the game with the correct bios/kickstarts, correct Amiga specific settings like RAM size used, whether a virtual HDD needs to be used for that specific game, things like that.

[spycat]

For the BBC Micro:

While MAME 0.212 emulates the BBC Model B, from a game playing aspect it's not perfect although it is improving. You may come across sound and graphics issues with some games.

For overall emulation, including game playing, you would be better off using one of the free dedicated emulators such as B-Em or BeebEm. I use BeebEm 4.14

For the games themselves I would go with disk images such as the ssd and dsd formats, as they load automatically in LaunchBox using BeebEm (and possibly B-Em also) and very quickly too. Tape images load just like cassettes did on the BBC Micro itself - very slowly.

Some years ago Acorn waived it's rights to it's OS, BASIC and DFS ROMs. This has allowed emulators like BeebEM to now legally include and distribute the ROMS, making the emulators work "out of the box".