Why is Launchbox PUSHING retroarch? I can't access the emulator's menus

[PaulC]

I set up a few old consoles with Retroarch after using the individual emulators for years so i'm used to going into their individual config menus to set up joysticks, hotkeys and such. I can't seem to access them now through Retroarch.  How do you know what keys to hit to even start the game?

I'm not seeing the benefit of Retroarch? Am i losing configuation access?  I'm brand new to this so maybe I haven't played around enough. See...all these tutorials just tell you how to import games which is useless unless you can play them too.

Edited May 21, 2020 by PaulC

[Retro808]

6 hours ago, PaulC said:

I set up a few old consoles with Retroarch after using the individual emulators for years so i'm used to going into their individual config menus to set up joysticks, hotkeys and such. I can't seem to access them now through Retroarch.  How do you know what keys to hit to even start the game?

Just launch Retroarch itself without a game and you are in the user interface. You can maneuver over to inputs section and see what the stock mappings are. From there you can set your custom controls which would affect all cores or you can load a core and set custom controls for each core.

6 hours ago, PaulC said:

I'm not seeing the benefit of Retroarch? Am i losing configuation access?  I'm brand new to this so maybe I haven't played around enough. See...all these tutorials just tell you how to import games which is useless unless you can play them too.

The benefit of RA is running a bunch of systems with only one emulator, bezels, save states to name a few. Plus being able to set custom controls per core, per game, even per folder. There are a ton of tutorials on the individual emulators on how to set them up. The ones LB puts out are just that, tutorials about getting LB set-up.

[zugswang]

6 hours ago, PaulC said:

I set up a few old consoles with Retroarch after using the individual emulators for years so i'm used to going into their individual config menus to set up joysticks, hotkeys and such. I can't seem to access them now through Retroarch.  How do you know what keys to hit to even start the game?

I'm not seeing the benefit of Retroarch? Am i losing configuation access?  I'm brand new to this so maybe I haven't played around enough. See...all these tutorials just tell you how to import games which is useless unless you can play them too.

It should be call MonkeyArch, because it is so easy to use, a monkey could probably set it up.

Once you get the hang of it you will not use anything else.

[neil9000]

You can also get into the menu when a game is running with F1 as default, this can be changed to anything you want in the input settings.

[PaulC]

I read some are having trouble with the spinner for the atari 2600. Stella detects it, why wouldn't Stella in Retroarch? Is Retroarch better for people only using a gamepad?

[PaulC]

exactly...retro arch is not for everybody.

[Lordmonkus]

On 5/21/2020 at 9:50 AM, PaulC said:

I read some are having trouble with the spinner for the atari 2600. Stella detects it, why wouldn't Stella in Retroarch? Is Retroarch better for people only using a gamepad?

 

51 minutes ago, PaulC said:

exactly...retro arch is not for everybody.

Did you really just post a response to your own question you asked 4 days ago ?

Of course Retroarch isn't for everyone.

Why do we push Retroarch ? I wouldn't go so far as to say we push it but we do recommend it in most cases (not all) because it offers some real tangible benefits over many stand alone emulators such as better audio sync, better input latency, setup for one is setup for all for the most part and it integrates nicely with LB. People often ask us what we use an 90% of the time it is Retroarch but again, it's not all we use because Retroarch is not the best for everything but it is certainly better for more things than it isn't.

At the end of the say use what you prefer to use, it makes no difference to us what you use.