Need Help Understanding Retroarch

[dah_1974]

Good day to all,

I am writing because I am struggling trying to understand something in LaunchBox. I am fairly new to emulation, and have used Retroarch before on Android, but I recently followed ETA Primes tutorial video on setting up LaunchBox on PC and in his video he created a folder called "emulators", and placed Retroarch inside this folder. Now, my understanding of Retroarch is that this is also another front end program, so what I am confused about is why would you place another front end program inside LaunchBox, and not just add emulators to said folder. I am not understanding why Retroarch is placed here in the first place. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[neil9000]

7 minutes ago, dah_1974 said:

Good day to all,

I am writing because I am struggling trying to understand something in LaunchBox. I am fairly new to emulation, and have used Retroarch before on Android, but I recently followed ETA Primes tutorial video on setting up LaunchBox on PC and in his video he created a folder called "emulators", and placed Retroarch inside this folder. Now, my understanding of Retroarch is that this is also another front end program, so what I am confused about is why would you place another front end program inside LaunchBox, and not just add emulators to said folder. I am not understanding why Retroarch is placed here in the first place. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Retroarch is technically a frontend yes, but not many people use it in that way. It is a frontend for libretro  "cores"  which are essentially emulators. I do think you are overthinking it some what as pretty much every emulator has a frontend, or "GUI" for mouse or controller navigation for setting options and controls. Retroach is that for libretro cores, so essentially what you have is dozens of emulators all under one roof. This is great for universal settings, so for example resolution and controls, you set them up once in the retroarch UI and they work across something like 50 emulators. If you were using standard emulators you would have to go into each one one by one and set it up with the correct graphics settings and controls, that is going to get tedious fast if you have dozens of different emulators. Retroarch has "cores" for most systems, so everything comes together under one roof. Also, its "technically" a frontend, but i wouldn't want to use it as one, its pretty ugly as a frontend. Just think of it as a suite of emulators, and once setup the first time you dont really need to see it again, Launchbox will launch directly into the core with the game loaded, not the Retroarch UI.

[dah_1974]

Hello neil9000,

First off, I want to say thank you for taking the time to explain. I believe I understand, but let me recap just to be sure. I understand Retroarch is a "one-stop-shop" for emulators, so if I'm understanding this correctly, LaunchBox as a "front end" does not have this feature such as Retroarch, so in turn, embedding Retroarch inside LaunchBox utilizes the feature sets(emulators) from Retroarch somehow? Is that correct?

[neil9000]

Just now, dah_1974 said:

Hello neil9000,

First off, I want to say thank you for taking the time to explain. I believe I understand, but let me recap just to be sure. I understand Retroarch is a "one-stop-shop" for emulators, so if I'm understanding this correctly, LaunchBox as a "front end" does not have this feature such as Retroarch, so in turn, embedding Retroarch inside LaunchBox utilizes the feature sets(emulators) from Retroarch somehow? Is that correct?

Yes, Launchbox is a frontend for other emulators, it is not a emulator itself, and does not come with any emulators, or roms for that matter. You need to provide emulators to Launchbox in order to actually load games from it, and the easiest way to do that is by using Retroarch as it covers so many systems in one program. Launchbox is essentially what it says in its name, its used to launch other programs, primarily those are roms, launched in a emulator, but can be used for launching anything on your PC really, you could think of it as a aesthetically pleasing repository for shortcuts, and those shortcuts launch directly into the game image you double clicked on.

[dah_1974]

I believe I understand somewhat. What is hard for me to understand though is this...I get the fact of needing, and adding emulators to use in LaunchBox. This I understand, but what I'm not grasping is how LaunchBox sees Retroarch, and is pulling the features out of that application? So, I'm guessing that in order to use an emulator in LaunchBox you "need" to create a folder called "emulators". So how does LaunchBox recognize Retroarch and all of its features/settings, and saved configurations all within this folder we create? I don't believe I'm over thinking this, I believe this is a valid question on understanding how the two programs work together.  

One other thing is being I am new to forums in general is that it amazes me how fast I got a response from someone. I didn't think I'd hear back for days. You mean to tell me there are people(like yourself) just at the ready to receive notifications to questions like mine?? It's incredible to me.

[Retro808]

1 hour ago, dah_1974 said:

Hello neil9000,

First off, I want to say thank you for taking the time to explain. I believe I understand, but let me recap just to be sure. I understand Retroarch is a "one-stop-shop" for emulators, so if I'm understanding this correctly, LaunchBox as a "front end" does not have this feature such as Retroarch, so in turn, embedding Retroarch inside LaunchBox utilizes the feature sets(emulators) from Retroarch somehow? Is that correct?

You are not really embedding RA inside LB by putting it in an emulator folder inside LB folder structure. LB does not care where you put is as long as you tell it where it is. ETA's recomendation is simply to keep everything inside the LB folder. This makes it easier to move the entire build if needed. Plus just keeps things neat and tidy.

LB sees it because when you set up the emulator in LB you tell it the path to the emulator's .exe.

[dah_1974]

I see. So in other words I could have told LaunchBox to look for the application(RA) from my desktop if I so choose?

[Retro808]

2 minutes ago, dah_1974 said:

I see. So in other words I could have told LaunchBox to look for the application(RA) from my desktop if I so choose?

Yep. Even roms can be located where ever you want them as long as you tell LB where to find them.

Also, since you are new...Before you import anything into LB, meaning games and emulators, set up the emulator and the controls first inside the emulator. Then test your rom files inside the emulator to be sure you games and controls work. Once you set up and confirmed that, then add the emulator to LB and import the roms. This ensure that if for some reason the games do not work when launched inside LB we can eliminate it being an emulator or bad rom issue. One less thing for us to troubleshoot.

[dah_1974]

I see. Thank you very much for taking the time to explain. You've been very helpful. The one area I just don't understand yet is how a program such as LB launches other programs. This concept is new to me, and not having a working knowledge of this concept doesn't help me considering I like to have an understanding how how the innards work. 

[neil9000]

11 minutes ago, dah_1974 said:

I see. Thank you very much for taking the time to explain. You've been very helpful. The one area I just don't understand yet is how a program such as LB launches other programs. This concept is new to me, and not having a working knowledge of this concept doesn't help me considering I like to have an understanding how how the innards work. 

All programs are launched by a thing called commandline, any .exe or shortcut on your PC when double clicked is sending a commandline in windows telling it the program and the path of it and to run it. Launchbox just does the same thing. For example when you click on your internet browser behind the scenes windows is sending a command to load that program at that location. Launchbox does the same thing, but some programs can also recieve additional commands via the commandline interface. So in this case Launchbox doesnt just tell Retroarch to start, it also tells it which file to load into itself, and with which core. Its just how computers work, Windows itself can be considered a frontend, you click a shortcut and it runs code and launches that program, Launchbox does the same thing, but makes it easier than you actually having to write these commands.

[neil9000]

For example the below command would be sent in order to load Mario 64 in the mupen core, Launchbox automates this process so you dont have to manually add that sort of command for every single game in your collection.

retroarch.exe .\cores\mupen64plus_libretro.dll D:\Roms\Nintendo 64\Super Mario 64 (USA).n64

[dah_1974]

Gotcha. I understand at a basic level, but am very intrigued on understanding it mode in depth, but certainly I don't ask for you to get into this. I can make the effort on researching and learning on my own. You gave me the basic understanding, and for that I'm very appreciative. Thank you. So, if I understand you correctly being I'm new, your suggestion is to get my games, and settings all working first by launching and testing my games in say RA. Once everything is working properly, then launch my games via LB? 

[DeadVoivod]

Yes, set up an emulator, like RetroArch, start with something easy like NES or GB for that matter, get it properly running, so that you know the emulator and your ROMs just work fine. 

Then add your ROMs to LaunchBox via the importer, set up and configure the emulator within LaunchBox, and then test if it's still working.

What Neil meant is, that way you/we know that your ROMs and emulator is working just fine, and the problem might lie within a LaunchBox configuration, thus faster to troubleshoot.