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Is RetroArch worth it?

v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
I love the idea of a having a single program to handle the emulation, but, does this thing really work for the most of stuff? I 'd still love it, even if it reduced the number of emulators I own from 12 to 4 (say, I keep dosbox, scummvm and Wii U thingy), but are most emulators good?

I also cant seem to fucking configure it well. Loads of things dont work as it should, and when I tried configuring that Beetle PSX thing, not only do I have to configure each game separately becouse the global settings dont seem to work, the best options didnt work on a darn GTX 1060 6gb.

So? Is RetroArch worth the hassle?
 

Pika-Cthulhu

Arcane
Joined
Apr 16, 2007
Messages
7,392
Probably better to ask in the weeb thread, you might get plenty of info on how to configure it. I think the first post on that thread has links of different bios files you can run, and in those wikia links there is, or was, a list of what works best with the games
 

TheHeroOfTime

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2014
Messages
2,872
Location
S-pain
I prefer to configurate each emulator separately on PC, I think it's better if you want performance. Tough retroarch it's good if you want a rasperry Pi or something similar.
 

RuySan

Augur
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
777
Location
Portugal
Yes, mostly because of the ease of using shaders.

I still use standalone emulators for systems such as the Amiga or Spectrum though.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,140
The devs are totally dramaqueens and blatant liars always begging for more Patreon money though.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,457
The only time I ever used the thing it wouldn't work with most of the games I had. After that, I never really saw the point, its massive in filesize compared to keeping emulators for most consoles, even ones I rarely play. I guess if you really want some of the extras it has its worth the effort. I'm not really a shader guy so it wasn't for me.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
I am too much of a boomer to figure it out, so I stick with individual emulators.
 

warcrimes666

Educated
Patron
Joined
Aug 8, 2017
Messages
92
It does work well once it's all dialed in but that is a huge pain in the ass. I just opened it after a long time to check my psx settings and it took me a minute, it's pretty arcane in a bad way.

That being said the beetle core has some options that makes many games look very good and play almost brand new although you have to use the vulkan renderer as under opengl there is no difference.

These are my psx settings that work well and I have 1070 so should be fine for 1060:

Screenshot (23).png

Screenshot (24).png

Load an iso first, go in to do the options then go under overrides and save as core overrides, in that case I'm getting same options across psx games with beetle core.

It's phenomenal on a pi or android tv or something like that. I'm not sure if it's worth it being the size that it is and how tedious it is to get configured across cores on a pc generally but in your use case, probably. I keep it basically just for beetle psx as those options make things like armored core, front mission, and all the rest look excellent.

All the best.
 

GhostCow

Balanced Gamer
Patron
Joined
Jan 2, 2020
Messages
3,993
The ui is horrible and honestly I hate just about everything about it. I'd rather use standalone emulators. The only thing I'd use retroarch for is psx emulation because the beetlepsx core can do some nice things that mednafen can't like upscaling. I guess it's the best option for genesis too but I don't really ever find myself wanting to play genesis games.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,156
I stick to individual emus after trying retroarch also. Guess I'm a boomer too.
I found the idea appealing but in practice it doesn't really streamline anything. I'm open to being wrong about it though as I didn't give it a proper chance.
 
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normie

️‍
Patron
Zionist Agent
Joined
Mar 9, 2019
Messages
3,699
Insert Title Here
confuses what's a simple process using individual emulators

I don't fuck with shaders
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,866
Yes, I've been using it for many years now. Mostly for unparalleled sync fidelity and pretty much perfect next-frame response, sometimes even better than actual hardware, check this page out for some details. Great shaders, too. User interface troubles are blown way out of proportion.

Also, as Pika-Cthulhu pointed out, check out the dedicated emulation thread in the JRPG subforum for more in-depth discussions.
 

Eirinjas

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
1,920
Location
The Moon
RPG Wokedex
The only real problem I've had with Retroarch is running old arcade games, because one game will work with one version of Mame, but not the other half dozen. So, you have to trial and error sometimes to run something simple like Frogger. In my experience, all of the console emulators work just fine provided you have the bios for the system and the emulator itself is compatible with the game you want to run.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,866
The only real problem I've had with Retroarch is running old arcade games, because one game will work with one version of Mame, but not the other half dozen. So, you have to trial and error sometimes to run something simple like Frogger. In my experience, all of the console emulators work just fine provided you have the bios for the system and the emulator itself is compatible with the game you want to run.
This isn't a Retroarch issue, but rather a MAME issue. Standalone MAME also has this problem where some roms just stop working.
 

Eirinjas

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
1,920
Location
The Moon
RPG Wokedex
The only real problem I've had with Retroarch is running old arcade games, because one game will work with one version of Mame, but not the other half dozen. So, you have to trial and error sometimes to run something simple like Frogger. In my experience, all of the console emulators work just fine provided you have the bios for the system and the emulator itself is compatible with the game you want to run.
This isn't a Retroarch issue, but rather a MAME issue. Standalone MAME also has this problem where some roms just stop working.

Correct. That was the point I was trying to make. Retroarch is a great frontend, the issues tend to be with the individual emulators themselves.

Retroarch can be installed on a Steamlink - turning it into a tiny retro mega console. One of these days I'll get around to doing that.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,866
It's a common misconception to think of Retroarch as simply a frontend - it's not. It has its own timing/sync code that runs on top of the libretro ports of the cores themselves and, in that respect it's better than standalone emulators (I would imagine there are exceptions, but I can't think of a single one off the top of my head).

Seriously, if people are at all sensitive to input latency they should give Retroarch a try.
 

Jigawatt

Arcane
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
3,409
Location
in a desert, walking along in the sand
I gave up on RetroArch, seemed too convoluted and I'd never had problems emulating stuff in the past enough for the 'magic' to be worthwhile.

I am however after recommendations for an alternate frontend for emu (e.g. something like Kodi+plugins?) where you set up the emulator settings how you like once then it just launches them from a command line options or something with a nice game library view. My use case is my 5 year old is now allowed some screen time by himself and if he can try new games without any intervention from me that would be pretty handy.
 
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Eirinjas

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
1,920
Location
The Moon
RPG Wokedex
I gave up on RetroArch, seemed too convoluted and I'd never had problems emulating stuff in the past enough for the 'magic' to be worthwhile.

Am I however after recommendations for an alternate frontend for emu (e.g. something like Kodi+plugins?) where you set up the emulator settings how you like once then it just launches them from a command line options or something with a nice game library view. My use case is my 5 year old is now allowed some screen time by himself and if he can try new games without any intervention from me that would be pretty handy.

Launchbox is the only alternative I'm aware of:

https://www.launchbox-app.com/
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
GhostCow
Aye, that's the sole reason I was interested in it in the first place. Some of the vids of late PSX games running on it are pretty impressive, visuals are so sharp with almost all the trademark texture and geometry distortions gone. I'd love to replay SH or Vagrant Story or MoH games like that for sure.
 

Yldr

Educated
Joined
Jun 20, 2020
Messages
48
The only thing I'd use retroarch for is psx emulation because the beetlepsx core can do some nice things that mednafen can't like upscaling.
I'd love to replay SH or Vagrant Story or MoH games like that for sure.
Guys, you're way late to the party. DuckStation is the new standard for PS1 emulation on PC.

https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation/releases/tag/latest

Gone are the days where we had to put up with ePSXe, Mednafen or Beetle and their bullshit. Open emulator, point to ROM, we finally have our "it just works" PS1 emulator on PC.

The interface is extremely user-friendly, nearing Dolphin levels of maturity (the original developper is a Dolphin dev, and since he has no experience with UI design he just aped the UI code from Dolphin), and you can customize system shortcuts, including toggling perspective correction and increasing/decreasing rendering resolution on the fly. It's not a resource hog like ePSXe so you can easily upscale to 4K with minimal performance hit, and it works like a charm with ReShade too.

And if you wonder how on Earth this is news to you, don't worry, I was in the same boat, I watched the ETA Prime video and my first impression was "what the fuck is this, and how come I never heard of it?" I knew DuckStation by name but I had no idea it was this far along until a few weeks ago. For something that's made of solid gold, it feels like it just came out of nowhere.
 

bluntman3000

Novice
Joined
Jan 16, 2021
Messages
1
I came in contact with RetroArch through various retro handhelds, especially the RETROID pocket² and I have to say the UI is a pain in the ass. I stick with standalone emulators, even if I actually like the idea of an all-in-one solution .
 

samuraigaiden

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
1,954
Location
Harare
RPG Wokedex
I never got the appeal of Retroarch. I much rather have the best emulator for whatever I'm going to play rather than a multi-system Frankenstein with varying levels of quality.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,866
I've presented arguments in favour of Retroarch on the basis of superior timing fidelity, latency and input response, but still people insist on "lolwut ppl cant click file open har" or "interface sux!"

Pretty pointless thread tbh
 

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