General Emulation Discussion

mm_surf

Ta. Had a flashcart for the original DS. Wasn't sure on the newer versions.

M.

Mr.Fantastic

Got myself a retrotink 4k CE and using it on my sega saturn and my lg c2 42inch. Its a night and day difference what a proper scaler does.

The_B_Man

I'm going to setup BigBox for the first time this coming week. I bought the licence ages ago but never got around to it. I have the hardware side sorted. The only complication is the 29" CRT in my cab but i have CRTEmudriver running with an AMD GPU so it's also sorted.

So now it's just setting up the emulators to work with both my 2 player panel and also my 2 lightguns.

I'm gonna tidy up my folder structure so emulators are in one place, ROMs in another.

Does anyone know if i can configure the lightguns once in BigBox or do i have to configure it per emulator? I've already done it for Supermodel M3 but not for anything else, and I'd rather not have to do it every time i add an emulator.

Also, i was playing a game on Supermodel and noticed the sticks aren't really analog. I'm using a jvs-pac2 (irkenlabs one) and left is mapped to left arrow on the keyboard, right to right arrow etc.

Anyone have any experience with this?

Inviere

Paprium now running on a modified genesis gx core on Retroarch. Impressive looking game, despite the obvious background issues.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123610996#Comment_123610996

Only took 5 years! 😁

Delighted to hear that, I've wanted to give it a go for a long time now but no way was I dropping cash on a real cart.

Wonder when a Megadrive rom hack will be come available.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123611469#Comment_123611469

Seemingly you can even buy the bloody thing, even if you wanted to 🤷🏻

Doesn't work on Everdrive's yet, so bootleg carts not yet either (if even possible?)

o1s1n

I wonder would the newer Everdrive be a runner at some point given it has FPGA capabilities for Mega CD emulation? FPGA out the extra Paprium chips?

Whole thing was an absolute disaster, some people still don't have their game and they ordered them back in 2017.

That Fonzie guy raised something like a million euro from the kickstarter.

Doge

Has anyone managed to get the road rash rom hacks running in an emulator?

Particularly interested in Road Rash 3.

The last time I tried running it I got a message straight away saying it needs to be run on the real hardware.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123612248#Comment_123612248

Pretty sure I had all the framerate and CD audio versions of the trilogy running on retroarch at some point

Doge

Edit: Sorted!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123612722#Comment_123612722

I actually remembered the error in correctly:

I'm running Genesis Plus GX in Retroarch.

Any idea what setting needs to be enabled? I was fiddling with settings for the Sega CD but this message still appears. Thanks 😀

Doge

Do I have a to load the CD image also maybe?

I thought it would be optional.

Doge

Finally got it working!

None of the BIOS files I downloaded had the correct filename, i.e.

bios_CD_U.bin

I must have downloaded about 3 packs before I found a GitHub page with the BIOS files for all systems.

And these had the 3 files needed with the correct filename.

Everyday is a school day!

Relikk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123612223#Comment_123612223

It boots on my MegaSD (most likely on an Everdrive Pro, as well), but it doesn't progress past the minigame at the start after pressing reset, which is apparently an anti-piracy measure. The source for the changes in Genesis Plus GX are public, so I reckon a firmware update would be able to sort it. The only thing I'd see needing some research is implementing the audio streaming engine used in the original cart, or if there's an already existing solution (MD+ or MSU-MD) that can be used to bypass it.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123615856#Comment_123615856

That mini game seems to run when the game's sram is empty. Once it's written to, ie, a successful boot, sram data is created and the game seems to run (emulation.) It'd be great to see it run via flash cart/mister

steve_r

Hi folks,

Looking to get some thoughts on this. I'll be spending a few weeks down the country soon, and I am looking into a low cost emulation option that I can setup easily enough.

There's a few options as far as I can see it.

- Get a firestick and a Bluetooth controller - leaning towards this at the moment

- plug my Retroid Pocket 3 into the TV with a Bluetooth controller. The advantages of this is that it's already setup but I would have concerns about performance.

- buy a mini pc, and potentially have better options than the firestick. A quick look at prices would suggest that I'd have to spend a bit to get the extra performance, and I don't know how pushed I'd be about emulating the modern systems.

- connect my laptop to the tv and go that way

- Go the mini console route (e.g. Mini snes) and potentially get a modded version. I do like this idea for the controllers but when they came out I heard the leads were short.

Any thoughts?

Inviere

For holiday type usage either a handheld emulation device, or a Pi based setup would be what I'd be looking at. Likely the Pi 4b or 5 over a handheld as you don't have to deal with batteries etc.

The_B_Man

Are you bringing the laptop anyway? You'll get better performance with your laptop than anything you mentioned, unless the laptop is really old.

I setup a firestick before and gave up after a while. I could play up to PSP on it. I had to get a powered USB hub so I could connect the hub to the firestick and the power into the hub, then i put a USB stick with the ROMs on the USB stick, but then i think I still ran out of space. It was alright. Probably not something I'd do long term but certainly functional for C64, Atari, SNES, Megadrive etc, but you'd be pushing it for PS2 or anything like that.

steve_r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123665214#Comment_123665214

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123665107#Comment_123665107

I suppose the advantage of the firestick is that it will be quicker to setup and handier for family members to use for the likes of streaming etc.

However the Pi option does tempt me because I'd probably get more use out of it and it might be handy as a mini office option for some basic admin tasks.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123665429#Comment_123665429

With a Pi, I was thinking more along the lines of a dedicated install, something like RetroPie (its purely emulation stuff and nothing else). If you wanted something then for productivity, I suppose you could easily use a separate sd card for an installation of pi os etc

The_B_Man

The fire stick is the way to go for just being able to turn it on and play (once configured), especially if you want to watch Netflix and YouTube and the rest.

The pi with RetroPie is handy (once configured) but there's no streaming apps.

Which systems do you want to emulate? Anything specific, because if you need newer ones, then you'll need a laptop or mini PC.

steve_r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123666947#Comment_123666947

Mostly SNES/MD/PS1/N64.

I rather explore games I'm not familiar with on older systems rather than go after demanding games that aren't going to run well.

The_B_Man

You'll be grand for SNES and Mega drive. If you have the latest fire stick then you'll be grand for PS1 and N64.

But you'll need Bluetooth controllers and the USB OTG cable or the hub to plug in your USB stick full of games.

For the controllers, I think PS4 or PS5 controllers work over Bluetooth.

Doodah7

Do you have an XBox. Get a developer account and you can emulate up to PS3.

steve_r

So I went with the Firestick option, and followed the guide below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3dTVuNvzs

The results were decent
SNES, MD all good. N64 poor but I'm going to try and different emulator to see how that works. Dreamcast and PSP worked well though so that was good.

I found Retroarch a bit flakey and somethings didn't work as well or as cleanly as I would have liked.

The 8bitdo controller does integrate quite well into Retroarch most of the time but I think certain systems need to be configured more.

I did get distracted by older actual consoles that I was trying to get workings
N64 - missing a composite cable so I'll just order that
PS2 - none of the controllers working so guess I'll just have to order a new one as well.
Ps3 - likewise controllers dead

Doge

https://amzn.eu/d/13YpmAn

Get yourself this cable for the fire stick if you want to expand your storage, or simply connect USB drives with roms or whatever.

I have one for my fire stick though I haven't really needed to use it yet. I can run some tests with it if you like.