General Emulation Discussion

Inviere · 19-08-2018 5:13pm

Hugely impressive tutorial here for setting up Amiga (and ultimately with Launchbox) emulation. It's an hour long, but really easy to follow. Have just spent a while setting my Amiga emulation this way, and it works like a dream. If using Launchbox and fancy some Amiga, look no further!

Steve X2 · 19-08-2018 5:33pm

Inviere wrote: »

Hugely impressive tutorial here for setting up Amiga (and ultimately with Launchbox) emulation. It's an hour long, but really easy to follow. Have just spent a while setting my Amiga emulation this way, and it works like a dream. If using Launchbox and fancy some Amiga, look no further!

I really need to start setting up my Launchbox thing. I mean I paid for the pro or whatever they call it version.

Although I do find myself going back to the real hardware to play rather than emulators recently.

Inviere · 19-08-2018 6:36pm

Steve X2 wrote: »

I really need to start setting up my Launchbox thing. I mean I paid for the pro or whatever they call it version.

Launchbox Premium. It gives you Big Box mode and other goodies. I'm redoing my entire emulation drive from scratch, and the best way to go about it is to get the regular Launchbox set up, working, and running exactly as you want it...and only then have a look at Big Box mode which is the spit and polish end of things.

Although I do find myself going back to the real hardware to play rather than emulators recently.

With a set up like yours Steve, it's not that surprising, you've some amazing pieces of kit and it all seems to be very well put together. You've put some great work into the way you have things chained up

Steve X2 · 19-08-2018 7:01pm

Inviere wrote: »

With a set up like yours Steve, it's not that surprising, you've some amazing pieces of kit and it all seems to be very well put together. You've put some great work into the way you have things chained up

Yeah the setup is good, but even with that if I see a tiny bit of interference or something(which can happen easily with analogue video/audio) I can end up trying to track the source of the barely perceptible interference for hours rather than enjoying the game. With emulators and front ends you don't get that, so can just play.

Inviere · 19-08-2018 9:12pm

Steve X2 wrote: »

Yeah the setup is good, but even with that if I see a tiny bit of interference or something(which can happen easily with analogue video/audio) I can end up trying to track the source of the barely perceptible interference for hours rather than enjoying the game. With emulators and front ends you don't get that, so can just play.

I suppose too that emulation would give you a basis of comparison towards your chained video setup, ie, if you feel something isn't quite right display wise etc

Hellrazer · 22-08-2018 1:07pm

Inviere wrote: »

Launchbox Premium. It gives you Big Box mode and other goodies. I'm redoing my entire emulation drive from scratch, and the best way to go about it is to get the regular Launchbox set up, working, and running exactly as you want it...and only then have a look at Big Box mode which is the spit and polish end of things.

Ive just bought a NUC for this purpose. Adverts special for 35.00

Its a dual core celeron,4 gb ram and I threw an ssd I had lying around and installed windows 10 on it.

I have Launchbox up and running for Snes/Genesis / N64 so far. But Im finding that I have to set up controls for every emulator that Launchbox downloads / recommends.

Is there an easy solution to have the same controller act the same in every emulator?

My plan is to have this as a completely stand alone pc just for emulation.
Make the PC boot straight into Launch box Big Box mode and control it with the joypad / arcade stick etc.

And then once its all working make a coffee table style cabinet for it.

Inviere · 22-08-2018 1:26pm

Hellrazer wrote: »

Is there an easy solution to have the same controller act the same in every emulator?

Sort of. If you set up and install RetroArch as an emulator within Launchbox, that (via different 'cores'), will emulate the majority of the systems you want. RetroArch auto configures the detected controller, and gives you that real 'one click to play' feel. When you want to play something not covered by RetroArch, you then need to use standalone emulators, and they will need to be configured individually.

This video covers most everything you need to know about setting up RA in LB...it's seriously well worth watching and getting to grips with (it's really not difficult at all)

Inviere · 28-08-2018 3:58pm

wideNES - http://prilik.com/blog/wideNES

^^ Worth a read, very interesting concept

Doge · 28-08-2018 4:01pm

Inviere wrote: »

wideNES - http://prilik.com/blog/wideNES

^^ Worth a read, very interesting concept

She THICC.

Inviere · 28-08-2018 4:03pm

Also, Enso 1.1 released which fixes a possible bricking issue - http://wololo.net/2018/08/26/henkaku-enso-1-1-released-a-very-important-update-which-fixes-a-bricking-bug-when-uninstalling-it-in-a-specific-way/

Hellrazer · 30-08-2018 12:15am

Inviere wrote: »

Sort of. If you set up and install RetroArch as an emulator within Launchbox, that (via different 'cores'), will emulate the majority of the systems you want. RetroArch auto configures the detected controller, and gives you that real 'one click to play' feel. When you want to play something not covered by RetroArch, you then need to use standalone emulators, and they will need to be configured individually.

This video covers most everything you need to know about setting up RA in LB...it's seriously well worth watching and getting to grips with (it's really not difficult at all)

Thanks for the help Inviere but I gave up!!!
Pulled my hair out for a week following videos everywhere.

I bought a modded xbox original and stuck coin ops 8 massive on it. Fantastic program altogether.

Now next question. Is there an easy way to add a couple of arcade sticks to it?

Its so easy to just plug it in and have a few thousand classic games on hand. And all im missing now is an arcade stick.

Inviere · 30-08-2018 3:18pm

Hellrazer wrote: »

Thanks for the help Inviere but I gave up!!!
Pulled my hair out for a week following videos everywhere.

Bah, you should have posted here for help! I've a fairly solid working knowledge now of how RetroArch works, and would more than likely have been able to help you with it. It really is top class once you have it set up and working correctly. Perhaps after a break, you'll come back to it.

I bought a modded xbox original and stuck coin ops 8 massive on it. Fantastic program altogether.

Now next question. Is there an easy way to add a couple of arcade sticks to it?

Its so easy to just plug it in and have a few thousand classic games on hand. And all im missing now is an arcade stick.

Can't help you there man, I know zilch about Coinops on Xbox I'm afraid

Inviere · 30-08-2018 7:43pm

RetroArch 1.7.4 released - https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-1-7-4-released/

A few nice updates, new UI, real time shader editing, and in-app updating (finally!)

Hellrazer · 31-08-2018 7:06pm

Inviere wrote: »

Bah, you should have posted here for help! I've a fairly solid working knowledge now of how RetroArch works, and would more than likely have been able to help you with it. It really is top class once you have it set up and working correctly. Perhaps after a break, you'll come back to it.

d

I will go back to it but I'm going to start from scratch.
If I was to ask you which platform is best what would you recommend.
At the moment I have my gaming pc. Android quad core box.
A spare pc that I was going to use for emulators. The nuc is too low powered to emulate anything on. It will do up to n64 but no higher.
So my requirement is a standalone program platform that will do everything. I do like launchbox but I'm open to suggestions.
I would like name, neo geo etc.
I'd like to be able to just switch it on and boot to a decent frontend.
So any help appreciated.

Inviere · 01-09-2018 12:05pm

Hellrazer wrote: »

If I was to ask you which platform is best what would you recommend.

Imo, PC hands down. If you have the power, you can run anything from Atari to Wii U...all from within Launchbox. You could set Windows to load up Big Box Mode at Startup, and just have it as a dedicated emulation machine.

Hellrazer · 01-09-2018 12:12pm

Inviere wrote: »

Imo, PC hands down. If you have the power, you can run anything from Atari to Wii U...all from within Launchbox. You could set Windows to load up Bog Box Mode at Startup, and just have it as a dedicated emulation machine.

OK that's a start.
So I dl retroarch, launchbox, install both. Get my cores downloaded.
Now here's my issue.. The 16 bit stuff runs fine. Neo geo and mame is where I'm struggling.
I have my roms and neo geo bios etc but nothing launches.
I've been following videos about some - l command line that tells launchbox which core to use for the above. I've tried everything to get this working but no luck.
It's not like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm quite tech savvy and don't usually give up but this has me stumped!!!!

Inviere · 01-09-2018 12:18pm

Hellrazer wrote: »

OK that's a start.
So I dl retroarch, launchbox, install both. Get my cores downloaded.
Now here's my issue.. The 16 bit stuff runs fine. Neo geo and mame is where I'm struggling.
I have my roms and neo geo bios etc but nothing launches.
I've been following videos about some - l command line that tells launchbox which core to use for the above. I've tried everything to get this working but no luck.
It's not like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm quite tech savvy and don't usually give up but this has me stumped!!!!

MAME can be tricky, for several reasons...the primary one being the roms not matching the particular MAME you have downloaded. Ie, if you download the current MAME today, there's a high chance the older roms don't work for it. Then there's BIOS issues, directory issues, etc.

If I were you, and what I did, was to run MAME outside of RetroArch. Grab a standalone version of MAME, with the recommended/matching roms, and work from there. Get it up and running outside of Launchbox, and when everything is working as it should, you can integrate it into LB afterwards.

1) Grab MAME
2) Grab matching roms
3) Set up a folder for MAME
4) Put your BIOS and ROMS into the folders that MAME will create
5) Get content running
6) Integrate into LB

^^ ask away at any point in the above (except ROMS obviously, those I can't help you with on thread, and unfortunately it's critical that they match the version of MAME you have).

Hellrazer · 01-09-2018 12:26pm

Inviere wrote: »

MAME can be tricky, for several reasons...the primary one being the roms not matching the particular MAME you have downloaded. Ie, if you download the current MAME today, there's a high chance the older roms don't work for it. Then there's BIOS issues, directory issues, etc.

If I were you, and what I did, was to run MAME outside of RetroArch. Grab a standalone version of MAME, with the recommended/matching roms, and work from there. Get it up and running outside of Launchbox, and when everything is working as it should, you can integrate it into LB afterwards.

1) Grab MAME
2) Grab matching roms
3) Set up a folder for MAME
4) Put your BIOS and ROMS into the folders that MAME will create
5) Get content running
6) Integrate into LB

^^ ask away at any point in the above (except ROMS obviously, those I can't help you with on thread, and unfortunately it's critical that they match the version of MAME you have).

Cool. I have both running in standalone emulators.
Neoragex runs the neo geo fine.
Nebula is running my name 037b fine.

I can get both of these working in launchbox if I use them as standalone emulators when I add the roms. Problem is I've to then load each rom individually each time I launch it through launchbox so I cluck a title and instead of it launching through the correct emulator,the emulator loads and the u have to click the title again. It's not seamless if u get me.

Inviere · 01-09-2018 12:39pm

Hellrazer wrote: »

It's not seamless if u get me.

Yeah, you need to ditch them and get MAME handling everything in order for it to be seamless. NeorageX and Nebula are ancient if I recall, Or are they still in development?

MAME is fantastic, once you have it set up and working. You won't go back to those older emu's when you do

Hellrazer · 01-09-2018 1:18pm

Inviere wrote: »

Yeah, you need to ditch them and get MAME handling everything in order for it to be seamless. NeorageX and Nebula are ancient if I recall, Or are they still in development?

MAME is fantastic, once you have it set up and working. You won't go back to those older emu's when you do

To be completely honest they were the only 2 emulators that I could get working

Ok so how do I set up mame? Theres so many different versions of it (along with rom versions) that Im going to confuse myself even more. Is there a single version that will do all romsets along with neo geo etc.

Inviere · 01-09-2018 1:34pm

Hellrazer wrote: »

To be completely honest they were the only 2 emulators that I could get working

Ok so how do I set up mame? Theres so many different versions of it (along with rom versions) that Im going to confuse myself even more. Is there a single version that will do all romsets along with neo geo etc.

MAME encompasses all the systems it's designed for, including NeoGeo. The issue is, version 0.78 of MAME needs the roms for .78. Version .156 of MAME needs the .156 roms. Version .200 needs the .200 roms, and so forth. You couldn't download roms meant for .78 and feed them to MAME .200...it's just not going to work.

So you need to download MAME. It's not illegal, so I can link to it here. You'll more than likely want the x64 version if using a modern Windows OS - https://www.mamedev.org/release.html

I can't help you finding the roms here, but what I can say, is that you need roms meant for the version above (which is .201b). It'll likely be hard to find these roms on public websites, there's tonnes of older roms floating around, but again, no guarantee they'll work. The latest ones I can find publicly are the .197 ones (as a complete set), on a certain internet based archive. It might be worth trying these first, perhaps pick a few rather than grabbing the whole set (a decent torrent program will allow you to pick/choose which files you want to download from a full set).

You extract and run MAME, and it'll generate its own folders etc. You place the bios files and the roms in the Roms folder. Run MAME, and run the game you choose. Once you're at that stage, and the games work, that's the hard work done.

CiDeRmAn · 01-09-2018 6:19pm

Christ, I remember the nightmare of using clrmame I think it was, auditing my rom collection to try and get Galaga working again.
Pain
In
The
Ass.

Inviere · 01-09-2018 8:23pm

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Christ, I remember the nightmare of using clrmame I think it was, auditing my rom collection to try and get Galaga working again.
Pain
In
The
Ass.

Yeah clrmame was able (when fed a DAT file) to update certain roms so you didn't have to redownload them, amongst other things. These days, with the speeds we have, it's prob simpler to just redownload entire sets

BGOllie · 01-09-2018 10:26pm

been given a raspberry pie 1 board by a colleague at work. initial though was to get some form of linux to mess around with but I'm tempted to turn this into a retro thing.
is it good/ fast enough to run a retropie ?

Inviere · 01-09-2018 10:29pm

BGOllie wrote: »

been given a raspberry pie 1 board by a colleague at work. initial though was to get some form of linux to mess around with but I'm tempted to turn this into a retro thing.
is it good/ fast enough to run a retropie ?

Seems to be acceptable except for Super FX Snes games, N64, PS1, and above - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16039/raspberry-pi-1b-too-slow-for-most-games

Inviere · 02-09-2018 9:02am

Latest version of Dolphin
F-Zero X
Internal Resolution bumped x3
Official Wii U Gamecube Controller Adapter
Official Gamecube Controller

Wow.

Infernum · 02-09-2018 9:21am

Apparently Sega Saturn emulation has gotten a big boost lately? I think I remember seeing something about it a few days ago. Like most 90s consoles with complex hardware, its emulation has been very hit and miss through the years.

Infernum · 02-09-2018 9:24am

BGOllie wrote: »

been given a raspberry pie 1 board by a colleague at work. initial though was to get some form of linux to mess around with but I'm tempted to turn this into a retro thing.
is it good/ fast enough to run a retropie ?

Considering Retropie has been around since the Pi's early years, I'd say so. There is a chance you might have to download a much older version from the official site though.

Inviere · 02-09-2018 10:10am

Inviere wrote: »

Latest version of Dolphin
F-Zero X
Internal Resolution bumped x3
Official Wii U Gamecube Controller Adapter
Official Gamecube Controller

Wow.

Latest version of Dolphin
Metroid Prime Trilogy
Internal resolution bumped x3
Bluetooth chip from a real Wii adapted to USB
Official Wiimote & Nunchuk

Wow.

(I'm redoing my emulation setup from scratch, and am obviously at the Dolphin section:o)

It's a truly lovely emulator to use. Plays beautifully with Launchbox too

Chardee MacDennis · 03-09-2018 1:44pm

What are you running Dolphin on?
I cant get F-Zero X to run smoothly.

I've been playing Hitz 2002 on Dolphin recently, great fun - should have by gamecube -> usb adapter soon which will make a big difference.

General Emulation Discussion

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