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RETROARCH - The all-in-one emulator dreams are made of, son

Nymerio

Member
As much as I love RetroArch I think the scene is missing a couple of things:

1. A clean way to catalogue games and an easy way to download descriptions/boxart etc. I'm finding that XBMC is a bit too cumbersome for what I want to do. I don't need all the other features of XBMC. I just want a nice catalogue solution so I can browse through a collection neatly. Something to show off to friends as well. I can't seem to find anything that is low resource and simple to use.

2. It would be neat to have a way to share and download configurations for games/cores via an in program database. That way people can upload and share their configs/borders etc for ease of download by others.

RetroArch is a good step in the right direction for emulation but if someone came along with a great front end that could be used with it, I would be happy.

Have you tried Emulation Station? The default theme is really clean and the scraper worked flawlessly for all my games. Setup is also pretty straight forward, though you have to edit the config file manually. There's an example in the file though and once you set up one system you can basically copy and paste the rest.
 
Have you tried Emulation Station? The default theme is really clean and the scraper worked flawlessly for all my games. Setup is also pretty straight forward, though you have to edit the config file manually. There's an example in the file though and once you set up one system you can basically copy and paste the rest.

I haven't. I will give that and Lakka a shot tonight.
 

Li Kao

Member
I saw the light in richiawesome's gameboy filter, so some quick stupid questions...
- Configuration-wise, on the latest compiled version, I don't really see what to set up apart from the core, rom path and aspect ratio. I don't even see the resolution option. Anything I missed ?
- Which filter would you recommend for a SNES game ? I tried a few but there are many options. Maybe people here use a custom filter better than what is available ?
 
In the main menu under core settings. Change the resolution then restart the core.

Native n64 resolution with cgwg CRT shader is amazing. Real damn close to my RGB modded N64.
"No options available"
Even with the core loaded...
They really need to work on usability. Other than that it's great but...

Just load a ROM first before entering the Core Options and then they will become available. That threw me initially as well.
Ah thanks. I loaded a rom an then pressed F1 and now I can change my resolution
 

Mbrill82

Member
Probably should have mentioned it's a 2013 Nexus, which uses Slimport. Unless they're magically compatible somehow.

I use a Dual Shock 3 with Retroarch on my Nexus 7 2013. I use the normal USB to USB-Micro charging cable that comes with any Dualshock 3 (or any generic cable) plugged into a USB OTG cable that is then plugged into the Nexus. Works a treat and very cheap, the USB OTG cable was like $4 at Fry's.
 

ILoveBish

Member
Looks like PPSSPP core is coming along for Retroarch, the core is somewhat working already according to some devs working on it.
 

Rich!

Member
Managed to get my PC to output at native SD resolution and output to a CRT (not hard lol)

Retroarch looks good. Real good. In fact, considering BSNES and my snes controller adapter, it's basically absolutely no different to my SNES via RGB.
 
So it seems the Phoenix frontend is no longer supported. What's the easiest way I can get setup now? I downloaded the latest pack from Liberto but it only comes with the "green menu" and after reading this guide I feel this is just too cumbersome.
 

Nymerio

Member
So what's everyone planning to play over the weekend?



I like that. I'm presuming the backgrounds will be configurable. Any hands-on impressions yet? I'm a bit tentative on investing a huge amount of time scraping and managing my ROMs again after a weekend spent on XBMC

I like it a lot. Setup was straight forward, just filled out the sample config with my own stuff and copy/pasted it for the rest of the systems. The first time you start it it prompts you to configure the keys for the frontend. The scraper works really well, out of a couple hundred of games it didn't find maybe ten or so. Backgrounds should be configurable somehow as there are different themes, haven't tried it out though because I like the default theme.
 

Lettuce

Member
I still can not seem to work out how to get my specific core options for each emulator to load on the fly when i select that specific core!!

I have my core loaded, for example picodrove, have set the shaders, display settings and rom location for that core and then selected 'Save New Config' but when i loads that core again its not remembering any of my settings
 

Card Boy

Banned
REGARDING RETROPIE (Retroarch for Raspberry Pi)

I'm having issues with my Official (Wired) Xbox 360 Pad. I got it to register with the "xboxdrv -D i 0 --next-controller -i 1 --next-controller -i 2 --next-controller -i 3 --deadzone 4000 --dbus disabled &" command and it works on the Emulation Station menu. But when i go in game buttons work except for the D-Pad or Analog stick.

I don't know any Linux and am using the latest 2.3 version of RetroPie. I got games working, its just controller issues at the moment.
 

Rich!

Member
REGARDING RETROPIE (Retroarch for Raspberry Pi)

I'm having issues with my Official (Wired) Xbox 360 Pad. I got it to register with the "xboxdrv -D i 0 --next-controller -i 1 --next-controller -i 2 --next-controller -i 3 --deadzone 4000 --dbus disabled &" command and it works on the Emulation Station menu. But when i go in game buttons work except for the D-Pad or Analog stick.

I don't know any Linux and am using the latest 2.3 version of RetroPie. I got games working, its just controller issues at the moment.

For me personally, the 360 pad has been a pain in the ass on linux.
 

Joey Ravn

Banned
Just load the saved config* instead of selecting the core and all of your shaders, display settings & selected core at the time of saving the config will load. Whenever I open Retroarch I just load a config (eg. Megadrive.cfg) and then load a ROM, I never select a core beyond the initial set up and saving of a config file.

*(select the 'Retroarch Config' option in the main menu in Retroarch)

Edit: Once I'm happy with a config for a specific console/core I then set the file to Read Only outside of Retroarch to save myself from accidentally borking a good config (alternatively you could just disable the save on exit option in Retroarch)

Wow. Thanks for this info. I think I've finally understood how the config system works!
 

Lettuce

Member
sörine;123769829 said:
My Shield's eagerly awaiting 1.1. I hope PPSSPP makes it in.

Apparently they have PPSSPP beta core in the one of the nightly builds, not sure that it will be up to much yet though

Have they said when RA 1.1 is going to be released, they said that a new release would be coming start of July but that months been and gone now :(
 

Juansho

Banned
How is the n64 emulation in this one? Is it any good? Im trying now with SNES. Thanks for this tutorial, i'm finding it very interesting
 
I've been playing about 12 hours of FFIX in RetroArch with the CRT-Royale shader and this is, for me, definitely the way to play 3D PSX titles. None of the silly polygonal jitter is visible like this, and it just looks "right" in a way a game like this definitely wouldn't if it was upressed or ran with the completely native output of the emulator/system.

Here are some pics:
ff9.png


ramuh.png

Zooming in on these images reveals just how crazy CRT-Royale (and probably other CRT shaders as well) is. You can see each individual RGB pixel clearly. Just mind-blowing imo. It looks way better in motion than in a screenshot, of course. Also this game is probably my favourite Final Fantasy out of the main series. I haven't played it since I was 13 years old and I've forgotten pretty much everything, so it feels like playing it for the first time all over again, and the story is just straight up engaging and full of surprises.
 

Rich!

Member
No probs. Glad it helped!



I've played through 90 stars of Mario 64, completed Wave Race for the umpteenth time and most of Golden Eye since setting up Retroarch and it's been my best emulated experience of the Nintendo 64. The custom CRT shaders really make N64 titles look great again IMO. Just remember to increase the res in the core options.

No. I don't think anyone should do this. Keep it at the original native res imo.

The whole basis of using retroarch, as thèse filters show, is accuracy to the original experience. Playing N64 at the original resolution on retroarch is the closest I've ever had via emulation to my real RGB modded 64.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Yeah, with CRT-Royale at least, N64 at any res higher than 320 or whatever introduced flickering which was odd.

Currently between these two variations on CRT-royale at the moment which you probly cant tell the difference from zoomed out:
First is the loyal to all the CRT RGB gubbins you can see peeking through

This is the one I keep coming back to as the more scanline look and subtle blur is more what I remember these games to look like rather than 'what my old TV looked like when I took a photo of it' if that makes any sense.

A lot of retro games were designed with the intention that natural CRT blur and NTSC corruption would 'join' dithering and such forth as well. This is the level of mania I've plummeted to.
 

Lettuce

Member
Yeah i was just about to post about the CRT-Royale (and probably other crt shader) and the shaking of the screen in.......what i think are 480p screens, so its an interlaced issue right??

Have noticed that there is a couple of deinterlacing shaders just been released!!....

http://www.libretro.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1750

im guess you could add one of those as the first pass before CRT-Royale???.....im not well versed in shaders so not 100% how to achieve this though!!

Regarding PSX and N64 games is still regarded best to use CRT shaders for these era of consoles as weren't they 480 based not 240 anymore??.I know there is a 3dfx shader that people recommend to use for N64 as thats similar to the chip that was actual in the N64

BTW, Pie and Beans, what overlay are you using there for the bezel effect around the screen?

EDIT: Has any complied the PSP core yet ??
 

Rich!

Member
Interesting. I get best results at 640x360 / 640x480 using my CRT shader (irrespective of the fact that few N64 games actually rendered at 640x480). Mupen64 plus defaults to the second lowest N64 resolution (320x240) which didn't look as accurate in my experience when used in combination with my selection of shaders.

See:




Edit: I didn't mean crank the resolution up in Mupen64 beyond what the N64 was originally capable of (ie 1920x1200). That would be stupid :)

480p is fine, looks superb with a CRT filter. Nintendo upres N64 to that on the VC anyhow.
 

Lettuce

Member
That CRT-Royale shader looks good. I might have a play with that. Does anyone have a link?


https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/archive/master.zip

download the whole shader repo and add to the shader folder in your retroarch folder. You have to keep the file structure the same otherwise some shaders dont work correctly

These are the alterations i made to the shader via the Paremter settings, which i feel look more please.....

CRT_Gamma 2.30
LCD_Gamma 2.00
Diffusion_Weight 0.25
Bloom_Underestimate_Levels 0.55
Bloom_excess 0.35
Beam_Max_Sigma 0.20
Beam_Max_Sharp 2.50
Beam_Sharp_Power 0.80
Border_size 0.00


Anyone know which files i should be looking in the CRT-Royale Shader folder to make the above changes permanent?
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
BTW, Pie and Beans, what overlay are you using there for the bezel effect around the screen?

Just put on a 0.02 border in CRT-Royale's stuff. Gives just enough to sort of copy what my old 90's gaming TV had.

Anyone know which files i should be looking in the CRT-Royale Shader folder to make the above changes permanent?

I couldnt really figure it out so what I'd do is change the parameters in the first one inside RA, then also the second one, THEN save as an entirely new CGP and I then use that. RoyaleWithBeans.cgp
 

Rich!

Member
I just tried CRT-Royale...and I personally do not like it.

I don't like the shaders that have added glow or distortion to try and emulate a CRT. Apart from hooking up my console back to an old RF set back in the day, I've never had a CRT look like that. Example of my last CRT I bought, a 28" 4:3 Sony Trinitron:

(brightness on my camera fucked this one up)



and another CRT I own, a smaller set:


Hooked up through RGB, the image is clear as day there isn't it? CRT-Royale looks nothing like that, and thats what I dislike. The closest CRT shader to my experience with CRTs is the CRT-CGWG shader that adds scanlines and sod all else. Of course, this may all be influenced by the fact that here in the UK, RGB inputs have always been standard on televisions.

Obviously personal tastes are fine, but that's my view.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Out the box, CRT-Royale is sort of emulating not as precise gaming TV's that did have all these effects (which you can tweak away at massively btw) whereas the TV's and stuff youve done to your consoles is for pixel-perfect representation.

Personally, I don't like that as much because sprite-art a lot of the time never wanted you to see it completely pixellated and almost raw output. I ran some tests between like... 20 different shaders on some games that used 'dithering' tricks on their tiles, and when you start adding distortion, you get closer to 'Artist's Intention'.
 
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