Emulator gaming

Barbarian Conan

Barbarian Conan

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It's been a while since I dabbled in MAME. 20 years to be exact.
A while ago I acquired an emulator and some ROMs, but most of the stuff I tried didn't work.

Any tips to get something set up quickly and easily, where almost everything I try will work?
 
Barbarian Conan said:
It's been a while since I dabbled in MAME. 20 years to be exact.
A while ago I acquired an emulator and some ROMs, but most of the stuff I tried didn't work.

Any tips to get something set up quickly and easily, where almost everything I try will work?
Click to expand...
Go look at MVG / readup on retroarch, duckstation, dolphin, etc.

However, you need to actually tell us what your expectations are and what you are looking to emulate. e.g. xbox or ps1.
 
Herr der Verboten said:
Go look at MVG / readup on retroarch, duckstation, dolphin, etc.

However, you need to actually tell us what your expectations are and what you are looking to emulate. e.g. xbox or ps1.
Click to expand...

I want to emulate as much as possible.
At the very least some arcade, NES and SNES games, but ideally PS3 (or even PS4 if possible?) games as well. I want to use a PS4 controller with as many of the games as possible.
At first I want to use my gaming PC, but eventually I may want to use a less powerful PC to play some of the less demanding games with.
 
Barbarian Conan said:
I want to emulate as much as possible.
At the very least some arcade, NES and SNES games, but ideally PS3 (or even PS4 if possible?) games as well. I want to use a PS4 controller with as many of the games as possible.
At first I want to use my gaming PC, but eventually I may want to use a less powerful PC to play some of the less demanding games with.
Click to expand...
Best results for gamecube is the dolphin imho. For ps1 I've only played around with psxe, however they say duckstation is better. With things like original demon souls you need an actual guide to get it to run to a playable state. MVG does reviews of emulation setups on either nvidia shield or xbox hardware. Can't really remember where I would normally source the roms and bioses, but some roms needs patches and certain bioses to properly work. But... let me say this: Emulation is meh to great, however, it is always better to play on source rather than the alternative. Most was hit and miss for me with demon souls probably the most spent effort after god of war series.
 
In fact, I might still at one stage do a raspberry pi/sffpc arcade box with at least street fighter and toki. The whole shebang with fightsticks to go for one of my rooms :)
 
Herr der Verboten said:
In fact, I might still at one stage do a raspberry pi/sffpc arcade box with at least street fighter and toki. The whole shebang with fightsticks to go for one of my rooms :)
Click to expand...

Yea, a pi emulator-box was also what I wanted to do the last time I tried it, but it was either too slow, or too few titles worked. I can't remember which.
 
_kabal_ said:
:love:

so damn difficult too
Click to expand...
You did play the HD one on steam (yet)?
store.steampowered.com

Toki on Steam

The return of the wacky monkey!Toki sets off on a new adventure! The cult action/platform game originally released on arcade machines in 1989 is back with a super-simian new version, featuring all-new hand-drawn graphics and re-orchestrated music!
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com

..I used to play this back in the day at a cafe close to me. Well tried my best. haha.
 

RetroArch

RetroArch is a frontend for emulators, game engines and media players. It enables you to run classic games on a wide range of computers and consoles through its slick graphical interface. Settings are also unified so configuration is done once and for all.
www.retroarch.com
 
Yeah, definitely RetroArch or any distro based around it for ARM / x86_64, you've got robust cores for almost everything (including much newer PS2, DuckStation and Dreamcast stuff), and can be customised extensively. If you want to dabble in PS3, Wii U, Xbox1 / 360, Switch etc. as well, then you'll need to run a regular OS in your machine to have them side by side as they'll probably never become cores for RetroArch due to complexity and proprietary issues.

As for hardware and software recommendations, if you prefer Nvidia you'll have to go Windows due to superior performance in some emulators and better userland drivers in that side, but if you roll AMD then Linux is the choice as the drivers are far superior here for OpenGL + Vulkan and compatibility for some emulators, typically 6th and 7th Gen, is slightly better, particularly with VP6 decoding and interlacing hiccups.
 
Barbarian Conan said:
It's been a while since I dabbled in MAME. 20 years to be exact.
A while ago I acquired an emulator and some ROMs, but most of the stuff I tried didn't work.

Any tips to get something set up quickly and easily, where almost everything I try will work?
Click to expand...

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1629313815035.png
 
Herr der Verboten said:
You did play the HD one on steam (yet)?
store.steampowered.com

Toki on Steam

The return of the wacky monkey!Toki sets off on a new adventure! The cult action/platform game originally released on arcade machines in 1989 is back with a super-simian new version, featuring all-new hand-drawn graphics and re-orchestrated music!
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com

..I used to play this back in the day at a cafe close to me. Well tried my best. haha.
Click to expand...
Omw, awesome.

I can still smell the 7/11 in Edgemead were played this
 
Barbarian Conan said:
One day when I have a proper man cave.
Click to expand...

Well then you can always buy an Xbox Series S:


Or as in my case: EmulationStation:

Emulation.jpg
43" TV with:

Raspberry Pi 4 8gig + 500GB SSD(Running RetroArch With Astrum Controller)
Vanilla PS3 + 1TB SSD (Vanilla cause of PS+ network Play)
FreeMcBoot PS2 + 500GB SSD Using this adapter

and roms from CDRomance

Edit: Reason for options I went with:
Have a PS4 & Xbox Series S in lounge and can play most of the latest PlayStation and Original Xbox till Series games, so no need for emulation on that front. (PS4 soon to be replaced with PS5)
PS2 & PS3 emulation kills Raspberry Pi so have dedicated systems but Pi Handles PS1/N64/Snes/Mame and such no problem
 
Last edited:
Herr der Verboten said:
In fact, I might still at one stage do a raspberry pi/sffpc arcade box with at least street fighter and toki. The whole shebang with fightsticks to go for one of my rooms :)
Click to expand...
TOKI!!!! That's a game/name I haven't heard in about 35 years! When I hadn't even hit my teens yet.
 
Awesome...thanks for raising this. I was wondering about emulators a couple of weeks ago and this will help me!
 
Now that I am looking into this, not sure if you have seen some of these retro cases for the Raspberry Pi?

www.electromaker.io

23 Awesome Raspberry Pi cases - Best Raspberry Pi Cases

Do you fancy jazzing up your Raspberry Pi? Check out our best Raspberry Pi cases in our latest roundup featuring Raspberry Pi NES, SNES, and Mega Drive cases plus more! Pick out the top Raspberry Pi case option for the Pi 3 B+, Pi 4, Pi Zero, and more.
www.electromaker.io www.electromaker.io

I take it that the onboard GFX card that comes with a unit is enough to play N64/Sega/Arcade games without lag or pixellation, correct? Add on 2 decent cordless gamepads and you're golden!
And connect it to an external HDD, preferably something quick like an SSD.
 
JohnStarr said:
Now that I am looking into this, not sure if you have seen some of these retro cases for the Raspberry Pi?

www.electromaker.io

23 Awesome Raspberry Pi cases - Best Raspberry Pi Cases

Do you fancy jazzing up your Raspberry Pi? Check out our best Raspberry Pi cases in our latest roundup featuring Raspberry Pi NES, SNES, and Mega Drive cases plus more! Pick out the top Raspberry Pi case option for the Pi 3 B+, Pi 4, Pi Zero, and more.
www.electromaker.io www.electromaker.io

I take it that the onboard GFX card that comes with a unit is enough to play N64/Sega/Arcade games without lag or pixellation, correct? Add on 2 decent cordless gamepads and you're golden!
And connect it to an external HDD, preferably something quick like an SSD.
Click to expand...

I am more on Function over Form and the Argon case's can cool the system even with max overclock, not so sure about the console looking ones? Some emulation do need overclock to work properly.

Also I know Argon made a case with internal M.2 space (Also sold separably) but was not available in SA when I bough mine. So opted for normal USB 3 SSD. have no complaints from my part.
 
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