Good emulator for SNES and AM?

[progets]

Yes, I think so. My arcade cabinet was built years ago with a different FE on x86. By having the autoconfig file in RA I have put in different boards running different OSes over the years but my autoconfig file always works (in some cases with very small tweaks) across Window and Linux as well as x86 vs. x64 vs. Raspberry Pi. Over the years new features get added to RA which won't be in old versions of the retroach.cfg so copying it isn't the best idea and it won't work across different OSes since video and audio setting will likely be different.

This benefit is decreased significantly if the controllers will never be changed, which I now understand is likely your case. It is also decreased even less if you never plan to try another OS.

I should also mention that I've been using RA for over five years and when I started with it, I deleted the entire install and started fresh many times. More than one redo was because I did the arcade encoder setup in an less than desirable way. I learned from my mistakes and wouldn't call myself an expert but let's say the once confusing RA now makes a lots of sense and it's easy for me navigate/configure/change.

P.S. In the first year using RA I learned that you could simply delete the retroach.cfg file and it would create a new one. This doesn't always fix your "won't run" problem but it usually does. Renaming it to compare to the old one is probably a better idea. I rarely make changes to RA running in my cab if I'm not changing the OS.

[akafox]

@wrybread
gonna tell you you don't have to use retroarch. you can use snes9x or bsnes on linux for snes games.

Now that being said I do like retroarch very much. So much I don't use any stand alone emulators anymore (well except for ps2 and psp...well I do..but not as often) yes even mame. Why? because it just works. Mame cores allow me to run games that my system can not run with standard mame.

However, I HATED retroarch at first because it was much more difficult to use..at least at first. Retroarch is not straight froward when you are used to your emulators just working as they have always done. Not to mention the customization of retroarch! it's overwhelming! but honestly you will never need to use many of them or if you do it may be once or twice. Once you get used to it and once you have tweaked it, it will stay solid.

One good thing about it is the libretro cores are constantly updated and worked on but the emulators themselves are not or as often. With retroarch you get final burn neo and some other emulators for linux "natively" whereas if you used the emulator itself you would have to use wine because the emulators are windows only.

Just give retroarch time to get to know it. you don't have to learn it in a day. It took me a year or so so cozy up with it. Truth be told I STILL use some stand alone emulators from time to time. It's not about what "everyone uses". It's about what works best for you and your machine.

As a linux user I have to tell you. to install new emulators (called cores) in retroarch through the gui. You MUST change the default path to a place you have permission to write to. Also installing the cores from the repository will not get you all the cores...nor will it give you the newest cores. So you can change the default core path (start retroarch gui and then go to settings → directory → core) to a location you are allowed to write to. Then go to load core..then 'Download A Core'. Choose the cores you want (or you can download them all from the webpage using uget or wget). RA will download them and unzip them to the directory you set. Now you have one of two options. You can 1. Leave that directory set and work from there. or 2. (which I suggest) is to manually copy the cores into the default directory as root and also change the core directory back to the default. (see you can download and unzip any core you want to the default directory but you don't have write permissions so actually retroarch downloads and unzips..but you get no core out of it.)


If you learn retroarch (retroarch is the gui (the desktop) for libretro cores (the programs) sorta speak)) then you'll have a better understanding how it all works.)

As for your controller issue no reason to get bummed or do it the hard way. If you messed up setting up on of the controllers just go back the the button/direction and fix it. For example:

 I plug in my USB PS2 controller...load retroarch and go to settings -> input -> controller port 1 → bind all and as i go through I screw up and make the down button left instead *FACEPAWS!* I continue to go through the buttons manually like normal. When I finish I have one of two options using my keyboard I can: 1. Select reset to default controls (thus clearing the controller I just set up) and set them again or 2. Go to the button/direction I screwed up and press the enter button and press the correct direction/button on my controller. All fixed! no need to delete your entire retroarch config. (hint if you are using a snes controller or such then you can just let the setting "time out" thus no buttons are set to the action.)

If you need detailed help you can look at the retropie setup page and it will help get you started quickly. Just know that your paths WILL NOT BE THE SAME. All the controller set up and bios info and such is all good info there to help get you started.

(You can send me a PM and I will walk you through if you need help. This thread is for Attract mode issues NOT emulator problems. That is why I had Ray set up and emulator thread for help and such. Although you can see how hard we stick to the rules around here with that  )

[wrybread]

Thanks for all the great tips. Especially the one about not trying to learn this program in a day! Slowing down has definitely helped.

I'm setting this up on my other cabinet and trying to do it correctly, as opposed to the bare minimum to get Super Mario World running passably, ha.

I'm wondering what the correct way to map my control panel is. This cabinet is a standup cabinet with a Mortal Kombat control panel that looks like the attached.

Under the hood, each player's buttons and joystick is a single joystick encoder. So for example player 1's joystick and 5 buttons are the first joystick encoder, and player 2's joystick and 5 buttons are the other one.

For now I'm using the SNES9X core.

I don't imagine anyone has any advice about how to map my control panel for SNES? I've got the exit button mapped (thanks progets).

To make matters slightly worse I don't actually have much experience with SNES.

[wrybread]

I posted to the Retroarch forum, probably a better place for this:

https://forums.libretro.com/t/possible-to-map-an-input-from-another-joystick-encoder/30635

That forum is hilarious by the way. Took a ridiculous amount of time to figure out how to post. Turns out they prevent new users from posting until they've read 10 postings. They say so in the FAQ, but of course everyone reads the FAQ for new forums they join...

An endless thread of complaints about the policy:

https://forums.libretro.com/t/how-can-i-create-a-new-topic/8416

Anyway, Retroarch sure is interesting.  Making progress in it is a lot like making progress in a video game.

[wrybread]

Thanks again for the advice to stick with Retroarch. Now that I wrapped my head around Retroarch I don't even know what the problem was, ha. One thing that really helped is using it through Teamviewer, as opposed to sitting at a cocktail cabinet straining to see.

Once I got it working it was super easy to install other emulators. So now I'm using it for NES, SNES, Odyssey2, Colecovision and Atari 2600. Each just works.

In case it's useful to anyone, attached are my Attract Mode emulator files for bluemsx (Colecovision), ecwolf (Odyssey2), nestopia (NES), snex9x (SNES), and stella (Atari 2600), in case they're useful to anyone. Inside  each are my installation notes (which bios files to install, etc).

[mahuti]

The most difficult thing about Retroarch for me to understand was that it is built around Gamepads. I've been doing emulation stuff since the late 90's, so in my experience everything was designed for a keyboard (or keyboard encoder.). RetroArch is built around gamepads, and multiple controllers. For my cabinets... it was a disaster as it was literally impossible to map across two gamepad encoders (without doing some kind of wacky udev rule or something) which ould normally map fine in MAME.

It's really simple if one uses a gamepad. If one uses say... two encoders in a cabinet, one for controls and one for coin inputs and administrative interfaces, it starts getting really complex. And exiting with 1 button is needlessly complicated... it's so, so stupid to be honest. That said, over the years It's become one of the tools in my bag, but these days I don't want to use it on a cabinet, just a living room console. I'd prefer to just manually configure everything in a cabinet... but in a cabinet I've decided I'd rather just stick with arcade games anyway.

[wrybread]

That makes a lot of sense. And my experience (cabinets, since the 90s) and main use (mame) is the same as yours. But I do have one section of my cabinet for the best few games from each classic console. Fun to fire up Colecovision or NES or whatever when a friend who had that growing up is visiting and watch the memories come flooding back. And Retroarch sure is good for that, once I got past the learning curve. And once I learned to stop expecting it to behave like a normal emulator.

And yeah it was pretty mind boggling that I couldn't map controls from my second joystick encoder to player 1 controls. For example not being able to map Player 2 start to the global start button... The game pad theory makes a lot of sense, but really I think there's some design decisions that really get in that program's way. There's a lot of cases of form over function. Ultimately I can't complain, because with a little retooling (re-wiring a few buttons to use the first joystick encoder) I got great results from it. Ok maybe I can complain a little, ha.