Is there a getting started guide anywhere on the site or in the wiki? I’ve used RetroArch in the past but not in a while. I downloaded the latest stable build and am a little unsure how to do some basic things like get the latest cores (they were included in the build the last time I downloaded RetroArch). I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other questions as I go but couldn’t find anything with instructions for a new/returning user. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If you downloaded latest stable build of 1.2.2… I believe everything is done through the Online Updater in the Menu. You just grab the cores, shaders, etc. from there and can update to the latest versions at will. It automatically unzips them and everything. It’s actually really nice. First settings you want to choose would probably be if you want to save settings per-core or not… then your Directory settings. I put bios files in a system folder, saves in a save folder, states in a states folder, and choose a File Browser Dir where all your games are to browse for when you click “load content” after loading a core. There are better way to set this up I’m sure, like using boxart and stuff… but this will get you started.
Then your video settings. I always recommend turning off HW Bilinear Filtering for retro pixel games, as it always just makes them look artificial and blurry. I also recommend turning on Interger-Scaling, so when you use shaders the scanlines come out right. That setting will crop the screen a bit smaller, but nothing you can do about it.
For shaders I recommend CRT-Royale CG Preset mostly (GL version doesn’t work). It needs a little tweaking like turning down the bloom and removing the dark border (if you want), which can be done in the Menu Shader Perimeters option of that section.
If you need Vsync, I recommend using Hard GPU Sync along with it, at whatever setting your PC can handle? This may introduce other issues with audio and slowdowns for different cores and might need changed at times. I’ve been using it on the 1 setting mostly, and it removes most noticeable input lag when using Vsync, on NES at least.
This video gives a basic tutorial…
Thank you both.
I was able to download the cores and now am trying to load a game via command line but I keep getting the following error:
RetroArch is built for dynamic libretro cores, but libretro_path is not set. Cannot continue.
I’ve tried setting the libretro_path but still get the error. Any thoughts?
Add --menu to your launch command.
Thanks. Ideally I would like to bypass the menu and launch my game directly. Is that possible in the current version or do I need to go through the menu?
Here is what my command looks like right now:
retroarch :\cores\snes9x_libretro.dll -v “X:\Games\Roms\SNES\F-ZERO.smc”
Looking at the --help parameters a little closer and it looks like I need to provide the core with the -L parameter so I tried the below and it worked!
retroarch -L “C:\Users\Brian\Desktop\RetroArch_1.2.2\cores\snes9x_libretro.dll” -v “X:\Games\Roms\SNES\F-ZERO.smc”
Thanks everyone for your help.