Got a lot of problems and need some help

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

Hoping someone can help me with a few problems with RetroArch on Windows 10.

  1. Atari 5200 and Magnavox. Each time I load a game ROM a message says “Failed to load content”. Why is this? I have cores downloaded and installed and ROMs in the playlist with thumbnails. The core for the 5200 is called a5200 and the core for Magnavox is called O2EM.

  2. Atari Lynx. Games don’t load, no error messages just a grey screen. Why? Am I using the wrong core? ( I have Beetle Lynx).

  3. Colecovision. All games say “NO BIOS” (message appears to be an original Coleco screen error and not RetroArch saying this). I think there’s a BIOS file in the folder of game ROMs. Does RetroArch use it or do I have to tell it to use it? I’m using core Gearcoleco.

  4. Fairchild Channel F. All games have an error message that says “Couldn’t load BIOS, using experimental HLE mode, in case of problem use BIOS”. Again, pretty sure there’s a BIOS file in the folder with the game ROMs. I’m using FreeChaF. I think it’s the only core available.

  5. When I tried to install content for the following platforms RetroArch didn’t do anything:

  • Atari 5200
  • Atari 7800
  • Atari Jaguar
  • Atari Lynx
  • Colecovision Instead I had to manually add them, setting name, core, thumbnails etc to make them work. Why couldn’t RetroArch add them automatically like it did with NES and SNES for example?
  1. When I tried to install content for the following platforms RetroArch scanned the directory just fine but then it didn’t add any games so again I had to add them all manually like the ones above:
  • Fairchild Channel F
  • Magnavox Odyssey 2

  1. Atari 7800 and Jaguar work but only with USA ROMs. Europe ones just crash or are messed up visually.

  2. I can’t find a core for Nintendo Game & Watch and Wonderswan Color.

  3. Arcade games I had to add manually and none of the thumbnails work, I had to copy them over from an old Windows 7 install into the RetroArch folder directly due to RetroArch not even attempting to download any but doesn’t use them anyway.

  4. Fairchild Channel F, only every other thumbnail shows up.

That’s a lot of crap to deal with that 'ain’t working. Wondering if there’s an alternative to RetroArch that does actually work properly. Or have I just f’d up something?

#2

Bios files go most of the time into the system folder of Retroarch. Check the docs and in Retroarch itself you can go to -> Information - > Core Information after a Core is loaded to see if there is any Bios info. https://docs.libretro.com/ As for 8. check the core downloader for Bandai Wonderswan (Beetle Cygne), Game & Watch is probably the Handheld Electronic (GW) core.

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#3

Thanks Jamirus! I put the BIOS files in the System folder, although they still didn’t work until I renamed them to the same as the error message in Core Information. For example the Colecovision core said “(!) Missing, Required: Colecovision.rom…”, the BIOS I had was named just coleco.rom so I changed it. Works now! The rest of the cores all work now and I guess I should have looked harder for the Wonderswan and Hand helds! Lol.

#4

I use atari800 core for Atari 5200. I remember it giving me some trouble to make it work. I think I needed to place a bios file in the right folder in Retroarch and set the path of the file in the menu of the core itself, as in starting the core and navigate in the menu of the emulator (not Retroarch options). It was some time ago, so I don’t remember exactly how I did it, but I think it was something like that.

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#5

Here is a very detailed video on how to set up the atari800 core.

https://youtu.be/6yoons4SrCQf

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