My LAKKA build and experience so far

General Off-Topic
#1

Hello, Everyone! First and foremost, please forgive me if this is not the right category for such a thread.

I’ve always been a fan of retro gaming, and always played my nostalgia games for console and PCs; I’ve always enjoyed more blue hedgehogs, chubby plumbers, top-view demon hunters…than this new wave or console games. Don’t get me wrong, graphics are out of this world for some. But IMHO nothing beats a good 8-16bit graphic side-scroller to relax (or get angry once you realized you forgo to save state!).

I’d like to start a trend, as i haven’t seen much else on here in regards to “builds”, and with all the hardware available that retroarch and lakka can run on, it’d say this can be a very fun topic!

I’d also like to keep it “clean”: i’m not an expert, not pretending to be one, not expecting to be one. I am open to comments or suggestions (otherwise, i wouldn’t be typing this lol), but please refrain from posting hateful or derogatory comments. I’m sure moderators wouldn’t like it, either :wink:

With all that out of the way, this is my build, so far:

  1. Main driver - Dell Latitude E6430 / Intel Core i5 / 8GB RAM / Intel HD 3000 graphics / butt load of disk space for ROMs :smiley:
  2. Controller - So far, all i have is a “Honey Bee AIRFLO” USB controller. It works fine with the few emulators I’ve tried. Only issue i’ve encountered was with PSX emu/mednafen core; it “yells” at me that no controllers are configured, and closes the emu, going back to main LAKKA. NOTE: it was pointed out to me in another post that it might be a BIOS issue.
  3. External 24" HP LCD (used, got it from a buddy that was upgrading home stuff!) connected via VGA. Might do HDMI via adapter, since laptop supports it :wink:
  4. will build portable cabinet/carrying case for gaming on-the-go possibly from plywood or MDF (painted, of course)
  5. Was reading about the new releases of retroarch and LAKKA, and will update soon; screenshots looks great!
  6. Haven’t been able to get MAME to work properly, but that i suspect is also BIOS-related.

As detailed as this and this are, I’m not really clear on one thing: since i can use the GUI to load ROMs for different systems, do i have to load a core for THAT system, first, or will retroarch/LAKKA switch cores “on the fly”? In other words: I boot up LAKKA, load a rom from the SNES catalog without preloading/selecting the znesx core. Will that work, or do you always have to load new cores to play on another emulator?

That’s about it!

I’ll post pictures as soon as i have some spare time to clean up the work area/office at home.

I’m hoping this post will be a “one-stop shop” for all n00bs like me to learn and enjoy to fantastic system and community!

-Dragon_0n4-

#2

To answer your question: if you load it from a playlist, it should load it with the core that’s been selected for that playlist or at least ask you which core you wish to use. If you go to ‘load content’ and choose ‘select file and detect core,’ it will also try to guess which core to use and ask for confirmation if there’s more than one.

#3

Understood. However, and keeping in mind I’m using a version that is a few months old, this is how i’ve loaded roms, so far:

  1. booted LAKKA
  2. browsed to the ROMs folder from another PC, copied files in it
  3. on LAKKA, started a scan of directory
  4. Once scan is complete, ROMs appear associated to the console they belong to (i.e. SNES and genesis separate columns), so i just select the games, play them. No core preloaded…

Are the different console icons what you’re referring to as “playlists”?

Am i making sense?

#4

Yeah, the lists of games that show up after a scan are playlists, and yeah, they’ll just use the core that the playlist is associated with.

#5

So technically you shouldn’t need to load a core, if retroarch/lakka already “know” what to open the rom with, correct? Sorry if i’m being repetitive, but i just want to make sure i understand from the gurus :wink:

#6

Soooo…I updated to the latest build of Lakka today! The new animated background is so good looking! The ROM posters look great! Only thing left to do is to update the console icons on the home screen, then i can be happy. But tomorrow…there’s always tomorrow…

I also think i’ll reset my controller and kb mapping back to defaults, as during post-update testing, i saw what i had left behind…a mess! Controller half way working, up on the kb does nothing…disaster XD

#7

Question about controller mapping/preconfiguration: If i insert a USB controller, and retroarch / lakka gives me the message “controller xyz configured on #0”, it means i *shouldn’t" need to configure anything on it. But on the other hand, if i get any other type of message, there is probably a problem with the preconfig, and i need to map buttons/pad. Correct?

#8

correct for both questions, afaik.

#9

Thank you for clarifying that! Just gave a quick twirl to RetroArch on Android: I must say, best on-screen controller on mobile i’ve used, so far! BRAVO, DEV’s! Can’t wait to try it with a bt controller…maybe it’s time to turn my old N7 into a mobile retro-game station! Well…I’d test it before i scratch my whole laptop project!

I noticed retroarch doesn’t come with any cores on android, and i presume that is done to minimize bandwidth during install, and space usage on device. As i’m not too familiar with menus on the mobile platform, I tried (on android), to do a “load content” and load core automatically, it worked great :wink:

#10

Little progress! I was able to load PS ROM, with sound on both speakers and headphones, and play without fiddling with controller configs! Also, FINALLY loaded a MAME ROM successfully!!!

I know you guys might be like “ok…and…?!? -_-” but for me these are very good progress/steps! I was never ever able to play these emulators successfully. It was only recently when i learned with help from this fantastic community, how to use the platform.

Anyway, enough brown-nosing ehehehe! Here is a pic of my desk/testing:


To the right, you ccan see lakka running with highlighted the FBA emulator. Now, that actually loaded by default after a dir scan; however, the rom did not play from there. I had to go to load content > select file and detect core > then i picked a different MAME core (forgive me, don’t recall which one…). Voila’! ROM started…no controllers, but it started!

Questions:

  1. are MAME roms/emulators not able to use retroarch preconfig controller settings, and need to be configured on a by-core basis?
  2. if i wanted to, what would be the best way to start back from square 1? reinstall, or is there a “reset all” option?

To Be Continued…

#11

let’s try this again:

#12

This is the monster I’ll be using as a monitor for the retro station (24"):

IMG_20160507_212419.jpg1024×768

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Stand removed:

IMG_20160507_214047.jpg1024×768

Once pedestal is removed, the back gives me a nice platform to mount the screen to the back of my “suitcase”; I saved the machine screws…off to home depot to find matching thread but longer ones tomorrow…

IMG_20160507_214116.jpg1024×768

#13

Good morning, everyone! One thing i noticed on some of the cores (namely, MAME), is that the buttons don’t work properly, and since I still can’t operate the home/lakka menu from the controller, either, i decided to try and reset retroarch. This is what i did:

[ol] [li]opened an ssh console with retroarch[/li][li]connected to lakka via smb from my windows laptop (i like to use folders :slight_smile: )[/li][li]used the command systemctl stop retroarch[/li][li]renamed the file …\Configfiles\retroarch\retroarch.cfg[/li][li]restarted retroarch with systemctl start retroarch[/li][li]…\Configfiles\retroarch\retroarch.cfg was automatically recreated[/li][/ol]

Hopefully tonight i’ll have time to test this…

#14

Good morning! Just to clarify, the latest update for lakka showed some color icons for cores and games, but those are from an older version, andt he only way to change these icons for now is to manually put png files and manually change the code for the gui. Correct?

I could have sworn, though, i read somewhere there was an unofficial icon pack/theme to be enabled in the settings…if i find what that was, i’ll post it :slight_smile:

EDIT: http://www.lakka.tv/articles/2016/05/03/new-major-release/ So, in the Menu settings, there is an “…icon theme called RetroActive…” Also, there is a …“Thumbnails Updater…”. Tested this new feature, and noticed it didn’t pull thumbnails for every game; possibly due to ID mismatch with the repo it checks with…?

Anyway, i know i wasn’t crazy, i had read it somewhere!

#15

How could I not link to this great post from sandwich_bagz ? Thank you!

#16

Hello, Everyone! I was playing with ROMs organization, moving files in subfolders named by emulator (i know that breaks auto-scan, but i don’t mind scanning one folder at a time…), but now PSX ROMs don’t show up, and retroarch doesn’t create a “playstation.lpl” file. Mind you these are all the same files, same BIOS files from a few days ago.

Already tried moving ROMs back to main ROMs folder, stopped retroarch, renamed retroarch.cfg, restarted service, scanned dir: no avail.

Any ideas?

#17

OK, Everyone! I think with this, i’m calling it “finished”. Not the prettiest build out there, but it plays! Just wanted to thank the dev community for making this possible! Spec’s: Latitude E7430 CPU - Core i5 @ 2.6GHz RAM - 8GB Graphics - Integrated Intel Sound - Integrated Intel Screen - 24" LCD on VGA output Gamepad - Nyko Airflo (USB)

Next, I’ve had retroarch on my Nexus 6 for a while now, but i don’t like any of the existing controller solutions for android devices…time to design my own!

#18

Loving the lil frankenstein station! Spent hours on Super Metroid and Dragon Hunters, already! Wifey wants to play ms pac-man, and the little one…well, she’s too little, but loves watching daddy play!

#19

Quick update: Added external speakers for better vol control, and bought a 2nd controller! Pics coming soon!

#20

Once scan is complete, ROMs appear associated to the console they belong to (i.e. SNES and genesis separate columns), so i just select the games, play them.