New user oddity

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

ok, so, I’ve stumbled onto retroarch in an attempt to set up my emulation through steam so I can use my steam controller.

I’ve got to say, I love the idea of retroarch, but, apparently I’ve hit a roadblock.

I’ve installed the snes9x, emux_gb, genesis_plus_gx, nestopia, and mednafen_gba cores, and from the start, none of them will launch a game, they all black screen me. I’ve scanned all of the rom directories, and it will find and list the games but, if I tell them to start, I get a black screen and retroarch completely hangs.

Hardware: AMD FX-8320 8 core @3.7ghz (boosting to 4.1ghz) 16GB Kingston DDR3 GTX 750OC 2GB graphics card Win7 64-Bit Ultimate runs from a SSD, everything else is on multiple 2TB rotating drives, however, RA and the roms are in the same directory “S:\SteamLibrary\Emulation”, with RA having its own directory, each other emulator app I have (gens, snes9x, visualboyadvance, fceux), and the ROMS having their own directory, sorted by system (SNES/GEN/GBA/NES).

Can anyone throw me a bone as to what I seem to be missing here? every “setup guide” I’ve found seems to agree that you should at least be able to fire up RA with default graphics settings and run it from keyboard mode from there, and tweak it to what you want the graphics settings to be.

I’ve also verified that the ROM file I’m using is handled just fine with snes9x, as I just finished playing it with the standalone app…

#2

See if a new install fixes it.

Download this http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/windows/x86_64/RetroArch.7z

Then download the Cores http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/windows/x86_64/latest/ Click the check mark next to the cores you want. Then hit the download arrow in the top left. Make sure to unzip so they’re dll’s.

Put them in the /cores folder.

#3

just did that, same result…

one other oddity is that with RA it only sees the .smc as a rom yet snes9x’s standalone handles them just fine in .bin format, which of course means that if I have to convert them, I’m gonna need to find a utility that’ll convert them all too…any suggestions on that angle?

#4

Sometimes it will only detect .sfc

Rename the .bin to .sfc and see if it loads. I don’t know of any converters, but I’ve renamed save extensions and it works.

If Snes9x doesn’t work, try bsnes-balanced or bsnes-mercury-balanced, it’s the better emulator.

#5

well, that’s the oddity, NONE of them work…I’ve tried GB/GBC/GBA games that all play fine with visualboyadvanced, black screen from RA, I’ve run genesis games through GENS, black screen from RA, I’ve run the exact same games on snes9x standalone, but they black screen on RA…I’m not sure what the problem is, but, it seems to point to a setting on RA. I’m using the SNES games as my testing platform since I’m running the exact same app in both the standalone and in RA…so, logically, what works fine in the standalone should work just fine in RA, but it doesn’t.

#6

What exactly is your process for loading roms?

#7

Your old RetroArch install may be carrying over and old config file that is being used in the new install. The configs may have the wrong driver display settings.

Make a completely new folder, and put http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/windows/x86_64/RetroArch.7z and the cores in there.

Take a look through my guide here and look at the default settings I use. http://www.powerup.io/gaming/emulators/retroarch

#8

[QUOTE=wyzrd;45617]Your old RetroArch install may be carrying over and old config file that is being used in the new install. The configs may have the wrong driver display settings.

Make a completely new folder, and put http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/windows/x86_64/RetroArch.7z and the cores in there.

Take a look through my guide here and look at the default settings I use. http://www.powerup.io/gaming/emulators/retroarch[/QUOTE]

this was all a brand new directory as of last night…and I did just completely blank the directory out before installing the clean one…EDIT Worth noting is that it has NEVER worked for me, I’ve only ever gotten black screens and the app freezes.

Axiphel, please elaborate? I’ve tried scanning the directory, then picking one from the scan, and I’ve tried going to load content->select file both have the exact same result…

#9

[QUOTE=wyzrd;45617] Take a look through my guide here and look at the default settings I use. http://www.powerup.io/gaming/emulators/retroarch[/QUOTE]

this, is a much more in depth guide than many out there, I’m going through it slowly now, will report back if it has any positive effect…

#10

still no luck…I guess RA and I aren’t meant to play…

#11

Maybe a log will show something. Go inside your RetroArch folder and shift+right-click and select ‘Open command window here’ and type/paste retroarch_debug.exe --menu --verbose >> log.txt 2>&1 then load a game normally. Copy the contents of the log into a site like pastebin.com and the post the link here.

#12

I have an idea, try to launch from the command-line only and see what happens.

Open up Command Prompt.

Type in exactly, with your own paths and file extensions, you must have quotes:

"C:\Path\To\retroarch.exe" -L "C:\Path\To\RetroArch\cores\core.dll" -c "C:\Path\To\retroarch.cfg" "C:\Path\To\Game.rom"

If you make a mistake after pressing Enter, press the up arrow ↑ to load the last line you wrote.

#13

Also, just to be thorough but have you tried loading a core and then loading a rom directly (load core, load content) instead of running from the playlists?

Edit, also have you tried updating all of your files under the updated section? I think I might have had a similar issue once when I didn’t update my core infos so it might be that.