Complete RetroArch Guide For Noobs.

[marxkemp]

Awesome awakened. I see alot of people moving to RA, so this is great stuff. Ill try your zip asap over the weekend

[Fromlostdays]

I just saw this commit adding a screen gap option to the Desmume core. Should be in tomorrow's nightly.

I'm getting paranoid that Awakened is part of the RetroArch dev team and that he and his cohorts are laughing at my feeble attempt to make a guide.

[zerojay]

I'll try to get this into the Retroarch module as well if it happened.

[Awakened]

I'm getting paranoid that Awakened is part of the RetroArch dev team and that he and his cohorts are laughing at my feeble attempt to make a guide.

I just check the libretro github page once or twice a day. It conveniently shows the latest updated things at the top, and you can just click on the name and then commits to see what's changed. I'm no programmer so I don't fully understand most of the updates, but some are decipherable by the layman

Edit: I tried the Desmume build for today and the screen gap core option doesn't appear. Maybe it's not fully implemented yet...

[sucramjd]

why do i have loads of shader files but i can only choose the cgp ones not the cg? i'm a noob with this be gentle

[marxkemp]

Cgp are the preset files.

Cg are the files you can choose for shaders individually. Set passes from 0 to 1 and you can select the cg file

[sucramjd]

Cgp are the preset files.

Cg are the files you can choose for shaders individually. Set passes from 0 to 1 and you can select the cg file

Thank you so much mate i couldn't find anything about it on google now i'll be tinkering for ages looks amazing

[marxkemp]

Awakends zip file is a nice way to start before drowning in the sea of common-shaders

[Awakened]

The buildbot wasn't actually updating the Desmume core for some reason, but JackosDev kindly compiled a build with screengap working here. It has all four size options, same as standalone Desmume.

[SIMPLYAUSTIN]

OMG I need this in my life...... theres sooooo much I need to be working on but PS2 has taken my life. Can the DESMUME core fullscreen with a gap??

[Fromlostdays]

Can the DESMUME core fullscreen with a gap??

That's what the above post is about. It isn't implemented yet, but apparently they plan to and are working on it. As of right now you can change the orientation, but you can't separate the two screens, thus that fantastic DS bezel for HL goes to waste.

I have to say though, in the picture above I don't see a gap. I see one big screen. We sort of need two screens not conjoined in any way... right?

[Awakened]

OMG I need this in my life...... theres sooooo much I need to be working on but PS2 has taken my life. Can the DESMUME core fullscreen with a gap??

Yep. I just took that shot in windowed mode to show it was in RetroArch.

I have to say though, in the picture above I don't see a gap. I see one big screen. We sort of need two screens not conjoined in any way... right?

I used the biggest gap size, 90px, so it's the giant black bar between the top and bottom screens. Someone could make an overlay that has a middle portion the covers the black bar to better give the illusion of two screens.

Edit: I made an overlay that fits at 1080 res, with integer scale on and screen gap set to 90 that you can grab here. I included a .psd version with all the layers if you want to edit it. Setting overlay opacity to 100 in RA's settings makes it look best:

[fire10]

Great work could you make a 1024 x 768 version aswell many thanks for this.

[Awakened]

Great work could you make a 1024 x 768 version aswell many thanks for this.

Here's my attempt.

[Styphelus]

Awakened, that was perfect. Finally got my DS setup thanks to you

Just one minor issue, how do I disable the yellow Joypad Port message? It always pops up in Retroarch with all my system but with the DS is actually messes up the graphics at the bottom. Can't seem to find a way to disable it.

[Awakened]

Awakened, that was perfect. Finally got my DS setup thanks to you

Just one minor issue, how do I disable the yellow Joypad Port message? It always pops up in Retroarch with all my system but with the DS is actually messes up the graphics at the bottom. Can't seem to find a way to disable it.

I do it by disabling input autoconfig. If you need autoconfig, you can instead turn off OSD Font Enable, but that will also disable all onscreen messages (notifying you used a save state, ect.).

[Styphelus]

Thanks. That worked.

Just one last question, what shader is best? I have never played on a DS so I have no clue what it looks like. I've downloaded a few shaders I found on the net for it but can't get them to work.

[Awakened]

Thanks. That worked.

Just one last question, what shader is best? I have never played on a DS so I have no clue what it looks like. I've downloaded a few shaders I found on the net for it but can't get them to work.

This link has the latest full set of official shaders if you want everything. I was using lcd-shader for color handhelds, but decided recently to use pixellate instead, which just makes everything look even at non integer scaling. I don't think any of the current shaders capture how a small old LCD looks well enough. We're running on higher quality LCD displays now anyways; I don't think it's quite as compelling to use that type of shader to simulate a worse version of what we're using. CRTs and the Gameboy dot matrix screen are different enough to be more worth using a shader to simulate.

There's a handheld folder in that zip if you want to check out shaders that would be relevant for DS though. I think some people like dot and lcd_cgwg/lcd-grid.

As far as not getting shaders to work, make sure you're using the gl video driver, since some shaders don't work on d3d. I usually switch default shaders by editing the cfg file; the relevant settings are:

video_shader_enable = "true"
video_shader = "./path/to/shader.cg"

You can point to .cg or .cgp shaders easily by editing that shader path.

[sucramjd]

what are the settings for ps1 and 3do? they work but run choppy, my rig is pretty decent to run these any ideas?

[Awakened]

I was able to update my setup on my old 2007 laptop to a 32bit nightly and was surprised to get full speed on PSX with the shader off. Before I could only get full speed on that with stand alone Mednafen. There aren't really any core options you can configure to get more speed out of that core, but you can try setting your Windows power plan from Balanced to High Performance. Sometimes the Balanced power plan can limit your CPU power and cause RA to stutter or sound crackle with heavier cores.

[sucramjd]

I was able to update my setup on my old 2007 laptop to a 32bit nightly and was surprised to get full speed on PSX with the shader off. Before I could only get full speed on that with stand alone Mednafen. There aren't really any core options you can configure to get more speed out of that core, but you can try setting your Windows power plan from Balanced to High Performance. Sometimes the Balanced power plan can limit your CPU power and cause RA to stutter or sound crackle with heavier cores.

Thanks for the reply I'll try that, like i said it's i52500k, 8gig gskill rip jaws, and gtx 660 ti so it sholudn't struggle to run these.

[Fromlostdays]

We have almost identical set ups and I run both of those at full speed with multiple shaders. Sounds like it could maybe be a monitor issue... are you using two monitors? Make sure you're monitor is running 60ghz and that RetroArch is too.

Edit: I use more than one shader, but some shaders, if enabled, will slow down everything, including the retroarch gui.

[dougan78]

I started playing with this. I want to use my keyboard for controllers. I did not see a way to do this in the gui. Thanks.

Or where is the bind retrokeyboard?

Or do you edit configs manually?

[bclout]

Hi dougan, it took me two days to get my mini ipac working. I was using the stable version 1.0.0.2, but keyboard controls can not be set. But here is what worked for me:

1. Download nightly buildup, i grabbed 26.01.2015 retroarch.7z

2. Download 27.01.2015 cores.7z

3. Download redistr.7z

(All from the same page)

Go to general settings and turn on per coreconfiguration. Load a core (for example vba_next_????). Press save new configuration. A configuration file is now created in ./configs with the same name as the core that you loaded. (Vba_next___.cfg). Open that file in notepad++ and assign your keys manually.

Now change the file name to "Nintendo Game Boy Advanced.cfg" (or other system, but following Hyperspin naming).

So much more complicated than mednafen, i almost gave up on RA. And there is not much guidance on internet for thissimple task of assigningkeys. But now i have it workingfor 1 system at least.

[gigapig]

The retroarch-phoenix.exe, can that be used to set keys? It has an input section.