Hot takes

[raiden_dj]

I've been using it for yeeeeaaaaaarrrrsss so im inmune to the "oh no too complicated" problem lol
with things like auto save state and auto load state, shaders, controller autoconfig, screen rotation for shmups, per game configurations, all in a single program i can use without using anything but my controller, i just cant for the love of god not use it un-fucking-less i stricktly have to use a standalone emulator because of performance or compatibility issues or stuff you cant play on retroarch
but aside from that, retroatch ftw

linux user btw lol

 

[CheesyExplosive]

Do on what you see fit... after all i sometimes post new emulators from time to time.

 

[Kamako]

RetroArch is pretty great nowadays. It's so convenient having everything in one place, and it's way easier to setup now. The only features I can fault it for is trying to stream directly from it (better off using open-source third party software) and the inability to hide your pw when linking your socials.
Otherwise it's pretty much perfect for me.

 

[Morgan Katarn]

I love retro arch easy to use and set up and once you set up you can just copy the whole folder to usb stick and use it on other PC even if that other PC has linux.

Also just like I prefer steam I want every thing in some kind of library with a nice UI. Looks rely neat when you set it up so you have box art with each games and so on.

Sure the best one I wish PC had is OpenEMU that once the best.

 

[JellyjamLu]

Your not alone, took me ages to get Cows of Moomasa, Dungeons and Dragons & Ninja Baseball batman running. I can't even get Aliens vs Predator arcade to boot. 'Git gud' i suppose lol

 

[blahbleh]

I don't like retroarch either it's best to use different emulators. Retroarch is for beginners

 

[DanCalibur]

This is how I feel about RetroArch interface

 

[Deleted member 906485]

It may sound silly but I like goofy album covers, it makes me feel younger when an album isn't afraid to be silly (or cringe as the kids say)

 

[TechBlisSTer]

I wish they would spend just a moment to fix the garbage desktop UI.

 

[BassForever]

I used to hate Retroarch, finding it a pain to set up and crashing often. In the modern age of emulation handhelds and pcs running front ends/distributions like ES-DE or Batocera, where most things are set up automatically for you, I'm much more accepting of it. For the bulk of retro consoles, it's often a set it and forget it emulator, with the main settings being easily tweaked in the ES-DE/Batocera main menu. When there is an issue though, I still get incredibly frustrated with RetroArch as I dig through dozens of menus trying to find the one thing I need to fix and then hoping it actually saves properly. When you need to tinker with a game to make it run better, I find stand alone emulators like Dolphin or Azahar to be far easier to work with.

 

[Dreamcast_best_VN_console]

Nintendo's biggest sin was never the high game prices, was never the high console prices, and not even the subpar paid online, it was always how quick they were to bully companies/people whenever they did anything they considered a "threat to their ips"

Nintendo screwing over their main audience sucks, don't get me wrong. I personally suffered from it, being locked out of the (very much overpriced) Online and all it's features for as long as I used my switch. The lack of game price drops wasn't particularly good either, specially when, even though my wishlist for switch games was comprised of (mostly) relatively old games, it was pretty unaffordable to buy more than one of those per year.

But as much as I hate how greedy Nintendo was with it's customers and me, I really cannot stress enough how many worse things it has done than that.

Like, intimidating your most devoted fans out of passion, non monetary projects, simply to have an iron grip of everything that happens with your ip.

Bullying a super market chain in Costa Rica, because the way they usually name super markets there just so happened to make a name that you share with some of your mario games.

Or trying to patent basically an entire genre (that they didn't invent), because you don't want your creature capturing game to have miniscule competition (and are too lazy to make a better product than them).

Among other things I didn't mention!

And even with all the much more concerning patterns Nintendo has shown itself being comfortable partaking in, the only real time there's any big outburst over anything they do, is when the product quality to price ratio gets worse.

...When it gets worse for the second time in a row, mind you. The Wii U didn't have paid online, and I do remember Wii U games having price cuts in it's latter years, but I might be wrong about that.
But nevertheless, it's important not to forget how many bad things has done and will keep on doing, whether they impact our purchases or not.

 

[Sfjeov]

Not really a hot take because retroarch menu is ugly. Also, I would rather spend time emulating the game that I want to play instead of spending hours having to fiddle every settings. However, I do like dosbox and amiga cores tho.

 

[DanCalibur]

I just can't accept an UI that convoluted this day and age when ZSNES showed how it's done more than twenty years ago

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I mostly use RetroArch on my vita because it supports RA and it's quicker than trying to find a bunch of stand alone emus for stuff I wanna play.

 

[Mopeybloke]

Bad opinions containment thread is a great idea.

 

[moonbits]

Mass Effect only got progressively worse with each sequel. Even though I like ME2 a lot it just took away a lot of the best things about original instead of improving them.

Yes, the elevators were quintessential kino experience

 

[Gabrinius]

I never got to make it work, using it is horribly complicated, so i simply gave up and back to using standalones... i don't know if your thread is a hot take or not, but i do know that retroarch is hot shit.

of those "multi-emulator" things, Ares is way easier to go, even bizhawk.

 

[Stookymalarkey]

Mass Effect only got progressively worse with each sequel. Even though I like ME2 a lot it just took away a lot of the best things about original instead of improving them.

Yes, the elevators were quintessential kino experience

Damn straight. Mako > Hammerhead any day of the week.

 

[TechBlisSTer]

I never got to make it work, using it is horribly complicated, so i simply gave up and back to using standalones... i don't know if your thread is a hot take or not, but i do know that retroarch is hot shit.

of those "multi-emulator" things, Ares is way easier to go, even bizhawk.

One thing you can do when Retroarch stops working is delete everything and start from scratch. It's because the desktop UI is such garbage you can accidently change settings with your mouse clicks that destroy your installation.
The UI is so bad that it's easy to make invisible selections with mouse clicks. So another tip would be to set it up with a controller even though you're on a desktop PC.

 

[Ikagura]

I like XMB but why is this a hassle to setup?

Post automatically merged: Nov 19, 2025

of those "multi-emulator" things, Ares is way easier to go, even bizhawk.

I need to try BizHawk someday.

Mesen 2.x is great too.

 

[GoodGods]

Since we're talking retroarch, i have to ask: how do I get pc-fx games to run on it? I put the BIOS in the system folder, but it just doesn't boot up any games, no matter what.

Edit: actually, nevermind, just figured it out. Turns out, on emudeck, just place the pc-fx BIOS in the BIOS folder (and not in the pc-fx folder contained within), as that's the path it looks for. (deck/emulation/bios)

 

[Honja.7z]

I think RetroArch has it's place and is very useful for just being the centre of your emulation, but I've always disliked how it's annoying it is to change settings per emulator, and I've always preferred using standalone emulators to be able to tweak everything to my liking. But that's just me, I wanna hear your opinions about how I'm wrong and stupid

I think almost everyone will agree with you. But some of the more hardcore guys and gals may prefer it as a one stop emulation source for low to mid level consoles.

Me personally I use it for NES all the way up to PS1. I use standalone software for psp, ps2, dreamcast, gamecube and wii/Wii u. They usually work better or have really nice easy to use frontends that make it a breeze.

You can usually get away with most universal settings for lower end console emulation. Ofcourse there’s shaders and textures but generally speaking those low end consoles dont need much to run great through retroarch.

 

[redux007]

Temporal association is a blinder marketers, reviewers, and even ordinary conversation enjoyers misplace for genuine quality standards slipping and customer satisfaction not being met. What sucked in the past, sucks now. As it is above, so it is below.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

crash 2 > crash 3

I dunno about some of that other shit but this be the truth.

 

[JellyjamLu]

I think the Yakuza franchise is kinda mid, they recycle alot of assets, town maps, mini games and sitting through some of the scrolling dialogue text is a real slog when not much of anything interesting is going on.

Modern God of War is awful, many slow moments, force walking & talking segments and unskippable scenes, put too much emotion & emphasis on father-son bonding, reuse of early bosses as filler later. Has Marvel humor. They used The Last of us & Joel/Ellie relationship as a light template and made that into the now new God Of War style.

IMO of course.