What's your personal preference for playing older games? Doesn't have to necessarily be your most common method but the ideal way if you have the means or way to do so. I usually like to use flashcarts on native hardware hooked up to a CRT.
Preferred way of playing retro games
- Thread starter spacebear
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Since I am not fortunate enough to have most of the old retro hardware, I used to use a bunch of different emulators, but nowadays I use Retroarch for all my needs with appropriate cores and settings for accuracy. I'd like to get usb versions of all the relevant controllers, though, to be a bit more faithful to play. I also have an Anbernic 35XX for some stuff, but would like to get a slightly better Anbernic model with joysticks eventually.
I like it all-in-one, so -> BATOCERA + Good Pad is all i need (+ decent SFF PC). Even better to use this setup if You want play old Windows (9x era) games. Then You need the same setup + PCem on top of running WINE. But why that?, its simple. In batocera you can re-config any keys to pad. This is extremelly usefull. And this saves a lot of headache..
There's this emulator called Bizhawk and I really like how easy it is to setup, I'm glad it was made easier to navigate and understand
Been playing some Retro classics from NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, every Gameboy system and some underrated ones from 32x, Turbografx 16 and CD and the others
There's standalone emulators too like PPSSPP, Dolphin, PCSX2, RPCS3, Flycast and Duckstation
Huge respect to every developers here for their hardwork
Been playing some Retro classics from NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, every Gameboy system and some underrated ones from 32x, Turbografx 16 and CD and the others
There's standalone emulators too like PPSSPP, Dolphin, PCSX2, RPCS3, Flycast and Duckstation
Huge respect to every developers here for their hardwork
Same, I would love to own a proper 6-buttons controller so I could faithfully play N64 and Sega Saturn games with the proper layout instead of having to do some tinkering (especially when some N64 games treated Left-C and Down-C as the equivalent of X and Y). Binding X Y Z on L Y R on the 360 pad is simply not convenient enough imo.
When I'm not on pc i use retroarch on my ps vita nowadays, it works nice and i find it more portable than a steam deck
In the best of the worlds I'd have a Dreamcast with a SD card slot instead of relying from the original GD reader as well as other consoles with an Everdrive to get the best of both worlds but alas, I need some time and PC is just much more convenient.
I'm currently using LaunchBox but i'm thinking about switching to Batocera
A dedicated Batocera box, with a handful of different controllers depending on the system/style of game I'm playing, plugged into an average modern TV. Having an actual mid-range PC for Batocera instead of a SBC really goes a long way with being able to go wild with upscaling, texture filtering, and shaders strategically making things simultaneously better and worse 
I used to have a large collection of retro games and hardware, but it's such a pain to maintain, and an even bigger pain if you have to move.
I used to have a large collection of retro games and hardware, but it's such a pain to maintain, and an even bigger pain if you have to move.
Standalone emulators on PC is the way for me since the Retroarch cores tend to be behind in the latest updates, like for PS2 and Gamecube. Only exception is for PC Engine games since Retroarch is easier to figure out than Magic Engine.
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Honestly? I play about 99% of my retro gaming library through emulators on my PS3. It's just a better experience overall.
I am the same way for the most part. I also rely on Retroarch for systems that I don't want to get a programming degree to learn how to configure. I do like the playlist function in Retroarch quite a lot though.
A lot of times what I like to do is use pc emulation, but then play the games with a licensed controller for whatever system I'm playing, so like a pc engine controller when emulating that, or a megadrive controller for that, etc. That's how I usually like to as it doesn't require as much mucking about. When it comes to other systems like Saturn, I'll get a bit more elaborate and play on the actual console either playing the physical disc with an old mod chipped system, or off a satiator device, through a retrotink, on a modern tele. And then other times for older systems like nes/snes/megadrive I'll hook those units up and do like repro carts. Got a lot of options, depends on how I'm feeling, usually I just go for path of least resistance.
In the mayority of cases I like playing on a real console (mostly the six and seventh generation) but In cases of more retro stuff (nes, mega drive, snes,) I use "PC emulation"
I just emulate them , simply because I don't have access to their original hardware so that I can play them
As for the controls, just keyboard (WASD and arrow keys are good enough for me)
As for the controls, just keyboard (WASD and arrow keys are good enough for me)
I emulate everything on vita. OLED + portability is just too good.
DS emulation "soon".
DS emulation "soon".
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Hardware nowdays pretty much can handle all the old games. When I got my Steam Deck I was pretty sure i'd be happy with it as my to-go retro machine.
But it never happened.
John Linneman over at Digital Foundry had one thing to say about the Deck that I agreed with in the end.
The screen sucks.
I continued using my PS Vita for old games, even if it came with a little slowdown or smaller display area. The display is now (imo) the most important part to consider when playing retro games. The CRTs displayed the colours as intended. I grew up enjoying stuff like Super Metroid, Metal Gear, Thief etc on CRTs with their phosphor glow and brilliant blacks. It's really infuriating to see small OLED monitors being sold at such high prices, as I think thats the missing component for a modern retro setup now.
Ah well, my PS Vita won't be seeing retirement anytime soon.
But it never happened.
John Linneman over at Digital Foundry had one thing to say about the Deck that I agreed with in the end.
The screen sucks.
I continued using my PS Vita for old games, even if it came with a little slowdown or smaller display area. The display is now (imo) the most important part to consider when playing retro games. The CRTs displayed the colours as intended. I grew up enjoying stuff like Super Metroid, Metal Gear, Thief etc on CRTs with their phosphor glow and brilliant blacks. It's really infuriating to see small OLED monitors being sold at such high prices, as I think thats the missing component for a modern retro setup now.
Ah well, my PS Vita won't be seeing retirement anytime soon.
Retroplay Lt, a argentinian console: 2 gb ram + retroarch (linux) + android tv all in one. Its can run nes, snes, megadrive, sega mastersystem and other consoles to sony psx 1 and psp. Cant run ps2, dreamcast, saturn or moder consoles. You can load roms with a usb stick memory... and it can run Doom (Prboom) and MS-Dos Games (some games run slow).
Keyboard and mouse support...
Keyboard and mouse support...
My ears can't take the whine of a CRT TV anymore, so have settled for emulation or (when the stars align) real hardware w/ dedicated upscaler on a flatscreen.
Have had no problems with my Steam Deck screenwise, for me there are certain emulators I no longer use due to not properly supporting certain post-processing shaders. After setting up CRT shaders on Duckstation I can't go back, the games look too good. Say, do you have any particular thoughts on the Deck's OLED model?
Can I ask how you do this? Does it require you to jailbreak your ps3?
I have had interest in this because I have tons of unused memory, but jail breaking seems overly complicated.
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Yes, I had to jailbreak the console in order to achieve that. The homebrew community has ported a ton of emulators for it, from DosBox to a Virtual Boy one.
Is it difficult to jailbreak? I think if I tried to do it, I’d do something wrong and make the ps3 not usable anymore with my ps3 game discs lol.
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I honestly don't know. I had someone else do it for me because I was afraid lol.
Too bad it’s not as simple as taking the file from the flash drive and inserting it into the system.
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