Emulation central - recommendations in 1st post

[tuluse]

t's a Xinput plugin (meaning you need to have a Xbox 360/Xbox one pad or be running some kind of input emulation software like X360CE)

This isn't strictly true. Other companies can theoretically provide Xinput drivers, and in fact Valve does. If you have steam manage a controller it will be xinput. This works very well for steam and PS4 controllers, and less well for everything else.

 

[Excidium II]

I use SCP xinput wrapper for the DS3 but there's an updated version for DS4 too.

 

[tuluse]

I use SCP xinput wrapper for the DS3 but there's an updated version for DS4 too.

I use that too, but if you're gonna use steam anyways, it's actually even better for DS4. Shit support for DS3 so far.

 

[Excidium II]

But does bluetooth and shit works?

 

[tuluse]

Yes, and some steam games give you playstation icons instead of xbox.

 

[aweigh]

WHO'S THE RETRO ARCH DUDE


I finally gave in and am configuring RetroArch 1.6.6 right now, downloading cores, etc. Mainly want to use it to play NDS and PS1 games as their respective emulators suck asssss.

PLEASE I NEED ADVICE! I want to download/use some really nice, really subtle Scanline/CRT filters. I have finally seen the light on Scanlines! How? Why?

...been playing through Dragon Quests 4-6 on Desmume and out of frustration that my CPU can't handle running those games in high-res (desmume finally has it, officially) i tried every filter and finally used the Scanline one and...

WOW.

WOOOOOW.

I'm sold. But I want subtle ones pleeeeeease. Also, after that revelation, I configured the "simple scanlines" shader for PPSSPP for playing Elminage and basically I had to tweak ALL the values waaaaay down, way down from their defaults to get a "subtle scanline look". Looks great, but since you guise go on and on about Retro Arch and its filters well, I'm gonna use it.

First problem: i updated all cores, updated databases/everything in the online menu, configured my keyboard as my primary input...

- load desmume core
- load content
- navigate to DQ rom (currently residing inside desmume folder, though that should not affect anything)
- Crash to desktop!?!??!?

 

[Excidium II]

afaik Desmume core doesn't work very well, you're better off with standalone.

 

[Great Deceiver]

aweigh

Are you sure about the Retroarch version? It's currently at 1.5.0, with a planned 1.5.1 coming soon... even the nightlies are still at 1.5.0.

Try using this shader for PPSSPP (don't use the Retroarch PPSSPP core, it's very old and outdated, use the standalone emulator):

http://nix.moderatelyimpressive.com/shaders/arcadescanlines1.1.zip

I use preset "2" for 2d games. I don't use it for everything, though... here's an example of Tactics Ogre:

As for Retroarch shaders, CRT-easymode and CRT-hylian are decent, with easy parameters to set. There's one shader I'm very fond of, it's called GTUv50, but it's not for everyone. It's got some nice dithering solutions and resembles a rather soft CRT.

The Desmume core in Retroarch seems fucked up because I couldn't find the SoftRasterizer/OpenGL toggle - that means no map in Dark Spire, for example. I use the standalone version.

That said, I wouldn't use CRT shaders when emulating NDS and other portable systems though - Retroarch has specific LCD shaders which feel much more genuine for those systems (some of them even simulate the native ghosting of the systems' screens, but I never use that). The one I recommend is LCD-grid v2, under the "handheld" shader folder.

Here's an example of Circle of the Moon (GBA):

LCD-gridv2 (you can adjust the intensity of the grid):

GTUv50:

Here's a screenshot of Gradius Gaiden (PSX) running with GTUv50:

Bonus

I love Retroarch because it's got very little input lag and much better video timing than pretty much every standalone emulator out there. However, some cores aren't great on it. It's not great for PSP and NDS, which unfortunately seem to be your primary interest. It's great for just about everything else, though...

 

[Excidium II]

I really don't like LCD shaders for the most part. They kinda make the game uglier. Though in that castlevania screen doesn't look too bad.

GTU is a good shader, I like how it looks for playstation games.

 

[Great Deceiver]

The LCD shaders help tone down the super-saturation in GBA games, for example - games were made with eye-watering bright colour palettes to compensate for the shitty GBA default screen... but yeah, I'm actually using GTU for portable stuff now, too.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Speaking of not-so-great Retroarch cores, N64 emulation has always been pretty shitty but it seems the new Mupen64Plus is making great progress. You can't use shaders with it yet, but you can crank up the internal resolution. Looks decent and the emulation itself seems pretty accurate - here's Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, something that had always given me trouble in the past:

 

[aweigh]

Great Deceiver

I tried out the filters you linked me just now, and I went ahead and took pictures of the 3 you linked me and the customized shader that I have tweaked (Luna shader), and lastly the "simple_scanlines" shader that comes w/ PPSSPP but I drastically lowered all of the values / line sizes.

First, the pictures:

Arcade #3... (I hate it)

Arcade #1... (now this is exactly the type of scanline look I would see in the past and while not outright HATE IT, I would question WHY anyone would want this):

Arcade #2... (now we're talking! this one almost won the prize; and if i hadn't tweaked the one i'm using so much I would be using this one. HOWEVER, it's still too dark!):

---------

now, the following screenie is from the default "SIMPLE SCANLINES" shader comes w/ PPSSPP, except I tweaked the values:

almost perfect! To my eyes, of course. I realize everyone wants something different. However, I downloaded / have been using a fantastic PPSSPP shader, "Luna", which is basically a huge All-In-One and you pick and choose whatever the fuck you want to implement all at once or piecemeal.

Luna shader w/ scanlines tweaked to my liking, and also have active a sharpening shader set to an extremely low value:

PERFECT! Just bright enough! For comparison here's same pic with nothing whatsoever enabled:

 

[aweigh]

luna shader settings:

 

[Great Deceiver]

Yeah it's kinda strange using scanline shaders for portable systems since the screens of the systems themselves didn't have scanlines (the PSP 3000 had an interlaced screen, but that wasn't too noticeable) - doesn't feel too genuine.

I generally don't like using all-in-1 shaders but hey, if you're getting good results with Luna, more power to you! Looking good

 

[aweigh]

this is desmume's default scanline shader, and it's the first one / first time i ever saw a dramatic improvement in image quality in a game when using such a thing:

i do notice however that this default scanline shader of desmume's apparently introduces some pretty noticeable blurring. there's an option in the settings to control the degree of texture smoothing, but what's pictured is "2x"... heh.

same scanline shader, texture smoothing left at default of "1x":

normal screen for comparison (much brighter looking):

it's really in motion where the "checkerboard pattern" does the real work. these NDS games look like utter shit when in motion when they're this awful mix of 2d/3d sprites and shit. in these DQ games (on NDS) moving around is a constant eye-sore with lines and shit everywhere. the scanline filter really makes the game move extremely better, dramatically so.

(masks the aliasing a lot, i guess).

 

[pakoito]

Could you please put screenshots in other than photobucket. It makes it easier to grab the images as standalone, tweak them etc, as their web display when you try to see them just takes over and kind of shits the bed every time.

 

[aweigh]

oh man, on a whim i decided to try out no$gba.

FUCK DESMUME forever! no$gba not only accepted the battery folder (saved games) from desmume without complaint, but it runs the DQ games rock-solid, super fast and without hiccups.

also has plethora more options in terms of screen sizes, scaling textures/screens, and has more support for filters and shaders. Why, why are people using desmume!

 

[flyingjohn]

oh man, on a whim i decided to try out no$gba.

FUCK DESMUME forever! no$gba not only accepted the battery folder (saved games) from desmume without complaint, but it runs the DQ games rock-solid, super fast and without hiccups.
also has plethora more options in terms of screen sizes, scaling textures/screens, and has more support for filters and shaders. Why, why are people using desmume!

If you haven't already you should check out the no$zoomer utility for no$gba.
It adds a bunch of features and fixes some games.

All this talk about ds games,made me remember there is a couple of new ds emulators in work:
Melonds by ex demsume devs:
http://melonds.kuribo64.net/downloads.php

Medusa by the same person who is working on mgba:
https://mgba.io//downloads.html


They are both in development,but it is nice to see the ds emulation scene getting some life.

 

[iZerw]

If anyone knows a place when one can acquire PS3 isos please PM me, thanks!

 

[Great Deceiver]

Maximo:

This is one tough fucking game. I remember why I never finished it back in the day - I actually think this is harder than the Makaimura games and I've finished them all on their original platforms. I'm trying to beat this but goddamn, it's annoying - 3d jumps with floaty controls are just too aggravating.

Still, a pretty good game. Funny how 60fps was the standard 16 years ago on popamole consoles - it doesn't look bad either, some levels are great (the one in the screenshot is one of the worst, the swamp level blows) and the character designs are very good.

 

[aweigh]

iZerw

I'll do you a solid because I ask for games all the time and I'd like for others to do me a solid as well. However I'll make it interesting, I'll just type out some numbers and it's up to you to figure out how to make these numbers work. If you manage it, they lead to a 50~GB package of PS3 games.

3FEA8AA450AB59014E5FF30944B021BD468D1DB8

 

[amdus]

iZerw

I'll do you a solid because I ask for games all the time and I'd like for others to do me a solid as well. However I'll make it interesting, I'll just type out some numbers and it's up to you to figure out how to make these numbers work. If you manage it, they lead to a 50~GB package of PS3 games.

3FEA8AA450AB59014E5FF30944B021BD468D1DB8

The only one interesting game in this pack is Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost Souls and maybe 1-2 others, the rest is pure shit.

 

[aweigh]

yah i was all psyched to play LoLS but turns out the PS3 emulator requires SSE3 or AVX cpu, and mine is too old. Oh well. I know it's not that great of a Wizardry game but my goal is to play 'em all.

 

[spekkio]

So, I finally decided to upgrade my Retroarch from 1.3.6 to 1.5.0.
After some usual twerking (option A is now either missing or moved somewhere), everything works fine.
I dunno why they decided to replace old menu navigation keys (x/z) with new ones (enter / backspace), but you can disable this:

The only irritating thing so far is how quicksave-related OSD notifications now work.
Previously, when quicksaving, you were getting a "Saved state to slot #X" info. Same with quickloading, and when there was no save present, you were getting this:

Unfortunately, now you're getting not only the info about the % progress of QS /QL (super-useful for glorius PC master race with 16-core CPUs and SSD drives ), but the emu isn't able to identify missing save files. When QS is missing, and you try to QL, you will just get this,:

It's like these DU code updates...

 

[iZerw]

iZerw

I'll do you a solid because I ask for games all the time and I'd like for others to do me a solid as well. However I'll make it interesting, I'll just type out some numbers and it's up to you to figure out how to make these numbers work. If you manage it, they lead to a 50~GB package of PS3 games.

3FEA8AA450AB59014E5FF30944B021BD468D1DB8

The only one interesting game in this pack is Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost Souls and maybe 1-2 others, the rest is pure shit.

But what about Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode 1?