Most authentic emulator retro gaming setup?

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨flork@lemy.lol⁩ to ⁨retrogaming@lemmy.world⁩

I don’t have a lot of space for consoles and cartridges, or money for consoles and cartridges but I do have a decent computer hooked up to a TV. What’s the best way to get an authentic experience via emulation? Here’s what I have so far:

Retroarch Settings

HDR enabled (cant tell if it actually helps)
Run-ahead enabled
Mega Bezel shaders
Retrobit saturn controller (having trouble getting configured but has an excellent dpad)

Emulators/cores:

NES - Mesen
SNES - bsnes
Jaguar - Bigpemu (need to configure shaders)
Megadrive/CD/32X - Picodrive
PSX - ??? Swanstation?
Saturn - Beetle Saturn
N64 - Mupen64plus

Thing I need to work on:

Tweaking shader settings as the defaults are very dark
Configuring retrobit controller to work with Steam big Picture (how I launch Retroarch) and retroarch seamlessly
Possibly finding a Big Box theme that is focused on original artwork and not garbage

Any advice/pointers? My goal is to eventually have a “pick up and play” setup possibly with different 8bitdo/retrobit controllers for each system.

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

Godort@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you’re looking for authenticity then I’d recommend picking up a MiSTer.

source
- PlasticExistence@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  With the addition of the recent Groovy MiSTer core, this is probably the best bet if you want to play on a CRT screen.
  
  source
- flork@lemy.lol ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  MiSTer looks like crap though on a flat panel TV… I don’t have space for a big CRT.
  
  source
  - Godort@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It looks fine if you use the digital output rather than analog.
    
    If the purity of the analog signal is important, you can run it through a retrotink or OSSC. Although that’s another expensive addition to the setup.
    
    source
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Get some decent CRT shaders and spend some time calibrating your display and setting them up correctly - it makes a massive difference IMO. Personally, I’m a big fan of the “Megatron Death To Pixels” shaders, check out this video on how to set it up properly.

My goal is to eventually have a “pick up and play” setup

For that, I’d highly recommend switching to a gaming/emulation-oriented Linux distro, such as Bazzite with Emudeck, ChimeraOS, Batocera, Lakka etc. I personally prefer Bazzite due to it’s Steam-first approach and excellent compatibility with various controllers and proprietary drivers (nVidia), but Lakka might be better if you’ve got an Intel iGPU or AMD card, and want to stick purely to retro gaming - it’s the official distro for RetroArch afterall, so it’s very polished in that regard, and very lightweight.

source
- flork@lemy.lol ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Megatron Death To Pixels
  
  Thanks I’ll check that out!
  
  Also I’m currently running Big Box as my windows “shell” because I wanted to be able to do Steam Games as well. I’ve been curious about all the Linux distors, is there one you’d recommend?
  
  source
  - d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ah, if you’re interested in Steam games as well then look no further than Bazzite - it’s got all the optimisations that Valve put into SteamOS + more (like more recent kernel and drivers). But before you switch though, you might want to check whether your Steam games are compatible using this website: www.protondb.com
    
    source
Mini_Moonpie@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t know if it’s the “most authentic” experience, but for a “pick up and play” setup, you might want to look into Emudeck (www.emudeck.com. It was originally made for Steam Deck, but has a desktop version now and it pretty much automagically handles setting up all your emulators. Plus, it integrates with Steam. Russ with Retro Game Corps has a installation guide on it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=05dunYi6hkY&t=1s

source
Granixo@feddit.cl ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A jailbroken Playstation 3

source
Slayan@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you can read french romstation.fr basically has everything you’ll ever want. You can even play with friends online.

source
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I found an SNES mini with nearly every system and a complete collection of ROMS (up to and including a few PS1 and N64) on eBay. It was like $200+ but, I just plug it in and it works, which is worth it for me.

They are still out there and I can tell you who I got it from if you’d like.

source