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Seeking Questions on Emulation and How To Do It (Patreon)

Published:
2024-03-31 04:36:22
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Hey!

Recently I've had a few comments come my way about emulation. Like how to set up emulators, how to properly catalog a ROM set, how to set up MAME properly, and so on.

I tend to view a lot of this stuff as very straightforward, but I've also been using MAME since like 1998 or something. In some ways, MAME has become more complicated over the years, so I use a program called clrmamepro to help organize... well... everything.

So I'm thinking about making at least one video to post here on Patreon about using clrmamepro to keep your games organized, and perhaps others if there's any interest there.

With that in mind, what confuses you about getting emulators set up and running? I'm not going to point you in the direction of the games themselves, searching that stuff out is still easy enough. But I'll at least walk you through how to organize a MAME setup as well as how to use databases from No-Intro, TOSEC, and Redump to figure out what you have and what you don't.

Anything else you need to know?

Comments

Jordan Hass

I also don't have a grasp on things like "cores" and disc based games work- isos, bins, etc. I am so used to the days of dropping a .nes on a NesterJ and calling it a day.

Asadasa

what the hell is going on with Saturn emulation and why does it seem like a huge pain in the ass

Josh Coker

I second Jordan, the cores confuse me. A talk about what various cores can do for each system would be cool. But your setup of mame would very good cause I thought I was good at setting things like this up. But I tried and just felt really dumb.

Chris Flores

I have no idea if it's still like this, but the last time I tried to setup MAME (I think it must've been like 6 years ago) I launched it and got presented with what I think was an incredibly long list of different arcade boards I could emulate. And I had no idea how to navigate it. Surely now you can just choose a game and MAME will choose the right board for you...right?

Oscar Aguilar

On mame it's like, I want to play Marvel vs capcom and any companion file it needs, I some how made it work but it now runs a pal version instead of a US version. Also why some mame Roms are like 10mb yet it would not run. Like DDR Xtreme. I know theres another file missing. So a basic info on how to set up that might help. Also difference between mame and final burn alpha and ALL THE DIFERENT VERSIONS OF MAME. Kinda shows I use retroarch for that since I don't have a PC but play through xbox and android handhelds like a retroid. Thanks!

placeholder42

Console emulation makes complete sense to me (mister fpga cores, retroarch cores, standalone software, even a bit of romhacks), but arcade emulation is an elusive enigma to me. MAME year versions? MAME vs FinalBurnNeo? How on FPGA? Would also be interested to hear if you mess around with cheats/cheat engine/trainers/any of that weird shit in emulation, how you do it.

Sean

Let’s go!

Jhoren

For me, the thing that trips me up the most isn’t the emulation itself. It’s setting up my emulators on multiple devices so that it reads saves and roms from a single repository like a NAS. I want to be able to keep all of my saves backed up especially, but it’s super confusing

Adam Dominguez

When I’m reading about emulating certain games I sometimes see, ‘with a little tweaking it runs great!’. What are the settings I should be tweaking?! Do I have to optimize every game? Is there a set and forget emulator?

Robert

I would love any/all emulation tutorials you’d be up for making.

garret

Easy ways to sync save files across emulation devices (is something I haven't bothered to tackle yet but would like to)

Ryan Cook

MAME emulation has always been a dark spot for my own emulation knowledge. Console and computer emulation is pretty simple in comparison, or so I think. Would love an overview of emulating arcade games from old to new and the ins and outs.

Colton Royle

You've got the knowledge. I would love the knowledge.

Jeff

This. We recently needed to do ps2 stuff for a stream and I own all that stuff but just figured emulation would be easier than digging all that stuff out. By the time I tracked down the correct bios that worked best with that iso, not to mention also got the dual sense (which we were already using for other games just fine?) to play well with the emulator I should have just dug stuff out and brought it to the studio

Scott Scislowicz

MAME is pretty good for me, though I would like to know what retroarch theme you are using.

Austin Auclair

I find emulation for Commodore 64 infuriating. Every emulator wants to simulate the experience of running the OS. I just want to play a game for 15 minutes, go “huh. yep.” and move onto the next game.

Mike Barbosa

Do it, Jeff. It’s for the culture.

Blake Hess

I know you don't really mess with RetroArch much, but many emulators/cores these days seem to require it. I'm fine with easy to use cores that you just throw ROMs at, but the second additional bios files and such are needed it becomes a struggle for me to get anything to work.

Troglodyte

I think I need a simple 1, 2, 3 for the testing/configuration process. Something that makes me more confident I can get something going within 10 minutes. Especially to set up the controls with gamepad within the mame emulator itself. I am almost exclusively a gamepad user so have trouble configuring almost any game (early arcade games/dos/commodore) that were not designed for gamepad. That's assuming I can even get a M.A.M.E. game to boot. Maybe it's the version compatibility for Merged vs unmerged. Merged is apparently easier but not as compatibile? You have to keep re-aquirining an entire new full set every time a new one is released unless you know how to edit the merged files? But theres more compatibility with unmerged if you know how to merge them usung some extra program? Or do most emulators work with both, you just have to know what you're doing more with unmerged. I rarely can get K.I. to work, I guess because of the .CHD files? I don't have an easy time getting the Sega arcade systems running well either. Daytona USA eludes me.

Derek Quenneville

If you're mainly focusing on MAME I think ClrMamePro is reasonable, but if you're delving into No-Intro and Redump it might be helpful to show RomVault instead, given the difference in user experience when it comes to managing sets that have many DAT files. I'm a little curious what the EmuDeck for Windows experience is like these days.. I'm used to using many different emulators separately, but the experience on the Steam Deck of being able to set up buttons for everything in a relatively straightforward way has me interested in maybe exploring alternatives.

Ricktor_Black

I'm curious what you thoughts are on the benefits and differences between hardware (FPGA) and software emulation. Do you notice a real difference? How important is accuracy and latency? Do you use your Mister a lot still? Interested in the Pocket at all? Maybe it's a different topic, but i an curious your thoughts on this area.

Niall Griff

I have certain stuff I can't figure out how to run. Like I have the Roms for N64 DD but not sure how to get retroarch to play things like the Fzero expansion disk. If you could touch on some more obscure stuff like that, it would be awesome.

Adam Small

He answered this on the last podcast

Tots

I worked out basic emulation and retro achievements, but I still can't figure out how to use MAME at all. I also crutch using Launchbox to manage my library and emulators. Would love input on alternative programs and methods, not that I dislike Launchbox.

Ricktor_Black

Oh yeah? Thanks, haven't gotten to it yet. Damn life getting in the way of my fun.

Mark Burbach

I'm always up for any mister tips/tricks.

Jefff

Sounds great! Do you have any perspective on other arcade emulators or forks of mame and the pros and cons of them? I started out wanting to just play some Neo Geo stuff so I started using the FinalBurnNEO core a few weeks ago. Over the course of using it and reading about it I found out it actually supports a huge amount of hardware. I found a complete FBN set and so far haven't really run into anything I want to play that isn't in there. ✌️

Tyler S

Where can one safely acquire ROMs in the year 2024? You know, of games that we already own physically.

Mythic Resonance

I've been thinking about storing all my ROMs and ISOs on my local NAS, so I can point things to it like RetroArch, my MiSTer, various ethernet-equipped consoles what got modified hard drives in 'em (PS2, Xbox, 360, etc.) and such. Do you have any experience with that sort of thing?

Jacob Godserv

The biggest thing for me is how to make sure I stay in the legal straight and narrow to the best of my ability, especially when it comes to using my own purchased copies.

Tonytheswordsman

Dope! Need this since I been wanting to get a MiSter but not a computer savvy person so would love a basic here is where to start!

Treestump

I would say the absolute easiest, basic way to start in general would be helpful. I've been interested in emulation but have gotten easily confused when searching up how to even start, especially legally. So I guess something along the lines of "explain to me like I'm 5" would be very appreciated.

newyokohama

things worth being aware of if you weren't previously: -the HTGDB, which takes no-intro sets and curates them for a MiSTer setup (but you don;t need one to use the set. -ROMVault as a rom manager, specifically their Patreon which has DATVault, which pulls all your DATs directly into your rom manager whenever they're updated, instead of having to locate them. -for disc-based games, Redump is generally better than TOSEC in most cases, except for Dreamcast, and even then, Dreamcast TOSEC is what's needed if you're using an optical-drive emulator generally. thanks Jeff!

Colton Royle

Maybe answering contingently the state of the area of blurred lines between the MiSTER, Analogue products, Mini re-releases, and software emulation. Just your hot takes on the best places to play certain consoles. Could be fun, but has the downside of being outdated once new developments arrive, so of course you can decide if this is worth the time and energy in explaining.

Mike from Santa Cruz

Any tips or ideas you have for organizing and maintaining ROMs for the Analogue Pocket would be appreciated. I have a lot of ROMs across a lot of platforms on the thing but ultimately it’s a mess including tons of different versions of the same games and such. I was resorting to sh commands and such just to prune and organize and couldn’t help but think “someone has probably solved this” but I don’t know where to start because there’s just a lot of info out there to sift through. Thanks Jeff.

James Olguin

I remember there was some pinball emulation back in the day that I messed with. I would be curious to hear your take on pinball emulation. I think what drew me in was the various tables that were available for emulation. However, I could never get it to run quite right. Curious to know if it ever got better. Maybe I'l try it soon :)

Krafty

As someone new and getting into it. One thing that confuses me is what format the roms need to be in.. CHD, ISO, Bin . Que. I have also seen popups for a need for bios etc. Maybe I am not the target as I am very new to the emulation scene. Another thing to maybe cover for new people is different between software / hardware emulation, ODE and various other emulation opportunities. Thanks!

Gregory Beltrani

I would love a walkthrough on how to set up something like Syncthing to utilize my saves across Retroarch on different platforms. I've been trying to set this up for a while now, to no avail.

Jeff Gerstmann

At this point I think I’m going to wait for RetroArch’s built-in sync support to roll out to all platforms. iOS has it now, it’ll upload saves to a webdav server. Kinda slick but pointless until they push it out on other platforms.

Jeff Gerstmann

Not that I’ve seen. The GitHub commits make it look like it’s ready for most Linux builds, but I don’t have a great way to test that.