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.
If you’re looking for authenticity then I’d recommend picking up a MiSTer.
MiSTer looks like crap though on a flat panel TV… I don’t have space for a big CRT.
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.
With the addition of the recent Groovy MiSTer core, this is probably the best bet if you want to play on a CRT screen since you’ll also get access to games / systems not available on the MiSTer.
For those not in the know: Groovy MiSTer allows one to route the video and sound from an emulator on a regular PC through the MiSTer hooked up to a CRT. It is essentially replacing the need to use an old and modified GPU for analog video output.