this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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Why is RetroArch such absolute garbage? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/emulation@lemmy.ml
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RetroArch never works right. Even once you get past the cores and all the other stupid bs, once you get to setting up the controls it never works right, most buttons just do not work in game, if they even work in the menus.

So many years, so much effort, all wasted.

It's still so much easier to keep BlastEm, Snes9x, Duckstation and whatever else installed, so much faster to set up controls and most of the time you don't even need to as everything works out of the box.

And yet plebbit will say nuhhh use muh libretro cores!!!!1 so heckin' wholesome Keanu chungus 100!!! I love my wife's boyfriend!!!!111 Thanks Reddit!!!!!

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[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Skill issues. And being toxic like that won't help anyone; it lets you look like a clown. Why don't you use standalone emulators instead, if that is what works for you? Nobody is forcing you to use RetroArch.

I personally think that RetroArch is one of the greatest and best software ever made. It is exactly what I always wanted and even tried to do some similar setup before RetroArch was invented. I'm sick of standalone emulators that work differently and each and every of them is a special snowflake and does not do everything I want. If you have only a few simple systems such as Snes9x and Duckstation, then you might not even need RetroArch. But if you have installed over 70 emulators in RetroArch for more than 70 systems, then its a godsend. It was already after 4 or 5 cores added.

The reason why RetroArch is not as easy as a single emulator is simple. RetroArch does:

  • bring many different kind of emulators and systems, such as MAME (which itself is a multi system emulator), DOSBox (PCs basically), many consoles and handhelds and tries to fit it into single environment
  • can be installed on and works on all kind of hardware and software, such as Windows PC (even on Windows 2000), Linux, on Nintendo 3DS, Android smartphones, Raspberry Pi, on Steam, Xbox, on Web Frontends in your browser, and more
  • every system needs to work with the same UI and all configurations are setup the same way
  • configurations need to work across all systems and environments, such as controllers
  • while being extremely flexible and configurable

The price you pay for all of this is the added complexity to the system to manage everything. And sometimes not everything can be up to date, until they port or update the cores in RetroArch. There is no denying in. But I'm not the one who is crying here.

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

Snes9x and Duckstation

Heh, if anything simple systems like this are the ones I most use RA for, because of shaders and feature parity between standalone

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

it lets you look like a clown

I guess you were trying to say "it makes you look like a clown".

I'm afraid that's a C-, see me after class.

I'm afraid

It is a shit design.

It's trying to do everything and ultimately does nothing very well at all. It's such a bad frontend, the only way through which it is really useful is if you use another frontend for it, but if you want to change any settings you're also SoL and might as well just use the standalones, since the way the RetroArch configs translate to individual cores is just a fuzzy mess where the actual dysfunction and if any - user error - will inevitably be obfuscated from the user.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I do not agree. I use RetroArch since years and don't want use standalone emulators every again. But I have to use them still, because they are no RetroArch cores for. There are million reasons why I prefer RetroArch over standalone, such as unified configuration and usability, or Shaders for all cores.

You seem not to value the values and features that RetroArch brings to you. And please speak for yourself if you say "which it is really useful is if you use another frontend for it", because clearly that is not true for lot of people including me. Either use a frontend or standalone emulators if you don't like RetroArch. If you want, try to be productive and don't shit talk and toxic, maybe talk what could be done better.

I have over 70 cores setup in RetroArch. They are all setup the same way, with some exceptions that need special attention. One UI, lot of playlists for all different games and emulators. Everything is updated in one system, all screenshots and files are in the retroarch directory.

And then I have standalone emulators PS3, yuzu and ryujinx, Cemu and Xemu. Some are installed through direct download (AppImage), some through specific package manager (Flatpak) and they have different file structures, configuration, different UI. Only 4 or 5 standalone emulators and they are all different and a mess. Compared to the RetroArch setup. Some can update itself from its menu (and I have to do this for every single emulator) and some need manual download and some are updated through the special package manager. Playing one game on an emulator will not put it in a global history file like in RetroArch. There are no user created custom playlists. I hate it.

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Your gripes with standalone emulators are not invalid of course and I'm happy it works for you.

What's got my jimmies all rustled is that this is often recommended as the go-to by people online, making me constantly have to counter this.

There are many occasions where I've seen less tech-savvy friends, some far more intelligent folks than myself with a low patience for bullshit give up on emulation altogether, because they were having some issue or another, and it's always with RetroArch's peculiarities and troubleshooting issues in it to me feels unclear and fuzzy, requiring either dumb brute force or referencing at least several sets of docs, compared to a standalone emulator.

They don't have enormous setups, they just want to play that one game they remember as a kid once every 4 years.

If you're the type to know what [!] and GoodSNES mean with 70+ cores, then yeah, you could probably do worse than a nice set and forget configure-everything-once RetroArch install. I had just that on my Pi, for MAME exclusively, with ES thrown on top for good measure.

As for configs and updates I feel your pain. I never update software for this reason. If config is not in /etc/ or in ~/.config I uninstall immediately, if I see .conf.d - I uninstall immediately. Software exists to solve problems or be fun, not bloat out the system with complexity.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I only wish frustrated people wouldn't shit on RetroArch, like you did in your initial post. That frustrates me too, because it paints a wrong light of the software. See? Your latest reply here is exactly the tone it should have been and the exact problems you talked about, then you would be taken seriously day one. Nothing against critique and talk, nothing is perfect.

I think its not the softwares fault that people got the wrong recommendation or if people are not willing to learn how it works. And surely its unfair to the developers to be disrespectful. Some things are more complex than others, because they do complex stuff. And RetroArch does it in a way, no other software does. Not every software is for everyone. This does not mean its bad, just not for you or for those who struggled.

Fun fact: BTW my first experience with RetroArch was also through RetroPie 3b. And I do emulation stuff since mid 2000s I think and know what GoodSNES means (which is no longer needed, we switched over to NoIntro and TOSEC).

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah fundamentally it's an issue with the emulation community more broadly recommending RetroArch as a one-size-fits-all solution for all emulation, when actually it's kind of a niche software for emulation enthusiasts and developers to use as a base for some sort of more user friendly frontend. Hence why I am talking shit on the community hivemind more than the software itself.

For me personally I only emulate a few systems, but I tend to get pretty in-depth with various hacks, tweaks, mods etc. which can involve some basic debugging so I tend to prefer standalone emulators, it just keeps the overall stack much simpler, for these situations I also prefer to compile from source, so keeping things simple helps too.

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Retroarch is like the power users emulation front end. Regarding button mapping. Once you realize that there is Retroarch UI button mapping and separate mapping for the core you’re using it gets much easier to figure out. But, yeah, it’s not an easy to use front end for the newbie.

[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Are things alright with you, man?

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago

Incredibly, I was about to comment this on another one of their comments and decided to check their profile to see if it was a one-off thing.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago

Depends on the controller used I guess. Which controller are you using? Most of my 8bitdo controller works out of the box.

[–] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

RetroArch is great though. I set it up for my mum on an rpi with a bunch of preinstalled roms and there's been no issues. The controller worked out of the box and everything runs smoothly.

[–] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

If you have a setup that works great. For a lot of people(including me) retro arch also works. There doesn't have to be one solution to a problem, and there shouldn't be. I hate iOS but some people love it. That's how the world works.

[–] NOOBMASTER@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

what I hate most about RetroArch, is that you can't do a 'full reset' if you fuck something really up. tried to delete installation directories, nothing helps.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago

Depending on how you installed it, the installation directory and configuration might be on separate places. That's actually common for software. So find out where the configuration directory is then you can delete it. I assume you are on Windows right? I don't use Windows, so cannot assist with that.

Usually you don't even need to delete the entire folder, only the main config file retroarch.cfg. If that does not help, well then you can delete RetroArch folder and try again (but then you lose all progress for games too, if you don't backup you save files).

[–] Templa@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

I am sure they will be delighted to get your PR to fix said issues! This is how wonderful open source is.

[–] temporarycowboy@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

When I was in uni, I was part of a student art club that put on exhibitions in the campus gallery. We decided to do a tech-themed show, so all the art had to contain some digital component or comment on technology. So I decided to make my own short game using a cracked copy of NESMaker someone published online.

Anyway, I really wanted to give it an authentic feel, and it just so happened that a buddy and I found a CRT on the side of the road that looked to be in OK shape. We hauled it back to my place, plugged it in, and sure enough, it worked. A few cracks in the glass here and there, and the built-in DVD player was broken, but I think it added to the charm.

About a week before the show, I’m furiously putting together assets and trying to program a few enemies, along with making sure the controls didn’t hard lock if you moved left (ha ha). I was able to get the game to a playable state, and now needed to find hardware with a component input that also had NES emulation capability. I didn’t want to use my personal laptop because there wasn’t any security at the gallery, plus purchasing an HDMI to component adapter seemed dubious quality-wise. I had an old hacked PS2 slim with Free McBoot but the NES emulator available at that time didn’t support the mapper for my game. I thought I was going to be SOL for the exhibition.

Just my luck, a few days before the show, I stumbled across a port of retroarch for the PS2. It had a working NES core (which technically how they figured that out was beyond me). So fingers crossed, I loaded retroarch onto the memory card with the NES core, plugged in my USB with the game, and booted it up. It worked. And mind you, retroarch had JUST been ported to the PS2.

The exhibition went great and a lot of people liked my game (it was a side scrolling shmup that took place on campus, at night. I couldn’t program music to save my life so I took the midi 3AM theme from GCN animal crossing and slowed the tempo down, which was perfectly creepy/melancholic).

In retrospect, it seemed like divine timing, but that random developer out there really saved my skin, and enabled me to share a cool piece of art that I made with other students. I suppose they thought some other people might have had a use for retroarch on a PS2, as useless as that might seem in today’s age.

So yeah. Retroarch is cool. Sometimes complicated, sometimes bad, and not meant for everyone and everything, just like any software. But if you love video games, and it can play them okay enough, does it really even matter?