RetroArch Installation and Configuration Guide on PC – 4News

The PC is undoubtedly the ultimate gaming platform: in addition to allowing you to play the titles in their maximum splendor (as long as you have a performance setting, of course), it offers the possibility of recovering gems from the past, remote and not. , by using emulators.

As you know, emulators allow you to play the titles of a specific platform directly on your computer. Contrary to what you might think, this is perfectly legal software, of course, as long as you don’t download pirated games. Among the most popular at the moment we certainly find Yuzu me Ryujinx, both capable of making Nintendo Switch games work, with particular attention to the latter given the ability to use online features as well.

Therefore, to enjoy the potential of emulators, you must necessarily have a recent PC that has sufficient performance. But what if we told you that Emulation is also possible on consoles and mobile devices.Would you believe it It is normal to be skeptical about this, since it is devices with very closed systems and designed ad hoc compared to a computer.

The answer, in any case, is called RetroArch, a free emulation software that allows you to start games from other platforms not only on PC, but also on Android and iOS consoles and devices. In this guide we will describe the procedure to correctly install and configure the emulator on a PC, as a preliminary step to install it on other devices such as Xbox Series S.

We remind you that RetroArch is recently also available for the download your Steam.

DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY – 4News.it does not assume any responsibility in case of non-compliant use of this guide. Emulators are completely legitimate only if the user physically owns the game from which they can obtain the files necessary for emulation.

Before moving on to the different phases, we inform the minimum and recommended requirements to be able to use the program. We emphasize that they are very contained when it comes to the operation of the software, but it is highly recommended to have a fairly recent PC with good performance to avoid crashes, frame rate drops or other problems in heavier games.

Minimum requirements

• OS: Windows 7 32-bit or higher
• CPU: Intel Pentium 4 or higher (CPU with SSE2 instructions required)
• GPU: Supports OpenGL 2.x / DirectX 11 compatible graphics cards and Shader Model 2.0 support
• RAM: 32 MB

Recommended Requirements

• OS: Windows 10 32-bit or higher
• CPU: Intel Core or AMD
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4000 series or higher for graphics card supporting OpenGL / DirectX 11 and Shader Model 3.0 or 4.0 support
• RAM: 512 MB

Important premises:

• It is highly recommended to have a PC compatible controller to comfortably use all key combinations in games.
• The guide was written on the basis of Windows 10, so the names of the settings or some steps may differ for other operating systems. Also, the described procedure is related to downloading the build from RetroArch’s official site, but it hardly changes if you switch from other clients.

1 – Download the latest drivers for your graphics card

First, make sure you have installed the latest updates available for your graphics card:

NVIDIA: by clicking this link or through the app GeForce experience.

AMD: by clicking this link or through the Auto-Detect Tool application (downloadable from the same address).

2 – Download and install RetroArch

To access the official RetroArch website, click on the following link: Download RetroArch.

The site automatically detects the operating system you are using, so just click Stable discharge to download the correct build. If you need a different version, you can choose it from the list on the same page.

Once the download is complete, click on the executable, install RetroArch and launch it.

3 – Download the emulators

The first thing to do is tell the software which emulators you want to use. In Main menu, click on Charging core → Download Core and you will find a list of all available emulators.

You just have to click on those of your interest to start the download. Installed emulators are easily recognized by the hashtag symbol (#) on the right side of the line.

In many cases you will find several “versions” of the same emulator. The difference, basically, lies in the optimization, so in case of problems you can try different ones until you find the most stable one (for advice write to us on our social channels such as the Facebook page or go directly to ours official Telegram channel). On the first launch, the ROM of the game you are launching will ask you which one you want to use. In case you want to change the compilation from the second boot onwards, you will have to click on the game, select Establish main association and change the version.

4 – Command configuration

At this point, you need to configure keyboard or controller commands (the latter is highly recommended) in order to play.

• Click your Settings → Input → Door controls 1.
• Click the individual buttons to map and select the corresponding ones on your controller or possibly the keyboard.
• Once configured, the menu navigation will already respond to the new commands.

keep in mind: If you use the keyboard, pay attention to the shortcuts preset by RetroArch. If, for example, you have assigned the space bar to the jump and, between the shortcuts, the same button is associated to close the emulator, both actions will be carried out, inevitably interrupting the game. If you don’t have any drivers available to map the keys then take a look at the card too Shortcuts to EVITED these problems.

5 – Load the ROMs in RetroArch

We have reached the most important part of the guide, namely how to load the ROMs of the titles and finally start playing.

First, you should go to the RetroArch installation folder, which we recommend that you create a shortcut on your desktop for your convenience. Then click on the folder downloads and copy / paste the folders where you have the ROMs of the different games.

The advice is to always have the emulator folder (NES, MAME…) with the relative compressed ROMs inside.

For obvious reasons, we will not give you any instructions on how to obtain these files, reminding you that the operation is only legal if you own the original version of the game.

Once you’ve inserted the ROMs, you’ll have to tell RetroArch where to go to find them to recognize and start them. On the side list:

• Click your Import content → Directory scan.
• Find the path where you inserted the ROMs, select an emulator folder, and then click Scan this directory.
• Go back to the RetroArch home screen and you will notice the addition of the console entries for which the ROMs are loaded.

To avoid repeating the procedure every time, you can set the default folder where the software will retrieve the ROMs:

• Click your Settings → File → File Browser and indicate the same path above, selecting the folder downloads.

To give some “liveliness” to the ROMs, you can download the thumbnails of the game covers:

• Click on Main menu → Online updates → Playlist cover update and select the various items that appear there.
• Going back to the various emulators, you can check whether the covers for the ROMs have been found or not.

Note to MAME: If you intend to emulate games for MAME, you will have to load the ROM compatible with the specific version that you are going to download and use, otherwise it will not be possible to start it.

Note to NEOGEO– If you intend to emulate games for NEOGEO, your BIOS should be in the folder where the ROMs are located to avoid crashes. Then check that there is a compressed file called neogeo.zip in the folder where the games are.

Congratulations, RetroArch is now perfectly configured on your PC and you can run as many emulators and titles as you like. For any request or question, you can contact us through our Facebook page or enter ours directly official Telegram channel, tagging @ Ping1995 For any information.