The Basics of Retroarch!

powwow

Hello and thank you for anyone willing to help!

I would like someone to break down the basics of retroarch.
My question is, is Retroarch the controller settings for mame libretro like the tab settings in regular mame? Or explain in layman's terms the diffrence. 1st when you start retropie you have to config your controller, then config your controller in retroarch and if need be config controller in mame with tab?whats the diffrence? what controls what?
For Newbies to retropie i think this would help alot.

mahoneyt944

@powwow think of it as layers.

You configure your controller in emulationstation to create a "virtual retropad" this is then used by retroarch when you run a libretro core. If you decide you want to change this standard layout you configured, you can override these settings in Retroarch under inputs. You have the option to apply this override to the entire core or per game.

For most cores this is all you'll ever need but for arcade games your controller inputs are very diverse (non-standard), it's hard if not impossible to implement a one size fits all configuration. This is why mame provides an easy way to map your inputs in the tab menu, this allows you to keep the standard input config in Retroarch but use the inputs however you see fit in the core a little more conveniently.

DreamcastKid

@powwow said in The Basics of Retroarch!:

I would like someone to break down the basics of retroarch.

Read the wiki from top to bottom

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/RetroArch/

and if you have any questions ask here

dankcushions

@powwow the TAB MAME menu is kind of a holdover from the libretro implementation of the various MAME cores. standalone MAME has its own UI for configuring controllers etc, just like all standalone emulators, but generally those are disabled when those cores are implemented in libretro, because input/emulator configuration is the job of the libretro frontend (Retroarch).

in my opinion the MAME menu should be disabled in libretro MAME core but there are a few input edge-cases that you can only solve via the menu, if i recall correctly.

as it stands, it acts like a final override in the config hierarchy. i would avoid using it unless you know exactly what you're doing, as it makes diagnosing input issues difficult, especially as the MAME internal config files are not human-readable.

powwow

Thank you so much for clarifying! Awesome