Is it worth it?

[Growlanser]

Is performance as good or at least on par with individual emulators?

[Dgo]

Most cores are on par or even better with standalone due to RA's additions.
Some cores are worse and outdated and still experimental on RA.
Imo yeah it's completely worth it due to all its infinite customisation plus steam integration.

[1337Dude]

Yup. I thought the idea was stupid at first, but now I love it.

[Dgo]

Instalalo no te vas a arrepentir. Las posibilidades que te da RA son insuperables salvo para esas excepciones que comenté.

[Dadpool]

It's a mega pack of emulators all in one place with ton of customization options, it's definitely way more efficient than installing more than a few emulators separately, there are sometimes instances where something doesn't exactly work as it should, but it's still worth it, because a lot of stuff will work on it. When I get a new game, I don't have to setup anything even if it's for completely new emulator.

[1337Dude]

My only complaint is that if you play a variety of emulators using different controllers, the Steam version of RetroArch shoves the Steam input wrapper as the priority controller, which means RetroArch thinks all the controllers are the same controller, which means my controller profile has to be loaded and reloaded each time I switch systems.

If I disable the Steam input wrapper, the x-input stops working for some reason, and I can't use some of the controllers.

The non-Steam version of RetroArch is better and has more options.

[3744 Bell Road]

yes

[invision2212]

Retroarch is really decent for up to 32bit systems. You should be using stand alone emulators for PSP - PS2 - GameCube - Saturn

[Obsessive Power]

I just put everything into a program called 'Launchbox'. That way I can run all the games from one place, regardless if said game runs via RetroArch or PSCS2

[FidgetyJester]

It depends. Some are such as good, while some core are outdated which mean worst performance. And more power the game need, more noticeable the performance downgrade becomes in RetroArch.

But "some" standalone doesn't have RetroAchievement support while RetroArch does. Plus RetroArch also has Shader and Overlay features too (though that decrease the performance even further)

Because of that, to me personally. I would use standalone for PS2, PSP, Wii, 3DS, and Gamecube. But for everything else, I play in RetroArch (If your PC is a beast then maybe, this is coming from someone whose PC is a potato at this current time).

For Saturn, that might be better as Standalone too but currently there's no standalone that support RetroAchievement for Saturn. So depending on your need, you may want one over the other. I don't use standalone for Saturn cause I care about RetroAchievement sadly.

And to make it even more convenient. I use this software called Playnite which let's me launch all my Emulator games from a single place, that way I don't have to constantly switch between multiple emulators.

I tried to be abit detailed. I know I'm abit late to the party, but hopefully this helps!
ヾ(≧▽≦*)o

[Celes Raev]

Originally posted by invision2212:

Retroarch is really decent for up to 32bit systems. You should be using stand alone emulators for PSP - PS2 - GameCube - Saturn

I agree with this. I have found that standalone PCSX2 and Dolphin work way better than in RA. But I have minimal problems with PS1, GB/GBC/GBA, NES, SNES, Megadrive, etc.