Retroarch is a unique program that allows you to download and open many emulators of your game utility from one place. This one program replaces a bunch of other systems so that you can view retro games on any OS. But there are some issues with configuring this interface, and in this article, we have provided a complete guide to how to use Retroarch and emulate all your favorite retro games in one fell swoop.
How to download RetroArch
To successfully download RetroArch go to the Libretro website, and in the upper right menu click on the download link. In a new window, you will find the latest version of the program for your platform. Find the 7-Zip archive that contains RetroArch and download it. After downloading, open the archive and transfer all its contents to a new folder, and transfer the folder itself to any location. To launch RetroArch, simply double-click “retroarch.exe”
How to set up your controllers
The RetroArch interface is not simple and in some places confusing, but in reality, everything is simple. The first thing you need to know in order not to get scared is that the navigation in the program works through the keyboard keys, but the mouse is useless in this case. But if you want to view games through the console, here’s what you need to do to set it up:
- Via the keyboard go to the setup menu and scroll down to “Input” and click on it
- Now again go down to the “Enter User 1 Bindings” button, click on it, and in a new tab again scroll down to “User 1 Bind All”. Use this feature to bind buttons to your controller
- After setting the keys, you will be able to enter the program menu using only the joystick and the keyboard you do not need
How to download emulators
RetroArch is the space in which emulators or “kernels” can function. If you want your most loved retro games to launch, you should load the appropriate kernels. To do this, you do not need to go to the Internet, all the kernels can be downloaded from the program itself:
- Return to the first column of RetroArch, then scroll down to “Online Updater”
- Select “Core Updater”, the first item in the menu that appears
- In a new tab, you can load as many cores as you need, for this go down
- All kernels are similar to each other and you only need to download a couple so that all games function normally
How to add your ROM collection
RetroArch helps you organize your ROM folder for you. For this:
- From the main menu select “Add Content”
- Select “Scan Directory” then browse the file system until you find a folder full of ROM
- Once the process is complete, a new icon will appear on the main screen in the form of controllers of each system to which you have added disks
- Use the right arrow key to access these menus and view games
How to update RetroArch
To find out how to update RetroArch see the instructions below:
- Go into the program and press F5
- A new window will open in front of you in which you must find the “tools” and select the online updater
- The program itself will monitor the appearance of new versions and download them
- After a while you will be able to update RetroArch, however, kernels and other content will have to be updated manually