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iPhone Emulators on the App Store: Game Boy, N64, PS1, PSP, and More
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As others noted, you can use an XBox or PS controller. Or you can get one of these like I have which was useful on an older iPad when I caught Mame4All (i think it was called) that made its way to the App Store for like 3-4 days several years back.
Ion iCade BlueTooth Arcade Cabinet Joystick Controller for iPad, Phone | eBay
Bluetooth gaming cabinet.
www.ebay.com
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I finally got around to setting up retro arch on apple tv
while I did get it working I can imagine a lot of people giving up pretty quickly
there a lot of are small annoyances like figuring how to get to menu from games and settings not automatically saving that make the experience way more confusing then nessasary
and the ui is just atrocious
I really hope we get openemu or even provenance on the App Store
while I did get it working I can imagine a lot of people giving up pretty quickly
there a lot of are small annoyances like figuring how to get to menu from games and settings not automatically saving that make the experience way more confusing then nessasary
and the ui is just atrocious
I really hope we get openemu or even provenance on the App Store
I'm waiting on that personally
I'm also not sure I don't just prefer playing on an iPad -- some of the larger ones are in the size range of the TV one would have played on originally anyhow (for older stuff I mean)
I’ve given up on RetroArch. It says it has Wolfenstein 3D on it, but it doesn’t play. I’ve added a ROM for a game and it sees it but doesn’t open. Awful UI, and way too big of a barrier.
RetroArch is definitely not the most user friendly emulator, but with some investment to learning it it's pretty nice. As far as Wolfenstein 3D, I think you may have come across the Online Updater menu that includes stuff like PRDoom as well - I asked the developer about this and those are coming from the same server as every RetroArch app has, but those won't be compatible the AppStore model. I was super bummed because the thought of playing fanmade WADS for Doom was going to make me cry in happiness.
As far as adding a ROM, depending on which system, you may need to add the correct BIOS file to the System folder for RetroArch.
Haven't opened this but I am assuming this is for the sideloaded version of Dolphin, which requires JIT to run.
I’m not going to install retroarch because there is always potential for memory leaks and exploits but I have a question. In the desktop version bios files and mame drivers have to be added to retroarch’s ’system’ folder. Is that visible on the iOS version?
Yes, once RetroArch is installed and is opened once, there will be a RetroArch folder in the Files app, and from there will be a Systems folder. I believe its just simply dumping the BIOS into that folder and all is good*.
*I say this because for some reason I couldn't get the Snatcher (Sega CD) version to run, but from what I can tell this seems to be an issue on any RetroArch version.
incase you want to give it another shot, Retroarch just released an update that contains a DOS core - I was able to download Wolfenstein 3D and load it up within the app easy peasy.
Edit: controls will definitely need to be remapped.
Thanks! On the iPad? Did you need to download W3D separately, it wasn’t baked in?
It should be accessible on iPad.
Once you update Retroarch it will include the DOS core that can run W3D - from there, there go to Online Updater > Content Downloader > DOS, and there you can select W3D. It will download and unzip directly to Retroarch file directory, and then you can go to Load Content > Downloads > W3D. Select the DOS core and there you go. BUt again, controls will definitely need to be remapped if using touch screen.
More exciting, IMO, is that the latest update now includes PRBoom, so Doom can now be played in Retroarch. If I can run Doom mods on it I will be so so so happy.
It works! Thank you! Should I be able to use my keyboard for this or is it touch only?
Unless I've missed something pretty major, the Files App isn't available on Apple TV (the system I was talking about).
The only way to play games with Retroarch on Apple TV is to upload them via a web browser, thus eating up valuable storage space on the ATV (and nullifying the benefit of having a network-based emulator ROM share).
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thank you for putting this table together! You may check off ”Colecovision” on RetroArch (and fix the typo
- it works in BlueMSX (which you can also add MSX2 to the list!)and you can’t forget to include “Arcade” (though it’s not so much of a checkbox as it is whether MAME and/or Finalburn Neo is available)
and for completeness: you can add rows for Atari 5200, Wonderswan Color, Amiga 500, Vectrex, PC Engine, PC Engine CD, SuperGrafx, PC-98 (Rusty anyone?), Palm (I got a rom I bought in 2000 working!), SEGA Master System (classic!), SEGA Game Gear, SEGA 32X, SG-1000, X68000, NeoGeo Pocket Color, Virtual Boy, Famicom Disk System and ZX Spectrum - I verified all these work!
there are a bunch of cores I haven’t listed I’m sure others have gotten working. This table definitely deserves to be in a wiki 🤓
I beg to differ! While I absolutely was wowed by OpenEmu’s interface and alignment with Apple design standards, I feel from the perspective of game and system management, Batocera Linux takes the cake IMHO (unfortunately, it’s Linux so hell will need freeze over before we get to boot our iPadPros into it.
And for anyone who doesn’t know, an app called iSH is super useful - it opens an Alpine Linux shell on your iOS device. Something I’m going to do is write a script to sync saves across all apps (RetroArch, PPSSPP, soon Provenance and MAME4iOS with Syncthing (aka. Mobius) so my other non-iOS systems have the latest saves)
that didn’t stop Finalburn Neo from being included (and thank god they did!)
the real reason I want MAME is to get my Tandy Color Computer games back up! (any coco fans here?)
happy to see efforts to make MAME4iOS available which will house all the titles that don’t work on fbneo.
yes! i love all the development that has been happening on the Apple Silicon front! I sidestepped to PC handhelds the last 3 weeks and got into Steam (finally, I resisted for a looooong time!) and it’s awesome Andrew shows games like Witcher 3 working!
I don’t think I’ll be keeping this Legion Go - I feel like I’m better off investing in a M2 mac mini and respecting my iPadPro is my primary driver and “tablet” device.
something that’s holding me back is I can’t boot into distros like Batocera Linux (though happy for the Asahi Linux folks - what tremendous work reverse engineering everything esp the GPU - I know they’ve been paving the way so it’s just a matter of time!)
so I’m seriously thinking about getting one of the new palm PCs (eying a MINISFORUM EM780) so I‘m sure to have Windows and Linux under my belt when I travel.
I happened to stumble into RetroBat (which uses the same directory structure as Batocera Linux w a Windows front end) and really think it would be straightforward to port to macOS now that we have a ES-DE build on macOS!
anyone else here around here remember when we had to go into Accessibility Settings just to pair a BT controller?
as someone else mentioned, it’s now butt simple - after installing RetroArch & PPSSPP, I paired my 8BitDo Lite controller over BT and was golden!
but the real gem is Picross 3D in Melon DS DS - I finally restored what I was able to do in iNDS and use my Apple Pencil as a NDS stylus to rotate the puzzle in the game - it’s awesome on an iPad!
Awesome to be on a new playing field with y’all! 🕹️
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