Turn your PC into a retro gaming system. Easiest install for consoles, arcade and home computers

Setting up a complete retro gaming system can be a bit tricky getting emulators, games and front ends all talking to each other. But using LaunchBox's automated installation wizards can turn this process into a few simple mouse clicks.

Let me show you how to set up for consoles, arcade games and home computers.

For more info on MAME ROMS

Coding tutorial using Emuparadise as an example

Don't forget to check out the main project pages at...

0:00 Introduction
1:06 Emulation
2:31 Install LaunchBox
4:26 RetroArch for consoles
14:58 Games that need a BIOS ROM
19:15 Home computers - ZX Spectrum
21:11 Arcade emulation with MAME
30:01 Conclusion

[Checo]

The ultimate step-by-step tutorial I was looking for. Very well done, easy to follow and a total hit. Thank you so much, really appreciate your time and effort to put this together. Side note: I started my IT journey back in the early 80s with a ZX Spectrum 16Kb, now I've successfully created my Retro gaming PC and getting the goose bumps already by browsing the ZX Spectrum game catalog with all their box arts, etc. Greetings from the West of Ireland ;)

[zerik_media]

You have answered so many questions and I can't wait to come back to this video! I plan on getting a big external hard drive soon and when I do ill come back to set this up. I've already got a few emulators and games set up with some other programs to back up save data for actual hardware and rewriting save data for randomizers and other fun challenges. But what my end goal is, is to make my own version of the raspberry pi mini retro pc. A friend of mine has a projector and we're gonna team up

[Captain-Picard]

Thanks great guide answered all my questions. Keep up the good work.

[spiritualED]

You got a great channel! You are well spoken. Very easy to follow. Thanks for making these videos. 👍😁

[RageyRage]

Very well explained walkthrough. Thank you!

[KeithAlumbaugh]

Great information and very easy to follow.

[JackalGB]

Hello, I found your videos very helpful and I now have a Launchbox/Mame/Retroarch setup on my backup PC. Getting emulators and old arcade games to work was something I've been wanting to do for a while. It just seemed like too much of a hassle, but you made it easy. 😄

I'm true old school, I played "Pong" style games in the mid 1970's and I was in High School when games like Asteroids and Space Invaders came out on Coin-Op. So now I get to play those same games from more than 40 years ago at home without the need for a pocket full of quarters. So a huge thanks to you!👍😁👍


While I've got my Xbox controller to finally work on my "retro gaming" PC (Win7). I can't figure out how to get the mouse to work in the games. I'm thinking the mouse would be great for trackball type games, but in game my mouse doesn't do anything. I also can't figure out how to custom setup controller key bindings. I can get to the menus to adjust key bindings (Mame and Launchbox), but I have no clue how to set them up. What am I missing?

Maybe a controller/custom key bindings video might be able to help us old geezers out. ;) Or... if you could at least give me some tips on how to get my mouse to work it would be awesome.😁👍

[kychemclass]

41, 000 emails???. Haha! Lightweight! :p
LOL. Thanks for the video. Looking forward to the Linux retro game video.

[ecwnikos]

thank youm8te now i will have fun to set this up

[shaynestephens]

Thank you so much for this. Putting SNES ROMS into LaunchBox was a breeze. That bring said, is there a tutorial for adding an emulator for Atari 8-bit systems? (400/800/XL/XE)? I'm lost on that. Thank you!

[umutkayacan]

looks very fun, let me get some snacks

[KarateWerewolf]

I feel Batocera is a easier option. Also it uses screenscraper to get metadata and video previews which is a free service. Just flashing a usb key or SD card then copying your ROMs and bios files and running the scraper and you are done. Also it's self contained and boots into it.

Good video none the less, I was curious as to how launchbox looked and what the setup was like.

[theoffroader]

Hi, great tutorial. My question is: the graphics on the emulator games on my monitor are massive and blocky, is there any way to make them look like they should? Thanks,

[germanskena]

I have a pc made with Maximus Arcade. I make it long ago, 4 or 5 years. Take me some time to config as i like it.
I have almost all the computers, consoles and Arcade i like (and i have, physically). I have some zx, msx and commodores.
But for playing i like more the pc, because they are like treasures, and i do not like to OVERTOUCHING THE OLD ONES.
And for the Arcade i was thinking to make my own arcade stick, but i generally have no time to take a PC keyboard and mutilate to be a new controls for the computer....
I used Batocera, Launchbox and Hyperspin for pc, and Emuelec for an Android Box. I still like Maximus for pc. Is more obvious to config, and more complex, but the result are WAY BETTER. (FOR ME). And for android DIG.
And for one case in particular. Retroarch, doesn't have for ZX the ZXSPIN, Spectaculator or ZEsarUX, and sometimes that a thing against Retroarch.

[EDM]

Brilliant tutorial, I'm guessing the android set up is very similar?I'm gonna give the pc version a try, thank you so much, as I didn't even know such software existed.👍

[CDE.Hacker]

I found the easiest way to get ROMs is to buy one of those handheld retro game consoles. I got a POWKIDDY for like 40 bucks and came with nes, game gear, neogeo game.

I'm watching this video so I can play these games on my PC now. Great video thank you for posting.

[Quan.]

I still cant get the jump button to work with the nes controller, launchbox keep showing snes controller and i dont know why.

[fifufpilot]

How do you do this with rom files instead of full sets in mame? Because for me it doesn’t want to run in launchbox only in retroarch. I have to manually go into retroarch and start the game

[rodneypeebles]

Greetings, I am currently using a 2019 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar with MacOS 12.6 Monterey and Parallels Desktop Pro 17 & Windows 10. Can you do 2 separate videos on installing and getting operational Batocera and/or Batocera Plus in Virtual Box for Windows 10 in Parallels 17 Pro with ROM’s, Bios’s, CMD lines, etc. For the second video, can you do a complete install and operational video of Batocera and/ or Batocera Plus within Lauchbox with ROMS, Bios’s etc.? Thank you.

[petergaskell]

does each mame rom set have all games or do you add things that might be missing. Or does a from set just have all the emulated chip bits that you need to then play a game you add.