This wiki is the official RetroBat documentation.

You can use the main menu on the left hand side to navigate through the sections of the wiki.

• If you are a beginner with RetroBat, you can head to the GET STARTED section and let it guide you through the installation and first setup steps.

• If you are an advanced user and you are looking for information about a specific Game System, you can head over to the SUPPORTED GAME SYSTEMS section, which will provide information about available emulators, BIOS requirements and detailed per-system features.

• The ADVANCED FEATURES section contains information about specific functionalities provided with RetroBat

The RetroBat team has also included some specific TUTORIALS that will be enhanced by the Team based on common support requirements.

If the information you are looking for does not exist (yet), you can reach out to the Team through the following channels:

• Official Discord channel

• Official Forum

• Official FAQ

• RetroBat website

• RetroBat Github

• Official Facebook page

• Official Twitter feed

Last but not least, if you want to support the project, please consider a donation, this will help us pay for the server infrastructure and get additional hardware for further compatibility.

The wiki is available in english and french languages

Thank you!

Installation

• Run the Setup and agree the Licence to continue.

• Browse to the destination folder and select Install.

• tick the option to create a desktop shortcut if needed.

• Wait until the Installation completes,

The RetroBat folder structure looks like this:

First startup

Double-click retrobat.exe file in your RetroBat folder or use the desktop shortcut.

After the video splash screen, the System View is shown.

On this view, you can navigate with the keyboard or with a game controller. If your controller is not automatically configured by RetroBat:

• Press any button and the CONFIGURE INPUT screen appears.

• Press and hold any button to enter the CONFIGURING screen.

• Define all the keys based on your controller layout.

CONGRATULATIONS: You have installed RetroBat and launched it for the first time successfully.

Before installing RetroBat, ensure that the following prerequisites are met, as RetroBat will not work properly without these.

Once RetroBat is installed, the RetroBat installation folder contains the following folders & files:

bios folder

This folder is where (with few exceptions) all system bios & firmwares will need to be placed.

More on bios files can be found in each system individual pages.

cheats folder

This folder is used to store the cheats that some emulators can load when activating the "cheats" feature.

decorations folder

This folder comes empty. It can be used to add bezel files to RetroBat, these bezels will be available in RetroBat in addition to the ones provided by default in the system\decorations folder.

emulationstation folder

This folder contains the main executables used for RetroBat interface and for the executable used to configure and run emulators. The structure is the following:

.emulationstation subfolder

collections

Here you will find the file created by ES when you create an editable game collection. This file, named as the collection created, with a .cfg extension, contains the differents games of the created collection, with their paths.

music

RetroBat allow the use of .mp3 ,.ogg ,.wavand .flac audio files, and also some others less used format. A song can be skipped by pushing the left stick[L3]button, or from the Quick Access menu. While in the system list, press [SELECT] button on your controller to open the Quick Access menu, then choose SKIP TO THE NEXT SONG.

Audio files added in the /music folder will be played randomly.

It is also possible to use per-system folders, in order to play specific music while browsing a particular system. For this, you have to create a folder named exactly as the roms system folder (that you can find in es-systems.cfg), and put audio files in it.

NB : enabling the "ONLY PLAY SYSTEM-SPECIFIC MUSIC FOLDER" option allows RetroBat to play all songs located in a system folder (eg. /music/3do/) while browing the games available in this specific system list, but not the songs located in others subfolders.

The files that are present in /music/ will be picked up randomly for any system (whether you have system-specific songs option enabled or not).

If you disable "ONLY PLAY SYSTEM-SPECIFIC MUSIC FOLDER", RetroBat will play randomly a song in /music/ directory and any of its sub-folders.

scripts

EmulationStation supports calling external scripts and executables on certain program events.

themes

The themes downloaded with the content downloader are stored in this folder. You can also place themes manually there.

themesettings

Here you will find the per-theme settings. When a theme is selected, and customization are done using the theme menu, settings are saved in this folder.

video

In this folder you can place videos to be use as intro ("splash screen"), before RetroBat starts. You can use BatGui to configure these easily.

emulators folder

This is the folder where the emulators are installed.

Retroarch is provided by default when installing RetroBat, all other standalone emulators will be downloaded when running a game for the first time or when launching them from the RetroBat menu.

library folder

This folder can be used to store magazines, these will appear in RetroBat in a "Library" system and can be viewed within RetroBat using the imageviewer libretro core.

records folder

This folder can be used to store the recording files generated by some emulators when using the screen video recording to record the gameplay.

roms folder

This is the folder where the games rom need to be copied, each game has to be placed in the correct system subfolder and must have an extension that is accepted by the emulator.

More information can be found in each system individual pages.

saves folder

This folder contains game saves, whenever you are using the save function in an emulator to save a game's progress.

screenshots folder

This folder contains all screenshots one takes during gameplay.

sounds folder

Copy in this folder the .ogg sound files to be used as RetroAchievements unlock sound. They will be picked up by RetroBat and appear as a choice in the Retroachievement sound unlock feature:

system folder

This folder contains several RetroBat configuration files as well as default "assets" provided with RetroBat (shaders, bezels, ...), the subfolder structure is as follows:

decorations subfolder

The subfolder contains the standard bezels provided with RetroBat.

es_menu subfolder

The subfolder contains the different links to the emulators that are used in the "RetroBat" systems.

loadingscreens subfolder

This subfolder can be used to copy short loading videos (.mp4) that can be played by RetroBat when launching a game (instead of the standard zoom effect on the game image).

You can set a video per system by naming the video file with the system name (e.g. gamecube.mp4). Example of loading videos can be found in \system\templates\loadingscreen.

padtokey subfolder

The subfolder contains the standard padtokey files provided with RetroBat.

resources subfolder

The "inputmapping" subfolder contains files used to autoconfigure games for few emulators.

shaders subfolder

The subfolder contains the standard shaders provided with RetroBat.

tattoos subfolder

The subfolder contains the controller layout images for several systems.

templates subfolder

This folder contains all RetroBat template files as they are upon RetroBat installation, if a file has been deleted or altered, the original version of the file can be found here and copied again in the destination folder of the file to replace.

Choosing a Game and starting it

A splash screen appears and the Emulator starts the game.

Once the gaming session is finished, press HOTKEY + START to close the emulator and return to the Game View.

Choosing the Emulator

Usually, Retrobat defaults to the best & more stable emulator for each system. However, it is possible to change the emulator, either for the whole system or for a specific game.

How to change the emulator for the System

In the Game View, press SELECT and go to ADVANCED SYSTEM OPTIONS.

Choose EMULATOR.

Select the Emulator in the list.

Changing emulator for a game

Select the Emulator from the list.

Some emulators require BIOS files to work correctly.

Location

As a general rule, BIOS files must be copied to the \bios subfolder of the Retrobat folder:

Missing BIOS check

Hotkeys can be found in the Retrobat notice here.

Hotkeys are used to perform several operations while in-game, the more frequent usage will be to quit games/emulators by pressing HOTKEY + START

In-Game Hotkeys

RetroArch

Ares

BigPEmu

BizHawk

Demul

Dolphin

DuckStation

Flycast

Jgenesis

Kronos

MAME

Mednafen

MelonDS

Mesen

Mupen64 (RMG)

OpenMSX

PCSX2

PPSSPP

Raine

SNES9X

Yabasanshiro

YUZU, SUYU, SUDACHI, CITRON

VIEW OPTIONS is accessible from the Game View when pressing SELECT.

This Menu gives access to several options.

Navigation

• Ability to filter games (by text or other filters)

• Select a random game from the system

• Jump to the game beginning with a specified letter

• Change game sorting

View Options

• Define the view style (depends on Theme used)

• Customize the Gamelist View

  • Gamelist Style

  • Theme options

  • Gamelist Theme Options

  • Gamelist Options (here you have the option to hide a specific file extension for a system)

Advanced System Options

• Choose Emulator

• General Settings (Shaders, decoration, Aspect Ratio, Vsync, Controller autoconfiguration...)

• Advanced Settings (Specific settings per core/emulator that are injected to the Emulator by Retrobat)

Adding games is a straight-forward process.

Adding a ROM

Game ROMs need to be placed in the \roms\<system>\ folder, they will be detected and added to the Game Llibrary when starting Retrobat or when updating the Game List.

The System will be visible upon restart or upon refreshing the gamelist.

Scraping Game Information

The next step is to scrape game information, your game library will look better with media and information.

Scraping can be done globally, per system or per game.

Global Scraping

Press START (ENTER on keyboard) to display the MAIN MENU and choose SCRAPER.

Configure SCRAPER SETTINGS and select SCRAPE NOW.

The following message appears on the top right of the screen, the scraping is in progress.

Once the scraping finalized, refresh the gamelist.

Choose UPDATE GAMELIST.

Per game scraping

Select SCRAPE.

CONGRATULATIONS : you have added your first games to Retrobat !

You can navigate Retrobat using your controller or your keyboard.

Controller navigation keys

Keyboard navigation keys

All screenshots in this section are done with the default Retrobat theme ES-THEME-CARBON.

System View

The first screen displayed when launching Retrobat is the System View, from here you can navigate through systems and enter the Game View.

From the System View, different screens can be accessed.

Quick Search

Navigation bar

This menu allows quick access to a system or a collection, it is by default sorted by Manufacturer.

Quick Access

Quick access menu is displayed by pressing SELECT.

From this menu you have access to features such as USER MANUAL, SCREENSAVER, skipping songs and QUIT options.

Grouped systems

By default, some systems will not appear individually but in a group.

Navigate to GROUPED SYSTEMS:

Untick systems that you want to ungroup:

Now these systems appear individually in the System View.

Game View

The Game View is where you browse your games and launch them.

Navigate your games using the Directional PAD.

Press START

The MAIN MENU is accessed by pressing START (ENTER on the keyboard).

From there you will have access to:

• Game Settings

• User Interface Settings

• Controller Settings

• Sound Settings

• Game Collection Settings

• Scraper

• Updates & Downloads

• System Settings

Game Settings

User Interface Settings

Controller Settings

This menu item is used to configure a new controller or to reconfigure a controller.

You can also activate/deactivate screen icons (battery level, controller activity) and assign default controllers to players.

Sound Settings

This menu item is used to manage Retrobat sounds :

• Music volume

• Activation and configuration of music in Retrobat interface

• Activation of Navigation Sounds

Game Collection Settings

Scraper

This menu item is used to configure Scrapers and launch game scraping.

Updates & Downloads

This menu item is used to:

• Download content such as Free Games, Bezels, Themes

• Update Retrobat

System Settings

The main advantage of using RetroBat over other front-ends or standalone emulators, is that all configuration can be managed directly from within RetroBat, per system or individually per game.

This means that, as a user, one should not have to open an emulator to access to its configuration.

The configuration elements available in RetroBat are called "features", they have the advantage that they can be set at 2 level:

• Globally for a system

• Per-game

How to access the configuration screen:

when selecting the ADVANCED SYSTEM OPTIONS submenu:

==> This will enable configuration for all games of the selected system.

when selecting the ADVANCED GAME OPTIONS submenu

==> This will enable configuration for the specified game only.

It is very important to note that the more detailed option will always be the option passed to the emulator, this means that the option set for a specific game will be used over the option set at system-level.

The configuration options

The features available depend on the selected emulator, as they do not have the same options.

This means that for a same system, when changing the emulator, the available features will not be identical.

In most of the cases, the features will be grouped within 2 subgroups:

• General Settings

• Advanced Settings

General Settings

The General Settings will give you access to the following configuration options, they exist for most of the emulators:

• Shaders to apply

• Bezels (decorations) to apply

• Game aspect ratio and resolution

• Vsync

• Pixel Perfect

• Disabling controller autoconfiguration (this option is on by default)

Advanced Settings

These features will be far more specific, they are arranged in the following submenus:

• EMULATION : contains features such as language, machine emulated, region but also performance options available for the emulator

• VIDEO : General video options such as monitor index, output signal, screen orientation, ...

• SCREEN SYNC : usually containing options to avoid tearing like advanced vsync features

• VISUAL RENDERING: contains various screen effect features, upscaling configuration, anti-aliasing options...

• AUDIO : general audio settings, like sample rate, low-pass filter...

• LATENCY REDUCTION : options to reduce input lag

• USER INTERFACE : contains features such as FPS display, enabling or disabling emulator notifications...

• DRIVERS : options to change video, audio, controller drivers used by the emulator

• CONTROLS : options related with controls such as the type of joystick, lightgun options...

In addition, some emulators will have specific submenus, this is the case for example for pcsx2 features, that have a MANUAL HACK and a GAME FIXES submenus:

or for the PORTS that have a dedicated per-game setting:

How does the magic work ?

The trick that makes all of this possible is simple : before launching the game, RetroBat will go through the options that have been set by the users, and apply these settings directly in the emulator configuration file, before running the emulator.

As an example, let's take the case of a user that needs to change the video driver to VULKAN for the duckstation emulator.

Once in the system configuration options screens

Select the DRIVERS submenu in the ADVANCED SETTINGS group:

Then change the VIDEO DRIVER option to "VULKAN":

When running a game with the duckstation emulator, RetroBat will automatically set the following value in the Duckstation settings file before launching the game:

Et voilà !

Great, but what does the value "AUTO" mean ?

The value "AUTO" has different meaning whether you are configuring the features at system level or at game level.

At system level, the value "AUTO" is a default value that RetroBat will set as the target option value, the RetroBat Team has usually defined the most commonly used value as default value or the most relevant for best user-experience.

At game level configuration, the value "AUTO" means that the default value set for the system/emulator should be used.

Fine, but i do not see an option that i need to set !

Do not panic, if there is an option within an emulator that you wish to change, do not hesitate to contact the RetroBat team, that will include this option in the next release !

In the meantime, options that are not available in RetroBat can be changed directly in the emulator, they are usually not overwritten by RetroBat...

From this menu, you will be able to:

• View Game Manual, Video and Media

• Manage Game (saves, find similar games, delete game)

• Add Game to favorites

• Scrape Game / Edit Game Metadata

• Define specific Game Options

Advanced Game Options

You have the ability to define at a game level the same options that you can define at System level.

Scraping is used for downloading metadata and media files (images, videos, maps, pad-to-key settings and manuals) for games in your collection.

Retrobat supports 4 scraping services:

• ArcadeDB

Information that can be scraped

• Game information (title, year, number of players, description...)

• Ratings

• Thumb (box)

• Marquee / Wheel

• Video

• Fanart

• Image (title screen or in-game screenshot)

• Box backside

• Map

• Manual

• Pad-to-key settings

Scraping process

Global scraping

Per Game scraping

Scraping options

Before running the scraper you can:

• Select the scraper to use

• Limit the scraper to only games missing all medias or games missing any media

• Ignore games scraped recently

• Include/exclude systems

Additionaly, each scraper has its own settings.

From here you can select which data to scrape, but also define:

• What image to use as "image" file

• What image to use as "thumb" image

• What image to use as logo (marquee or wheel)

Storage of scraped medias

All scraped medias will be stored in the rom folder.

Using Local Media

You can also decide to use existing images and videos that are already stored on your computer, or media that you have created on your own. To do so, you have to :

• rename the media files exactly like the game file,

• add the naming extension specific to the media type:

  • name_of_game-thumb for the image of the box art,

  • name_of_game-image for the image of the game,

  • name_of_game-marquee for the image of the game logo,

  • name_of_game-video.mp4 for the game video.

• place the media files in the "images" folders for images and "videos" folder for videos

Manual modification of Game Metadata

From there you can:

• Update Game information (name, description, rating, release date, developer, publisher, family, genres, arcade system, number of players, languages and region)

• Attach different media files

• Add game to favorites

• Hide game

Game Collections are a powerful way to sort your library in a different way as the default "per system" organization.

The Game Collection Settings screen is available from the Main Menu.

Retrobat comes bundled with AUTOMATIC GAME COLLECTIONS that you can enable.

You can also create your own game collection, to do this you have 2 options:

• EDITABLE COLLECTION

• DYNAMIC COLLECTION

Automatic Game Collections

From the GAME COLLECTION SETTINGS screen, select AUTOMATIC GAME COLLECTIONS.

A list of Collections will be available, check the collection box to enable the collection.

For example to display the Arcade Collection, select ARCADE.

This will enable in the System View the Arcade collection that contains games from all systems identified as ARCADE systems.

There are 3 categories of Automatic collections:

• Automatic Collections (standard)

• Per Genre Collections

• Arcade Systems Collections

Automatic Collections

The following self-explanatory list of collections is available.

Favorites

For the FAVORITE collection, you need to flage your favorite games, this can be done in the Game Options menu.

Editable Game Collections

Editable game collections are designed to let you manually manage your collection, the only way to add games to an editable collection is to manually add them as shown below.

From the GAME COLLECTION SETTINGS screen, select CREATE NEW EDITABLE COLLECTION.

Define a name for the collection and Validate.

The COLLECTIONS item contains the list of your collections, including the one that was just created.

The Game is now added to the collection and appears in the Collection Game View.

Dynamic Game Collections

Dynamic game collections offer a more powerful tool to automatically add games to a collection based on multiple criterias and filters. When displaying the collection, the system will automatically show all games that meet the criterias defined in the filters.

From the GAME COLLECTION SETTINGS screen, select CREATE NEW DYNAMIC COLLECTION.

Define a name for the collection and Validate.

A list of filtering options appears to customize the dynamic collection.

Select the filters you want to apply to your Collection (for example HAS MEDIAS = NO) and go BACK.

The New Collection has been created with the selected filters.

Game Console - Lifespan: 1990 - 1991

Information

System features

BIOS

There is no BIOS files needed to run games.

Controls

Specific system information

There is no specific System information documented here yet.

Introduction

Arcade emulators can be split in 2 categories:

• Multi-Arcade-Machine Emulators

• Single-Arcade-Board Emulators

There are a huge variety of Arcade Machines, this is why Arcade Emulation is complex.

In this guide, we will focus on 2 families of emulators, and give you the main keys to understand Arcade Emulation, we will group the Emulators in the 2 families described above.

Multi Machine Emulators

There are two families of multi-system arcade emulators available: FinalBurn and MAME.

These emulators are available in multiple versions to allow users to best match a core/emulator with their games.

Available Multi-Machine Arcade emulators in Retrobat

MAME is the usual emulator used for common Arcade games (the likes of Pac-Man, Asteroids, etc.)

FBNeo is specialized in Fighting Games and Beat-them-up.

Single Board Emulators

ROMs

Terminology

• ROM, ROM set, and romset: Arcade games are packaged as zip files, most of which are composed of more than one individual 'ROM' file. That is why some resources refer to an individual arcade game as a ROM while other resources refer to an individual game as a ROM set or romset.

• ROM version or romset version: Each version of an arcade emulator must be used with ROMs that have the same exact version number. For example, MAME 0.37b5 ROMs are required by the MAME 2000 emulator, but will not work correctly with the MAME 2010 emulator, which requires MAME 0.139 ROMs.

ROM set types

Arcade ROMs can be formatted four ways:

• Full Non-merged: All romsets can be used standalone because each zip contains all the files needed to run that game, including any ROMs from 'parent' ROM sets and BIOS sets.

• Non-merged ROM: All romsets can be used standalone because each zip contains all the files needed to run that game, including any files from 'parent romsets'. The only exceptions are games which use BIOS ROMs, which are formatted as 'Split' and must be kept in the same folder as the game romset which uses it.

• Split: Some romsets that are considered clones, translations, or bootlegs also require a "parent" romset to run. In some cases the parent is not the most popular or best working version of the game, however. For example, in a Split set pacman.zip (a clone), will not work without puckman.zip (its parent).

• Merged: Clones are merged into the parent romset zip, meaning that more than one game is stored per file.

Additional files

Samples

Some games need extra samples files to work, they should be placed in the following folders:

• For fbneo: \bios\fbneo\samples

• For mame2003: \bios\mame2003\samples

• For mame2003plus: \bios\mame2003-plus\samples

• For mame2010: \bios\mame2010\samples

• For the current mame and standalone mame: \bios\mame\samples

CHD or IMG files

Some arcade games can use extra files (originally these were physically stored on a disc) called CHD (sometimes IMG).

The CHD folder must be placed in the rom folder and must have the same name as the game's ZIP file.

For example, for kinst.zip the game will be looking for kinst\kinst.chd.

Links and references

Game console - Date of release: 1987

Information

System Features

BIOS

No BIOS required.

Controls

TBD

Specific system information

Add Actionmax games to Hypseus

ActionMax games are compatible with Hypseus emulator but they require a very specific folder structure.

All Actionmax games must be located inside roms\actionmax\actionmax folder with the following content:

+---38ambushalley
|       video_38ambushalley.dat
|       video_38ambushalley.m2v
|       video_38ambushalley.ogg
|       
+---bluethunder
|       video_bluethunder.m2v
|       video_bluethunder.ogg
|       
+---hydrosub2021
|       video_hydrosub2021.m2v
|       video_hydrosub2021.ogg
|       
+---popsghostly
|       video_popsghostly.m2v
|       video_popsghostly.ogg
|       
+---sonicfury
        video_sonicfury.m2v
        video_sonicfury.ogg
|
|   38ambushalley.singe
|   38ambushalley.txt
|   bluethunder.singe
|   bluethunder.txt
|   emulator.singe
|   font_bluestone.ttf
|   font_chemrea.ttf
|   font_led_real.ttf
|   framework.singe
|   hydrosub2021.singe
|   hydrosub2021.txt
|   popsghostly.singe
|   popsghostly.txt
|   sonicfury.singe
|   sonicfury.txt
|   sound_actionmax.wav
|   sound_asteadyaimiscritical.wav
|   sound_badhit.wav
|   sound_gameover.wav
|   sound_getreadyforaction.wav
|   sound_goodhit.wav
|   sound_gunshot.wav
|   sprite_38ambushalley.png
|   sprite_actionmax.png
|   sprite_actionmax_orig.png
|   sprite_bluethunder.png
|   sprite_bullet.png
|   sprite_crosshair.png
|   sprite_hydrosub2021.png
|   sprite_lightoff.png
|   sprite_lighton.png
|   sprite_popsghostly.png
|   sprite_sonicfury.png
|   video_actionmaxintro.dat
|   video_actionmaxintro.m2v
|   video_actionmaxintro.ogg
|   video_menu.dat
|   video_menu.m2v
|   video_menu.ogg

Create an empty file and name it with the name of the game and the extension .actionmax in the roms\actionmax folder (eg. 38ambushalley.actionmax).

Game Console - Lifespan: 1982 - 1983

Information

System Features

Bios Information

Content of BIOS file

advision.zip
- b225__ins8048-11kdp_n.u5 "5729638bd856c475678467a353bd921c"
- b8223__cop411l-kcn_n.u8 "fc5e71445e4947a9d00eedbc66b13a8f"

Controls

Specific system information

There is no specific System information documented here yet.

The following table lists all supported game systems as per the es_systems.cfg configuration file.

The System Name column corresponds to the directory where the game roms must be placed in the "roms" folder of the Retrobat's root folder.

The Full Name column is the actual gaming system name.

The Default Emulator column lists the primary emulator configured for the system. All emulators starting with 'lr-' are Libretro Cores.

The Alternative Emulators column lists the additional emulators that can be used for the system.

Additional information related to BIOS and ROM file formats can be found in the detailed system emulator pages.

For Arcade, refer to the Arcade Guide.