This guide will let you know how to set up 3DO Emulation in Retroarch.
Requirements
First, install the PC version of Retroarch, whether a Standalone or Steam version. The Steam version best places the internal files with the standalone version.
Download Bios Files
1- Source 3DO Emulation bios file; otherwise, games will not launch. You can download it from Google Chrome. There are several different 3DO bios files to choose but get one from the Panasonic FZ1fc10, the gold stars.
2-The name of the file will be panafz10.bin. Once this file is downloaded, add this to the Retroarch system folder.
3- Now source some 3DO games, and again you can use google chrome for this. Once you have the 3DO games, you can add them to the games folder in the Retroarch folder.
Information
3DO games can be in a variety of different formats. If you use retroarch to rip them, they will be in .binq format. If you use another program, you can get them in ISO and convert them all into .chud format if you want to save them on disk space.
Retroarch Settings
1- First, boot up the Retroarch and once the main menu is open, go into the online updater and select the core downloader. Then scroll down and find the 3DO Company section and download it.
2- After this, go back, click on Load content, and then go to the directory where your games are stored. Then choose the game and the core to load up.
3- Now, if you want to create a game playlist, go to the main menu and click on Show desktop menu or press F5 on your keyboard.
4- Once the desktop menu is open, you’ll find the content browser on the left side of the screen. Rright-click on it, select the new playlist, and the playlist’s name should be The 3DO Company. Then press Enter and a new playlist will be created.
5- Right-click on the right side, select Add folder and then go to the location where your games are installed. Select the games folder and click on the Select Folder button at the bottom right side of the screen.
6- Set the core to Opera, set the Database to The 3DO Company and click on OK. Now all your games will be added to the playlist.
information
The best thing about the desktop menu is it will show you if your Bios File is being detected properly. So if you don’t have a Bios file, this will appear in red if your Bios file is being detected, it will appear in green.
7- Once your playlist is made, go back to the Retroarch on the main menu. You have to click on the Restart Retroarch button, as it will help you in showing your game’s playlist on the left side.
8- Now, if you want to play a game, select the game from the game’s playlist that you just added and then on the next page, click on the Run button at the top.
Controller Setup
Now go to the control setup option, then select Port 1 controls, and you can see what your controls are mapped to for your 3DO controllers. You can customize any of your controls here for any game.
Core Options
1- After that, go back to the Core option, the first option here will be the bios selection that you added during the initial setup, so that is what is selected here.
If you don’t have a 3DO bios file, there is a built-in high-level emulation bios file, but the compatibility with it is not as good as the official one, which is why you have to download the BIOS file first.
2- Then go to the system tab, and the first option will be the region. Select it to your default region, and the next option will be the language, you can set it according to your native language.
3- The next option is to use the Hle BIOS file if you have an actual bios file present so you can force the use of a high-level emulation bios file.
4- The next option is to boot directly into the 3DO bios file, so if you want to boot into the bios one inside your Retroarch system folder, you can enable this option.
Video Settings
4- After this, go back and then go into the Video tab then select the internal resolution, you have to set this according to your monitor’s native resolution.
5- The next option is cable type, set it to the normal composite cable by default and that works in most cases. There are some games that will not work unless you set this to RGB or VGA.
6- Then go to Broadcast standard, and set it between NTSC and pal. Keep the screen orientation Horizontal.
7- The next option is Alpha sorting which is set to per triangle by default, and it will be your most compatible and accurate option. If you have a faster CPU, set it to per pixel, which will be a lot more accurate as it will solve the layering issues or if you have a slower computer, you can set it to per strip.
8- The next option is the Accumulation pixel buffer size, it is set to 512 megabytes by default. Set the maximum transparent layers to 32 if you have a powerful computer, you can increase this to get better accuracy.
9- Set the Enable RTT to ON, also keep the Mipmapping, fog effects, and Volume modifier to ON. Set the anisotropic filtering to 4, but if you want to smooth out your textures more from the different angles, you can increase it up to 16. Keep the Texture filtering option on Default.
The next option is delay frame swapping, so if you are on a faster computer, enabling this option could help with some flickering videos.
10- The next option is to detect frame rate changes, so this could be useful for games with locked frame rates around the 30 or 20 FPS mark but if your game has an unlocked frame rate, then set this to OFF.
11- Go to Power VR 2 post-processing filter and set this to ON, making it a bit more accurate than an original Dreamcast video output. Keep the texture upscaling(xBRZ) on OFF.
12- The last option is native depth interpolation, so if you are using an AMD GPU, turn this option ON. It could also be useful for Intel-integrated GPUs. If you’re on Nvidia, then turn this OFF.
13- After this, go back and set the Performance to Threaded Rendering; if you are on a really low-end CPU, then you might want to set this to auto frame skip.
14- Then go back and select Inner frame blending and turn this ON as this is the ghosting effect of old CRTs, which is more suitable for Dreamcast emulation.
15- Select the controller hacks, as this is required for using things like Robotron 2048. If you want to use a single controller for both thumbsticks, then you can swap the ports depending on if your game needs to be on the right or left port for the controllers or turn it off by default.
16- Now select digital joystick sensitivity as it is set to Auto by default, and it will work for most cases, but you can adjust the sensitivity according to your game base.
17- Next, select the Analog joystick sensitivity, Set this to linear, you can also set this to quadratic test as this depends on the game basis, and you have to see which one has a better response for your particular gaming.
18- Then select Analog joystick dead zones. You must adjust this dead zone according to your particular controller.
19- At last, select Visual Memory Unit; the first option is per game vmus so the recommendation is turning this option ON for at least a vmu A1 so that way, you never have to worry about running out of save space, but you can still share saves between different memory cards for different games with the other three ports.
You can also display your VMU on-screen. For this, you can choose the screen position for it and the size to make this one at least 2x, so it’s displayable on the screen. Then you can choose the colours as well as the opacity.
20- If there are some options you want to set for some specific games but not others, then go up to Manage Core Options and save them as a Game options file. That’s the only way to apply to the settings for a specific game.
Shaders
Shaders are extensive, and you could get a fun look for all of your games based on any shaders you selected. Open the Shaders tab and turn ON the Video Shader. You have to make sure you downloaded them from the core updater.
