Hey Guys and Gals,

Just wanted to share my story.

I started emulating about a year ago, using Hen on PS3. This reminded me of the pure joy of classic games and as much as I was really loving replaying (or discovering) 8bit Sega classics, I wanted more.

I started watching all of the minipc/plug and play console review videos (ETA PRIME, MadLittlePixel, etc). There was so much info out there that I ended up with decision paralysis. This hunting for the right option led me to RetroGamingGuy's videos (great dude, has live streams every Friday, check him out - good community amd chill vibe)

Back in January, I was lucky enough to win a free minipc from RGG! Once the pc arrived, I started my build. Made every noob mistake - downloading full romsets, going crazy with this and that.

I have spent the last 2 months trying to trim things down. I tested each game and gave it a couple minutes to see if it was a game I would play. If they didnt catch me, delete.

This is where my issues began. I started out using Retrobat. Great program, but I was trying to delete through the program (hold A, delete game). Issue here, the roms reappeared after a restart. Ok, I can get through this, go into my hard drive and delete.

Next annoyance, while popping into and out of roms, sometimes the games would load behind the taskbar. Easy fix, just Alt-Tab, but annoying. The goal was turn on PC and grab controller and forget about keyboard/mouse. Also, it was intermittent so I was unable to find a solution via any forums.

Switch to Batocera. Really digging it, start off with v38. 3/4s done build when 39 became available. Updated. Got random crashes/freezes that required hard reset of pc. Downgrade to v38, continue testing roms.

Spent last week trying to add Ryujinx into Batocera (I know it is jot supported). Am able to add Ryujinx, but wont work. Ok, back to google watch tutorials that work with v37. No joy. Another tutorial said v39 works. I was able to get it installed, add all needed files. Sadly still doesnt work. Sadface, but hey I can wait until Switch 2 comes out for Ryujinx, especially since it works on the Window side of my PC.

There really isn't a point to this post beyond yay me! And maybe for other noobs keep going. The process can be arduous and tedious. But its worth building your own collections so that you only have games you want.

One of the best parts was learning that there are a few sets of games that I love that Id never given a shot to before: best em ups (Final Fight/Streets of Rage), shmups especially vertical, and Metal Slug is stupid awesome.

Im brand new to this, but if theres any people struggling, Id be happy to offer any tips, share links (to instructions) that I can to help.

Huge shout out to this community, many existing threads helped me out!