Just a fast post on Monterey: Both MAME and RetroArch/FinalBurn Neo work flawlessly, both on Intel and Silicon machines available for me.
After the read of Ars Technica's review of macOS Monterey and the release of version 12.1, I found it safe enough to to the upgrade.
While there are no inconsistencies to report, I currently also cannot identify any major upsides ... except for that my Mini M1 boots ridiculously faster than under Big Sur. Only this was worth the upgrade for me, no idea whether this is for all machines or just in my peculiar case.
- Similar performance: I could not identify any difference in emulation performance so far. Benchmarks ran more or less similar to Big Sur, sometimes a bit higher.
- No Adaptive Sync: While I had high hopes to test the new Adaptive Sync option on a G-Sync compatible gaming monitor, the option was not available for me - disappointing. I am really wondering whether this option could also be of benefit in MAME or RetroArch. EDIT: I learned in the meantime that G-Sync monitors are not compatible with Adaptive Sync, so unfortunately there is currently no appropriate hardware available for me.
- FinalBurn Neo still has the edge: Also no change here, at least on my Mini M1, FinalBurn Neo is definitely the better option for best playing experience. More to follow on that one. Here is where I started a first tutorial on RetroArch.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Thanks for this update. I was wondering how your guide for FinalBurn and RetroArch is coming along? I am generally happy with OpenEmu due to its Mac friendliness and balanced performance, but I am also been keen to try out some more advanced shaders and overlays. I formerly used MAME, but your blog suggest that is no longer the best option for optimal performance. Are the BGFX shaders considered the best currently available, and do they work in FinalBurn? One thing that put me off RetroArch was the horrible interface and extreme amount of fiddling that needs to be done to get shaders fully optimized. I liked the sound of BGFX shaders being just 'ready to use' within MAME.
ReplyDeleteHi Adam, you exactly provided the reason why I was not moving much forward on a RetroArch guide - it's a lot of work. Here is what I wrote so far:
ReplyDeletehttps://mameonmacs.blogspot.com/2019/10/mame-in-retroarch-180-mac-and-ios.html
If you have comments to that one - please do so, it already covers the very basic pitfalls of RetroArch (in my opinion). But yes, Final Burn Neo performance is really great in RetroArch.
When it comes to shaders, you need to go for the RetroArch SLANG shaders - and anything in the CRT subfolder will work decently. Easy starts are: CRT-GEOM, CRT-Easymode, CRT-GEOM Deluxe, obviously.
Good luck!