by R9delta » July 19th, 2016, 10:01 am
You might have just got a bad APK. Redownload the newest stable version from libretro's website (which is 1.3.6)
Here are the cores I use personally if it's any help:
NES - Fceu
SNES - SNES9x-Next
Gameboy/Color - Gambette
GBA: VBA-M
Genesis - Both GenesisPlus and Pico (One of them is needed for Game Gear games that the other doesn't, one is 32x. Otherwise both cover most)
Playstation - PCSX-ReARMed
Atari 2600 - Stella
Atari 7800 - Pro System
Arcade - FBA (works better for CPS1, CPS2, and Neo Geo Games), MAME (other games here or there)
PC Engine - Mednafen SGX (will cover SuperGrafX games and PC Engine/Turbo Grafx, not neccesary to get other Mednafen unless you want to run PC Engine CD games, then get both cores)
N64 - Mupen64Plus (few tips, change cpu to dynamic recompilation and resolution to 320x240 for speed up which will tend to allow full speed in most games..keep in mind n64 games typically ran at awful framerate to begin with)
WonderSwan, Neo Geo Pocket - I don't remember the names of the cores but they're the only available ones for those handhelds, they work great
Preferred Shader configuration - I prefer CRT-Easymode-Halation under the CRT folder. Looks great. I also turn off bilinear filtering in the video options.
Basic folder layout - For my sanity and better organization, I have a separate folder called "Emulation", under those i have three folders...Roms (with folders for that for each system), BIOS, and Saves. I configure RetroArch to look for Roms, BIOS files, and Saves/Savestates under those directories. They're on my hard drive since i've got the 500GB. Might be good to stick them on your MicroSD card if you've got a 16gb or do that anyway even if you had the 500gb. Makes it easier to manage them outside the Shield.
The reason I pick some of these cores that I do is for usually 3 reasons...overall compatibility, speed, and familiarity. Some of these cores the Retro Freak and Retron 5 actually use and I've never had a huge issue with them...sometimes its that the alternative cores are too slow or not as developed.
Some notes, Saturn core, PSP core, and Nintendo DS core are way too slow in RetroArch. I enjoy playing these systems and prefer to keep all my emulators in one place but if you're going to play these games use the apps Drastic (paid but worth every penny of that 5.99, plays DS games perfect and can upscale them in HD), uoYaubeuse for Saturn games (few games work great but some not so much, kinda get mixed results. I've had some trouble getting some ISOs to appear despite knowing what i'm doing), and PPSSPP. Lot of PSP games run perfect, a mix do not.
As far as the CD based systems go, my biggest preference is that the ISOs are in .bin/.cue format (as well as games that contain CD/Redbook audio having their tracks in .bin format too). Generally I luck out in most of the games I download. They tend to already be in that format though I usually have to do some renaming of the files and editing of their cue files to match. I download off of emuparadise.me when I can. I find because CD based games can be in a million different ISO formats I tend to avoid them though unless it's a game I really want to play and it's worth the trouble for me to make it work.
As far as RetroArch crashing, it does crash for me if i get out of RetroArch through the home button instead of properly exiting and i play with another app. It doesn't seem to play well with multi-tasking on the Shield. Best just to deal with it or exit RetroArch properly when getting out of it. Never had it crash on me otherwise unless i was playing with other cores that were troublesome.