I used Lakka.tv for many years to play my retro games, when the original hardware was not connected to my TV. A couple of weeks/months ago I discovered a new emulation front-end build which blew me away: Core Type R.
What is Core Type R?
Core Type R is an emulation front-end for all kind of consoles, computer or arcade machines based on RetroFE. It runs (to my knowledge) only on Windows. It supports all kind of systems; starting from you normal Windows PC Games, Gameboy, Super Nintendo, PlayStation 1,2 and 3, Xbox and Xbox 360 and Wii U.
The outstanding feature of Core Type R is its artwork. You probably never saw such a beautiful emulation front end in your entire life so far. This includes box art, screenshots, in-game video and more. It is really a great pleasure to browse through the library. Even without playing then.
Check out some pictures in this article to get an impression. It is even more impressive if you got it on your TV.
Add-on Pack releases
Another advantage of the system is the constant delivery of releases by the team. (Almost) every week there is an update adding one or the other system. Or a theme update. Or artwork. For the elder systems (meaning less space hungry) there are the so called 1G1R sets. 1 Game in 1 Rom (or file). You will get all the mostly English games for a specific system in the pack including all the great artwork. For modern systems, ISO based, there is usually a base pack, mostly with the best games, and additional add-packs will be released separately.
Besides the official Core-Team packs, there are also many community released packs. Mostly focused on PC Games given less complexity involved here as much as I understood.
There are also great Arcade PC releases based on Teknoparrot for Core Type R. Remember all the more modern games on the arcades? They will come alive again with these releases. Fancy shooting some aliens with a lightgun? Connect your for example your Sinden Lightgun or your Wii remote and you set for the alien hunt. Lots of fun.
Input device
Core Type R is optimized to be played with a game pad. The Xbox controllers (Amazon) are probably the ones the system is optimized for. You can use Xbox 360 controllers like I do, or use the Xbox One or Series S/X controllers.
There are very few titles not being optimized for a game controller, but sometimes it is just not feasible to map all the keys required to play the game. Think Far Cry (1) is one of these rare exceptions.
Hardware
I built a separate machine just for Core Type R. That’s how much I enjoyed it. I tried to build a small computer fitting into an IKEA Kallax shelf using components being strong enough to play also PS3 and Xbox 360. Although, for Xbox360 I probably have to buy a dedicated GPU, which I tried to avoid due to temperature and space. But Xenia seems to work better with a dedicated GPU currently. Lets see. Here is what I bought for the moment:
- Case: Cooler Master NR200 SFF Small Form Factor Mini-ITX Case (Amazon)
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX B550-I GAMING (AM4, AMD B550, Mini ITX) (Amazon)
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (Amazon)
- Cooler: NZXT Kraken X63 RGB (Amazon)
- RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro SL (2 x 16GB, 3600 MHz, DDR4-RAM, DIMM) (Amazon)
- SSD: Samsung SSD 980 (1000 GB, M.2 2280) (Amazon)
- Power supply: Corsair SF750 Platinum (750 W) (Amazon)
Where to get Core Type R?
There is no dedicated website for Core Type R, hence I cannot give you any direct links. You can find the team only on Discord using this link. Make sure to start in #start-here where all the beginner questions are handled.
Conclusion
Alright, thought it is about time for a little update. Hope this gave a short introduction to Core Type R. More to come. As there is also the Drive collection and the Assassin Light Gun add-on I have to play around with. An article will follow.
Have you tried Core Type R? Comments welcome.
For those new to the build: Would any installation tutorial be helpful?