Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

[mightymuffy]

Your 100Hz monitor (or TV) can run at 60Hz if necessary, and will do so if set to 60Hz exclusive mode. I'm not a Wii user so I'm not sure if the Wii can properly set video modes, but if you plug your PC (running Linux, BSD, Windows, or OSX) into your 100Hz TV, I know you can have a fine experience with ~60 fps (usually not exactly, but RetroArch handles it with dynamic rate control for smooth play) NTSC games via RetroArch.

I'm not exactly sure what Dogway's getting at there..... like you say there, all new PAL TVs are quite capable of displaying a NTSC signal at 60Hz, and I'm going to assume most users on here will at the very least be using a cable capable of displaying it too.. I had both a PAL & US SNES back in the day though, now the vast majority of games were unoptimised for PAL, thus said roms running at 60hz would in fact be identical to their NTSC counterparts.... but I can clearly remember Mario Kart, All-Stars and Tetris Attack being sped up for PAL (I remember using an adapter for these on the US console and Mario Kart for instance being a bit too fast/causing slowdown.....hmmm.... probably not the bloke's point at all, but I'm off testing the PAL versions of these roms!

EDIT: LoggerMan: yeah use this instead of the standalone ones!

 

[Etheboss]

Hmm, well I'm just in the process of setting up an emulation station on a new Wii (sans Gamecube), and I always wanted to get it done right like I've seen some people in YouTube videos, with proper animated forwarders for each emulator, and all rom images on a 32GB sdhc or 32GB USB. With two classic controllers, two wiimotes and a CRT display it would be perfect. I'd put full collections of console games from SNES generation and early (and N64), and it would be great. A cool station with clean forwarder channels that anyone could sit down with and understand (with the only thing to teach someone being how to save the game).

But now I find out about RetroArch and I don't know what to do. All I know is that I don't have too much time to dedicate to this project (I'm in the mood to get things like this done right and quickly while on break from college).

It's worth it, a lot of emulators that retroarch uses are improved over the standalone ones.

 

[LoggerMan]

I just found this set of forwarders though and it looks great, all matching, and they give you a sample of what that generations audio sounded like, as well as a cycle of screen shots on a picture of a TV, with a picture of what the console looked like on the side. I like that kind of thing

 

[terpsfan101]

With the Neo Geo Pocket core, would it be possible to add an option to select the default language, like the Neo Geo Pocket emulator in wiimednafen. With retroarch it defaults to Japanese.

Also, is the Retroarch team working on incorporating dip/test switch support for the FBA/NEO/CPS2 cores? I don't want to keep bringing the issue up, but I haven't heard any input from the Retroarch team on this issue.

 

[mightymuffy]

I just found this set of forwarders though and it looks great, all matching, and they give you a sample of what that generations audio sounded like, as well as a cycle of screen shots on a picture of a TV, with a picture of what the console looked like on the side. I like that kind of thing

They are indeed nice, and any soft modded family Wii's I've done, I've used them myself, but personally once this emu came out I waved bye bye to the vast majority of these forwarders..... try out both this and the standalones then decide for yourself - only takes a couple of minutes to delete one or the other.....

...

Just tested out PAL Mario Kart and All-Stars, whoa what a jerky mess on RetroArch, but yeah, clearly in 480p they're faster! Bit of useless information there for you all hehe - I wouldn't bother trying them unless you think I'm fibbing of course, and clearly nothing to do with the original question but I'm happy! For no reason....*googles for a list of PAL SNES games that were sped up*

 

[LoggerMan]

What is good about Retroarch vs installing them individually? It looks like Retroarch only has about half the available emulators for Wii and that some of them don't work as well as the standalone versions.

But, it must be good if it has 100 pages of comments and dedicated users. Can it all be updated within the app itself easily, using wifi? And how are game saves managed, scattered in all different folders for each emulator, or neatly organised so you can retrieve them and use them on a computer?

 

[Dogway]

Well, I wonder then why all the hassle of PAL or NTSC LCD TV's, aren't just them supposed to refresh at any rate (as you stated)? Why is it yet necessary to make that region differentation?
And let me go further (bit offtopic here), if they can refresh at 50Hz or 60Hz indistinctly, why can't they refresh at 23.976Hz or 24hz (or any of their multiples), and need a special playback mode? Read the answer of my post here that starts as "Q: The optimal real refresh rate...", the guy knows his thing and yet tells "The difference, 0.1%, is negligible so the TV can just speed it up."

BTW I used to play Mario Kart like every time back in the days. Guess I was playing on fast forward? (shouldn't that be slower in any case) I'm also going to search for a sped up PAL list, so I can replace them, the problem is I'd rather play in Spanish... but let's see.

~60 fps (usually not exactly, but RetroArch handles it with dynamic rate control for smooth play)

You mean 59.940fps? What do you mean with dynamic rate? it's the same as the explanation over rting? -> "The difference, 0.1%, is negligible so the TV can just speed it up."


@LoggerMan: I personally only use it for CPS2, that's reason enough, but I know I can make use of other emulators given a certain rom or issue with others.

 

[XDel]

Another thought would be to add in support for PrBOOM Plus (not just PrBOOM) and give it the ability to load and run pWADs.

 

[the_randomizer]

What is good about Retroarch vs installing them individually? It looks like Retroarch only has about half the available emulators for Wii and that some of them don't work as well as the standalone versions.

But, it must be good if it has 100 pages of comments and dedicated users. Can it all be updated within the app itself easily, using wifi? And how are game saves managed, scattered in all different folders for each emulator, or neatly organised so you can retrieve them and use them on a computer?

What do you mean "not are good"? The emulators on here are better ports than the standalone versions of said emulators. The saves are stored in specific folders.

Snes9x Next > Snes9x GX
Visual Boy Advanced Next > VBA GX
Nestopia Undead > FCEU GX or FCEUmm

 

[LoggerMan]

Woops, I meant not as good. It's just hard to find information about RetroArch. I can't even find any youtube videos of the menuin action and it looks like there has only been two updates since release (or does WiiBrew only list the major updates?). I am way more of a SNES player though, so if all or most of the emulators are better than the standalone versions, and Snes9x Next is better than GX, and if it can all be updated at once, then Retroarch makes sense.

Even still, why isn't it more well known and such? I guess I'll have to install it and see myself.

 

[XDel]

Sorry for the multiple posts, but I just had another brain storm...

...something the Wii lacks but really needs with or without Wiimote support, don't care as long as it runs smooth and controls well.

Heretic and Hexen. Those have to be doable I'd think!

 

[the_randomizer]

Woops, I meant not as good. It's just hard to find information about RetroArch. I can't even find any youtube videos of the menuin action and it looks like there has only been two updates since release (or does WiiBrew only list the major updates?). I am way more of a SNES player though, so if all or most of the emulators are better than the standalone versions, and Snes9x Next is better than GX, and if it can all be updated at once, then Retroarch makes sense.

Even still, why isn't it more well known and such? I guess I'll have to install it and see myself.

I wish is was more well-known as well. It started off as SSNES or something like that as supporting Snes and a couple of systems, then eventually it branched out and is is slowly but surely gaining popularity. If I ever get a PVR, I'll be sure to upload videos of it in action Snes is where it's at.

 

[nakata6790]

Hmm, well I'm just in the process of setting up an emulation station on a new Wii (sans Gamecube), and I always wanted to get it done right like I've seen some people in YouTube videos, with proper animated forwarders for each emulator, and all rom images on a 32GB sdhc or 32GB USB. With two classic controllers, two wiimotes and a CRT display it would be perfect. I'd put full collections of console games from SNES generation and early (and N64), and it would be great. A cool station with clean forwarder channels that anyone could sit down with and understand (with the only thing to teach someone being how to save the game).

But now I find out about RetroArch and I don't know what to do. All I know is that I don't have too much time to dedicate to this project (I'm in the mood to get things like this done right and quickly while on break from college).

I totally get what you mean and Wii's interface plus a CRT is the best match for this. I did just that for GC, Wii, Wiiware and homebrew (I don't want a gui for retro emus due to the large number of retro games).
Personally i use Usbloader GX and have everything set up nicely with my own theme.

If however you do want GUI for retro emulation too ,
check out Wiiflow or special covermod versions of emulators.

PS. Retroarch is totally worth it, if you value performance, IMHO.
Get accustomed with it and you'll see.

Sorry for the multiple posts, but I just had another brain storm...

...something the Wii lacks but really needs with or without Wiimote support, don't care as long as it runs smooth and controls well.

Heretic and Hexen. Those have to be doable I'd think!

You 'll be pleased to know that those are already done.
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Hexen_Wii
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Heretic_Wii

 

[Etheboss]

Woops, I meant not as good. It's just hard to find information about RetroArch. I can't even find any youtube videos of the menuin action and it looks like there has only been two updates since release (or does WiiBrew only list the major updates?). I am way more of a SNES player though, so if all or most of the emulators are better than the standalone versions, and Snes9x Next is better than GX, and if it can all be updated at once, then Retroarch makes sense.

Even still, why isn't it more well known and such? I guess I'll have to install it and see myself.

Best thing maybe is to go to the source -->> http://www.libretro.org/
There you find everything there is to know about retroarch.

 

[Disorarara]

Elaborate, what's incomplete about it, the lack of a fancy GUI? I personally couldn't care less as a fancy GUI; it would just hog what little free resources the emulator doesn't have to use in the first place.

You know what I mean by that, several cores are still a work in progress and it's still got some things to iron out, like save issues and the sound inaccuracies you hate so much.

 

[the_randomizer]

You know what I mean by that, several cores are still a work in progress and it's still got some things to iron out, like save issues and the sound inaccuracies you hate so much.

Well, just learned that the sound issues have been completely neutralized now that the audio is sampled via a Sinc interpolation filter as opposed to the Hermite sampler they used, and that a version with the bug fixes will be released this weekend (either today or tomorrow I'm sure). Genesis Plus GX was the main offender but has been fixed. Snes9x Next however, is very close to perfection when it comes to how accurate it is.

I have a lot of respect for the people that made this port possible and all the coding they have to test/debug and so on.

 

[MassiveRican]

Why not install all the forwarders, including the extra dope RetroArch forwarder by Mastershoes. If u want the casuals in your crib can use whatever emu they want but once u start seeing the performance of RetroArch yourself you'll start finding yourself coming back more and more.

I have all the a couple myself I love channels and they always look good to show off the SM a bit.

 

[the_randomizer]

dilemma. Install all the forwarders, including the extra dope RetroArch forwarder by Mastershoes. If u want the casuals in your crib can use whatever emu they want but once u start seeing the performance of RetroArch yourself you'll start finding yourself coming back more and more.

I have all the forwarders myself I love channels and they always look good to show off the SM a bit.

Pretty much, you can't beat the performance in RetroArch, seeing as no emulator uses frame skipping at all, which makes for more stability.

 

[Disorarara]

I'd like to see keyboard support.

 

[Tuddles]

be the best if supported cheats I am sure its coming tho sooner then later as I see its asked for every few pages