Homebrew Official Retroarch WiiU (wip.)

[Zeox-gamer]

cool to play ps1 games with ps1 controller and just really good nostalgia.

imagine being able to use the n64 in retraoarch using the n64 control of that edition of the switch online by him? It would be the same thing you're doing pure nostalgia.

By the way, I was taking a look at the Nintendo Wii64 emulators that use (glideN64) and Wii64 use (Rice) both seem very similar to the android version of mupen64 plus but nowadays that same version has a video plugin glideN64 which contains more accuracy than the wii64 uses (glideN64) looks like the fast mode of this plugin because it has the same graphical defects in this way.

I believe that converting this emulator to the Wiiu wouldn't take too long knowing that the source of the (Wii64) can be used as a base, because then there would be the dynamic recompilation and the way it was done and improving them over time could be taken as base to be able to have a core of mupen64 next made in this idea.

I'm even going to test the PC version of this mupen64 next and see how it is in games to see if it's just as good as project64 is.

 

[Zeox-gamer]

Hmmm I might need to try and redownload the game but my copy works fine ony pc using epsxe. Anyhoo I made a quick shaky and shitty video of my problem.

this error occurs because you didn't put the 3 regions of the ps1 bios in the folder:
retroarch/core/system
because if you download a game like japanese, european or american, it's for him to run with the bios he will look for the bios of the game's region if he doesn't find it he will go to this bios screen.

but I will help you download the bios here, just take the bios and put them in the folder I mentioned that everything will be fine, my friend.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/27gs9fvuleubknt/Retroarch_parte_3_arquivos.rar/file

 

[CoupureElectrique]

Which has better performance Retroarch for Wii U or the Wii SNES/GB/GBA/NES emulators?

 

[ploggy]

Which has better performance Retroarch for Wii U or the Wii SNES/GB/GBA/NES emulators?

WiiU versions perform better than the Wii versions.

 

[Zeox-gamer]

Hey all its been awhile
Things seemed to have gone quiet here again I think the main issue is there's not much more that can be done except for Retroarch bug fixes, we don't see much WiiU specific updates new features, anymore, it can be helped, we don't have that many WiiU devs.

Then there's the old things stopping further progress, lack of WiiU GL which would help alot in terms of speed in 3D rendered Cores and the lack of Dynarec support for the handful of Core that use them, this is where we stand as of now:
Picodrive - Dynarec supported on WiiU!!!
Dosbox - Dynarec unsupported on WiiU
DS - Dynarec unsupported - needs GL on WiiU
N64 - Dynarec unsupported -needs GL on WiiU
Saturn - Dynarec unsupported - needs GL on WiiU
Dreamcast - dynarec unsupported - needs GL on WiiU
PSP - Dynarec unsupporrted - needs GL on WiiU
Open Lara - needs GL on WiiU
Quake 1/2/3 - needs GL on WiiU
PS2 (unlikely to run on WiiU) - dynarec unsupported - needs GL on WiiU
3DS (unlikely to run on WiiU) - dynarec unsupported - needs GL on WiiU

BUT!!

That doesn't mean things haven't been happening in the background
Since last year work has been going on to bring a long awaited and much sought-after Core to the WiiU.
Thanks to the work of Quarky and Lightrec developer Zcrc we now have a WIP Lightrec enabled Pcsxrearmed Core
It's still WIP because there's currently a bug where the emulation speed isn't 100% in all games, its seems like the bug is with the WiiU Retroarch port itself, since the (Lightrec enabled) WiiSX port on OG Wii runs the same games fine (on Wii Clocks even!) so still WIP
I have no doubt that once this bug is finally fixed the WiiU Pcsxreamed Core will absolutely smoke the Wii WiiSX emulator in terms of performance also I should point out the only reason the Wii Emulators got updated with Lightrec so fast is because all the leg work was done on the WiU months before lol
BTW I'm not crapping on the new updated Wii PS1 Emulators I promise, they are great and other choices are awesome, its just native WiiU Emulator's are what we all want here right?

What's lacking is developers with the ability to profile the Pcsxreamed Core to see where the issue lies.
So if there's any WiiU devs popping their head in and has the ability to do this it would be massively helpful!!!
So as of right now the WiiSX emulator IS faster in some games than the WiiU Pcsxrearmed Core, but that doesn't mean the WiiU core is useless..
Since it's a Retroarch Core you get all the benefits of Retroarch:
Cheats
Game Covers/Thumbnails
FF mapped to a Button
No Filtering (tho that has been removed in Wiistation recently I think) lol
Overlay support
CHD support

Ear warning!!! (all the audio issues you hear in the vid below have since been fixed!!!)

Spoiler: Vids!!

So yea, that's where we currently are, I wish i could have posted a !00% fullspeed PS1 Core since its something we've been hoping for for a long time but although it may not 100% it is pretty damn good and 80-90% of games are fully playable imo and fro the games that are below fullspeed you can always play on WiiSX until this bug is fixed

There are things you can do to get some extra fps out of the games that don't quite reach fullspeed:
You can disable Vsync in the Retroarch Video Settings. (helps for some games)
You can disable Dithering in the In-Game Options. (especially helps in the Crash Bandicoot games)
Also when you finished playing a game CLOSE CONTENT dont just chain load your games otherwise you may get a Console Crash :^)

There's still a PR pending before we get the Core on the Buildbot. but once that's done you can grab it from the Core Updater

Thanks again to Quarky(theawesome) and Zcrc, without them this wouldn't have happened at all

Last thing to do is post the WIP Core itself.. Make sure to put your PS1 Bios files in the System Folder

I think that for the N64 and the Saturn it would help to study their sources from the wii version and improve them as well as wiistation from wii was used for pcsx rearmed core for wiiu which by the way was much improved
I think it would be halfway there to study these sources and be able to do the same with yabause and wii64 and improve them
If I knew how to program them for the Wiiu I would have already done the basics I could do and improve some things in the existing emulators to run some games more decently.

but even so we have to thank the people who developed these emulators on the wii and left the sources files to be improved in the future for the next ones who are interested.

YABAUSE WII with sources:
http://www.mediafire.com/?gzz3n5cd0plcca9

WII64 sourced on github by developer emukidid who did a great job on wii64 from n64:
https://github.com/emukidid/Wii64/releases

they could be used as bases and improved I think that if everyone put their ideas together they could make something good.

 

[ploggy]

I think that for the N64 and the Saturn it would help to study their sources from the wii version and improve them as well as wiistation from wii was used for pcsx rearmed core for wiiu which by the way was much improved
I think it would be halfway there to study these sources and be able to do the same with yabause and wii64 and improve them
If I knew how to program them for the Wiiu I would have already done the basics I could do and improve some things in the existing emulators to run some games more decently.

but even so we have to thank the people who developed these emulators on the wii and left the sources files to be improved in the future for the next ones who are interested.

YABAUSE WII with sources:
http://www.mediafire.com/?gzz3n5cd0plcca9

WII64 sourced on github by developer emukidid who did a great job on wii64 from n64:
https://github.com/emukidid/Wii64/releases

they could be used as bases and improved I think that if everyone put their ideas together they could make something good.

Again, it all boils down to someone with the skills willing to do it... and right now there are no takers
I have no coding experience AT ALL so as much as I wish I could, I cant do it.

Also you wrong about Wiistation helping the WiiU PS1 Core, the WiiU PS1 Core was in development LONG before Wiistation started and WiiSX was revived.. its the other way around
It sucks but imo we're not going to get a Wii64 port or a Standalone Yabause Emulator any time soon. It's alot more likely that the Yabause Sanshiro Core and Mupen64plus Core were to get Compiled and running on WiiU Retroarch BUT that would be the easy part.. WiiU HB lacks OpenGL support, so even if N64/Saturn were bought to WiiU it would run like ass with only Software Rendering.
Then there's the lack of a WiiU Dynarec for Saturn and Wii64.. Wii64 has a Dynarec for Wii but when we tried to bring the WiiSX Dynarec to WiiU for the first PCSX Core attempt it just didn't run well and was discontinued, so I assume it would be the same case if the Wii64 Dynarec were brought to WiiU

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, believe me, I very much want a Saturn/N64/Dreamcast/DS Emulator on WiiU and have personally hounded and nagged ALL the developers I know of. (The reason we have a PS1 Core now) lol

 

[YoraeRasante]

Uhm, hello? I just installed RetroArch on my WiiU recently, had it kinda unused not long after I got a switch...
So I recently installed Tiramisu instead of loading Haxchi from my copy of Mystery Dungeon. And then RetroArch, fresh from their site (unless they updated this very week). Since there was no guide on the site itself, I guessed it was just like other apps and added the retroarch folder to the root of the sd card and onlt the retroarch folder on the wiiu/apps folder (I heard somewhere that just lets you open the cores directly through homebrew launcher instead of needing to open retroarch).

I'm having three issues, tried looking for the last since it is kinda the most annoying for me and could not seem to find it (maybe I'm just stupid), so hope no one minds if I ask it in a new post

1-
setting to scan a folder seems to just... freeze RetroArch. At least after some time reading them. I would guess it could be because they are inside zip files, but it seems to be able to check the contents when I go directly to them...
And yeah, I would think "it just seems frozen", but after an hour stuck in the same percentage I kinda doubt it.

2-
when I start a game, RetroArch goes crazy. And does not start it. I only tried with unzipped Sega Master System and Mega Drive (/Genesis) and zipped Sega CD games yet, but still.

Because... when I try to use Genesis Plus GX Wide, it:
Sometimes suddenly goes back to RetroArch, says it can't run the game, image assets are now static/error images, it can't open my sd's folders to try another game, and checking the cores installed does not tell me anymore what consoles each is for.
Other times goes right to issue 3.

And when I try to use the base Genesis Plus GX, Picodrive or Gearsystem, it goes right to issue number 3 down there, I'm guessing it is turning down RetroArch itself. It still says on the bottom of RetroArch I am using Genesis Plus GX Wide when I go back to it though, so I'm guessing it is giving an error when changing the Core in the menu that opens when I select the content directly. Giving the same error when trying to change cores by hand causes the same issue, so...

3-
This is the big one I came to ask about: pressing Home does not seem to exit RetroArch, and going to Restart or Quit sends me to just a black screen with the number -12 in white on the top left.
I'm guessing this is an error code but I can't find anywhere about what it means. So I am forced to hold the power button for a few seconds for a hard power down if I want to exit it...

As you can imagine, issue number 2 makes this one extra-annoying. But to make it clear, it also happens when I don't try it yet.

I am tempted to try installing the forwarder to see if that helps, but it seems it currently has some issues on its own.

 

[tmnr1992]

Uhm, hello? I just installed RetroArch on my WiiU recently, had it kinda unused not long after I got a switch...
So I recently installed Tiramisu instead of loading Haxchi from my copy of Mystery Dungeon. And then RetroArch, fresh from their site (unless they updated this very week). Since there was no guide on the site itself, I guessed it was just like other apps and added the retroarch folder to the root of the sd card and onlt the retroarch folder on the wiiu/apps folder (I heard somewhere that just lets you open the cores directly through homebrew launcher instead of needing to open retroarch).

I'm having three issues, tried looking for the last since it is kinda the most annoying for me and could not seem to find it (maybe I'm just stupid), so hope no one minds if I ask it in a new post

1-
setting to scan a folder seems to just... freeze RetroArch. At least after some time reading them. I would guess it could be because they are inside zip files, but it seems to be able to check the contents when I go directly to them...
And yeah, I would think "it just seems frozen", but after an hour stuck in the same percentage I kinda doubt it.

2-
when I start a game, RetroArch goes crazy. And does not start it. I only tried with unzipped Sega Master System and Mega Drive (/Genesis) and zipped Sega CD games yet, but still.

Because... when I try to use Genesis Plus GX Wide, it:
Sometimes suddenly goes back to RetroArch, says it can't run the game, image assets are now static/error images, it can't open my sd's folders to try another game, and checking the cores installed does not tell me anymore what consoles each is for.
Other times goes right to issue 3.

And when I try to use the base Genesis Plus GX, Picodrive or Gearsystem, it goes right to issue number 3 down there, I'm guessing it is turning down RetroArch itself. It still says on the bottom of RetroArch I am using Genesis Plus GX Wide when I go back to it though, so I'm guessing it is giving an error when changing the Core in the menu that opens when I select the content directly. Giving the same error when trying to change cores by hand causes the same issue, so...

3-
This is the big one I came to ask about: pressing Home does not seem to exit RetroArch, and going to Restart or Quit sends me to just a black screen with the number -12 in white on the top left.
I'm guessing this is an error code but I can't find anywhere about what it means. So I am forced to hold the power button for a few seconds for a hard power down if I want to exit it...

As you can imagine, issue number 2 makes this one extra-annoying. But to make it clear, it also happens when I don't try it yet.

I am tempted to try installing the forwarder to see if that helps, but it seems it currently has some issues on its own.

1- I haven't tried scanning roms in a long time, but last time I tried I got the same results as you with Retroarch just freezing. If you want to scan your roms directory to create playlists I would do that on a PC.

2- Sega CD games need the bios files in the system folder, but regular Genesis games should work. Try formatting your SD card and reinstalling Retroarch.

3- Maybe something got corrupted, reinstalling as mentioned above might help, but to be honest I have no clue why this is happening, hopefully someone more knowledgeable will be able to help you with this one.

Lastly the forwarder works with Tiramisu, but will not improve Retroarch's performance whatsoever, it's simply a more convenient way to access it.

 

[ploggy]

@YoraeRasante if you want to scan your roms on WiiU use the Manual Scan option Enter your rom path choose your core, set scan inside zip files then select scan this way will scan games and make your playlist VERY quick.

 

[Zeox-gamer]

I know you also want to friend I commented here so everyone can have ideas and adhere to those who know will read it too and a comment for everyone to express an opinion.

I was able to run Saturn's castlevania on the Saturn vwii inject on the Wiiu and other games in a decent way I was trying to edit some things I was able to get it to run now but it runs fine.
look here:

Post automatically merged: Aug 3, 2023

1- I haven't tried scanning roms in a long time, but last time I tried I got the same results as you with Retroarch just freezing. If you want to scan your roms directory to create playlists I would do that on a PC.

2- Sega CD games need the bios files in the system folder, but regular Genesis games should work. Try formatting your SD card and reinstalling Retroarch.

3- Maybe something got corrupted, reinstalling as mentioned above might help, but to be honest I have no clue why this is happening, hopefully someone more knowledgeable will be able to help you with this one.

Lastly the forwarder works with Tiramisu, but will not improve Retroarch's performance whatsoever, it's simply a more convenient way to access it.

create the list manually by retroarch putting it in the type of extension which is the format that the list will scan for example (.zip .bin) it has to be the same one that is in your roms folder you can put several formats there mixed but when putting the type of extension you have to put the type of it there yes it will scan quickly

 

[YoraeRasante]

Hey everyone, I got the bios files and... well, I tried reinstalling RetroArch on the sd card, then Tiramisu, and then formating the sd card and doing it all over from scratch...

And now, something went wrong.
For some reason, setting autoboot for the preloader or Tiramisu are not working anymore.
The forwarder (that I added before reformating the sd card) just shows some splash screens and sends me back to the wiiu menu.
And opening retroarch through the Homebrew Channel is only showing me a black screen. I already downloaded the assets files, still the same thing.

At least Homebrew Launcher seems to still be working fine?

[EDIT] Good news, everyone! RetroArch took some time, but it opened!
...still giving the -12 error when I closed it, though
And seems to always be in that static-y version, which does not seem to let me open the folder I put the roms into so can't even test things yet...

 

[alfonsovin]

Hello
Trying MAME 2009 core in Retroarch take 40 secs for load a game like Empire City
A game loading with MAME 2003 Plus core take 15 sec
A neogeo game take 20 secs

What's the difference? How can I improve this? It seems not reasonable take so long for a simple ROM

 

[ploggy]

Hello
Trying MAME 2009 core in Retroarch take 40 secs for load a game like Empire City
A game loading with MAME 2003 Plus core take 15 sec
A neogeo game take 20 secs

What's the difference? How can I improve this? It seems not reasonable take so long for a simple ROM

The Mame2009 core was basically a one and done Core for WiiU, it hasn't been updated since 2017 :/
You can try and ask the Retroarch guys to add a newer MAME to build for WiiU. MAME2016 or just the Main MAME.
Add to this one: https://github.com/libretro/mame2016-libretro/issues/53 (different issue I know but the result would be the same)
Or ask for MAME main Core to be added here: https://github.com/libretro/mame/issues

Actually if anyone else can add to the MAME2016 issue above too that would be great! if we can get that Core added we can possibly get access the Mess Cores too

 

[Lostbhoy]

Just wanna say the ps1 core is great! Load times are A HELLUVA LOT better than i expected lol

Haven't been keeping up and i think the core I have was the first one you posted, is there a section for on it the build page or is it separate? Just to keep to date!

 

[ploggy]

Just wanna say the ps1 core is great! Load times are A HELLUVA LOT better than i expected lol

Haven't been keeping up and i think the core I have was the first one you posted, is there a section for on it the build page or is it separate? Just to keep to date!

It is great!
You can get the latest PS1 Core from the Retroarch Online Updater

 

[Ettino]

It is great!
You can get the latest PS1 Core from the Retroarch Online Updater

I'm actually quite impressed at how well it runs PS1 iso now. Tried a handful of RPGs like FF 7-9, Lunars, BOF etc and they all worked perfectly. I have a better way to run those old games already but this is still really great way for folks with only the Wii U.

 

[ploggy]

I'm actually quite impressed at how well it runs PS1 iso now. Tried a handful of RPGs like FF 7-9, Lunars, BOF etc and they all worked perfectly. I have a better way to run those old games already but this is still really great way for folks with only the Wii U.

Yea, ALL 2D games should run fullspeed without issue, in fact if you enable FF you can reach 100+fps
It's just the heavy 3D games that tend to be below fullspeed, if we ever get a GL renderer or equivalent then the PS1 Core will easily be fullspeed across ALL games (and we could get upscaled GFX)

 

[Zeox-gamer]

Hey everyone, I got the bios files and... well, I tried reinstalling RetroArch on the sd card, then Tiramisu, and then formating the sd card and doing it all over from scratch...

And now, something went wrong.
For some reason, setting autoboot for the preloader or Tiramisu are not working anymore.
The forwarder (that I added before reformating the sd card) just shows some splash screens and sends me back to the wiiu menu.
And opening retroarch through the Homebrew Channel is only showing me a black screen. I already downloaded the assets files, still the same thing.

At least Homebrew Launcher seems to still be working fine?

[EDIT] Good news, everyone! RetroArch took some time, but it opened!
...still giving the -12 error when I closed it, though
And seems to always be in that static-y version, which does not seem to let me open the folder I put the roms into so can't even test things yet...

you have to remove the hbl installer from the tiramisu modules folder for retroarch to work

and to run all ps1 games sampling the bios you have to put the three versions of the bios JPN USA in retroarch/core/system to work fine

 

[ploggy]

New PS1 Core update allows PS3's PS1 bios support.

 

[alfonsovin]

Three questions, maybe answered but I can't find

How could I launch "mame menu" during game for config DIP switches? In fact I got it in retroarch Wii but I can find in new retroarch Wii U. I can't find in "quick menu" and can't find in "hot keys". I remember use a combo to launch it (L1+L1)

input for "acelerete" in "pole position" and "pole position 2". Again one of them I could play using right analog for accelerate but I can't find a way to do with retroarch Wii u

Last one. For some reason, last days I need to load twice times retroarch from forwarder channel in Wii U menu. I don't know why I launch the icon, see the splash screen but return to Wii U menu. Launch second time and it loads