Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

[Toad King]

Releases and support has moved here: http://forum.themaister.net/viewtopic.php?id=347

 

[sabandellos]

OMG!!!!

I have no words!!!. Awesome isn't enough to describe this!!!!.

Edit: I've checked, and NO: today isn't april's fool day, it's real !!!

 

[Taleweaver]

Yeah...same here.

So am I correct that a pretty similar package is now released for the other platforms as well (PC, xbox, PS3, ...) ?

And even then...it's already pretty much up to par with mednafen in supported emulators, and with future ports underway...

Just...wow!

 

[mastershoes]

Just played a few rounds of Marvel vs Capcom, HELL YES!! Nice Job on this!!

 

[Err0rist]

Need to try this. Thanks.

 

[woodoste]

Wii Mednafen seems dead so this is a great addiction to the scene!
BTW Wii Mednafen has more emulators:

• GameBoy/GameBoy Color
• GameBoy Advance
• Game Gear
• Lynx
• Mega Drive/Genesis
• Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
• Neo Geo Pocket
• PC Engine (CD)/TurboGrafx 16 (CD)/SuperGrafx (Fast version)
• PC-FX
• Sega Master System
• Virtual Boy
• WonderSwan
  
  I hope the missing ones will be added (I prefer a Lynx and WonderSwan emu than the Doom one...)!
  
  Keep it up!

 

[Toad King]

Wii Mednafen seems dead so this is a great addiction to the scene!
BTW Wii Mednafen has more emulators:

• GameBoy/GameBoy Color
• GameBoy Advance
• Game Gear
• Lynx
• Mega Drive/Genesis
• Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
• Neo Geo Pocket
• PC Engine (CD)/TurboGrafx 16 (CD)/SuperGrafx (Fast version)
• PC-FX
• Sega Master System
• Virtual Boy
• WonderSwan
  
  
  I hope the missing ones will be added (I prefer a Lynx and WonderSwan emu than the Doom one...)!
  
  Keep it up!

This release has a Wonderswan core already.

Also, if anybody has any issues launching the emulator or switching cores, please report them. The core code went through a lot of changes right before release to fix some major bugs and the team and I want to make sure we fixed them.

 

[Fudge]

An error occurred during ROM loading on PC Engine games. Any idea why?? Also, great work, can't wait to see this improved.
EDIT: Didn't read core switching, got it now.
EDIT: This is so good, great work.

 

[ploggy]

Yay it's released! Great job Square/Toadking and Themaister!

 

[the_randomizer]

Wow. Now that's quite the emulator you got there Keep it up!

 

[nakata6790]

Amazing job!! The function of RetroArch is most welcome, and the picture quality of the emulation is superb!!

Some suggestions:
- A GUI. A first suggestion is to have a boot screen like the Wii menu, but with icons (like channels) that correspond to a specfic system. Upon clicking on an icon then the corresponding core loads and the (specified by the .ini/.cfg file) rom directory for that system opens up in the file browser.
- WiiMednafen has zip support for all the systems it supports (even GBA), in time i hope it is possible for RA to have that too
- Speaking of zip, a suggestion for the unzipped rom and the .srm savestates, they should go to a specified folder in the RetroArch directory. Right now they show up in the same folder as the roms, making browsing a bit harder
- Auto detection of input method (Wiimote, WM+Nunchuck, CC, CCPro, GC controller, etc) like Tantric's emus and saved configs by the user for each method.


And a slight issue: While i managed to run cps2 games like Darkstalkers 2 and 1944, XMEN COTA, i get an error with CPS1 games like Carrier Airwing, Capt.Commando, Punisher, Dino Crisis etc. I tried with FBA core but even after switching to CPS1 core, the CPS1 games give me the same error. Anyone have any luck with getting CPS1 games to work? I have a feeling i did something wrong on my part.

PS. A forwarder could also be useful IMHO, although with the many cores i don't know how feasible it will be

 

[the_randomizer]

- Speaking of zip, a suggestion for the unzipped rom and the .srm savestates, they should go to a specified folder in the RetroArch directory. Right now they show up in the same folder as the roms, making browsing a bit harder
- Auto detection of input method (Wiimote, WM+Nunchuck, CC, CCPro, GC controller, etc) like Tantric's emus and saved configs by the user for each method.

Seconded.

 

[DJPlace]

fuck man just fuck... this may be one reason i may rebuy a wii with a classic controller again...

only for MVC that is. is there like a combality list for this btw?

 

[LightyKD]

Video please!

 

[DEFIANT]

Is there any way to use cheats with this?

 

[Toad King]

Amazing job!! The function of RetroArch is most welcome, and the picture quality of the emulation is superb!!

Some suggestions:
- A GUI. A first suggestion is to have a boot screen like the Wii menu, but with icons (like channels) that correspond to a specfic system. Upon clicking on an icon then the corresponding core loads and the (specified by the .ini/.cfg file) rom directory for that system opens up in the file browser.
- WiiMednafen has zip support for all the systems it supports (even GBA), in time i hope it is possible for RA to have that too
- Speaking of zip, a suggestion for the unzipped rom and the .srm savestates, they should go to a specified folder in the RetroArch directory. Right now they show up in the same folder as the roms, making browsing a bit harder
- Auto detection of input method (Wiimote, WM+Nunchuck, CC, CCPro, GC controller, etc) like Tantric's emus and saved configs by the user for each method.


And a slight issue: While i managed to run cps2 games like Darkstalkers 2 and 1944, XMEN COTA, i get an error with CPS1 games like Carrier Airwing, Capt.Commando, Punisher, Dino Crisis etc. I tried with FBA core but even after switching to CPS1 core, the CPS1 games give me the same error. Anyone have any luck with getting CPS1 games to work? I have a feeling i did something wrong on my part.

PS. A forwarder could also be useful IMHO, although with the many cores i don't know how feasible it will be

- The lack of a GUI is the main reason we have enough RAM to load most CPS2 games. Anything big will just take up more space and potentially make games not run.
- .srm aren't savestates, that's the game's ram, and most emulators save it in the directory with the ROM. I'll look into actual savestates going into a separate folder.
- Auto-detection can be buggy, since the Wiimote is always disconnected on start. You only have to set it once. And we already support custom binds for each player.
- Are you sure you have all the files needed to run it? Some ROMs need other ROM .zip files to run. EDIT: And more importantly do you have the right version? You need ROMs compatable with FinalBurn Alpha 0.2.97.26.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

- A GUI. A first suggestion is to have a boot screen like the Wii menu, but with icons (like channels) that correspond to a specfic system. Upon clicking on an icon then the corresponding core loads and the (specified by the .ini/.cfg file) rom directory for that system opens up in the file browser.

On the Wii we can't really afford any additional frills that eat up RAM. The reason it took people so long to get a CPS2 emu out on Wii that can load large ROMs such as Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Vampire Savior I put largely down to people's fetishism with fancypants GUIs. On the Wii, every megabyte counts, every 100 kilobytes even counts - a few megabytes laid to waste means a few more ROMs that will not work because of it.

For this and for the fact that we are providing an architecture for emu porters to port their wares to, we keep memory usage to an absolute minimum - both in the libretro port and in the RetroArch port. If people want to code an external GUI that will send params to the RetroArch DOL file - that is conceivable and something like that is in fact working on PS3 where there is a frontend called Multiman that provides all the eye candy your heart desires and just loads up the RetroArch cores with some params to launch a ROM.

- WiiMednafen has zip support for all the systems it supports (even GBA), in time i hope it is possible for RA to have that too

ZIP extraction is currently configurable in two ways - extract the contents of a ZIP file to the current directory, and the second option is to do the same except to load the first supported ROM file in that ZIP file.

We can add a third option to that based on what you have suggested below -

- Speaking of zip, a suggestion for the unzipped rom and the .srm savestates, they should go to a specified folder in the RetroArch directory. Right now they show up in the same folder as the roms, making browsing a bit harder

And a slight issue: While i managed to run cps2 games like Darkstalkers 2 and 1944, XMEN COTA, i get an error with CPS1 games like Carrier Airwing, Capt.Commando, Punisher, Dino Crisis etc. I tried with FBA core but even after switching to CPS1 core, the CPS1 games give me the same error. Anyone have any luck with getting CPS1 games to work? I have a feeling i did something wrong on my part.

I've tested all those games just now with the CPS1 core, and they all work. Make sure your ROMs are confirmed working on FBA v0.2.97.26 and that you have all the necessary ones - you might be missing some parent/child ROM zips.

 

[bradzx]

Wow...this look freaking awesome.

 

[ploggy]

- A GUI. A first suggestion is to have a boot screen like the Wii menu, but with icons (like channels) that correspond to a specfic system. Upon clicking on an icon then the corresponding core loads and the (specified by the .ini/.cfg file) rom directory for that system opens up in the file browser.

On the Wii we can't really afford any additional frills that eat up RAM. The reason it took people so long to get a CPS2 emu out on Wii that can load large ROMs such as Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Vampire Savior I put largely down to people's fetishism with fancypants GUIs. On the Wii, every megabyte counts, every 100 kilobytes even counts - a few megabytes laid to waste means a few more ROMs that will not work because of it.

For this and for the fact that we are providing an architecture for emu porters to port their wares to, we keep memory usage to an absolute minimum - both in the libretro port and in the RetroArch port. If people want to code an external GUI that will send params to the RetroArch DOL file - that is conceivable and something like that is in fact working on PS3 where there is a frontend called Multiman that provides all the eye candy your heart desires and just loads up the RetroArch cores with some params to launch a ROM.

- WiiMednafen has zip support for all the systems it supports (even GBA), in time i hope it is possible for RA to have that too

ZIP extraction is currently configurable in two ways - extract the contents of a ZIP file to the current directory, and the second option is to do the same except to load the first supported ROM file in that ZIP file.

We can add a third option to that based on what you have suggested below -

- Speaking of zip, a suggestion for the unzipped rom and the .srm savestates, they should go to a specified folder in the RetroArch directory. Right now they show up in the same folder as the roms, making browsing a bit harder

And a slight issue: While i managed to run cps2 games like Darkstalkers 2 and 1944, XMEN COTA, i get an error with CPS1 games like Carrier Airwing, Capt.Commando, Punisher, Dino Crisis etc. I tried with FBA core but even after switching to CPS1 core, the CPS1 games give me the same error. Anyone have any luck with getting CPS1 games to work? I have a feeling i did something wrong on my part.

I've tested all those games just now with the CPS1 core, and they all work. Make sure your ROMs are confirmed working on FBA v0.2.97.26 and that you have all the necessary ones - you might be missing some parent/child ROM zips.

Welcome to the forum

 

[DJPlace]

so can i play up to 4 players with this emulator or no?