Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

[Charco]

Yeah SD cards are cheap these days, I got a 32GB SanDisk one and a 500GB WD My Passport for a good price. I have tonnes of space for when I get round to the complete Mega CD set

 

[Tuddles]

what core to use to play mame games on like simpsons.zip ? the fba one ? is there a general mame core so I cant try fire up the games I would use mame on pc for

ty

 

[nakata6790]

This is strange, but Metroid Zero Mission runs slower in RA's VBA Next than Tantric's VBA, are they based on the same core?

You should complement Retroarch with Mednafen for GBA. Due to frameskip*, it plays some games ''faster'' then VBA next, especially the ''3d'' ones or some like Zero Mission etc. For many others, RA is the better choice. Those 2 combined give a 99% playability of the GBA line up.
And before anyone says Mother 3, thankfully there is an inject wad for that

*This also happerns in some instances with SNES 4.2.9 vs SNES 9X next 1.5.4 in portions of games like Super Star Wars mode 7 stages, again, due to frameskip. RA is way more accurate of course.

what core to use to play mame games on like simpsons.zip ? the fba one ? is there a general mame core so I cant try fire up the games I would use mame on pc for

ty

Fba core. In general for ARCADE games you use fba core, for CPS1 games CPS1 core, same for CPS2 and neo geo.

Make sure to check the awesome list compiled by groose to know which games work with which core.
Also when looking for roms, search for a FBA romset so that you have correct roms.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

*This also happerns in some instances with SNES 4.2.9 vs SNES 9X next 1.5.4 in portions of games like Super Star Wars mode 7 stages, again, due to frameskip. RA is way more accurate of course.

Umm sorry, but that is simply not true. No way is Mode 7 running lower than 60fps on Wii - it's comfortably way above it all the time. You're seeing figments of your imagination run wild or something.

I can comfortably state that SNES9x Next is running nearly any game better than SNES9x GX at this point - not even frameskipping can give it an illusory advantage at this point (and don't give me that poppycock about Kirby's Dreamland 3 either - it's running at ~40fps when doing frameskipping - so no, that doesn't make it 'better' and it sure as hell doesn't make it more playable either unless you really want to play games with such badly tearing graphics - I sure as hell don't).

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

This is strange, but Metroid Zero Mission runs slower in RA's VBA Next than Tantric's VBA, are they based on the same core?

Frameskipping my friend. It's an illusory trick that makes you 'think' something is performing better than it actually is (that is, if you can't tell the difference between badly tearing and 'skippy' video and silky smooth V-synced deterministic rendering at a fixed refresh rate).

Game Boy Advance emulation in general needs even higher system requirements than SNES - and gpSP is inherently nonportable and was prematurely discontinued - shame too, because it could have been a reference emulator by now and it COULD have made VBA obsolete.

But then again, that is the price you pay when you go down the route of dynarecs - they are inherently nonportable.

 

[OriginalHamster]

Frameskipping my friend. It's an illusory trick that makes you 'think' something is performing better than it actually is (that is, if you can't tell the difference between badly tearing and 'skippy' video and silky smooth V-synced deterministic rendering at a fixed refresh rate).

Didn't know about that, thanks for the explanation.

 

[the_randomizer]

Umm sorry, but that is simply not true. No way is Mode 7 running lower than 60fps on Wii - it's comfortably way above it all the time. You're seeing figments of your imagination run wild or something.

I can comfortably state that SNES9x Next is running nearly any game better than SNES9x GX at this point - not even frameskipping can give it an illusory advantage at this point (and don't give me that poppycock about Kirby's Dreamland 3 either - it's running at ~40fps when doing frameskipping - so no, that doesn't make it 'better' and it sure as hell doesn't make it more playable either unless you really want to play games with such badly tearing graphics - I sure as hell don't).

Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have brought that sodding game up I'm not refuting that Snes9x Next runs better because it does, you did the smart thing and removed frameskipping.

Spoiler

How Nintendo got that game running on the VC at 60 fps with the pseudo hi-res effects, I'll never know..must be those magicians of theirs since the Wii is too underpowered to run that game full speed on RA. Yeaaah I'm outta here.

 

[MassiveRican]

Patience young Padowan, Libretroarc loves SNES, but he's also working on many many things, I can only imagine it's like having a shitload of plates overstuffed at a buffet from juggling so many emulators on so many consoles lol.

I'm sure once he gets a chance he might revisit the issue, as well as the Kirby superstar problem.

 

[Hielkenator]

Besides what Libretoarc has stated, not trying to be a prick but there are some really good sales online where u can get 8GB+ cards for around $5 bucks give or take a few dollars. You can even get free shipping from the right seller.

Whether the zip problem is present or not, taking the amount of things you have on your SD card into consideration your in dire need of an upgrade.

You are probably right, but for me 8 GB is'nt nearly enough, lol!

 

[MassiveRican]

You are probably right, but for me 8 GB is'nt nearly enough, lol!

Same here, lmao

 

[the_randomizer]

Patience young Padowan, Libretroarc loves SNES, but he's also working on many many things, I can only imagine it's like having a shitload of plates overstuffed at a buffet from juggling so many emulators on so many consoles lol.

I'm sure once he gets a chance he might revisit the issue, as well as the Kirby superstar problem.

Ah, well, see the thing of it is--*gets assassinated by Sith Lord*

Spoiler

Shoulda kept my big fat f***ing mouth shut, now it will seem as though I'm being coercive in mentioning fixing up that game

 

[Tuddles]

Dona manual reload of your cache. It should work, I believe I played Cadillacs and Dinosaurs through WiiFlow before. When I get home tonight I'll test it to confirm.

ass always ty kindly

 

[Coto]

uhm i'm using retroarch 0.9.8.4 on PS3 and I can't seem to save my custom controls under the fbacore. There is the PS3 text input popup saying how your custom config should be called, but if I press OK, or define .cfg by extension (seems cfg is the only format readable while loading a custom control input scheme), nothing happens.

 

[Charco]

Might be best to report here: http://forum.themaister.net/viewforum.php?id=2

 

[Charco]

Sorry for the double post, but you can add Gradius II Gofer no Yabou to the list of working roms.

 

[MassiveRican]

Game Boy Advance emulation in general needs even higher system requirements than SNES - and gpSP is inherently nonportable and was prematurely discontinued - shame too, because it could have been a reference emulator by now and it COULD have made VBA obsolete.

But then again, that is the price you pay when you go down the route of dynarecs - they are inherently nonportable.

Ughh, every time I hear this I get a nasty twist in my stomach. To think what GBA emulation on the Wii could have been is sad indeed.

So quick question. Do you believe that GBA emulation has bottlenecked? In other words is VBA-Next in a state where it's as good as its going to get w/o needing a complete rewrite or tons of tedious, unfriendly and inefficient coding?

 

[the_randomizer]

Ughh, every time I hear this I get a nasty twist in my stomach. To think what GBA emulation on the Wii could have been is sad indeed.

So quick question. Do you believe that GBA emulation has bottlenecked? In other words is VBA-Next in a state where it's as good as its going to get w/o needing a complete rewrite or tons of tedious, unfriendly and inefficient coding?

Nintendo sure as hell didn't make any effort to emulate the GBA, but announced a couple of months ago that they announced that would release GBA games for the Wii U. That right there is a red flag, is it not? I gotta be brutally honest; I don't have high hopes for full speed GBA emulation simply based on the fact that the 16.78 MHz ARM7TDMI is too much for the Wii to handle. Unless LibretroRetroArch can prove my opinion on raw CPU power wrong, the Wii's 729 MHz PowerPC CPU simply finds GBA emulation to be too taxing.


We've hit a wall when it comes to the VBA port and it ain't pretty. Unless the gPSP author gets his butt into gear and actually make the code more portable, there's not a chance in hell we'll ever see full speed GBA on the Wii.

 

[2ndApex]

Nintendo sure as hell didn't make any effort to emulate the GBA, but announced a couple of months ago that they announced that would release GBA games for the Wii U. That right there is a red flag, is it not? I gotta be brutally honest; I don't have high hopes for full speed GBA emulation simply based on the fact that the 16.78 MHz ARM7TDMI is too much for the Wii to handle. Unless LibretroRetroArch can prove my opinion on raw CPU power wrong, the Wii's 729 MHz PowerPC CPU simply finds GBA emulation to be too taxing.


We've hit a wall when it comes to the VBA port and it ain't pretty. Unless the gPSP author gets his butt into gear and actually make the code more portable, there's not a chance in hell we'll ever see full speed GBA on the Wii.

Why are half your posts I read in every emulator thread "X will never happen on Y"?

 

[the_randomizer]

Why are half your posts I read in every emulator thread "X will never happen on Y"?

Why does it matter what I write if it's true? GBA emulation will never be full speed on the Wii unless my opinion is proven otherwise. Don't like my posts, then block my username.

 

[nakata6790]

@Libretro: Just to be clear, i agree with you, that's why i used quotation marks in ''faster'', i know it is an ''illusion'' by the frameskip.
I just mentioned this in parallel with what's happening with certain GBA games with the Mednafen core.

As far as Super Star Wars goes, I had the original cart btw and i remember that those portions had slowdown in the original hardware too. I know RA runs it at 60 fps, it is the original game that has slowdown. To further confirm this i just tested the VC wad and that too has the same performance like RA.

About GBA, at the end of the day, it's all about efficiency. gpSP Wii would sure be nice as well as a cycle accurate N64 emu specifically tailored to Wii (God knows i'd be all over that as a huge N64 fan) but personally, i am content with what we got and thankful to the people that provided those emus or poeple that evolve them (like extrems for example). Certainly not ask X to ''get off X's butt''. We all want stuff, but priorities have to be put.If VBA Next is at it's peak point for the Wii (btw great question MassiveRican, if Libretro would be kind enough to confirm this so we can have it settled), then so be it.

If Nintendo wanted they could certainly give us GBA VC games on Wii since they made the hardware to begin with and have the original SDL (i hope i spelled this correctly) on their hands. Check out some of the games the Japanese VC Arcade got, like Solvalou or Starglade or Cyber Sled or the N64 VC list.