Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

[LibretroRetroArc]

As a side note:
I still cannot believe the amount of input lag on the emulators SNES and NES compared to the Virtual Console versions.
In my book they are a lot more playable in terms of controls.
Also the coloring and sound is better, shame nintende did'nt include a bilinear filter....
Mind that I am playing the NTSC-U versions.

EDIT: Input lag seems to be getting worse after a amount of time in retroarch.
Sometimes the screen can jitter after some time also.
Restarting RA fixes it, but it's a bug nevertheless.

Apart from the "wrong" palet NES emulation from Wiimednafen seems to be spot on when it comes to input responsiveness. It's really a shame since RA also houses a lot of Fighting games.
With this amount of input lag it spoils the fun IMO.

Standalone FCEultra is also alot more responsive than it;s iteration in RA.

It is open source for a reason - so other people can help out in development so that instead of lots of whining we can actually fix things and get some stuff done. And no, it is not my job to do all of that by myself.

And I insist it is not our input drivers. We aren't doing anything out of the ordinary - and we are using the latest libogc version. If there is a bug, it has to be in either wiiuse or libogc.

And if it is our supposed 'fault', then excuse me, but there is a pretty solid case to be made for absolutely lacking and pisspoor documentation of libogc then (no surprise though given that the 'real documentation' is Nintendo's Revolution SDK docs, which can't be shared for obvious reasons...)

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

As a side note:
I still cannot believe the amount of input lag on the emulators SNES and NES compared to the Virtual Console versions.
In my book they are a lot more playable in terms of controls.

There is a very simple solution for this in the interim - stop using the Wiimote stuff and use a GC pad.

 

[Hielkenator]

There is a very simple solution for this in the interim - stop using the Wiimote stuff and use a GC pad.

It's a shame the lib is poorly documented. It must be frustrating at times, I can imagine.
Also the fact that sometimes button presses are registered without input of the player can be frustrating.

The more it makes me wonder why ALL OTHER EMULATORS on Wii do not have the problems RA is suffering.
It'really a shame to have such an awesome collection of emulators available in RA with a bug like that present.
I sincerely appriciate all the hard effort that went in porting and even optimizing of some of the emulators to run without frameskipping etc.
Yet , the controls sometimes leaves an awefull stain on the otherwise perfect emulation solution on the Wii platform.
I have my fingers crossed you guys ( the devs ) could find any means of method to overcome this bug.
Hopefully future builds will not be neglected in terms of improvement over other ( older ) available emulator that do not suffer these input problems.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

I don't know what the issue is.

I know it's there and I sometimes get it too (repeating D-pad directions for a while), but I have absolutely no clue what is causing it.

So I'm shooting in the dark. ToadKing doesn't know either.

So somebody from outside (if he/she can be arsed) should help us isolate what it is and give us a pull request. That is, if it can be fixed that way. I'm still banking on this being wiiuse's fault since it just does not happen with the GC pad - which uses a different controller subsystem.

 

[Hielkenator]

I don't know what the issue is.

I know it's there and I sometimes get it too (repeating D-pad directions for a while), but I have absolutely no clue what is causing it.

So I'm shooting in the dark. ToadKing doesn't know either.

So somebody from outside (if he/she can be arsed) should help us isolate what it is and give us a pull request. That is, if it can be fixed that way. I'm still banking on this being wiiuse's fault since it just does not happen with the GC pad - which uses a different controller subsystem.

It would be great if someone could shed a light on this.
As a side note : it's not just the d-pad acting up.
Also games like megaman suffer greatly deu to the fact that in underwater levels the time you press the jump button determines how high you will jump.
Sometimes the "jump button" hangs too.
Hopefully it's something easily to fix in terms of button configs/conflicts as there are a lot of possible configuration to set your controls up in RA.
On the other hand, that would be a bug allready caught by you guys?

Anyway thank you for your respectful answering.
I'll keep my fingers crossed!

 

[the_randomizer]

There is a very simple solution for this in the interim - stop using the Wiimote stuff and use a GC pad.

I agree. The GC pad is just that awesome. I've had mine for 12 years and it still works as good as it did when I got the console back in 2001 NES games especially play very well with.

 

[Etheboss]

It is open source for a reason - so other people can help out in development so that instead of lots of whining we can actually fix things and get some stuff done. And no, it is not my job to do all of that by myself.

And I insist it is not our input drivers. We aren't doing anything out of the ordinary - and we are using the latest libogc version. If there is a bug, it has to be in either wiiuse or libogc.

And if it is our supposed 'fault', then excuse me, but there is a pretty solid case to be made for absolutely lacking and pisspoor documentation of libogc then (no surprise though given that the 'real documentation' is Nintendo's Revolution SDK docs, which can't be shared for obvious reasons...)

Most wii devs know latest builds of libogc has flaws...thats why most devs don't use the latest libogc (or parts of it), most of these bugs have been reported to wintermute (the main wii libogc dev), but it looks like he is not active anymore, and nobody feels like stepping in to improve libogc (probably due to poor documentation ).

I am guessing that because you are using the latest libogc build, those problems are there... The stand alone emu's others use are probably compiled with an older libogc version.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

OK, if somebody could link me to such an older libogc version that is known to work well and which the other emus use, then we could try that and see if the control hiccups stop happening.

 

[Coto]

This is not a promise, but I will check out the latest libogc sdk and check the wiimote sync event. To be honest, certain wiimotes, official ones had issues with retail games (smash bros brawl) running other IOSses, and suffered from intermitent button presses and sound issues (raw pcm sent to wiimote speakers).

 

[Hielkenator]

AWESOME KILL THAT BUG!!!!

 

[Hielkenator]

I agree. The GC pad is just that awesome. I've had mine for 12 years and it still works as good as it did when I got the console back in 2001 NES games especially play very well with.

+1 Have 2 Wavebirds, battery life is UNBELIEVABLE!
For NES games I'd rather use a Wiimote.
Button layout of the GC controller can be akward sometimes I find.

 

[Rydian]

I hope the controller issue gets fixed, just so I don't have to see H piss anybody off complaining about it anymore.

 

[the_randomizer]

+1 Have 2 Wavebirds, battery life is UNBELIEVABLE!
For NES games I'd rather use a Wiimote.
Button layout of the GC controller can be akward sometimes I find.

My Wavebird still works like brand new The battery life is insane, love using it for NES and Genesis games.

I hope the controller issue gets fixed, just so I don't have to see H piss anybody off complaining about it anymore.

If anyone needs someone to run input tests for controller lag, I can help. I've got a crap load of free time I'll whatever it takes to contribute to fixing it.

 

[the_randomizer]

(Edit: Sorry, slow internet)

 

[Hielkenator]

I hope the controller issue gets fixed, just so I don't have to see H piss anybody off complaining about it anymore.

It's never my intention "to piss anybody off", agreed I pointed to this bug in the past.
So I'll just ignore your post as it's sorta off-topic.
I'm glad it's being picked up now, and we can look forward to a fix.
All in all RA is probably the best thing that happened concerning console emulation on Wii and other platforms.
Hopefull they can sort things out, so we can enjoy Retroarch to it's full potential on Wii.

 

[the_randomizer]

It's never my intention "to piss anybody off", agreed I pointed to this bug in the past.
So I'll just ignore your post as it's sorta off-topic.
I'm glad it's being picked up now, and we can look forward to a fix.
All in all RA is probably the best thing that happened concerning console emulation on Wii and other platforms.
Hopefull they can sort things out, so we can enjoy Retroarch to it's full potential on Wii.

Hell yeah it is, RA is the best thing to happen to the Wii. I too am very glad it's being picked up, and once more, I'd like to reiterate that if he needs people to test, I have a working wavebird and original wired Gamecube controller to test it on.

 

[Hielkenator]

I could not resist:

The video presented in 640x480p is ALWAYS overscanned. ( top and bottom )
Setting the video to 640x448 fixed the overscan but gives problem with other games that have a different ratio ( example PACMAN )
It would be nice to have ratio settings in other resolutions or to have 480p default output fixed.

 

[cloudskipa]

Please don't kill me for asking this as I recall some controversy over it but is 240p implemented in this emulator yet? Would love to play this emulator at 240p in RGB SCART.

 

[the_randomizer]

Please don't kill me for asking this as I recall some controversy over it but is 240p implemented in this emulator yet? Would love to play this emulator at 240p in RGB SCART.

AFAIK there is, but if you have a CRT, that would provide the best results.

 

[cloudskipa]

OK, I was planning on using my CRT yes! Good to hear they finally added it then. Thanks