Homebrew Retroarch Emulation Thread (Nightly Builds Included)

[Heimdallr]

Try the obvious, go to core options and disable they dynarec, should be slower but it should at least give us an idea if it's the dynarec crashing it.

I turned off dynarec and played Metroid: Zero Mission for 2-3 hours (albeit over a few restarts of the core to make saves stick) and not a single crash. Might have been luck of the draw though, and restarting the core might've changed the outcome as well. Later I'll try binge-playing another game without restarting the core and see how that goes.

 

[freedeess]

So it looks like there's an issue where some (or all?) cores won't boot as 3dsx (from HBL) with the current firmware.bin version? Is that right? I've got the PCSX-rearmed core working as a CIA on my n3DS on Luma (11.0), but I've yet to get the 3dsx to boot from HBL. It quickly prints out a bunch of bunch stuff, flashes through a few colors, and then dies with a black screen every time. I've been trying to troubleshoot (I've tried both the latest nightly and the latest release), and that's all I've found so far is one user reporting that he got black screens when using the 11.0 firmware.bin, and had to use 10.4 firmware.bin.

Also, are cores still faster on 9.2 due to kernel exploits being available? Or is the performance the same as when running via HBL? Should I use a 9.2 emunand if I want the best performance?

Edit: I verified that the PCSX-rearmed core will run if I use an older firmware.bin. However, it's substantially slower than the CIA. That answers that part of the question. Only other thing I wanna try is CIA on 9.2, to see how that compares.

 

[GorrillaRIBS]

So I just read through the last few posts - looks like I was wrong about the config in gpsp, as turning off dynarec seems to fix the issue. Does anybody have any inkling of how to fix the dynarec issue, besides turning it off? I'd hate to lose the speed boost.

 

[ShadowOne333]

So I just read through the last few posts - looks like I was wrong about the config in gpsp, as turning off dynarec seems to fix the issue. Does anybody have any inkling of how to fix the dynarec issue, besides turning it off? I'd hate to lose the speed boost.

@aliaspider this might help out to debug the crashing issue of gpsp.

Also, @GorrillaRIBS, do you know if the tearing issue occurs with dynarec turned off too?

 

[GorrillaRIBS]

@aliaspider this might help out to debug the crashing issue of gpsp.

Also, @GorrillaRIBS, do you know if the tearing issue occurs with dynarec turned off too?

Seems like it's still there without dynarec - just tested w/ the 1.3.4 stable CIAs. No crashes on Golden Sun, though! (really slow, however)

 

[ShadowOne333]

Seems like it's still there without dynarec - just tested w/ the 1.3.4 stable CIAs. No crashes on Golden Sun, though! (really slow, however)

Interesting...
But what makes gpsp crash and PSX stable with dynarec enabled then? o.o

 

[GorrillaRIBS]

Interesting...
But what makes gpsp crash and PSX stable with dynarec enabled then? o.o

Well, gpsp was originally written for the PSP, which I'm pretty sure had a MIPS processor - If the dynarec was added in later for ARM, it may not be playing nice with gpsp's code (though I'm pretty sure gpsp works alright on other ARM devices, but maybe they've gotten specific optimizations).

 

[Radius4]

Interesting...
But what makes gpsp crash and PSX stable with dynarec enabled then? o.o

different dynarecs of course

 

[Emenaria]

Does anyone else have the screen tearing issue in 1.3.4, and possibly know how to fix it? I didn't have this issue in 1.3.3...

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

Is CPS3 working? (Street Fighter 3/Jojo/Red Earth etc)

 

[Beware]

I have an A9LH/Luma N3DS with RetroArch cores from the latest stable builds installed as cias. I've tested out PCSX with FF7 and FFT. Both run somewhat slow, and the sound is crackly and awful. FFT frame rate dips down into the 30s often.

Is there some way to improve this? I've tried setting audio sync enable to off, but that doesn't seem to make any noticeable difference.

You need to dump your DSP files using DSP Dumper. Takes 2 seconds and you'll get 20-30 extra fps when you switch audio driver to DSP instead of ctrsnd. Audio will still suck on most games, but framerate will improve drastically.

I'm playing Chrono Cross right now. Holds around 50-60fps, though audio is still bad. I haven't play through more than the intro, but I had 60fps in-engine for FFT, though I didn't try audio. DoDonPachi is 60fps with great audio.

Edit: Just tried FFT with audio. Only getting between 40-50fps, but that's completely playable for this game. Audio is much better than Chrono Cross.

 

[retroguy]

Does anyone else have the screen tearing issue in 1.3.4, and possibly know how to fix it? I didn't have this issue in 1.3.3...

It's a known issue with 1.3.4. Fix? Keep your fingers crossed for a fix in 1.3.5 and better use 1.3.3 until then.

 

[ongo_gablogian]

You need to dump your DSP files using DSP Dumper. Takes 2 seconds and you'll get 20-30 extra fps when you switch audio driver to DSP instead of ctrsnd. Audio will still suck on most games, but framerate will improve drastically.

Where do you actually need to place the dspfirm for retroarch to recognize it?

 

[Beware]

Where do you actually need to place the dspfirm for retroarch to recognize it?

AFAIK the DSP dumper tool puts it where it needs to be and RetroArch will automagically recognize it

 

[ongo_gablogian]

AFAIK the DSP dumper tool puts it where it needs to be and RetroArch will automagically recognize it

Thanks

 

[geheim]

So, I played some more hours with dynarec disabled in gpsp and not a single crash. Therefore I think it is safe to assume, that we found the problem: dynarec is not working correctly. Playing without it is okay for some games, but e.g. Pokemon Firered/Leafgreen are unplayable because they are very slow without dynarec.
@aliaspider and other developers: Could you please take a look at gpsp's dynarec?? Perhaps you can solve the problem (dynarec of PCSX is working perfectly, so that should be possible for gpsp as well, shouldn't it??)

 

[regnad]

You need to dump your DSP files using DSP Dumper. Takes 2 seconds and you'll get 20-30 extra fps when you switch audio driver to DSP instead of ctrsnd. Audio will still suck on most games, but framerate will improve drastically.

I'm playing Chrono Cross right now. Holds around 50-60fps, though audio is still bad. I haven't play through more than the intro, but I had 60fps in-engine for FFT, though I didn't try audio. DoDonPachi is 60fps with great audio.

Edit: Just tried FFT with audio. Only getting between 40-50fps, but that's completely playable for this game. Audio is much better than Chrono Cross.

Thanks for the response!

Sorry for the stupid question, but what is DSP? The dumper is a tool that extracts whatever it is from a retail game, right? And then what?

 

[GorrillaRIBS]

Thanks for the response!

Sorry for the stupid question, but what is DSP? The dumper is a tool that extracts whatever it is from a retail game, right? And then what?

The DSP is a dedicated sound processor (I think) - when a game/homebrew uses it, it reduces the load on the cpu (because it doen't have to process the audio). What the dumper does is extract the firmware from a retail game and drop it in a directory where homebrew will look for it.

 

[regnad]

The DSP is a dedicated sound processor (I think) - when a game/homebrew uses it, it reduces the load on the cpu (because it doen't have to process the audio). What the dumper does is extract the firmware from a retail game and drop it in a directory where homebrew will look for it.

So if I run it, it will just do everything automatically? Or do I need to specify the directory to dump it to for RetroArch to find it?

 

[GorrillaRIBS]

So if I run it, it will just do everything automatically? Or do I need to specify the directory to dump it to for RetroArch to find it?

It's automatic