Homebrew Wii U Native SNES Emulator?

bbking67

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I can't seem to make RetroArch work on most of my systems including Wii U. Even when I do get it working (like on PS3 or PC) I just don't like it.

Is there a dedicated Wii U SNES Emu that doesn't need Wii Mode? I would like to have a port of SNES GX.

I know, I know I should just get RetroArch going. Not my cup of tea.
 
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the_randomizer

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I don't know how it doesn't work, because I've been able to use RetroArch and Snes9x 1.54 just fine *shrug*. No, there's no interest in developing a standalone emulator, yes, it's possible, but there's a lack of interest.
 

Sonic Angel Knight

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What do people have against SNES Virtual Console on the Wii U? I think it's flawless.
Doesn't have much user customization options, and only one save state and the screen size. Not that is bad, just lack user options to do much of what people would want to. I like emulators cause it has various options to do lot more than just... work. Besides, don't think VC has all of the support for the enhancement chips of the games people like playing like Super Mario World 2 yoshi's island, probably why it was the GBA one released on eshop. :ninja:
 

bbking67

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Personally I've got nothing against it but I want to load an emulator and then select from a huge list of ROMs. I suspect the VC emulator is meant for one ROM at a time.
 

bbking67

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Well after several tries I finally managed to get RetroArch working. Once in the SNES emulation its fine. I'm getting washed out white menus... I really need to fix this. Crashed it several times... not a good user experience that is for sure.
 

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Well after several tries I finally managed to get RetroArch working. Once in the SNES emulation its fine. I'm getting washed out white menus... I really need to fix this. Crashed it several times... not a good user experience that is for sure.
I think you need to download all the themes and whatnot separately, otherwise you will just have a white background.
 

bbking67

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I was able to change it to black with the retro font. If i venture into the appearances menu I cant get out without hardbooting the Wii U.

I have to say the emulation is good I got the video settings sorted out. The default was horrible--very blurry and 4:3.

What does it look like with the themes enabled? How do I get that rolling? I really have to learn this emulator.
 

YukidaruPunch

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I think it's a shame there isn't any Mega Drive games on Wii U's Virtual Console, because I vastly prefer it to messing around with tons of configurations. I mean, I'm thankful for the Retroarch guys - it's where I play most of my stuff on PC - but good God, it just isn't easy to learn how to install/mess around with it at all if you're programming illiterate like me. I also think having less options to mess about makes it easier for me to just play the game for once.

I tried running Retroarch on my Wii U a few times, never managed to. Realized it wasn't worth the hassle to go through several loops only to play the games I could play in my laptop just fine when I could be playing my Wii/Wii U stuff instead. Sure, I'd love to play Wonderboy on my Wii U, but dear God, is it hard to set up.
 

ShadowOne333

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RetroArch isn't hard to setup at all.
Perhaps what drives most people away is the huge amount of customization options you have for it, but once you know what you want to change, you can get it working in less than 2 mins from scratch.

All you need to do is download the corresponding cores and files from the buildbot, put them in your SD card, and boot it up.
Once you are inside RetroArch you can change the aspect ratio and bilinear filter inside Settings -> Video.
As for the menu theme, you can change it rather quickly as well.

I tend to delete my CFG file often, so to me setting it up frequently from a clean install is fast enough.
I simply go to video, set output to 16:9 and disable bilinear filtering, and then simply configure the correct paths in Directories.
That's it.

You can go around and then make custom mapping settings for each core, but that is something I only do for games that have two/three main buttons only.
 

justinjustins

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RetroArch isn't hard to setup at all.
Perhaps what drives most people away is the huge amount of customization options you have for it, but once you know what you want to change, you can get it working in less than 2 mins from scratch.

All you need to do is download the corresponding cores and files from the buildbot, put them in your SD card, and boot it up.
Once you are inside RetroArch you can change the aspect ratio and bilinear filter inside Settings -> Video.
As for the menu theme, you can change it rather quickly as well.

I tend to delete my CFG file often, so to me setting it up frequently from a clean install is fast enough.
I simply go to video, set output to 16:9 and disable bilinear filtering, and then simply configure the correct paths in Directories.
That's it.

You can go around and then make custom mapping settings for each core, but that is something I only do for games that have two/three main buttons only.
The fact that you have to do all that stuff means it IS hard to setup for the average person, plus it crashes constantly. It wouldn't even let me exit a game back to the retroarch menu last time I was using it.
 

the_randomizer

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The fact that you have to do all that stuff means it IS hard to setup for the average person, plus it crashes constantly. It wouldn't even let me exit a game back to the retroarch menu last time I was using it.

You can't eliminate every single bug in an emulator. Beggars can't be choosers.
 

ShadowOne333

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The fact that you have to do all that stuff means it IS hard to setup for the average person, plus it crashes constantly. It wouldn't even let me exit a game back to the retroarch menu last time I was using it.
Wouldn't let you go back to the menu?
I can do that by pressing Home, no problem.

Seriously, "ALL that stuff"? I only do like 3 changes tops and that's it because I hate bilinear filtering and 4:3 resolution.
It's nothing but a simple copy to SD and load the game if you are really that afraid of moving anything else.
Default settings are native resolution of the emulated console and bilinear filtering.
That's the default, and the same for every other emulator afaik.
 

Sonic Angel Knight

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I think it's a shame there isn't any Mega Drive games on Wii U's Virtual Console, because I vastly prefer it to messing around with tons of configurations. I mean, I'm thankful for the Retroarch guys - it's where I play most of my stuff on PC - but good God, it just isn't easy to learn how to install/mess around with it at all if you're programming illiterate like me. I also think having less options to mess about makes it easier for me to just play the game for once.

I tried running Retroarch on my Wii U a few times, never managed to. Realized it wasn't worth the hassle to go through several loops only to play the games I could play in my laptop just fine when I could be playing my Wii/Wii U stuff instead. Sure, I'd love to play Wonderboy on my Wii U, but dear God, is it hard to set up.
Kinda curios to be honest why there wasn't any sega genesis games on wii u, while the wiishop had them, and even actual arcade games like space harrier, puyo puyo 2, the wii u has none of that. Despite having sega games on wii u like sonic lost world, there was just didn't seem like there was any reason to exclude genesis games.:unsure:
 

bbking67

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Well I don't really want to bash the excellent and amazing work in RetroArch, but I understand the perspective.

I'm an experienced user (though relatively new to the Wii U) and I had some trouble getting RetroArch working. it's still flaky for me... I can load it using the forwarder but not from HBL. Not only that I get into some menu options and then can't get out (themes and appearance). I know I must have some issues with the installation or a bad nightly.

But.. the emulation IS very very good and there are just so many cores available. It's totally worth the time and effort.

That being said I really miss the dedicated emulator user experience. Just the dedicated GUI and plug and play experience. I'd like to be able to have my wife and 9 year old be able to just be able to go in the emulator and play games. SNES GX for the Wii is a good example of this, and for now SNES emulation is pretty much the most important thing to me. Isn't the SNES great? What a software library and legacy! But I digress...

The thing is that I think RetroArch can do much much more... part of the problem is certainly my ignorance but some kind of rich front-end would be a god-send. Stuff that I need to figure out (again many of these are because I lack knowledge and I'm somewhat lazy I guess):

1. Improving the GUI. The PC version has a better GUI. I don't understand why I can only get a weird and terrible washed out white menu system (where text is kind of hard to read) or a green low res font on black background. It sounds like others have been able to fix this, but not me. I'm sure the problem here is somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.

2. Setting up directories. I haven't figured out how to set custom directories for the respective cores.

3. Eliminating cores that I don't care about. I probably don't need or want 5 SNES cores and I'm not likely to play Amstrad CPC games (and others). This is probably dead easy (like delete the files easy) but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

4. Figure out thumbnails. RetroArch seems to have a thumbnail capability... I'd like to have game art and a nice looking chooser, so if that's what this is I'm in. I havent a clue how to make it work. I downloaded the thumbnails package but it doesn't do anything for me.

5. Set up favorites. I sort of have this working. It would be nice if I didn't have to select the core every time.

6. Themes and appearance leave me in a state where I can't back out and I have no options... if I mash a bunch of buttons the Search panel comes up. I can usually get out of search but that's it. Hard boot time every time.

This probably should be in the RetroArch thread but like I said I need to put some time into it.

At least it works for me now!
 

Sonic Angel Knight

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Well I don't really want to bash the excellent and amazing work in RetroArch, but I understand the perspective.

I'm an experienced user (though relatively new to the Wii U) and I had some trouble getting RetroArch working. it's still flaky for me... I can load it using the forwarder but not from HBL. Not only that I get into some menu options and then can't get out (themes and appearance). I know I must have some issues with the installation or a bad nightly.

But.. the emulation IS very very good and there are just so many cores available. It's totally worth the time and effort.

That being said I really miss the dedicated emulator user experience. Just the dedicated GUI and plug and play experience. I'd like to be able to have my wife and 9 year old be able to just be able to go in the emulator and play games. SNES GX for the Wii is a good example of this, and for now SNES emulation is pretty much the most important thing to me. Isn't the SNES great? What a software library and legacy! But I digress...

The thing is that I think RetroArch can do much much more... part of the problem is certainly my ignorance but some kind of rich front-end would be a god-send. Stuff that I need to figure out (again many of these are because I lack knowledge and I'm somewhat lazy I guess):

1. Improving the GUI. The PC version has a better GUI. I don't understand why I can only get a weird and terrible washed out white menu system (where text is kind of hard to read) or a green low res font on black background. It sounds like others have been able to fix this, but not me. I'm sure the problem here is somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.

2. Setting up directories. I haven't figured out how to set custom directories for the respective cores.

3. Eliminating cores that I don't care about. I probably don't need or want 5 SNES cores and I'm not likely to play Amstrad CPC games (and others). This is probably dead easy (like delete the files easy) but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

4. Figure out thumbnails. RetroArch seems to have a thumbnail capability... I'd like to have game art and a nice looking chooser, so if that's what this is I'm in. I havent a clue how to make it work. I downloaded the thumbnails package but it doesn't do anything for me.

5. Set up favorites. I sort of have this working. It would be nice if I didn't have to select the core every time.

6. Themes and appearance leave me in a state where I can't back out and I have no options... if I mash a bunch of buttons the Search panel comes up. I can usually get out of search but that's it. Hard boot time every time.

This probably should be in the RetroArch thread but like I said I need to put some time into it.

At least it works for me now!
Glad someone agrees. Its why i still use wii emulators like genesis plus gx. It may work without WII U specs but it works well and looks appealing. Of course I don't mean retroarch is bad, it works and does what it is supposed to very well.
Genesis-Plus-GX-sega-emulator.jpg
hqdefault.jpg
 

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1. Improving the GUI. The PC version has a better GUI. I don't understand why I can only get a weird and terrible washed out white menu system (where text is kind of hard to read) or a green low res font on black background. It sounds like others have been able to fix this, but not me. I'm sure the problem here is somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.

2. Setting up directories. I haven't figured out how to set custom directories for the respective cores.

3. Eliminating cores that I don't care about. I probably don't need or want 5 SNES cores and I'm not likely to play Amstrad CPC games (and others). This is probably dead easy (like delete the files easy) but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

4. Figure out thumbnails. RetroArch seems to have a thumbnail capability... I'd like to have game art and a nice looking chooser, so if that's what this is I'm in. I havent a clue how to make it work. I downloaded the thumbnails package but it doesn't do anything for me.

5. Set up favorites. I sort of have this working. It would be nice if I didn't have to select the core every time.

6. Themes and appearance leave me in a state where I can't back out and I have no options... if I mash a bunch of buttons the Search panel comes up. I can usually get out of search but that's it. Hard boot time every time.
1. Answer is in the OP of the RetroArch thread.
3. Just don't put them on the SD Card when you set it up initially. It's not that hard.
4. Also in the OP of the RetroArch thread.
OP = Original Post/the first post on Page 1 of the thread
 

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