Homebrew Official Retroarch WiiU (wip.)

[Osakasan]

How are recent builds? Read over here that Dosbos already works with a keyboard? (As in, a real keyboard and not emulating a controller)

 

[cebolleto]

Thanks for your explanations cruplezone. Maybe playlists are a good feature, but the problem for me is that the team is focusing on this thing too much while the basic functionallity has some serious issues

Edit: as a side note, all of the issues you raised seem like user error. The most notable of which was you describing the pain to navigate the file browser back to your roms directory every time. All of these defaults can be set in retroarch's explicit directory setting page. Have a look around and it may resolve some of your issues.

I know you can set a (one only) directory as default. I wasn't referring to this. The problem I was saying is, imagine you have a playlist of 2000 roms (which is very common), navigate to your rom 800 (with up and down, you cannot use left right to navigate faster because that changes the playlist), now load that rom or move to a different paylist then go back... and you need to start navigating from the very first rom on the list! (aghhhhh)

I also appreciate your efforts and your tutorials on making the thumbnails work, thanks a lot. But once again take a look at this whole thread (event the latest posts), people are having a lot of issues getting it to work because it is way too complicated to get it done. Compare this tedious process with what you had to do in the GX emulators (just setting the screenshots folder).

I am just saying that having a lot of great features but a horrible user experience is not the way to go

 

[mpvo]

A palatative solution would be to print out the image of the game you are playing, and gradually the playlist would form with the most played games. But even this is not possible to do, so for me the emulator is very limited, since the list of games is great. Only in my finalburn directory are there more than 500 games to play with weird names that you have no idea whatsoever. Therefore an image would be fundamental to identify them.

 

[Murlocking]

Thanks for your explanations cruplezone. Maybe playlists are a good feature, but the problem for me is that the team is focusing on this thing too much while the basic functionallity has some serious issues



I know you can set a (one only) directory as default. I wasn't referring to this. The problem I was saying is, imagine you have a playlist of 2000 roms (which is very common), navigate to your rom 800 (with up and down, you cannot use left right to navigate faster because that changes the playlist), now load that rom or move to a different paylist then go back... and you need to start navigating from the very first rom on the list! (aghhhhh)

I also appreciate your efforts and your tutorials on making the thumbnails work, thanks a lot. But once again take a look at this whole thread (event the latest posts), people are having a lot of issues getting it to work because it is way too complicated to get it done. Compare this tedious process with what you had to do in the GX emulators (just setting the screenshots folder).

I am just saying that having a lot of great features but a horrible user experience is not the way to go

It wasn't really that hard for me to set the thumbnails... just noone told me you had to have the roms the same as the database it's download the roms from.
Now, that's the tedious part... renaming all the roms or downloading a pack with already properly named roms.

As for the the thumbnails, they slow down RetroArch by alot, imo.
Also, if you plant on having Atari 5200 with thumbnails, forget about it. (EDIT: Might be wrong here, headers are internal, not in file name)
The roms need headers and the thumbnails don't have headers so they don't match.... very useful (NOT).

Overall, it was a big waste of time to try and have thumbnails on everyone of my ROMS and like you said, you can't even scroll fast in the playlists or at least scrolls by pages so it's really annoying.

The instructions are also very unclear.
I need BIOS for most of the cores, which are not included then there's nothing that tell me where the BIOS go..... and looking at other threads, it seems like most of the BIOS files go in 'system' folder but some need to be in sub-folders and others don't.....

Would really appreciate help setting up 'Atari - 5200' and 'Atari - Lynx'.

 

[Deleted member 424658]

The problem I was saying is, imagine you have a playlist of 2000 roms (which is very common), navigate to your rom 800 (with up and down, you cannot use left right to navigate faster because that changes the playlist), now load that rom or move to a different paylist then go back... and you need to start navigating from the very first rom on the list! (aghhhhh)

How about you delete the roms you're not playing. I've been "collecting" roms for years and I'm still nowhere near 2000. So there's literally no way that you're playing 2000 different games at once.

 

[Murlocking]

How about you delete the roms you're not playing. I've been "collecting" roms for years and I'm still nowhere near 2000. So there's literally no way that you're playing 2000 different games at once.

I downloaded more than 2000 roms just yesterday, I wouldn't call yourself a collector.
Pretty sure the Genesis alone as around 2000 roms.

 

[Deleted member 424658]

I downloaded more than 2000 roms just yesterday, I wouldn't call yourself a collector.
Pretty sure the Genesis alone as around 2000 roms.

You shouldn't be downloading an entire system's release of roms. That's literally a waste of space. Just get a few roms of games that you might like and play those. Don't like them? Delete them and find more.

 

[MrKatanaObiWan]

.

 

[Murlocking]

People will ask questions about basic things until the end of time. Many people would rather ask how to do something even when there is proper documentation. Since the whole process boils down to ''put the thumbnails in the thumbnail folder and rename them to your rom names" I don't think it can get much simpler than that.

In terms of navigating a 2000 ROM playlist - this isn't the use case. You would split it up into numerous playlists maybe alphabetically A-C and then D-F or what have you. Or you could have your rediculously large playlist and then keep one maintained of 'games I'm currently playling'. I think the idea that someone is concurrently playling' 2000 games is rediculous.

Overall the playlist system is fine and I have yet to see an issue with it. If you want a file browser, there's one that exists too.

Noone play 2000 games at once, but they do like to try new games and play each one for a few minutes until they find ones they like.
I don't know anyone who knows every games titles by heart or played every games there is on this planet.

It's about having access to a almost 'infinite' number of games at ease.
Also you spoke about said documentation but that documentation is not very clear, especially if you are noob with RetroArch.

What is the front-end system?
Here is an example, "Required or optional firmware files go in RetroArch's system directory." , this one is retroarch/cores/system , correct?
Now what about this one, "Required or optional firmware files go in the frontend's system directory." ?
What is the frontend's system directory? I tried using the same path as above but didn't work.

I can't get Atari Lynx and 5200 to work, so would appreciate help!
I have all the BIOS files, when loading Lynx I get a bad memory error, when loading 5200 it says something about only working on real Atari/OS... I tried 30 different ROMS for each, same results.

 

[cebolleto]

Overall the playlist system is fine and I have yet to see an issue with it. If you want a file browser, there's one that exists too.

Without thumbnails

 

[Murlocking]

I fixed/setup correctly Atari 5200&Lynx now, all my games have working thumbnails.
I will post or update/edit this post when I'm done.

Basically, for Atari 5200 (also called Atari800 here) you need to launch the game with the core first, then manually edit the .cfg file created in 'system' folder in retroarch/cores/system and manually set every BIOS. I will post my working .cfg later, still testing everything.

For the thumbnails, make sure you go to Directories setting and set the path manually to your folder.
But first, ALL YOUR ROMS need to be named properly. Check the first post and download the thumbnails manually then rename your roms to what they look like in that thumbnail folder.
All the NO-INTRO roms are properly named.
If they are not correctly named, it download files telling you to correct the filepath name.

 

[Aglaophotis]

Can anyone point me into the right direction of how I can get shaders to work?
I read literally every line in this thread regarding shaders and did my research.. All I understand is that to make shaders work on the Wii U we need in addition to the .slangp files (which I found here https://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/frontend/), precompiled shaders (.gsh files). This is stated here by @aliaspider: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/pull/6053
But it seems that for the compilation some SDK is needed which can't be shared here? And this is where I'm getting lost...

I also found this here: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/blob/master/wiiu/slang/Makefile which I think is supposed to be the compiler? But I have no idea how to use it. I'm really willing to try all this by myself but I can't figure out what exactly I have to do. Any help would be very appreciated... I would really like to make some progress in this. It's frustrating that shader support was added months ago and we still got no way to make use of it, not even a tutorial how to compile the needed files.

 

[wiiztec]

Why are some games displayed windowboxed? (and custom aspect ratio settings don't do anything)

Is there some fast forward feature like in the GX emulators for the Wii?

Is there a way to map save/load state to controller buttons?

Is there a way to use the Wii classic controller?

Is there a way to set it so selecting a zip just loads the rom inside instead of asking me to load or look into it?

 

[ShadowOne333]

Why are some games displayed windowboxed? (and custom aspect ratio settings don't do anything)

Is there some fast forward feature like in the GX emulators for the Wii?

Is there a way to map save/load state to controller buttons?

Is there a way to use the Wii classic controller?

Is there a way to set it so selecting a zip just loads the rom inside instead of asking me to load or look into it?

1. Windowboxed? You must have setup the resolution or aspect ratio wrong, I have full screen working on all my cores with no issue.
2. Yes there is. I don't remember exactly where since it's been months since I screwed around with that option. But I know both Rewind and Fast Forward are included in RetroArch and are map-able to buttons.
3. I think you can? I'm not sure. Try looking inside the Controllers option inside the Quick Menu and into the Hotkeys Binding setting, that one should have all kinds of mapping for hotkeys, which I assume Save/Load State fall into.
4. Yes there is, you just need to change what controller you will use in the Controllers seetings.
5. This I do not know. I think this option is fairly new so I can't tell exactly, but perhaps there is an option to bypass this.

 

[Murlocking]

Why are some games displayed windowboxed? (and custom aspect ratio settings don't do anything)

Is there some fast forward feature like in the GX emulators for the Wii?

Is there a way to map save/load state to controller buttons?

Is there a way to use the Wii classic controller?

Is there a way to set it so selecting a zip just loads the rom inside instead of asking me to load or look into it?

#5: Yes, make playlists, that's the main purpose of them.

 

[wiiztec]

Why does the Retroarch for Wii U download have a different app for every core? I only saught it out because the HB app store didn't have a unified retroarch app, is there no such thing?

 

[Murlocking]

Why does the Retroarch for Wii U download have a different app for every core? I only saught it out because the HB app store didn't have a unified retroarch app, is there no such thing?

It is unified.... one download for every compatibles cores.
Did you try using this thread first post?

 

[wiiztec]

I don't know how one download for every core is "unified" to you but I did find there was a plain retroarch in there with all the unnecessary core specific ones, unfortunately it blackscreens on startup. It's clear that it's actually working I just can't see what I'm doing. I tried both latest versions on https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/nintendo/wiiu/ regular and rpx and same thing

 

[Radius4]

uh...
I only have one entry in HBL and WiiU menu.
Just extract the zip in the sdcard, and use the forwarder, that's all you gotta do.

 

[QuarkTheAwesome]

Hey all! gblues has finished up his HID driver, and is looking for people to test it out before it gets merged into the nightlies. Have a look at the code here, if you want.

Here's what changed:

• DualShock 3 controllers and the Wii U GameCube Adapter are supported now, we're yet to write drivers for other controllers
  
• Controllers other than the gamepad are now placed in the first available slot instead of predefined ones
• No config file support yet (working on it!)

The really important things that need testing are general stability (hotplugging weird and wonderful controllers, switching cores, etc.) and analog inputs (sticks etc.) which haven't been confirmed working yet.

If you'd like to help out, you can download a bunch of test cores with the new HID driver built in here. You can post your results over on GitHub or in this thread, I'll make sure gblues sees it.

Thanks guys!