Homebrew Retroarch Emulation Thread (Nightly Builds Included)

[NotReallySteve]

Hello! I actually created an account to get help here...

I cannot get any mame ROMs to run. I'm familiar with mame. Boy, am I ever familiar (*thousand yard stare*) My 2003+ ROMs work fine on pc and raspberry pi (I perhaps should add, through the same exact emulation, i.e. retroarch, mame 2003+ core).

Currently when I attempt to load an archive on the 3ds (boot9strap luma cfw), I get a whole load of errors telling me it's missing files (ROM names). They go past so quick I have trouble reading them, but curiously, it appears to be telling me some that are definitely there are missing, AND some that aren't (naturally) are missing too. I then get a "no items" on the top screen. Basically, it's behaving either like this ROM collection is not correct - even though I know it is (unless... Mame 2003 plus means something completely different in 3ds land?) - OR, it doesn't know where the rom is (erm... I literally just selected?)

Everything else works on this 3ds. I have 3ds games running, bubble emulators running - and even retroarch itself is fine with neogeo stuff, running beautifully with whatever I tried (which genuinely surprised me, tbh).

I've tried a fresh install (i.e. completely removing retroarch and starting again).

Is there some magic step to getting this working I have missed? Is the folder name crucially important (I've tried all that make sense, i.e. arcade, mame2003-plus, etc)? Should I have done things in a very specific order or way? Did I forget to sacrifice my first born? I swear mame just finds new ways of boiling my urine every time I try to set it up...

 

[FateForWindows]

*snip*

You might need to recompress the ROMs. The 3DS version of Retroarch doesn't support compressed archives; I'd recommend using 7zip to extract everything from the zip and repack it into an uncompressed zip file (compression setting has "store" iirc).

EDIT: It also might be a safe idea to test the SD card with H2testw.

 

[NotReallySteve]

Yep. Already tried both of them too. I did a full h2test before hacking the 3ds, as suggested on the guide. And I have read about the compression thing, and attempted it (i.e. zipped them as store) - because I'm trying anything and everything - but, can I also ask: is that JUST for mame ROMs? Because... my neogeo works fine? And I'm just using the same ROMs I am from the pi/pc for that?

Thanks for trying, though - I do appreciate the response.

Edit: is there a way to pause the errors in the bottom screen? Should I be able to see the actual ROMs if I choose to browse an archive rather than load it? Am I wasting my time as anything worth playing works in FBA anyway?

 

[NicLobo]

I'm using retroarch 1.76 on my new 3ds xl. Until now I've used the Mame2000, FBA Neo Geo and the Handy Core.
Is there a guideline which Arcade Games are better with which core?
Neo Geo is clear, it runs best with the Neo Geo FBA, and vertical games can only be rotated with Mame 2000 - right?
Which games should run perfect with Mame 2003 or the other FBA Cores, that don't do with Mame 2000?
Thanks!

Edit: I did not find a single game that runs faster with FBA Arcade than with Mame 2000

 

[NotReallySteve]

So I CAN get mame2000 ROMs to work. Again, compressed. Retroarch has no issue with compressed ROMs (downloaded from the place you'd normally go for reference ROMs), unless it's specifically for mame 2003 or plus, which I cannot get to load (again, from a reference set, which works perfectly on PC and Pi). I've also tried the nightly build (previously I was using stable).

I'd be interested to hear how you get on trying to get anything mame other than just 2000 to load.

 

[kenseiden]

So I CAN get mame2000 ROMs to work. Again, compressed. Retroarch has no issue with compressed ROMs (downloaded from the place you'd normally go for reference ROMs), unless it's specifically for mame 2003 or plus, which I cannot get to load (again, from a reference set, which works perfectly on PC and Pi). I've also tried the nightly build (previously I was using stable).

I'd be interested to hear how you get on trying to get anything mame other than just 2000 to load.

For MAME 2003, I’m using the 1.7.5 build, which doesn’t seem to have any of the issues you’re facing when loading zipped ROMs.

 

[NotReallySteve]

Hey, thanks for the heads up. Just tried that. Exact same thing.
I mean, I'm clearly doing something wrong, but no idea what it could be. It's behaving like I need to set some default directory for other mames or something (as mame 2000 is fine).

 

[NicLobo]

I mean, I'm clearly doing something wrong, but no idea what it could be. It's behaving like I need to set some default directory for other mames or something (as mame 2000 is fine).

yes, you need a folder with your Mame 2003 roms, then generate a gamelist by scanning this dir. No way to launch mame 2003 roms from your mame 2000 gamelist

 

[NotReallySteve]

I'm not trying to load 2003 ROMs from any 2000 gamelist (what?)

I have several subfolders of my rom folder (mame2000, mame2003+, FBA) which I browse to to launch. Everything else handles this (FBA is fine, neo Geo is fine, mame2000 is fine) but not mame2003 for some reason. Are you saying I need to generate a gamelist just to get 2003 working?

Also, suddenly I can't get 1.7.5 to work (I get the no profiles error, even if I change audio to DSP and menu to rgui). Did you get this from buildbot libretro?
Edit: actually, got this working again (I wanted to make sure it still didn't work on previous version... Still didn't work).

 

[Generis]

Hi, i'm not able to load any MAME 2003 / Plus roms either. I'm pretty sure I am using the right romset MAME 0.78, and FBA 2012 and MAME 2000 works fine for me, so I definitely think that the core 2003 is broken in RA 1.7.6

The thing is i'm able to launch the roms, for example say 1942.zip. RA recognizes de file in the microsd directory, but then several messages appear: 2-a1.bin NOT FOUND / 2-a2.bin NOT FOUND / 2-a3.bin NOT FOUND and so on...

The thing is that those files are perfectly fine on the 1942.zip, so it's like RA can't open the .zip for some reason.

I've tried to recompress the .zip several times, even in storage mode, or unzip the files in a subfolder, but nothing i've tried works.

If someone using RA 1.7.6 confirms that MAME 2003 is working for him, I would be surprised

 

[Elwyndas]

Hi, i'm not able to load any MAME 2003 / Plus roms either. I'm pretty sure I am using the right romset MAME 0.78, and FBA 2012 and MAME 2000 works fine for me, so I definitely think that the core 2003 is broken in RA 1.7.6

I can confirm this on my N3DS with 1942. It appears they fixed MAME 2000 in 1.7.6 but botched the other cores.
Have you tried the nightlies?

 

[Generis]

Today retroarch 1.7.7 came up, but the 3dsx version doesnt even boot, it crashes the whole system with an unexpected error

I'm using the last nightly right now, and i love the new feature to display artwork while navigating playlist in rlui

as for the mame 2003 i give up. It doesn't bother me anymore. I'll try luck in the next versions. At first I wanted to make it work, because it should work. But after seeing so many bugs in RA, i think i become used to it. So be it.

 

[AikoT_T]

Today retroarch 1.7.7 came up, but the 3dsx version doesnt even boot, it crashes the whole system with an unexpected error

You think that's bad?

i went to install a .cia nightly last night (5/5/19) it crashed my system then corrupted the SD card and removed all my titles and apps... and corrupted tons of files (i had 150GB worth of installed titles)
I could only boot into ctrnand luma...

https://gbatemp.net/posts/8625501/

Its a good thing i still had my 128gb back up card...

When i installed just the retroarch cia, it went fine, when i went to go launch it from the home menu, i got an arm11 crash but it showed an error for 2040 instead in the crash dump, when i rebooted my system, both retroarch and 2048 were installed when i didnt install 2048, went to uninstall in fbi, got error, went to uninstall an eshop game, error, then it booted me back to the home menu and everything was gone, and a lot of things were cprrupted...

I even went back to retroarch's website to check the links again while i had multiple programs running to fix this now corrupted card,
(because i wanted to play something lol and i dont have RA on windows.)
and they were 404'd, (the 3ds and windows versions) all the other platforms links were working..
like they knew they screwed up...

F*&* Retroarch... that was really some shite, and im so glad i could be retroarch's guinea pig..

Right now, im on 1.7.6 stable until this is confirmed fixed...

im sticking to bubble2k emus right now... T_T

 

[Elwyndas]

Yeah it's definitely not wise to jump on the newest release right away. 1.7.5 didn't really work on N3DS. 1.7.6 fixed that but it introduced other problems. These reports about 1.7.7 sound scary. I understand that all these efforts are being undertaken in free time so I'm not feeling compelled to complain. I'm happy about any progress, and as few as possible steps backwards.

 

[Generis]

After reading Aiko's story, I begin to feel a bit paranoid too. I wonder if it happened the same if you had used the .3dsx version instead of .cia. I dont' use the cia versions and after this, I wont' for sure.

As for the 404 error i wouldn't say has something to do with 3ds or bad builds. I've noticed it several times this week, and even right now, the stable 1.7.7 is offline but it was ok few minutes ago.

I use the 2019-05-04 .3dsx right now. The newest ones crash for me.

They don't test the builds before launching it? even if they call it stable? ... horses are in the stable

 

[Rahkeesh]

The 1.7.7 stables were updated today so I tried the CIA version, didn't corrupt my SD card but it is throwing ARM11 exceptions while loading. Same with nightly CIA.

Its normal for the CIA version to install the 2048 numbers core CIA for whatever reason.

 

[Muxi]

The 1.7.7 stables were updated today so I tried the CIA version, didn't corrupt my SD card but it is throwing ARM11 exceptions while loading. Same with nightly CIA.

Its normal for the CIA version to install the 2048 numbers core CIA for whatever reason.

The same goes for me. The last CIA releases always crash when starting.

 

[ShadowOne333]

The 1.7.7 stables were updated today so I tried the CIA version, didn't corrupt my SD card but it is throwing ARM11 exceptions while loading. Same with nightly CIA.

Its normal for the CIA version to install the 2048 numbers core CIA for whatever reason.

The same goes for me. The last CIA releases always crash when starting.

Have you guys deleted the .cfg files from the /retroarch/ folder?
Sometimes having old .cfg files from older builds can cause crashes.

 

[Rahkeesh]

Yes I deleted all the .cfg files for that reason, did not help.

 

[Elwyndas]

They don't test the builds before launching it? even if they call it stable? ... horses are in the stable

Maybe they test it on Old 3DS. Or Citra.