Homebrew Retroarch Emulation Thread (Nightly Builds Included)

[Rahkeesh]

Oh hell yes. Lets get some SOTN goin on.

 

[FateForWindows]

Seems like they got unai to work, which explains the major performance boost! The latest nightlies might contain the renderer change, but don't take my word for it.

 

[Zense]

Seems like they got unai to work, which explains the major performance boost! The latest nightlies might contain the renderer change, but don't take my word for it.

From what I understand gpu_unai is a graphics plugin? I didn't know there was work being done to port something like this to the 3ds

 

[Deleted member 372186]

Seems like they got unai to work, which explains the major performance boost! The latest nightlies might contain the renderer change, but don't take my word for it.

I don't see any changes regarding rendering with unai.
Previous attempts to enable unai, caused build issues after which it got disabled again.

Buildbot isn't able to build the 3ds port now, so it seems.

The committed fix seems to address the audio issues.

 

[FateForWindows]

I don't see any changes regarding rendering with unai.
Previous attempts to enable unai, caused build issues after which it got disabled again.

Buildbot isn't able to build the 3ds port now, so it seems.

The committed fix seems to address the audio issues.

Sorry, should've said plugin in the first place. I had just woken up when I wrote that anyway.

 

[Deleted member 372186]

Sorry, should've said plugin in the first place. I had just woken up when I wrote that anyway.

I haven't tried building pcsx-rearmed before, so i'm not familiar with the build issues it had.

But i've been able to manually build the latest pscx-rearmed core just now..with unai enabled.
Let's see what the buildbot does.

It seems to be running great so far! Nice!

Edit:

I've been able to successfully build the core with retroarch 1.7.7.
But the latest 1.7.8 source fails to build. So don't expect to much from the buildbot right now.

That said, i've been playing a few games with great succes in my opinion. Didn't use .pbp yet, but already at playable speeds.

Crash Bandicoot - Warped easily reaching 60fps for 75% of the time in-game.
Castevania Symphony of the Night at around 45 fps.
Roadrash is running at 60fps, with drops to 50 instead of 30.

Great improvement overall so far, i'd say.

 

[Osakasan]

Oooooh this is neat, we're seeing advancements on psx emulation on Wii U too.

The bot doesn't compile 3ds builds anymore? Shame.

Oh well, just hoping we get out full speed psx emulation eventually

 

[son_dh]

Did you transfer the retroarch folder to the root of your sd card?

Yep I did. Could post a photo of the folder structure here, but not until I have posted 5 post!

 

[YukidaruPunch]

Hello, all. I've finally installed Retroarch on my Old 3DS and after testing, I've got some really variable results, and I'm not sure what to think of it.

I've tried three cores: Gambette, Genesis Plus GX and Snes9x 2002/2010. While Gambette loaded Final Fantasy Adventure just fine - despite not a very good scaling of anything past 1x - the performance with the other two cores was pitiful. Snes9x 2010 struggled to even boot Dragon Quest VI and Snes 9x 2002 fared just a bit better with Super Mario World. The sprites had horrible artifacting as well. Both these games run relatively fine on a separate standalone Snes 9x I have installed on my system, dropping just a few frames here and there. I then tried Contra: Hard Corps on Genesis Plus GX and performance was pitiful as well. Everything was unbelievably slow.

Is this the expected, or did I do something wrong? I messed with a few video configurations while on the Gambette core (such as screen ratios and vsync) and then saved that as the default Retroarch configuration - could that be the cause? If not, what is? I'm honestly flabbergasted at the performance issues and can only believe I did something very wrong, at least.

 

[Zense]

Hello, all. I've finally installed Retroarch on my Old 3DS and after testing, I've got some really variable results, and I'm not sure what to think of it.

I've tried three cores: Gambette, Genesis Plus GX and Snes9x 2002/2010. While Gambette loaded Final Fantasy Adventure just fine - despite not a very good scaling of anything past 1x - the performance with the other two cores was pitiful. Snes9x 2010 struggled to even boot Dragon Quest VI and Snes 9x 2002 fared just a bit better with Super Mario World. The sprites had horrible artifacting as well. Both these games run relatively fine on a separate standalone Snes 9x I have installed on my system, dropping just a few frames here and there. I then tried Contra: Hard Corps on Genesis Plus GX and performance was pitiful as well. Everything was unbelievably slow.

Is this the expected, or did I do something wrong? I messed with a few video configurations while on the Gambette core (such as screen ratios and vsync) and then saved that as the default Retroarch configuration - could that be the cause? If not, what is? I'm honestly flabbergasted at the performance issues and can only believe I did something very wrong, at least.

I haven't tried retroarch on an old 3ds myself, but from what I see people post here, this is to be expected. Actually there was just recently a thread discussing what emus you can run on an old 3ds. Genesis plus gx is pretty slow, but more accurate than picodrive. I'd recommend you try the standalone picodrive or the one on retroarch. I know that for snes most old 3ds users use the standalone one it seems.

Here's the thread I was talking about

Actually that wasn't the thread... Still there are threads where they give good advice. I'm gonna test and see if certain simple ps1 games will run with the newest build on old 3ds clock speeds.

 

[Rahkeesh]

GenesisplusGX and SNES9x 2010 are barely fullspeed on New hardware, with some games dipping below 60. As the New CPU is over double the speed there's no chance of old 3DS running them well.

Bubble2006k's emulators use a bit of the 3DS' graphic acceleration instead of relying entirely on the CPU, that is why they run so much astronomically better. But even then they are based on picodrive and older SNES9x (2002?), which are faster but less accurate than the cores above, and then further degrades the audio quality for these cores to maintain fullspeed.

----

For anyone that was wondering, latest nightlies added dynarec support to .3dsx builds. You can run the dynarec on gPSP there now, but its still crashing. Looks like someone did fix the errant lines appearing along the top at least.

 

[Clydefrosch]

GenesisplusGX and SNES9x 2010 are barely fullspeed on New hardware, with some games dipping below 60. As the New CPU is over double the speed there's no chance of old 3DS running them well.

Bubble2006k's emulators use a bit of the 3DS' graphic acceleration instead of relying entirely on software CPU, that is why they run so much astronomically better. But even then they are based on picodrive and older SNES9x (2002?), which are faster but less accurate than the cores above.

----

For anyone that was wondering, latest nightlies added dynarec support to .3dsx builds. You can run the dynarec on gPSP there now, but its still crashing. Looks like someone did fix the errant lines appearing along the top at least.

I take speed over accuracy any day of the week.

 

[Feffe]

For anyone that was wondering, latest nightlies added dynarec support to .3dsx builds. You can run the dynarec on gPSP there now, but its still crashing. Looks like someone did fix the errant lines appearing along the top at least.

How is the cia version of gPSP? Still crashing?

 

[YukidaruPunch]

Thanks for the replies, guys. It was really jarring to see such abysmal performance after I've seen more stable performance even on the original DS! I'll give it a shot at different cores, such as the Picodrive one. I guess I won't be playing any CPS2 on my 3DS, anyway. Well, I got the Wii U for that.

Checking the OP, I see mention of both CATSFC and BlargSnes, as well as recommendation of the latter. Checking the website linked gives me a .3dsx file. Guess there's no .cia file for this core, or a standalone installer? Downloaded it from the official Retroarch website and see no mention of either of those on the listed cias available for installation.

Also, who's Bubble2006k, and what emulators did he do? Google search couldn't help me at all on this one.

 

[Rahkeesh]

Sorry its bubble2k16. You can find links here to all his emulators: https://github.com/bubble2k16?tab=repositories

 

[YukidaruPunch]

Sorry its bubble2k16. You can find links here to all his emulators: https://github.com/bubble2k16?tab=repositories

I had literally just found that thread when I got your alert! Turns out this was the standalone Snes9x I already had installed in my system in the first place, haha!

Kinda went full circle on that one, but I guess that's what you get for buying a system right years late. Oh well, at least that takes care of that. Mega Drive and a few niche systems to go, then.

Thanks a million!

 

[FateForWindows]

Thanks for the replies, guys. It was really jarring to see such abysmal performance after I've seen more stable performance even on the original DS! I'll give it a shot at different cores, such as the Picodrive one. I guess I won't be playing any CPS2 on my 3DS, anyway. Well, I got the Wii U for that.

Checking the OP, I see mention of both CATSFC and BlargSnes, as well as recommendation of the latter. Checking the website linked gives me a .3dsx file. Guess there's no .cia file for this core, or a standalone installer? Downloaded it from the official Retroarch website and see no mention of either of those on the listed cias available for installation.

Also, who's Bubble2006k, and what emulators did he do? Google search couldn't help me at all on this one.

CATSFC got renamed to Snes9x 2005 a few years ago. BlargSnes also still exists but hasn't been updated and is even less accurate and compatible than bubble2k's. It doesn't even support most games with special chips. bubble's Snes9x runs even better than 2002 (almost all games are fullspeed on O3DS apart from some SA-1 and SFX games) and is based on the same version of Snes9x as 2005, so you'll definitely want to use that instead.

 

[cvskid]

Has anyone tried out the 2 player versions of simpsons arcade and the arcade version of teenage mutant ninja turtles turtles in time? Whenever i run them retroarch crashes. Wanted to play the 2 player versions because you can choose whatever character you want to. the original arcade teenage mutant ninja turtles 2 player oceania version works.

That or switch player 1 controls to a different player if possible.

 

[Savior-X]

Has anyone tried out the 2 player versions of simpsons arcade and the arcade version of teenage mutant ninja turtles turtles in time? Whenever i run them retroarch crashes. Wanted to play the 2 player versions because you can choose whatever character you want to. the original arcade teenage mutant ninja turtles 2 player oceania version works.

That or switch player 1 controls to a different player if possible.

They work here. 1.7.9 nightly. I tried them on fb-neo (~30fps), fba2012(mid 30s), and mame2003plus (50fps). They run too slow so I don't play them. Mame2000 might be playable but I won't resort to using such outdated emulation.

 

[vexhash]

Every time I try to load a rom using "load content" option - 3ds freezes at "scanning romname". Said rom appears in recents next time I launch retroarch and it loads from there just fine. Is it supposed to be like that? Same problem on PCSX and gpsp.