Homebrew Official Retroarch WiiU (wip.)

[ChiefReginod]

The 7z archive from the official website is only around 82 MB but unpacked is 1.96 GB. With assets, cheats, BIOS files, etc, my current install sits at 2.12 GB on a FAT32 32KB cluster SD card.

Also, it seems the assets directory has changed from what's listed in the instructions in the OP. The default is now sd:\retroarch\assets instead of sd:\retroarch\media.

 

[depaul]

An "interesting" find about slow SD card speed:

- Everyone knows that Retroarch reading speed from SD card is slow... like 2 or 4 MB/s;
- BUT when I install Wii U titles from SD to USB using WUP installer (USB installation method), the installation speed is very good as it can reach 20 or 22 MB/s, which is the normal speed.

==> So can we assume the slow Retroarch is related to software and not hardware? probably a badly optimized I/O library?

Maybe Retroarch can check I/O method used by WUP intaller?

Thanks.

 

[cugel]

I managed to find a 32GB SD card and it's formatted to FAT32. So when I tried to run retroarch (I got it from the homebrew appstore) it won't load. I formatted my sd card before trying to be sure it was FAT32. All that happens is the black screen, then returns to homebrew browser.

Also, that download took way too long almost an hour to download and install. Does it really need to be almost 1GB big?

I'd probably uninstall that version, make sure you delete absolutely everything Retroarch related from your SD card, then use the manual install method in the OP.

Try to get it running before you go to the trouble of downloading assets.zip. It should boot, but just be kind of ugly without them.

If you don't want to use the assets.zip at all, go to Drivers -> Menu -> rgui, then go to the main menu and select Reboot Retroarch. It's a little uglier depending on your point of view than the others, but it's fast. You can also customize the colors and etc.

 

[NotReallySteve]

Anyone got either an M30 (with usb dongle) or the mega drive mini pad controllers working with this?

 

[driagonv]

Is it possible that we're ever gonna see an NDS core running on the Wii U?

 

[cugel]

Is it possible that we're ever gonna see an NDS core running on the Wii U?

I really like doubt it, Wii U development seems pretty dead and I think we're lucky that Retroarch is still working at all. It's less convenient, but you should probably just use VC injects. Using Nintendo's built-in DS emulator is also probably gonna run a lot better than a community emulator or Retroarch core anyway.

 

[Incure]

After a good start with setting things up I’ve encountered multiple corruptions in the retroarch folder on my sd-card after closing a played game. Thereby loosing all my setups. In a long trial and error journey I eventually think Retroarch tried to write something on the SD when exiting. I’m currently playtesting version 1.8.1 (with the media folder and the menu without the overlapping icons bug) and without any automatic saving on the SD.

I’ve also tested loading from USB with my Wii Ustealth FAT32 drive. Retroarch does support this, but it is so slow that it becomes unusable. Now I’m only using it for storing the roms. With all my testing I think that @depaul is right that the loading speed is a software issue and not hardware.

 

[cugel]

In my limited experience loadtimes aren't great compared to other platforms I've run retroarch on, but they're tolerable. I'm able to boot up Sega CD games in a second or two and they run fine. Haven't had any corruption but I really don't play games for long stretches on it.

EDIT: you guys might want to switch to rgui to see how much it impacts performace. It's pretty fast for me.

 

[ChiefReginod]

Rgui is definitely a lot faster to load ROMs, close them, etc. Loading is still much slower than even the Wii port, however.

 

[cugel]

Okay I'm actually a little confused about something - to update, according to the op we download the latest RetroArch_rpx.7z and just keep the retroarch folder - which only contains one folder, the cores folder.

So you overwrite the old cores with the new cores, that's easy enough to understand. But how is the main retroarch program updated? Is it contained in one of the .rpx files in the cores folder, and I'm just not seeing it?

 

[Incure]

You guys might want to switch to rgui to see how much it impacts performace. It's pretty fast for me.

Thanks for this. I now tested rgui and ozone and both load the roms and menu's a lot faster than XMB. Especially much more usable with accessing the Quick Menu while in a game. Although they look less nicer than XMB.

Personally the big advantage of using the Wii U for Retroarch is the controller support. You can use the Gamepad, Pro Controllers, Wii Remotes but especially the official classic controller of the NES and SNES mini. Really nice playing the rare 4-player games for the NES with NES controllers, never could do that in my youth. When XMB where working faster and Retroarch was more stable on the Wii U than this was the killer emulation device...

So you overwrite the old cores with the new cores, that's easy enough to understand. But how is the main retroarch program updated? Is it contained in one of the .rpx files in the cores folder, and I'm just not seeing it?

For the Wii U Retroarch is embedded in each RPX core. So updating the cores will update Retroarch itself.

 

[robco7]

The main reason I got Retroarch installed is for MAME, and it seems like the compatibility is pretty unreliable. Is this the best way to play arcade roms on the Wii U or vWii?

 

[depaul]

You'd rather use FBA core instead of MAME since it's faster and more compatible. If a game doesn't work with FBA it's almost certain it won't with MAME cores.

-All CPS1, CPS2, CPS3 roms work with FBA;
-All NEOGEO roms work with FBA, given that you have the bios "neogeo.zip"
-You can try FBA or MAME for other arcade roms (Konami, Taito, Sega...): Most early 90s games work, most late 90s games work slow, most later 20XX roms don't work.

 

[cugel]

The main reason I got Retroarch installed is for MAME, and it seems like the compatibility is pretty unreliable. Is this the best way to play arcade roms on the Wii U or vWii?

What you want to do is make sure your romset matches the emulator you're trying to use.

For MAME 2003 you want to get the 0.78 romset.

For FinalBurn NEO (this is the latest version of FinalBurn and specializes in running Capcom and SNK games) I'm using a romset dated 2020_01_06 I got of archive.org and it runs well. Running kof98 right now at 60fps.

I see there's also a MAME 2009 core but I don't know what romset that would use. Doing some googling it looks like 0.135. But that doesn't seem like a commonly shared set and there's not much info on the core itself so that's kinda weird, but you could try it.

Of course some more complicated games aren't going to run well on Wii U but if you mach the roms to the core they should at least boot up so you can see how they perform.

EDIT: FinalBurn NEO runs SvC Chaos at 60 fps.

 

[Nimrod-002]

You'd rather use FBA core instead of MAME since it's faster and more compatible. If a game doesn't work with FBA it's almost certain it won't with MAME cores.

-All CPS1, CPS2, CPS3 roms work with FBA;
-All NEOGEO roms work with FBA, given that you have the bios "neogeo.zip"
-You can try FBA or MAME for other arcade roms (Konami, Taito, Sega...): Most early 90s games work, most late 90s games work slow, most later 20XX roms don't work.

which FBA core

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

So can someone explain to me how loading arcade games work? I downloaded the Final Burn alpha core from the updater, then i loaded the core and tried to load a rom, but it just loads a black screen. When I check the menu, it shows that genesis plus gx core was loaded instead. I also tried the "Scan directory" function and none of the arcade games showed up in the playlist on the main menu.

 

[depaul]

@Nimrod-002 You can just use FBA 2012 (or NEO). it works fine with Neogeo/ CPSX/ old arcade roms.
@Sonic Angel Knight Load the content (=the rom in zip format), then RA it should ask you for the core, so select the FBA 2012 (or MAME) core. Some arcade games need bios you can first test a CPS games as those don't require bios.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Load the content (=the rom in zip format), then RA it should ask you for the core, so select the FBA 2012 (or MAME) core. Some arcade games need bios you can first test a CPS games as those don't require bios.

I tried loading the zip archive, but it never ask me for the core. I don't know why. But I guess I could try a CPS game.

 

[cugel]

I tried loading the zip archive, but it never ask me for the core. I don't know why. But I guess I could try a CPS game.

I'm not sure the online updater/downloader actually works. You may have to copy the core over manually.

EDIT: Also see my post about matching cores to romsets. If you're just downloading random roms off of websites, don't be surprised if that shit doesn't work. Arcade roms are different than console roms and are often updated in ways that break compatibility with outdated emulators.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Well I made sure the rom works on my android before copying it over to the wii u sd card. Though the Android retroarch seem to have way more available "cores" than the wii u offers. Final burn alpha 2012 and Final Burn Neo are the only two on the wii u. Not sure which one I should be using since I just want the most up to date version. I didn't bother with mame cause all of them have lower dates listed so I assume they were outdated compared to FBA.