Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

the_randomizer · Jul 27, 2013

cloudskipa said:
OK, I was planning on using my CRT yes! Good to hear they finally added it then. Thanks

You're welcome!

Jacobeian · Jul 27, 2013

LibretroRetroArc said:
.

And I insist it is not our input drivers. We aren't doing anything out of the ordinary - and we are using the latest libogc version. If there is a bug, it has to be in either wiiuse or libogc.

I am not sure if this is the cause of input lag (probably not) but i noticed you were doing some stuff that I would consider as unoptimized code

the code i am looking at is here:

https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/blob/master/gx/gx_input.c

Everytime inputs are polled (each 4 wii and each 4 gamecube controller ports):

(1) you are calling WPAD_Probe (to see what kind of expansion is connected), for every wiimotes: this is quite inefficient to do this every frame as it involves doing the expansion detection handshake again every time, an obvious optimization would be to do this only once on startup then save the controller type

(2) you are calling SI_GetType (to see if a gamecube controller is connected) on each gamecube ports: this is very uncommon to do that so i am not sure why you picked that method. What is sure is that it is once again not very optimized to call this every frame, especially since the function PAD_ScanPads already return a bitmask to indicate which ports are connected.

Like I said initially, it's very unlikely this could have so much noticeable effect as input lag but that's just two things that popped to my eyes when looking at your code...

Now I agree libwiiuse in libogc has some minor flaws (most notable one being poor support of 3rd part controller) but i never noticed any serious input lag in homebrew or people reporting some versions to be more laggy than others. This is still true for stand-alone emus, which are, for most of them, compiled with the latest libogc as well.

EDIT: i think i also spotted a bug in your polling function with the way you handle the use of wiimote+nunchuk combination. I can be wrong but it seems to me if a nunchuk is connected, any direction pressed on wiimote will be seen as two buttons being pressed (example: if up is being pressed, up and left will be registered by retroarch)

the_randomizer · Jul 27, 2013

Jacobeian said:
I am not sure if this is the cause of input lag (probably not) but i noticed you were doing some stuff that I would consider as unoptimized code

the code i am looking at is here:

https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/blob/master/gx/gx_input.c

Everytime inputs are polled (each 4 wii and each 4 gamecube controller ports):

(1) you are calling WPAD_Probe (to see what kind of expansion is connected), for every wiimotes: this is quite inefficient to do this every frame as it involves doing the expansion detection handshake again every time, an obvious optimization would be to do this only once on startup then save the controller type

(2) you are calling SI_GetType (to see if a gamecube controller is connected) on each gamecube ports: this is very uncommon to do that so i am not sure why you picked that method. What is sure is that it is once again not very optimized to call this every frame, especially since the function PAD_ScanPads already return a bitmask to indicate which ports are connected.

Like I said initially, it's very unlikely this could have so much noticeable effect as input lag but that's just two things that popped to my eyes when looking at your code...

Now I agree libwiiuse in libogc has some minor flaws (most notable one being poor support of 3rd part controller) but i never noticed any serious input lag in homebrew or people reporting some versions to be more laggy than others. This is still true for stand-alone emus, which are, for most of them, compiled with the latest libogc as well.

EDIT: i think i also spotted a bug in your polling function with the way you handle the use of wiimote+nunchuk combination. I can be wrong but it seems to me if a nunchuk is connected, any direction pressed on wiimote will be seen as two buttons being pressed (example: if up is being pressed, up and left will be registered by retroarch)

Is this something that could eventually be fixed in the near future?

Hielkenator · Jul 28, 2013

cloudskipa said:
OK, I was planning on using my CRT yes! Good to hear they finally added it then. Thanks

yes it's implemented but since the last build there's a problem with the overscan.

the_randomizer · Jul 28, 2013

Hielkenator said:
yes it's implemented but since the last build there's a problem with the overscan.

Not sure what happened with that overscan, but I don't want to pester the devs about it :rofl2:

It can be fixed somewhat with the manual resolution adjustments, but only to an extent.

Hielkenator · Jul 28, 2013

the_randomizer said:
Is this something that could eventually be fixed in the near future?

The devs NEED to know this!!!

the_randomizer · Jul 28, 2013

Hielkenator said:
The devs NEED to know this!!!

That they do, but I tried bringing it up on the official RetroArch forums, but it was in vain. I....have my fears for being the one to report it.

http://forum.themaister.net/viewforum.php?id=2 Would be the place to report it, I think. But uh yeah....

mightymuffy · Jul 28, 2013

^^^ - (Oh fukkin hell fire don't start all that off again you two!) I'm sure they already know about it, but if there's the slightest chance they don't then you 2 should be the LAST ones to report it. Whether the dev is a bit too sensitive or not is beside the point here, after the last episode you should be glad the Wii port is still being worked on, don't bring it all back up again for the sake of some resolution mode that few of us actually care about - you can still play your roms on it can you not??

Anyway.. did a bit more testing with the NES cores, and yeah I'm sticking with nestopia too. Still can't see the actual point of adding quicknes in (unless maybe fceu/nestopia weren't full speed enough on maybe the Xbox1/GC/or certain mobile phones?), but hey, it's another option for us.

the_randomizer · Jul 28, 2013

mightymuffy said:
^^^ - (Oh fukkin hell fire don't start all that off again you two!) I'm sure they already know about it, but if there's the slightest chance they don't then you 2 should be the LAST ones to report it. Whether the dev is a bit too sensitive or not is beside the point here, after the last episode you should be glad the Wii port is still being worked on, don't bring it all back up again for the sake of some resolution mode that few of us actually care about - you can still play your roms on it can you not??

Anyway.. did a bit more testing with the NES cores, and yeah I'm sticking with nestopia too. Still can't see the actual point of adding quicknes in (unless maybe fceu/nestopia weren't full speed enough on maybe the Xbox1/GC/or certain mobile phones?), but hey, it's another option for us.

Nestopia is indeed awesome, QuickNES is unnecessary IMHO not sure why it's there but whatevs

mightymuffy · Jul 28, 2013

the_randomizer said:
Nestopia is indeed awesome, QuickNES is unnecessary IMHO not sure why it's there but whatevs

Maybe it supports a couple of mappers on some more obscure games that the other 2 don't.... but like you say whatevs - pretty sure all 3 cores run great, but nestopia wins it for me too. (I'm using Wiiflow anyway - sorting out NES games to pick which runs xx game best sounded a ballache, thankfully I don't need to do that!)

Hielkenator · Jul 29, 2013

mightymuffy said:
^^^ - (Oh fukkin hell fire don't start all that off again you two!) I'm sure they already know about it, but if there's the slightest chance they don't then you 2 should be the LAST ones to report it. Whether the dev is a bit too sensitive or not is beside the point here, after the last episode you should be glad the Wii port is still being worked on, don't bring it all back up again for the sake of some resolution mode that few of us actually care about - you can still play your roms on it can you not??

Anyway.. did a bit more testing with the NES cores, and yeah I'm sticking with nestopia too. Still can't see the actual point of adding quicknes in (unless maybe fceu/nestopia weren't full speed enough on maybe the Xbox1/GC/or certain mobile phones?), but hey, it's another option for us.

When did honest user feedback become a war proposal?
Anyway I posted some of the issues on their suport forum.
I never mean any harm and I fully respect the devs of retroarch and the original devs of the l used emulators in the Wii build.
I rather see myself overpassionate.

Disorarara · Jul 31, 2013

There is no overscan issue, use the custom resolution option to set the screen to the exact size you want and make sure to turn off scale integer.

Hielkenator · Jul 31, 2013

Disorarara said:
There is no overscan issue, use the custom resolution option to set the screen to the exact size you want and make sure to turn off scale integer.

This is not what I mean.
If RA would display in proper 480p ( like any emu on Wii)
changing resolution is a VERY bad idea since on a proper CRT ot a SLG the image will garble and be full of artifacts.
YOU need proper 480p output to have this.
This has and always will be a problem with RA, the devs do not think it's a real problem.
To get full picture you could set the image to 448p ( or set it by hand witht he scaler ) for lcd tv's, but this will give different result depending on the brand of tv and it's upscale/downscale abilties. Case is it's not optimal especially with all those ratio and resolution differences in various FBA games.

RA is is not about authenticity and is more geared towards de LCD generation of users who do not give a shit about ratios and resolution and will settle with a 4:3 pacman game that is overscanned.FYI these generation of games cannot be fixed by simply setting the ratio by hand.

Disorarara · Jul 31, 2013

Hielkenator said:
This is not what I mean.
If RA would display in proper 480p ( like any emu on Wii)
changing resolution is a VERY bad idea since on a proper CRT ot a SLG the image will garble and be full of artifacts.
YOU need proper 480p output to have this.
This has and always will be a problem with RA, the devs do not think it's a real problem.
To get full picture you could set the image to 448p ( or set it by hand witht he scaler ) for lcd tv's, but this will give different result depending on the brand of tv and it's upscale/downscale abilties. Case is it's not optimal especially with all those ratio and resolution differences in various FBA games.

RA is is not about authenticity and is more geared towards de LCD generation of users who do not give a shit about ratios and resolution and will settle with a 4:3 pacman game that is overscanned.FYI these generation of games cannot be fixed by simply setting the ratio by hand.

Whoops, meant custom aspect ratio. I know what you're saying but I'm telling you that custom aspect ratio is essentially the same as the old overscan setting but with more control as you can control left and right too, just try it. And remember scale integer is OFF or else the screen will stretch too far or too narrow.

LibretroRetroArc · Aug 6, 2013

Hielkenator said:
This is not what I mean.
If RA would display in proper 480p ( like any emu on Wii)
changing resolution is a VERY bad idea since on a proper CRT ot a SLG the image will garble and be full of artifacts.
YOU need proper 480p output to have this.
This has and always will be a problem with RA, the devs do not think it's a real problem.
To get full picture you could set the image to 448p ( or set it by hand witht he scaler ) for lcd tv's, but this will give different result depending on the brand of tv and it's upscale/downscale abilties. Case is it's not optimal especially with all those ratio and resolution differences in various FBA games.

RA is is not about authenticity and is more geared towards de LCD generation of users who do not give a shit about ratios and resolution and will settle with a 4:3 pacman game that is overscanned.FYI these generation of games cannot be fixed by simply setting the ratio by hand.

Lulz, you really don't know what the hell you are talking about. Any engineer worth his salt would just be laughing at you right now.

Sorry but it's true.

If you were really this interested in 'accurate graphics', hell, then I say - throw your Wii in the trash right about now - since the GX scaler makes that pretty much a PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY.

LibretroRetroArc · Aug 6, 2013

Disorarara said:
Whoops, meant custom aspect ratio. I know what you're saying but I'm telling you that custom aspect ratio is essentially the same as the old overscan setting but with more control as you can control left and right too, just try it. And remember scale integer is OFF or else the screen will stretch too far or too narrow.

I think he just doesn't understand what you're saying.

Tried to tell him this many times over and over and he simply doesn't get it. He cannot look at the sourcecode either so there's no possible way for him to 'get' that this is essentially the same goddamn option, just given a different 'action label' inside a menu.

And then you wonder why my Wii activities are at an all-time low given an SDK that is known for erratic motion controls and 'know-it-alls' like this.

LibretroRetroArc · Aug 6, 2013

Jacobeian said:
I am not sure if this is the cause of input lag (probably not) but i noticed you were doing some stuff that I would consider as unoptimized code

the code i am looking at is here:

https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/blob/master/gx/gx_input.c

Everytime inputs are polled (each 4 wii and each 4 gamecube controller ports):

(1) you are calling WPAD_Probe (to see what kind of expansion is connected), for every wiimotes: this is quite inefficient to do this every frame as it involves doing the expansion detection handshake again every time, an obvious optimization would be to do this only once on startup then save the controller type

(2) you are calling SI_GetType (to see if a gamecube controller is connected) on each gamecube ports: this is very uncommon to do that so i am not sure why you picked that method. What is sure is that it is once again not very optimized to call this every frame, especially since the function PAD_ScanPads already return a bitmask to indicate which ports are connected.

Like I said initially, it's very unlikely this could have so much noticeable effect as input lag but that's just two things that popped to my eyes when looking at your code...

Now I agree libwiiuse in libogc has some minor flaws (most notable one being poor support of 3rd part controller) but i never noticed any serious input lag in homebrew or people reporting some versions to be more laggy than others. This is still true for stand-alone emus, which are, for most of them, compiled with the latest libogc as well.

EDIT: i think i also spotted a bug in your polling function with the way you handle the use of wiimote+nunchuk combination. I can be wrong but it seems to me if a nunchuk is connected, any direction pressed on wiimote will be seen as two buttons being pressed (example: if up is being pressed, up and left will be registered by retroarch)

Tried all that and it didn't make any difference - the same issue is still there.

https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/commit/749b9c0945a52fb80f7d0eab4a9add749bc4db3a

So if it's libogc - tell me which version I should be using then. At this point it is not really my fault this stuff is working incorrectly - and the right people should be bugged about it instead of me.

jmckutchin · Aug 6, 2013

LibretroRetroArc said:
I think he just doesn't understand what you're saying.

Tried to tell him this many times over and over and he simply doesn't get it. He cannot look at the sourcecode either so there's no possible way for him to 'get' that this is essentially the same goddamn option, just given a different 'action label' inside a menu.

And then you wonder why my Wii activities are on an all-time backburner given an SDK that is known for erratic motion controls and 'know-it-alls' like this.

I can understand an erratic SDK being an issue, but are you really going to let a few outspoken critics ruin it for the hundreds of grateful people that love and use RetroArch on Wii?

I know being a dev can be an (incredibly) thankless job sometimes, but there are a lot of people here who really appreciate your work. I hope your remember that next time you think about the Wii.

LibretroRetroArc · Aug 6, 2013

mgridgaway said:
I can understand an erratic SDK being an issue, but are you really going to let a few outspoken critics ruin it for the hundreds of grateful people that love and use RetroArch on Wii?

I know being a dev can be an (incredibly) thankless job sometimes, but there are a lot of people here who really appreciate your work. I hope your remember that next time you think about the Wii.

The fact nobody in here can even tell me something useful with regards to which SDK I SHOULD be using then if these supposed Wii controls can really be fixed makes me that much less motivated to really be spending a lot more time on this thing when there are much more important platforms like Android and iOS that people are using these days anyway and which require a lot of attention and work as well.

A homebrew scene is only as good as the guys at the top of the totem pole - if they can't feign to give a shit and make sure the development tools are catered to, then everything stops.

CheatFreak47 · Aug 6, 2013

Hey, could you add a thing that makes the text on files with longer file names scroll when highlighting them? I have many Sonic Genesis hacks, and many of the roms have the same file name up to a certain point, and the "guess what rom is the one you want" thing is wearing thin. If you don't know what I mean by a text rollover, look at how other Wii emulators handle longer file names.

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