Homebrew PC Engine / Best options in 2019

Flo_o · Jun 10, 2019

Hi all, just out of curiosity, what are the best options at the moment to play PC Engine and PC Engine CD games on the Wii? I always wished for a GX mod for the PC Engine, like the NES, SNES and GB emulators, but if that is possible and if that will be released (i'm not a coder or modder unfortunately), time will tell.

For now, i have found two options (big thanks to Rogério Torres at Mundo Wii for PCE Fast Libretro and all the other fantastic mods: https://mundowiihack.wordpress.com/):

- WiiMednafen: one of the classics, it plays PC Engine games very well but as niuus said, it is very old and outdated, and indeed that is feeling you will get when using WiiMednafen, but it works great. Also, maybe a minor thing for a lot of people, it is a bundled emulator so it emulates a lot of different consoles. But i rather have one emulator for one system so that each emulator can have it's own channel.

- PCE Fast Libretro: this is a standalone build made by Rogério Torres, it is Retroarch but splitted so that it only plays PC Engine and PC Engine CD and saves it's settings in it's own separated folder. PC Engine plays very well but i have problems with getting CD to work (won't load the core). You still have to switch cores, a thing i never liked. Also, i'm not a big fan of Retroarch, but as said it works well and it looks like the games are a little bit more crisp than WiiMednafen.

So what are you guys think? I really like to hear what the possibilities are for PC Engine on Wii in 2019, what is your best go to option? Or are there hidden projects on the way?

SuperrSonic · Jun 10, 2019

You could try this. It's RA but lets you do a few more things. It includes accurate, fast, and supergrafx, though accurate is still too slow in most cases. You can pair the fast or supergrafx versions with the normal2x cpu filter and bilinear to get a sharper image in some cases, like if the game uses a width greater than 256... You can also set some fade effects, it's cool stuff.

There's also the VC but I've found it to be not much better than the other alternatives and the scaling is really bad.

Flo_o · Jun 10, 2019

SuperrSonic said:
You could try this. It's RA but lets you do a few more things. It includes accurate, fast, and supergrafx, though accurate is still too slow in most cases. You can pair the fast or supergrafx versions with the normal2x cpu filter and bilinear to get a sharper image in some cases, like if the game uses a width greater than 256... You can also set some fade effects, it's cool stuff.

There's also the VC but I've found it to be not much better than the other alternatives and the scaling is really bad.

Hi SuperrSonic, will check it out! Many thanks! Will it also save in SD:\private, just like your Wonderswan build? And it is still core switching right?

SuperrSonic · Jun 10, 2019

All cores will write to /private/other/ paths are still configurable but to change the path of the main.cfg file you need to use one argument pointing to the file and the core needs to be launched on its own (as seen in the video). For example:

Code:

You take the core you want to make standalone, name it boot.dol and give it a meta.xml and add this:

  <arguments>
    <arg>sd:/private/wii/title/SonicTT</arg>
    <arg>Sonic Triple Trouble.gg</arg>
    <arg>sd:/path/to/config/config.cfg</arg>
  </arguments>

Or if you just want the core without a specific game:

  <arguments>
    <arg>sd:/path/to/config/name_of_cfg.cfg</arg>
  </arguments>

If it's from a usb device change sd to usb1

You need to switch cores, but the supergrafx core can still play regular pce and cd games though they might not be identical, I don't know.

Flo_o · Jun 10, 2019

That's awesome, thanks, i will check it out SuperrSonic! You suit your avatar, pure magic

momodora · Jul 2, 2019

I've used Wiimednafen for Rondo of Blood and it seems to work well

MrSW · Jul 16, 2019

Rather than opening a new thread, it might be better to ask here.

I am using the PCE Fast RA core to run PCE CD games, I have gotten .ccd+.cue+.img+.sub to work, but it is unfortunately an uncommon format, and sadly the most common one, ISO+.cue, doesnt seem to work.

So, does anyone know exactly which formats are compatible?

Maeson · Jul 16, 2019

.Bin and .Cue (sometimes .Bin, .Cue and MP3/Wav sound files) are the most common ones in my experience and those always worked fine (as long as the bin and cue are well made, of course).

My simplest advice would be this: If you end up with a CD rip of another format, get a virtual CD program such as, I don't know, Virtual CloneDrive and mount the image; and with a program such as IMGBurn, create a new .Bin .Cue image.

I did that for a variety of cd based systems and it worked fine for me, not only for other formats but to make a single Bin file instead of having multiple of them like it can happen with some games.

MrSW · Jul 16, 2019

MaeseJesus said:
.Bin and .Cue (sometimes .Bin, .Cue and MP3/Wav sound files) are the most common ones in my experience and those always worked fine (as long as the bin and cue are well made, of course).

For the RetroArch core? are you sure? I tried a game in that format but it didn't work

It works for the standalone WiiMednafen emulator, but that one is kinda shit.

niuus · Jul 16, 2019

SuperrSonic said:
You could try this. It's RA but lets you do a few more things. It includes accurate, fast, and supergrafx, though accurate is still too slow in most cases. You can pair the fast or supergrafx versions with the normal2x cpu filter and bilinear to get a sharper image in some cases, like if the game uses a width greater than 256... You can also set some fade effects, it's cool stuff.

There's also the VC but I've found it to be not much better than the other alternatives and the scaling is really bad.

SuperrSonic said:
All cores will write to /private/other/ paths are still configurable but to change the path of the main.cfg file you need to use one argument pointing to the file and the core needs to be launched on its own (as seen in the video). For example:

Code:

You take the core you want to make standalone, name it boot.dol and give it a meta.xml and add this: <arguments> <arg>sd:/private/wii/title/SonicTT</arg> <arg>Sonic Triple Trouble.gg</arg> <arg>sd:/path/to/config/config.cfg</arg> </arguments> Or if you just want the core without a specific game: <arguments> <arg>sd:/path/to/config/name_of_cfg.cfg</arg> </arguments> If it's from a usb device change sd to usb1

You need to switch cores, but the supergrafx core can still play regular pce and cd games though they might not be identical, I don't know.

Oh, this is pretty nice. This could certainly be useful for the PC Engine gamers out there (me included). I will give it a try! I really love your use of custom paths, which certainly makes it super useful for being able to coexist with a normal Retroarch build on the same SD card. Hopefully only using the SuperGrafx core would be more than enough for the 3 consoles.

Flo_o said:
- WiiMednafen: one of the classics, it plays PC Engine games very well but as niuus said, it is very old and outdated, and indeed that is feeling you will get when using WiiMednafen, but it works great. Also, maybe a minor thing for a lot of people, it is a bundled emulator so it emulates a lot of different consoles. But i rather have one emulator for one system so that each emulator can have it's own channel.

The main issue is that WiiMednafen hasn't been given up a code update for it to be able to work with the most recent compilers, so no Wii U Pro Controller support (my main gripe), and a lot of outdated emulators inside, which already have better alternatives with some of their standalone options (NES, GB, GBA, SNES, Genesis, GG and SMS specifically), though this last point can be easily ignored. 240p support is great, btw.

Maeson · Jul 16, 2019

MrSW said:
For the RetroArch core? are you sure? I tried a game in that format but it didn't work

It works for the standalone WiiMednafen emulator, but that one is kinda shit.

Yes, I don't know why I would lie. My Wii is literally running a Bin/Cue of Splash Lake as I'm writing this just to be sure they work. By the way, quite fun action-puzzle game, the system has a good bunch of those.

Most of the CD games I have on my SD card are Bin/Cue, but I also have a couple of Cue/Iso, but of course, I don't have that many, just a handful that I actively want to play. Pretty much all games I tried, worked, counting modded/fan translated CD games, even something as obscure as Mokette Tamago.

I only use PCE Fast RetroArch core for anything PCE related. Of course, it should be said that I'm talking to either the core for the old 1.0.0.2 RetroArch (I kept using that old version of RA because newer ones started to have more and more issues, and the PCE Fast core was one of the most affected ones if my memory is correct), or SuperrSonic's RA-SS, which is by far the best version of RA I've ever used and I no longer care about official releases because it's too solid to care about the other.

My only sort of advice or question would be (besides using RA-SS) if your syscard3.pce is good, as there are several faulty versions (well, faulty, or not the one RA is expecting, I don't know) with different sizes, and that's something that gave me quite some troubles when I started delving into RetroArch.

Homebrew PC Engine / Best options in 2019

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