Homebrew Official Retroarch WiiU (wip.)

ShadowOne333 · Apr 23, 2020

Oh btw guys, you might want to check the latest WiiU nightlies.
Quark made some commits these past two days which should fix the playlists not showing up

Drbadass · Apr 23, 2020

Hail mary for help from folks who've got tyrquake to work. Getting errors on original quake as well as mission packs. I've followed the instructions at tyrquake website to lay out my folders exactly like it wants, my music is in ogg, even tried with no music folder or an empty music folder, always same. The minute I start a new single player game, it bombs out to Quake engine with errors like below:

Couldn't Find a CDRIP for Track 4
Host_Error: SV_WriteSoundNum: Unknown
Protocol Version (-285212673)

or my latest on original Quake 1

Host_Error: SV_WriteSoundNum: Unknown
Protocol Version (2080)

Not asking anyone to "fix my quake"

, just wondering how folks who've got it working smoothly have their folders, pak files, music, etc., set up to share a hint or two.

Thanks ahead!!!

ploggy · Apr 23, 2020

ShadowOne333 said:
Oh btw guys, you might want to check the latest WiiU nightlies.
Quark made some commits these past two days which should fix the playlists not showing up

Can confirm new nighltlies fix the ozone playlist issue. thanks quark

did notice an issue. (not related to playlists)
Using Fast Forward on the Gamebatte Core causes what ever game I play to freeze. Have to hard reset the WiiU :/

Now that I'm upto date I had a chance to test the playlist speed issue.
for me it takes about 5s to load a game from a Playlist.
Weird thing though, if I manually load content it takes the same 5s BUT if I delete all the core info files from the core info folder then manually load content it loads instantly?

QuarkTheAwesome · Apr 23, 2020

ploggy said:
Now that I'm upto date I had a chance to test the playlist speed issue.
for me it takes about 5s to load a game from a Playlist.
Weird thing though, if I manually load content it takes the same 5s BUT if I delete all the core info files from the core info folder then manually load content it loads instantly?

I have a sneaking suspicion that when it has a playlist with the core listed, or core info files that give it the path of the core, it goes "oh, I need to switch to a new core to play this!" even if the currently loaded core is perfectly capable.
Switching cores is a somewhat slow affair, since it unloads the current core+RetroArch and tells HBL to load the new core+RetroArch from scratch. The new RA has to load up the menu assets again, which is the truly sluggish wiiu thing.

I wrote a little hack for whatever the current git master is that logs out when files are opened and closed with timestamps - check it out! there's two logs in there - the first one where all the messages are prefixed with [fs-cafe] is using the native Cafe OS filesystem drivers, like on a console with no CFW. [fs-lfat] uses iosuhax (included in Mocha, stripped-down version in CBHC) and libfat. Keep in mind when looking at the timestamps that the logging itself likely sucks up several milliseconds each line, since it's networking, and yeah. Cafe native is pushing a 20s boot!

ploggy · Apr 23, 2020

QuarkTheAwesome said:
I have a sneaking suspicion that when it has a playlist with the core listed, or core info files that give it the path of the core, it goes "oh, I need to switch to a new core to play this!" even if the currently loaded core is perfectly capable.
Switching cores is a somewhat slow affair, since it unloads the current core+RetroArch and tells HBL to load the new core+RetroArch from scratch. The new RA has to load up the menu assets again, which is the truly sluggish wiiu thing.

I wrote a little hack for whatever the current git master is that logs out when files are opened and closed with timestamps - check it out! there's two logs in there - the first one where all the messages are prefixed with [fs-cafe] is using the native Cafe OS filesystem drivers, like on a console with no CFW. [fs-lfat] uses iosuhax (included in Mocha, stripped-down version in CBHC) and libfat. Keep in mind when looking at the timestamps that the logging itself likely sucks up several milliseconds each line, since it's networking, and yeah. Cafe native is pushing a 20s boot!

Yeah, Having Assets installed killed the load speed too it seems, as soon as i installed them the load time went from instant back to 5s :/

ShadowOne333 · Apr 23, 2020

QuarkTheAwesome said:
I have a sneaking suspicion that when it has a playlist with the core listed, or core info files that give it the path of the core, it goes "oh, I need to switch to a new core to play this!" even if the currently loaded core is perfectly capable.
Switching cores is a somewhat slow affair, since it unloads the current core+RetroArch and tells HBL to load the new core+RetroArch from scratch. The new RA has to load up the menu assets again, which is the truly sluggish wiiu thing.

I wrote a little hack for whatever the current git master is that logs out when files are opened and closed with timestamps - check it out! there's two logs in there - the first one where all the messages are prefixed with [fs-cafe] is using the native Cafe OS filesystem drivers, like on a console with no CFW. [fs-lfat] uses iosuhax (included in Mocha, stripped-down version in CBHC) and libfat. Keep in mind when looking at the timestamps that the logging itself likely sucks up several milliseconds each line, since it's networking, and yeah. Cafe native is pushing a 20s boot!

I think users running RetroArch under IOSU have a certain memory advantage as well, be it with booting/loading or even running certain stuff.

I remember back some years ago when I was developing the EarthBound MSU-1 hack, that I struggled running the sound without crackling when running RetroArch through HBL injected into a DS game (which I think runs through MiiMaker).
But when I ran Mocha (or whatever the IOSU CFW was), I had no trouble at all running the MSU-1 tracks at full speed.

I didn't make any tests regarding boot speeds back then, but it would be a good test to make to know if IOSU could be a variable for it.

depaul · Apr 23, 2020

QuarkTheAwesome said:
I have a sneaking suspicion that when it has a playlist with the core listed, or core info files that give it the path of the core, it goes "oh, I need to switch to a new core to play this!" even if the currently loaded core is perfectly capable.
Switching cores is a somewhat slow affair, since it unloads the current core+RetroArch and tells HBL to load the new core+RetroArch from scratch. The new RA has to load up the menu assets again, which is the truly sluggish wiiu thing.

Thank you for investigating @QuarkTheAwesome. So this might be the issue

ChiefReginod · Apr 23, 2020

I just tried removing the info files as you guys mentioned and finally got "instant" load times via load content. It was quite shocking to see after being so used to super slow load times.Who knew the Wii U port was already so capable? Hopefully this is something that can be fixed without a ton of work.

depaul · Apr 23, 2020

ChiefReginod said:
I just tried removing the info files as you guys mentioned and finally got "instant" load times via load content. It was quite shocking to see after being so used to super slow load times.Who knew the Wii U port was already so capable? Hopefully this is something that can be fixed without a ton of work.

Hi @ChiefReginod this is really important. Could you please tell us what files exactly you removed? The "Assets" folder? Thank you!

ChiefReginod · Apr 23, 2020

depaul said:
Hi @ChiefReginod this is really important. Could you please tell us what files exactly you removed? The "Assets" folder? Thank you!

I have assets installed but I'm using rgui, so I'm not sure if it even matters. Deleting the info files was what made the difference. Everything else I left untouched. I had to manually load the cores before launching any ROMs, though.

EDIT: I just tried Load Content in xmb with the same "no info files" setup.

Test ROM was Super Mario World with Snes9x 2010.

xmb with assets: 10 seconds
xmb without assets : 1 second

Maxbeta · Apr 23, 2020

Would playlists still work after deleting these “info” files?

depaul · Apr 23, 2020

ChiefReginod said:
I have assets installed but I'm using rgui, so I'm not sure if it even matters. Deleting the info files was what made the difference. Everything else I left untouched. I had to manually load the cores before launching any ROMs, though.

EDIT: I just tried Load Content in xmb with the same "no info files" setup.

Test ROM was Super Mario World with Snes9x 2010.

xmb with assets: 10 seconds
xmb without assets : 1 second

You rock man

I'm going to test as soon as I get home.

ChiefReginod · Apr 23, 2020

Maxbeta said:
Would playlists still work after deleting these “info” files?

I couldn't get playlists to load games instantly no matter what I tried. As Quark mentioned, the problem is that RetroArch seems to be loading cores every single time you load a game, even if the same core is already loaded. So, if a core is listed in your playlist it will load it again from scratch and take more time. The problem is that if you remove the core entries from your playlists, without the info files RetroArch won't know which core to use for that file type. And if the info files are there, it will reload cores every time as well (for some reason).

Long story short, the quick workaround is to manually load cores and then load ROMs via the Load Content menu. Also delete the contents of the assets and info folders. I'm pretty sure that's it. The difference after just those steps is pretty dramatic.

driagonv · Apr 23, 2020

The time and date in retroarch are wrong (the date is correct but the time is 57 minutes behind atm but it fluctuates) how can I adjust it and make it correct? I don't just want to disable it from the UI, I want to adjust it, anyone have any idea on how to do so?

cugel · Apr 23, 2020

driagonv said:
The time and date in retroarch are wrong (the date is correct but the time is 57 minutes behind atm but it fluctuates) how can I adjust it and make it correct? I don't just want to disable it from the UI, I want to adjust it, anyone have any idea on how to do so?

Have you checked the time in your Wii U settings?

depaul · Apr 23, 2020

ChiefReginod said:
I couldn't get playlists to load games instantly no matter what I tried. As Quark mentioned, the problem is that RetroArch seems to be loading cores every single time you load a game, even if the same core is already loaded. So, if a core is listed in your playlist it will load it again from scratch and take more time. The problem is that if you remove the core entries from your playlists, without the info files RetroArch won't know which core to use for that file type. And if the info files are there, it will reload cores every time as well (for some reason).

Long story short, the quick workaround is to manually load cores and then load ROMs via the Load Content menu. Also delete the contents of the assets and info folders. I'm pretty sure that's it. The difference after just those steps is pretty dramatic.

Just WOW this completely resolves the slow loading problem. So I guess Retroarch was slow because of unnecessary read/write of multiple small files.

-(Backup and) Delete : 'info' directory inside 'cores' directory. You can also delete 'assets' and 'media' if you don't care about missing icons ;
-RA will launch noticeably faster. First load a core, then load the corresponding game.
-Uncompressed roms play almost instantly, compressed roms (Neogeo, CPS..) still take some seconds but much better than before.

Good news, @CORE

ChiefReginod · Apr 23, 2020

Yeah, it's amazing how much of a difference it makes. I've been having a lot of fun setting everything up on my system with the latest nightly and now I plan to use it as my main RetroArch port for my TV. I mean it's still just a workaround and hopefully at least the core reloading issue will be resolved, but I can live with it.

pedro702 · Apr 24, 2020

pedro702 said:
i need some help i download retroarch dosbox latest build and everything i try runs to a crawl for instance

rise of the tryad dosbox wii runs great while dosbox wiiu runs at like slidshow, i see the cycles options and whatnot are they not set automticaly? i tryed changing them but i see no effect even tough the fps counter keeps saying 60 fps the games run at 1 fps, any help on retroarch wiiu dosbox options?

any help?

Incure · Apr 25, 2020

depaul said:
Just WOW this completely resolves the slow loading problem. So I guess Retroarch was slow because of unnecessary read/write of multiple small files.

-(Backup and) Delete : 'info' directory inside 'cores' directory. You can also delete 'assets' and 'media' if you don't care about missing icons ;
-RA will launch noticeably faster. First load a core, then load the corresponding game.
-Uncompressed roms play almost instantly, compressed roms (Neogeo, CPS..) still take some seconds but much better than before.

Good news, @CORE

Great to hear why the loading times are that long. I also discovered that the SD corruption I experienced, happened in the /retroarch/cores/savefiles folder. Probally it tried to write something when exiting a game and Retroarch was reloading everything. So I moved this folder to the HDD for now.

depaul · Apr 25, 2020

pedro702 said:
any help?

There is certainly something abnormal about WiiU Retroarch. Hopefully a dev like QuarkTheAwesome could take a look. It's thanks to him (and to Ploggy and ChiefReginod) that the idea emerged to remove those unnecessary files and make Retroarch faster.

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