Hello again Evercade+EverSD users!

EverPatcher for handheld FW 2.x has arrived as a wonderful Holiday present for us all, so I thought I'd throw my offerings into the mix and add some additional Holiday cheer!

You will find attached to the post a shiny new set of scripts (Windows only, virtual machines are fine) to help you setup ROM files and Boxart on your Evercade handheld running FW 2.x after using EverPatcher 4.x or higher and adding the needed files to your SD card from EverSD.com. There are scripts here to cover most scenarios (updates in the future will add more) for launching games directly from the Stock UI into both Retroarch and Stock Emulators.

As always, please comment with any questions or ideas on new features as well as additional libretro cores you want to see support for.

NOTE: You are fully capable of downgrading to any previous firmware on your Evercade Handheld if you should want to do so for any reason - so why not give it a try?


How To Use:

Initial Setup

• Make sure you have completed the steps needed to unlock you Evercade on FW 2.0.1 (clean flash 2.0.1, then patch with newest EverPatcher - currently 4.1
• Go to EverSD.com downloads page and grab your choice (or both) stock emulators for 2.0.1 or Retroarch for 2.0.1 and extract one or both of them to your freshly formatted SD card (FAT32 or exFAT formats work)
• Download my script pack attached to this post and extract it to the root of your SD card

General Use (Stock Emulators)
NOTES: (1) Your ROM names should not contain any special characters and must be no longer than 16 characters, excluding the file extension. (2) If you plan to use boxart for your ROMs, make sure it is png format and named identical to the ROM file it is for (just like any scraper tool would do for you).

• Put your SD card in your PC and open up the 'game' folder located on its root
• Copy over your uncompressed ROM files to 'game' (excluding MAME ROMs, they are handled differently), making sure to only use ROMs for game systems Evercade natively supports
• Open a second, additional window and navigate to your SD card 'tools' folder so you see the scripts contained within
• Select all your rom files in 'game' and drag them to the script in the 'tools' window titled 'Create_Stock_Console_Files'
• In your 'game' window you will see an additional '.json' file created for each of your roms. This file contains info on how to launch your rom as well as game metadata. For now you are on your own to either leave the metadata blank or fill it in yourself in a text editor if you wish
• If you have MAME roms, copy those in their original zipped format into a the 'mame' folder, which must be on the root of the SD card. Drag all of your MAME roms from the 'mame' folder to the script titled 'Create_Stock_MAME_Files'. This will create both a '.json' file like for the regular roms and an aditional blank file needed.

To process the boxart (if any), drag the png files from wherever they are on your PC to the script in the 'tools' folder titled 'Create_Boxart_Scaled' (recommended to maintain box aspect ratio) or 'Create_Boxart_Stretched' (only if you're OK with distorted boxes to fill all available space in the GUI).
The script will create copies of your boxart in the SD card 'game' folder in the required formats.

General Use (Retroarch)
NOTES: (1) Your ROM names may contain special characters. These special characters (and all spaces) will be filtered out by my script for the pointer files created in the 'game' folder. The pointer files names cannot be more than 16 characters long (not counting extension) for Evercade to read them. (2) If you plan to use boxart for your ROMs, make sure it is png format and named identical to the ROM file it is for (just like any scraper tool would do for you).

• Put your SD card in your PC and open up the 'roms' folder located on its root
• Copy over your uncompressed ROM files to 'roms' (this includes MAME ROMs and CD images as well)
• Open a second, additional window and navigate to your SD card 'tools' folder so you see the scripts contained within
• Select all your NON-CD rom files in 'roms' and drag them to the script in the 'tools' window titled 'Create_RA_Files_For_ROMs'
• In your 'game' window you will see a '.json' file and an additional blank file created for each of your roms. The '.json' file contains info on how to launch your rom as well as game metadata. For now you are on your own to either leave the metadata blank or fill it in yourself in a text editor if you wish
• If you have CD game roms (Sega CD, Playstation, or PCE-CD) select only the one file for each game needed to launch it - and only games from a single console all at once, and drage then to the script in the 'tools' window titled 'Create_RA_Files_For_CDs'. The script will prompt you to answer if the file(s) you dropped on it were for Sega CD (Mega CD), Playstation, or PCE-CD (TG16-CD). Respond and your files will be processed

To process the boxart (if any), drag the png files from wherever they are on your PC to the script in the 'tools' folder titled 'Create_Boxart_Scaled' (recommended to maintain box aspect ratio) or 'Create_Boxart_Stretched' (only if you're OK with distorted boxes to fill all available space in the GUI).
The script will create copies of your boxart in the SD card 'game' folder in the required formats.


CHANGELOG

• Evercade FW 2.x Scripts (v1.5b) - EvercadeVS Retroarch initial support! (see notes below) New art script "Create_Banner" for VS banner art. Also made changes to stock emulator roms script to increase compatibility with the system and resolve random line feed errors that resulted from creating unix style files on windows PCs.
• Evercade FW 2.x Scripts (v1.4b) - Initial release.

NOTES for Retroarch on EvercadeVS: EvercadeVS support is experimental - especially since there has not been an EverPatcher release that supports it yet. Because of this, a SD card built with my scripts for EvercadeVS will likely NOT work in the Evercade Handheld (and even if it does, it's not ideal). I'm using some janky tricks to copy the retroarch binary to the VS temporarily and run it. Also, the new download includes the RA binary which MUST be on the root of the SD card and named 'retroarch2'. If you decompress my v1.5b tools to the root of you SD this will be done for you. You must also still add the 'retroarch' folder to your SD card like you would for an Evercade handheld RA setup. Lastly, my new download comes with two retroarch config files the will appear on the root of your SD card - one for handheld (as a backup - it's the same as the one in the EverSD RA download) and one for VS. If building a card with my scripts for the VS, you MUST copy the 'retroarch_vs.cfg' to the /sdcard/retroarch/config folder and rename it to 'retroarch.cfg' or you will not have the proper settings or input controls for RA on the VS. Please post any bugs or issues and I'll help and update the scripts as best I can. Hopefully EverSD will come out with a proper, jank-free setup for the VS soon.

 

[esmith13]

Retroarch Hotkey Configuration:

Retroarch Menu:	Menu + Start
Close Content:	Menu + Select
Save State:	Menu + R
Load State:	Menu + L
Increase State Slot #:	Menu + Up
Decrease State Slot#:	Menu + Down
Eject CD (.m3u playlists):	Menu + Y
Next Disc (.m3u):	Menu + B
Previous Desc (.m3u):	Menu + X

Supported Cores & Extensions:

ARCADE GAMES
core: mame2003_plus_libretro (can optionally be replaced with fbneo_libretro in script)
extensions: zip
bios: neogeo.zip (only needed for neogeo games)

NINTENDO NES/FAMICOM/FAMICOM DISK SYSTEM
core: fceumm_libretro
extensions: fds fc nes
bios: disksys.rom (only needed for fds games)

SUPER NINTENDO/SUPER FAMICOM
core: snes9x_libretro
extensions: sfc smc

GAME BOY/GAME BOY COLOR/GAME BOY ADVANCE
core: mgba_libretro
extensions: gb gbc gba
bios: gba_bios.bin (only needed for gba games)

Nintendo 64
core: glupen64_libretro
extensions: n64 z64 d64

SEGA 32X
core: picodrive_libretro
extensions: 32x

SEGA MEGA DRIVE/MEGA CD/MASTER SYSTEM/GAME GEAR/SG-1000
core: genesis_plus_gx_libretro
extensions: md smd gen bin cue iso sms gg sg chd m3u
bios: bios_CD_E.bin, bios_CD_U.bin, bios_CD_J.bin (only needed for CD games)

NEC PC ENGINE/PC ENGINE CD & TURBOGRAFX-16/TURBOGRAFX-16 CD
core: mednafen_pce_fast_libretro
extensions: pce cue ccd iso img chd
bios: syscard3.pce (only needed for CD games)

SONY PLAYSTATION
core: pcsx_rearmed_libretro
extensions: cue iso img pbp ccd sub chd m3u
bios: scph5500.bin, scph5501.bin, scph5502.bin

BANDAI WONDERSWAN/WONDERSWAN COLOR
core: mednafen_wswan_libretro
extensions: ws wsc

NEOGEO POCKET/NEOGEO POCKET COLOR
core: mednafen_ngp_libretro
extensions: ngp ngc ngpc

ATARI 2600
core: stella2014_libretro
extensions: a26

ATARI 7800
core: prosystem_libretro
extensions: a78

ATARI LYNX
core: handy_libretro
extensions: lnx

PRBOOM/DOOM
core: prboom_libretro
extensions: wad
bios: prboom.wad

TyrQuake
core: tyrquake_libretro
extensions: pak

TIC-80
core: tic80_libretro
extensions: tic

Pokemini
core: pokemini_libretro
extensions: min

MSX
core:fmsx_libretro
extensions: rom dsk

ScummVM
core: scummvm_libretro
extensions: scummvm

 

[esmith13]

Initial instructions added to 1st post. 2nd post will contain additional info as it's collected.

Sorry for the rushed/sloppy initial instructions but I wanted to get enough out here immediately for people to fully enjoy their EverSD on FW2.x while enjoying Holiday break.

PLEASE ask any questions and/or point out any errors you come across so I can refine and add to the instructions as we go.

 

[Excalibur007]

First, thank you for your work.
At first the batch files were not working for me, so I thought I'd re-iterate for anyone else who might have this problem, that you need to extract the contents of the archive to the root of your SD card to run, as stated in the instructions. I was trying to run it from a folder on my hard drive before moving them to my SD Card and that didn't work.

A couple of side notes:
1) I've been trying to get this working on a commercial cart that I had previously customized with additional games. I had added a bunch of my favorite 2600 and 7800 games to my Atari volume 2 cart. It worked great on the previous firmwares, but of course 2.x broke it with the way it handles these "legacy" carts. I could go back to the 1.2 firmware, which had the best performance by far for the Atari 2600 games that use an ARM chip, but I'd like to future-proof this cart. After creating all the json files, I've gotten it to load in 2.0.1 twice, but most of the time, when inserting the cart, there are no games displayed and when I press a button, it says no cartridge inserted. I don't know what causes it to work once in a while, but not work on most tries.

2) I'd love to patch my firmware with the 4.0 patcher, but I just don't want it saying "EverSD" on the boot screen. I was able to disable that part of the patch on the previous one for 1.3.1, but don't know how to keep it from patching in the EverSD boot logo in the 4.0 patcher.

 

[dozzy]

Atari 2600 games (with .a26 extension) don't seem to be supported correctly when running with Stock Emulators, as it starts the Intellivision core (FreeIntv). The stella2014_libretro core in RetroArch is outdated and doesn't support Atari 2600 roms that use ARM chip. Please use the 1.2/1.3 Stock Emulator called "2.so", which is actually Stella 6.1 (from 2020).

 

[esmith13]

First, thank you for your work.
At first the batch files were not working for me, so I thought I'd re-iterate for anyone else who might have this problem, that you need to extract the contents of the archive to the root of your SD card to run, as stated in the instructions. I was trying to run it from a folder on my hard drive before moving them to my SD Card and that didn't work.

A couple of side notes:
1) I've been trying to get this working on a commercial cart that I had previously customized with additional games. I had added a bunch of my favorite 2600 and 7800 games to my Atari volume 2 cart. It worked great on the previous firmwares, but of course 2.x broke it with the way it handles these "legacy" carts. I could go back to the 1.2 firmware, which had the best performance by far for the Atari 2600 games that use an ARM chip, but I'd like to future-proof this cart. After creating all the json files, I've gotten it to load in 2.0.1 twice, but most of the time, when inserting the cart, there are no games displayed and when I press a button, it says no cartridge inserted. I don't know what causes it to work once in a while, but not work on most tries.

2) I'd love to patch my firmware with the 4.0 patcher, but I just don't want it saying "EverSD" on the boot screen. I was able to disable that part of the patch on the previous one for 1.3.1, but don't know how to keep it from patching in the EverSD boot logo in the 4.0 patcher.

I have no experience trying to mod EverPatcher, so I'm not going to be of much help to you there.
The commercial cart issue should be an east fix.
Evercade 2.0 FW handles the oldest carts by detecting the rom filenames on the cart and overlaying it's own json files and code to launch them. The trigger that makes it do this is a lack of a 'cartridge.json' file on the root of the cart. If you create one of these files and it's contents correctly on your atari cart, it won't bother trying to treat it as a legacy cart on a system running 2.x FW but will still act as expected on a 1.x system. Either copy a the file from one of the carts released in the last few months (roughly cart #16 and up have them, maybe even older) or grab the one in the EverSD download. Put it on your cart and modify its 3 values to you liking (cartID, cart name & cart number).

P.S.: The Worms Collection cart is currently the largest retail cart. It has an unformatted capacity of 512MB. May be worth grabbing one to wipe and use as a custom rom cart.

Thanks for trying the scripts and please continue to give feedback and suggestions to help improve them for everyone's benefit.

 

[esmith13]

Atari 2600 games (with .a26 extension) don't seem to be supported correctly when running with Stock Emulators, as it starts the Intellivision core (FreeIntv). The stella2014_libretro core in RetroArch is outdated and doesn't support Atari 2600 roms that use ARM chip. Please use the 1.2/1.3 Stock Emulator called "2.so", which is actually Stella 6.1 (from 2020).

I will try to source an updated core that can be included here legally with my stuff. If I can't I will provide recommendations in my instructions to copy the 2.so from the older EverSD files and how to use it with Retroarch.

Thanks for the heads up.

I really wish I could find instructions for how to build cores from source. There a a few I would want to update, actually.

 

[Valenhir]

2) I'd love to patch my firmware with the 4.0 patcher, but I just don't want it saying "EverSD" on the boot screen. I was able to disable that part of the patch on the previous one for 1.3.1, but don't know how to keep it from patching in the EverSD boot logo in the 4.0 patcher.

That's exactly why I haven't patched mine yet. I hate having the eversd logo when using retail cartridges.

 

[JunkoJakuzure]

So I can assume we can play Neo Geo Pocket Color games on the stock UI right? Making sure I can do this so when my cart comes in I can try it myself.

 

[esmith13]

So I can assume we can play Neo Geo Pocket Color games on the stock UI right? Making sure I can do this so when my cart comes in I can try it myself.

yep!
Everything here is done via the stock UI with Retroarch as the backend.
Post #2 lists all currently supported cores and extensions.

I take requests for additions as well.

 

[JunkoJakuzure]

yep!
Everything here is done via the stock UI with Retroarch as the backend.
Post #2 lists all currently supported cores and extensions.

I take requests for additions as well.

Sweet. Also I have a question is there a list of systems the stock evercade emulator itself can run? I'm not sure if the stock emulator even works with NGPC but I can't assume rly.

 

[esmith13]

NGP/NGPC are not supported via stock emulators.
The stock emulation setup is essentially retroarch cores and a customized standalone Blastem (MD/Gen) emulator.
As of FW 2.0.1, the official stock emulators cover NES, SNES, SMS, MegaDrive, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Intellivision, GB, GBA, Lynx, PS1 & Arcade (MAME).
That said, without custom loader files like you'll find here, support for some official systems on stock emulators requires extra work. For example, MAME roms, PS1 cd images and GB games don't have their rom extensions detected properly in the Evercade UI so there are "cheats" performed to fake extensions to other supported ones and then have the system either look elsewhere for the real rom or change the extension in the launch code on the fly. This kind of file type cheating is what gave me the idea to write my scripts for both 2.x and 1.x firmware/UI versions.

The only reason what you'll find here with my offerings works so well is because I'm doing what Blaze themselves are doing - I'm just using the technique with EVERY rom and sending them to either a newer version of Retroarch or the stock version, depending on your preference.

P.S.: if you do plan on using stock emulators, just keep in the back of your mind that if you want atari Linx roms on your cart, you either have to use the newer Retroarch for them or if you REALLY want to stick with stock emulators you have to ONLY put lynx on an SD card by itself. The stock lynx emulator puts evercade in some goofy mode that only works with that one core, so if you add multiple stock emulators and games on an sd card and lynx is one of them, only the lynx games will work. The system detects the presence of the stock lynx core to set the whole system into that special mode and it won't exit it as look as that core is present on the cart.

 

[JunkoJakuzure]

NGP/NGPC are not supported via stock emulators.
The stock emulation setup is essentially retroarch cores and a customized standalone Blastem (MD/Gen) emulator.
As of FW 2.0.1, the official stock emulators cover NES, SNES, SMS, MegaDrive, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Intellivision, GB, GBA, Lynx, PS1 & Arcade (MAME).
That said, without custom loader files like you'll find here, support for some official systems on stock emulators requires extra work. For example, MAME roms, PS1 cd images and GB games don't have their rom extensions detected properly in the Evercade UI so there are "cheats" performed to fake extensions to other supported ones and then have the system either look elsewhere for the real rom or change the extension in the launch code on the fly. This kind of file type cheating is what gave me the idea to write my scripts for both 2.x and 1.x firmware/UI versions.

The only reason what you'll find here with my offerings works so well is because I'm doing what Blaze themselves are doing - I'm just using the technique with EVERY rom and sending them to either a newer version of Retroarch or the stock version, depending on your preference.

P.S.: if you do plan on using stock emulators, just keep in the back of your mind that if you want atari Linx roms on your cart, you either have to use the newer Retroarch for them or if you REALLY want to stick with stock emulators you have to ONLY put lynx on an SD card by itself. The stock lynx emulator puts evercade in some goofy mode that only works with that one core, so if you add multiple stock emulators and games on an sd card and lynx is one of them, only the lynx games will work. The system detects the presence of the stock lynx core to set the whole system into that special mode and it won't exit it as look as that core is present on the cart.

Good thing the stock emulator uses mame just not sure if the stock emulator uses the latest mame since well see I want to play Namco Classic Collection Volume 2 on it so I figured why not see if it even works. I still don't have my EverSD cart yet but I want to be able to see if Namco Classic Collection Volume 2 works on the stock emulator right since if I run it on MAME2003 there is no sound so I have to find out if NCC Volume 2 works on the stock emulator with the sound/audio intact.

 

[esmith13]

Good thing the stock emulator uses mame just not sure if the stock emulator uses the latest mame since well see I want to play Namco Classic Collection Volume 2 on it so I figured why not see if it even works. I still don't have my EverSD cart yet but I want to be able to see if Namco Classic Collection Volume 2 works on the stock emulator right since if I run it on MAME2003 there is no sound so I have to find out if NCC Volume 2 works on the stock emulator with the sound/audio intact.

Stock mame emulator is mame2016 which uses the 0.174 romset.

 

[JunkoJakuzure]

Stock mame emulator is mame2016 which uses the 0.174 romset.

Then I think this shouldn't be a problem then again I don't know if its even going to slow down when I run Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 on it since im nervous it will slow down.

 

[esmith13]

Picking up a support issue meant for this thread that was posted in the old 1.x FW thread (link to support request HERE)

First post was:
Hello, I have a question. I tried to play games like Pokemon with the EverSD, but the problem is when I quit the game it will not remember my in-game save, I could only save trough save-states which is kind of annoying.. does anyone has an idea why this happens? A solution would be appreciated.

My reply:
Are you using my scripts from this thread? Stock emulators or Retroarch? Still on FW 1.x or updated to FW 2.x? What "system" is it? (GB/GBC/GBA) Name one or more EXACT roms you have the issue with. I'll do my best to help you out.

Ninodude01's reply back:
I'm using the script from this thread gbatemp.net/threads/eversd-rom-artwork-scripts-for-fw-2-x-stock-ui.605202/ With the stock emulators because that one seems to work on the VS. as well, I was able to play DKC2 all night until now on the VS. (for the record, I use a 128GB micro sd card. I could play all roms except RetroArch on the VS. FW 2.1 I tried GBC but the SNES games have the same problem, nothing is being saved with every ROM that i tried. Hope you've got enough info.

All further info in posts below...

 

[esmith13]

Ninodude01 - Does any of the stock systems save correctly? Does a Retroarch game when played on the handheld save correctly?

What format is your SD card? FAT32 I assume?

 

[Ninodude01]

Nothing saves correctly, when I close a game and reopen it again the saves are gone. Every system that I tried had this problem. Yea, I'm using FAT32 format.

 

[esmith13]

Nothing saves correctly, when I close a game and reopen it again the saves are gone. Every system that I tried had this problem. Yea, I'm using FAT32 format.

put the sd card in your pc and open the drive. select all (total contents of your card) and right-click and get properties. Make sure Read Only isn't marked. the check box for it should be empty. If it's not clear it and hit apply. if asked, tell it to apply to all files and folders.

Sounds like you can't write to your sd card...

 

[Ninodude01]

That doesn't seem to work either, I tried using another sd card, but no succes. I tried a fresh installation but still the same problem.

I could save with save-states, but the in-game saves are not working at all. Should I make a save directory?