Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

[LibretroRetroArc]

LibretroRetroArc, how about support for Pier Solar rom?

That's in Genesis Plus GX already - I shouldn't have anything to do with it.

 

[papermanzero]

New Wii features off the top of my head are:

* Native resolutions (double-strike)
* Debug text
* Alternative SRAM/Savestate locations
* Lots of video backend changes, shouldn't notice these as an end-user
* Fixed that bug where the menu input combo was really finicky

I would like to add some requests to the list.

- alternative firmware locations (sega cd firmware, bios files etc.)
- alternative settings locations (to change the path to the settings file)
- changed menu flow (maybe like in mednafen-wii, after pressing the home button (during gameplay) the user shall enter the settings screen not the rom selection screen first; in the settings screen you can add a item like new rom or new game)
- controller recognition (automatic controller selection if the user is using gamecube controller, classic controller, nunchuck etc.)


I don't know if there is a list with future emus but these emus would be a great addition:
- Mednafen virtual boy
- Mednafen turbografx
- Mednafen GBA and GB (it's far better than the current retroarch GBA or VBA-Wii emulator (only look at Golden Sun Lost Age, it's working without any lag in mednafen))
- Mame (if this is possible)

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

- changed menu flow (maybe like in mednafen-wii, after pressing the home button (during gameplay) the user shall enter the settings screen not the rom selection screen first; in the settings screen you can add a item like new rom or new game)

If you just select the Settings screen, press the 'return to game' button combo and then press it again, it should go back to that settings screen. The way the menu works, there is really no 'home screen' - there is a menu stack and it just returns to whatever is on the current stack. There's no reason to change this.

- Mednafen virtual boy

Already in 0.9.8 (ie. the next release - unless you mean TG16 in particular - in which case the PCE Fast core should be able to handle it although it might not yet be 'hooked up').

- Mednafen turbografx

Already in 0.9.7 (ie. the current release)

- Mednafen GBA and GB (it's far better than the current retroarch GBA or VBA-Wii emulator (only look at Golden Sun Lost Age, it's working without any lag in mednafen))

Sorry, but that is BS - every game on GBA runs far worse on Mednafen Wii (worse than VBA Next by far), and I've confirmed that for myself. You might not notice the difference perhaps between 'fullspeed' and 'frame skipping', but I do. Set Mednafen Wii to 'frameskip 0', then see how good your games run again. Just for a quick comparison - Super Mario Advance 1 falls below 40/50fps - on VBA Next it's a constant 60fps.

And no, frameskipping is not entering into RetroArch ever. Frameskipping is unacceptable period and false advertisement - I'd rather the core is running really slow and we have to search for alternative solutions than resorting to some 'optical illusion' (an optical illusion which looks like crap anyway and which no sane person wants to use in his right mind - the fact you consider this 'lagless' makes me fear for most people's empirical knowledge of what constitutes 'lag' in the first place, and what is 'lag' and what is misattributed as 'lag'). Frameskipping adversely affects the timing we do by a deterministic refresh rate and that is RetroArch's main trump card - the fact that RetroArch's audio/video sync blows everything else out of the water. Just to give but one example - most Nestopia ports/versions since 1.43 out there have absolutely terrible audio desync issues for the reason that the authors doing the video/audio drivers have a screwed up logic on how to do timing 'right' - doing silly things like busysleeping inside audio sample loops, adding hoky timer-based frameskip code and all sorts of crap - piling on all sorts of fruity-loop 'hacks' on top of shaky foundation. We do it right from the onset by keeping things simple and by variably adjusting sampling rate frequency whenever we're in danger of 'underrunning' (this adjustment we've proven by the way can't be discernible by the human ear - maister has written a paper on it). This is the only way to do things right. And we aren't going to STOP doing it right just to appeal to some people who want to 'frameskip' and call that 'lagless'.

And if a core is running 'really, really slow' in the first place - it means that your Wii's CPU simply isn't fast enough. What helps there is that RetroArch is going to be ported to every platform under the sun so that you can simply use it on a more powerful system in the future instead.

- Mame (if this is possible)

Planned for 0.9.9 (release AFTER 0.9.8 - so the next-next release). It isn't ready yet because there's a lot of unaligned read accesses going on which will crash most of the popular games that people would like to play on MAME (like Mortal Kombat). This is only an issue on systems like Wii, PS3 and 360 which don't have unaligned read/write access unlike the x86 systems of the day - these old MAME codebases are like dusty old books filled with lots of cobwebs and so it takes a lot of maintenance to get things cleaned up.

 

[the_randomizer]

I can attest to that as well, Mednafen GBA/GBC is NOT faster than RetroArch Wii's port of VBA Next. Golden Sun actually runs perfectly, among several other games (Iridion 3D runs full speed).

 

[eadmaster]

any volunteer to compile my gambatte core fork with GBC palettes?

 

[papermanzero]

Well this is strange.
I tested Golden Sun Lost Age [EU] (not Golden Sun 1) some time ago (with vba wii, mednafen wii and retroarch wii) and I switched back to mednafen because this was the best one concerning speed and playability.

Concerning Menu Flow:
You are mentioning exactly the point. Why has retroarch-wii button combos although there is a home button. With the home button you can easily enter a "home menu" or a menu with all available settings. This is more user friendly than different combos the user has to enter. Especially you would raise the ergonomic model of the software.
The reason to change this would be a better way to access setting and selection screens.

 

[Toad King]

Well this is strange.
I tested Golden Sun Lost Age [EU] (not Golden Sun 1) some time ago (with vba wii, mednafen wii and retroarch wii) and I switched back to mednafen because this was the best one concerning speed and playability.

Concerning Menu Flow:
You are mentioning exactly the point. Why has retroarch-wii button combos although there is a home button. With the home button you can easily enter a "home menu" or a menu with all available settings. This is more user friendly than different combos the user has to enter. Especially you would raise the ergonomic model of the software.
The reason to change this would be a better way to access setting and selection screens.

That's just the way it works. It was a conscious choice of mine when I coded the menu code to make it return to the last screen for several reasons from both coding reasons and usability reasons. I personally believe returning to the ROM selection screen by default the best behavior since the majority of the time I'm opening the menu in the emulator it is to change games. Plus the settings screen is always one button away from there.

 

[the_randomizer]

That's just the way it works. It was a conscious choice of mine when I coded the menu code to make it return to the last screen for several reasons from both coding reasons and usability reasons. I personally believe returning to the ROM selection screen by default the best behavior since the majority of the time I'm opening the menu in the emulator it is to change games. Plus the settings screen is always one button away from there.

Have guys decided whether or not gPSP would be used for the GBA core?

 

[Toad King]

Have guys decided whether or not gPSP would be used for the GBA core?

Not for 0.9.8.

 

[the_randomizer]

Not for 0.9.8.

Ah, gotcha. Either way, I look forward to 0.98!

 

[MassiveRican]

@the_randomizer, u mentioned that NEStopia is your fave NES emu. Does it support IR to play old school games like duck hunt and save states for big-endian issues? If it does then its time to start making a WiiFlow plugin as soon as its available

 

[the_randomizer]

@the_randomizer, u mentioned that Nestorian is your fave NES emu. Does it support IR to play old school games like duck hunt and save states for big-endian issues. If it does then its time to start making a WiiFlow plugin as soon as its available

I don't know if it does, but it would make sense to emulate it via IR.

 

[MassiveRican]

I don't know if it does, but it would make sense to emulate it via IR.

The IR support is the only thing missing in my opinion that FCEU GX has over retroarch's wii FCEU-MM core, shit I can deal with no save states on NES as it was originally intended

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

@the_randomizer, u mentioned that NEStopia is your fave NES emu. Does it support IR to play old school games like duck hunt and save states for big-endian issues? If it does then its time to start making a WiiFlow plugin as soon as its available

There are no big-endian savestate issues with Nestopia so far that I've tested (which only happens with certain mappers on FCEUmm). Only thing that needs to be implemented still is SRAM.

Regarding IR lightgun support - it's something I want to do eventually on Wii.

I also wanted to add NX Engine (Cave Story) for this upcoming release on consoles but unfortunately it seems there are very big problems with that engine on consoles (and it doesn't seem to be endian-related as the same thing happens on little-endian consoles like Xbox 1). So I'll have to research what exactly is going wrong there. It works fine on PC so it must be down to something easily overlooked.

 

[the_randomizer]

There are no big-endian savestate issues with Nestopia so far that I've tested (which only happens with certain mappers on FCEUmm). Only thing that needs to be implemented still is SRAM.

Regarding IR lightgun support - it's something I want to do eventually on Wii.

I also wanted to add NX Engine (Cave Story) for this upcoming release on consoles but unfortunately it seems there are very big problems with that engine on consoles (and it doesn't seem to be endian-related as the same thing happens on little-endian consoles like Xbox 1). So I'll have to research what exactly is going wrong there. It works fine on PC so it must be down to something easily overlooked.

No mapper issues with save states? Halle-freakin-lujah!

This I like.

 

[trev1976]

Well 90+% of those 500 games work perfectly, that's the beauty of FBA.
All neo geo games under 22MB work flawlessly as do almost all CPS1, CPS2 (under 22MB).

If you want absolutely 100% ONLY, you can exclude:
- Some Sega16 games like Shinobi, Toki, Altered Beast, Outrun have slowdown or glitches in places.
-lightgun games (operation wolf, operation thunder and zombieraid) run perfect but the IR cursor doesn't work for 0.97.
- Some games mess the screen orientation vertically or sideways for the menu too, but that is EASILY solved by tinkering with the settings or restarting the emu (or tilting your head to the side, that's what i do )
- Carrier Airwing has a bug with some enemy sprites but is skippable
- Wrestling war has slowdown
those are off the top of my head.

Given the chance, i would like to also give a list of games that do NOT work for 0.9.7. I have a special separate folder for them, ready to be tested thoroughly when 0.9.8. hits

(btw, ignore xsleena in there, that one is not for fba)


Those are big roms (>23MB), for if and whenever large rom support is added:

Brill , Thanks

 

[Hielkenator]

Brill , Thanks

Wow, but there are A LOT MORE GAMES that have trouble.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Wow, but there are A LOT MORE GAMES that have trouble.

And they all fall within one of three camps:

1 - Endianness issues - Lantus has done a great job so far flushing out a lot of bugs that only happen on big-endian, but of course there might be more lurking around. This takes alot of time and effort to flush them out. If you're dissatisfied with the progress on this front, all I can say is - get yourself self-taught on programming and go and help out.

2 - Performance - Your Wii CPU simply is not fast enough to run this particular game. Remember - this is a 729Mhz G3-based CPU core - single-core - single-threaded - only 256K L2 cache. There's only so much it can do. Oddly enough, on FBA most of the older games like Power Drift (late '80s game) require way higher system requirements than something far newer like CPS3 games (late '90s).

3 - Doesn't fit into main RAM - After 0.9.8 is released I'll look into putting in virtual memory paging for Wii and Xbox 1. It'll likely only run tolerable with Neo Geo ROMs - I dunno really - would have to test.

 

[Hielkenator]

And they all fall within one of three camps:

1 - Endianness issues - Lantus has done a great job so far flushing out a lot of bugs that only happen on big-endian, but of course there might be more lurking around. This takes alot of time and effort to flush them out. If you're dissatisfied with the progress on this front, all I can say is - get yourself self-taught on programming and go and help out.

2 - Performance - Your Wii CPU simply is not fast enough to run this particular game. Remember - this is a 729Mhz G3-based CPU core - single-core - single-threaded - only 256K L2 cache. There's only so much it can do. Oddly enough, on FBA most of the older games like Power Drift (late '80s game) require way higher system requirements than something far newer like CPS3 games (late '90s).

3 - Doesn't fit into main RAM - After 0.9.8 is released I'll look into putting in virtual memory paging for Wii and Xbox 1. It'll likely only run tolerable with Neo Geo ROMs - I dunno really - would have to test.

I did not mean to offend you in any way.
Love the way you guy's work. Respect.

 

[seam]

3 - Doesn't fit into main RAM - After 0.9.8 is released I'll look into putting in virtual memory paging for Wii and Xbox 1. It'll likely only run tolerable with Neo Geo ROMs - I dunno really - would have to test.

First of all, thanks again for all of your hard work and even bothering adding support for the wii. It's nice to have a reason to keep using my wii seeing as how the scene is pretty much dead(retroarch is the only reason I still come to these forums). And I'm sure this has been said before, but I for one would love to have neo-geo(as well as CPS3 even with some slowdown), using virtual memory paging(is that how neogeo was pulled off for the psp?). I realize you're striving for perfection, or as close to it as speed and accuracy is concerned... perhaps it could be an addition to retroarch for the weaker systems only.

thanks again.