Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

[LibretroRetroArc]

Thanks for the update. The auto restart on switching cores is something I had been looking for and it works like a dream! Nice to see the native res for Neo Geo supported also. Great work!

Edit: switching to the full FBA core still prompts you to restart the application instead of auto restarting like on other cores.

Which core does this happen with? Because it should have recompiled all of the cores with this new build script - if it didn't - something went wrong during final building.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Yup, and there's much more broken...

There isn't 'much more broken' - at least be specific.

I think the problem here with you guys is that I named the cores differently (a few of them - didn't mean to do this but it happened anyway - it's due to our new build system and me not naming how the cores should have been named exactly for it to match with the auto-renaming inside the emu). So some of the old cores still remained.

Go into your retroarch-wii folder and DELETE all the DOL files - THEN install the new one. That should take care of it. If it doesn't show '0.9.8.1' bottom-right then you're dealing with one of these old cores.

 

[MassiveRican]

Yup, and there's much more broken...

Such as??..

 

[Charco]

There isn't 'much more broken' - at least be specific.

I think the problem here with you guys is that I named the cores differently (a few of them - didn't mean to do this but it happened anyway - it's due to our new build system and me not naming how the cores should have been named exactly for it to match with the auto-renaming inside the emu). So some of the old cores still remained.

Go into your retroarch-wii folder and DELETE all the DOL files - THEN install the new one. That should take care of it. If it doesn't show '0.9.8.1' bottom-right then you're dealing with one of these old cores.

Yep, this was the issue, thanks.

Dai Makaimura (SuperGrafx) has garbled graphics on the Mednafen PCE Fast core, tested the same rom on Wii Mednafen and works fine. All other SuperGrafx games work fine.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Maybe these questions are already answered but can't find the answers, so I ask...
* How can I change Neo Geo Pocket region? Games run always in japanese mode.

You can't change region right now. I'll add core-specific options in later versions.

* Virtual Boy runs very slow compared to WiiMednafen (which is playable). I thought it was based on the same core as Mednafen. Am I doing something wrong?

No, it's based on the latest version of Mednafen. It might be slower because Wii Mednafen had a lot of speed hacks done to it or Mednafen's VB core just got slower due to an emphasis on more accuracy in the core.

I'll look into getting speed up a bit, but NOT NOW. I have more than enough stuff to attend to right now.

* Are Super Game Boy borders supported? I can't find an option for them.

No. Only thing they were ever supported on was VBA-M, and I long since removed all non-GBA code in VBA Next.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Yep, this was the issue, thanks.

Dai Makaimura (SuperGrafx) has garbled graphics on the Mednafen PCE Fast core, tested the same rom on Wii Mednafen and works fine. All other SuperGrafx games work fine.

Confirmed - I'll look into that game.

EDIT: OK, goddamnit - garbled graphics issue still occurs on Mednafen PCE Fast for Wii for all games that were fixed elsewhere - the fix worked for PS3, it worked for PC, but not on here. Anyway - fuck it - I'll have to figure out later what is causing this - don't have time right now.

 

[Charco]

No rush, just wanted to have it reported to you.

In other news, Hyper Street Fighter II now works

 

[FullMetalEngineer]

Great work on the new release! Glad I can play some D&D with all the buttons working on my arcade stick
thanks a lot for all your hard work!

 

[Charco]

Great work on the new release! Glad I can play some D&D with all the buttons working on my arcade stick
thanks a lot for all your hard work!

Nice, which arcade sticks are supported by RetroArch? I just might have to pick one up!

 

[4K_future]

BTW, for this next upcoming release, I'll release a Gamecube version as well.

NOTE: YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN WITH THE GAMECUBE PORT. IF A CORE DOES NOT RUN A GAME, CHALK IT UP TO 'DOESN'T FIT INTO GAMECUBE'S PALTRY AMOUNT OF RAM'. I MIGHT BE TEMPTED TO DO CUBE-SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS LATER ON, BUT FOR NOW IT'S JUST A PLAIN PORT OF ITS BIGGER BROTHER, RETROARCH WII (EXACT SAME CODE).

I'm putting this in all-caps so it's irritating enough for people to notice it and that they get a piece of my mind as to where I stand with this port.

Thanks for keeping GameCube ticking over.

There still is active community over @GC forever.

Is the 0.9.8.1 release wii only and the GameCube .dol will be the next major revision?

 

[eadmaster]

I'm glad to see you've enabled rewind in the latest build with the granularity option.

Btw, the default ingame shortcuts are a bit too complicated for me, is there some way to change them?
I think these would be better:
Load State -> RStick Right
Save State -> RStick Right + Z
Menu -> RStick Left

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Thanks for keeping GameCube ticking over.

There still is active community over @GC forever.

Is the 0.9.8.1 release wii only and the GameCube .dol will be the next major revision?

Gamecube one will be released later today. Give me some time.

 

[solidhit]

@libretroretroarc, @toad king

The whole concept of the retroarch project is fantastic and your work during the previous months has been great...

Who would have expected that I would be able to sit in front of my 17" pal crt tv where I have my wii hooked up (RGB scart cable) and enjoy some of the best games in gaming history running so good!

That said, I would like to share my experience with retroarch as an end user on this thread.

Like I said, retroarch (0.9.8.1) is great but here are a few things I noticed so far.

One thing that is a bit frustrating is that the video mode retroarch comes up with every time I run it, is 640x576i. That doesn't work well, the top, left and right margins are Ok but near the bottom of the screen, the text is cropped by a black horizontal stripe followed by a white horizontal stripe each about an inch thick. Every time, I have to set it manually to 640x480i which works as expected.

Another thing with the user interface is that if I choose to mute audio that makes games run very fast thus being unplayable.

I use a classic controller pro as my controller. I have noticed that if I start any game (any core) prior to connecting my ccp to my wiimote, the controller is not recognized. I have to press the home button followed by the minus, go to Controller #1 config and then choose another device then Classic Controller again and return to the game where the controller becomes operational.

If I use the Debug text to display FPS during gameplay, it is also displayed in the program's menu hiding useful text.

My games are mainly for the FBA core. Here are some problems I've noticed.

The following games are missing the directional control: 1942, scramble, solomon's key, moon cresta.

These games are missing the start button: arkanoid, gunsmoke.

Some games show a black screen when they start but the emulator works (home button ok): rtype, rtype2, rtype leo, in the hunt. On the other hand, ikari warriors 3 freezes the wii every time I try to run it (black screen).

Other games have various glitches and I don't know if they are related to fba or retroarch: prehistoric isle->bad colors, enduro racer->missing graphics, puzzle bobble->bad graphics, power drift-gunfront->bad graphics and framerate, continental circus-chasehq-outrun-ourun dx->bad framerate

Problems never stop ... but overall, kudos to you guys!

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

@libretroretroarc, @toad king

One thing that is a bit frustrating is that the video mode retroarch comes up with every time I run it, is 640x576i. That doesn't work well, the top, left and right margins are Ok but near the bottom of the screen, the text is cropped by a black horizontal stripe followed by a white horizontal stripe each about an inch thick. Every time, I have to set it manually to 640x480i which works as expected.

We do this by design - I'm still unsure if setting those resolutions at startup can mess something up, so I prefer to err on the side of caution. I might have to ask Eke-Eke or somebody else who is inclined to know whether it is safe to set this at startup.

Another thing with the user interface is that if I choose to mute audio that makes games run very fast thus being unplayable.

As soon as it's not blocking on audio, it will run at speeds faster than 60/50fps, yeah. We might have to come up with a different way to provide muted audio seeing as how we block right now on audio.

I use a classic controller pro as my controller. I have noticed that if I start any game (any core) prior to connecting my ccp to my wiimote, the controller is not recognized. I have to press the home button followed by the minus, go to Controller #1 config and then choose another device then Classic Controller again and return to the game where the controller becomes operational.

This is normal - this is due to every core 'forcing' a unique input configuration. I think we might want a toggle for this so that people who want one shared input config for all cores can do that as well.

If I use the Debug text to display FPS during gameplay, it is also displayed in the program's menu hiding useful text.

That's why it's called 'Debug text' - it's there so that I have some region of the screen where it reports useful stuff to me - with no regard paid to if it interferes with the rest of the menu. Regular users shouldn't even be using it anyway.

.
The following games are missing the directional control: 1942, scramble, solomon's key, moon cresta

These games are missing the start button: arkanoid, gunsmoke.

I can look at hooking that up.

Some games show a black screen when they start but the emulator works (home button ok): rtype, rtype2, rtype leo, in the hunt. On the other hand, ikari warriors 3 freezes the wii every time I try to run it (black screen).

Have you verified that the same ROMs work on FBA 0.2.97.28 on PC? I would try that first before reporting anything to me. I have gotten R-Type to run at least before

R-Type Leo with FBA will never run at an acceptable framerate on Wii - forget about it - it doesn't even run fullspeed on the PS3, so the Wii has no chance in hell.

Other games have various glitches and I don't know if they are related to fba or retroarch: prehistoric isle->bad colors, enduro racer->missing graphics, puzzle bobble->bad graphics, power drift-gunfront->bad graphics and framerate, continental circus-chasehq-outrun-ourun dx->bad framerate

I dunno about Enduro Racer.

Power Drift and other Sega X-Board/Y-Board games are never going to run at fullspeed on Wii - they are not running fullspeed on the PS3 either, so forget about it in its current state.

The same goes for Chase HQ - even the PS3 cannot manage 60fps there.

The ironic thing about FBA is that it's the late '80s games that have far higher system requirements than the mid-to-late '90s games like CPS2/Neogeo/CPS3 et al.

 

[AngryGeek416]

Great work on the new release! Glad I can play some D&D with all the buttons working on my arcade stick
thanks a lot for all your hard work!

which arcade stick do you use???

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Regarding Power Drift looking bad - this looks to be the same issue that manifests itself in R-Type and other games on PC Engine.

I believe there is some bug in our GX video blitting code that is responsible for this when it has to render certain resolutions. I say this because I can try the exact same game (Power Drift on FBA, R-Type/Dai Makaimura on PC Engine Fast) on 360 (also big-endian PPC) and the game outputs just fine - same for PS3 - so the problem is definitely on the GX video driver's end.

Over to you, ToadKing.

 

[nintygaming]

Some lingering issues.....

1. Nestopia - Sounds better, but still has a tinny/slightly scratchy sound. FCEUmm sounds like the real thing.

2. As for the PC Engine, yes I concur that the graphics issues are still present. Non-uniform pixels = vertical tearing scrolling. HOWEVER, as stated earlier, Wii Mednafen does 239p without issues.

I hate to be a bad guy, but I'm just wanting to help iron out any issues. I'm still testing things.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

Some lingering issues.....

1. Nestopia - Sounds better, but still has a tinny/slightly scratchy sound. FCEUmm sounds like the real thing.

Well, that's why we have multiple cores then - you can choose whichever you like best. This is what Nestopia happens to sound like - whether you prefer it or not is your own opinion and it's your own decision as to which one of the two you'd rather use - it doesn't mean there is something wrong with the libretro port itself.

2. As for the PC Engine, yes I concur that the graphics issues are still present. Non-uniform pixels = vertical tearing scrolling. HOWEVER, as stated earlier, Wii Mednafen does 239p without issues.
.

I know - see my post above - it affects certain games on FBA too (and it all works perfectly fine on 360 and PS3), so there's probably a bug in GX's video blitting code that affects certain input width/height combinations. There were some changes made to the blitting code after 0.9.7 so a regression to the video blitting code that happened somewhere inbetween 0.9.7 - 0.9.8 could likely explain it all.

Will have to wait until ToadKing gets back to discuss this.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

On that note, I'll hold off on releasing the Gamecube version until we have figured out this bug. No use in releasing anything as long as this bug still remains at large.

It only affects Wii right now - all other platforms are fine.

 

[nintygaming]

Well, that's why we have multiple cores then - you can choose whichever you like best. This is what Nestopia happens to sound like - whether you prefer it or not is your own opinion and it's your own decision as to which one of the two you'd rather use - it doesn't mean there is something wrong with the libretro port itself.



I know - see my post above - it affects certain games on FBA too (and it all works perfectly fine on 360 and PS3), so there's probably a bug in GX's video blitting code that affects certain input width/height combinations. There were some changes made to the blitting code after 0.9.7 so a regression to the video blitting code that happened somewhere inbetween 0.9.7 - 0.9.8 could likely explain it all.

Will have to wait until ToadKing gets back to discuss this.

GREAT NEWS

It appears my incompetence has been causing TG16 CD games to not run. I finally got them running by simply wiping out ALL old config files.

So there you go, one less thing to worry about! My apologies for my ignorance.


And in regards to Nestopia, I thought that the tinny sound was something that could be adjusted "khz" wise. I know this issue happens in Tantrics SNES9x GX when you pop up the menu and then close it, and I thought that it had something to do with libogc.......