Homebrew RetroArch - A new multi-system emulator

[MassiveRican]

Here's the post with the link, thank groose for the time and effort spent on making this detailed list.

 

[Cospefogo]

Huh ? Those scanlines are much too dark and look fake, they are very different and look better on a real CRT TV. Isn't it possible to configure them like with emulators ? This really look weird this way and ends up being uglier than HD shaders/filters in my opinion...

Yes, it is possible.
You can adjust the intensity of from none to complete dark.
And a picture can't show how great they are. You nee to check the real thing.
But, as someone said, each own to its own. =)
I love them!

Regarding SNES and other home console emulators on R.A., I never
tried them. Are they really better emulated? I will test some games
and compare (specially the problematic ones also mentioned above).

One great tip to check if the sound if correct on SNES is to pay attention
in the thunder sound on the Super Castlevania IV intro. It's easy
to spot a bad emulation.

Regards,
C.

 

[Jacobeian]

Yes, it is possible.
You can adjust the intensity of from none to complete dark.

ah, that's great, if you look to a real CRT TV, you would see that "scanlines" blends with actual colored pixel lines, more exactly the color intensity of pixel lines has some effects on the blanked lines, it's not just plain black lines painted over the screen...
but my CRT TV will eventually die so it's good to know there are alternatives like this

One great tip to check if the sound if correct on SNES is to pay attention
in the thunder sound on the Super Castlevania IV intro. It's easy
to spot a bad emulation.

Regards,
C.

Snes9xGX and RetroArch use the same snes9x core, which is the latest official (1.53) so sound emulation should be exactly the same. RetroArch has an additional SNES core (SNES9X-NEXT) based snes9x 1.52 with a few speed hacks added in the core to make some high-requiring games running faster without relying on frameskipping.

 

[Cospefogo]

Do u use the converter and SLG on your Wii with RA? If its possible I'd love to do this for my Wii and TV.

MassiveRican,

Yes. I have a DVDO upscaler and I plug on it both my Wii and Xbox1, using component cables.

Then, this device outputs VGA to the television, and did I plug the SLG-3000 yet (it
accepts only VGA) to get the image "scanlined" on TV.

Everything here is scanlined.
Wii dash, Wii games, Wiiwares, emulators, Xbox1 dash, Xbox1 emulators, even the movies and
TV shows I watch I have them all under the magic of the scanlines.

=)

 

[the_randomizer]

Yes, it is possible.
You can adjust the intensity of from none to complete dark.
And a picture can't show how great they are. You nee to check the real thing.
But, as someone said, each own to its own. =)
I love them!

Regarding SNES and other home console emulators on R.A., I never
tried them. Are they really better emulated? I will test some games
and compare (specially the problematic ones also mentioned above).

One great tip to check if the sound if correct on SNES is to pay attention
in the thunder sound on the Super Castlevania IV intro. It's easy
to spot a bad emulation.

Regards,
C.

Snes9x uses blaarg's S-SMP emulator which passes all the hardware tests a real Snes would pass. There shouldn't be any audio issues. Snes9x has perfect SPC700/S-SMP emulation

 

[Arm73]

Ok, I don't want to sound like an ungrateful bastard but I've been using RA for a couple of days now ( mainly to play FBA, CPS and NG games on my CRT TV ) and as much as I love it ( the emulation itself is fantastic ) there are a few things that make my experience rather frustrating.

Let's see....:
I don't mind the simplistic UI, I actually like it, but it's not practical for various reason.
For example the file browser is fine, but while switching games I'd expect it to remember the last rom selected so that I can keep on browsing from the same point of the list, instead every time I try to load a new game the pointer goes all the way to the top, and it doesn't even remember which directory I've been using ! I have to manually navigate through the folders and choose the right one.
It's a huge waste of time.
And I'm aware that you can select a path in the settings, but that path is common to all the cores,while the logical thing would be to have each core remember it's own path. I know that memory is scarce on the Wii, but a simple ini or cfg file with such settings stored shouldn't be so hard to implement.

Another thing that bothers me, is that every time I start a core I go trough the video setting and select the most appropriate one, however if I change core or restart RA , it goes back to 480i, and I have to change it again.
It wouldn't be so bad to do it just once, but unfortunately I get code dumps quite often ( probably due to incompatible roms ) and each time I have to restart RA and adjust the video settings all over again.
Like I said before, why isn't the preferred video mode stored in the ini file ? Would make sense.

Speaking of video, there is an annoying overscan on most of the video modes, and the custom scaling only works if the video mode set to 480i.
Anything less then that ( and I usually play at 640x240p or less ) and the custom scaling doesn't affect the video at all.
Weird.

Also while browsing games RA doesn't use the internal rom name, but merely the file name.
File names like sf2hf or cawing or vsav2 only make sense if you are really familiar with the games, but when browsing hundreds of files ( without any help from in game screen shots either ) it might be a little challenging to remember all of them.

And speaking of games, I don't understand why each core doesn't generate a sort of list ( like the xml list in mame ) and only allow to load compatible roms.
For example, I had all cps and neo geo roms in one folder and I had to be very careful in what to choose, because obviously if I try to load a cps2 rom with the neo geo or even cps1 core the emulator crashes.
So I went ahead and manually sorted all the cps1,2 and neo geo games in separate directories , but now I'm left with another directory full of final burn alpha roms and it's a nightmare to see which one work or not by trial and error.
If the FBA core could check a list of compatible games with the respective file names and only show the compatible ones while browsing, one could theoretically have all the roms in the same folder and don't worry about crashing the emulator by attempting to load the wrong one.

Also I have a complete FBA compatible romset, but still quite often RA refuses to load some roms that are supposed to be compatible, thus bringing the code dump screen and forcing a restart.

Also I haven't found a button to access the DIP switches of the games, which is a handy thing to have seeing that most games difficulty was originally ramped up tremendously for coin eating purposes...some dip switches also allow for autofire options, which are absent in RA ( correct me if I'm wrong on these points ).

For all these reasons, I decided that it's not worth it for me to stick with RA for the time being, it's just unpractical to use and I'm wasting too much time on it already, which is a shame, because once I get a game up and running, it's just fantastic, like I said, the emulation and the image output ( minus the ovescan ) is just spot on.

I'm addicted now to play retro games on my CRT TV with real scanlines, and while other emulators are fine, for arcade games I'll have to stick with my PC and MAME.
Unfortunately.

Like I said, I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way and I do really appreciate the hard work that the coders have poured into this project to date, but I just felt I had to point out what I think a little annoyances that all together prevent me to enjoy this fantastic emulator to the fullest.

Cheers.

 

[the_randomizer]

RA doesn't use a fancy GUI due to the Wii's memory restraints, so it has to be simplified. As for ROMs, why can't you put all them into one folder? That way, the core you use will only display the ROMs for that core. That's what I do and haven't had a single issue. As for the video mode, changing the resolution, switching to another core and exiting is the best way to save the video settings.


Just put the ROMs into one folder, that way you don't have to navigated to a different one for each system, and trust me, it's a helluva lot better to have one directory for games. Again, if you choose something like Snes9x or Genesis Plus GX, only the games for that core will show up and won't be a mess.

 

[Arm73]

RA doesn't use a fancy GUI due to the Wii's memory restraints, so it has to be simplified.

Yes, I know.
And it doesn't bother me.
I'm just talking about the *ini file that if I'm not wrong is already there, it just doesn't save some relevant settings that should be remembered by default.
Like preferred video mode, last rom/directory used and custom scaling options ( which I believe are broken because only work in 480i ).

 

[the_randomizer]

Yes, I know.
And it doesn't bother me.
I'm just talking about the *ini file that if I'm not wrong is already there, it just doesn't save some relevant settings that should be remembered by default.
Like preferred video mode, last rom/directory used and custom scaling options ( which I believe are broken because only work in 480i ).

It remembers the ROM directory when I use it, it's supposed to, if not, you need to manually edit the config file with a text editor. There's a new version coming out soon that should address the issues.

 

[Arm73]

A new version coming out soon is certainly a very good news !
As it is now, the occasional crash will always occur.
Restart the emulator>reset the settings>re choose the directory, scroll down to more or less where you were before and try your luck again....
Oh and some games don't load after another game, but do work after a reboot......go figure it.
Once the game is up and running it's nothing short of greatness, but getting there is the tricky part
Oh well, let's hope for the best, I really wish the best for this project, it'll keep many Wiis alive for years to come.

 

[Toad King]

99% of the crashes in FBA are from you trying to load a game that's simply too big for the Wii to handle. Even small ROMs can use up a lot of memory.

And yes, the next release should fix some of your issues, but not all. (We default to 480i because there have been numerous bugs in the video mode switching code that none of the other devs or I can track down so we always default to a safe value. That plus not having bad video if you switch TVs.)

 

[Charco]

Any news on when the forums will be back up?

 

[MassiveRican]

BTW Arm73 u can also use a much more robust and more rom compatibility friendly version of RetroArch for PC

 

[the_randomizer]

Any news on whn the forums will be back up?

Last I heard they were getting all they could from cached Google pages, so it may take a while yet

 

[Charco]

Cool, interested to get an update on the next release.

 

[MKKhanzo]

I love everything RA does on Wii as of now, and everything they put on, if works, its very welcome. Its a Wii, it cant do much compared to any pc nowadays.

The ONLY gripe I have is that if you browse carelessly and load by mistake the boot.dol file, the Wii will crash, and when you reset it, and try again, it remembers that somehow and doesnt even load up again.

Im forced to delete and re-edit everything from the SD save the roms.

Any shortcut to this? Like deleting the config file and its done or something?

And a question:

To the RA staff (this is not a petition so dont get mad at me please ).

Can the RA Wii build emulate any of the Mortal Kombat arcade games using a Mame core?

Thanks in advance and keep it up!

 

[the_randomizer]

I love everything RA does on Wii as of now, and everything they put on, if works, its very welcome. Its a Wii, it cant do much compared to any pc nowadays.

The ONLY gripe I have is that if you browse carelessly and load by mistake the boot.dol file, the Wii will crash, and when you reset it, and try again, it remembers that somehow and doesnt even load up again.

Im forced to delete and re-edit everything from the SD save the roms.

Any shortcut to this? Like deleting the config file and its done or something?

And a question:

To the RA staff (this is not a petition so dont get mad at me please ).

Can the RA Wii build emulate any of the Mortal Kombat arcade games using a Mame core?

Thanks in advance and keep it up!

Deleting the config file, either that or you have to change the default core from "boot.dol" to another emulator. I had that problem, but it should be hidden from the core selection screen. Very easy to fix.

 

[Arm73]

BTW Arm73 u can also use a much more robust and more rom compatibility friendly version of RetroArch for PC

Thank you very much.
The reason I have so much interest in the Wii version of RA, is because my Wii is hooked up to a 27" CRT TV set with a n RGB cable that when fed the right signal is capable of displaying an image of almost arcade monitor quality ( with authentic scanlines and all ) while sadly, my PC only has HDMI output and it's 'only 'connected to a 24" samsung syncmaster.
Since my Wii effortlessly plays other retro emulators, I'd really love to be able to play arcade games on it as well, especially since the end result is amazingly close to the original arcade experience, even though there are fewer games available.
For this reason I'm a huge fan of the Wii port of RA, and I hope my little criticism has been seen as constructive and not offensive

 

[Charco]

The usability issues you raised are valid and should be addressed in a future release.

 

[MassiveRican]

The usability issues you raised are valid and should be addressed in a future release.

Absolutely agree, I believe most usability issues will be addressed with the next release actually, the small video bug and controller bug for some will most likely be fixed as well in due time. Glimpses of brilliance often come with patience