Homebrew Retroarch Emulation Thread (Nightly Builds Included)

[Rahkeesh]

I wouldn't really want 3D support "like the vita"...

 

[Pickle_Rick]

I wouldn't really want 3D support "like the vita"...

Why wouldn't you want hardware rendering? (RA currently uses software rendering on the CPU.) It would make PS1 full speed in nearly every game. Unless you don't understand what OpenGL is? In which case why did you respond to me? (It's not stereoscopic 3D if that's what you're thinking.)

 

[Rahkeesh]

Have you actually tried the current GL Vita support in Retroarch?

 

[Pickle_Rick]

Have you actually tried the current GL Vita support in Retroarch?

No but I've seen videos of it. It makes a noticeable performance wise. I didn't see any major issues either.

 

[justinweiss]

Yo the 3DS has an OpenGL library now. Can we get hardware rendering support like the Vita now? It's called picaGL. https://github.com/masterfeizz/picaGL

I tried dropping it in a few months ago and it would lock up immediately after sending a batch of instructions to the GPU. I don't know enough about how the 3DS GPU works to do much debugging so I set it aside.

pscx_rearmed only supports software rendering, at least through RetroArch. But having the gl1 driver might open up other cores like vitaquake2/3. For cores that just use it to show the framebuffer, I'd guess it'd be about the same speed.

 

[Pickle_Rick]

I tried dropping it in a few months ago and it would lock up immediately after sending a batch of instructions to the GPU. I don't know enough about how the 3DS GPU works to do much debugging so I set it aside.

pscx_rearmed only supports software rendering, at least through RetroArch. But having the gl1 driver might open up other cores like vitaquake2/3. For cores that just use it to show the framebuffer, I'd guess it'd be about the same speed.

It's been getting a lot of updates and fixes. The latest commit is from like two days ago.

 

[Rulexx]

Can someone explane me how to update Retroarch on a new 2DS XL to the newest version?

 

[CoupureElectrique]

Is it possible to make “load content” go directly to my roms folder?

 

[MarioKartFan]

Is it possible to make “load content” go directly to my roms folder?

Yes. You have to configure your directories.

 

[TheBeverage]

Can anyone explain the difference between “nearest”, “sinc”, and “cc” audio resampling? I’ve looked everywhere and can’t seem to find an explanation.

 

[zewindsor]

Hi everybody,

I'm a new user of emulation on 3DS (I have a N3DSXL). I installed Picodrive core to test RetroArch. I find it quite slow to launch, indeed it needs around 20 seconds to launch RA and launching a game can require up to 30 seconds. I wanted to know if it was normal and if there was a way to speed up that.

Thanks

 

[TheBeverage]

Going a bit nuts here, I’m getting audio distortion with SNES9x 2005 Plus on 1.8.8. It’s pretty slight but I can’t seem to get rid of it. Changed audio latency, all resampling settings, synchronization, none of it makes a difference. It almost sounds as if the audio is clipping slightly, but when I lower the output dB it certainly gets quieter but doesn’t actually help with the distortion. Any ideas?

 

[kenseiden]

Hi everybody,

I'm a new user of emulation on 3DS (I have a N3DSXL). I installed Picodrive core to test RetroArch. I find it quite slow to launch, indeed it needs around 20 seconds to launch RA and launching a game can require up to 30 seconds. I wanted to know if it was normal and if there was a way to speed up that.

Thanks

If I remember correctly, one of the things you can do to speed up the loading process is delete the info files in the retroarch/cores/info subdirectory for the cores that you don’t need/use.

 

[zewindsor]

If I remember correctly, one of the things you can do to speed up the loading process is delete the info files in the retroarch/cores/info subdirectory for the cores that you don’t need/use.

Thanks for your answer. I tried to remove every file except Picodrive but it didn't change anything :/ I tried to turn off logs but this also changed nothing.

 

[Zephir1991]

Is there a way to prevent a crash while pressing the L & R shoulder buttons? (in game)
I'm using the latest nightly atm.
(This happens while playing PS1 games.)

 

[placebo_yue]

I tried the recommended O3DS emulators for NES, Genesis, GB.
The genesis one runs awfully slow, Fceumm for NES also runs horribly.
Quicknes and gambatte run just fine, but Quicknes crashes if i close content and open a new one. Why? can i fix it?
I'm using the separately installed cia cores btw.

Also does 3DS support filters like CRT? that'd be a huge reason to use retroarch, although i dig the countless configurations it offers too

 

[palmbreezes]

Thanks for your answer. I tried to remove every file except Picodrive but it didn't change anything :/ I tried to turn off logs but this also changed nothing.

FYI, I figured out how to fix this. After moving unused cores out of the /retroarch/cores directory, cores load in about 4 seconds and games load in about 4 seconds too!

• I only wanted to use nestopia.
  
• I created a new directory /retroarch/cores/cores_notused and moved all cores in /retroarch/cores *except* nestopia_libretro.cia to /retroarch/cores/cores_notused
• Now when I start a core, it completes in about 4 seconds. Games load in a bit less than 4 seconds.
• So, looks like the thing slowing this down was having all 80+ cores in /retroarch/cores

I figured if moving config files wasn't fixing it, maybe moving the cores would. Bingo!

I posted a new issue on GitHub for libreto/RetroArch, alerting them to this. I'm a new user so I can't post links (I only signed up so I could share this info), but if you search on their GitHub for 3DS issues you'll find my post. Issue: [3DS] Slow core startup from loading/inventorying core files: Workaround identified, seeking fix #10878

I love RetroArch, so am happy to get this working well! Woo hoo!

 

[zewindsor]

Hi,

Thanks for your message. I tried with Picodrive and, indeed, RA launchs really faster, and the games too ! Since I use very few cores, it really helps a lot

Thanks again for the tip !

 

[palmbreezes]

Hi,

Thanks for your message. I tried with Picodrive and, indeed, RA launchs really faster, and the games too ! Since I use very few cores, it really helps a lot

Thanks again for the tip !

No problem! Glad that works for you as well.

I found another issue, though, I am trying out MAME / arcade games, so using Mame-2003-Plus. I discovered that the Save Game Remap file setting doesn't seem to work.

Why is this an issue? Because many games (like Pac-man, Gunsmoke, Dig Dug) are vertical layout, so you need to rotate the 3DS counter-clockwise, which places the top screen on the left side and makes the controller orientation different.. and then other games (Berzerk, Joust are 2 examples) are horizontal orientation, so you need to then use the 3DS like you normally would (with the top screen on top).

Global settings for the controller works OK (within Settings->Input->Port 1 Controls). But those are applied to the entire Mame core, which means it is applied the same to all games. So if I set it up globally for vertically oriented games, Pac-Man, Ms-Pacman etc work fine. But then when I try to play Berzerk or Joust, the controls are all messed up, as they are configured as if I am holding the 3DS counter-clockwise to account for a vertical layout game..

I am embarrassed to say I probably spent about 3 hours digging into this yesterday. So frustrating! The RetroArch experience on the 3ds has really been a pain. It seems poorly documented, perhaps because a lot of folks don't use it? I have used RetroArch on other platforms (like retropie on my raspberry pi) and it works very well on that platform. The 3DS version seems a little undercooked!

If anyone has any ideas why this isn't working, please share. I may have missed some config option or something. I'm using the latest version (1.8.9) that just came out yesterday. I posted a new issue on GitHub (libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro; can't post links because I'm a newbie, bah). It sure seems like a bad bug!

 

[palmbreezes]

No problem! Glad that works for you as well.

I found another issue, though, I am trying out MAME / arcade games, so using Mame-2003-Plus. I discovered that the Save Game Remap file setting doesn't seem to work.
[...]
If anyone has any ideas why this isn't working, please share. I may have missed some config option or something. I'm using the latest version (1.8.9) that just came out yesterday. I posted a new issue on GitHub (libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro; can't post links because I'm a newbie, bah). It sure seems like a bad bug!

Resolved! Someone on the GitHub issues board provided the fix: Just use the MAME in-game menu to configure per-game controller settings as needed. That hit me like a ton of bricks, as I recalled seeing this about 15 years ago when using MAME on a PC. I didn't know it was also available in RetroArch!!!

How to configure: Once a core & game are loaded, use the configured hotkey to bring up the RetroArch menu, then select Quick Menu->Options->Display MAME menu and set that to ON. Then select Input (this game) and for each action used by the game (such as P1 Left, P1 Right, P1 Button 1, etc.) you select it & then press the button on the controller you'd like to map to the action.

That works well & tried this for 2 games: Joust & Berzerk. I also verified upon reloading each of these games that the settings I had configured before were retained.

So, to summarize: Within the MAME 2003-plus core, I set up global options for the controller (Settings->Input->Port 1 Controls) for vertical orientation games, as the majority of the games I play in MAME are of that configuration. For any that I discover which are horizontal orientation, I will set up per-game controller configurations for them using the MAME menu.

I asked the RetroArch folks if they'd like me to help get this documented, as I probably spent over 6 hours digging into this *and* the "slow core loading" issues. I'd like to save others some time!

Enjoy RetroArch and MAME!

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Resolved! Someone on the GitHub issues board provided the fix: Just use the MAME in-game menu to configure per-game controller settings as needed. That hit me like a ton of bricks, as I recalled seeing this about 15 years ago when using MAME on a PC. I didn't know it was also available in RetroArch!!!
[....]

Wanted to share another bit of information: I confirmed that Save Game Remap file and Save Core Remap file works fine for a non-MAME 2003/MAME 2003-plus core. I was able to use both of those features without any issues in the SNES 9x 2010 core, tested with Ms. Pac-Man and Pac Man 2.

The issue I found seems to impact only MAME cores... Perhaps RetroArch never bothered to add Save Game Remap/Save Core Remap functionality to MAME cores, as MAME has its own built-in menu? If that's the case, it would be great to have this documented. I scoured the documentation at RetroArch while trying to figure it out and saw no mention of this!

Anyway.. enjoy RetroArch and MAME!