Retroarch on Wii?

[Nagarjuna]

I've seen some disagreement regarding Retroarch on the Wii. The official release is horrible, but some people have recommended Retroarch Hexaeco, a fork optimized for Wii. How accurate is it? Does it hold up to something like Snes9xGx? I'm also having trouble finding a Github page (or any official page for it except a mediafire), is it open source?

 

[JuanMena]

What you mean about which is better?

As far as I can tell Hexaeco is just a straight up rom loader.

While official RetroArch has more options the more it gets updated.
The problem with most people is that they don't know how to update official releases and nearly none know how to configure it properly (cleaning it up in a way of speaking)

If you want to update RetroArch follow my outdated guide: https://gbatemp.net/threads/retroarch-wii-setting-it-up-mini-tutorial.590900/

PS: I recommend that you use:
SNES9X 2010 from the RA version 1.9.0

 

[JuanMena]

Further Info:

Hello.
I can finally confirm that the issue was the INFO files renaming thing.

I have finally made it work.

A few notes about it:

Further testing, showed me that MAME2003 v0.2 has compatibility issues with some roms.
Also, MAME2003 v0.4 works perfectly fine.
NEOGEO "FBA-VM_TEST1M_OLDRETRO": Works perfectly.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
RetroArch 1.9.10 and above has the option to use a FULL scaling in Settings-> Video-> Aspect Ratio
If you set the Aspect Ratio to FULL, OLD CORES WON'T HAVE ANY VIDEO SIGNAL. They still work, but won't be visible.
So I'd suggest anyone seeing this to use a CUSTOM Aspect Ratio instead of a FULL aspect ratio.
RetroArch 1.9.14: It has some errors here and there.
For instance the MAME2010 core doesn't work at all.
Also, RetroArch 1.9.1 and above has GRAINY SOUND with SNES cores.

RetroArch 1.9.10: This is where I got MAME2010. It works perfectly.

RetroArch 1.9.0: The SNES cores doesn't has sound issues at all!

So, I'm using a mix of these versions. I've renamed properly the INFO files and everything's working correctly for now.

If all of this sounds confusing, just ask

 

[Nagarjuna]

What you mean about which is better?

As far as I can tell Hexaeco is just a straight up rom loader.

While official RetroArch has more options the more it gets updated.
The problem with most people is that they don't know how to update official releases and nearly none know how to configure it properly (cleaning it up in a way of speaking)

If you want to update RetroArch follow my outdated guide: https://gbatemp.net/threads/retroarch-wii-setting-it-up-mini-tutorial.590900/

PS: I recommend that you use:
SNES9X 2010 from the RA version 1.9.0

A few threads (such as the Retroarch Hexaeco thread) report that stock Retroarch isn't optimized for Wii and crashes frequently. I haven't experienced any crashes, but have seen how slow the menus are. I was wondering how other emulators hold up to Retroarch or Retroarch Hexaeco. Are the retroarch ones better than emulators such as SNES9xGx (or SNES9xTx?) Really hard to find a good list of whats the best homebrew to use on the Wii lol

 

[JuanMena]

I have never ever had performance issues with Vanilla RetroArch... so can't really tell you: "Oh yeah, this is better"

And I haven't used Hexaeco at all precisely for that same reason, that is Vanilla RetroArch is good to me.

The Snee9x cores has troubles here and there, in one update they work fine, the next one they have issues.
It's truly a Hit/Miss thing with that specific Core.

By experience I can tell that Snes9xGX is far, far better than any RetroArch core.

 

[Muliro]

Seems like the official RetroArch was broken in someway for a long time for Wii, while Hexaeco was always working.
I can't really tell Wich one is better, since I've never tested both with the purpose of comparing them. What I can tell for SURE is that some people here in the forum did.
If you search in the plugin pack by Shima, you will see that him and some good other people spent a GOOD amount of time testing the best emulators available, and theyall who did so, are unanimous about Hexaeco being a better option. If you gid the topic enough you will see how many work they put on those tests.
What I did was to thrust them and I have never faced any problems with Hexaeco. The only thing I think it's missing there is HID support.

 

[SaulFabre]

RA-HEXAECO is better recommended for Wii
This fork by @SuperrSonic removes every setting which is useless or break/crash the Wii, but adds many bugfixes, features and new options/settings optimized only for Wii.
It's definitively an alternative to official LibRetro RetroArch, which is now too broken.

Link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/qxaagqu9f3q2tdy/RA-HEXAECO.7z/file

If you want some old versions of official RA Wii, here you are: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TVHDMOqsJIpRcyNO3D-Pd8z3KzvxL_Jw

Greetings to all

 

[Nagarjuna]

RA-HEXAECO is better recommended for Wii
This fork by @SuperrSonic removes every setting which is useless or break/crash the Wii, but adds many bugfixes, features and new options/settings optimized only for Wii.
It's definitively an alternative to official LibRetro RetroArch, which is now too broken.

Link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/qxaagqu9f3q2tdy/RA-HEXAECO.7z/file

If you want some old versions of official RA Wii, here you are: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TVHDMOqsJIpRcyNO3D-Pd8z3KzvxL_Jw

Greetings to all

I saw some of the standalone Hexaeco emulators and some were more recently updated. Is Hexaeco still being actively developed? Where are releases posted?

 

[SaulFabre]

I saw some of the standalone Hexaeco emulators and some were more recently updated. Is Hexaeco still being actively developed? Where are releases posted?

Last release of RA-HEXAECO was in November 5, 2021, but i think it's still active in development.
Only way for check if RA-HEXAECO is updated is here in this download link http://www.mediafire.com/file/qxaagqu9f3q2tdy/RA-HEXAECO.7z/file

However, if you have any issues or suggestions, you can tell @SuperrSonic (the author of that fork) here: http://github.com/SuperrSonic/RA-SS

 

[Maeson]

As pointed out by SaulFabre, the fork made by SuperrSonic is overall much better functioning for the Wii than the official release, and it has been that way for quite some time.

The official release has a very messy interface, with options related to each other sprinkled in several different menus, it has settings or features that simply do not work, others, at least in my experience, need to be edited every time I change a core, and it also has some ridiculous stuff like being able to lock yourself out of being able to move around the menus if you want to change the controller you're using.

SuperrSonic's fork it also has a number of settings that don't exist on official releases, and setting each core is far less of a hassle compared to official releases sharing some settings between cores.

Besides that, there's also glitches and other things that SuperrSonic's fork simply does not suffer from, like the somewhat recent audio quality issue that seems to affect every core that I found out when checking newer official releases with the new PicoDrive core, and other people have mentioned it too in other threads here.

Talking about that, the PicoDrive core is the only reason I keep an official release, as the version of it hasn't been ported yet to HexaEco.

@SaulFabre I'll take the chance to ask something. Do you know which SNES core in HexaEco works with Satellaview games, or how to set it up? I was using Snes9x RX but I want to use RA-SS, yet nothing I try works.

 

[SaulFabre]

@SaulFabre I'll take the chance to ask something. Do you know which SNES core in HexaEco works with Satellaview games, or how to set it up? I was using Snes9x RX but I want to use RA-SS, yet nothing I try works.

@Maeson I don't know. For Satellaview emulation i mostly use Snes9x TX since of its nice GUI, the BIOS of BS-X (which it's not required) can be added by copying the BS-X.bin file into sd:/snes9xtx/ folder.

I think for run Satellaview games on RA-HEXAECO it also needs the BS-X.bin (BS-X BIOS) placed into sd:/private/other/system/

Try using Snes9x (normal, Next, 2005, 2010, etc.) for see if it works. Maybe i'm gonna try that later.

 

[Draxikor]

I have been using for several days the core "snes9x next" and it has worked better than the individual SNES emulators, obviously configuring well the aspect ratio and the resolution.

The only game I've seen a slowdown problem is Yoshi's Island but it's not a big deal for me because for that game I use the GBA port.

 

[SaulFabre]

I have been using for several days the core "snes9x next" and it has worked better than the individual SNES emulators, obviously configuring well the aspect ratio and the resolution.

The only game I've seen a slowdown problem is Yoshi's Island but it's not a big deal for me because for that game I use the GBA port.

have you tried the other Snes9x cores on RA-HEXAECO (regular Snes9x, Snes9x 2005, 2005 Plus, 2010)?

 

[Draxikor]

@SaulFabre Not yet, from the posts I have read on this page, the next core is the one with the best performance, the 2005 is used for some games where certain graphic effects don't look good on other cores, and the 2010 is used for some romhacks and translations that don't work on other cores as well.

 

[Nagarjuna]

Last release of RA-HEXAECO was in November 5, 2021, but i think it's still active in development.
Only way for check if RA-HEXAECO is updated is here in this download link http://www.mediafire.com/file/qxaagqu9f3q2tdy/RA-HEXAECO.7z/file

However, if you have any issues or suggestions, you can tell @SuperrSonic (the author of that fork) here: http://github.com/SuperrSonic/RA-SS

Put the Hexaeco folder in my homebrew apps folder and all I'm presented with is a black screen when I try to start it up. Is this a common problem?

 

[SaulFabre]

Put the Hexaeco folder in my homebrew apps folder and all I'm presented with is a black screen when I try to start it up. Is this a common problem?

@SIX10 Are you sure about this?

Also, are you trying to start it from HBC? Would you try loading it using a forwarder channel for RA-HEXAECO? (Look at @RunningSnakes' fowarder folder at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/kup4smqh4aw45/RunningSnakes_Forwarders and download the forwarder called RetroArch SS Hexaeco)

Because i use RA-HEXAECO and it works fine for me.

 

[SaulFabre]

I have been using for several days the core "snes9x next" and it has worked better than the individual SNES emulators, obviously configuring well the aspect ratio and the resolution.

The only game I've seen a slowdown problem is Yoshi's Island but it's not a big deal for me because for that game I use the GBA port.

Okay, i've tested both normal Snes9x core on RA-HEXAECO (which is based in Snes9x 1.60) and Snes9x Next (which is based in Snes9x 1.52) and looks like Snes9x Next works almost perfect.

Only slowdown i found was in Yoshi's Island where it slows down when on title screen and some bosses and levels, but besides works perfectly. But i most use the GBA port (Super Mario Advance 3) since the mGBA core supports frameskipping since the GBA has a 32-bit CPU (comparing to SNES which is 16-bit, and Super FX is a bit hard to emulate on Wii).

 

[Draxikor]

@SIX10
In fact if it is a common problem, what you have to do is to enter the folder where the cores are, delete the one that says "boot.dol" and copy any other core (I did it with the snes9x one) and rename it as boot.dol.
With this, the program should work fine.

 

[JuanMena]

I have been using for several days the core "snes9x next"

There is a Snes9x Next core in official RetroArch builds for the Wii?

I've been using Snes9x 2010 from 1.9.0 because subsequent Snes9x (Either "Current" / 2005 / 2005+ / 2010) has problems with Sound and Overlays.

 

[Draxikor]

@JuanMena
In the most recent official version it did not come, I already had that core saved from some old version of retroarch.