Homebrew RetroArch Switch

[Bumblecito]

Gosh I am not updating from 5.1 till someone confirms working any 6.1 users out there?

Well now I'm sure I did fix it xD
You just have to delete retroarch.cfg, plus content_history.lpl and retroarch-core-options.cfg now is running like before on firm 6.0.1

Or make a clean install.

 

[abilaunken]

hi guys, im playing some psx today and trying the options to enhanced resolution to bump the graphics but its seems not change at all. Im doing something wrong or its just not available right now?

 

[ShadowOne333]

Wild how one can forget how ferocious their other consoles/systems are when a new 1 comes out.

Popped out my PSP to add some things to it and it reminded me of how much space can be saved turning PS1 games into PBP. Crash Bash went from 174,000mb to 78,000mb. Some others went from 600,000mb+ to 300,000mb+ or 400,000mb+, etc.

I'm on an ooooold version of RetroNX and PS1 is very good, for the most part. I like to Start the game then Restart it to hear that infamous PS1 bootscreen sound. Ridge Racer is glitchy, but Rage Racer is better and also by Namco.

See these videos if you're looking for ideas...

Spoiler

Speaking of PSP, some of these comments in this PPSSPP github thread makes it sound like PSP is a little closer to being on Horizon. I don't, usually, update as soon as something new drops, but that awesomeness of a gaming library and thousands of movies would get me to do it.

Spoiler

"thedax
commented 16 days ago

I saw the comments on that bountysource link, but for the sake of convenience: PPSSPP already has an ARM64 JIT like natinusala said on there."

"thedax
commented 15 days ago

Still waiting on SDL2 to be updated. Threading is another issue, but SDL2 is more important."

"dmiller423
commented 6 days ago

figured I'd add some insight:

SDL2 has been updated and you can use GL context it creates."

https://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp/issues/10934

Shhhh it's a secret to everybody

 

[notimp]

Chaos fighting force 2000 ("I guess I'm back, sort-a" edition).

To everyone using savestates, complaining that they dont load. If you are still using exfat - its probably because of that, and your card is already corrupted. Tough luck. Problem being, that you wont get any support from anyone - until you have ruled out this being even a possibility. No one can help you with data corruption - if thats your problem: Start fresh.

Also - not an issue homebrew devs caused so much - its mostly Nintendos driver implementation - as far as we can tell. Complain to them.

Interestingly also no one told you to use exfat on part of the Homebrew community (hopefully), thats a decision you made on your own - because you wanted to pirate (no other reason). Or because the switch made the decision for you. (Appliances taking over your life decisions - also not a good thing on average.. )

Interestingly you dont need to have any of those issues - and can still play all (+/-) pirated games of your dreams (because we know, that you are not willing to give THAT up) - using fat32 (32kb cluster size), its just that you have to read how. Information is in this topic already, read up on it. Yes it requires you to start over, yes it requires a few extra steps - but then we are not in the "most easy" business by any chance. In the "get to know your devices" business much rather. (Thats sort of what hacking is all about.)

Also you could swap SDcards, if you dont want to go the sensible way. But then dont complain about inconvenience.
--

If you are on fat32 and are still loosing savestates - make sure to exit out of retroarch using the exit option in menu. This is not a suggestion, this is a prerequisite. If you always have to press the home button for no reason - congratulation, it force closes all homebrew apps. You just cold quit an app. Id suggest you dont do that on an OS thats not about "persistent app states" (handholdy - "all your actions are saved at all times - dont worry!"). If you want to complain - that you cant spam home button - again - ask Nintendo to write another OS next time. (And no team SX didnt write a whole new OS either, they just branded a hack "OS" - to be seen as "so cooL" by people that never read how things work.)
--

If you are on fat32 and exiting through the menu, and still get savestates that sometimes fail to load - apparently there is a current issue, where launching retroarch through a .nsp and not a .nro causes the exit option not to work correctly. This is something homebrew devs can fix - and are onto, but it might take some time. In the meantime be reminded, that no one told you to launch retroarch from a .nsp either - if your goal was stability. You went against the default out of your own volition again.

issue - then complaining that things dont work - doesnt help.

Also - all of this has been tackled in here several times before, you could have known already. Also - passive agressive "adventure stories" that end with "pc doesnt work" - isnt so much what makes homebrew scenes any better. If you are still at the "I have to tell you a story" state - chances are, that you are expecting a support call center on the other end, that translates "story" into "factoids". Sadly no such call center here.

Thats shorthand for "it helps - if you can already conceptually break down your issue - rather than only tell stories". For that you need to learn a bit of troubleshooting on your own. Also - having some knowledge about how electronics work conceptually - helps. And no - you dont have to learn coding for that, its not that complicated. Growing up with iPhones in a world where your only support calls are "which app is best" - certainly doesnt help though. ("Ups, clicked home button again!")

edit:

One more thing - thats only about savestates. If you also use savegames in your game (the ones originally put in by the games developers to save), those actually get written to the sdcard as soon as saving finishes. So this is an actual fallback option, if your game supports savegames (most do). But then, if you use exfat, and your card corrupted - guess what...

edit: Also here is a "let me google that for you" for formating even big sdcards to fat32 with 32k cluster size:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2550523/formatting-sandisk-microsd-card-fat32.html

 

[DiscostewSM]

My RetroArch wont save ingame… sometimes it does sometimes (most of the times wont save) it will look like it saved but in reality didn't save at all. I lost my progress on Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Save States work tho :v

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is one of those SNES games that utilize part of its SaveRAM for more than save data. It'll use it much like RAM, and frequently too.

 

[huma_dawii]

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is one of those SNES games that utilize part of its SaveRAM for more than save data. It'll use it much like RAM, and frequently too.

So it's best to use savestate? Cause on Wii U save ingame is not a problem, it's just the Switch :v

 

[notimp]

Nothing is best. Everything is context.

Using both is fine. Using any of them is fine. Using none of them is fine.

Wow - that got high concept, quick.

If you know nothing about the devices you operate - you dont get to make "isnt that curious" remarks.

If you arent good with long texts:

Using exfat wil eventually result in a save process to corrupt your sd card - because you exited homebrew apps with the home button and thereby interrupted a save process, or because a homebrew app might crash while saving - thereby doing the same. fat32 is more "stable" in those situations. (As in doesnt have this problem - trust me - I havent lost a savestate on my switch yet. And I'm hot unplugging the sdcard for months now, just for the kinks.(Because its a quick way to shut down the switch when taking the sdcard over to copy stuff onto it.))

Root cause still is the exfat driver/exfat design on their own, which can cause the same to happen, if you even just shut down the switch - while something is saving.

WHY THIS BE ONLY PROBLEM WITH HOMEBREW ON SWITCH?

Switch games dont save to the sdcard. Only homebrew does. With every save (/write) process your chance of it going wrong with exfat slightly increases. Why? See above.

WHY THIS BE ONLY PROBLEM WITH SWITCH - part2?

What? That you need to exit retroarch via the exit/quit option for your save states to be actually saved? Thats an actual thing you know. Its called design. Its called quit be there for a reason. Use it. Switch being the first plattform with a Home button that essentially crashes apps instead of exiting them cleanly - makes this a paradise for user induced error tough. "I did nothign." "You pressed home button instead of using exit", "No - still convinced, I did nothing - whats the problem?"

WHY THIS BE ONLY PROBLEM WITH SWITCH though? - part 3

Previous Nintendo consoles you hacked didnt use exfat, did they?

Eh, eh, *thinking*, eh, eh, ... no.

Want a diploma for understanding that?

 

[DiscostewSM]

So it's best to use savestate? Cause on Wii U save ingame is not a problem, it's just the Switch :v

Well, that's comparing homebrew emulators to official emulators, unofficial access to official access. Official emulators have the means to dump such save data when it's necessary in just about any relevant situation.

 

[notimp]

What also helps to understand this is, that Horizon apps (as in homebrew apps as well), dont interact with the filesystem on a filesystem level. The apps are basically coded to say to the OS "write this to the sdcard" and the OS takes over from there.

Complaining about this in a retroarch thread is like complaining in a Microsoft support forum, that Word on a Mac has issues saving to your NTSC usb stick.

Now thats a bad example, because so many people did, that Apple eventually put a NTSC file system driver in macOS. Probably because marketing said something. Or they felt an overwhelming amount of pity (tha fools! ).

The point being, that Nintendo has to fix that - but they probably wont.

While downloading games (the part where Nintendo is writing stuff to the sdcard), people are usually too transfixed by the progress bar to shut down the system (and pressing homebutton doesnt crash the process, like with hombrew), so the risk of something happening during a write is substantially lower. Same with the screenshot button, also thats probably a very quick write.

And if it happens, Nintendo support will just tell you to format sdcard and redownload your games. There - another 10k USD saved in development fees.

 

[CrashMidnick]

Stop using SX OS and format your SD to FAT32 (dont forget 32kb cluster size)

Already formatted to FAT32 with 32k cluster size. Tried ReiNX = same problem. Just reformatted everything and installed again, the problem remains. I give up for that core.

 

[m4xw]

Already formatted to FAT32 with 32k cluster size. Tried ReiNX = same problem. Just reformatted everything and installed again, the problem remains. I give up for that core.

Both work tho, did you copy the files again or did a new setup?
Broken files will remain broken if copied off the card.

 

[jammybudga777]

Back for a short comment - then staying abstinent again for the remainder of the week.

First off, saying "I'm sorry" for not reading the thread then expecting someone else to do it for you, doesnt make it better. So eff this approach, and anyone who is still supporting it.

- @m4xw never allow the split controller value "on" to be stored. At leased not as the default (if you want to implement a persistent toggle - ok). We had the same conceptual problem with pfba and others, where people want to use split controllers in "single controller mode" - when they dock their switches. This should always be the default - otherwise, it causes heaps of confusion.

There are more people out there who dont own "pro" controllers, than people who will throw a hissy fit, because they have to enable an option every time they want to use split controller two player mode. Please consider this as well. (Default to split single is most important, whether you want to implement a toggle whose state can be saved is up to you.)

You now have one person complaining that they have to do something everytime they want to use split controller 2P mode, we've had dozens of people complain about not being able to "use" their switch in docked mode.

- For PSX emulation to work full speed or close to full speed in most games (with no audio issues) - the following settings have been proposed:

In any case
- enable threaded video
- use a bios - which has to be named in a certain way. Dont ask - read this thread. If you get infuriated by all the "help me, I dont wanna" postings you'll come across - welcome to the club.

In almost any case:
- enable switch-thread as the audio driver

In most cases: Disable v-sync, enable frame duping; (small performance increases)

Disputed: Disable dithering (Never increased performance in my case - but might? Try it - dont just ask "what is best?"). Increase Audio Latency (increasing audio latency above 64ms should not be needed - and should be seen as a tradeoff - so dont), disable framebuffer emulation (What? This time not even I am sure whats meant by that.. ). Use the most current nightly (by the metric of "newer is better"? confirmed?). Delete the .cfg (sure, anytime you want to - but why -exactly?). // Switch the video driver to "switch" instead of "gl" (attention you also have to switch the gui driver to rgui, or your retroarch will blackscreen on the next startup (solved by deleting the .cfg)) - not sure if this helps any (is the core even affected?), but it was the first thing I tried on the new release - once I noticed that gl wasnt necessarily better for psxrearmed. Also - for the last one to "take" you have to restart reatroarch, after you changed the settings.

@m4xw: can you comment on if changing the video driver might result in different performance of the pcsxrearmed core, theoretically - or not?

- entirely optional:
convert your isos / bin/cues - into pbps. Someone mentioned an anecdotal performance increase (doubt it), but in any case - you will save notable amounts of discspace, so do it (settings for psx2pbp: classic mode, max compression).

if you use psx2pbp on games with multiple bin files per CD (f.e. seperate audio and data tracks), you have to use an additional step, described in here twice. Read up on it. Using psx2pbp and the extra step will not make games run, that dont run in their plain iso / bin/cue formats. So using psx2pbp is considered optional.

Dont download pbp files of the internet and complain that they dont work. Use original psx files, and convert them. There is a difference in compatibility.
--

Now back to the part where you flood the thread with hearsay, feels and "can you do this for me" requests - and my actively despising people who still support this culture - and therefore me still taking a timeout.

This whole "I support you! personally! longtime!" attitude actively lets people not care about the slightly more complex "big picture stuff" and thereby is actively responsible for overlooking already disected, known, and important information.

If you "are afraid to change settings, because it could make things worse.." please dont try to supplement this display of not wanting to read up on what settings actually do with "what is best recommendation farming" - because most people dont care if they give you a wrong answer. Even I stopped caring. Nevertheless - changing settings is required, and you can always get back to default by deleting the config.

Still actively despising the "forum culture" in here, so back to my selfproposed timeout.

If you are still in "trying to make it look pretty" mode with naming and scanning your games for cover images - may I suggest, that you dont care about the database stuff ("scanning games") until you found out, how to make stuff run properly? Just in case you have to delete configs and "start over". (For those who dont know: Scanning your games (= database stuff) is not needed at all for you to be able to run your games.)

edit: Also - i suggest you use 3:2 aspect ratio for most PSX games. Even 16:10 for some (wider). Those are the "best" compromises between attaining an assemblence to the intended aspect ratio (4:3) and "getting a bigger picture" on your switch screen (mostly in portable mode).

Are you a developer or someone of importants? You sure go on like it! I really can't grasp why you moan about people trying to find answers. And I really don't understand why you think you feel the need to tell people your back but not coming to this thread for the rest of the week blah blah ( but here you are again above this post). Like honestly who cares? You really need to stop feeling abig self entitlement to be moaning and writing boring s.a's each time your hear. I really hope you get the attention your after from somewhere. Clearly deprived in alot of aspects in life. Have a good week sir

 

[CrashMidnick]

Both work tho, did you copy the files again or did a new setup?
Broken files will remain broken if copied off the card.

New files, always (I am tired to redo my config file lol). I tested the 4 past nightly releases and the stable release, tried with the NSP channel, with the forwarder and with album menu = nothing worked. Again this is the only core that does not work for me. Strange. My bios are in the right place (/retroarch/system and are named correctly as per the libretro doc and again it worked perfectly with retroNX).

Thanks for your help mate, I will wait for later releases maybe it will fix this.

 

[jammybudga777]

Aye! Where did anyone say they are entitled to free support. It's called a forum/thread for people to see and speak and ask amongst themselves. Plz seek the medical attention for your bipolar bud.

 

[m4xw]

/retroarch/system

Its /retroarch/cores/system

 

[Deleted User]

Pondering with staying away for a while again.

I get that you're trying to help out, but if this bothers you so much then maybe a public forum is definitely not the place for you.

 

[Deleted User]

Its /retroarch/cores/system

Uh yeah dude so like if that is your dir retroarch genesisgx would never load the Roms as the bios is being placed in the wrong folder

Oh vey

I have extensive exp with latest nightlies and sega cd all games are working just fine that i have tested as long as there is one bin and one cue in some cases i did have to convert some games which had multiple bins with Chdman.exe

 

[m4xw]

Uh yeah dude so like if that is your dir retroarch genesisgx would never load the Roms as the bios is being placed in the wrong folder

Oh vey

I have extensive exp with latest nightlies and sega cd all games are working just fine that i have tested as long as there is one bin and one cue in some cases i did have to convert some games which had multiple bins with Chdman.exe

I mean he could change the path, but I dont think he did

 

[Danikaos]

Probably a broken thumbnail on your system bugging stuff out.
I recommend you to do a clean install, don't use old files from pre-formatting, make sure to transfer your savefiles/states etc

I'm getting the same problems black thumbnails and then crashes, did 2 fresh installs and still problems, it happens when i have a lot of thumbnails.

64gb sd, fat32, 32kb cluster.
sxos 2.0.1
latest nightly retroarch.

 

[grabman]

oh i totally agree..