Homebrew Official Retroarch WiiU (wip.)

[willianholtz]

does anyone have version 1.8.6 to send me?

 

[Necron-99]

the randomizer What are you talking about. RetroArch's website lists the Wii U several times in the download page. It also lists "Fix touchscreen mouse emulation" under Future in the Changelog. What list are you referring to?

 

[the_randomizer]

the randomizer What are you talking about. RetroArch's website lists the Wii U several times in the download page. It also lists "Fix touchscreen mouse emulation" under Future in the Changelog. What list are you referring to?

Never mind, forget I said it. Wii U is short on devs these days. Dynarec hasn't happened yet either so, PS1 and N64 will be slow/broken for a loooooong time.

 

[september796]

@depaul
by removing an old (and not working anymore) WIFI connexion (SSID was changed), now Retroarch (minimalist, like yours, only Rgui, no notification, no overlays or any fancy option) boots in 6 seconds, and snes roms load almost immediately (1-2 seconds).

The point of my tests was not to prove you were wrong or I was right, but you can't say FOR SURE that everything works for everyone, because you don't know everyone else configuration (not only in Retroarch, but also in the Wii U parameters). Bad WIFI settings seem to be part of the problem (at least FOR ME), probably because the updater needs an internet connexion and uses it at launch

You're right!
I 'broke' my wifi connection on purpose to test this and it changed the loading times dramatically in a bad way. It became about twice as slow to launch RA and twice as slow to load cores. I didn't know about this but it's probably the most important step to keep in mind if you want to minimize loading times.
So, I guess it's either having a good connection or not connection at all? Anyways the people involved in RA development should remove the need to check an internet connection at launch on RA wiiu since nobody uses the updater, and only check it when a required feature is actually used.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Can the modified NES core here: https://github.com/Tippek/libretro-fceumm-mod be compiled for use in Retroarch on the Wii U? That specific NES core is needed to play the very cool Super Mario Bros. 1/3 rom hack as it's a bit more intense than a traditional NES rom and as such needs to be run on custom NES emulators that allow for it to run. This core is one way now to play said rom hack.

Also, unrelated question, can anyone get rumble to work in SameBoy? I'm trying to play Pokemon Pinball with rumble with my Wii U gamepad, and even though I have rumble enabled in the core, and I've enabled rumble within the greater Retroarch settings, I'm still getting no rumble support from the Gamepad within Pokemon Pinball with the Sameboy core. Do only specific controllers work with retroarch rumble and the Gamepad isn't one of them, or am I just missing something here?

 

[ChiefReginod]

Ok why should we go so far?

Here is a video showing exactly my WiiU RA 1.9.0 speed I get :

-Minimalist setup : RGUI, no playlists or whatever:



Almost instant load of small roms : Genesis, SNES,
Fair time for big arcade roms : from 2s (SF2) to 13s (SFiii3n)
Cores load in about 10s.

I was unable to get similar speeds until I noticed in the video that you only have a few cores installed. So, I went ahead and deleted everything except for a few cores and tried again. The difference was dramatic. It's much faster when you only have a few cores installed!

Looks like I'm moving back to 1.9.0.

I think something must have changed in recent versions to affect core loading in this way, because I could swear I tested for speed differences between many vs fewer cores in older versions without seeing any difference before (I even used a timer). It's also worth noting that deleting unused cores is recommended on the 3DS install documentation page, so it's kind of a known issue already.

 

[ChiefReginod]

Guys, playlists are fixed!

Settings > User Interface > Show Advanced Settings > ON
Settings > Core > Always Reload Core on Run Content > OFF

I'm getting the same load speeds from Load Content, Recent/History and Playlists now (assuming the needed core was already loaded). I tested with and without the info files and it's still slower with them, so they should still be deleted.

 

[depaul]

Yes there are some cores that are just duplicate (snes9x2012, 2015,...) or never needed in my case. I've just deleted them.

Maybe Ozone is as fast as Rgui.

Roms load faster when they're in their original format (.sfc, .md, ...) as there is no decompression delay by Retroarch . However this isn't possible for arcade roms.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Guys, playlists are fixed!

Settings > User Interface > Show Advanced Settings > ON
Settings > Core > Always Reload Core on Run Content > OFF

I'm getting the same load speeds from Load Content, Recent/History and Playlists now (assuming the needed core was already loaded). I tested with and without the info files and it's still slower with them, so they should still be deleted.

So you can get fast loading speeds by disabling always reload core and deleting the info files?
What Menu GUI are you using?

 

[ChiefReginod]

So you can get fast loading speeds by disabling always reload core and deleting the info files?
What Menu GUI are you using?

I'm using RGUI, but there's the same speed boost for playlists in all of the other menu drivers as long as you don't have the assets or info files installed. Also as recently discussed, keep the number of RPX files in the cores folder down to a bare minimum with only what you need, and delete any invalid network connections from the Wii U network settings. That's it. I didn't need to change ANY other settings in RetroArch itself aside from the one I mentioned in my last post.

Who knew that 1.9.0 was so low-key awesome? I feel like there should have been an announcement about the new option.

 

[depaul]

Guys, playlists are fixed!
Settings > User Interface > Show Advanced Settings > ON
Settings > Core > Always Reload Core on Run Content > OFF

Also as recently discussed, keep the number of RPX files in the cores folder down to a bare minimum with only what you need, and delete any invalid network connections from the Wii U network settings. That's it.

Great find! Other members too noticed wifi impact on Retroarch!

 

[Badablek]

You're right!
I 'broke' my wifi connection on purpose to test this and it changed the loading times dramatically in a bad way. It became about twice as slow to launch RA and twice as slow to load cores. I didn't know about this but it's probably the most important step to keep in mind if you want to minimize loading times.
So, I guess it's either having a good connection or not connection at all? Anyways the people involved in RA development should remove the need to check an internet connection at launch on RA wiiu since nobody uses the updater, and only check it when a required feature is actually used.

thanks for your tests (and confirmation).

It would be nice to be able to fully disable network (from RA menu for example), but as the Wii U is less and less supported by developers, I don't think it will come

 

[FanNintendo]

There has never been a PCSXrearmed Core on WiiU only BeetlePSX Core.

right that what i was suppose to said

 

[ChiefReginod]

I've figured out a hacky way to keep all cores without losing the speed advantage of only having one or two. In short, just set the "Cores" path to a different folder and then use playlists with hard paths set for the cores (ie, not "DETECT").

In detail:

Spoiler

This requires you to have ALL of your content in playlists since you won't be able to manually load cores afterward. In addition, your playlists will need to have the core paths defined for every single entry (ie, not "DETECT"), otherwise the content will fail to load. Unfortunately, playlists created with Import Content only set the default_core_path, so you'll need to replace the individual core_path entries in a text editor.

EDIT YOUR PLAYLISTS

If you already have hard paths set for all entries, skip this section.

Open your playlists in a text editor and use the Find/Replace command. You can use the path/name values in the defaults at the top

Example:

Find what: "core_path": "DETECT",
Replace with: "core_path": "sd:/retroarch/cores/fbneo_libretro.rpx",

Find what: "core_name": "DETECT",
Replace with: "core_name": "Arcade (FinalBurn Neo)",

Make sure to click "Replace All" for each, then proceed.

SET AN EMPTY CORE PATH IN RETROARCH

1. Create the following folder:
sd:/retroarch/cores2

2. Run RetroArch at least once so it generates retroarch.cfg.

3. Open retroarch.cfg and find the following line:
libretro_directory = "sd:/retroarch/cores"

Edit the bolded part so it points to cores2.

Done.

If you still need to manually load a core for whatever reason, just go into settings and point the Cores folder back to the original.

EDIT: Some steps weren't needed.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

so is multiplayer functional online with wii u?

 

[CORE]

If no Internet Connection Indexiine Users might be screwed.

Atleast One even if not valid Internet Connection is required to Launch the Browser.

 

[NinStar]

so is multiplayer functional online with wii u?

Yes, I had answered that before:

It works, but you need to manually setup port forwarding, because public rooms don't work on Wii U (I don't know why)

Tested it myself a while ago (probably v1.7.x), but my Wii U is currently dead so I can't confirm if it still works with the latest version.

 

[depaul]

An idea that could be useful!

Request to convert Retroarch cores (*.RPX) to installable format into USB (or NAND).

Reason : For faster launch: currently we have to load 10MB-60MB cores from SD card which is slow compared to USB (average speed USB: about 25 MB/s vs SD Card about 4 MB/s).

 

[willianholtz]

To this day, I do not understand why the RA does not load only one GUI, and only then calls the cores according to the game selected. Currently he does the following procedure:

1. loads a core that has a GUI, then resets, and reloads the core again
2. If you select a game with a different core, it closes the current core, and loads a new one.
3. That is, it has a GUI for each core, which makes the files large, like 30MB per file.

The fact is, if it carried only the essentials to run the game and not a new screen together, this process would be much faster.

 

[M7L7NK7]

This is why I'm cynical regarding the Switch hacking scene, it doesn't even have permanent CFW, so to me, it's not even worth my time.

Are you referring to having to inject a payload as not a permanent cfw? You realise it's a console you don't ever turn off right?