Homebrew Official Retroarch WiiU (wip.)

[MrPib]

Had a blast playing around with Stella2023 and Mame2003+ last night! Really nice to be able to play Crazy Climber and Robotron using the 2 sticks. Thanks so much for dropping these!

 

[lordelan]

How do I enter the quick menu with the Aroma ports?
Neither PLUS+MINUS nor R3+L3 seem to work.

Okay nevermind, it's the Home Button.

 

[Sowden]

No estimate, there's still stuff that's planned to be added before the release and I don't know how long that will take.
But I've just compiled Mame2003, FBAlpha2012, Atari800, Atari5200, Stella2023 tho so you can at least use them with the current WIP Aroma release @Sowden @depaul

https://www.mediafire.com/file/b1p5...lla2023%2BFBAlpha2021%2BMame2003Plus.zip/file

Thank you so much @ploggy for rendering out the cores for me. But it seems like there are still problems with the Atari800. No matter what I do, the core won't boot with the BIOS. My first thought was to go into the cfg file and spell out the path to the BIOS file. Then I entered the internal settings menu for the core, and it says it sees it. And I went into the Retroarch menu to make sure that the system matched what the BIOS file it was supposed to load, but it still wouldn't load the BIOS. So I'll just keep waiting, but thanks a lot for your work.

 

[alfonsovin]

Hey guys BIG announcement time lol

The Aroma Port that has been in limbo for the last year due to the issue with slow Core loading/Rom loading has been fixed thanks to a new Aroma CFW update
This means Retroarch on Aroma is now back on the table! I tried a bunch of the Core's I compiled last year and they seem to run fine and Core swap as they're supposed to. heh

Downside is Core's that require Jit such as PS1 and Picodrive will have to be reworked to work properly with Aroma but the rest should work fine

Vid of Aroma RA in action...


Here's a full Retroarch package with Cores and a Retroarch wuhb file so you can have a Retroarch icon to launch from the Home Menu!

Don't mix Tiramisu Retroarch Cores with Aroma ones and don't attempt to update your Cores through Retroarch... Your asking for trouble if you do
Best to rename your current Retroarch folder if you have one, the link I've posted has the Retroarch folder all setup so its just a straight extract to SD root, insert sd, load Aroma then load the Retroarch icon (white instead of black)

Try it and post any issues you have and remember this is a test build

https://www.mediafire.com/file/jgnw7qol59h00gp/Aroma_Cores_Extract_to_SD_Card.zip/file

EDIT: Thanks to the work of @Vague Rant we now have working Pcsxreamed and Picodrive Aroma Cores!!!

Incredible advance! Very good news! now I don't need change to Tiramisu to play Pac-Man
First attempt, Mame 2023 plus and PCE working but it took 30 secs for loading RA and 30 secs to load any ROM. Seems too long, I don't need if could be something to change in setup or a normal thing till it could be improve in next releases

 

[lordelan]

it took 30 secs for loading RA and 30 secs to load any ROM. Seems too long

This is still the major flaw currently but they are working on it.
It was way worse with the earlier Aroma builds though.
I just played some good old "Sheep It Up" yesterday (free Game Boy game that is available via the content downloader) and despite still taking too long for a GB game it played fine.

 

[vrda]

Incredible advance! Very good news! now I don't need change to Tiramisu to play Pac-Man
First attempt, Mame 2023 plus and PCE working but it took 30 secs for loading RA and 30 secs to load any ROM. Seems too long, I don't need if could be something to change in setup or a normal thing till it could be improve in next releases

Make sure that in your retroarch.cfg you have the following key like this: assets_directory = "fs:/vol/content/assets". This will speed up the loading from WiiU menu when starting retroarch.wuhb (84 MB, in sd:/wiiu/apps)
Also, retroarch.cfg, retroarch-salamander.cfg and all the playlist files (*.lpl) should be checked to replace all occurences of
sd:/ to fs:/vol/external01/
I'm attaching my config file so you can compare it.

 

[alfonsovin]

Make sure that in your retroarch.cfg you have the following key like this: assets_directory = "fs:/vol/content/assets". This will speed up the loading from WiiU menu when starting retroarch.wuhb (84 MB, in sd:/wiiu/apps)
Also, retroarch.cfg, retroarch-salamander.cfg and all the playlist files (*.lpl) should be checked to replace all occurences of
sd:/ to fs:/vol/external01/
I'm attaching my config file so you can compare it.

Thank you, all my config file has "fs:/vol/external01/ instead "sd:", the assets_directory was ok

When I load a ROM it "exit" and see a screen with "Wii U logo" and hear the music of Wii U, then black screen for 20 secs and start the game after that

 

[vrda]

Thank you, all my config file has "fs:/vol/external01/ instead "sd:", the assets_directory was ok

When I load a ROM it "exit" and see a screen with "Wii U logo" and hear the music of Wii U, then black screen for 20 secs and start the game after that

After the white screen (starting emulator executable - rpx) it's up to emulator (core) to do something.
I noticed that sd cards with small sector sizes are performing quite bad with RA (and other software too).
I recently reformatted one of my cards from 4KB to 64KB sector size (fat32) and it's a day and night difference.

 

[lordelan]

I recently reformatted one of my cards from 4KB to 64KB sector size (fat32) and it's a day and night difference.

Why did you even use 4KB? 32k is always recommend. You would only need 64k for SD cards bigger than 2 TB (although you should be fine with 64k nonetheless).

 

[vrda]

Have no idea how it ended up with 4KB. I just noticed RA was waay slower on WiiU using this card.

 

[depaul]

You could also disable an option in RA settings called "Always Reload Core on Run Content" to save some time.

 

[ploggy]

Thank you so much @ploggy for rendering out the cores for me. But it seems like there are still problems with the Atari800. No matter what I do, the core won't boot with the BIOS. My first thought was to go into the cfg file and spell out the path to the BIOS file. Then I entered the internal settings menu for the core, and it says it sees it. And I went into the Retroarch menu to make sure that the system matched what the BIOS file it was supposed to load, but it still wouldn't load the BIOS. So I'll just keep waiting, but thanks a lot for your work.

I'm not that familiar with the Core, I assumed it was all good when it played games
How does it supposed to work on PC RA?

Incredible advance! Very good news! now I don't need change to Tiramisu to play Pac-Man
First attempt, Mame 2023 plus and PCE working but it took 30 secs for loading RA and 30 secs to load any ROM. Seems too long, I don't need if could be something to change in setup or a normal thing till it could be improve in next releases

The official release will be alot faster than it is now.
..But if you want a hacky workaround for now you can put your extracted assets on a usb drive in the path retroarch/assets and go to the directory settings and set the usb asset path then save config.. that should speed up the rom loading time alot
https://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/frontend/assets.zip

 

[alfonsovin]

I'm not that familiar with the Core, I assumed it was all good when it played games
How does it supposed to work on PC RA?

The official release will be alot faster than it is now.
..But if you want a hacky workaround for now you can put your extracted assets on a usb drive in the path retroarch/assets and go to the directory settings and set the usb asset path then save config.. that should speed up the rom loading time alot
https://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/frontend/assets.zip

Thank you
Regarding use a USB. Is it possible plug it in the front USB at the same time I got plugged a USB hard disk in the back?
Only is needed asset dir? Is it worth change roms folder?
I will wait for the next launches for me it’s enough the time that “tiramisu version” took for load 16bits roms, maybe 5-10 secs. Some neogeo games took more time 15-20 but it’s normal.

Thanks for your work

 

[ploggy]

Thank you
Regarding use a USB. Is it possible plug it in the front USB at the same time I got plugged a USB hard disk in the back?
Only is needed asset dir? Is it worth change roms folder?
I will wait for the next launches for me it’s enough the time that “tiramisu version” took for load 16bits roms, maybe 5-10 secs. Some neogeo games took more time 15-20 but it’s normal.

Thanks for your work

I've never needed to plug in more than one usb drive but it should be ok ..
Just assets should be fine, moving the roms over wont make any extra speed difference.

No problem, Its not my work tho I'm just a tester.. and trainee Core compiler lol

 

[alfonsovin]

Now that I retake the RetroArch emulation in Wii U I have a question

After import the games I got some playlist in different platforms: arcade, new, snes, genesis etc then I select “explore” to find games sort in years or categories but MAME games aren’t, all games are in “rest or others” as it is not read the database

I have update db files but I can’t get it was integrated correctly

 

[ploggy]

Now that I retake the RetroArch emulation in Wii U I have a question

After import the games I got some playlist in different platforms: arcade, new, snes, genesis etc then I select “explore” to find games sort in years or categories but MAME games aren’t, all games are in “rest or others” as it is not read the database

I have update db files but I can’t get it was integrated correctly

I cant help with the Explore thing, I hate it it slows down to a crawl whenever I navigate to it by accident when I have alot of playlists/roms so I ended up disabling it lol

 

[alfonsovin]

I cant help with the Explore thing, I hate it it slows down to a crawl whenever I navigate to it by accident when I have alot of playlists/roms so I ended up disabling it lol

It’s true I go up to get the down side of menu. Anyway I would like catch mame games to explore sometimes through it

 

[Sowden]

I'm not that familiar with the Core, I assumed it was all good when it played games
How does it supposed to work on PC RA?

Well, I use it for it's Atari 800XL emulation. And even for the Tarimasu counterpart, you need to have a BIOS file to be in the cores/system folder. In RA Tarimasu, I just dropped the files in and it read it. I looked at the cfg file and it spells out in some lines where every BIOS file is located. But after doing all of that, it still didn't work Maybe you can give it a try yourself sometime.

 

[ploggy]

Well, I use it for it's Atari 800XL emulation. And even for the Tarimasu counterpart, you need to have a BIOS file to be in the cores/system folder. In RA Tarimasu, I just dropped the files in and it read it. I looked at the cfg file and it spells out in some lines where every BIOS file is located. But after doing all of that, it still didn't work Maybe you can give it a try yourself sometime.

Can you tell what I can do to confirm it works or not? Do I just try to load a 800XL game? I have the bios files in the system folder.

 

[Sowden]

Can you tell what I can do to confirm it works or not? Do I just try to load a 800XL game? I have the bios files in the system folder.

Yeah for sure. Get the BIOS files both in your Tarimsu and Aroma retroarch folders. Then do a search online and look for Atari games in .atr format. Those are Arari 5 and a 1/4 inch floppy disks. I like to play Keystone Capers