Emulating at a reasonable speed

[lukaus]

I'm new to the whole Pandora/Pyra ecosystem with my Pyra, so hopefully this isn't a stupid question in some way.

It seems the Pyra should be plenty powerful to emulate NES, SNES, GBA etc, but I haven't been able to get it working at a playable speed

I'm trying to use 'higan', 'visualboyadvance', and 'nestopia' and have all my packages up to date with apt. Does anyone know what settings I should use, or other software I need; perhaps other emulators that are working?

Thanks,
Luke

 

[JDTAY]

I heard that the Pyra GPU driver isn't fully functional yet, so most stuff uses software rendering by default. One fix for now is to install GL4ES.

 

[FelixNemis]

Some of those emulators will be running slow because they're using the non-hardware-accelerated openGL driver. One way to get around this is to use gl4es which can translate openGL -> GLES so that it can use the actual GPU driver.
It wont just work with everything but its pretty good, but for things that aren't using openGL its obviously not going to do anything
you can install it with a "sudo apt install lib-gl4es-pyra"
And then you use it when launching something like "gl4es nestopia" in a terminal

As for when that doesn't work, its a matter of someone figuring out what the cause of the slowness is and figuring out how to fix it. Once they do though they'll probably make a optimized version available for us plebs on the repo here
https://pyra-handheld.com/repo/apps

There's already a few nicely working emulators on there already, though some issues are still being worked out with them too

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Yeah a lot of software like that will need to be optimized specifically for the Pyra.

 

[lukaus]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

How do I install things from the DBP repository?

 

[matzesu]

This is quite fast forward: just go to the Repository Side; download the DBP you want to the Pyra SD Card, and just Click on the Application to run it..

 

[FelixNemis]

Specifically, put them in a dragonbox/packages/ folder on an sd card

 

[levi]

Where do they appear if you put them in dragonbox/packages? Are there any other options, as there were with the Pandora where you could put them in different folders to make them appear as shortcuts or in the apps menu or both.

I'd like to get this strapped down so I can write it up on the wiki.

Edit: Looking at the code, I think it only looks in dragonbox/packages. I'm still not sure exactly what putting stuff in there does. However, if I'm reading Matzy right, he says you can just double click on it in a filer window.

 

[TrashyMG]

Think they can either be in a dragonbox/packages/ folder on The SD card or just the root of the SD card. I believe it will create a dragonbox/appdata/ folder automatically for saved data and such.

It should automagically populate in the menus and also the executable should become visible from command line. I never attempted to just click on it, maybe it does work.

 

[kaprikawn]

I'm trying to use 'higan'

Higan is a very demanding emulator, it needs powerful hardware to run, there's no chance it will ever run on the Pyra. For Pyra-class hardware, I think Snes9x is the emulator of choice for SNES.

 

[levi]

Think they can either be in a dragonbox/packages/ folder on The SD card or just the root of the SD card. I believe it will create a dragonbox/appdata/ folder automatically for saved data and such.

It should automagically populate in the menus and also the executable should become visible from command line. I never attempted to just click on it, maybe it does work.

Right, looking at the right config file and putting on my thinking head again, it looks like it searches three paths, '.', 'dragonbox/packages' and 'dragonbox/packages/desktop'. If I assume those paths are all relative to the SD card mount point, it suggests the root of the SD card is just as valid a place as dragonbox/packages, if slightly less tidy. I wonder now what happens if you put them in dragonbox/packages/desktop though.

 

[lukaus]

Higan is a very demanding emulator, it needs powerful hardware to run, there's no chance it will ever run on the Pyra. For Pyra-class hardware, I think Snes9x is the emulator of choice for SNES.

Is there a version of Snes9x out on Pyra? I don't see it on apt or DBP

 

[levi]

On my eeePC I found mednafen a very capable emulator for everything up to SNES/PC Engine/GBA. I understand that to be in the debian repo, perhaps also with a front end which avoids you having to learn the keyboard shortcuts to define keys.

 

[matzesu]

Ok so I should try to run mednafen whit the OpenGL Command,
By the way: the terminal saves up command, so if it works like I think just write the commands once, and then the next time just push the keyboard shortcut for the terminal (either alt + Pyra or control + Pyra) and then just use the DPAD to scroll to the commands you want...

Edit: quick commercial: if it’s works: I will have a new topic for a Video ^^

 

[Bosbeetle]

Ok so I should try to run mednafen whit the OpenGL Command,
By the way: the terminal saves up command, so if it works like I think just write the commands once, and then the next time just push the keyboard shortcut for the terminal (either alt + Pyra or control + Pyra) and then just use the DPAD to scroll to the commands you want...

Edit: quick commercial: if it’s works: I will have a new topic for a Video ^^

Yes and filenames are autocompleted if you press tab... So if you have the file mednafen you can type me + tab or something to complete it.

 

[matzesu]

I hope it will launch the games properly when I run it whit OpenGL, I allready tested mednafen, it’s brought the Emulator itself but when I run a Gameboy Game, it’s opened up a new window, but that was all ..
So mednafen is a Multi Emulator where I just make the Controller Settup, and then launch everything? If it’s makes at least the Nintendo games under N64, it would be cool..

I would prefer to have Emulators that launch from a DBP, but I don’t know how to make them myself.. or is there a script which makes the from me optimized Debian package to a DBP?
This would help to fill the Repo ..
but my programming skills are under 0 , I could copy and paste scripts to the terminal, or type commands I red in the Internet.. at the Moment I only can try and error the Debian Repo stuff and can make videos..

Or to say it in the words of Tyrion Lennister: „that’s what I do; I drink and I know things „

 

[matzesu]

When I run mednafen whit the Gl4es command, it’s gets some issues

 

[PowerGod]

Is it right that the library name is missing the final "n" ?

 

[matzesu]

At least it’s opened up the mednafen, but it’s doesn’t run any games ..
i used the command from the fubillard + from ptitseb because I thought it might work this way
Maybe there are some libraries missing? Like on Muppen bevor Wally fixed the dbp?