Release RetroArch (NES, SNES, Genesis, GBC, GBA, and more)

[ekianjo]

I actually tried to do a libretro port of GnGeo, but I found that it depends way too much on SDL, and would take forever to extract all that and get a working version.

Is it possible to rebuild GnGeo using the new SDL from notaz at least? The current GnGeo version does not support TV-out because of the old SDL used...

 

[lifning]

It might be possible to simply set SDL_VIDEODRIVER=omapdss in its launcher script, if it doesn't bundle its own libSDL.


Anyway, through some terrible clobbering together of arm-linux-gnueabi-g++ 4.7 and the Yactfeau SDK (byuu may like C++11, but g++-4.3 sure doesn't ), I managed to build the RetroArch-Phoenix GUI, which the PND in the first post now includes. bnes and bsnes still don't compile, though, so I'll have to poke at that more some other time (not that I expect either of those to perform well on Pandora anyway).

 

[Autechre]

I actually tried to do a libretro port of GnGeo, but I found that it depends way too much on SDL, and would take forever to extract all that and get a working version.

For the Nxengine port I baked SDL_gfx into the libretro port so that it doesn't 'require' SDL but it's still actually there. (the SDL audio code was removed, though - as was the input code).


For the libretro Doom port I had to do a lot of manual editing to get the SDL code out, but I succeeded in the end without having to bake in any of SDL's code.


So either of the two approaches could be employed here.

 

[notaz]

ok PCSX reARMed should now be buildable as libretro library:


http://notaz.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=pcsx_rearmed.git


./configure --platform=libretro


Would be interesting if somebody tried it on something like r-pi. It should be also buildable for x86 Linux, but it's 32bit only and missing all ARM improvements, obviously.

 

[lifning]

Cool! I'll try and get a new PND built with it shortly So far, the only game I've managed to get running is Rayman 2, and only without BIOS. In case the information is useful: the other games I tested, Rayman 1, Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk 1, and Chrono Trigger crash immediately (but they work in PCSX-ReARMed proper).


Also, just for fun, I forced it to build a libretro for amd64, with the same results.


On the topic of rebuilding the PND... I wonder if it would be more sustainable in the long term to take the cores out of the PND itself and have users place them in "/pandora/appdata/retroarch/lib/". This would allow cores to be updated piecemeal without having to redownload the whole of RetroArch and all the other libraries, which probably are the same unchanged versions from last release. It also means not forcing users to download all the cores (especially the rather large MAME and FBA ones) if they only intend to use a few. The Windows build of RetroArch-Phoenix includes a "package manager" of sorts for downloading and updating libretro cores; perhaps this Pandora version could employ something similar.

 

[notaz]

ok fixed the crash. As for the cores in .pnd, I think it can have them until there is some autoupdate thing (if it ever comes), 12MB is not that bad with today's storage sizes.

 

[PokeParadox]

ok PCSX reARMed should now be buildable as libretro library:


http://notaz.gp2x.de...csx_rearmed.git


./configure --platform=libretro


Would be interesting if somebody tried it on something like r-pi. It should be also buildable for x86 Linux, but it's 32bit only and missing all ARM improvements, obviously.

Ok... seeing as emulator code scare me... What would I do to build and test this on my RPi?


Is it just a case of pull the git and ./configure, make,sudo make install?

 

[notaz]

for standalone, try ./configure && make; then run ./pcsx from the source tree.


for libretro library, do ./configure --platform=libretro && make; but then you'll need to build RetroArch too.


Feel free to report back if something doesn't work.

 

[PokeParadox]

Well I have managed to get it to compile... Now my only issue is getting my PSX stuff accessible on the PI to make it actually do something. I'll take a look after work tomorrow...

 

[PokeParadox]

Would be interesting if somebody tried it on something like r-pi. It should be also buildable for x86 Linux, but it's 32bit only and missing all ARM improvements, obviously.

I've only managed to test Crash Bandicoot so far, but got it running from LXDE and sound is stuttery (I've heard this is a known issue with the sound config and not a PCSX-ReArmed problem) And it performs pretty well with the auto frameskip. Not as well as the Pandora, but you would expect that. I may try an overclock next time to see if that helps any, but in any case it work well!

 

[Wally]

I'm busting to know if the NES emulator has full screen hardware scaling?

 

[lifning]

Posted an updated PND with a few new cores, and fresh builds of the existing ones.


edit: Also worth mentioning: There's now a GLES driver, but the Home/End/PageUp/PageDown keys are ignored when using it... kind of important, since those are the Pandora's face buttons I imagine it's something to do with the X11 input driver. I've tried telling it to use the SDL input driver, but it didn't listen (perhaps it's impossible with the EGL context it uses). Set the video driver to "gl" if you wanna fiddle with it.

I'm busting to know if the NES emulator has full screen hardware scaling?

The launcher script preloads notaz' SDL with full screen hardware scaling and sets SDL_VIDEODRIVER to "omapdss", and the included configuration file tells RetroArch to use its SDL driver. Therefore RetroArch, plus any emulator core it uses, should have full screen hardware scaling unless you configure it to do otherwise.


tl;dr: yes.

 

[ShleeDragon]

This project has always been of great interest to me. Thanks for your work.

 

[ekianjo]

Still no plans to put this on the repo directly ?

 

[lifning]

Hmm... I should do that. I suppose it's stable enough.

 

[ekianjo]

Hmm... I should do that. I suppose it's stable enough.

If you do I promise to post comments and rating

 

[ekianjo]

Thanks for the upload!!


I suggest you create a new post in "software news" to announce the release in the repo as well ! That way you will get more visibility too

 

[N3Cr0]

Hello, I need some help.

I cannot load any roms (only tried Genesis yet).

I have tested both GUIS. The Phoenix version has no menu entry for Genesis games and in the classic version neither GenPlus nor Picodrive seem to work.

Edit: Nevermind. It works now. 

It didn't run when I ran the OS from SD card with the newer graphics driver.

Now it's running fine from internal storage and old driver.