Release RetroArch (NES, SNES, Genesis+SCD, GBC, GBA, and more) now on repo


Pushing an update (0.9.7.4) that does away with my own hand-written file filters in favor of a list extracted from the chosen "libretro-*.so" file itself, which Should Make Everyone Happy™ and is definitely more sustainable in the long term. It also adds an "All files (*)" option, which should've been there all along.


Still need to fix the config file not being writable without copying it to appdata manually, and log stdout/stderr to file. That'll be the next update. (edit: I recently found out about an "--appendconfig" option in RetroArch which might be a good fallback if relying on PND mounting magic doesn't work out)


As for zip extraction, the straight RetroArch launcher will use the "retroarch-zip" shell script from upstream, which places the extracted ROM at the path given by the command "mktemp" (e.g. "/tmp/tmp.96vFwY5zQa"), if the chosen core doesn't claim to support zip files directly itself. This may not be the same behavior as RA-Phoenix.


@ dsleaf67, thanks for the suggestion to make the SDL_OMAP_LAYER_SIZE configurable, I'll include something similar to what you've got there in the coming update--but maybe something that uses the contents of the text file, if it exists, and sets the variable to that.
 
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Thanks for the update! At work so will test when I get home. So far I only really used gamebattle (where did this emulator come from?), There seems to be many issues with retroarch but so far its worth the look for gamebattle alone. Easly the best Gameboy emulator IMHO.


Is Retro arch your baby, or are you porting for the original author?


Plugins system seems good as do most of the emulators, but I've never been a fan of multi ones because of overhead when I usually only use a certain one or two of whats bundled.


Biggest problem is how to handle multiple setups for emulators etc. (controls, where where and what save files are stored). Gui is a little daunting (another aspect of multi-emulators I think).


Have you thought of trying to utilize one of the multi-front ends available for pandora (ie, pickle launcher or pandafe etc)? Maybe your trying to simply port standard app from PC? After all, pandora is a mini computer.


I apologize if these written words come across in a negative way, just trying to give my impressions of Retroarch (both pandora and PC for that matter).


Keep up the great work, this could definitively be a keeper app and replace most of the emulators I currently use on Pandora.
 
I think a good front end would be that one from the rebirth that used like a unity like setup, it seemed really customize able and he even said he wanted go do a multi emulator front end at some point but I haven&#39;t heard much about it since the competition<br /><br />http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php<br />
 
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I'm sorry, I can't get anythiing to run with this one. I've even removed my appdata folder and tried again. Neither, GUI will start game just exit's back to minimenu or back to phoenix gui.
 
RetroArch, as well as RetroArch-Phoenix, were written originally by Themaister, and now gets patches from a small handful of people. I've just done the various Pandora-isms :) Upstream is https://github.com/Themaister/RetroArch/


The emulator cores themselves are written by a lot of different people, of course. "Gambatte" is an excellent GBC emulator in its own right: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gambatte/


Sorry to hear you're having trouble with the latest version. Could you induce a crash and post either the contents of /tmp/pndrun_retroarch.out for the direct launcher, or the text from File->Show Log in RA-Phoenix?
 
I tried a couple of emulators and it seems that most of the time, the sound stutters - is this only me or is it just linked to the emulators cores being a bit slow?
 
Ok it seems its the zip files that don't load. I ran the gbc but couldn't run the zip and below is the pndrun_retroarch



Code: 
=======================================================================================

PND			 : /media/PANDORA/pandora/menu/retroarch.pnd

PND_FSTYPE	  : Squashfs

APPDATADIR	  : /media/PANDORA/pandora/appdata/retroarch

APPDD_FSTYPE    : vfat

PND_CPUSPEED    : <unset>

EXENAME		 : scripts/retroarch.sh

ARGUMENTS	   : <unset>

=======================================================================================

[ START ]--- Mount the PND ----------

Mounting : mount -t squashfs -o ro "/dev/loop0" "/mnt/utmp/retroarch"

Mounting the Union FS : mount -t aufs -o exec,noplink,dirs="/media/PANDORA/pandora/appdata/retroarch=rw+nolwh":"/mnt/pnd/retroarch=rr" none "/mnt/utmp/retroarch"

[SUCCESS]--- Mount the PND ----------

[ START ]--- Starting the application (scripts/retroarch.sh ) ----------

[Gambatte]: Will dupe frames with NULL!

RetroArch [ERROR] :: Failed to load game.

Wrong data-format, corrupt or unsupported ROM.

[ FAILED]--- Starting the application (scripts/retroarch.sh ) ----------

[ START ]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------

[SUCCESS]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------

[ START ]--- uMount the PND ----------

[ START ]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------

[SUCCESS]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------

auplink:plink.c:223: AUFS_CTL_PLINK_MAINT: Inappropriate ioctl for device

rmdir: failed to remove `/mnt/utmp/retroarch': Device or resource busy

[ START ]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------

[SUCCESS]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------

cleanup done

[SUCCESS]--- uMount the PND ----------

=======================================================================================

Return code is : 3
 
ekianjo said:
I tried a couple of emulators and it seems that most of the time, the sound stutters - is this only me or is it just linked to the emulators cores being a bit slow?
Click to expand...
The only cores that perform well enough for me (reliably without sound stuttering and so on) have been fceu, gambatte, and pocketsnes. genplus can be smooth sometimes, depending on the game.

dsleaf67 said:
Ok it seems its the zip files that don't load. I ran the gbc but couldn't run the zip and below is the pndrun_retroarch
Click to expand...
Ah, so it seems the gambatte core is claiming to support *.zip directly (which my launcher script currently uses as a clue to let the core handle any extracting). I've already got a tool in the works that will give me a better way of determining this (querying the value of block_extract), so I should have that fixed shortly.
 
lifning said:
ekianjo said:
I tried a couple of emulators and it seems that most of the time, the sound stutters - is this only me or is it just linked to the emulators cores being a bit slow?
Click to expand...
The only cores that perform well enough for me (reliably without sound stuttering and so on) have been fceu, gambatte, and pocketsnes. genplus can be smooth sometimes, depending on the game.
Click to expand...

Thanks! It may be worth it to make them appear in Bold or something in your menu - that way people know which ones are recommended :) Are all cores still in development, by the way ?
 
lifning said:
dsleaf67 said:
Ok it seems its the zip files that don't load. I ran the gbc but couldn't run the zip and below is the pndrun_retroarch
Click to expand...
Ah, so it seems the gambatte core is claiming to support *.zip directly (which my launcher script currently uses as a clue to let the core handle any extracting). I've already got a tool in the works that will give me a better way of determining this (querying the value of block_extract), so I should have that fixed shortly.
Click to expand...

Seems there's more than that too. Will try the pndrun logs later, but remember all my roms are zipped and I prefer to not use phoenix


1) fcue exits quickly just like game battle


2) pocketsnes seems to load aladdin fine but screen just black and have to escape to exit.


Edit: I run from minimenu and here are the pndrun files. First after running fcue

=======================================================================================


PND : /media/PANDORA/pandora/menu/retroarch.pnd


PND_FSTYPE : Squashfs


APPDATADIR : /media/PANDORA/pandora/appdata/retroarch


APPDD_FSTYPE : vfat


PND_CPUSPEED : <unset>


EXENAME : scripts/retroarch.sh


ARGUMENTS : <unset>


=======================================================================================


[ START ]--- Mount the PND ----------


Mounting : mount -t squashfs -o ro "/dev/loop0" "/mnt/utmp/retroarch"


Mounting the Union FS : mount -t aufs -o exec,noplink,dirs="/media/PANDORA/pandora/appdata/retroarch=rw+nolwh":"/mnt/pnd/retroarch=rr" none "/mnt/utmp/retroarch"


[sUCCESS]--- Mount the PND ----------


[ START ]--- Starting the application (scripts/retroarch.sh ) ----------


/usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh: line 519: 30429 Segmentation fault "./$EXENAME" $ARGUMENTS


[ FAILED]--- Starting the application (scripts/retroarch.sh ) ----------


[ START ]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------


[sUCCESS]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------


[ START ]--- uMount the PND ----------


[ START ]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------


[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------


auplink:plink.c:223: AUFS_CTL_PLINK_MAINT: Inappropriate ioctl for device


rmdir: failed to remove `/mnt/utmp/retroarch': Device or resource busy


[ START ]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------


[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------


cleanup done


[sUCCESS]--- uMount the PND ----------


=======================================================================================


Return code is : 2


and here's after running pocketsnes core

=======================================================================================


PND : /media/PANDORA/pandora/menu/retroarch.pnd


PND_FSTYPE : Squashfs


APPDATADIR : /media/PANDORA/pandora/appdata/retroarch


APPDD_FSTYPE : vfat


PND_CPUSPEED : <unset>


EXENAME : scripts/retroarch.sh


ARGUMENTS : <unset>


=======================================================================================


[ START ]--- Mount the PND ----------


Mounting : mount -t squashfs -o ro "/dev/loop0" "/mnt/utmp/retroarch"


Mounting the Union FS : mount -t aufs -o exec,noplink,dirs="/media/PANDORA/pandora/appdata/retroarch=rw+nolwh":"/mnt/pnd/retroarch=rr" none "/mnt/utmp/retroarch"


[sUCCESS]--- Mount the PND ----------


[ START ]--- Starting the application (scripts/retroarch.sh ) ----------


[sUCCESS]--- Starting the application (scripts/retroarch.sh ) ----------


[ START ]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------


[sUCCESS]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------


[ START ]--- uMount the PND ----------


[ START ]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------


[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------


auplink:plink.c:223: AUFS_CTL_PLINK_MAINT: Inappropriate ioctl for device


rmdir: failed to remove `/mnt/utmp/retroarch': Device or resource busy


[ START ]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------


[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------


cleanup done


[sUCCESS]--- uMount the PND ----------


=======================================================================================


Return code is : 1
 
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Updated with better "should I extract the zip" checking behavior, nubs as analog sticks for any core that happens to use it (this behavior is not yet in the RA-Phoenix launcher), writeable config files by default, and if you make a text file named SDL_OMAP_LAYER_SIZE.txt its contents will be used for that variable instead of "pixelperfect".


I've been trying to cram Cyclone 68000 into Genesis Plus GX for better performance, but that's not working yet.
 
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To prepare for the forthcoming release of RetroArch 0.9.9, I prepared a test build of the latest git pull (~0.9.9-wip3).  I think it is a marked improvement over the previous version   :)

The default video driver is now GLES (which now has the same performance as the old OMAP SDL driver), for the purpose of supporting the new "RGUI" feature -- an in-game menu that allows you to configure emulator settings, manage savestates, and even choose new cores and/or ROMs.  I've mapped this menu to the spacebar by default, as is pretty common in other Pandora emulators.

I also moved from my zenity-based nonsense to Pickle Launcher in a way that I thought was sensible.  It's able to figure out which cores are appropriate to use by file extension, and you can choose from a list of cores by tapping "Edit Item" on the right.  This might be handy if you want to open, say, a .cue file, which could either be Sega CD, PSX, Saturn, etc...

RetroArch-Phoenix is able to choose cores automatically by file extension as well, if you set the folder containing the libretro.so's as the core path (now the default config).  Good news if you prefer Phoenix over Pickle Launcher, I guess   :)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5m50j5esnn8587w/retroarch.pnd

included cores: desmume, dosbox, fba, fceu, gambatte, genplus, imame4all, maxe, mednafen-ngp, mednafen-pce-fast, mednafen-vb, mednafen-wswan, mednafen-gba, mednafen-psx, mednafen-snes, nestopia, nx, pcsx-rearmed, pocketsnes, prboom, quicknes, scummvm, snes9x-next, stella, tgbdual, tyrquake, vba, meteor, yabause
 
Oh, neat, I totally missed that!

(maybe some others as well, maybe put it as Beta into the repo?)

Need to try that one out :D
 
0.9.9 proper is now in the repo :)

Open question: usability-wise, would it be worth eliminating the picklelauncher bit and just use straight RGUI for consistency?
 
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ekianjo said:
 


I think the pickle launcher would be awesome!  however, just tried and can't get it to run anything.


Me too, Very confusing..
 


 
Same here, does not run anything at all...
Click to expand...
Same here.

Sent from my HTCEVOV4G using Tapatalk 2
 
Update:  Looks like its the zip support (incorpoarted by pickle launcher) that isn't working right.  I just tried again with unzipping a few of my roms and it works nice!!!  Awesome.  Will report back on some of the emulator cores etc. after I test some more.
 
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