Homebrew Unofficial 3DS RetroArch builds

[justinweiss]

Once added to the buildbot, all 'supported' cores should work. Although PCSX-ReARMed wasn't able to identify the .PBP and .CHD images i tried. I'll add a few cores to my previous post.


Now with regular downloads working, being able to update from the 3ds should be fairly easy to implement.
The .3dsx build just needs to be downloaded and replace the existing .3dsx core.
The .cia builds needs to be downloaded and installed, which retroarch is already capable of.

A few changes are needed on the buildbot side. It needs to offer separate downloads for the cores, like most other platforms already do.

Off course, this still needs to be discussed with the libretro team. But i think it would be a nice feature.

Are you planning to discuss it with the libretro team? It seems like they're happy to get 3DS improvements, and I see questions about missing achievements on 3DS in their chat all the time.

 

[someguy12345]

Anyone know where to download the 4DO 3dsx? The files linked in the opening post are down.

 

[MrHuu]

Are you planning to discuss it with the libretro team? It seems like they're happy to get 3DS improvements, and I see questions about missing achievements on 3DS in their chat all the time.

Yes, i do. I do like to look into the possible options, before raising questions.

I'm also trying to get netplay to connect. But with no experience using sockets, progress is slow.

An other issue needed to be looked at, would be to have threading enabled. The current implementation crashes all cores upon loading content.
Currently networking is done on the same thread as the game, with a slow connection, gameplay may stall while trying to connect. Netplay will probably require threads to be enabled.
Interested?

I could, and probably should, just start with a PR for basic networking with the netplay menu and asset downloads disabled. Just have cheevos enabled, and work from there.

Anyone know where to download the 4DO 3dsx? The files linked in the opening post are down.

The 4DO core is available with the official builds, and has be renamed to 'Opera'. Please do keep in mind, it's slow.

 

[MrHuu]

A PR with the most basic networking support has been issued to libretro's git.

I didn't try all cores beforehand.. but with the recent released stable build, we're allowed to break the nightly builds again right?

Once merged, this should enable achievements on all supported cores.
Download thumbnails (boxart / title / gameplay) to display with your playlists.

Currently, the XMB menu driver displays the images in the wrong byteorder. (red and blue are swapped)
Use RGUI and enable thumbnails manually.

 

[Plasmaster09]

all these great changes
wonder if we'll ever get 8 bit retroarch 3ds netplay (because anything stronger is nigh impossible to do playable netplay on any model of 3ds)
I have a feeling that at the very least, it should be possible to have GB/GBC/NGPC/GG netplay by basically just faking their respective multiplayer connection cable online

 

[MrHuu]

Here's a build featuring the ability to connect to a netplay host.

Creating a netplay host is not functional currently.


For now, enable the netplay menu manually: 'Settings > User Interface > Views > Show Netplay tab'

 

[MarioKartFan]

@MrHuu You are amazing. Thank you for sharing with us.

 

[Zense]

Can't emphasize enough how great of an achievement this is! You keep impressing us with every release you make

 

[DSoryu]

I might be doing something wrong, but the thimbnails doesn't download when I select the option, I hace RGUI enabled and followed the steps to enable them.

 

[MrHuu]

I might be doing something wrong, but the thimbnails doesn't download when I select the option, I hace RGUI enabled and followed the steps to enable them.

Your rom needs to be either detected by retroarch (scan) or match the name with the available artwork if added manually.

https://github.com/libretro-thumbnails

The label of your playlist entry has to match the available artwork, following the No-Intro naming convention.

 

[Elwyndas]

Could someone please enlighten me on netplay, and which cores can utilize it on the 3DS? Is it experimental?

 

[Matias3DSHbw]

Can't find Yabause core cia, does anyone have it?

 

[Rj.MoG]

Can't find Yabause core cia, does anyone have it?

lol

 

[TomTalker]

Where may the "Yabause" core's CIA be? The link is down.

 

[justinweiss]

Hey, I have a new pcsx_rearmed build to try, I've attached the .3dsx.

This one has a new GPU UNAI option called Enable Hi-Res Downscaling.

Some PSX games use one of the high-res graphics modes. Since these modes render ~1.5-4x more pixels than the low-res modes, they naturally run much more slowly -- I usually see them hover around 20-30fps. Tekken 3 and the menu in Chrono Cross are a few examples. Even Crash does this (to a much lesser extent) -- it uses a wide horizontal resolution.

The worst part is, the 3DS screen can't actually show most of these pixels! At 400x240, anything with a horizontal res of 512px or 640px, or a vertical res of 480px, will spend time processing a bunch of pixels that will never be displayed.

What this setting does is hook up some code from the unai renderer to skip rendering any pixels that won't ultimately get displayed on a screen. It also downscales these higher resolutions to 320x240 before sending them to the RetroArch frontend, which fixes the stretched aspect ratio.

The cost is that you lose a couple rows and columns of pixels that used to be displayed on the stretched out version. The benefit is a speed boost that can range from minor to major, depending on the game.

Give it a try, enable the setting (you will have to enable Advance GPU UNAI/PCSX4ALL Settings and restart in order to see the new option) and let me know how it works for you!

Source is in this branch: https://github.com/justinweiss/pcsx_rearmed/tree/hires-downscale

 

[NanashiFinal13]

Hey, I have a new pcsx_rearmed build to try, I've attached the .3dsx.

This one has a new GPU UNAI option called Enable Hi-Res Downscaling.

Some PSX games use one of the high-res graphics modes. Since these modes render ~1.5-4x more pixels than the low-res modes, they naturally run much more slowly -- I usually see them hover around 20-30fps. Tekken 3 and the menu in Chrono Cross are a few examples. Even Crash does this (to a much lesser extent) -- it uses a wide horizontal resolution.

The worst part is, the 3DS screen can't actually show most of these pixels! At 400x240, anything with a horizontal res of 512px or 640px, or a vertical res of 480px, will spend time processing a bunch of pixels that will never be displayed.

What this setting does is hook up some code from the unai renderer to skip rendering any pixels that won't ultimately get displayed on a screen. It also downscales these higher resolutions to 320x240 before sending them to the RetroArch frontend, which fixes the stretched aspect ratio.

The cost is that you lose a couple rows and columns of pixels that used to be displayed on the stretched out version. The benefit is a speed boost that can range from minor to major, depending on the game.

Give it a try, enable the setting (you will have to enable Advance GPU UNAI/PCSX4ALL Settings and restart in order to see the new option) and let me know how it works for you!

Source is in this branch: https://github.com/justinweiss/pcsx_rearmed/tree/hires-downscale

Chrono Cross runs much better, the menu runs almost full speed, but the intro on battles still suffers severe frame drops.
Crash Bandicot now have less frame drops(with the correct config runs nicely).
Legacy of Kain gain some frames, now with the correct config is playable. (You still have some frame drops in the begining scene and on the portal you have severe frame drop, like 30 fps, even on pal. Aside from that, even with frameskip set to 1, its works better than ever on the New 3DS)
Croc the Legend of the Gobbos also seems to gain some frames, now it will play at stable 60 fps without frameskip (but you still need to config everything else, of course)
Threads of Fate also gain some frames but still suffers of frame drops at the begining of the game. Still needs more testing. Later i will test more games and i will report the performace.

And of course, thank you very much for the update for the emulator. Thanks to you, many of my favorite games runs like a charm on my New 3DS!

 

[NanashiFinal13]

Also, i notice that now doing a save state its much slowef than on the last 3dsx build that you upload on this thread. (Latest official releease of retroarch on 3DS has the same issue)

 

[Ocean90]

Definitely interest in testing this build. What is the process of installing a 3dsx retroarch core though? I also don't want to overwrite my old PCSX core.

 

[NanashiFinal13]

Definitely interest in testing this build. What is the process of installing a 3dsx retroarch core though? I also don't want to overwrite my old PCSX core.

If you already have another PCSX core in 3dsx format just rename it and paste the archive on the "3ds" folder on your sd card. If you have installed the core on cia format, there is no problem, you will not lose that core, so you can drag a drop the 3dsx file.

 

[Ocean90]

If you already have another PCSX core in 3dsx format just rename it and paste the archive on the "3ds" folder on your sd card. If you have installed the core on cia format, there is no problem, you will not lose that core, so you can drag a drop the 3dsx file.

I currently have everything installed via CIA. I tried pasting the new core in my 3DS folder and booting it through the homebrew channel. It does successfully boot into retroarch. But when I try to launch Chrono Cross my 3ds crashes. Sorry if I'm making some obvious error. I'm pretty new to retroarch.