Homebrew Retroarch 1.2 is coming...

[seam]

Man, so latest releases still don't save the video options eh?

 

[the_randomizer]

Man, so latest releases still don't save the video options eh?

You know, if people would actually help, testing these things are reporting them to the Libretro forums, more issues would get resolved.

 

[Arm73]

At this point I feel it is hopelessly.
I've been playing around with RA Wii for a couple of years now, testing several nightly builds every once in a while, and the experience is always frustrating.

First of all, I ONLY need RA to run FBA, CPS1/2 and (compatible) Neo Geo games on my Wii at 240p on a CRT TV.
True scanlines at 240p is the single,most useful advantage I get from running things on the Wii instead of my PC which is sitting next to the TV anyway.
I couldn't care any less about other cores. There are plenty of much better options out there with better gui and rock steady stability for SNES, NES, Sega etc....
Also the few N64 games I'm interested in, I can play them trough VC or injected wads.
For GBA games I have a GBA, a DS Lite and a Gamecube player, with 99.9% compatibility and perfect performance, so why bother (in my case).
PSX will never be remotely acceptable on the Wii so why bother either.

THE GOOD
Once you manage to launch an arcade/neo geo game, it's the closest thing ever to the original arcade experience.
I get 240p mode on my CRT TV ( the Wii is hooked with a SCART RGB cable ) and I can play it with my X-Arcade joystick via a GC adaptor.
That's the biggest reason I've hoped for so long that development would come to acceptable levels, but....

THE BAD
Like I said, I've been testing it for a couple of years and I get nothing but anger.
I don't mind the simplicity of the UI on the Wii, it goes straight to the point and leaves most of the available memory to actually run the games.
HOWEVER, it is and it's always been broken, and I wonder why, since given time ( and they had plenty of ) should be relatively easy to program such a minimal, text only UI.
Once a game runs, it's beautiful, sure. But changing the resolution it's a mess, sometimes it works, sometimes it just corrupts the screen.
At least in the newer versions it's possible to reset the resolution, but you have to blindly navigate trough the garbled menus and press Start on the resolution option. Furthermore, it doesn't work all the time, today I wasn't able to get it back to normal, but only to some random 508x480 setting, with red colors instead of blue on the screen, even after quitting to the homebrew channel !

Changing the controls...... Oh man, it's the dumbest thing ever. You scroll trough available controllers with left and right and you can easily lock yourself out of the emulator. Why don't they change it just like the video resolution option, namely scroll trough the controls and hit a button to select, instead of changing it on the fly to some unavailable device ?

Compatibility.......I went trough a lot of trouble to get a full FBA set with CPS1/2 and Neo Geo games with the exact right version number, which according to the latest FBA core, it should be v0.2.97.28.
However many games refuse to load, I get exemption (DSI) errors and get kicked out to the HB channel even if I try to load games that apparently work for other users or have been working for me in the past.
And I'm running them from the SD card. What's up with that ?
Also the emulator should know which games it can handle ( memory wise ) or not, if they exceed a certain memory limit should be grayed out of the list, how difficult would that be to implement ?

In a nutshell, I'm not an ungrateful asshole constantly bitching about new features and seeking the impossible ( like a PSP emulator on my Wii ), and I know that there are very few developers working on this, but I'd just expect SIMPLE things to work, like being able to navigate trough the menu.

So far Retroarc Wii has been unusable and a huge disappointment. Sure when I'm lucky to get an arcade game to run on my Wii it's like magic, but it's such a frustrating experience getting there that sadly I lost my motivation to keep on trying.

By the way, I do not intend to register to the Retroarc forums, if you think my feedback could be helpful, feel free to copy and paste it to the official discussion thread.

 

[the_randomizer]

At this point I feel it is hopelessly.
I've been playing around with RA Wii for a couple of years now, testing several nightly builds every once in a while, and the experience is always frustrating.

First of all, I ONLY need RA to run FBA, CPS1/2 and (compatible) Neo Geo games on my Wii at 240p on a CRT TV.
True scanlines at 240p is the single,most useful advantage I get from running things on the Wii instead of my PC which is sitting next to the TV anyway.
I couldn't care any less about other cores. There are plenty of much better options out there with better gui and rock steady stability for SNES, NES, Sega etc....
Also the few N64 games I'm interested in, I can play them trough VC or injected wads.
For GBA games I have a GBA, a DS Lite and a Gamecube player, with 99.9% compatibility and perfect performance, so why bother (in my case).
PSX will never be remotely acceptable on the Wii so why bother either.

THE GOOD
Once you manage to launch an arcade/neo geo game, it's the closest thing ever to the original arcade experience.
I get 240p mode on my CRT TV ( the Wii is hooked with a SCART RGB cable ) and I can play it with my X-Arcade joystick via a GC adaptor.
That's the biggest reason I've hoped for so long that development would come to acceptable levels, but....

THE BAD
Like I said, I've been testing it for a couple of years and I get nothing but anger.
I don't mind the simplicity of the UI on the Wii, it goes straight to the point and leaves most of the available memory to actually run the games.
HOWEVER, it is and it's always been broken, and I wonder why, since given time ( and they had plenty of ) should be relatively easy to program such a minimal, text only UI.
Once a game runs, it's beautiful, sure. But changing the resolution it's a mess, sometimes it works, sometimes it just corrupts the screen.
At least in the newer versions it's possible to reset the resolution, but you have to blindly navigate trough the garbled menus and press Start on the resolution option. Furthermore, it doesn't work all the time, today I wasn't able to get it back to normal, but only to some random 508x480 setting, with red colors instead of blue on the screen, even after quitting to the homebrew channel !

Changing the controls...... Oh man, it's the dumbest thing ever. You scroll trough available controllers with left and right and you can easily lock yourself out of the emulator. Why don't they change it just like the video resolution option, namely scroll trough the controls and hit a button to select, instead of changing it on the fly to some unavailable device ?

Compatibility.......I went trough a lot of trouble to get a full FBA set with CPS1/2 and Neo Geo games with the exact right version number, which according to the latest FBA core, it should be v0.2.97.28.
However many games refuse to load, I get exemption (DSI) errors and get kicked out to the HB channel even if I try to load games that apparently work for other users or have been working for me in the past.
And I'm running them from the SD card. What's up with that ?
Also the emulator should know which games it can handle ( memory wise ) or not, if they exceed a certain memory limit should be grayed out of the list, how difficult would that be to implement ?

In a nutshell, I'm not an ungrateful asshole constantly bitching about new features and seeking the impossible ( like a PSP emulator on my Wii ), and I know that there are very few developers working on this, but I'd just expect SIMPLE things to work, like being able to navigate trough the menu.

So far Retroarc Wii has been unusable and a huge disappointment. Sure when I'm lucky to get an arcade game to run on my Wii it's like magic, but it's such a frustrating experience getting there that sadly I lost my motivation to keep on trying.

By the way, I do not intend to register to the Retroarc forums, if you think my feedback could be helpful, feel free to copy and paste it to the official discussion thread.

Why do I even bother trying to suggest to have others sign up?

People complain that the Wii port is broken, they don't want to contact the authors or developers, the issues and grievances don't get fixed without said feedback and reports.

*Facepalm* -_-

Gee, how else are the issues supposed to be fixed, magic? This is the very reason the Wii port is as broken as it is, how bloody difficult is it to register an email, username and password on a free and simple forum ? You people took the time to register to sign up on GBA temp and the email used to verify, what's another forum like Libretro. No, I'm not going to copy your "report" over as it's just a waste of my time. Fixes and feedback are solely dependent on the users, not by proxy of others, but by the people directly. It's only hopeless because you tell yourself it is.

No wonder the Wii ports of apps are dead and/or broken.

 

[mightymuffy]

The problem with RA doesn't just lie with the Wii version either, I also mess about with the Windows & Android one: They're just biting off WAAAY more than they can chew! Why keep throwing lots of new options, cores, whatever - all these fancy new ideas, at the program, when you can't even get the basic stuff right in the first place? Love the blog on the first post in this thread talking about the new stable release... 'stable'?!? Their meaning of that word is clearly very different to mine...
...And why try adding all this new stuff when the team is too small in the first place?
...And why bother asking for new members of the team, or bugtesters, when you're too busy slagging off a whole forum full of members solely on the basis of a couple of loud mouthed individuals? No need to go into the details, but that's what happened on here a while ago, and that was the main guy himself that couldn't take a bit of flak: so now, after calling everyone on gbatemp a bunch of arseholes based on a few posts by a couple of people, they want help? They can piss off!
It's obvious now that the Wii version isn't gonna get any new cores of note (sure, Bluemsx et al, but we've got all those, or at least good substitutes, standalone, so when combined with other plugins in Wiiflow = useless), nor is it gonna get the ogl UI either, so what they should do is just have a fork, building it on 0.9.9 say, and just fix what isn't working...

 

[the_randomizer]

So complaining about the issues on a forum the developers will never read is going to make all the issues currently wrong with it magically disappear?

Why can't people just tell them on the forums where they actually read instead of second-guess what people are saying. Is it really that hard to sign up for the Libretro forums? They're not asking for people to be on the team, they are asking for feedback, it's not that hard.

OMFG, people -_-

To quote Radius from the forums: *ahem*

"You people are the testers. No releases = no feedback = no bug fixes."
"if issues are reproducible by anyone just file a bug on github, as detailed as possible, steps to reproduce, expected result, etc."

Source: http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2234&page=21&p=26950&viewfull=1#post26950

Is it that hard to give reports and feedback?

 

[mightymuffy]

So complaining about the issues on a forum the developers will never read is going to make all the issues currently wrong with it magically disappear?

Why can't people just tell them on the forums where they actually read instead of second-guess what people are saying. Is it really that hard to sign up for the Libretro forums? They're not asking for people to be on the team, they are asking for feedback, it's not that hard.

OMFG, people -_-

To quote Radius from the forums: *ahem*

"You people are the testers. No releases = no feedback = no bug fixes."
"if issues are reproducible by anyone just file a bug on github, as detailed as possible, steps to reproduce, expected result, etc."

Source: http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2234&page=21&p=26950&viewfull=1#post26950

Is it that hard to give reports and feedback?

*Yawn* - You know where I COULD go with a reply to all that sunbeam.....
Bottom line: I personally don't give a flying arse about signing up to forum where the main man couldn't take a couple of posts he didn't like on here, and then slagged us all off as if we were all a set of tossers - if this is me BEING a tosser by saying that, then hey: guilty as charged!
I'm also getting a bit sick of hearing you with this constant waffle 'ohhh don't post that on here, sign up to fukkin libretro and get the same old 'we aint miracle workahs!' answer there' - if you're that killed on helping them out, copy what we're writing here and fukkin post it yerself! I'll carry on posting here instead thankyouverymuch....

 

[the_randomizer]

*Yawn* - You know where I COULD go with a reply to all that sunbeam.....
Bottom line: I personally don't give a flying arse about signing up to forum where the main man couldn't take a couple of posts he didn't like on here, and then slagged us all off as if we were all a set of tossers - if this is me BEING a tosser by saying that, then hey: guilty as charged!
I'm also getting a bit sick of hearing you with this constant waffle 'ohhh don't post that on here, sign up to fukkin libretro and same the same answer there' - if you're that killed on helping them out, copy what we're writing here and fukkin post it yerself! I'll carry on posting here instead thankyouverymuch....

*Yawn* That's nice, don't really care.Enjoy your broken emulators

I'll make my own reports and feedback on my own time.

 

[Arm73]

*Yawn* - You know where I COULD go with a reply to all that sunbeam.....
Bottom line: I personally don't give a flying arse about signing up to forum where the main man couldn't take a couple of posts he didn't like on here, and then slagged us all off as if we were all a set of tossers - if this is me BEING a tosser by saying that, then hey: guilty as charged!
I'm also getting a bit sick of hearing you with this constant waffle 'ohhh don't post that on here, sign up to fukkin libretro and get the same old 'we aint miracle workahs!' answer there' - if you're that killed on helping them out, copy what we're writing here and fukkin post it yerself! I'll carry on posting here instead thankyouverymuch....

I must agree with mightymuffy here, I clearly remember a couple of years ago the flame war that was going on on this very same board ( and by the way, I was very active before , but now I try to stay away from here,since the majority of the members seem to be 12 years old kids that just can't have a mature dicussion ).

Randomizer, do your research.The main guy behind the Wii port was a regular here on GBAtemp. We were optimistic, giving lots of feedback and tossing a few ideas for improvements, especially some of us were very strongly minded about the 240p support of RA on the Wii, but the guy just took every comment as an offense and clearly stated that he couldn't care any less about such a " small, but very vocal minority ", and then left for good.
Well we are half way trough 2015 and the bloody TEXT based UI is still broken.......What's the use of creating an account on another forum just to be able to state what everybody knows already ? If I go over there and brag about the 240p support the guy is likely to just ban me LOL.
And randomizer, I was as enthusiastic as you back then, but after years of waiting for some basic functionality, I allow myself to say that this project is "hopeless" whether you agree or not.
I gave permission to use my earlier post as feedback on the official thread, I wasn't asking anybody to do so.
I'm not lazy ( I wasted enough time writing this already ) or scared to register to another forum, I just know that it's useless.

 

[the_randomizer]

I must agree with mightymuffy here, I clearly remember a couple of years ago the flame war that was going on on this very same board ( and by the way, I was very active before , but now I try to stay away from here,since the majority of the members seem to be 12 years old kids that just can't have a mature dicussion ).

Randomizer, do your research.The main guy behind the Wii port was a regular here on GBAtemp. We were optimistic, giving lots of feedback and tossing a few ideas for improvements, especially some of us were very strongly minded about the 240p support of RA on the Wii, but the guy just took every comment as an offense and clearly stated that he couldn't care any less about such a " small, but very vocal minority ", and then left for good.
Well we are half way trough 2015 and the bloody TEXT based UI is still broken.......What's the use of creating an account on another forum just to be able to state what everybody knows already ? If I go over there and brag about the 240p support the guy is likely to just ban me LOL.
And randomizer, I was as enthusiastic as you back then, but after years of waiting for some basic functionality, I allow myself to say that this project is "hopeless" whether you agree or not.
I gave permission to use my earlier post as feedback on the official thread, I wasn't asking anybody to do so.
I'm not lazy ( I wasted enough time writing this already ) or scared to register to another forum, I just know that it's useless.

Posted the responses on the Libretro thread, not sure how they'll react to it, if they want to improve, they have to take our feedback into consideration.

Edit: Update


The control issue is confirmed, however, people need to post a Github issue about it -_-

FWIW, the Wii can't handle a fancier GUI.

 

[Arm73]

Thanks Randomizer, appreciate you putting my comments on the Libretro thread, but as you can see.....

Some are valid. Many are not.
I added resolution saving but I... DO NOT HAVE A CRT, so I can't really take advantage of it and I haven't seen the corruption you guys mention. That said I use RA on the Wii just when I test stuff.
The control concern is valid, but I do not see a github issue about it.

Filtering the roms that the core can't handle before loading? RA is not gonna implement per-core hacks to avoid problems with some platforms that just can't handle the stuff.
We all know that crashes should be handled more gracefully but filtering roms that it can't load. Sorry. Just no.

Was i right or was I right ?
Radius made it clear years ago that he doesn't have a CRT TV and doesn't care about the problems we are experiencing.
What's the use of reporting the issue over and over again ?
Thank god he agreed on the controller issue, let's see how it'll work out, we just need a confirmation button before switching to an unavailable controller.
The rom check issue ? Infeasible? Give me a break, I'm not a programmer but if we know that a Neo Geo rom over 23 MB doesn't work, how difficult would it be for RA to check the file size of each rom in a folder and grey out the ones that exceed the available memory while displaying the list on screen ? Or even easier, just do it like Windows, display the file name AND file size, this way we can't accidentally run a ROM that's too big.

Here's a quick mock up


And by the way, I'm more then OK with the minimalist UI, I like simplicity and I wouldn't want to further shrink the games compatibility for a fancier UI.
But it's a shame that it's still unusable after so many years due to controls/corrupted graphics issues.

Just to make it clear, I'm writing this in response to you and not for the benefit of the developers, as they clearly don't give a rat's ass about our feedback.
I really used to care about this project but it's their attitude that makes me question the actual value of posting a detailed feedback on the official forums.
And I'm not complaining or anything, I know that we get this stuff for free and I'm very grateful for it.

I got one question for you though:
What do you think is the single, biggest advantage of using RA on the Wii instead of any PC, Tablet, or heck ...even smartphones these days ?
Are you aware that there are thousands of other options out there , right?
Well, in 2015 it's nearly impossible to find a device ( or a graphic card ) that can connect to a CRT TV and output 240p for an authentic retro arcade experience.
Sure you can get your PC/Tablet emulators with lots of fancy built in filters to mimic the old school displays, but nothing beats the real thing.
In addition, there are arcade sticks that can be connected to the Wii GC ports for the ultimate arcade experience.
To me, that's the single, most compelling selling point, even with fewer games to choose from ( compared to MAME and the likes ).
Retroarch developers should understand that and don't underestimate the potential of it.
Heck, I'd be willing to buy a CRT TV for $40 and donate it to Radius if the shipping wasn't that complicated.

Look at this and tell me that you don't want it !

Take that away, and I might as well retire my Wii for good and concentrate on PC emulation.
Does it make any sense to you?
I hope so.


Anyway,congratulations for your enthusiasm and good luck with the project.

EDIT:
I wish that somebody would take the FBA/Neo Geo cores ( for anything else worth it, there are other valid options out there ) in RA and build a simple, stable launcher around it.
I wonder why nobody has come up with this idea yet.
Unfortunately I'm not a programmer, but I know there are lots of talented people here on GBAtemp, and I could help with the design and lay out of the UI/Options etc..if needed.
Just an idea

 

[the_randomizer]

Here are the reasons I think RetroArch on the Wii provides a better experience than any other emulator for the Wii, whether or not the reasons are valid

- Snes emulation accuracy is far superior than Nintendo's in-house Virtual Console emulator, heck, their emulators don't contain Super FX code
- Snes emulation can have just about any aspect ratio you want, and you can turn filters on or off, though Wii games can use a button combo to output 240p*
- NES emulation is also superior in thanks due to Nestopia, which is faster and more accurate than FCEU, doesn't have the audio crackling.
- No LiboGC tinny audio when switching to the GUI, which uses Hermite interpolation, to Snes/NES, which uses Gaussian interpolation.
- It feels better to play old school games on a TV than it does on a PC monitor, tablet, etc IMHO.
-

Now, what's going to happen to this port, I don't know, what they should do is once the Wii U scene evolves, is port their code over, and optimize it so it runs better as has far more
resources at their disposal. Whether or not they want to port it over is another thing, but that would be the best thing for them to do. I don't know how to properly report or test the controller issue
in-depth, I suppose I can use just about any version, and not 1.2, because I don't want to be arsed to have to reconfigure everything again from using 1.0.0.2. Sure, it's old, but it's the most stable version
I've used in terms of the Wii port goes. I think for that, i'd need to run some very timing-sensitive games that require fast reflexes and then open up a Github report

 

[Arm73]

Here are the reasons I think RetroArch on the Wii provides a better experience than any other emulator for the Wii, whether or not the reasons are valid

- Snes emulation accuracy is far superior than Nintendo's in-house Virtual Console emulator, heck, their emulators don't contain Super FX code
- Snes emulation can have just about any aspect ratio you want, and you can turn filters on or off, though Wii games can use a button combo to output 240p*
- NES emulation is also superior in thanks due to Nestopia, which is faster and more accurate than FCEU, doesn't have the audio crackling.
- No LiboGC tinny audio when switching to the GUI, which uses Hermite interpolation, to Snes/NES, which uses Gaussian interpolation.
- It feels better to play old school games on a TV than it does on a PC monitor, tablet, etc IMHO.
-

Now, what's going to happen to this port, I don't know, what they should do is once the Wii U scene evolves, is port their code over, and optimize it so it runs better as has far more
resources at their disposal. Whether or not they want to port it over is another thing, but that would be the best thing for them to do. I don't know how to properly report or test the controller issue
in-depth, I suppose I can use just about any version, and not 1.2, because I don't want to be arsed to have to reconfigure everything again from using 1.0.0.2. Sure, it's old, but it's the most stable version
I've used in terms of the Wii port goes. I think for that, i'd need to run some very timing-sensitive games that require fast reflexes and then open up a Github report

Honestly ( and shamefully ) I don't know what a Github report is
But you guys are misunderstanding.
I'm talking about the controller OPTION in the UI. If you attempt to choose a different control method ( let's say you start with a Wii remote and then try to switch to CC or GC controller trough the controls menu, as soon as you hit LEFT/RIGHT the emulator switches to another controller without confirmation ( just like it used to be for the screen resolution option until they fixed it ) and when said controller is not connected, you are locked out of the emulator and must hard reset your Wii.
Is it clear enough ? Do I need a Github report for that ? I hope my English is understandable.

Anyway you have LOTS of valid points and I'm not arguing with you.
The potential is there and is great, but lots of (old) problems have to be ironed out first.
And if they jump the boat and move to the Wii U, I'd be very sad indeed, first because I don't have a Wii U ( I might buy it ) and secondly because AFAIK the Wii U isn't capable of 240p output. In general, the regular Wii is much easier to mod and versatile when it comes to audio/video emulation, and it supports a variety of arcade joystick trough the GC ports.

Well, let's hope for the best.

 

[the_randomizer]

Honestly ( and shamefully ) I don't know what a Github report is
But you guys are misunderstanding.
I'm talking about the controller OPTION in the UI. If you attempt to choose a different control method ( let's say you start with a Wii remote and then try to switch to CC or GC controller trough the controls menu, as soon as you hit LEFT/RIGHT the emulator switches to another controller without confirmation ( just like it used to be for the screen resolution option until they fixed it ) and when said controller is not connected, you are locked out of the emulator and must hard reset your Wii.
Is it clear enough ? Do I need a Github report for that ? I hope my English is understandable.

Anyway you have LOTS of valid points and I'm not arguing with you.
The potential is there and is great, but lots of (old) problems have to be ironed out first.
And if they jump the boat and move to the Wii U, I'd be very sad indeed, first because I don't have a Wii U ( I might buy it ) and secondly because AFAIK the Wii U isn't capable of 240p output. In general, the regular Wii is much easier to mod and versatile when it comes to audio/video emulation, and it supports a variety of arcade joystick trough the GC ports.

Well, let's hope for the best.

Making a report is actually very easy and quick, https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/new you sign up for Github, go to the Retroarch repository, then click the little plus sign
on the upper-right corner, and then to "new", and go from there to explain the issue in detail, with as much information as possible. Yeah, you'd need a report for that, explain it exactly how you told me.
i know you're not arguing, I understand, I just don't know what they need more to fix up the Wii port.

 

[Yamawaki]

Since 1.2.2 I've been taking an active interest in the Nintendo forum over at libretro and they are pushing fixes on the nightly builds, already some major issues have been sorted - which can be incorporated into the main bundle if you know what you are doing.

BUT bottom line they need people to tell them what needs fixing and test the builds (it's a slow iteration) as Randomizer says, go over there, register and participate.

 

[Maeson]

If people don't want to register on another place I think they could just write here what is the problem and explain it with enough accuracy, so later someone that has access on the libretro forum can just pass those reports on the important thread.

I mean, if the real matter is fixing things, as long as the problems are comunicated to the developers, shouldn't be a problem who says it. Unless the forum is not a viable way to reporting things and you need to register on GitHub...

 

[the_randomizer]

If people don't want to register on another place I think they could just write here what is the problem and explain it with enough accuracy, so later someone that has access on the libretro forum can just pass those reports on the important thread.

I mean, if the real matter is fixing things, as long as the problems are comunicated to the developers, shouldn't be a problem who says it. Unless the forum is not a viable way to reporting things and you need to register on GitHub...

The reports are all well and good, but they won't do a whole lot if people aren't posting them to Github and making a new issue, posting the information there and not on the Libretro forums, as they do to pay close attention to Git reports than forum reports. Just a heads up. It's really easy to sign up for Github.