I guess the aspect ratio needs to be hooked up for VBA Next or otherwise 'core provided' won't do anything - should be easy enough.
I'll look into Pokemon Emerald.
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I guess the aspect ratio needs to be hooked up for VBA Next or otherwise 'core provided' won't do anything - should be easy enough.
I'll look into Pokemon Emerald.
I agree, this should be sorted.
Zip support for those emulators should be standard.
As of now, the unpacking results into doubling of files.
Wich is annoying....
It is standard - it unzips the ROM for you (you do know that any actual emulator has to first 'unzip' the ROM itself and then load the ROM itself into a buffer, right? Or what do you think they're doing to begin with? That it happens behind the scenes makes no difference). That's more than I wanted to include to begin with - in the beginning, it would have been you requiring to unzip it yourself on the PC.
Also, the moment I give in to the people and their 'archive' fetishes, I'll get tons of requests for 7zip, RAR and all sorts of dumb shit. So, to make myself perfectly clear (and the reason I am slightly annoyed at this issue is because the console crowd has been very vocal about this thing and I consider it a big waste of time just like fancy flashy GUIs - so here goes -) -
Seriously, don't bother me with this crap - get yourself a bigger SD card on Wii (SD cards can be over 16GB now with SDHC for crying out loud) or get a bigger harddrive on any of the consoles with HDDs built-in - but don't bother me with this shit about 'oh, my minuscule ZIP files should have their contents loaded into a buffer - blabla' - because I won't do it. Time to get rid of your ZIP files for 2-4MB files people - it's 20-fucking-12, not 1999 when your biggest harddrive was a 8GB one - even a $5 SD card now holds twice that size and can easily hold your entire SNES ROM collection.
No more excuses and no more bullshit - flash carts and HDDs are cheaper than ever - if you can buy new games at $50 a pop then you sure as hell can get a bigger SD card for $5 alright.
Yeah, I COULD include a feature that would remove the unzipped ROM file afterwards, OR - radical idea - you could go and manually get rid of the ZIP file the next time you put the SD card in your PC and browse its contents. RetroArch helps you along this path of properly unzipping your ROMs - I consider it a bonus.
Just a note, the above post is not out of the blue. Many modern emulator authors have the same sort of thoughts, especially given the license issues with various formats and the incredibly small size of the ROMs involved. Having the files unzipped means that various tools can interact with them easier anyways (patches are meant to be applied to ROMs, not zips holding ROMs, for example), so I don't see an issue with keeping ROM collections unzipped. I took that mindset after I moved off of my AMD K6-2 machine...
Actually, my Wii SD is 16gb, it's filled however with all retro systems from scumm to n64 and psx and 16/8 bit and portables (that's why i use zip roms where possible).
If you consider it ideal to take the sd to the pc after each playthrough to clean it from double copies, i won't argue.
Anyway, keep up the good work and i hope i didn't sound demanding or anything, it was a mere suggestion.
If you consider it ideal to take the sd to the pc after each playthrough to clean it from double copies, i won't argue.
Anyway, keep up the good work and i hope i didn't sound demanding or anything, it was a mere suggestion.
Sorry for double posting, but some great news: i have managed to make a working forwarder ( it works flawlessly, i launch RA from sd) for retroarch-wii!
I injected and configurated a mame wad i had as a base, iirc it was by mastershoes, so credit goes to him for the original wad.
Here it is:
http://depositfiles....files/ngr7dj5fd
I injected and configurated a mame wad i had as a base, iirc it was by mastershoes, so credit goes to him for the original wad.
Here it is:
http://depositfiles....files/ngr7dj5fd
Wait, i understand what the rant is about even if it seems a little bit extremist but why even supporting zip files at all then ?
Because decompressing zip files into temporary file instead of using RAM is a very bad design. I understand that this cannot apply to large rom that cannot fit in ram along emulator code but for small roms, decompressing to a temporary file then loading this temporary file back again into RAM seems very unefficient, to say the least. Leaving those temporary file hanging there when exiting the program is quite dirty as well.
Apart from this, i just discover this emulator and i must say the concept is awesome, i can only imagine the amount of work it required to port all those emulators on all these different platforms.
Because decompressing zip files into temporary file instead of using RAM is a very bad design. I understand that this cannot apply to large rom that cannot fit in ram along emulator code but for small roms, decompressing to a temporary file then loading this temporary file back again into RAM seems very unefficient, to say the least. Leaving those temporary file hanging there when exiting the program is quite dirty as well.
Apart from this, i just discover this emulator and i must say the concept is awesome, i can only imagine the amount of work it required to port all those emulators on all these different platforms.
You can't make custom palettes in FCEUltraGX. You can only use the preset ones, and none of them look like Nintendo's VC emulator.
Sorry to tick you off, but now I'm a little annoyed.
You act as if your project is the only way to load snes, gba, nes pce, megadrive games.
At this point, your collection of emulators only shines in the cps1/2 catagory ( Finalburn )
READ: all other emus are better at this point.
They have better file support, original resolution support, advanced filters, higher compatibilty.
Also space is not an isseu. Why unzip a file if there are possibillities to load them at once.
Retroarch unzips and loads the roms, so in other emus the file shows 2 times, because those emus can load BOTH.
We were just giving positive criticism, do what you want, do not let your work go to waste.
I love this project, and I'm willing to donate but when these simple suggestions are burnt down this way so fast......
Why are you being so hostile towards your users? We mean well, I'm sure you do also.
You are talking about A LOT files.
Yes, I'm a retro nerd
Also it's not about having unzipped files on your media, it's about how retroarch handles them.
Why support .zip in the first place? oh yeah otherwise it would not be able to load cps1/ 2 games.
But why unpack others and clutter my drive? When other emu have that sorted.
I was not demanding, just thinking it would be better to remove zip support in this way.
So am I when people care about these nilly-willy things more than the main meat and potatoes.
I don't remember this being a contest. If you don't like it, I don't care - use whatever else is available to you.
RetroArch Wii is not the center of universe of this project to begin with - you can consider the fact that it came to Wii at all to be a nice afterthought.
To be honest with you, it's quite laughable we were the first to have bigger ROMS load on Wii to begin with - we didn't do anything special.
But hey, when coders are drunk on stupid shit like bloated GUI libraries, all sorts of unnecessary external libraries that add even more to the memory footprint (like Tiny samba, 7zip support and whatever junk you can think of) more than they are about the end product, then yes, you very quickly run out of memory and you won't be able to play your precious CPS2 games.
The reason we did succeed is that I (and my fellow coders) have different priorities other than doing stupid shit like adding RAR/7z/'name your favorite archive' support, wasting RAM on fancy frills GUIs and other stuff like catering to people that don't want their ZIP files 'unzipped'.
You must not have played many SNES and GBA games on real hardware then - because they don't run very well at all on SNES9x GX and VBA GX.
I don't consider 'GBA games running at frameskip 10' to be very tolerable thanks very much. I don't consider running Yoshi's Island on SNES9x with HQ2x to be very appealing either when it runs at frameskip 3/4 by doing so.
As in what? That they load a ZIP file into a buffer?
If you consider that 'better file support', then yes, they have 'better file support'.
Believe me, I get the message the first time somebody says it - exactly why you think it will make us include it that much faster by people repeating it dozens of times is beyond me.
I'm also not getting paid to do this, so I'll take my time to implement features as I please and on my own time.
As in what? Most of the cores should offer the same compatibility as the latest PC versions - in fact, nearly all emulators should be the latest versions at this point.
If you mean 'VBA Next' and 'SNES9x Next' - then yes, they are in an experimental state. Do note - they also perform MUCH FASTER than what you had on Wii prior.
As in - CPU filters that slow down emulation even more? NO - I won't be including any of that crap either - it's not my problem that the Wii lacks programmable pixel/vertex shaders - and I won't include CPU filters that will slow down emulation even more and leave users wondering 'why can't I load Yoshi's island at fullspeed AND with HQ2x enabled?'.
They are not 'simple suggestions' - it's the kind of stuff that gets authors like byuu to drop their project because they feel it's become more about catering to hipster end-users' every latest whim than it is to actually improve meaningful things.
it's stuff we have zero interest in catering to, just like we have zero interest in catering to pathetic shiny GUIs for that matter.
You can provide all the feedback you want - but at a certain point I have to filter it and determine what might be useful feedback, what fits in with the project and what isn't.
If this is what the console crowd thinks is important, then just say the word and I'll no longer visit this forum.
I can easily ask you the same question after going through this entire response - you responded in quite a hostile way too by saying 'all emulators' were better than what I provide.
In fact, I think I'm more annoyed right now than you are at your response. Seems you can't respect the fact I will say 'NO' and draw a clear line in the sand as for what you can expect from us -
here's what -
1) There will be ZERO work being done on the GUI - it's good enough as it is
2) If you think RetroArch unzipping your ROMs is so bad that it makes other emulators 'better', then by all means stop using it - because it isn't going to change unless some better solution comes up - deal with it - it's a stupid 'issue' that doesn't even exist if people were not so addicted to zipping small files into even smaller ZIP files.
3) We want to keep RetroArch small, lean and fast. If people want to write frontends around RetroArch, by all means do it - but we won't do it.
4) The prime priority of RetroArch is about providing a multi-platform base and doing a bang-up job in terms of performance and compatibility. Anything that goes against that (such as CPU filters that slow down even more) will not be included if the host platform does not support something like programmable pixel/vertex shaders (for the reason that these shaders would come at zero performance cost).
There - that's a clear 'line in the sand'.
I'm all ears if you can offer a better solution. This seemed the most logical to me - the code is all open source - you can fork the project and do a git pull request and I'll review your changes and merge it if it's any good.
Overreacting much ? And what is this obsession with gui, i didn't see anything in above posts about that.
The only thing we were saying was that unzipping files to temporary files and leaving them on the device is seemless unefficient program design (especially when those files will be ending in ram anyway). No matter how much you don't like it, it is still bad design and has absolutely nothing related to supporting or not zip file, which is an other (and quite respectable) philosophy.
As a friendly advice, i would suggest trying not to lose your temper everytime a user is going to throw out a suggestion or criticism, because that's the point of this thread and it would be stupid if this got locked because of flaming, no matter from which side he comes from.
The only thing we were saying was that unzipping files to temporary files and leaving them on the device is seemless unefficient program design (especially when those files will be ending in ram anyway). No matter how much you don't like it, it is still bad design and has absolutely nothing related to supporting or not zip file, which is an other (and quite respectable) philosophy.
As a friendly advice, i would suggest trying not to lose your temper everytime a user is going to throw out a suggestion or criticism, because that's the point of this thread and it would be stupid if this got locked because of flaming, no matter from which side he comes from.
The entire US NES ROM collection (~764 ROMs) is 153MB. My collection of 189 SNES games is 293MB. The 63 Genesis ROMs I have are 100MB. I have 25 GBA ROMs using 333MB.
1,349 games in 879MB. Less than a gig for over a thousand old games.
All these are unzipped.
All of that fits on a 1GB card, and you can get an 8GB for $7 on newegg. You all can feel free to waste space on thousands of games you'll never play, but no playable collection of those systems will stretch modern storage capacity. Even when including PSX and N64 games, you'd have to have an awful lot of free time in your life to stretch modern storage with games you'll actually play.
1,349 games in 879MB. Less than a gig for over a thousand old games.
All these are unzipped.
All of that fits on a 1GB card, and you can get an 8GB for $7 on newegg. You all can feel free to waste space on thousands of games you'll never play, but no playable collection of those systems will stretch modern storage capacity. Even when including PSX and N64 games, you'd have to have an awful lot of free time in your life to stretch modern storage with games you'll actually play.
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Well, looks like Hielkenator is having a bad day. Sorry for everyone complaining, but I'm siding with LibretroRetroArch and will defend his reasons on why he programmed the emulator this way.
For those who played GBA ROMs on the Wii were only able to use Visual Boy Advanced GX, while some games ran fine (like Kirby's Nightmare in Dreamland), other games, like Mother 3 suffered from severe frameskipping issues to the point where fighting enemies was near impossible. That's where VBA Next comes to play, not only have the ported an alternative emulator, but it runs pretty much all games at full speed, without the need of frameskipping. Does VBAGX do that? Yeah, I didn't think so, either.
Snes9xGx is another example, it too also relied on using skipped frames to compensate for the Wii's "weak, underpowered" CPU, but Snes9x Next has proved otherwise. Games that had speed issues in the past are all nonexistent, especially in Yoshi's Island. A SuperFX2 game that runs full speed without frameskipping? That's some excellent work right there. The next version of Sne9x Next and VBA Next will fix any previous glitches/quirks and be even better than before. Snes9xGx is prone to causing DSI exception errors on certain brands of USB HDDs and SD cards, most often hanging in the GUI.
Then there are those who refuse to believe that there are better Snes and GBA emulators for the Wii....
For those who played GBA ROMs on the Wii were only able to use Visual Boy Advanced GX, while some games ran fine (like Kirby's Nightmare in Dreamland), other games, like Mother 3 suffered from severe frameskipping issues to the point where fighting enemies was near impossible. That's where VBA Next comes to play, not only have the ported an alternative emulator, but it runs pretty much all games at full speed, without the need of frameskipping. Does VBAGX do that? Yeah, I didn't think so, either.
Snes9xGx is another example, it too also relied on using skipped frames to compensate for the Wii's "weak, underpowered" CPU, but Snes9x Next has proved otherwise. Games that had speed issues in the past are all nonexistent, especially in Yoshi's Island. A SuperFX2 game that runs full speed without frameskipping? That's some excellent work right there. The next version of Sne9x Next and VBA Next will fix any previous glitches/quirks and be even better than before. Snes9xGx is prone to causing DSI exception errors on certain brands of USB HDDs and SD cards, most often hanging in the GUI.
Then there are those who refuse to believe that there are better Snes and GBA emulators for the Wii....
FBA does its own internal ROM file handling and is totally separate from the other emu cores that only load raw ROM files. For all of the other cores ,we DELIBERATELY ripped out all compression code and we leave it up to the frontend instead to deal with compression duties - like extracting a ZIP, dumping it, whatever.
The console ports of RetroArch feature a cut-down version of Zlib that at least offers the option of extracting a ROM and then being able to play it.
This is not 'bad design' - what would have been bad design is allocating a big-ass buffer that we then send the extracted ROM in chunks to and then hoping it all fits into RAM at the end - notice that in emus like Genesis Plus GX, this buffer is hardcoded to a specific size - I wouldn't know how any of that could be made portable for all of the different cores that RetroArch provides since different emus/systems have varying maximum ROM sizes.
Overreacting much when I ask you to code a better alternative and do a git pull request?
You say it's 'bad design', which makes me think you must have some ability to code.
So, given that is the most likely case, by all means show me how it's done properly. Not in words, but in code.
No, it's about clearly communicating to users what I am going to do and what I am not going to, and having those users come to grips with it. That's not 'losing my temper', that is about drawing a line in the sand and saying - 'here is what is going to happen, and here is what is not going to happen'.
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I saw nothing that was even close to "losing one's temper". Using a string of obscenities, telling people off, and getting easily offended are all signs of losing your temper. Since I saw neither of those signs, he did nothing wrong in saying what he wants/doesn't want to do with the emulator.
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