Homebrew Retroarch Emulation Thread (Nightly Builds Included)

[Giodude]

So up untill now I've been using the nice PS3 style blue menu for retraorch, which worked pretty nicely. Even after updating to the latest release it looked fine. But for some reason, I loaded the gpsp core specifically while booting retraorch, and the menu went back to the ugly retro green style. I tried to change it, but when it rebooted, now I'm stuck in the white and blue Android version where the guide barely fits the screen. Is this normal or is there a way to fix this?

 

[xianx_mf]

i guess the problem is that the 3ds, being weaker than say, current phones, pcs and modern consoles, does require a bit of additional attention to actually improve emulation performance, but no one really wants to or can look into that. so other than the occasional 'at least now its running again', retroarch doesn't seem to have improved on the 3ds at all. since way back when on 1.3

Actually, it has. Some long-standing bugs have been fixed. Vertically oriented games now work, snes emulation is better, there's a longer list of support games and other fixes in fba2012. There's a limit to what you can get out of a system, no matter how much you optimize it. The people hoping to get 25% increses in fps on pcsx or the like are delusional. The performance of pcsx-rearmed, in general, not just on the 3ds, hasn't improved in years, and most likely it won't improve much as the hacks that would be needed for that would certainly introduce regressions.

People say stuff like "but even the original DS had snes emulators!!!", and to that one can say "yes, it did, but those sucked, most games wouldn't play, and the ones that would were plagued with all sorts of bugs". That's because of the hacky nature of those emulators, which was needed to even get the stuff to work on that system. Most devs nowadays don't want to waste time on hacky codebases, but rather work on an actually good emulator that has a chance of being largely compatible with the system's library. If that means, for the majority of people, that the 3ds doesn't have 'good' homebrew emulators for consoles more powerful than the genesis, well, tough luck.

and i understand it, its much easier to improve and add new stuff to retroarch when you have more power to work with every few months. but those improvements often only help to make the 3ds port worse.
like the much less compact gui overhaul which is clearly meant for high resolution screens.
and every other update introduces menu options you can enter on 3ds, but which trap you with no way out, forcing you to reset your system.

I don't understand exactly what you mean thee, but it's quite clear that a 240p sceen should be using the RGUI interface.

then theres the eternal gripe with gpsp. any other system would solve gba emulation by throwing a stronger cpu/gpu at it, 3ds needs dynamic recompiling (or frameskipping i guess) and plays the entire gba library perfectly with it. only there's probably just a tiny error or 3ds incompatible function in that compiler causing extremely random crashes, making it impossible to play most any game without savestating every other minute.

Umm.... the 3ds has native support for gba games. You can't upgrade the cpu/gpu of a Wii, or a ps3, or a raspberry pi, so the second statement is strange to me. The fact that the crashes are apparently random (i've never had the issue as i've never used that core) also makes it rather hard to try and debug. Of course, it's not impossible, and you could try to narrow down the source of the problem by having a look at the code, or attempting to compile the software with no optimization flags and stuff like that. That's what I would do if I cared about that, but since I don't I dedicate some of my valuable spare time to fixing the bugs that actually bug me.

maybe we'll need to organize a bounty to improve stuff on 3ds...

You don't need to organize that with anyone, or ask permission to do so, just open the bounty and put some money towards it. If others care to chip in and the bag gets large enough, someone may be compelled to try and figure it out. The amount of research you'd have to do to get into the ARMv7 (w/thumb) dynamic recompiler code is probably a major effort, though, and for the bag to get 'large enough' it would require to be of similar magnitude, or someone with just the right background who would enjoy a challenge with some beer money at the end.

 

[FateForWindows]

So up untill now I've been using the nice PS3 style blue menu for retraorch, which worked pretty nicely. Even after updating to the latest release it looked fine. But for some reason, I loaded the gpsp core specifically while booting retraorch, and the menu went back to the ugly retro green style. I tried to change it, but when it rebooted, now I'm stuck in the white and blue Android version where the guide barely fits the screen. Is this normal or is there a way to fix this?

You can fix it by setting the menu driver to xmb.

 

[Giodude]

You can fix it by setting the menu driver to xmb.

Exactly, but i have no clue how to navigate this terrible menu. There doesnt seem to be any place to change settings.

 

[FateForWindows]

Exactly, but i have no clue how to navigate this terrible menu. There doesnt seem to be any place to change settings.

At the starting screen, press right two times. You should see "Driver" on the screen, colored grey. Select that and scroll down until Menu Driver is on-screen and in grey (not black). Press right until you get to XMB. Then press B, press right one more time, Quick Menu will be selected, now scroll down until you reach Restart Retroarch.

 

[Giodude]

At the starting screen, press right two times. You should see "Driver" on the screen, colored grey. Select that and scroll down until Menu Driver is on-screen and in grey (not black). Press right until you get to XMB. Then press B, press right one more time, Quick Menu will be selected, now scroll down until you reach Restart Retroarch.

Didnt know you could go right. Works now, thanks!

 

[Transdude1996]

Actually, it has. Some long-standing bugs have been fixed. Vertically oriented games now work, snes emulation is better, there's a longer list of support games and other fixes in fba2012. There's a limit to what you can get out of a system, no matter how much you optimize it. The people hoping to get 25% increses in fps on pcsx or the like are delusional. The performance of pcsx-rearmed, in general, not just on the 3ds, hasn't improved in years, and most likely it won't improve much as the hacks that would be needed for that would certainly introduce regressions.

People say stuff like "but even the original DS had snes emulators!!!", and to that one can say "yes, it did, but those sucked, most games wouldn't play, and the ones that would were plagued with all sorts of bugs". That's because of the hacky nature of those emulators, which was needed to even get the stuff to work on that system. Most devs nowadays don't want to waste time on hacky codebases, but rather work on an actually good emulator that has a chance of being largely compatible with the system's library. If that means, for the majority of people, that the 3ds doesn't have 'good' homebrew emulators for consoles more powerful than the genesis, well, tough luck.



I don't understand exactly what you mean thee, but it's quite clear that a 240p sceen should be using the RGUI interface.



Umm.... the 3ds has native support for gba games. You can't upgrade the cpu/gpu of a Wii, or a ps3, or a raspberry pi, so the second statement is strange to me. The fact that the crashes are apparently random (i've never had the issue as i've never used that core) also makes it rather hard to try and debug. Of course, it's not impossible, and you could try to narrow down the source of the problem by having a look at the code, or attempting to compile the software with no optimization flags and stuff like that. That's what I would do if I cared about that, but since I don't I dedicate some of my valuable spare time to fixing the bugs that actually bug me.



You don't need to organize that with anyone, or ask permission to do so, just open the bounty and put some money towards it. If others care to chip in and the bag gets large enough, someone may be compelled to try and figure it out. The amount of research you'd have to do to get into the ARMv7 (w/thumb) dynamic recompiler code is probably a major effort, though, and for the bag to get 'large enough' it would require to be of similar magnitude, or someone with just the right background who would enjoy a challenge with some beer money at the end.

Okay, so proper PS1 emulation is impossible. What about Sega CD emulation, can that be improved?

 

[zwq939681378]

Your assumptions are a bit off there. The beauty of retroarch (libretro, actually) is that the cores aren't ported. They use the same codebase for all releases of the same core. That is to say, the nestopia core that runs on the 3ds is compiled from exactly the same code as the nestopia core for the wii or pc releases. They are using different compilers, and a select few of them use architecture-specific assembly files for increased performance (like picodrive for arm devices and genesis-plus-gx for ppc), but that's it for the cores. That's why there were releases before any retroarch dev had a 3ds.

Optimization at the C-code level would benefit performance of all releases, but it's easy to find for oneself that introducing performance-oriented changes in existing emulator code is prone to introduce bugs/regressions, and overall is a very hard task. The original developers were already thinking about performance when designing and writing the emulator, and many of them are quite competent to begin with.

The 3ds isn't a very powerful machine, by today's standards... it's still the best of it's kind, by a mile, and there's more than enough great games it'll play (including the ds and 3ds library). FBAlpha2012 runs great, which is very welcome, as does picodrive, nestopia, gambatte, and mednafen-pce-fast. Genesis-plus-gx is close, but there's a bug in vsync still lingering somewhere...

In fact I found that the speed of pcsx-rearmed has improved obviously since I had copied the RetroArch folder of latest version to my SD card and installed the 1.3.6 CIA version of pcsx. I couldn't get a playable speed weeks ago,really.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Rockman(Megaman) X4,5,6, Castlevania and Final Fantasy 7, 9 runs well on pcsx.(only PBP format)

 

[FateForWindows]

In a few small sections in Bubsy 3D, when facing a wall, without frameskip, PBP, no vsync or sound filters, I get 59-62 FPS, frame throttle off, though sound crackles a tiny bit.

EDIT: Frame throttle was also set to 0.0 (uncapped).

 

[culvercat11]

For some reason I can't quit retroarch on my New 3DS, every time I choose "quit retroarch" it freezes up on me and I have to restart my 3DS.

 

[FateForWindows]

For some reason I can't quit retroarch on my New 3DS, every time I choose "quit retroarch" it freezes up on me and I have to restart my 3DS.

Really? It just has me press start first.

 

[culvercat11]

Really? It just has me press start first.

yeah, it tells me to hit start, then it freezes.

 

[FateForWindows]

yeah, it tells me to hit start, then it freezes.

3dsx or cia? I use cia.

 

[culvercat11]

3dsx or cia? I use cia.

3dsx, I'm using the latest version.

 

[FateForWindows]

3dsx, I'm using the latest version.

That probably explains why. Have you tried closing out using the homemenu? If you're not on Rosalina update to B9S, unless you're on stock.

 

[FateForWindows]

pcsx-rearmed SHOULD be working on today's nightly now. Have not tested it.

 

[NanashiFinal13]

pcsx-rearmed SHOULD be working on today's nightly now. Have not tested it.

Nop, i just tested today last nightly and pcsx-rearmed still don´t work

 

[Smoker1]

The CIAs have a Problem right now. Load up any Core, start up a Game, then after a while, try to go to the RA Menu. everything will lock up so you must do a Forced Shutdown.

 

[FateForWindows]

Nop, i just tested today last nightly and pcsx-rearmed still don´t work

When did you test it, because they came out only a few hours ago.

 

[NanashiFinal13]

When did you test it, because they came out only a few hours ago.

I tested th cia 13 minutes ago

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

And the last build was created today at 18:18, and still dont work