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[Minsc]

Works perfectly fine here, maybe you could explain your issues?

Really just a bunch of issues. I do want to use it, since I prefer it as it generally provides more accurate emulation, but the UI is a bit annoying. Navigating items on the screen with touch simply is unreliable. I have to select the same choice like 5+ times for it to select often, other times just once or twice (no other problems on the phone outside retroarch). Also for some reason when I eventually navigate to the directory on the external SD card, nothing shows as a choice.

Past versions had the issue where the entire UI was garbled, but that's been fixed, however the spacing in the UI still looks bad in general to me, it just looks a lot worse than the older version that ran relatively fine for me.

Also since the program doesn't handle SD cards right (in part due to the OS restrictions), I had to leave the ROMs/CD images in the Android/data/.retroarch folder, on the SD card so it could have write access or it simply wouldn't work when loading games (like in a /emulation/Platform folder path). However, apparently removing an app (or possibly updating) deletes that directly, so I was frequently finding the entire folder with the games for emulators gone from my phone. Other emulators have no problem access the data in a read only path and managing save states / saves in the paths that they can write to automatically... I suppose maybe this was something that is fixable in the settings, I don't know. Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have it automatically write to a place it can actually write too instead of crashing when reading files off the SD card.

That's just a few things, but like I said, maybe I'll revisit it in a little while and find it to be less off-putting.

Edit: I know it's not the purpose of Retroarch to provide a pretty UI, and I was fine using it when it worked before the major update, but compared to something like PPSSPP on Android, it is definitely a step back. Not that other emulators generally are as nice as PPSSPP either, but somewhere in between (like FPse at least has icon thumbnails etc).

 

[Radius4]

I think PPSSPP's gui is as bad as RA's to be honest... mapping physical controls is quite terrible and the "holo UI eveywhere" is quite lousy... but then again I'm biased. PPSSPP can have thumbnails because those are contained in the games themselves, not sure about FPse.

SD cards are handled just fine, you can write to the internal SD card with zero issues unless your ROM restricts it. On the first start it will check if the SD is writable and set defaults there, if it's not it will change the paths to the APP dir. Just set your paths accordingly. If your device is able to save to the external SD it will write there just fine too. It does on my Shield Tablet, Portable and Console.

Roms should NOT be in Android/com.retroarch because that folder is OWNED by retroarch, that is android for you, if you remove the application it will remove the folder.

About touch controls on the GUI... well I dunno I use physical pads but it is in fact a bit slow, and about spacing, you can just override the DPI but I agree it looks a bit bad, I was against moving to GLUI till it was more mature, I just use RGUI.

 

[Beckx]

So, I finally ordered a Kazzo for my NES games and a Retrode2 for everything else, and set up Retroarch.

Two issues I've run into.

First, I get scratchy sound on almost every thing, regardless of system: NES, SNES, GBA, Genesis, GB. Any ideas what could be the cause?

Second, any advice for making the Pokemon games work? having trouble with LeafGreen, Ruby, and Mystery Dungeon - they will load the rom from Retrode2, but LeafGreen fails when you get past the opening cinemas and the other two just fail completely. I've tried every emulator in Retroarch for GBA and extracted the ROM from the carts multiple times.

 

[BONKERS]

PC specs?

Have you also tried stand alone emulators aside from RA?
Have you tried a downloaded rom of the game instead?

Perhaps the hardware is defective

 

[Beckx]

PC specs?

Have you also tried stand alone emulators aside from RA?
Have you tried a downloaded rom of the game instead?

Perhaps the hardware is defective

PC is a Sager laptop - i7-3630QM (2.4GHz - 3.4GHz), GTX 675MX 4GB GDDR5, Ram 8GB - DDR3 1600MHz.

It's happening with both NES roms from the Kazzo and the other roms from the Retrode which suggests neither of those is likely the problem.

I should also mention that some games are more affected than others. Like Super Mario World is bad from the get go. Star Tropics gets bad after a few seconds (but if I click the home button which brings up the Retroarch top window menu, then resume, it goes away for a bit). Meanwhile Lightening Force on Genesis seems mostly okay. No rhyme or reason to it.

(other than the Pokemon GBA issue, which seems to be pretty much: Pokemon GBA games won't work.)

Edit: solved by turning off vsync. :/

Leaves only the non-working Pokemon GBA. Progress!

 

[Radius4]

Sometimes when the emulators are not demanding the CPU throttles down (unless you have shaders or something on top) so, try setting your laptop to max performace under power profile.

About pokemon games, not sure about your issue but my roms load just fine. Which core are you using?

 

[Iced]

Best Mame core?

 

[Beckx]

Sometimes when the emulators are not demanding the CPU throttles down (unless you have shaders or something on top) so, try setting your laptop to max performace under power profile.

About pokemon games, not sure about your issue but my roms load just fine. Which core are you using?

I'll change the power settings and see if that helps. Edit: was already set at max performance.

Tried every option in retroarch - VBA-M, VBA-Next, and a couple of the less recommended ones. I've tried cleaning the carts and it doesn't help - rom crashes either on startup or after the opening cinema. Guess I'll keep cleaning them - because if FF Tactics and Phantasy Star Collection, etc., all work fine, then these should work on the same settings right? (all the carts work fine in a GBA)

 

[Joey Ravn]

I'm on a homebrew spree and I got myself a PSP (Street, but whatever, it works just fine). I downloaded RetroArch for my SNES needs! I'll post with results when I'm done trying it

 

[Radius4]

Hmmm we don't have a SNES core in RA PSP, none are fast enough and we do not have frameskip

 

[Joey Ravn]

Hmmm we don't have a SNES core in RA PSP, none are fast enough and we do not have frameskip

Yeah, I noticed that as soon as I booted up RetroArch

 

[Radius4]

I compiled and tried catsfc but it's too slow to even bother...

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Ok,in theory this is great. I can get NES, Snes, Genesis and Gameboy games to emulate perfectly. It's awesome. However PSX and N64 cannot work. It always crashes when I load a rom. It's dumb and really keeps this from being my must use emulation solution.

 

[Radius4]

http://wiki.libretro.com/index.php?title=Beetle/Mednafen_PSX

 

[Benclank01]

http://wiki.libretro.com/index.php?title=Beetle/Mednafen_PSX

Wow, did you did the core options on the wiki? They're all very impressive.

 

[Radius4]

did you did?
read?
There is a new one but I forgot my wiki password, we have a widescreen hack now

 

[Storm Chamber]

Downloaded 1.2.2 today after using 1.0.0.2 for the longest (messed around with nightlys for a while but stuck with it)

PSX savestates w00

 

[Benclank01]

did you did?
read?
There is a new one but I forgot my wiki password, we have a widescreen hack now

Why thank you, I appreciate that and by the way, I have a few problems with words. Sorry.

 

[BONKERS]

I'll change the power settings and see if that helps. Edit: was already set at max performance.

Tried every option in retroarch - VBA-M, VBA-Next, and a couple of the less recommended ones. I've tried cleaning the carts and it doesn't help - rom crashes either on startup or after the opening cinema. Guess I'll keep cleaning them - because if FF Tactics and Phantasy Star Collection, etc., all work fine, then these should work on the same settings right? (all the carts work fine in a GBA)

Sorry late reply, but definitely use something like CPUID to monitor your CPU clock speed while you are emulating games. It does sound like maybe it's downclocking and can't keep up.

 

[Awakened]

I'll change the power settings and see if that helps. Edit: was already set at max performance.

Tried every option in retroarch - VBA-M, VBA-Next, and a couple of the less recommended ones. I've tried cleaning the carts and it doesn't help - rom crashes either on startup or after the opening cinema. Guess I'll keep cleaning them - because if FF Tactics and Phantasy Star Collection, etc., all work fine, then these should work on the same settings right? (all the carts work fine in a GBA)

I've had RetroArch performance problems on my desktop since upgrading to Win10. If I launch a game from RetroArch's UI or the Steam desktop client I get sound crackling on some cores (mGBA is the worst for some reason). This is with the High Performance power profile selected.

But if I have OBS or antimicro running in the background, everything runs fine. Launching from Big Picture mode makes it run fine for some reason too.

On Win7 selecting the High Performance profile was enough to fix this problem.

 

[Mr. Hyde]

Has anyone encountered issues with using CRT Royale? If I turn it on, the games I am playing have a black screen. CRT Easy Mode and every other I've tried work fine. Do I need to download Royale somewhere to fix this issue?

 

[Lettuce]

I really should post a newer version soon. That one had overly complicated parameters that I've simplified since then. It's also looking quite different and is much brighter now..

Any update on this Easymode?

 

[EasyMode]

Any update on this Easymode?

Apologies, I've been preoccupied with work lately. I do have Monday off, so I'm hoping to post something that evening (EST timezone, mind you).

Has anyone encountered issues with using CRT Royale? If I turn it on, the games I am playing have a black screen. CRT Easy Mode and every other I've tried work fine. Do I need to download Royale somewhere to fix this issue?

What about the crt-royale-intel preset? Also, what kind of system and what version of RetroArch are you running?

 

[woahitsreeo]

I'm noticing that some games that were previously listed are no longer there after adding new content. Is there a limit on how many games can be listed per system playlist? Currently running the latest stable build on OSX.

PS Looking forward to the new version EasyMode!

 

[Giever]

I'm noticing that some games that were previously listed are no longer there after adding new content. Is there a limit on how many games can be listed per system playlist? Currently running the latest stable build on OSX.

PS Looking forward to the new version EasyMode!

I had that problem, apparently the content databases will only go up to 6000 or so lines. It's been fixed recently, but I had to switch to a recent nightly build to actually have it register everything.

 

[TheMadMan007]

So this newer version of RetroArch allows for boxart/screenshots right? Can someone point me in the right direction of getting the proper sets for that?

 

[BONKERS]

You know an interesting thing. Is that with 1080p and 240p sources, you can only get 4x scale with empty space.
BUT, if you have an Nvidia card. You can use DSR to run the emulator at 2160p and get a higher integer scaling factor that fits full height (9x9)which can then be flat interger scaled back by half back to 1080p at full height! (1920x1080 X 2:2 = 3840x2160)
This even increases the quality of the rendered output with things like the bloom on many CRT shaders.


In my case, because even at an additional 2x2 scale I can't get full height without cropping some lines off. Doing this at a much much higher scale allows me to lose less lines when cropping.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/141712 (This is with the default 33% smoothness of DSR too. With lower values, it could become even sharper)

 

[Radius4]

Sadly it doesn't help with uneven scanlines

 

[Giever]

You know an interesting thing. Is that with 1080p and 240p sources, you can only get 4x scale with empty space.
BUT, if you have an Nvidia card. You can use DSR to run the emulator at 2160p and get a higher integer scaling factor that fits full height (9x9)which can then be flat interger scaled back by half back to 1080p at full height! (1920x1080 X 2:2 = 3840x2160)
This even increases the quality of the rendered output with things like the bloom on many CRT shaders.


In my case, because even at an additional 2x2 scale I can't get full height without cropping some lines off. Doing this at a much much higher scale allows me to lose less lines when cropping.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/141712 (This is with the default 33% smoothness of DSR too. With lower values, it could become even sharper)

Wow, that sounds awesome if true (and if my computer can actually push the shaders I use at 4K). I tried enabling DSR w/ 3840x2160 resolution, but I can't really see how to tell Retroarch to 'use' that resolution, or to make it think that the monitor is that resolution so that Nvidia will downsample it, or whatever. :/ Probably some combination of settings that have to be properly arranged, but with 9x9 scaling right now I just have a very blown up view of the center of what's being emulated, with the rest off screen.

 

[BONKERS]

Sadly it doesn't help with uneven scanlines

The scanlines scale back just fine. As you can see they look the same as without downsampling.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/141792
If there is a problem with the scanlines in the screenshot, it's gotta be because of the overscan crop settings in Nestopia that is potentially conflicting with the shader.

At 1:1 scale 256x240 NES games in the Nestopia core look distorted(As if it's stretching) unless both Hor/Vert Overscan crop settings are enabled.
And changing these settings with a CRT shader enabled changes the look of the scanlines too.

Ex screenshots:
No crop overscan http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/retroarch20150907163.png
Vert crop http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/88fretroarch20150907163.png
Hori crop http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/e44retroarch20150907163.png
Both crop http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/8e0retroarch20150907163.png
So I have both of those enabled.

Scanlines aside, even without a CRT shader. This works very well in my experience.
Full height without cropping for 1080p and for me full height with slight cropping. With integer scaling.

Wow, that sounds awesome if true (and if my computer can actually push the shaders I use at 4K). I tried enabling DSR w/ 3840x2160 resolution, but I can't really see how to tell Retroarch to 'use' that resolution, or to make it think that the monitor is that resolution so that Nvidia will downsample it, or whatever. :/ Probably some combination of settings that have to be properly arranged, but with 9x9 scaling right now I just have a very blown up view of the center of what's being emulated, with the rest off screen.

You simply need to set your desktop resolution to 4k and then run Retroarch. Cycle full screen once or twice using the "F" key.
When done, change your desktop res back.

 

[Radius4]

The scanlines scale back just fine. As you can see they look the same as without downsampling.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/141792
If there is a problem with the scanlines in the screenshot, it's gotta be because of the overscan crop settings in Nestopia that is potentially conflicting with the shader.

At 1:1 scale 256x240 NES games in the Nestopia core look distorted(As if it's stretching) unless both Hor/Vert Overscan crop settings are enabled.
And changing these settings with a CRT shader enabled changes the look of the scanlines too.

Ex screenshots:
No crop overscan http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/retroarch20150907163.png
Vert crop http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/88fretroarch20150907163.png
Hori crop http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/e44retroarch20150907163.png
Both crop http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/8e0retroarch20150907163.png
So I have both of those enabled.

Scanlines aside, even without a CRT shader. This works very well in my experience.
Full height without cropping for 1080p and for me full height with slight cropping. With integer scaling.


You simply need to set your desktop resolution to 4k and then run Retroarch. Cycle full screen once or twice using the "F" key.
When done, change your desktop res back.

I should have been clearer, dowsampling won't help, the scanlines will be uneven unless you're using integer scaling.

 

[EasyMode]

Okay, the updated halation shader can be downloaded here.

Unzip to the shaders/crt folder and load the preset. As usual, for 1080p or higher displays, I recommend turning Integer Scale Off under video settings.

I've simplified the parameters since the last one. Now there's 7 predefined mask types you can cycle through. The default mask pattern is borrowed from crt-lottes-halation.

The shader now automatically compensates for brightness when you increase the mask or scanline strength. Generally, you shouldn't need to touch the brightness parameter unless it's too bright.

Curvature is now independent of geometry warping, so you can have a curved border without warping lines. The curvature setting doesn't kick in unless you also set a corner size.

Any game resolution with 400+ lines is now treated as interlaced. So there's no more combing artifacts in 480i games.

 

[bacardi]

Okay, the updated halation shader can be downloaded here.

Unzip to the shaders/crt folder and load the preset. As usual, for 1080p or higher displays, I recommend turning Integer Scale Off under video settings.

I've simplified the parameters since the last one. Now there's 7 predefined mask types you can cycle through. The default mask pattern is borrowed from crt-lottes-halation.

The shader now automatically compensates for brightness when you increase the mask or scanline strength. Generally, you shouldn't need to touch the brightness parameter unless it's too bright.

Curvature is now independent of geometry warping, so you can have a curved border without warping lines. The curvature setting doesn't kick in unless you also set a corner size.

Any game resolution with 400+ lines is now treated as interlaced. So there's no more combing artifacts in 480i games.

Thanks a lot Easy! It's really great! I love the fact that I can control the scanline strength as well (I prefer them stronger than the default). Overall your shader became my number one choice Cheers!

 

[Fou-Lu]

So how does disc switching work in Beetle? My brother bought himself a copy of Legend of Dragoon and hasn't been playing it, but I figured I will.

 

[Radius4]

Easiest route is to use an M3U.
Check this guide and if you have any doubts let me know
http://wiki.libretro.com/index.php?title=Beetle/Mednafen_PSX#Usage

 

[Shaneus]

Okay, the updated halation shader can be downloaded here.

Unzip to the shaders/crt folder and load the preset. As usual, for 1080p or higher displays, I recommend turning Integer Scale Off under video settings.

I've simplified the parameters since the last one. Now there's 7 predefined mask types you can cycle through. The default mask pattern is borrowed from crt-lottes-halation.

The shader now automatically compensates for brightness when you increase the mask or scanline strength. Generally, you shouldn't need to touch the brightness parameter unless it's too bright.

Curvature is now independent of geometry warping, so you can have a curved border without warping lines. The curvature setting doesn't kick in unless you also set a corner size.

Any game resolution with 400+ lines is now treated as interlaced. So there's no more combing artifacts in 480i games.

Hngh. I'm assuming that runs like arse on a Pi though (as would anything that is more than just interlacing).

 

[Radius4]

Okay, the updated halation shader can be downloaded here.

Unzip to the shaders/crt folder and load the preset. As usual, for 1080p or higher displays, I recommend turning Integer Scale Off under video settings.

I've simplified the parameters since the last one. Now there's 7 predefined mask types you can cycle through. The default mask pattern is borrowed from crt-lottes-halation.

The shader now automatically compensates for brightness when you increase the mask or scanline strength. Generally, you shouldn't need to touch the brightness parameter unless it's too bright.

Curvature is now independent of geometry warping, so you can have a curved border without warping lines. The curvature setting doesn't kick in unless you also set a corner size.

Any game resolution with 400+ lines is now treated as interlaced. So there's no more combing artifacts in 480i games.

Cool! are you planning to add it to common-shaders? or should I do it in your behalf?
let me know

 

[BONKERS]

I should have been clearer, dowsampling won't help, the scanlines will be uneven unless you're using integer scaling.

I'm using all integer scales in all of these. At native it's 3x3 with empty space and 4x4 with cropping. At 2x2 downsampling resolution it's 6x6 and 7x7.

That shouldn't be an issue, because the shaders are applied to the output before it reaches the display. You could display a 9x9 scale on my monitor and the scanlines are still even.

Ex: 9x9 scale at 1366x768

It's 1:1 scaled with the visible resolution cropping a selection of the output for display.

The same happens when you run an integer scale slightly above for you resolution. It crops the visible output to the display area. Thus you lose quite a few lines. However when you do this at 2x2 your display resolution and downsample the result. For 768p you get that cropped visible output, but with less lines lost.

With 1080p/2160p. You don't lose any lines because 240 x 9 = 2160 (/2 = 1080p)

 

[Giever]

With 1080p/2160p. You don't lose any lines because 240 x 9 = 2160 (/2 = 1080p)

Yep, I figured it out and it's working out quite nicely for me this way. Thanks!

 

[EasyMode]

Thanks a lot Easy! It's really great! I love the fact that I can control the scanline strength as well (I prefer them stronger than the default). Overall your shader became my number one choice Cheers!

You're welcome!

Hngh. I'm assuming that runs like arse on a Pi though (as would anything that is more than just interlacing).

It definitely won't run well on a Pi.

Cool! are you planning to add it to common-shaders? or should I do it in your behalf?
let me know

Tonight I'll just add one more parameter to toggle the interlacing behavior, then I'll add it to common-shaders.

 

[Dizzy-4U]

So guys, I found a very old laptop I had from 2005 or so and of course this old toaster is not very useful very much today.

So I was thinking maybe throw a linux distro to it and make it a dedicated retroarch machine connected to the CRT.

Is the linux version of retroarch good? The laptop has a centrino cpu with I think 1gb of ram. Maybe it can run games up to the 16bit era?

 

[Awakened]

Tonight I'll just add one more parameter to toggle the interlacing behavior, then I'll add it to common-shaders.

Nice, I've made crt-easymode-halation my default shader for now, but the interlacing detection is tripped on certain vertical games like Ketsui in MAME. They'll look better with that off. Though still probably not the best due to how the MAME core outputs rotated vertical games.

 

[BONKERS]

Yep, I figured it out and it's working out quite nicely for me this way. Thanks!

Glad I could help.

In the future for 1080p output with integer scaling. I think this is a nice work around.
For example if they made another XRGB with 4k capabilities, for 1080p it scales it up to 4k first and then downsamples it to 1080p to get full height without issues.

 

[EasyMode]

Radius, I updated the shader and made a pull request on common-shaders.

 

[Copons]

It's been a while since my hands touched Retroarch's configuration. I managed to do a working setup with Retroarch 1.something and then I was too scared to break up everything so I stopped caring and let it go as it was.

Now tho, the retro-itch has come back and I was thinking ifthere are some new easy (and clear!) guides for RA2 around to set up shaders and stuff.
Does anyone know any?


Just for info: 1) I'm perfectly confident using a text editor; 2) I totally forgot everything I did on RA1, so it's not like "just copy stuff over" would do here.

 

[woahitsreeo]

Thanks for the awesome update EasyMode!

On a slightly different topic I made an overlay/border that replaces the gba image in the handheld shaders.

 

[Mr. Hyde]

Apologies, I've been preoccupied with work lately. I do have Monday off, so I'm hoping to post something that evening (EST timezone, mind you).



What about the crt-royale-intel preset? Also, what kind of system and what version of RetroArch are you running?

I didn't see your message until now. I am running it on Windows 10 with the newest stable RetroArch. I managed to get it to work so things are just fine now. I am going to try your newest filter today when I get a chance. It looks really good!

 

[Rich!]

3DS port is really really promising so far.

Full speed with sound via catsfc. Can't wait for further updates. Once the weird screen tearing issue is fixed, mega drive, NES and game boy will be near perfect.

 

[Lettuce]

So the Libretro site is down...AGAIN!, and thus cant install any cores. Is there no way the devs can have a back site (maybe dropbox) which can be used when the main site is down???

 

[Rich!]

So the Libretro site is down...AGAIN!, and thus cant install any cores. Is there no way the devs can have a back site (maybe dropbox) which can be used when the main site is down???

well...from gbatemp:

Like I said before, the hoster pulled the plug :wacko: we had an agreement with a hosting company, was hosting us for free but then last month it got purchased by another company and they are no longer gonna honor the agreement and today the servers just stopped responding.
We're not 100% that this is what happened.

At least I have backups of everything till this morning, so no big loss but we don't have a build server at the moment but someone offered already and I haven't had the time to setup a mirror for the website