RetroArch on Raspbian: the tutorial

[Vanfanel]

These games were like that in the original hardware, cacophony555: these cores I recommended you are rock-solid "external" 60FPS, wich means there's enough CPU to emulate every frame in time.

Sonic in a real Master System was slowdown-land. It's an awesome game with incredible music, but the only way to avoid these slowdowns is to overclock the Master System CPU

Same for Zelda and the slowdowns in screen transitions. That's how the game worked on the real thing, I can tell you for sure.

And for your own good, AVOID the Master System version of Golden Axe. Yes, it was THAT lame, nothing emulators can fix!

[cacophony555]

Interesting stuff, thanks for the explanation. At this point I just want it to be accurate to the original experience, slowdowns and all!

What do you recommend for a SNES emulator?

[Vanfanel]

On the Raspberry Pi, nothing.
Someone will recommend you PiSNES or whatever it's name is: it's a good effort, but audio is broken and doesn't sound like a real SNES at all.

Blargg's SPC700 emulation (the SNES audio co-processor) is the only mean to get a good SNES audio, but it's way tooooo heavy for the Pi's CPU. Every SNES emulator you see on the Pi is using an older, inaccurate SPC700 emulation wich causes broken music, missing or wrong effects, etc.

Stay away from SNES emulation on the Pi if you want a faithful experience.

[cacophony555]

Sorry to go so off topic, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on MAME emulation as well. Does the mame4all do a decent job given the rom set it supports?

[Vanfanel]

Sorry to go so off topic, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on MAME emulation as well. Does the mame4all do a decent job given the rom set it supports?

Yeah! You can have a lot of fun with rock-solid 60fps Pac-Man era gaming, but also things like Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Rastan, The Newzealand Story, Gauntlet... All in all, an awesome port

For CPS1 , CPS2 and Neo Geo, use PiFBA, wich will provide rock-solid 60fps, too!

[r-type]

@Vanfanel

Got an pi 2 days ago , so can do some test with some libretro cores.
You report me , months agon that hatari was a bit to slow on pi.

I've just tested with lastest retroarch (only with ST mode of course) :

@800Mhz , HDMI mode CEA 1 in console mode with raspbian and core compiled with linaro toolchain ,
without frameskip and no border set in hatari.cfg , res 640*480 ,retroarch drivers : GL drivers, AlsaThread, Udev.
i got between 40 fps to 50 fps in game and 37.5 in desktop GEM .

Then i do some tweak in my hatari libretro port and enable 320*240 res for pi (no bZoomLowRes ) and got with sames conditions near 45/50 fps in games (depending of games ) and 43 fps in GEM. so +5 FPS , then hatari become very playable.

one remark , if i choose VG drivers , it's seems better than GL (more speed but you loose ability to go to RGUI ) , i have to put an issue for this (if someone care about RPI on libretro ).

Btw , i'v read that RiscOs hatari port run at full speed , but if i look at the hatari.cfg provide with it , you will notice
some frameskip and low fps.
[Screen]
...
nFramesPerSecond = 25
FrameSkips = 8
bZoomLowRes = TRUE
...
So would be great if someone could test RiscOS port with no frameskip enable and with 50 fps to see how perform exactly the riscos official port.

[Vanfanel]

Hey r-type! Good to see you around here, too

I've also noticed VG is faster than GL, but even using VG, I can't get solid 50FPS on the Pi in Hatari core. I believe using the Cyclone 68000 emulator, wich is optimized for ARM (PicoDrive core uses it) should give us rock-solid 50FPS.

Are you sure "alsathread" is faster than "alsa" on the Pi? How can it be, if the Pi has only one core?

btw, I'd love to see some of your RetroArch cores updated, like MSX, wich would be light enough for the Pi.

[r-type]

Yes cyclone could be a good option for a specific port of hatari running at fullspeed ( that mean also that only m68000 emulated).
I've not see many speed difference between alsa / alsathread , have to test more.
For now i only get solid 45/50FPS with a 320*240 resolution for hatari screen.
BTW, i would really like to have a hatari full speed emulator on the PI.

And yes , msx should be fine on pi ( hopefully )

[emuola]

Unfortunately I cannot get the source to compile I get this error:

Code: Select all

 In file included from gfx/gl.c:39:0:
gfx/gl_common.h:34:21: fatal error: EGL/egl.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [obj-unix/gfx/gl.o] Error 1

Installed libmesa1-dev and libsdl1.2-dev (as hinted by google...), but the problem persists. I'm using the minimal raspbian image.

Any clues what I'm missing?

[welshy]

emuola
I do recall in the past getting this error when not installing the sdl packages (as you have) even when then not using them in the Build. Make sure they are install correctly and download from this Link - https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch as some of the places this is located (even at GitHub) do not have the makefile error fix (See Page 3).

[cacophony555]

I'm curious why people consider PiSNES better performing than the pocketsnes core for retroarch. I've been comparing the two for the last couple days and I can't find any performance difference.

What I like about using the retroarch core:

+ Ability to set aspect ratio to whatever I want
+ Support for two controllers with different button mappings
+ Supports my DPAD without me having to do a mode switch
+ Uses far less CPU (50-70% vs 94% for PiSNES)

What if any games play better with PiSNES? So far I've compared Super Metroid, Super Star Wars, Contra 3, Super Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Ghouls and Ghosts, and I'm not seeing any notable differences.

[emuola]

I do recall in the past getting this error when not installing the sdl packages (as you have) even when then not using them in the Build. Make sure they are install correctly and download from this Link - https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch as some of the places this is located (even at GitHub) do not have the makefile error fix (See Page 3).

Thanks for the reply I'm kinda lost here,. because on page3 it says the problem is in /opt/vc/include/GLES2, but my installation does not have the include directory at all?

If someone would have a working ready-to-go image (img-file), I'd be very glad to host that publicly

All help highly appreciated

[welshy]

emuola
OK, obviously there are constant updates and changes to RetroArch. They did an update that didn't compile properly, it was missing a 'linker' on the RPi (the /opt/vc/include/GLES2 error), but have corrected it (in the link I placed). The [obj-unix/gfx/gl.o] Error 1 happend when SDL is not installed correctly (even if you don't then use it in your build).

So, make sure SDL is properly installed
sudo apt-get update
Then
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev libasound2-dev

Then download RetroArch from the Link and compile, hopefully it should build without error.

[welshy]

I'm curious why people consider PiSNES better performing than the pocketsnes core for retroarch. I've been comparing the two for the last couple days and I can't find any performance difference.

Agreed, there doesn't seem to be any discernible differences in emulation (some have reported better sound emulation in PiSNES via Analogue output) and its definitely less processor intensive. I think it may be down to what I said in the Emulation on the Raspberry Pi Thread

'One last thing, there is NEVER a ‘Perfect’ solution with emulation! Each have their own distinct advantages/disadvantages, it’s all about what you are willing to compromise on and your criteria, be it performance, accuracy, ROM/Image compatibility or ease of use'.

Perhaps some users prefer a 'Stand Alone' Binary over RetroArch. Additionally users of RetroPie have reported issues with save states (doesn't seem to be a problem in RetroArch however, must be RetroPie!) that isn't present when using PiSNES in that Image.

[kalehrl]

I use pisnes because it gives a much better analogue sound quality.
This is probably due to the analogue sound being more CPU intensive than digital HDMI sound.

[emuola]

emuola
OK, obviously there are constant updates and changes to RetroArch. They did an update that didn't compile properly, it was missing a 'linker' on the RPi (the /opt/vc/include/GLES2 error), but have corrected it (in the link I placed). The [obj-unix/gfx/gl.o] Error 1 happend when SDL is not installed correctly (even if you don't then use it in your build).

So, make sure SDL is properly installed
sudo apt-get update
Then
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev libasound2-dev

Then download RetroArch from the Link and compile, hopefully it should build without error.

Hi, I got it to compile, but as the Emulationstation seemed to be even harder to install I decided to use the RetroPie-setup script and it worked ok, but when I try to start the emulationstation, I get this error:

Code: Select all

/usr/bin/emulationstation: line 11: /home/pi/RetroPie/supplementary/EmulationStation/emulationstation: No such file or directory

I can start ES-config, but it hangs in the end (after the config should quit).

Any clues? Sorry to be this dumb

[welshy]

emuola
You don't need Emulation Station to use RetroArch, it can either be run via Command Line or the simple built in Front End. However this is a Thread for RetroArch, not Emulation Station and I don't use it myself so cannot really be of much assistance. RetroPie has its own Forum which should be a good source of help and can be found -

Here - http://blog.petrockblock.com/forums/for ... ect-forum/

[cacophony555]

This is how I installed Emulation Station:

sudo apt-get install gcc-4.7 g++-4.7
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libfreeimage-dev libfreetype6-dev libeigen3-dev ttf-dejavu
git clone https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation
cd EmulationStation
export CXX=g++-4.7
cmake .
make

You would then need to configure the es_systems.cfg within .emulationstation. And to launch emulationstation you would run EmulationStation/emulationstation.

[emuola]

You don't need Emulation Station to use RetroArch, it can either be run via Command Line or the simple built in Front End. However this is a Thread for RetroArch, not Emulation Station and I don't use it myself so cannot really be of much assistance. RetroPie has its own Forum which should be a good source of help and can be found -

Here - http://blog.petrockblock.com/forums/for ... ect-forum/

This is how I installed Emulation Station:

sudo apt-get install gcc-4.7 g++-4.7
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libfreeimage-dev libfreetype6-dev libeigen3-dev ttf-dejavu
git clone https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation
cd EmulationStation
export CXX=g++-4.7
cmake .
make

You would then need to configure the es_systems.cfg within .emulationstation. And to launch emulationstation you would run EmulationStation/emulationstation.

Thanks guys and sorry for "hijacking" the thread. I did not realise retroarch has its own frontend. I'll test more tonight

[welshy]

Thanks guys and sorry for "hijacking" the thread. I did not realise retroarch has its own frontend. I'll test more tonight

No Probs! Just run the RetroArch Binary and it boots into a neat, simple Front End, just choose your Core, then your game (along with a 'Game History' for one click loading). It also provides access to Graphics/Sound and Core Options.

[bidinou]

Thanks a lot for the tutorial, worked great !

Just one question : I didn't find any option to add scanlines to the picture ; is it possible ?

[mccarthy]

Hello guys,
I wonder how you've built the Hatari-core, as soon as mine was compiled, it threw out an segmentation fault.
I don't want to use the Hatari version vie apt-get ... because I won't be able to use my controller to use the emulator regarding quitting and stuff like that.
Cheers

[welshy]

McCarthy
Welcome to the Forum!
This Core works (Link - https://github.com/libretro/libretro-ha ... 34e75de06c), but its slow compared to the standard Binary

[Stormsyn]

Hello everyone,

I've finished compiling the NES-Core, which worked out fine. However, when I want to load a Rom, I get these error messages. I have no idea what I did wrong, since I followed the steps of this guide, so any help would be much appreciated.

RetroArch [WARN] :: system_directory is not set in config. Assuming system directory is same folder as game: ""
RetroArch [ERROR] :: dylib_load() failed: "fceumm-libretro.so" cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory".
RetroArch [ERROR] :: Failed to open dynamic library: "fceumm-libretro.so"
RetroArch [ERROR] :: Fatal error received in: "load_dynamic()"


In folder "retro" there is the file fceumm-libretro.so.

[zzediker]

was there a wonderswan-core? i could have sworn there was, but i dont find it on the github... am i crazy? i was looking for wonderswan and neo geo pocket.