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RETROARCH - The all-in-one emulator dreams are made of, son

Awakened

Member
Has anyone seen "Data Load Fail" issues or save fails in the Desmume core? I can't for the life of me figure out how to change the save type for it.
That was an issue quite a few months ago, but was fixed. The Desmume core included in lordashram's 7/30 build is really good, the only thing it really lacks is mic support. I finished Ace Attorney Investigations on it and am playing the fan translated sequel now :D
 

Nezzhil

Member
Ive made a basic setup video for RetroArch showing how to load and save system configs etc if anyone is interested....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHXyGK9DNX4&feature=youtu.be





Theres a link in the description of my video above that has all the shaders, just unzip that and name the folder shaders, then add it to your retroarch directory

Thanks for the video.
I'm following all the steps, but I have a problem with the GBA's "lcd_cgwg" shader. Seems that doesn't work right, like you can see:
er6HG4V.png

My graphics card is a nVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Can anyone help me?
 

Lettuce

Member
Thanks for the video.
I'm following all the steps, but I have a problem with the GBA's "lcd_cgwg" shader. Seems that doesn't work right, like you can see:
er6HG4V.png

My graphics card is a nVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Can anyone help me?

Hmm thats odd, so you have the GBA core loaded and a game running??
 

Lettuce

Member
Got it, thanks.



Not a perfect emulation of CRT, but darn close.

Try playing around with the settings in the parameters settings for the shader. These are the settings i changed.....

CRT_Gamma 2.40
LCD_Gamma 2.10
Diffusion_Weight 0.25
Bloom_Underestimate_Levels 0.55
Bloom_excess 0.35
Beam_Max_Sigma 0.20
Beam_Max_Sharp 2.50
Beam_Sharp_Power 0.80
Border_size 0.00

I found them to be more pleasing, but i guess everyone has different tastes.


And great game btw
 

Wonko_C

Member
I can't get CRT-royale to work, most likely because I'm running on a laptop with HD3000 integrated GPU, but I have no idea what this means and if there is a workaround for it.

ZrfGKQs.png
 

Rich!

Member
Hmmmm.

Does anyone know how to set desumne core to only display one screen? Like, I can only see options to have them both displayed, but there's games such as Kirby Super Star which technically can be played without the bottom screen (and as I'm playing on a TV, having two screens displayed isn't ideal, specifically the size)

If anyone knows, I'll try it as soon as I get back home.
 

Lettuce

Member

MoGamesXNA

Unconfirmed Member
So I actually have just a .bin file for the game, with no .cue or iso. If I need a cue, can I create one somehow, or should I just be getting these games in another format? Thanks guys.

Mednafen PSX requires a .cue file to be able to load a .bin/.iso image. If you don't have one, you can create one in a text editor (eg. Wipeout.cue) and include the following lines and then save it:

FILE "Wipeout.bin" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00

Just replace Wipeout.bin in quotation marks with the exact file name of the .bin/.iso file of the game image (eg. FILE "MetalGearSolid.bin" BINARY). Make sure the file name is correct and includes any spaces as this is what points Mednafen to your .bin/.iso.

After you've done that, your game directory should have a Wipeout.bin and a corresponding Wipeout.cue file. When you open up Retroarch, select the Mednafen PSX core, select Load Content and then select the Wipeout.cue file and it should work correctly for you.

Edit: If you want to keep your .cue file in a different location to your .bin file as richisawesome has suggested earlier, you will need to include a full path to your ISO/BIN file in the quotation marks (eg. FILE "D:\GAMES\PSXISO\MetalGearSolid.bin" BINARY)

-----------------------------------
Extra edit:

^ That will work with most games if you're stuck without a .cue file but keep in mind that some PSX games with CD audio tracks will need a full .cue file that includes audio track references otherwise the music won't play (the Wipeout games are a good example). Refer to a tutorial for your CD Image creating software if you need to re-rip your PS1 games that have CD based audio tracks, so it will automatically generate the .cue file for you.

A .cue file with audio track references will look like the following when opened in a text editor:

FILE "Wipeout 3 Special Edition (E).BIN" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00

TRACK 02 AUDIO
PREGAP 00:02:00
INDEX 01 08:56:47

TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 13:03:05


This is from the wiki and might explain it better:

For most systems, Mednafen only needs the rom file; but to load PS1 games, Mednafen requires CUE sheets to know where the music data is. Ensure that the CUE sheet is properly set up in order for the game to run. See the Cue sheet (.cue) page for more info.

For additional info
 

Awakened

Member
Hmmmm.

Does anyone know how to set desumne core to only display one screen? Like, I can only see options to have them both displayed, but there's games such as Kirby Super Star which technically can be played without the bottom screen (and as I'm playing on a TV, having two screens displayed isn't ideal, specifically the size)

If anyone knows, I'll try it as soon as I get back home.
If you use the core from the build I linked in my previous post, it has three screen layout core options for displaying a single screen. Top only, bottom only, and quick switch. Quick switch is great since it assigns R3 as a button to switch between screens on the fly. I remapped R3 to right trigger (ZR on my Wii U Pro) in my DS config since it's easier to press.

Edit:
Also, there are some source commits with the X432R patches, but it doesn't seem to be ready yet.
 
Mednafen PSX requires a .cue file to be able to load a .bin/.iso image. If you don't have one, you can create one in a text editor (eg. Wipeout.cue) and include the following lines and then save it:

FILE "Wipeout.bin" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00

Just replace Wipeout.bin in quotation marks with the exact file name of the .bin/.iso file of the game image (eg. FILE "MetalGearSolid.bin" BINARY). Make sure the file name is correct and includes any spaces as this is what points Mednafen to your .bin/.iso.

After you've done that, your game directory should have a Wipeout.bin and a corresponding Wipeout.cue file. When you open up Retroarch, select the Mednafen PSX core, select Load Content and then select the Wipeout.cue file and it should work correctly for you.

Edit: If you want to keep your .cue file in a different location to your .bin file as richisawesome has suggested earlier, you will need to include a full path to your ISO/BIN file in the quotation marks (eg. FILE "D:\GAMES\PSXISO\MetalGearSolid.bin" BINARY)

-----------------------------------
Extra edit:

^ That will work with most games if you're stuck without a .cue file but keep in mind that some PSX games with CD audio tracks will need a full .cue file that includes audio track references otherwise the music won't play (the Wipeout games are a good example). Refer to a tutorial for your CD Image creating software if you need to re-rip your PS1 games that have CD based audio tracks, so it will automatically generate the .cue file for you.

A .cue file with audio track references will look like the following when opened in a text editor:

FILE "Wipeout 3 Special Edition (E).BIN" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00

TRACK 02 AUDIO
PREGAP 00:02:00
INDEX 01 08:56:47

TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 13:03:05


This is from the wiki and might explain it better:

For most systems, Mednafen only needs the rom file; but to load PS1 games, Mednafen requires CUE sheets to know where the music data is. Ensure that the CUE sheet is properly set up in order for the game to run. See the Cue sheet (.cue) page for more info.

For additional info

Thanks man, that was very helpful. I created a .cue file as you explained and it looks good, however the same thing happens when I launch the game through retroarch - it simply closes. I pasted about 15 different PS1 bios files in to the System folder as someone else suggested, and the same thing happens. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Thanks man, that was very helpful. I created a .cue file as you explained and it looks good, however the same thing happens when I launch the game through retroarch - it simply closes. I pasted about 15 different PS1 bios files in to the System folder as someone else suggested, and the same thing happens. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Don't they have to be renamed to exactly what the core info says?
 
Don't they have to be renamed to exactly what the core info says?

You're probably right, except I was never able to find any core info. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. I was able to figure it out though, the BIOS needed were scph5500, scph5501, and scph5502. Turns out that scph5501 is the same as scph7003. I was missing 5501 and had 7003, so I just renamed it. Boom, games work!

However,

Mednafen PSX doesn't support save states? I suppose playing all the old PS1 RPGs without save states is "hardcore," but I don't have time for that crap anymore. Has anyone figured out a workaround for this?
 

Awakened

Member
You're probably right, except I was never able to find any core info. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. I was able to figure it out though, the BIOS needed were scph5500, scph5501, and scph5502. Turns out that scph5501 is the same as scph7003. I was missing 5501 and had 7003, so I just renamed it. Boom, games work!

However,

Mednafen PSX doesn't support save states? I suppose playing all the old PS1 RPGs without save states is "hardcore," but I don't have time for that crap anymore. Has anyone figured out a workaround for this?
Feeling like a broken record here, but the latest Win64 testbuild includes a Mednafen PSX core with savestate support.

The only regression in the 7/30 testbuild since the last megapack I can think of is the Mednafen PCE and SuperGrafx cores having the display pushed down a few pixels. So I'd say use that build until 1.1 comes out since it's basically a newer megapack. Well, unless you're stuck on 32-bit; no one makes 32-bit testbuilds currently.
 

ph00p

Banned
I'm getting some crackling and popping in my audio, I haven't touched any of it, what are the settings I can use to fix this? Are there tweaks that are somewhat less obvious? Whats the best driver?
 

Radius4

Member
Hey there, I helped a (tiny) bit with the windows port of the PPSSPP core.
If you don't have a modern GPU, try this setting in your core options:

ppsspp_prescale_uv = "enabled"

It seems to give a nice speedboost on GPU limited situations.
I'll ask Toadking about non-buffered rendering. Before reporting a bug I need to make sure it's not a Windows only issue.
 
Has anyone played around with the Yabause core? I've had trouble getting a few games to even load that nominally are supposed to be supported by Yabause, and which I know work thanks to SSF.
 

Awakened

Member
Has anyone played around with the Yabause core? I've had trouble getting a few games to even load that nominally are supposed to be supported by Yabause, and which I know work thanks to SSF.
I haven't had any issue with loading games. I have them all in BIN/CUE format which Yabause likes. You can put a BIOS with the filename saturn_bios.bin in your system folder which will help some games that crash (I think Zwei does without a BIOS).

The core is missing save ram support, but someone posted on their forums recently about trying to get that working.
 
I haven't had any issue with loading games. I have them all in BIN/CUE format which Yabause likes. You can put a BIOS with the filename saturn_bios.bin in your system folder which will help some games that crash (I think Zwei does without a BIOS).

That got PDS a little farther (like, to playing the opening movie) but didn't seem to do much for Shining the Holy Ark. Ah well!
 

Joey Ravn

Banned
Does anyone have a nice PSOne border/overlay for PC? I haven't been able to find one that is not very intrusive, or not made for curved shaders.

Wait, isnt the PSP 16:9, why would you want to put a huge border around it?

I have to assume that it's because the tiny resolution of PSP doesn't translate very well to a large monitor (or rather, is very game-dependent). People use borders to maintain the aspect ration and get a larger image than what the standard resolution would yield, but not big enough to look like a blurry mess.

At least that's why I use borders, even with 16:9 games.
 
Does anyone have a nice PSOne border/overlay for PC? I haven't been able to find one that is not very intrusive, or not made for curved shaders.



I have to assume that it's because the tiny resolution of PSP doesn't translate very well to a large monitor (or rather, is very game-dependent). People use borders to maintain the aspect ration and get a larger image than what the standard resolution would yield, but not big enough to look like a blurry mess.

At least that's why I use borders, even with 16:9 games.

hmm interesting, that actually make sense, thanks
 

Radius4

Member
PSP resolution would cause a small window with integer scale on most screens, so a border could look nicely I guess
 

Awakened

Member
PSP can be pretty "grainy" looking at original internal res blown up to 1080. Here's what Phantasy Star Portable 2 looks like at original res vs. 1920x1088 (both internal and output res set to that in core options) with the pixellate shader:
BTW, having analog D-Pad mode on the right stick is really nice for camera control in this and a few other games.
 

Radius4

Member
Thanks for the reply & suggestion. I flagged the option to enabled in the core options as you suggested. The core seems to run at 60fps for a majority of the time now.

In regards to the audio distortion, I still get the audio pops between battle and scene transitions in Final Fantasy Anniversary (FF1). I tested this with PPSSPP 0.9.9 with the same settings (albeit with audio latency set to medium) and the music and sound effects played fine without any pops. I have a feeling that if I could adjust the audio latency in Retroarch PPSSPP as I can in the standalone emulator, this issue would go away. It's not really a major problem though, just something I noticed.

Updated the core, grab it again, some sound related stub from standalone was stubbed by Squarepusher might give you some improvements.

I'll expose the latency option this weekend
 
I've been able to play everything I've tried in Yabause so far (albeit slowly on my ancient Core i7 920). I just played through the opening of PDS and the first battle successfully. What happens on your end after the first cutscene?

Crashes to BIOS. Shining the Holy Ark just boots directly into BIOS.

I still haven't gotten Dosbox working, either, which is a bit surprising.
 
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