Emulators/Cores update(s)?

[nemo93]

Hello All,

my second question :) I’ve looked at some emulators/cores versions and some haven’t been updated for quite a while. Does this mean that all optimizations have been done without any room for improvements (either speed or compatibility) or are they “dead” maybe?

* PiSNES: August 15, 2013
* PiFBA: October 02, 2013
* Mame4all-pi: June 07, 2013
* PCSX ReARMed: 22 Dec 2013
* Picodrive: 13 Dec 2013
* Osmose: nothing since Nov 2012??
* UAE4All (can’t find any links to a repo).

Emulation Station seems a bit stale too:
Emulation Station: December 14, 2013

Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining, not at all. I’m just wondering why no more updates and if that would mean Raspberry won’t be able to run some systems at full speed (PSX, 32X, Amiga, etc) at any point in the future.

Have a good day!
cheers,

ThomaS

[trimmtrabb]

There’s a big overhaul of Emulation Station in the works but no idea when that will be released:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=13552

Most if not all emulators are ports of older versions for performance reasons. As far as I know they are up to date.

[gizmo98]

Do a source based installation. The installation script will fetch the newest sources and compile them.

[nemo93]

thanks for your answers! I just can’t wait for the new Emulation Station release, it looks promising and awesome.

I’ll give also a try to the source based installation.

thanks!

[johnes]

If you do an update, is the script smart enough to no compile if it is already the latest version?

[petrockblog]

I am in close contact with Aloshi, the author of Emulation Station.

You can be sure that the new version will be added to the RetroPie Project as soon as it is released :-)

[trimmtrabb]

Looking forward to that :-) Will it be easy to migrate from an existing installation?

[nemo93]

First of all it’s so great to see new EmulationStation and Retropie releases! thanks to the authors for their hard work.

I’ve not moved over Retropie v2 yet but I’m wondering if this version includes the brand new Amiga emulator (uae4all2 – see HERE) and the fullspeed, perfect-frame PCE-CD emulator (in fact a new version of RetroArch/Libretro/Mednafen more details HERE)?

thanks

[kitchuk]

I don’t think (petrock?) the v2 includes the new PC Engine core? The one Vanafel posted in that thread fixes both CD emulation AND the cropping of the picture (black bar at the top and missing pixels as the bottom).

[Mutex]

Neither uae4all2 nor the new PCE core are included. But using them in your own setup is as easy as changing a line in the es_systems.cfg. I just tried the new PCE core and it runs pretty solid, definitly smoother than the old core, although I only had minor slowdowns when I tried Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire with the old one.

[petrockblog]

[quote=10641]First of all it’s so great to see new EmulationStation and Retropie releases! thanks to the authors for their hard work.

I’ve not moved over Retropie v2 yet but I’m wondering if this version includes the brand new Amiga emulator (uae4all2 – see HERE) and the fullspeed, perfect-frame PCE-CD emulator (in fact a new version of RetroArch/Libretro/Mednafen more details HERE)?

thanks
[/quote]

You are right, currently these two emulators are not included in the RetroPie installation. Technically this should be no problem, however. I have put this on the ToDo list. It would be great if someone could already prepare a pull request at https://github.com/retropie/RetroPie-Setup/pulls with the essential building and installation steps.

[nemo93]

Hi petrock!

unfortunately I have no idea on how to issue a pull request :( For sure I could describe and detail the installation steps, this is what I’m doing hereafter!

* to install the new Fullspeed, perfect-frame PCE-CD core (LINK)
1. download the zip archive provided in the link above
2. unzip it in some temp directory (this creates a “pce” directory)
3. copy the pce/cores/mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.so file over the /opt/retropie/emularcores/mednafen-pce/

$ sudo cp pce/cores/mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.so /opt/retropie/emularcores/mednafen-pce/

4. copy the retroarch binary from pce/retroarch to /opt/retropie/emulatorcores/Retroarch

$ sudo cp pce/retroarch /opt/retropie/emulatorcores/Retroarch/

5. copy over the retroarch core options file to the configs folder

$ sudo cp pce/cfg/.retroarch-core-options.cfg /opt/retropie/configs/all/ 

6a. edit EmulationStation “systems” file (vi .emulationstation/es_systems.cfg) and locate the PC Engine section. In the COMMAND line, look for libretro.so and replace it by mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.so.
6b. alternatively you could simply rename the new core file to libretro.so to replace the older one.

$ sudo mv /opt/retropie/emularcores/mednafen-pce/mednafen_pce_fast_libretro.so /opt/retropie/emularcores/mednafen-pce/libretro.so

* uae4all2 (LINK)
it seems that there is no way to configure a controller yet (conf hardcoded) so might be wise to wait a bit more to include it within Retropie?

hope this helps.
cheers,

[petrockblog]

Thanks you very much for your efforts!

I have added Mednafen PCE Fast just a day ago :-)

[Jason Whiteman]

unfortunately I have no idea on how to issue a pull request :( For sure I could describe and detail the installation steps, this is what I’m doing hereafter!

When I was asked to generate a pull request, I had the same reaction. The best I could do was some research to figure out how to generate my own install script although there are still open questions.

In order to facilitate collaboration, it would be useful for the Wiki to have sections on:

1) You’ve been asked to generate a pull request – what does this mean, and how do I get started?

2) Format, conventions, etc. [i.e. documentation] of the required script(s) in adding a new emulator. Templates with comments and a skeleton of the various sections for each template would be best.

3) Any conventions of what to do after generating a new script. Announce on the msg board? Leave it up to github entirely? etc.

Then your “pull request” comments can include a link to the Wiki and guide the potential collaborator through the process.

Regards,
Jason

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