[neighbourhoodnerd]

Just wanted to say I really appreciate your work. I’m setting up my Raspberry Pi(s) for the same reason you are – a retro gaming museum :)

You may have covered this already but I thought I’d mention it just in case.
For this project you’ll definitely want to disable any emulator commands that open menus (eg the command to launch LR-Config in Retroarch emulators). I’m also making sure this isn’t needed by programming in savestate and loadstate commands.

I want the kids to be able to play the Final Fantasy series when they’re older, including the PSX classics which are multi-disk systems. I found a good guide on this forum for combining and compressing these titles into one image and then adding a disk-swap command.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Thanks! I got it working :)

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I don’t know what version you have on your old SD card, but on my 3.6 install, the images are located here:

Network shortcut: \\RETROPIE\configs\all\emulationstation\downloaded_images
Local directory: /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/downloaded_images

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Sorry, that was a dumb way for me to explain it :P

I’ve seen online that the command scraper is the one to use, but if I run it on my Pi it says the command wasn’t recognised. Even though I definitely have it installed and have used it (but only via the retropie-setup app).

[neighbourhoodnerd]

If you own the games, you can technically download the image files from the internet. You’re allowed to possess backups of games you physically own :)

Otherwise any image/iso creator tool should do the job.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Thanks Herb! I actually didn’t have an es_systems.cfg which is why I got lost. I copied one and set it up. All working fine :) Thanks heaps!

I am actually using Dreamcast so won’t be hiding it ;)

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Also wondering if there’s a trick to hide files like SYSTEMMANAGER.CDI and NEOGEO.ZIP from ES? :)

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Hi SSelph!

I ran the scraper today via RetroPie-Setup and it did a great job. Much faster than the inbuilt scraper and produced far more results.

Two quick questions:
1. I want to run the scraper from the terminal instead of using the RetroPie-Setup GUI so I can add arguments. Running the command scraper doesn’t seem to work though.
2. All my multi-disk games fail to scan. Here’s an example of how they are named in my library: Final Fantasy VII [disk 1 of 3].ISO. Is there any easy way to scrape these? I don’t mind renaming them but naturally I need a way to know which disk is which.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

[quote=120511]You can find it under RetroPie-Setup, #3 Configuration. You have to kill EmulationStation before scraping though. It’s so much better than the built-in one.

[/quote]

Ta, I got there in the end. The default scraper started going really slowly again so I am now setting up Sselph’s one :)

[neighbourhoodnerd]

In my experience, segfaults are caused by overheating which can corrupt the memory card. If you’re overclocking, make sure you have a heatsink or an open case.

You might be able to reinstall the emulator to fix this issue if it’s only affecting the one system.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Thanks for the tips folks :)

I managed to get everything scraped except my multi-disk games. Apparently the scraper can’t handle [disk 1 of 2] as part of the file name. When I have some patience I’ll plug in my keyboard and rescrape them.

How do you use the sselph scraper?

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Resolved – seems okay now. Probably just server lag

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Your screenshots are all gone :(

[neighbourhoodnerd]

You should ask the devs if this theme can be included in their theme installer tool :)

Edit: it already is :P ignore me

[neighbourhoodnerd]

This looks glorious. I can’t wait to get home and try it out.

I’m loving the gradient backgrounds, the controller art, and the console images. My Pi is specifically geared towards being a mini gaming museum, so being able to show the kids what all the old consoles actually looked like will make a big difference! :)

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Unfortunately PCSX2, which is the best PS2 emulator out there, relies heavily on DirectX and other Windows-specific code, making it too hard to port. There’s an Android version in development but it’s early days.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I can almost guarantee it’s your power supply. As Gamesfan says, you need 2.5amps.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

[quote=118620]Well this makes me happy, and sad. I just bought my fisrt Pi bout 3 weeks ago…

[/quote]

Whenever I get a new Pi, I buy a new controller and gift my old one to a friend/family member ^_^ My Pi2 is going to the niece and nephew in a few weeks!

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I can’t wait for the update. This one’s pretty pokey!

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Just create the folder yourself :) The real PSP actually uses the same folder structure.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

256mb.

Only other thing I can think of is that your OC may be too high. Either that or the emulator is still a bit buggy. Are you using LR-PPSSPP or the standalone one? I’m using LR-PPSSPP.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Got lots of games working much better with an overclock (copy-pasteable):

arm_freq=1000
sdram_freq=500
core_freq=500
over_voltage=2

and these settings (not copy-pasteable):
CPU core = JIT
Auto frameskip = off
frameskip = 1
Framerate limit = 60
Fast Memory = YES
Set Rounding Mode = YES
Block Transfer GPU = YES
Texture scaling level = 1
Texture scaling type = xbrz
Anisotropic filtering = NO
Texture Deposterize = YES
Internal Shader = NO
GPU hardware T&L = YES
Vertex Cache = YES
Prescale UV = YES
IO THreading = YES
Unsafe FuncReplacements = YES
Sound Speedhack = YES
Threaded Input Hack = YES

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I did notice one thing – you have the following setting:
CacheFullIsoInRam = True

This would work fine for small ROMs, but most PSP ROMs are well over 1GB in size which would exceed the Pi’s max memory. Could be what’s causing your IO issues.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I see no reason why it wouldn’t work :) You’d need to figure out a way to flash the OS to the SSD, but I imagine that’s not difficult.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I think the big one would be a first-run flag that makes Retropie expand the partitions automatically. Nothing confuses a newbie more easily than adding 1-2 ROMs and then running out of space… ;)

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Hey OP!

I finally got LR-PPSSPP compiled and running. No IO issues (I’m using a class 10 MicroSD, Pi is not overclocked).

I haven’t applied your config settings yet.

My experience thus far has been:
-Pure 2D games work great
-Fancy 3D titles (Ratchet and Clank, Dissidia) crash after the start screen. Tekken 6 runs but is monstrously slow.
-Hit and miss for other 3D titles. Legend of Heroes is 100%, while GTA Chinatown Wars is a bit laggy. LittleBigPlanet is perfect except for some busy areas where it slows down sightly.
-Some titles are missing some 2D elements (such as menu text) but otherwise work great (MGS Peace Walker, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite).
-The emulator can’t display the PSP keyboard.

This is very exciting though – I’ve tested about 40 popular titles and I’d say about 50% work perfectly. That’s a really good start, especially considering I haven’t gotten into the settings too deeply.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Yes – please do this urgently so others can have a go :D

IO issues are probably caused by your SD card class (Class 10 is recommended). You might also have a dodgy power supply.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I’m sure you can overclock by editing the config file. Just be careful – if they’re using an older chip it may already have a slight overclock applied to it. 1ghz is the stock speed that has been applied. If you’re using an old Retropie image your clock will probably be lower.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I agree with the others; Pi1 is not powerful enough to emulate PS1 games perfectly. Overclocking does help but you’ll need to go to 1000mhz for *playable* PS1 games.

No need to edit GPU memory allocation; 128mb is plenty.

Get a Pi2 and you’ll be much happier :)

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Guys, this is actually a simple problem to fix. When you get your ROM files, you’ll also get a .CUE file of the same name. These need to be placed in the ROM directory as well as the emulator uses them to find the music.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

I’d forgotten about this!

I’ve learned a lot about this process now.

The .SRM files are the Memory Card files (at least in the case of PSX games). One .SRM file is created for each game, which means that you can’t access saved game files created for different games.

There aren’t any external tools to edit .SRM files, but you can rename them to a .MCR file and edit them that way. There’s a tool called MemCardRex that can import save files.

So, to get my completed Tekken 3 save:
1. Copy the tekken 3.srm file from the PSX folder to your PC.
2. Rename the file to tekken 3.mcr.
3. Download a save file (just Google it!)
4. Open the tekken 3 .mcr file in MemCardRex.
5. (Optional, depending on the game) Delete any existing save file
5. Right click an empty slot and select Import Save…
6. Select your downloaded save file.
7. Save.
8. Rename the file back to a .srm file.
9. Place the .srm file back into the PSX folder on your Retropie.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Just edit ES_Systems.CFG. This file controls what file extensions EmulationStation will make visible in its menus.

The file is found at /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg

Search the file for “PlayStation” and edit the EXTENSION section to match mine:

  <system>
    <fullname>Sony Playstation 1</fullname>
    <name>psx</name>
    <path>~/RetroPie/roms/psx</path>
<extension>.bin .BIN .cbn .CBN .img .IMG .iso .ISO .mdf .MDF .pbp .PBP .toc .TOC .z .Z .znx .ZNX</extension>
    <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 1 "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/psxlibretro/libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg --appendconfig /opt/retropie/configs/psx/retroarch.cfg %ROM%" "psxlibretro"</command>
    <platform>psx</platform>
    <theme>psx</theme>
  </system>

These changes make sure that .CUE, .CCD etc are ignored and adds other common disk image formats. Don’t worry, the emulator runs them all just fine.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

blimp

[neighbourhoodnerd]

Rpi2 on standard 1000mhz clock with latest updates will run pretty much every PSX game, with the exception of a few PAL titles that have an anti-piracy trick built in. For these games, emulation is usually flawless but the game crashes after 1-2 levels.

Basically, just use NTSC titles and you’ll be golden.

[neighbourhoodnerd]

thump.

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