Can't show core updater in ubuntu

Kutsufatmo · 21 March 2022 06:37

Hey guys,

So after extensive testing with Windows 10 I realized it wasn’t meeting my needs for setting up a media center / retro gaming rig for my living room PC, so I ended up toasting everything on it and throwing on Ubuntu LTS 20.04 instead. For the most part things were smooth sailing as I installed and configured Steam, RetroArch and Kodi, but I’ve finally hit a snag that I am completely stunlocked on solving: I can’t install the cores I want.

Whereas the Windows version of RA effortlessly allowed me to download from a wide library of cores right through the GUI, Ubuntu refuses to display it. So I thought fine, I’ll just use terminal to do it, but the terminal packages are incredibly limited and only display a fraction of the number of cores that I could download on Windows. So I’m really forced to get the online updater working, but I just can’t get it to display.

For more details, I installed RetroArch using the Steam store for my convenience. I have already tried changing the libretro_directory path to the ~/.config location so that it would have writable access. I also made sure the setting for turning on the online updater in the retroarch.cfg file was set to “true”. Despite all this, it STILL won’t even show the online updater and core updater. What am I missing? Would I be better off just downloading RetroArch from another source and then adding it to my Steam library as a non-Steam game?

gouchi · 21 March 2022 09:21

If you installed it by Steam, you should download cores from Steam DLC.

If you want to have the cores updater on Ubuntu, you should install appimage (QT version) or snap package.

Video tutorial about how to install RetroArch on Linux

Kutsufatmo · 22 March 2022 00:53

OK, I didn’t see earlier that the store page has DLC packs for cores. This is more useful than the terminal list and should work for me for the time being, though I noticed that it still doesn’t have nearly as many emulators as the GUI core downloader inside of RetroArch for Windows. Is this just a limitation of the linux version fundamentally, or if I were to download RA from one of the other package / PPA methods I would be able to get more cores?

Edit: Alright, I got the cores installed that I wanted and so far the games are running flawlessly, but I have another peculiar issue now. The Xbox button in the middle of my controller does not pull back up the RetroArch GUI, so I can’t configure my game shaders, or even return to the menu whatsoever unless I flat out exit everything back to Steam. I suspect this has something to do with the wonky configuration of my Xbox360 controller in Ubuntu. RetroArch recognizes the input as “Steam Virtual Gamepad” or something to that effect instead of Xbox controller, and also every time I boot into RA it gives some sort of message to the effect of “Steam Virtual Gamepad not configured, using fallback”. Does anyone know the correct way to setup the Xbox360 controller drivers in linux? I tried to follow a guide elsewhere but some of the terminal commands I entered came back with saying the package or something no longer exists.

Edit2: Never mind, figured it out. Steam was being dumb and overriding RetroArch’s configuration with its own controller setup. Have to right-click RA in Steam library and go to properties > controller and disable steam config. Now it properly recognizes as an Xbox 360 controller.

If anyone still knows about more core options in linux though I’d like to know.

hunterk · 22 March 2022 02:08

We’ll continue adding more cores to Steam DLC in the future, but in the meantime, you’ll have to “sideload” them by downloading the cores manually (via browser or another installation) and placing them in your cores directory.

The main issue is that Valve doesn’t allow “store within a store” functionality like our online updater, so we have to patch it out to comply with their rules.

Kutsufatmo · 31 March 2022 13:38

That’s weird Valve views it that way when there’s nothing to actually purchase in the client. Wish they were as draconian about that when it comes to other games that actually require a third party client like Uplay or Origin installed on top of Steam lol.

At any rate it’s all running beautifully in Linux now, thanks for your help. RetroArch has breathed some new life into my old gaming machine.

One other random question I have. I noticed RetroArch has a netplay feature. Is that only for cores that support it, or is it applicable to mostly everything? Because for example I know that BSNES standalone doesn’t have a netplay feature, but SNES9X does, so I’m wondering I guess if I still need to install SNES9X as a core so I can do netplay with my friends if I wanted.

hunterk · 31 March 2022 13:42

it works with varying success with quite a few cores, but it really only shines with a relatively small number because it is based on “rollback” functionality, similar to the famed GGPO fighting game platform.

It is possible to make it work with more cores by enabling so-called “stateless” mode, which essentially disables the rollback aspect, but I think at that point you’re better off using Steam’s Remote Play Together netplay instead (which is cool insofar as it only requires one person to have everything set up, including core, ROM, etc.; even RetroArch itself).