Experiences with nightlies

RetroArch Android devices
#1

Hello to the RA developers. :slight_smile: You are doing a great job. Finally I can play all my old good games on a smartphone. :slight_smile:

I tested some of the nightlies and here are my experiences with them (on a Sony Z1 Compact) :

2015-02-06:

-Mupen64plus Core: When Auto-Save-State is enabled, and you try to resume a game, RetroArch is closed. If you delete the “*.state.auto” file, the game starts again. Loading own saved states works without problems.

-RGUI settings item-structure totally messed up compared to older releases. Maybe that is the way it is wanted by the devs, but it is very complex and confusing.

By the way: My phone is not rooted so I have no access to the “data/data/com.retroarch” folder. I wanted to change some overlays for my personal needs, but I have no access to them. Is there no way that you store such things into “android/data/com.retroarch” ?

#2

Google really made a mess of apps’ storage-access permissions since Jelly Bean. They put in an alternative method for accessing external storage, but RetroArch doesn’t function like most other Android apps and can’t really use it as it’s described in the documentation, unfortunately. We’ve been trying to find any other workable options but have come up short. If you or anyone reading this has any solutions, we’d love to hear them :slight_smile:

#3

I just tried the latest nightly (today’s 2/6) on FireTV and it is still irritating. Input is still a mess on FireTV when using a Logitech K400r keyboard. The game I tried ran really smooth,but how I am supposed to control it when stuck without a touchscreen for the required multitouch? I can’t get an actual gamepad for unfair and restrictive personal reasons. What’s the point of the custom bindings menu if it doesn’t even do anything?

Input always worked decently on the 1.0.0.2 Play Store copy,all you’d have to do is make the custom bindings and both the game and RGUI were controllable. Excluding N64 since the analog is not listed for mapping. (Mupen64Plus AE,made by Paul,has analog mapping) Why can’t this just be reverted somehow so that it respects the main menu bindings?

#4

Why would we revert all the hard work we put on in the last months to suit your usecase? Custom bindings work for me

#5

Why not using “android/data/com.retroarch” ?

It is internal storage and should work with Jelly Bean / Kitkat. Retroarch allready reserves a folder there (“android/data/com.retroarch/files”) but nothing is inside. But “data/data/com.retroarch” is not accessable on non-rooted devices.

As a workaround I can download the assets separately and put them in a own folder on the internal storage and change the paths in retroarch. But then I have the assets in “data/data”(which can’t be accessed for manipulation) and in my own folder, which makes the double space on flash-memory :frowning: .

#6

[QUOTE=FlintEastwood;18424]Why not using “android/data/com.retroarch” ?

It is internal storage and should work with Jelly Bean / Kitkat. Retroarch allready reserves a folder there (“android/data/com.retroarch/files”) but nothing is inside. But “data/data/com.retroarch” is not accessable on non-rooted devices.

As a workaround I can download the assets separately and put them in a own folder on the internal storage and change the paths in retroarch. But then I have the assets in “data/data”(which can’t be accessed for manipulation) and in my own folder, which makes the double space on flash-memory :frowning: .[/QUOTE] +1 to this idea. I have no desire to root my device and putting data where the user has permission to access it would make working around problems 100% easier.

Right now through the android menu system you can’t even set a config dir or core dir.

#7

It’s a good plan. We’ll try to make it happen soon. :slight_smile:

#8

Not ALL of the changes! Just reverting the broken change made to input bindings whenever it was first made after the “stable” build should be good enough.

#9

the stable as in 1.0.0.2 was very badly broken, remapping didn’t work at all, the current one is a lot better

#10

Awesome, thanks.

#11

How are you finding the speed on the nightlies? Whenever I install the Play Store version the performance is initially terrible (totally unusable) however, this is fixed by checking “per core settings” in the GUI. I have no idea why that works, but it does. With the nightlies the performance is equally bad, and so far I haven’t found a setting that’s helped… On a Moto X 2013

#12

Quite weird, I update practically every day and I have no problems at all in my Nexus 5. I just cleaned, installed and it still works fine.

The usual suspects when you have bad performance are:

  • Rewind enabled
  • Uncalibrated refresh rate
  • Shaders on a GPU with not enough power
  • Threaded video disabled
  • Audio latency too low
  • HARD GPU sync enabled
#13

I use retroarch on android and windows, also find it quite confusing the latest builds options redesign, I cant even set a shader preset

#14

What i notice below: ( android version only) i have a samsung S5 and several bluetooth controller.

  • is it just me. Mupen64 and PPSSPP are much slower in retroarch than their own version ? wave race 64 got a big slowdown.

  • final fantasy vii with Rearmed has not the good effect transition before battle start.

  • Cant get working any 3DO games :frowning:

Cant get working any ps1 with mednafaden psx . but rearmed works perfect

  • Atari jaguar games are very slow.

  • Frameskip make a few sega saturn games playable. but most of them unplayable for me too slow. Cant get shining wisdom working

  • Snes genesis nes work perfect.

  • Gambatte need color palette (ex: like bright blue… ) like most other gb emus.

  • work perfect with threaded video disable. otherwise it seem to have a sync problem i think…

  • how can i be sure of the refresh rate of my S5 and my differents sony tvs.

  • the SEARCH option that appear in rgui while pressing wrong button is very annoying because i have to quit retroarch. cant find other way.

  • its very annoying that PATHS reset when retroarch close not correctly. several times a day i have to set all my paths again.

THANKS FOR HELP about any of my previous points. sorry for my bad english

Thanks for this wonderful free multi emulator that is retroarch. i love it so much !

#15
  • not sure about mupen
  • not sure about FFVIIO
  • not sure about 3do
  • you need the correct BIOS files, and cue+bin images, check the wiki
  • virtualjaguar is far from optimized
  • yabause is far from optimized
  • yes
  • could be done I guess
  • what? threaded video improves performance at the cost of added input lag, if your device is fast enough you could leave it off
  • there is a refresh rate calibration option
  • what search option? the one triggered with / in RGUI? if that’s the case it means one of your inputs is mapped to / or something
  • I haven’t had paths resetting even once
#16

[QUOTE=Radius;18607]- not sure about mupen

  • not sure about FFVIIO
  • not sure about 3do
  • you need the correct BIOS files, and cue+bin images, check the wiki
  • virtualjaguar is far from optimized
  • yabause is far from optimized
  • yes
  • could be done I guess
  • what? threaded video improves performance at the cost of added input lag, if your device is fast enough you could leave it off
  • there is a refresh rate calibration option
  • what search option? the one triggered with / in RGUI? if that’s the case it means one of your inputs is mapped to / or something
  • I haven’t had paths resetting even once[/QUOTE]

Hmm ! something must be wrong with my paths. my saves and bios are in a created folder i named " retroarch-bios-saves " in the root of my internal memory of my s5. my roms are in my external sd cards. if i dont quit retroarch corretly with QUIT in rgui , all my paths got unchecked. BUT i just remember i set my paths in retroarch menu not the rgui. could it be the problem . by the way i have the same problem with 1.0.0.2 not only with nyghtly.

about 3DO i will check my bios again.

i just explained you my thread video problem in another topic a few minutes ago. anyway all works perfect when disable. thanjs for the info about input lag because i hate input lag. thats why i prefer to use my ps3 controller in usb mode than wireless. very often i play retroarch in my hdtv with a mhl 2.0 adapter in 60hz but input lag are a deal breaker for a few of my controller. the moga hero controller has less input lag than my others controller on wireless mode

#17

i just tested it again with Fceum emulator with super mario bros. with thread video enable , the framerate( refresh rate) got stuttered every 5 seconds. with threaded video disable the problem dissapear at 100% all work perfectly smooth , no stuttered at all. i have a Samsung S5 rooted and im using a ipega 9017 controller for the test. i didnt have a crackling sound problem.

note: but i remember with 1.0.0.2 i triggered a out of sync sound problem with thread video enable using combination of different option, but i dont remember exactly.

#18

about the SEARCH option. i tried 4 differents bluetooth controller and they all have the same problem. if you push the X button ( the button that you define X button with your controller) a search option will appear in the screen in a green square with that " Search: "and you cant remove it with any controller button so i have to close retroarch and open it again. i tried a way to unassigned that without any success. in meta keys i dont see this key.

note: i just notice that dosbox doesnt have blutooth controller support. in keen series you cant start the game with a controller

note2: i got 4do working. it was a problem with bios filename. thanks

#19

you should be able to get out of the search by hitting the ‘start’ button.

Yeah, dosbox is keyboard-driven, unfortunately.

#20

[QUOTE=hunterk;18623]you should be able to get out of the search by hitting the ‘start’ button.

Yeah, dosbox is keyboard-driven, unfortunately.[/QUOTE]

Actually you should be able to use dosbox with a gamepad or with a gamepad overlay just fine for most simple cases like keen.

I added a 4+4 joystick with arrows. Just select this controller, it will map the dpad to numeric arrows start/select to ESC/enter, left analog to the gravis gamepad dpad and the 4 buttons to the gravis gamepad 4 buttons.

I just tried in android, loaded keen5 selected the joystick and nothing… It was weird. Then I remembered joysticks aren’t hotplug in DOS so I restarted content and the keen startup screen showed that I had 2 joysticks were connected (this is normal, 4 button joysticks in does were a hack). Then I went to Keen options, selected use joystick on and selected use gravis gamepad and presto!

There ate some caveats about joysticks but I explained that in the wiki :slight_smile: