I see that RetroArch has been updated - and it’s working beautifully! - but I’m wondering if there are plans in place to allow the downloading of all possible cores through Phoenix. As of now, the same original cores are the only ones listed there for download, and none of the newer ones - PSX, PCE, Stella - are available.
For those of us who can’t compile the cores ourselves - I’ve tried, and failed miserably each time - I’d love to see all of them become available this way!
It’s in the works. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep making regular builds of the new cores whenever possible.
As someone who has very limited programming background (very limited), I just tried to compile the imame4 core in Windows and kept getting syntax errors. I attempted to tweak the makefile code myself (meh, this doesn’t look important… delete lol) but new ones just kept popping up.
Is there anywhere to download the dll’s for other gaming systems? (N64, MAME and Playstation are my biggest interests atm)
Someday I might be technically able enough to just figure this shit out. Today is not that day. I’m sleep deprived, and apologize if I’m coming off as a demanding asshole. I know you guys do this out of the goodness of your nerd hearts and at no charge to the rest of us technically challenged gimps.
Here you go: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/35695760/libretro-imame4all-lex-x86_64.dll
The makefile works if you download and extract this mingw: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/windows-host/4.7.2/prerelease/x86_64-mingw-w64-gcc-4.7.2-prerelease-20120819-rev-190504-c%2Cc%2B%2B%2Cfortran-sjlj.7z/download
Extract it anywhere, then you also have to add drive:\pathtomingw\mingw\bin to your “PATH” environment variable. A guide on doing that is here: http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2010/05/how-to-addedit-environment-variables-in-windows-7/
Once that’s done, make sure you restart any command prompts you have open and then run “make -f Makefile.libretro” in the imame4all-libretro directory where Makefile.libretro is located. This is exactly what I do and the compilation works perfectly with the latest git revision of imame4all-libretro.
Happy building! 
If you give up, I can provide the other cores you’re interested in, but I think it’s more useful to set up a working build environment. “Making a fire for someone warms them until the fire dies. Teaching them to make a fire warms them until they get total amnesia, put in a coma, or lose the necessary body parts for making a fire.”
I’m having a horrible time getting it all to compile correctly, as well. 
Could you put together builds of the Stella, PCE and Genesis cores for me?
Thank you. I’m not using a 64 bit operating system for the emulator, so this particular dll doesn’t help, but I’ll try again to build my own with the tools you mention.
My initial attempt to build it myself was after installing Visual C++ 2010 express and using the make command in that. It was the only solution I found on google with regard to makefiles and windows.
As a test I tried the imame git. It doesn’t work for me on Windows 7. I can’t use the make command, it is just not there. Not even in the package you mention. Tried: mingw32-make -f makefile.libretro I get a processor error then. Googled a bit and found out I should use the -j option. This does something more., but gets loads of errors. Like can’t create or anything. Tried in Administartor mode, the same thing. Delete everything and tried the manual mathod mingw-get install etc. Same results unfortunately.
You guys should continue learning to compile things yourselves–it’s a good skill to have–but in the meantime, I built a bunch you can use: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?7yn9eoyaeds3ley
Absolutely agreed. I’ve long compiled BSNES myself - well, up until switching to RetroArch, anyway - and other open source software, but for some reason can never get libretro cores to compile correctly. All of them seem to throw up different errors when I try to do so.
I’ve tried using MinGW, Cygwin, and TDM-GCC, and none of them have worked. I’m far from technically illiterate - couldn’t be more opposite of that, actually - but I’m not really a programmer, so if there’s something I’m missing, I certainly wouldn’t mind being educated so I can quit bugging you about these cores.
Thank you for putting together these cores in the meantime, though.
Mvertal, I tried compiling imame4all-libretro for 32-bit with the -m32 flag, but it didn’t work. I don’t understand why. I was able to compile something else (unrelated) with the -m32 flag and that successfully made a 32-bit executable, so I know it’s not my compiler’s fault. I just don’t understand enough about the imame4all core to figure it out. I can easily make 64-bit builds though. Perhaps you should consider upgrading to a 64-bit system anyway.
Deweyhewson, have you tried the mingw build I linked above? The “official” mingw builds are outdated and low-quality compared to the ones at the “mingw-builds” sourceforge project page.
Could anyone point me in the right direction on how to compile the cores. What environment is needed. Lex his tut is a bit short or I am doing things wrong. TIA
I thrive on concise tutorials and flounder with verbose tutorials, so I don’t get that. Oh well.
My little tutorial post assumes you’re using Windows. It also assumes you know how to run a command prompt (type “cmd” in the start menu) and navigate around your computer in it (“X:” to change drives, where X is your destination drive letter; “cd \path o\folder” to navigate to a directory; “cd …” to go up a directory). Does anything else need clarification? I don’t mind explaining.
If its that easy, then something must be wrong with the mingw you suggested. There is no make command. I actually know what I am doing in Windows, that’s not the problem. Do I need a github account? I just downloaded the files in zip form from github and extracted it to a dir. Followed your tut. Environment path set and works with other commands from the bin directory. Do I need other programms installed…framework etc.? TIA
@MrX_Cuci look in the mingw directory’s ‘bin’ folder and see what ‘make’ is called. It may be mingw32-make.exe instead of just ‘make.’ Depending on the core, you’ll either need to just invoke mingw32-make.exe (if the source folder has plain ol’ Makefile in the top level) or you may need to specify the libretro makefile (‘mingw32-make.exe -f Makefile.libretro’ or something like that).
Oh, weird! Yeah! I guess my “make.exe” is from an old mingw and this one didn’t replace it. Yeah, try “mingw32-make” instead of “make”. Alternatively, you could just rename the “mingw32-make.exe” here to “make.exe”. Sorry for the confusion. :o
Please don’t do that.
@you guys. I already did that and get a processor error. You need to specify the number of cores to use for building from source. In my earlier post I already mentioned this. I don’t know what switch to use. -j does something, but get errors like can’t create file etc. I am pretty much lost here.
Does anyone have a 32 bit core for arcade games? (Metal Slug series, Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter, RPG/Hack and slash types, etc)
The FBA core that comes with RetroArch is throwing me for a loop. I can’t find any useful documentation on the net as to what it was actually designed to play. There’s a post elsewhere in this forum where someone cites non-functioning games and someone just say “Your roms are old, get the new ones”.
Well I’ve spent the past two hours on http://www.romnation.net downloading roms in hopes of getting some to work. I’m not having a lot of success.
The implementation post for FBA isn’t even that old: http://forum.themaister.net/viewtopic.php?id=9 (July 31st)
However, both links in the post itself are 404’d. Again someone in that thread says “use the latest rom sets”. What does that mean? =/
I found a MASSIVE list of old arcade roms (Pacman/centipede style games) and out of maybe 3 dozen that I tried, only ONE was able to load with the core, and that was a game called Airwolf.
I found a so-called “supported games list” for FBA here: http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Finalburn_Alpha_SG Frankly, this list is full of shit. =) Metal Slug 3 was my carpet bombing approach to see if I could find some rhyme or reason for compatibility. I downloaded MS3 roms from a dozen sites, and in many different versions, and none of them would load.
The actual log errors I’m getting range from stuff like “[FBA] ROM index 0 was not found … CRC: 0x55fd447e” to simply “[FBA] Cannot find driver.”
Any RetroArch arcade experts able to throw me a bone here?
In some cursory testing, most of the ROMs from 0.146 that I tried worked. However, I wasn’t immediately able to load Neogeo games and I also had a couple of the ‘cannot find driver’ errors. The CRC error is most likely the result of an out-of-date romset.
mvertal, I had the exact same problem and got very frustrated.
One thing I learned was not to bother trying to download from rom websites, which mostly suck for arcade games – find a torrent. Also, don’t test with a Neo Geo game, as their requirement of a bios file adds another significant point of failure.
Generally, you want roms marked Finalburn 029726.