Thanks for the steer but it didn’t help. I can scan the PS2 rom just fine and it shows up in it’s own playlist as normal but when the core list pops up when you try to run it, Play! core doesn’t show; it is only visible if I go to Load Core; where it doesn’t load! Weird.
Oh well, I may try another nightly at some point, otherwise guess I’ll let the development ‘mature’ a little more and wait for it to hit the core updater, unless anyone comes back here with any other bright ideas.
Hmm, ok, well I only have Gradius V PS2 ROM available for testing (I dumped it from disc myself as it was the only PS2 game I own which is on CD and the RA disc dump function doesn’t seem to yet be able to rip PS2 dvd game discs, not for me, at least); I can’t see Gradius V in that list, however there is a video on the Play! blogpost in my first post which seems to show this game running on the core?
Also, not convinced the problem is down to the game being loaded itself, as I can’t even get that far; any other core I try to load under Load Core option immediately shows in the bottom left of the RA menu, without the need to even go near any game content. Play! is the only core to just back out to main menu and return ‘No Core’.
Incidentally, I just sent the Play! dll to the same friend I mentioned in my 2nd post who previously sent me the MAME 2016 core dll; he’s just tested my Play! dll and see the same behaviour, the core shows up in the list of cores but it will not load.
I tried the Play! core on Linux x86_64 and it is working but I had to add libcurl-gnutls.so.4 and libGLEW.so.2.1.so specifically.
You may try to run this tool to check the dependency ?
Thanks again man, but I’m no dev and “libcurl-gnutls.so.4 and libGLEW.so.2.1.so” is like a different lingo for me 
Don’t know much about libraries and dependencies, so whilst I could probably get as far as running that CLI / GUI tool, I really wouldn’t know what I’d be looking at / for anyway!
Happy to post up my APU / laptop specs if that would help; whilst far from an ultrabook, it isn’t exactly a total slouch either. I was wondering whether upping the 4gb inbuilt with another 4GB module to go dual channel RAM might help but it’s new, so I don’t really want to open it up and start tinkering with the hardware just yet.
Stumbled across this thread; as I already had 2017 - 2019, I thought I’d try installing the remaining runtimes sequentially from 2013 back to 2005, rebooting after each one but that didn’t work out either 
The Play! libretro core is now available in the online updater.
I could make some test on Win10 and it is working.
So you should be good to go 
Grrrrrr! Still no change for me tho 
I updated databases, core info files and restarted RA after downloading the core too…
FML (F*** My Lakka 
)
I found the PSCX2 Core Here:
Though not been Updated since 31st of October last year
@3miliooo I thought you were on Windows ?
@DaveTheMan1985 yes this is the original port from @aliaspider but it has been merged to libretro repository. It is not yet published though.
@gouchi - yes, I am on Win10 64bit as per my 4th post; ignore the Lakka comment, I was just being silly!
@DaveTheMan1985 - Thanks for this, unlike Play! I think I need PS2 BIOS for PCSX2 which I don’t have at the mo and which I don’t think are distributed with this download.
I dropped the PCSX2 core into my cores folder all the same however and was interested to see that it exhibits the exact same behaviour under Load Core option as Play! core does for me: it’s visible but just backs out to Main Menu without error and refuses to load (returns No Core). Rules out problem with the cores then, surely? Must be something to do with my setup still, unrelated to runtimes and OpenGL
@DaveTheMan1985 I don’t know. But you can check on retroarch.com or twitter or discord to get the news
I’ve still not managed to get anywhere with this 
Tried cycling through the video drivers too…
Can I ask what spec you have on the Win10 machine you got it running on?
@3miliooo please provide some log otherwise it will be difficult to help you by guessing what happened.
Also please test with playable games.
Thank you.
FYI you can make some test also with PCSX2 libretro core as it has just arrived on the buildbot
So you just grab it via Main tab > Online Updater > Core Downloader.
Also don’t forget to update your Core info file via Main tab > Online Updater > Update Core info file.
Thanks again man, here is my log.
The error lines about how “The specified module could not be found” make no sense to me, because the play_libretro.dll is 100% in the C:\Users\User1\AppData\Roaming\RetroArch\cores\ directory it is referring to.
I updated both core info files and databases.
I should point out that I also just downloaded the pcsx2 core as you mentioned via the online updater and it exhibits the exact same behaviour for me (although even if it did run, I don’t currently have any PS2 BIOS for that core).
You will note that this time, as well as Gradius V, I tried play! core with 1945 [SLES-51741] which I dumped from my own disc; it is on the playable games list you linked.
PCSX2 in retroarch looks promising! I was testing it out a bit today and the only thing that I noticed was the high input lag aside from that it’s pretty good!
Now in Alpha:
https://www.libretro.com/index.php/libretro-cores-updates-pcsx2-alpha-release-for-windows-and-more/
Amazing news, so much to look forward in the future! Now for a quick question, does both of these cores run on Windows 32-bit?