Retroarch on chrome and chromeos

RetroArch General
#1

How hard would it be to port retroarch to chrome using NaCl? I have one of the samsung arm chromebooks, and would love to have retroarch available. Right now, there are just a few emulators in the chrome webstore that run natively, the best example would be Unreal Speccy Portable, it runs beautifully and even supports a dualshock 3 usb connected. If you think about it, this would open up retroarch to tons of new users, not just chromeos users but those that find it hard or have been scared to install apps. Not wanting to sound as a google fanboy, but imho NaCl (and later, PNaCl) packaged apps look pretty awesome for the near future, as chrome right now runs on most platforms and the foundation is open source.

So, devs, what do you think?

#2

The NaCl sandboxing might cause a problem with dynarec-based cores, and the restriction on process creation / subprocesses may be a problem, as well: https://developers.google.com/native-client/overview

Dunno if those are dealbreakers, though.

#3

If you think about it, this would open up retroarch to tons of new users, not just chromeos users but those that find it hard or have been scared to install apps.

Scared to install apps? Is that the great ‘service’ and ‘education’ Google is providing to humanity - making users ‘scared’ to install apps through anything not associated to their Market store? Sounds like another case of dumbing down customers and vendor lock-in to me - except cloaking themselves in ‘open source’.

With regards to a port - I don’t have a Chromebook, and without it I wouldn’t really have any inclination to do a port like this.

Also, just in general, I find Google’s sandboxing inside their OSes to be absolutely horrible - whether it is sandboxing everything inside a Java VM or whether it is sandboxing everything inside a webbrowser. Android is crap and likely will forever be crap just because of the absolutely moronic idiocy involved behind having a mobile OS meant for phones and tablets be a Linux kernel running a walled garden Java framework inside a Java VM. It is just total insanity and the amount of grief it gives me in terms of being able to get any kind of decent audio/video sync is just so bad that it makes me have an intense dislike to anything Google does at this point - especially when their absolutely crap audio latency issue has been known about for 4 years and to this date they have done jack all about it -

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434

Frankly something like ChromeOS in conjunction with Native Client sounds just as bad if not even worse. I don’t mean to be negative but that is the overriding feeling I walk away with.

If Android is anything to go by, then really, I won’t make any commitment to something like this unless I eventually get a system which would absolutely require a Native Client port to be made (like a Chromebook I assume). Because if one has the option, an Android port (or Native Client port) will always be inferior to a native binary version.

#4

There’s a script to install and run a full Ubuntu or Debian in a chroot environment

Does RetroArch work there?

#5

@steev yeah, should be fine

#6

I’m sorry, I understand how my post could be interpreted like this, but I wasn’t talking about google when speaking about users scared to install apps. In my view, the ones most scared are windows users, most of them having been burned at least once with malware disguised as something useful.

With regards to a port - I don’t have a Chromebook, and without it I wouldn’t really have any inclination to do a port like this.

Also, just in general, I find Google’s sandboxing inside their OSes to be absolutely horrible - whether it is sandboxing everything inside a Java VM or whether it is sandboxing everything inside a webbrowser. Android is crap and likely will forever be crap just because of the absolutely moronic idiocy involved behind having a mobile OS meant for phones and tablets be a Linux kernel running a walled garden Java framework inside a Java VM. It is just total insanity and the amount of grief it gives me in terms of being able to get any kind of decent audio/video sync is just so bad that it makes me have an intense dislike to anything Google does at this point - especially when their absolutely crap audio latency issue has been known about for 4 years and to this date they have done jack all about it -

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434

Frankly something like ChromeOS in conjunction with Native Client sounds just as bad if not even worse. I don’t mean to be negative but that is the overriding feeling I walk away with.

If Android is anything to go by, then really, I won’t make any commitment to something like this unless I eventually get a system which would absolutely require a Native Client port to be made (like a Chromebook I assume). Because if one has the option, an Android port (or Native Client port) will always be inferior to a native binary version.

I know what you mean, I’ve recently started android coding, having never been exposed to java and I hate it quite a bit, but I understand their motivation. My app uses the NDK an it was a PITA to get it working at first, but I can’t deny the appeal of it running on multiple platforms with no changes. In my view, NaCl is a much better sandbox, without the performance penalty of a VM, or with a much lower penalty once they push PNaCl and LLVM.

#7

Well, currently I have no plans to buy a Chromebook or anything ChromeOS-based. If it were gifted I’d take it on - otherwise somebody else will have to look into it. I have more than enough to do as-is anyway.

#8

Use the latest version of that jay0lee script:

https://github.com/jay0lee/chrubuntu-script

And just run it in Ubuntu 13.04:

http://drewsbrewing.blogspot.com.au/p/arm-chromebook.html

#9

You don’t need to have chromebook, you just need to install google chrome web browser for Windows/Linux/Mac.

#10

You don’t need to have chromebook, you just need to install google chrome web browser for Windows/Linux/Mac.[/quote]

As said before, it would be a waste of my time since it would just be massively inferior to real native RetroArch anyway. I see exactly zero benefit to doing it when targeting just PC.

So yeah - I’ll only be arsed to do it if/when I get a Chromebook. I don’t really want to help Google out building up its walled gardens unless absolutely necessary.