RetroArch OpenPandora releases (0.9.9)

RetroArch General
#1

http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=retroarch.lifning.001

RetroArch is a modular, multi-platform, multi-system emulator.

Major changes in 0.9.8 -> 0.9.9:

  • Replaced Zenity launcher script with PickleLauncher
  • New default settings, including using GLES video driver by default
  • “RGUI” in-game menu, brought up with spacebar by default You may need to delete (or move to a backup location) /pandora/appdata/retroarch for the new defaults to take effect.

List of included libretro cores: NES: FCEU, Nestopia, QuickNES SNES: PocketSNES, SNES9x-Next, Mednafen GBC: Gambatte, TGB Dual GBA: VBA, Meteor, Mednafen Genesis / Sega CD: Genesis Plus, Picodrive (experimental) Saturn: Yabause (Very slow!) Playstation: PCSX-ReARMed, Mednafen Atari 2600: Stella Chip8/16: Maxe Arcade: iMAME4all, Final Burn Alpha VirtualBoy: Mednafen Neo Geo Pocket: Mednafen PC Engine: Mednafen WonderSwan: Mednafen Cave Story: NXEngine Doom: PrBoom Quake: TyrQuake PC: DosBox SCUMM: ScummVM Misc: ModelViewer+SceneWalker (load OBJ 3D models), libretro-2-joy (uinput virtual gamepad)

Also includes RetroArch-Phoenix configuration/launcher GUI (GTK+2 based). All the cores and RetroArch itself are all the latest git revisions as of the date posted. DeSmuME is included, although it fails a memory allocation at startup on my 256MB unit, in case it might work on 512MB units. Sources:

libretro GL works fine :slight_smile:

#2

Cool, thanks for updating.

BTW - you got Picodrive working? Having no such luck here.

#3

Well… for some value of “working” :slight_smile: It compiles and runs without much fuss, but http://youtu.be/URuaVJ05wpU is the result.

#4

Yeah, that port was done by a Chinese forumite with a Skydrive. It is based on an ancient version of notaz’ fork without any ARM enhancements.

I think the main problem is the CPU core FAME which might be completely broken. Notaz is planning (I believe?) on resurrecting Picodrive but the sourcecode will need a major rewrite to be of any use last I heard.

But yeah, we might have to wait for the latest source of Picodrive to be released to get something usable - that 1.40-based core really isn’t going to help out much.

#5

The latest PicoDrive on the Pandora has some degree of 32X support as well, so that would certainly be welcome!

#6

So I finally got an OpenPandora thanks to EvilDragon (many thanks for that). There is a minor issue with the screen right now but I’m supposed to send it back and it will be repaired.

So far I’ve been playing around with your pre-existing port lifning and I like what I see. Couple of things I might want to do it with now that I can develop in-house for it -

  • PickleLauncher is convenient in that it has all these ‘ROM associations’ to cores - however - the image is a bit tacky and it has issues with not being able to directly launch - say - a ZIP file for FBA/MAME cores. I think it might be best to get rid of it entirely and that I include the same kind of ‘module’ associations currently available in RetroArch iOS’ Cocoa interface into RGUI itself. That could take care of two birds with one stone.

  • I still see some ‘video frame skip’ happening which seems to indicate to me the refresh rate RetroArch is syncing to might be slightly off. I’ve heard that newer Pandora units (like mine - 1GHz Edition) have an entirely different screen - are there refresh rate discrepancies between OpenPandora models or do they all strive for a fixed refresh rate?

  • Expanding on point 1 regarding PickleLauncher - RGUI as a default GUI and then being able to go back and forth between RGUI and the game with a press of the ‘Pandora’ button sounds most appealing to me. What is also nice is that we’ll be able to use the keyboard as a RETRO_KEYBOARD implementation for things like MAME.

I don’t know how comparable RGUI is to notaz’ built-in GUIs for PCSX ReARMed and co but you think it might be tolerable enough for Pandora users? At least it’s joypad controlled and that already goes a long way on a device with a built-in joypad (unlike mobiles/tablets where we have the onscreen controls cluttering things up)

That’s it so far. Performance with the 1GHz Cortex A8 unit is quite a bit better than a similarly specced Android tablet (I’ll make a blog post with some detailed performance comparisons for all cores and all libretro target soon - it will be illuminating). At the same time it’s not going to be giving any Cortex A9-powered tablets/mobiles a run for their money though and hence there are still some games in SNES9x Next that despite my numerous speed hacks don’t manage to run at fullspeed. I’ll be trying to go through some more effort to make sure we can wring as much out of the A8 as possible by bolting even more speedhacks to it without sacrificing any perceivable accuracy.

#7

Yeah, I definitely think PickleLauncher is a dead end at this point. It might be better than the kludgey bash/zenity scripts I had going at first, but I think going with RGUI outright would be better, especially for consistency in the UI. I think RGUI is comparable to the built-in GUIs in notaz’ emulators.

The Pandora comes in a few breeds - a short list of differences can be found at http://openpandora.org/portal/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=224&Itemid=49&lang=en - it’s plausible that the displays might be different, but I’m not too sure.