Streets of Rage: Remake - BennuGD core

Libretro Cores
#1

Just saw this and didn’t find any topic here other than some very old thread asking for a core to be ported. Well, it seems there’s a core now.

Download the core from the ‘assets’ section (I only tested the Windows version with SORR version 5.2 so I can’t really help with other versions such as Android).

How to use (Windows):

Just place bennugd_libretro.dll in the core directory then load ‘SorR.dat’ (the SORR game data itself -around 300MB, obviously, it doesn’t come with the core and you’re on your own for finding it though it should be pretty easy) and there you go.

So you can uses shaders or any video/audio options of RetroArch. The core supports game options as well.

Non -GPU screenshot:

SorR-251030-234717

With CRT Hyllian NTSC:

SorR-251031-002030
SorR-251031-0020301248×720 637 KB

edit:

If you’re getting no audio switch from wasapi to xaudio or some other audio driver to fix the problem.

If you’re experiencing image tearing and/or stuttery scrolling midway through the game avoid fast forwarding during a scene transition.

So when you see this skip prompt in the game:

SorR-251101-173320

Don’t press B/skip and you’ll avoid the issue. Honestly, aside from this one easily avoidable instance I’m getting much better frame pacing than when launching the game from the regular exe.

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#2

That’s very cool. Thanks for sharing it.

#3

I made these monochrome playlist icons for BennuGD, based on the official icon here:

Screenshot_1

Download.

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#4

Starman99x: Nice. (And it so happens I’m only using the monochrome icons myself)

Okay, so far, I stumbled upon two issues. I haven’t tested on multiple machines, so I don’t know if any of these problems will show up for everyone or only on some machines (tested on Windows).

No audio

Fairly self explanatory. If you’re getting no audio, switch from wasapi to xaudio or some other audio driver to fix the problem.

Image tearing and/or stuttery scrolling midway through the game

This one was a little more confusing. So the game starts with no issue -smooth scrolling and all ,but midway through the game I started getting massive screen tearing when using glcore (as if vsync was suddenly disabled) OR -when using vulkan, it became stuttery as hell (kind of similar to if you were playing a 60fps game with a refresh rate set to 75hz) but no screen tearing.

So I found the apparent cause: midway through a stage, after a scene is completed (when you beat up all the enemies in that area) there’s a fast forward button prompt in the lower right corner that allows you to make your character walk faster to the next scene (shown here in this video.

Avoid fast forwarding during that prompt. Doing so will apparently mess up the video sync big time (and after it’s somehow de-synced, it stays that way until you close and restart the game/core). But if you don’t fast forward it stays smooth.

Anyway, other than that, no problems and despite its age SoRR is still an amazing fan made project.

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#5

When the shader is removed, the game apparently runs faster than normal. Running it outside of RetroArch has normal speed.

Also, when I start the game, it puts me straight into a mission, without a title screen and without the level selection points. I can pause and go back to the title screen, though. Is this happening to anyone else?

#6

Tested with shader disabled, did not affect the speed for me.

Regarding the issue of restarting mid game without going through the selection screen; this is the normal behavior of the exe/game engine. It’s just restarting you where you last quit the game. Basically it makes a save after you’ve completed a level.

Look in the SoRR folder that the core uses. There should be a subfolder called ‘savegame’. Just delete the ‘savestate.sor’ file and it shouldn’t start you mid-game after that (don’t delete the other files in the folder though).

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#7

I wrote some notes while installing and setting the core / game up. I’m posting a reply here, as creating a new post would be just duplicate. Unless a moderator disagrees, then this could be extracted into a dedicated new post.

How to play Streets of Rage Remake in RetroArch

Install Core

  1. Download the correct archive for your platform: https://github.com/diekleinekuh/BennuGD_libretro/releases
  2. In example on Linux desktop download bennugd_libretro.x86_64-linux-gnu.Release.tgz or on Windows get bennugd_libretro.x86_64-windows-gnu.Release.tgz .
  3. Extract the core (.so on Linux or .dll on Windows) and place it under the “cores” directory of your RetroArch installation.

Note, it seems RetroArch already comes with a “bennugd_libretro.info” file in “info” directory. I don’t remember to have installed it myself, so it must be there by default. This file provides additional information about the core. If you don’t have the file, install it yourself:

  1. Download https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/libretro-core-info/refs/heads/master/bennugd_libretro.info .
  2. Save it in the directory “info” under your RetroArch installation.

Install Game

Lookup the newest version of the game under https://sorr.forumotion.net/f1-sorr-english .

  1. At the time of writing this tutorial, the newest version is version 5.2 at https://sorr.forumotion.net/t838-new-streets-of-rage-remake-v5-2-download-and-info .
  2. Scroll down and find the download link, which is current version 5.2: https://mega.nz/file/Ls1VSYwB#U2w43g_v-g2jt34FOMY3bu7WR8eB2MYdToWg2ICnOMo
  3. Extract the files from the .rar archive file, resulting in a directory called “SORRv52” and contains bunch of assets and library files. Put the extracted “SORRv52” directory to your Roms collection where you want to keep the game.

Play Game

Make sure RetroArch is up to date, including the Core Info Files and Databases (in example with the internal Online Updater of RetroArch).

  1. Open RetroArch.
  2. From Main Menu, click Load Core > Bennu Game Development .
  3. From Main Menu, click Load Content and search for the file “SorR.dat” in the previously extracted directory “SORRv52”.

Game should start playing. From here you can adjust core settings, setup your controller, choose your shader if you want and so on. Additional I recommend you to create a playlist, so you don’t need to load core and find file each time you want to play the game. Note, RetroArch creates a configuration under “BennuGD” in “config” directory of your RetroArchs installation.

Optional: Import Playlist

Note: I have the newest development build of RetroArch. The menu ordering and options might be different for you.

  1. Open RetroArch.
  2. From Main Menu, click Import Content > Scan Directory and then find the previously extracted directory “SORRv52”.
  3. A new playlist should be created automatically with name “BennuGD - Streets of Rage Remake”. It added the .dat files for you.
  4. “SorR” is the game we started earlier. “SorMaker” seems to be an editor to create or modify the game, but to be honest I don’t know much about this.

That’s it. Have fun experimenting and playing. Tested on Linux desktop PC.

Additional notes

  • The core seems to ignore my custom setting for a dedicated screenshots directory. All screenshots made with RetroArch, goes into the games directory; the one we extracted previously “SORRv52”.
  • Save data are also not saved under RetroArch, but under “savegame” in the games own directory.
  • Closing the game from RetroArch didn’t save my newly created profile. I had to close it from ingames menu “Exit Game”.
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