Suggestions for KMS RetroArch with XMB on RPi 3

RetroArch Linux devices
#1

Has anyone had any luck running the RetroArch XMB menu with KMS on RPi 3? I’m running some server processes on ArchLinux Arm and wanted to avoid installing Lakka. I was able to compile Mesa for VC4 and compile RetroArch with --enable-kms. However, when I start RetroArch the screen flashes briefly and I get the following log:

[INFO] [Menu]: Found menu display driver: "menu_display_null".

I think it’s because there is no DRM menu driver…? If I change the config to use video_driver = "gl", I get:

* failed to add service - already in use?

Anyone get further than this, or know if it’s impossible?

1 Like
#2

Lakka for RPi uses KMS, IIRC, so it seems the issue is probably with Mesa’s VC4 driver being incomplete.

To launch via KMS, you need to set the video_driver to “gl” and then start from a console with no X server running. You could also run retroarch --features to make sure it says KMS support is compiled in (I know you said you compiled it in, but just to make sure it succeeded).

#3

Thanks for the guidance. Still no luck, unfortunately. Currently I think the problem is that I compiled RetroArch with VideoCore enabled, which uses the /opt/vc driver when I really want to use the custom Mesa driver that was compiled.

I took a look at the Lakka RPi img and it didn’t look like they had vc4-kms-v3d enabled in their /boot/config.txt, but I guess it could be set during some kind of initialization. I’ll see if I can find a spare micro SD card to take a look at the final Lakka file system.

#4

Actually, I just recompiled RetroArch with --disable-videocore and things started working! Thanks again.