Try to make RA work on Nvidia Shield Tablet

RetroArch Android devices
#1

Hi,

I am really happy with the PC builds. I made configs per core. Now I want do the same for my Tablet and also purchased the NVIDIA Shield Controller which is recognized fine in RetroArch. I know RetroArch is a little… special when configure the first time. It just begins when I save a new configuration. It gets a new name and loaded automatically, but if I want load a new cfg, the configs aren’t there. Why? Because the config path is set to “default” (whatever this is) and needs to set to “Android\data\com.retroarch\files”. So when the default cfg is changed to the path, I can load another config.

Because of my Controller, I disabled Onscreen Overlay. The Onscreen are always displayed in the game display, even if I would play vertical and is enough space at the bottom (for example Game Boy). I don’t like that. Now the point is, with the controller, I can’t access rgui. Without rgui, I can’t save the game, without rgui I am also unable to set a shader. Without the Onscreen Overlay, I also can’t enter rgui. The back button wont do the job. I checked input mapping, but can’t find a point to set enter rgui. When I exit RetroArch in the App manager, it doesn’t save the made configs and save of my current game (but it’s the only way to exit).

Anything I missed? What can I do? Sorry if newbie questions, but I am really new into Android.

#2

For the overlay/menu issue, try loading the ‘immerse’ overlay, which is designed for use with physical gamepads. It’s invisible by default but when you tap the screen, it gives you some options to save/load state and go to the menu. You can then tap the screen again to hide it.

#3

Perfectly! I think I can work with that. Thank you. Sadly the “Game Boy.glslp” shader the display is goes black, but “lcd_cgwg.glslp” works fine.

Edit: Updated the shaders and the gb shader also works fine now :slight_smile:

#4

yeah, mobile GPUs are a mess. Shaders that work fine on one black-screen on others.

#5

Since RA 1.3.6 the immerse overlay wont appear on my SHIELD anymore. I also reload the immerse overlay, but when I tap on the screen, nothing is happen :frowning: Something I can do?

#6

Set a hotkey for Menu which will bring you back to the gui.

You might want to use left thumbstick button or something similar.

#8

@spcdinvdr Oh, R3 + L3 shortcut is a nice combination, thank you for the hint. I didn’t know before it can be set.

@Radius It also didn’t feel right on 1.3.4. When I pressed the touchscreen and went to menu, it only appeared the time, the finger was on my touchscreen. When I released it, it went back to game. So to fix it was, keep the finger on touchscreen, press a button to game controller to make an action in menu and now it stayed into menu when I release my finger.

Hardware: Nvidia SHIELD K1 (the second version), software version 1.3, NVIDIA SHIELD Controller

#9

immerse overlay should be fixed now. Let me know if not.

#10

Hm… I am unable to install 2016-07-17-RetroArch.apk from 19:31. I use ASTRO file manager and it says “for this type of data is no app”. Apps from other sources in security settings is allowed. Am I right here? http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/android/ I always used Playstore version.

#12

Thank you for your help, but sorry for being a disappointment and stealing your time. For some reason, Astro got broken here, so I used Es file explorer. After I installed nightly, I got this:

Who knows what I did wrong now. Controller don’t work, starting a game don’t work. I’ll just wait for the next Playstore version. Thank you for the fix!

#13

You’re just missing the assets and autoconfig profiles. You can get all of that stuff through the online updater.

#14

Thank you. It also works now with 1.3.6 from playstore. Seems like only updating overlay was necessary :slight_smile:

#15

I take it Vulkan on Android is for Marshmallow only?

#16

Not necessarily, but if you meqn shield devices yes, because only latest marsh!allow firmware Support vulkan

#17

Ugh, that means if I update I lose everything on the internal storage.