"unofficial" cores

i guess for people that wanna use retroarch like launchbox to get their emulators all in one app

According to forum, there is mention of ā€œunofficial coresā€ but no specific list of all of them is mentioned in the search results. The mentioned GitHub repository, https://github.com/SwedishGojira/libretro-bash-launcher/, is a specific example of one of these unofficial cores.

@Drybonz

i think this is a good place to post it , and we donĀ“t derail a thread for it if we discuss this here^^

i going to test it today

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Hi!

Iā€™m new to the libretro community and I was wondering if there is a formal process/document outlining how to submit a new core?

The reason Iā€™s asking is because I have just created a core for my IBM 5150/5160 emulator. Core builds can be downloaded here and source code is on GitHub.

It would be cool if I could make it easier for people to find and use.

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oh, thatā€™s awesome!

To get it into the online updater, we need it to have a recipe to build on our CI infrastructure in the top-level of the source tree and a core info file submitted to the ā€˜libretro-superā€™ repo on github.

Are you on discord? If so, the user BoardsOfCanada on there can probably help you get the CI stuff squared away. For the core info stuff Iā€™m happy to help with, but you can pretty much just go down the line with this annotated skeleton and fill in what applies: https://github.com/libretro/libretro-super/blob/master/dist/info/00_example_libretro.info

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I had to boot off of a PC-DOS disk, swap disks, and manually run the executable. But I managed it with my first try.

Nice work @phix !!!

It will be nice to have a dedicated core to go along with my 5150 Presets. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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so i was wondering if is kinda like dosbox or not but seems this just emulates the hardwareā€¦

hmmm then i have to visit my dad and get the old pc-booter games that donĀ“t need dos :sweat_smile:

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I think I still have the discs for Starflight around here somewhere. I think it ran straight from the discs. Canā€™t remember.

besides pc.man i donĀ“t know wich other pc-booter games i had a few thats sure , just know that everything is still safe by my dad in the basement :sweat_smile:

Hi, thanks!

Iā€™ll reach out in Discord then. :slight_smile: I do have a .info file here that I created. I donā€™t think RetroArch is happy without one? Had problems loading content without it.

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There is also support for running and executing files directly from your host systems disk. But it is not included in the core. I felt like the disc swapping system is more tailored towards consoles like the Playstation etc. (make sense I guess :smiley: )

I thought of supporting ZIP files as a compliment to the raw IMG files in the core instead of mounting a host folder like the standalone emulator does. That could perhaps work better with the Libretro way of handling ā€œdiscsā€.

It would work something like the setup I have on this site.

If the zip file could contain extracted floppy contents, compatibility would be greatly improved. I am having a tough time curating a solid set of contents. Seems disk size is really important in the RAW images.

Also. Does the standalone support multiple floppy drives? Many games require a B: drive for user data.

The standalone emulator comes with a default freedos harddrive for ease of use. So you have your A: drive free, as well as Z: mapped (read only by default) to your working directory or a path specified with the --rifs parameter.

Technically the emulator supports multiple drives. But Iā€™m not sure if the B: drive is exposed in the UI at this point. I was not aware of any software requiring two drives? (I will create an issue for adding support in the UI.)

For the libretro core it is a little harder though, since I donā€™t think there is a concept of multiple drives.

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Yeah, maybe not in the UI, I donā€™t know. MAME and DOSBox both support multiple floppies from the command line or config file. (dosbox.conf)

This sounds very convenient, and would probably negate the need for a B: drive.

From what I remember, it was never ā€œrequiredā€ only more convenient. I only asked because it came up in my testing in the last 24 hours. (Bardā€™s Tale 1)

BTW. I never loved a HDD More than my first WD 20MB MFM.

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It will be nice to have a dedicated core to go along with my 5150 Presets. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

I did not read the last line of your post properly! When I glanced at your post earlier I just thought that was a picture of your real machine. :smiley: Looks amazing!

This is one of the reasons I want to support a libretro core for my emulator.

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Thank you!

In case you have never seen the night version.

Sure is great not to have to mess with DOSBox configs to get a CGA display!

Although Iā€™m not 100% sure the IBM 5153 monitor supported CGA. :innocent:

I may have to do some research and add another version to my graphics pack.

Edit: The 5153 was a CGA display. The 5154 was EGA and had different colored knobs and additional text on the badge.

Looks like I have a small project in the near future. The VGA 5175 was indistinguishable (Except for more badge changes.) so the graphic will be a 2 for 1.

Thanks for the inspiration!

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You should do the 5151 monochrome one for MDA as well. :slight_smile:

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The 5151 is already included in my pack.

In this case the shader forces a monochrome hue that can be adjusted with parameters.

When I finish my update we will have MDA, CGA, EGA, and VGA. :partying_face:

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Why donā€™t these people include those cores directly in RetroArch?

You handle textures very well, you have to try that in 3D.

Dunno :man_shrugging:

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