Update - RetroArch OpenEmu-style

General Off-Topic
#1

Hello everybody! I’ve been working hard on my desktop frontend for RetroArch. I posted here about three weeks about but that was before this section got cleared out with the new website update. But all is well. My project is going very well and I have almost completed the first version of the frontend. It is written in Python for the backend code and uses the Qt QML engine for the graphical work.

The feature list includes:

[ol]1. Automatic attachment of cores to game files and so playback is as simple and clicking the play button. I accomplish this by generating a .xml file for the scanned directory and adding core tags to the games[/ol] [list=2:3uan8tdk]2. I will add the ability to change the defaults though and you will be able to specify RetroArch launch commands and frontend ones.[/list:o:3uan8tdk] [list=3:3uan8tdk]3. Also, It displays the game files in a standard table view and it also has a nifty grid mode to view game artwork, just like the OpenEmu developers have on their program.Game artwork will be added soon[/list:o:3uan8tdk] [list=4:3uan8tdk] 4. It also supports the retroarch_joyconfig.exe program.[/list:o:3uan8tdk] [list=5:3uan8tdk]5. More features are added daily if my school work allots me the time.[/list:o:3uan8tdk] [list=6:3uan8tdk]6. I am also working on a good looking theme. It does have a native one but I thought that the windows default theme looked horrendous. However you will be able to choose for yourself.[/list:o:3uan8tdk]

This project is completely open-source and I will be making test builds of their project in a couple of days. You can still play around with the source code here though [https://github.com/Druage/RetroarchPhoenix](https://github.com/Druage/RetroarchPhoenix). Also here is a link to a video in which i demonstrate some of the features. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pr1l6ITDwc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pr1l6ITDwc)

edit 1: I forgot that the video I linked to has really fast playback. I slowed it down with youtube’s editor, but it will take a few minutes for it to process.

edit 2: This program will work on Windows, OSX, and Linux. However I’ve only tested this build on Windows.

edit 3: I added some new screenies to show recent progress and I added some new features, check below.

edit 4: Fast switching of shader files were added, check out the short new video below.

edit 5: I added a lot of new features, see below.

edit 6: I added a notification bubble, game counter, rewrote several back-end functions, and found a way to create builds; I’ll have one up in the next few day, as soon as I stabilize things.

#2

Whoa, that’s really coming together nicely! Great progress.

#3

Hey that’s great to hear and thank you! I’ve been working hard at learning QML and PyQt5.

#4

Looks awesome!! It’s posible to use it on Windows too? That would be great!

Nice work!!

#5

I’m sorry for not mentioning, but this program will work on Windows, OSX, and Linux. However it’s not done yet, and I’ve only tested this build on Windows. But to answer your questions yes, it will.

#6

look very Nice ,

BTW i have tested quickly in linux yesterday before your update on the git , and many things was hardcoded to use windows only, i was only able to launch gui ( after tweak launcher.py eg: remove STARTUP_INFO = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()) but nothing fonctionnal.

Now i see you commit many change and include windows retroarch, so it 's for now only for windows.

So i will wait for an linux update. but it’s looks definitely nice and promissing

#7

Yes I realized that I should just bundle retroarch with a win32 installer. I’ll take it off the git repo and since you plan on using it on Linux, I’ll test it and make it fully compatible. I should have something up for you to play with later today. Thanks for the interest!

#8

I updated the theme so it doesn’t look like a totally out of place. Here are some screenies. http://i.imgur.com/xBGPBlV.png, http://i.imgur.com/T2bigpw.png. I also added the ability to add your own artwork to it. However the program doesn’t save the artwork yet; i’ll fix that probably tomorrow.

Edit: Yes I know that the slider handle is teal. It’s not staying.

#9

Looking good! It’s really resembling OpenEmu now :stuck_out_tongue:

#10

Yes that looks great! Hope it will be able to display MAME games real names, machines, etc. in the future. That’s something I miss in Retroarch atm.

#11

Hey that’s a great idea. I’ll get right on that for you. If you have any more ideas I’m all ears.

#12

It sure is getting there. I have zero experience with U.I. design besides this project, so I’m trying to find my own theme somewhere among theirs.

#13

I added the ability to switch out shaders quickly and simply. Here’s a video demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bTjfJi6BwM. Currently it only works with individual shader files like “.cg”. “.cgp” files are not supported yet because they are not loaded the same, but I’ll have that added probably tomorrow.

#14

Alright I just fixed adding your own artwork to the GridView. Now your artwork will save and load every time. It saves it to the “games.xml” file. The same one that is generated when you import your games. However, every time your rescan a directory, it will erase your images. I’ll work on that. However adding more than one image without deletion of the former, will break it.

#15

Wow I’m gone for about a month and this happens. Sorry I wasn’t around much. Thankfully I was able to find a full time job. But will still be sometime before I get another computer that I can work from. But keep up the excellent work.

#16

Hey don’t worry about it. As I said before, you get things in your life all settled down and you can join the project anytime that you’d like. I really only need 1 more feature to add and then just refine the source code, then it can be released as a first version. I recently was able to get native widgets that look good, so i’ll add in a native theme mode and then an OpenEmu style theme, basically the same one you see in the videos. It’s nice to back from ya!

#17

I definitely will. But definitely it’s taking shape for sure.

#18

I updated the backend from PyQt5 to pyotherside. which was perfect for what I wanted. I also fixed shader support again, added the ability to clear the library, I added a cores menu, which displays all of the cores your have installed on your system and all cores available. I added a fullscreen option in the menum and a download retroarch menu.

Here’s a link to a recent video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHLUZqu-C-Q

#19

Great, keep on work!

#20

Thank you! I’ll have more for you guys to see next week, once I get off for spring break.