Emulation catch-all

Sorry I'll reply to other stuff more later.

I'm running with a 128GB SD card, formatted as FATex, no problems with AetherSX2 on RP3+. In fact, the only thing I've bothered to put on internal storage so far is Android apps.
Edit: Files copied to the card from macOS if that makes a difference. All converted to .chd, biggest one is 4.15gb.

DSGamer wrote:

The Odin Pro runs Android.

My guess is that it would run pretty great with Citrus MMS. When I was browsing for optimizations, I saw a wide variety of Android handsets listed that could run the majority of games at 2-3X.

ccoates wrote:

Retroarch is great, but it does have learning curves, plural. It's not a single emulator, and the different cores mean even things that you'd think would be simple (like where to place bios files) can vary.

Thanks! I feel bad because I did finally solve the Sega CD/Turbografx CD problem but it was a bit late last night so I didn't get around to posting about it.

Regarding the problem with bins and cues, now I've got them all converted to .chd so I don't need to do any more fiddling there thankfully.

For my solution, following a tip I read, I enabled the log files in retroarch to full debug. Then, after running each of the problem cores, I checked the logs and found both of them missing bios files. Also, the log files told me where it expected to find them. So, I copied the bios files to the correct location in the system directory and all good.

There were a few reasons why I had trouble diagnosing this one. First, I should have enabled the log files from the beginning. Whoops. Second, each of the cores was displaying different behavior, one hard crashing, the other with a generic error message. So, I didn't think the problems where necessarily related. Another issue was that I thought Retroarch trawled its bios directory recursively for files, I didn't realize that the directory layout had to be exact according to each core's needs. And, even if I had realized, right from the start I had actually used a full set of Retroarch bios files that I downloaded, all laid out in the correct way. But, at that time, I presumably ran into some other issue. And, as part of trouble shooting that, I had changed the bios directory contents/layout. Anyway, alls well ends well.

Phew!

Personally, I'd just strip all the unnecessary stuff out of the Retroarch interface using the hide menu options, that makes debugging faster. Set up the controls and options how you like them and hopefully never have to open up Retroarch directly again. And, rather than use Retroarch's playlist functionality which is super finicky and crash happy, rely on an external app like Daijisho.

Thanks everyone for your advice!
Time to play some games!

Does anyone know how to use MAME to generate .dat files for subsets of games?

All I want is a DAT for the 60 Sega ST-V games.

I could manually "favorite" them, then use MAME.exe to export that, but I'm surprised there's not a better way to approach this.

I've tried to figure out how to use the MAME command line to but mame.exe stvbios -listxml >stv.xml only exports a list containing the BIOS itself, not games that, you know, use the BIOS. mame.exe stv -listxml >stv.xml generates nothing.

https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/commandline-all.html#commands-and-verbs

I also tried to export a "software list" with mame.exe stv -listsoftware >stv.xml. That list DOES seem to have all the ST-V games, but those files don't seem like they're compatible with software like ROMVault and none of the existing XML to DAT programs seem to convert them either.

Is this just such a niche idea that no one bothers? When someone runs 300,000+ ROMs, you'd think it would come up.

Yeah, that does sound like a useful feature to have. From what I could tell browsing information about FBNeo, most users seem happy just to dump the 27 gig complete set wherever they plan to play FBNeo games. Which seems weird to me but there you go. Of course, the MAME set is much bigger, around 80 gig I think?

So, of course you can basically do what I did, following the naming to copy across the necessary zips and then a bit of troubleshooting after that. But I did that for only 10-15 games, not 60.

So far I’ve been playing a couple of games, patch details as below:

Phantasy Star (SMS)
- Art changes inspired by Phantasy Star Generation 1 (PS2)
- Sprite changes to follow the Phantasy Star 2 style based on original concept art.
- Retranslation and expansion of script, more faithful to the original.
- Expanded menu and item names.
- Custom fonts, now with upper AND lowercase letters.
- Expanded number of save slots.
- Sound test feature.
- 2x or 4x xp/meseta options.
- 1/2 encounter rate option.

Legend of Dragoon (PS1)
- Undub (original Japanese audio with subtitles in FMVs where needed)
- Official translation rewritten to be more natural and coherent, typos fixed.
- Inventory capacity increased from 32 to 64.
- Fixed encounter rate bug.

Phantasy Star is an 8-bit technical masterpiece. Some of the achievements include colorful graphics, all party members visible on the map, monster animations, 3D dungeons, manga style cutscenes. All in a game that came out in 1987. Anyway, it definitely helps to have the dialog and names expanded (cartridge memory no longer an issue) and not having to read everything in all caps. Normally you’d probably use graph paper to map the dungeons but I’m just pulling up a map online. I’ve put in about 5 hours so far. I never completed it back in the day so we’ll see how I go. No emulation issues to speak of.

Legend of Dragoon was Sony’s attempt to bring another epic JRPG franchise to the PS1. It didn’t review well back in the day but I still bought it, how bad could a JRPG that comes on 4 CDs be?! I got to around the start of the 3rd CD, probably liked it more than most of the reviews and regret not finishing it. I played it again as a PSOne Classic but only the first 7 hours or so. Definitely need some of the QoL improvements that come with emulation and the patches I’m using above. So far it’s been a pretty good time. I’ve been playing at 2x graphics, 1.25x emulator speed. There have been a few hiccups unfortunately. I started at max CD speed/seek but I had to tone those down when it just started with a blank screen. Also, at 3x graphics (720p) there was a surprising amount of slowdown. So I needed to drop to 2x. The in-battle backdrops have a good amount of glitches. Finally, it’s been a bit crash happy. I would have just relied on in-game saves but now I’m in the habit of save-stating every 10 minutes or so. Let’s see if I can finally conquer this bad-boy!

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Yeah, that does sound like a useful feature to have. From what I could tell browsing information about FBNeo, most users seem happy just to dump the 27 gig complete set wherever they plan to play FBNeo games. Which seems weird to me but there you go. Of course, the MAME set is much bigger, around 80 gig I think?

So, of course you can basically do what I did, following the naming to copy across the necessary zips and then a bit of troubleshooting after that. But I did that for only 10-15 games, not 60.

If you download complete sets, it can be a real pain to filter games.

Since arcade systems vary widely, especially in how well they're emulated, lumping them all into one "arcade" dat seems counter-intuitive to me.

The ST-V was basically the arcade version of the Sega Saturn hardware.

I actually had an ST-V arcade board and a "super gun" (device that connects arcade boards to your TV), so I was feeling nostalgic when I read that two of the bigger games on the system, Radiant Silvergun and Cotton Boomerang only (relatively) recently became properly playable in MAME. And I thought I'd try a few of the other ST-V titles too.

But looking up all the games that ran on the ST-V board is a bit of a hassle, compared to if you could export a dat/list of that specific subset of games. I guess it must be more of a niche use case than I expected.

Complete sets are such a pain. Grab what you want. Life is easier that way.

JohnKillo wrote:

Complete sets are such a pain. Grab what you want. Life is easier that way.

"Just grab what you want" misses the use-case I'm describing, I think.

Right now there doesn't seem to be a simple way to grab just the Sega Titan Video games. You can't export a list from the MAME exe and there are no separated DAT files for that system, to help you identify which ones MAME actually supports and can play.

I think the answer must be that there is no simple way to approach collecting and playing the games for one specific MAME system.

One benefit of a full set is that they are labeled by the version number of MAME they are for. So you can be confident in knowing that you have the correct ones. I think, grabbing them piecemeal, you're not always going to be sure what versions of MAME they'll work with.

The RG505 continues to amaze me. PS2 runs decently well. 3DS so far with light weight games run well enough. Saturn and GameCube run as well. I should have gone 512 SD card. Just fantastic.

Which PS2 and 3DS games have you tried so far?

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Which PS2 and 3DS games have you tried so far?

PS2
Shadow hearts, Xenosaga, Dragon’s Quarter, Digital Devil Saga.

3DS
Paper Mario Stick Star, DQ7, Fire Emblem Fates, Binding of Isaac, and Sadame.

The so so performance of Xenosaga and Digital Devil Saga is on the world areas. Battles are smooth.

Fire Emblem’s cut scene battles chugs a bit.

Shadow Hearts and Dragon's Quarter are on my backlog! Along with so many others of course.

It's a little out of the scope of this thread but I started playing Android port of KOTOR which runs well enough. The combat is a bit rougher than I remember. Kind of nice that the button labeling matches up with the RPG3+, not sure if that's by chance or if there's a setting somewhere.

Man trying to find a cheap handheld that I will 90% use for streaming games in my house feels harder than it should be. I think I'm still leaning to getting a Odin Lite when it comes back in stock. Any other suggestions besides the 2 I list below? I'd prefer wifi 6 and 6" screen which is why I'm probably going Odin Lite and hoping the sticks don't bother me.

RP3+
- only a 5" screen
- analog triggers
- wifi 5

Odin Lite
- mediocre sticks
- not in stock

Logitech G cloud
- wifi 5
- not cheap unless I wait for a sale

pizzaddict wrote:

Logitech G cloud
- wifi 5
- not cheap unless I wait for a sale

It is currently "on sale" for the frequently on-sale price of $299, both from Amazon and Logitech directly, and honestly sounds perfect for your use case.

RP3+
- only a 5" screen
- analog triggers
- wifi 5

The screen looks big enough but when I put it next to my iPhone 11, the difference is noticeable.

Analog triggers, not something that even occurred to me. I really don't think it's going to impact anything I plan to play. But I found this post on reddit so you're definitely not the only one.
Does it bother you that the RP3 doesn’t have analogue triggers?

Wifi 5 - don't know anything about the differences/problems with wifi 5. I haven't had any connectivity issues so far for what it's worth.

$299 seems really expensive for mostly a streaming device, nearly double the price of the RP3+. But then, I didn't buy the RP3+ for streaming. I plan to use it for emulation and a few android games and so far it's been incredible for that. Do you have a phone with a decent sized screen that you could just attach a backbone to?

Analog triggers will come into effect if you want to play racing games like Forza (which I would).

Having only wifi 5 isn't a deal breaker or anything, but I'm probably going to be getting wifi 6 in my house soon so it would be nice to be able to use that.

I agree, $300 is too much, I know it was down to $250 during black friday so I'm hoping if it doesn't sell well we will see more discounts like that in the not to distant future. I think for $200 or maybe $250 it would be a really nice device.

I've looked a little at getting a backbone type device for my phone or tablet. I was really wanting something standalone that wasn't going to require me to go through the hassle of hooking something up to my phone. I have one of the clip thingies that you attach your phone to a controller but didn't like the way it felt. The weight of the phone sitting above the controller feels weird. Some of the other backbone devices I've looked at like the Razer Kishi don't seem to work well with certain phones or phone cases so I've been hesistant to drop $50-$100 on one of those.

With all that said, maybe I just need to wait until the next wave of devices come out, Odin 2, RP4, etc. to see if one is the perfect fit for what.

Well. Surprise if you send death threats and insults to a developer of a free emulator app they stop working on it. No more AetherSX2 updates.

pizzaddict wrote:

Analog triggers will come into effect if you want to play racing games like Forza (which I would).

Having only wifi 5 isn't a deal breaker or anything, but I'm probably going to be getting wifi 6 in my house soon so it would be nice to be able to use that.

I agree, $300 is too much, I know it was down to $250 during black friday so I'm hoping if it doesn't sell well we will see more discounts like that in the not to distant future. I think for $200 or maybe $250 it would be a really nice

Yeah it does sound like the RP3 is a really poor fit for your use case. I reckon that Logitech’s offering will flop pretty hard at $299 so it could be something you can get in a fire sale in 6 months.

JohnKillo wrote:

Well. Surprise if you send death threats and insults to a developer of a free emulator app they stop working on it. No more AetherSX2 updates. :(

Wth :(. Hopefully someone will pick up the torch.

I’ve been playing a bit with Delta Touch, a fairly elegant bundle of Doom engines. Even includes support for Doom 3 but framerates were a little rough. One thing I can’t figure out is how to invert the right thumb stick (look up/down).

Has anyone here jumped on one of these Anbernic RG353 devices? I've been curious about finding a smaller device, so I tried out a 353m and was really disappointed by the quality of the screen. I'm curious about the experiences others have had with the 353 line.

DSGamer wrote:

Has anyone here jumped on one of these Anbernic RG353 devices? I've been curious about finding a smaller device, so I tried out a 353m and was really disappointed by the quality of the screen. I'm curious about the experiences others have had with the 353 line.

I guess I can comment. I used the 353 "V" series and the 351 "V" and I think the screen is fairly comparable to each other. I can't say that it looked terrible in any way. I liked the balance and crispness of the screens so maybe you got a bad one? I would send it back to Anbernic and get another. I can take a picture at home when I have a chance.

I had an RG351MP for a while-- wound up flipping it on eBay after going the Ayn Odin route-- and I thought the screen was great. I guess there have been reports of iffy screens on the 353 series going around, though; the phrase I've been hearing is "washed out." Here's a Reddit thread with some software fixes you can try applying to see if they help at all.

That’s what I saw. Washed out, not as saturated as I remember the 351V being.

I've been gaming on my phone recently which has a 6.5" screen I believe. I don't know how you guys game on those 3.5" screens. Even with my phone the screen seems too small a lot of the time. I suppose it all depends on the game but still, 3.5" just seems miniscule.

DSGamer wrote:

Has anyone here jumped on one of these Anbernic RG353 devices? I've been curious about finding a smaller device, so I tried out a 353m and was really disappointed by the quality of the screen. I'm curious about the experiences others have had with the 353 line.

The RP3/3+ have great screens, and being thinner, don't feel all that much larger. Physically, they're only a little bigger than a Vita Slim (and mostly fit into the same $3 sleeve).

pizzaddict wrote:

I've been gaming on my phone recently which has a 6.5" screen I believe. I don't know how you guys game on those 3.5" screens. Even with my phone the screen seems too small a lot of the time. I suppose it all depends on the game but still, 3.5" just seems miniscule.

We're talking about games that were designed to be playable on fuzzy CRTs with resolutions in the low triple digits. A 3.5" 480p display so sharp you can count the pixels is better than what a lot of us played on back in the day.

Not strictly emulation-related, but apparently TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, the recent beat-em-up game, is available on Android and iOS now... but only for Netflix subscribers for some reason. It has native gamepad support, making it a perfect fit for Android-based handhelds like the Ayn Odin and Retroid Pocket 3+.

I was concerned that the fact that it requires you to sign in to your Netflix account might mean it won't launch if you don't have an active Internet connection, but after signing in once while on Wi-Fi, I was able to boot it no problem even when no longer connected. Not sure if it's one of those things where it has to "check in" every so often, but at least for now, it seems to work fine.

hbi2k wrote:

We're talking about games that were designed to be playable on fuzzy CRTs with resolutions in the low triple digits. A 3.5" 480p display so sharp you can count the pixels is better than what a lot of us played on back in the day.

Yeah I guess it is all about the game. I was playing some Forza and a diablo style game on my phone and it was making me 2nd guess if an Odin with a 6" screen would be big enough for me. I may have to wait until more affordable 7" screen options come out or the G Cloud goes on in the bargain bin.

pizzaddict wrote:

I was playing some Forza and a diablo style game on my phone and it was making me 2nd guess if an Odin with a 6" screen would be big enough for me. I may have to wait until more affordable 7" screen options come out or the G Cloud goes on in the bargain bin.

It's been great for everything I've tried to do with it, which granted, has been native Android games that are designed for relatively small phone screens, retro games that are designed for fuzzy CRTs, and at the absolute highest end, the odd PS2 game where the limiting factor is less the screen itself and more that the hardware isn't powerful enough to upscale to above native resolution.

IIRC it wasn't until the Xbox 360 / PS3 generation when developers started to really rely on having a relatively big HDTV for their text and UI to be readable, and that's far beyond what the Odin is capable of anyway. Could be a problem if you wanted to do a lot of game streaming of modern games.