RetroArch 1.6.7 w/ updated cores.

[IncognitoMan]

So picked up a steam link recently and decided to give building RetroArch from the sdk/examples a shot... so here is 1.6.7 with the following cores:

• fbalpha2012
  
• fceumm
  
• gambatte
  
• genesis plus gx
  
• mednafen pce fast
  
• mgba
  
• nestopia
  
• nxengine
  
• pcsx rearmed
  
• picodrive
  
• prboom
  
• snes9x 2002
  
• stella

If there are any other cores you'd like to see, within reason, let me know and I'll look into it.

INSTALL:

Download[drive.google.com]

Take the "RetroArch" and "steamlink" folders and put them on a usb drive. Plug in the usb drive and turn on the steam link and it'll install RetroArch.

Afterward you can safely remove the "steamlink" folder.

NOTE:

Do not use the "Core Updater" option under Online Updater... It'll break things. However I do suggest to run at least "Update Core Info Files", "Update Assets" and "Update Databases"

I changed the default paths to all point to usb so you will need either usbmount native app or a init.d script to auto mount usb to /mnt/disk/ on boot.

If you use the usbmount native app route please note that every time you powercycle or turn on the steam link you must launch usbmount FIRST then launch RetroArch.

Eventually I will put up a guide detailing how to work with RetroArch on the steam link but for now hopefully people will get to enjoy the updated build for the time being.

[garbalen]

Still working on it. Some reason snes9x either kicks back immediatly (2002) or crashes with a floating point error (2005). Not sure what the deal is there. I've pretty much given up on Qt and moved to version 1.7.2. I'm playing with different build options and once Snes9x works again I'll post another update.

Edit. I corrupted some files by filling my Steamlink too much.

Pretty good build of 1.7.5. Keeps right around 50% CPU with FCEUMM and Snes9x2002.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ZKsh8qPcn1c1of5SsWTiwrkoCYw61RE/view?usp=sharing
This fixes the slowdown after a couple minutes finally! Yay!

I'm going to try some more optimizations, but don't hold your breath. Single core Arm and Playstation is probably pushing it.
Edit2. Actually PCSX reloaded works great. Once you start it hit default (start+select) and change it to frame skip one. Also I run the steamlink at 720p from the main interface, so that might help. There's a ton of options for that core, so might be some better settings to speed it up, but I'm getting steady 60fps (30fps because of skipping a frame). I don't have any other Playstation games to try out, so mileage may vary.

[glytch]

Цитата допису garbalen:

Pretty good build of 1.7.5. Keeps right around 50% CPU with FCEUMM and Snes9x2002.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ZKsh8qPcn1c1of5SsWTiwrkoCYw61RE/view?usp=sharing

This new version added some new menu options such as Threaded Video.

Do you know if enabling that option has any improvement on performance with the single core CPU?


Using Steam Link's resolution instead of RetroArch's seems to have better results. I thought 480p would improve performance more but it caused some graphics artifacts in SNES. (Looks like that's just an issue with Snes9x 2005 core and Super Mario World 2).

[garbalen]

Цитата допису glytch:

Цитата допису garbalen:

Pretty good build of 1.7.5. Keeps right around 50% CPU with FCEUMM and Snes9x2002.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ZKsh8qPcn1c1of5SsWTiwrkoCYw61RE/view?usp=sharing

This new version added some new menu options such as Threaded Video.

Do you know if enabling that option has any improvement on performance with the single core CPU?

Surprisingly I think it does. Either that or another optimisation dropped CPU usage about 5%. You can play around with it. All I'm usually doing is SSH in and running "top" and seeing how things go while playing something.

I haven't had any luck building any cores yet, but I might start and see if I can eek out a little more performance there. I've been having pretty good success with the buildbot for arm-neon-hf.

[Bass]

Цитата допису garbalen:

Still working on it. Some reason snes9x either kicks back immediatly (2002) or crashes with a floating point error (2005). Not sure what the deal is there. I've pretty much given up on Qt and moved to version 1.7.2. I'm playing with different build options and once Snes9x works again I'll post another update.

Edit. I corrupted some files by filling my Steamlink too much.

Pretty good build of 1.7.5. Keeps right around 50% CPU with FCEUMM and Snes9x2002.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ZKsh8qPcn1c1of5SsWTiwrkoCYw61RE/view?usp=sharing
This fixes the slowdown after a couple minutes finally! Yay!

I'm going to try some more optimizations, but don't hold your breath. Single core Arm and Playstation is probably pushing it.
Edit2. Actually PCSX reloaded works great. Once you start it hit default (start+select) and change it to frame skip one. Also I run the steamlink at 720p from the main interface, so that might help. There's a ton of options for that core, so might be some better settings to speed it up, but I'm getting steady 60fps (30fps because of skipping a frame). I don't have any other Playstation games to try out, so mileage may vary.

But you already fixed slowdown after 5 minute in previous build.
Frameskip sucks(
PCSX reloaded works really great, but +20 fps will be better.
I tryed some games on it:
Fighting Force - 60fps
MK Trilogy - 60fps
Tekken 3 - 30-50fps
Quake 2 - 40-60fps
Smack Down 2 - 30-50fps

Lower resolution don't change situation, maybe +5fps

If some one run Tekken 3 with 60fps without frameskip = 1, it's will be win.

[garbalen]

Цитата допису Bass:

Frameskip sucks(
PCSX reloaded works really great, but +20 fps will be better.

Lower resolution don't change situation, maybe +5fps

If some one run Tekken 3 with 60fps without frameskip = 1, it's will be win.

Not likely, but I was able to rebuild the core if anyone would like to play around with the script.
It's mostly taken from the Retroarch build script. It'll do the git and make the folder in a similar fashion. I just put it in examples/pcsx_rearmed and ran it (after tinkering the last couple days with it). Didn't do much other than pull it up and see it's not any faster than what's currently out there.

I changed the build option from -O3 to -Ofast and added -funsafe-math-optimizations in the makefile and I think I got a few more frames if you want to try it (go back in the folder and run 'make clean' before rebuild). It's nowhere near not needing frame skip for an intensive game like Tekken3. I would be interested to see how it handles Intelligent Qube though. The makefile is from the Libretro repo, so if you want to try those optimisations you'll have to edit the makefile yourself. Or set up a branch or however actual programmers do it :)


This is just the pcsx_rearmed core and a build script. This does not include Retroarch. It's up a couple posts. If you don't have a development enviornment set up, just delete the script and FTP the pcsx file to your steamlink in the correct core folder for Retroarch.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1a9f0BVWyTj7uJRrUUEtD4me-GcysvZ8B

[glytch]

Цитата допису garbalen:

Not likely, but I was able to rebuild the core if anyone would like to play around with the script.

It seems RetroArch may also be affected by the Monitor or TV the Steam Link is plugged into, like it's detecting info from the device.

It ran SNES and Sega CD at a smooth 60fps on my 1200p PC Monitor with Steam Link set to 720p, but it also added a mouse cursor to the screen even when one wasn't plugged in.

But when I plugged it into an actual 720p TV the mouse cursor went away, but the FPS dropped and the audio crackled for Snes9x2002/2005 with Super Mario World 2, and with Genesis Plus GX Sonic CD.

Will you be able to make any more optimizations to RetroArch 1.7.5? Or compile a new Snes9x? 2002 looks like it has some graphics errors. Here[github.com] someone said 2010 has fixed some issues.

[Bass]

Цитата допису glytch:

Цитата допису garbalen:

Not likely, but I was able to rebuild the core if anyone would like to play around with the script.

It seems RetroArch may also be affected by the Monitor or TV the Steam Link is plugged into, like it's detecting info from the device.

It ran SNES and Sega CD at a smooth 60fps on my 1200p PC Monitor with Steam Link set to 720p, but it also added a mouse cursor to the screen even when one wasn't plugged in.

But when I plugged it into an actual 720p TV the mouse cursor went away, but the FPS dropped and the audio crackled for Snes9x2002/2005 with Super Mario World 2, and with Genesis Plus GX Sonic CD.

Will you be able to make any more optimizations to RetroArch 1.7.5? Or compile a new Snes9x? 2002 looks like it has some graphics errors. Here[github.com] someone said 2010 has fixed some issues.

Yeah, i tested 2010 core, and see drop fps on Contra 3. On 2002 core this game gets glitch when you pick up "B" power up.

[garbalen]

[My build of] Snes9x2010 is slow on Mario World 2. I'll work on it.

Pretty much all I've been doing is changing the build_steamlink script to the name of the folder I want (snes9x2010) and adding the libretro github URL that I googled. Once I start running it I either let it finish or hit ctrl-c to end the build process after downloading.
cd <foldername> run 'make clean' and then go into the makefile and add some more aggresive compiler optimisations and more direct chip specifications on the defines or cflags or however they did it. Could probably just put 'snes9xfoldername/make clean' in the scripts so it runs everytime.

DEFINES += -Ofast -mfpu=neon -ffast-math -funsafe-math-optimizations -fomit-frame-pointer -march=armv7-a -mfloat-abi=hard -fno-exceptions

@glytch you might have better luck with compiling the cores even if you weren't able to get a Retroarch built.

Contra 3 on 2010 isn't too bad but I did notice one drop to 53fps and it probably gets worse when you get to some of the bigger bosses. Anyway, here's what I have.

Snes9x2002 and 2010 cores with build scripts.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Cgf2Vo83QM3pvctOUFLEyI-tpQ3z4OG4

Edit: Contra 3 on 2005 seems spot on
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r3KfjCWR6OHLb3lJZTRlO_0cEmwZPuBQ

2005 is probably my go to core now unless a games runs slow then try 2002. Not sure Mario World 2 is going to be worth it. When it does the rotation at the intro it drops frames even on 2002 and if I remember right it does a lot of rotation during the game. It's awful to do a frame skip on a 2d game due to needing so much precision for jumping gaps or whatever.

As far as making Retroarch faster, I'm pretty much just going to build 1.7.6 again when it comes out, but someone might find a faster version if they wanted to try 1.3.5 or something like that. I don't know enough about if maybe they lost some performance along the way as they built out compatibility and something might work faster.

[garbalen]

Thought I may have a sidways workaround. Yoshi is on GBA as Super Mario advanceed 3, but it has similar performance. Sounds like the problem is that the fastest/least accurate emulators don't have very good FX chip performance and the better ones are slower in general. There's gpsp which sounds like the fastest GBA emulator, but I''m not having any luck compiling it and the current builds weren't running on the Steamlink.

[glytch]

Цитата допису garbalen:

@glytch you might have better luck with compiling the cores even if you weren't able to get a Retroarch built.

Thanks, your new build of 2005 looks likes it improved normal SNES games fps to 60 fps.

It got Super Mario World 2 up to 55-58fps, with some audio crackling. That game uses Super FX 2 Chip Mode 7. The new version caused some graphics corruption in the transition scenes. And also a missing start menu in Super Mario Kart, which uses DSP-1 Mode 7.

I wonder if any other SNES cores can be built for ARM, like Snes9x Next, bsnes Mercury, or Beetle bsnes. I will try to compile some.

[glytch]

Цитата допису garbalen:

Thought I may have a sidways workaround. Yoshi is on GBA as Super Mario advanceed 3, but it has similar performance.

For Snes9x2005 I enabled Hard GPU Sync and Enabled Reduce Slowdown Hack under the core's options, and it seemed to gain 1fps, bringing it to 56-59, which fixed a lot of slowdown and audio crackle, but still not fully playable.

bsnes Mercury has an option to overclock the FX chip. I'm wondering if the Steam Link hardware is too limited for Snes9x.

[garbalen]

I did get next compiled but it's pretty slow. You can play around with it though.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Gve39ADeCA2q8rr9JcEusAyjzWq-0fTw

bsnes I wasn't able to get any compiled. I think I found one that worked from the classics folder or one of the arm folders on the buildbot, but it's awful without being compiled for neon.

I'm playing around with maybe getting a web browser on the steamlink and will start a new thread if I have any luck.

[glytch]

Цитата допису garbalen:

I did get next compiled but it's pretty slow. You can play around with it though.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Gve39ADeCA2q8rr9JcEusAyjzWq-0fTw

Snes9x Next is running all games at 45-55fps, even with the Super FX overclock option. The source code is probably not optimized for ARM.

You could also look at Snes9x2005 Plus, Mednefan GBA, gpSP, VBA-M, VBA Next.

I ran gpSP on an Android phone before and it was the best performing of the GBA cores, but I see it's not compiling for you.

[Bass]

Where i can download Snes9x2005? Simple in downloader inside retroarch or there special for steamlink core?

[glytch]

Цитата допису Bass:

Where i can download Snes9x2005? Simple in downloader inside retroarch or there special for steamlink core?

From the Core Updater in RetroArch or this custom compiled version. You'll also need the Core Info files from the Updater or else the core might not appear selectable.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r3KfjCWR6OHLb3lJZTRlO_0cEmwZPuBQ/view