RetroArch Wii v0.9.9

RetroArch Wii v0.9.9 is released. RetroArch Wii is a native port on the Wii Platform. RetroArch is a modular multi-system emulator system that is designed to be fast, lightweight, and portable. It has features few other emulators frontends have, such as real-time rewinding and game-aware shading.

RetroArch Wii v0.9.9 Changelog:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RETROARCH GX - WII - 0.9.9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RetroConsole Level: 1 Author: Themaister, Toad King, Squarepusher/Twin Aphex ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO INSTALL THIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copy the entire directory (retroarch-wii) to your SD card in your 'apps' directory. Start up the Homebrew Channel and start up RetroArch Wii from there. On first startup, RetroArch will create a folder in the root of your storage device called 'retroarch'. All RetroArch configuration files are stored here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO USE THIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On first startup, RetroArch will select one of the dozen or so emulator/game cores. The name of the core currently loaded will be shown at the bottom side of the screen. You can now select a data file (ie. a game executable and/or a ROM) that this core supports and load it in the Filebrowser. To select a different core - go to 'Core' in the Main Menu. Select a core and then press A to switch to the emulator/game core. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTROLS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RetroArch Wii will create a new input config file for each core you load. All input settings will be saved when RetroArch exits. NOTE: When starting up a new core for the first time, you might have to first initialize the input settings. Go to the Settings menu (see 'Ingame controls') and go to 'Controller #number config'. Re-set the 'Device' by going back and forth between a previous device. The controls will be automatically applied. This only has to be done once per core. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ INGAME CONTROLS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ During ingame operation you can do some extra actions: Wii Classic Controller Home - Go back to 'Menu' Wiimote Home - Go back to 'Menu' Gamecube pad L + R + LStick Up + Rstick Up - Go back to 'Menu' Right Thumb Stick - Down - Fast-forwards the game Right Thumb Stick - Up - Rewinds the game in real-time ('Rewind' has to be enabled in the 'Settings' menu - warning - comes at a performance decrease but will be worth it if you love this feature) RStick Left + ZL - Decrease save state slot Rtick Right + ZR - Increase save state slot RStick Up + ZR - Load selected save state slot RStick Down + ZR - Save selected save state slot (NOTE: For Gamecube pads - you would press Z trigger + any of the Rstick Down movements shown above instead of ZR/ZL) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT IS RETROARCH? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RetroArch is a modular multi-system emulator system that is designed to be fast, lightweight and portable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT IS LIBRETRO? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Libretro is the API that RetroArch uses. It makes it easy to port games and emulators to a single core backend, such as RetroArch. For the user, this means - more ports to play with, more crossplatform portability, less worrying about developers having to reinvent the wheel writing boilerplate UI/port code - so that they can get busy with writing the emulator/porting the emulator/game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Right now it's unique in that it runs the same emulator cores on multiple systems (such as Xbox 360, Xbox 1, PS3, PC, Wii, Android, etc). For each emulator 'core', RetroArch makes use of a library API that we like to call 'libretro'. Think of libretro as an interface for emulator and game ports. You can make a libretro port once and expect the same code to run on all the platforms that RetroArch supports. It's designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind so that the porter can worry about the port at hand instead of having to wrestle with an obfuscatory API. The purpose of libretro is to help ease the work of the emulator/game porter by giving him an API that allows him to target multiple platforms at once without having to redo any code. He doesn't have to worry about writing input/video/audio drivers - all of that is supplied to him by RetroArch. All he has to do is to have the emulator port hook into the libretro API and that's it - we take care of the rest. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WII PORT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Wii port of RetroArch has the following features: - Real-time rewinding - Switching between emulator cores seamlessly, and ability to install new libretro cores ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EMULATOR/GAME CORES BUNDLED WITH WII PORT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following emulators/games have been ported to RetroArch and are included in the Wii release of RetroArch. For more information about them, see the included 'retroarch-libretro-README.txt' file. - Final Burn Alpha [version 0.2.97.28] - Final Burn Alpha Cores (CPS1 - CPS2 - NeoGeo) [version 0.2.97.28] (**) - FCEUmm (Nintendo Entertainment System) [recent SVN version] - NEStopia (Nintendo Entertainment System) [1.44] - Gambatte (Game Boy | Super Game Boy | Game Boy Color) [version 0.5.0 WIP] - Genesis Plus GX (Sega SG-1000 | Master System | Game Gear | Genesis/Mega Drive | Sega CD) [version 1.7.3] - SNES9x Next (Super Nintendo/Super Famicom) (v1.52.4) - VBA Next (Game Boy Advance) (*) - Prboom (for playing Doom 1/Doom 2/Ultimate Doom/Final Doom) - Mednafen PCE Fast (PC Engine/PC Engine CD/Turbografx 16) - Mednafen Wonderswan (WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color/WonderSwan Crystal) - Mednafen NGP (Neo Geo Pocket Color) - Mednafen VB (Virtual Boy) All of the emulators listed above are the latest versions currently available. Most of them have been specifically optimized so that they will run better on Wii (some games would not reach fullspeed without these optimizations). * Some games don't run at fullspeed on Wii (VBA Next is a RetroConsole Level 2 emulator port). ** The biggest Neo-Geo ROMs that can be loaded are around 23+MB in size, such as Real Bout Fatal Fury 1 and King of Fighters '96. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT EXTENSIONS ARE SUPPORTED BY EACH CORE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Prboom wad - Tyrquake pak - SNES9x Next smc|fig|sfc|gd3|gd7|dx2|bsx|swc - Genesis Plus GX md|smd|bin|gen|bin|sms|gg|sg|cue - NXEngine/Cave Story exe - VBA Next gba - FCEUmm nes|unif - NEStopia nes|fds - Gambatte gb|gbc|dmg - Final Burn Alpha zip - Mednafen PCE pce|cue - Mednafen Wonderswan ws|wsc - Mednafen NGP ngp - Mednafen VB vb ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ZIP SUPPORT (IN GENERAL) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Selecting a ZIP file will temporarily unzip that file to the harddrive. The temporary file will be deleted as soon as the game gets unloaded and/or when you quit RetroArch. NOTE: For the FBA core (and other cores that have 'block_extract' set to true) - selecting a ZIP file from the Filebrowser will load that game directly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Troubleshooting ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you find that RetroArch no longer works for whatever reason, there is a way to get it back to work - - Remove retroarch.cfg from the 'retroarch' folder on your storage device, then start up again. The Libretro management service in RetroArch should automatically pick a random libretro core and write this to the config file. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What can you expect in the future? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Make the libxenon port release-worthy. - Finish up MAME 0.72 port - Finish up ScummVM port - Port of VICE to libretro - More emulators, more games that will run on RetroArch - Lots of other crazy ideas that might or might not pan out ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Credits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Hyllian for the xBR shader family. - Opium2k for the nice manual shaders (bundled with PS3 release). - Deank for assistance with RetroArch Salamander on CFW PS3s and - Mudlord for his Waterpaint/Noise shaders. Multiman interoperability. - FBA devs for adopting the libretro port. - Ekeeke for help with the Genesis Plus GX port. - ToadKing for having done a lot of work on RetroArch Wii. - Freakdave for helping out with the Xbox 1 port. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Websites ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Twitter: http://twitter.com/libretro Source: http://github.com/libretro Homepage: http://www.libretro.org IRC: #retroarch (freenode) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHANGELOG RETROARCH CONSOLE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ v0.9.9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * (iOS) Initial release of RetroArch iOS. * (Blackberry) Initial release of RetroArch Blackberry (for BB10/Playbook). * [SNES9x Next] No longer disable high resolution for SA-1 games for Xbox 1 / Wii / Gamecube * [SNES9x Next] Seiken Densetsu 3/Romancing Saga 3 no longer downsample to low-resolution for high-resolution modes on Xbox 1/Gamecube/Wii * [SNES9x Next] Add Core Option - 'SuperFX Overclock'. * [SNES9x Next] [Gamecube/Wii] Use sthbrx/stwbrx for READ_WORD/WRITE_WORD macros - speedup. * [Gambatte] Fixed serious input reporting bug on libretro side that could drastically slow down gameplay speed - found an edge case in a Japanese Pokemon Blue version that triggered this. * [Gambatte] Make colorization optional and not enforced through use of a Core Option. * [FCEUmm] Should load UNIF ROM format now. * [NEStopia] Fixes Famicom Disk System support. * [NEStopia] L/R now inserts coins on Vs. System games * [NEStopia] Add Core Option 'Sprite Limit'. * [Mednafen] Add several Core Options for Mednafen PSX, Mednafen PCE Fast, Mednafen Neo Geo Pocket Color, etc. * [Mednafen PSX] Add disk swap mechanisms - exposed through RGUI * [PCSX ReARMed] Latest update to r19 fromnotaz (main author) * [PCSX ReARMed] Totally rewritten ARM code by notaz in order to support outdated version of Apple's GAS (for iOS support) * [PCSX ReARMed] Add disk swap mechanisms - exposed through RGUI * [PCSX ReARMed] Add m3u Mednafen-style cuesheet support * [PCSX ReARMed] Add core option 'Frameskip' - users with bad performance on Android should try out if setting this higher than 0 fixes their problems. * [PCSX ReARMed] Add core options 'NEON enhanced resolution' and 'NEON enhanced resolution speedhack' - this is for systems with ARM NEON CPUs. Note that this will easily triple or even quadruple CPU requirements. If you have an underpowered CPU, you might want to try this out in combination with the 'Frameskip' option (setting it higher than 0) to make things somewhat playable. * [Genesis Plus GX] Latest compatibility updates from ekeeke (main author) * [Genesis Plus GX] Add Core Options for blargg NTSC, Overscan and Game Gear Extend Screen * [Final Burn Alpha] Add several Core Options for going tO Service Mode, Resetting game, etc. * (LIBRETRO) Added Tyrquake * (LIBRETRO) Added ModelViewer and SceneWalker (for platforms which support libretro GL). * (LIBRETRO) NXEngine / Cave Story is now completely playable on consoles (Wii/PlayStation3/Xbox 1/Xbox 360) thanks to many code alterations. Performance is also much improved on the platforms which could already play them, such as Android and PC. * (Shaders) New shaders- mdapt, new xBR versions, new Harlequin Gameboy/LCD shaders, etc. * Threaded video option. Mainly for Android users but works for OpenGL driver in general. * (Android) Add iControlPad support. * (Android) Add the following gamepads / etc to autodetection list: - Tommo NeoGeoX Arcade Stick - Xperia Play (fixes ANR issues after 30 seconds) - TTT THT pad - JXD S7300B - Sega Virtua Stick - Ouya pad (untested) - Gamestop Wireless - Tomee NES USB - Thrustmaster T Mini Wireless * (Android) Add back key behavior - can either 'toggle' RGUI' on/off or exit the app. * (RGUI) RGUI now works on PC, Android, iOS and Blackberry - and is no longer Wii-exclusive. * (RGUI) RGUI is an ingame menu that can be toggled from within the game. It looks and functions a bit like MAME's OSD system. It is possible now to configure most of RetroArch's settings from this builtin menu instead of having to exit the game and go to an 'external' settings menu. * (RGUI) Added a 'Game History' list. * (RGUI) Added sophisticated shader stacking - for Cg shaders. * (RGUI/Libretro) Add disk image swapping - supported by Mednafen PSX and PCSX ReARMed. * (Libretro) Add libretro GL capability to libretro API. Supported currently by PC, Android, iOS, Blackberry, Raspberry Pi, and Pandora. Targets either GL 2.0 or GL ES 2.0. Targeting GL ES 2.0 is encouraged for maximum portability to mobile platforms. * (Libretro/RGUI) Add Core Options. This makes it possible to 'expose' options for a libretro core to the frontend. * (Libretro) Add SET_SUPPORT_NO_GAME to API. * (RGUI) Change menu layout options. * (PS3) Optimize PS3 video driver extensively - should result in a big latency reduction. * (PS3) Totally remove the 'old' fixed 2-pass shader system and replace it with a new, forward-compatible with PC 8-pass shader stacking system. RGUI/RMenu makes CGP files dynamically as you set new shader stacks. * (Wii) Optimize Wii video driver by using inlined macros for certain fixed-function state code. * (360/Xbox 1) Optimize 360/Xbox 1 video drivers by using inlined command buffer macros * (360) Removed shader system for this release - will be re-added in a future 0.9.9 point release. The main problem is that on Xbox 360, all our render targets need to fit inside 10MB of EDRAM - which is just pathetic if you want to have any FBO scaling options similar to what can be done on PS3. I'll be looking at either tiled rendering or just implementing the same 'hack' I did before (where I forcibly set the maximum source framebuffer resolution at 512x512 for two-pass shaders and hoped nobody would notice so I could stay within the confines of the 10MB of EDRAM for render targets). For now, the PS3 port is way superior than the 360 port in the graphics stakes due to this 10MB EDRAM limitation for render targets. * (Menus) Standardize RGUI, RMenu and RMenu XUI to look and work the same. * (Overlays/RGUI) Overlays can now be scaled and their opacity changed from RGUI). * (RMenu/RGUI) Add text scrolling when a text string is too large to fit onscreen. * (RMenu XUI) Have all menu screens now use the same basic XUI template. Cuts down on a lot of code maintenance at the expense of language customization by end-users. A solution will be looked at later. * (Xbox 1) Slim down on menu texture - leaves us with more free RAM to play with - only tested on 480p - somebody with 720p/1080i resolution support should contact me - even though I'm afraid making the menu texture any bigger is going to be a waste of RAM anyways. Upsides of this are obvious - far faster switching between menu and game and consumes way less RAM which means games like Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Vampire Savior now fit into RAM without pesky and slow file I/O-based VM. * (Wii) Add additional VI resolutions. * (ZIP support) Switch from builtin zlib to miniz - less codebloat.

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