Useless CFW for the Retrostone (1)

[gameblabla]

https://gameblabla.nl/files/snes9x_retrostone.opk

I have now ported Snes9x2005, the libretro core and adapted it for my CFW.
SuperFX games are running smoothly on it and i might consider using Blargg's APU to fix some audio glitches in some games in the future.

If you want to use it, simply add it to the "apps" folder found in the FAT32 partition of the sd card.
Next firmware release will be bundled with it.

I also tried to update Picodrive to the newer 32X DRC code but it is crashing on some games like After Burner at random.
I still made it available and you could use it if you rename the OPK but its disabled by default, just like Temper.

[romanaFive]

So I just got my hands on a used retrostone and downloaded the buildroot and tried to compile dingux Nethack (320x240).

Compiled without any problems, but the the image is half-sized, approx. 160x120? Is something scaling the image down by 1/2? Is there a quick fix? The buttons and d-pad work, you just can hardly see the image. (This game is not very portable to different resolutions, with calculations using 320 and 240 all over the place in the source files, so it is too much work to simply double the size of everything.)

[McSic]

Thanks for the update. Appreciated

[McSic]

Ah yeah. Fat32 drive no longer getting detected under Win10, not even using third party tools. Can't access it so I can't put anything on it, it would be good if you could switch to NTFS to fix that issue many of us windows users have lately.

[McSic]

Installed a Linux Livesystem (Ubuntu) on a stick to access the fat32 drive and put games on it. Works fine.

I've noticed a problem with the PSX Emulator: games cannot be saved, as in, save states aren't working. If trying to save to state 0-9 it will say save failed and close/crash the emulator.

[romanaFive]

User pi probably does not have write permission on the ~/RetroPie/roms or wherever the emu want to save the state file.

The permissions probably got screwed up when you mounted the uSD card from ubuntu and wrote to it as a different user (UID).

I think there is a choice on the Options/Raspiconfig menu to fix the permissions. Its called something like "resetromdir"

Or you can just ssh in and use chown as root.

[McSic]

User pi probably does not have write permission on the ~/RetroPie/roms or wherever the emu want to save the state file.

The permissions probably got screwed up when you mounted the uSD card from ubuntu and wrote to it as a different user (UID).

I think there is a choice on the Options/Raspiconfig menu to fix the permissions. Its called something like "resetromdir"

Or you can just ssh in and use chown as root.

No offense, I think you're in the wrong thread. This is 'useless CFW' not RetrOrangePi and I don't have those options.

[romanaFive]

Ooops. You're right. Sorry about that. Too many tabs.

One thing I don't understand:

Installed a Linux Livesystem (Ubuntu) on a stick to access the fat32 drive and put games on it.

Why do you need Linux to access a fat32 partition? Has Windows dropped support for its own FAT32 filesystem? (I wouldn't be surprised, that operating system has been a complete shambles since 1995, LOL.)

[gameblabla]

I took the time to update my CFW for the Retrostone.
Here are the changes for version 0.32 :

• Switched to NTFS, should fix the issues on Windows.

• Updated Picodrive with faster 32X core with fixed default controls.

• Added Snes9XEmu fork based on libretro core. It supports SRAM, SRTC and save states...

You can grab the new version in the first post, this should hopefully allow Windows 10 to mount the NTFS partition.

Why do you need Linux to access a fat32 partition? Has Windows dropped support for its own FAT32 filesystem? (I wouldn't be surprised, that operating system has been a complete shambles since 1995, LOL.)

For some very strange reasons, Windows 10 randomly fails to detect and mount the FAT32 partition. But sometimes it can !
I have no idea why but of course, this only happens on stuff with multiple partitions.

I've noticed a problem with the PSX Emulator: games cannot be saved, as in, save states aren't working. If trying to save to state 0-9 it will say save failed and close/crash the emulator.

I should have looked into it but its something i remember to have fixed... (the earlier CFW had this issue)
Will check again

[gameblabla]

So I just got my hands on a used retrostone and downloaded the buildroot and tried to compile dingux Nethack (320x240).

Compiled without any problems, but the the image is half-sized, approx. 160x120? Is something scaling the image down by 1/2? Is there a quick fix? The buttons and d-pad work, you just can hardly see the image. (This game is not very portable to different resolutions, with calculations using 320 and 240 all over the place in the source files, so it is too much work to simply double the size of everything.)

The Retrostone and my CFW is not directly compatible with it. What you are supposed to do for pure dingux ports is to not define any width or height when creating the display.
For easing up the porting, give the final screen surface another name like rl_screen

Code: Select all

rl_screen = SDL_SetVideoMode(0, 0, 16, SDL_HWSURFACE);

Then you create a virtual surface of the same size as the Dingoo, 320x240.
So something like this :

Code: Select all

screen = SDL_CreateRGBSurface(SDL_SWSURFACE, 320, 240, 16, 0,0,0,0);

(if the game did something like

Code: Select all

sdl_screen = SDL_SetVideoMode(0, 0, 16, SDL_HWSURFACE);

then use sdl_screen instead of screen and so on)

Then make sure of doing something like this to blit the virtual surface to screen :

Code: Select all

SDL_SoftStretch(screen, NULL, rl_screen, NULL);
SDL_Flip(rl_screen);

instead of just :

Code: Select all

SDL_Flip(screen);

This is a rough way of porting dingux libraries to stuff using a resolution different from it.
I could port Nethack myself if you give me the link to source code.