Feedback on beta 3 (MiyooCFW Dev-build master-2f7fc93 )

[cricri-pingouin]

Last night, installed uclibc version of MiyooCFW Dev-build master-2f7fc93 , and so far:

Couldn't get to work:

• GnGeo: when running from shortcut created by the installer, selecting a GNO rom, GnGeo loads it but quits instantly. If I run GnGeo from the explorer and try to open a file or folder, again it quits. Was working when installed manually on beta 2, so not sure what the problem is.
• ecwolf (retrorach core): won't load WL6, SOD or N3D files. Again, was working on beta 2. Tried to run Retroarch, then load ecwolf core, then load a file, and I get "failed to load content".
• MAME (retroarch cores): tried to load a small rom (Bubble Bobble) and all MAME cores (2000/2003/2003 Plus) fail. I had tried Snow Bros before that and it failed too. "atetris.zip" (128Kb uncompressed) fails as well. Tried to load 2000 core manually from Retroarch, and seems to hang (waited few minutes), and that's the 10MB core, sp I can't imagine having luck with 2003 (or ScummVM core which is almost 40MB!).

Work:

• All standalone emus, except GnGeo (see above) and PCSX (because I haven't tried it)
  Retroarch cores:
• 2048
• Cannonball
• Cave Story (still slowdowns if music activated, so just disable music)
• Handheld devices (G&W)
• NES/GBx/GBA cores
• PicoDrive
• PrBOOM
• RACE
• ReMiniscence
• Xrick

The rest I haven't tried so far.

[cricri-pingouin]

Bummer, couldn't get FBA standalone to work either, got @Apaczer build from here:
https://github.com/Rezzy-dev/fba-miyoo-playable/releases/tag/release-m1

Selecting from the browser didn't load, so tried running FBA from explorer and load a ROM from within, but neither worked. So no FBA, MAME or NeoGeo working so far, ergo no arcade except Out Run through the Cannonball core.

Update: my old GnGeo I was using in beta 2 works (I could load Zupapa). My old FBA worked as I was able to load Cadillacs vs Dino, but it seems a lot of my romsets were not correct. I could tell because my old FBA at least tried to load some roms and told me some files were missing, the included FBA didn't tell me that.

I was also able to run Retroarch Stella and A5200 cores, so those work.

I tried PCSX, and both standalone and Retroarch cores are too slow, but I wasn't expecting it to be playable. It does load though.

[nfriedly]

In the old 1.3.3 release, I remember Crash Bandicoot was fairly playable, as was Final Fantasy VII, except for a couple of spots that consistently crashed (I had to transfer my save to a different device to get past them.)

[Apaczer]

GnGeo - latest version will work only with neogeo.zip and everything should be placed in /mnt/roms/NEOGEO - default dir for ROMsets & BIOSes (tested works)

FBA - I've no issue with my ROMsets (tested works), are you still having the same problem?

CaveStory (core) - the retroarch will have always slowdows, you could try official standalone instead

ECWolf (core) - works (you need to provide ecwolf.pk3 directly in /mnt/.retroarch/system/ dir, no subdirectory)

MAME (cores) - fixed in b1cee2f

BTW The size of the cores doesn't matter, I've loaded binaries 200MB before without problem

[cricri-pingouin]

Thanks, got further and found what some of my problems were:

• FBA: your build does work. I think some of my ROMs were MAME, so some not supported, and some maybe not the right contents. So I've now got better luck, except that a lot of games I tried last time and this time were Sega games (not just System 16, but also Alex Kidd, Shinobi, etc), and even if the file browser recognise those sets, they fail. But if you keep out of Sega games, e.g. CPS1, that's fine. I even managed to load some NeoGeo games.
• GnGeo: yes, it's very sensitive to the rom path, and you don't just need to have a neogeo.zip in \roms\neogeo, but you HAVE tol aunch a ROM that is in this folder too. If you try to browse folders, it crashes, and then you don't know what folder the setiings are set to, so you have to run GnGeo from the file browser, browse to the \roms\neogeo folder and successully load a ROM from there. Since it crashes when changing folder, you may have to repeat this several times until it's in the right folder (I suppose I could have tried to modify the cfg file if there is one, and maybe make it read only). Unfortunately, it still failed to load my spinmast.gno, so tried to load the FBA zip rom, and of course that failed, and then I was in the wrong folder again, so had to go through all those steps again.

Other things I tried:

• Dinothwar (retroarch): works but lags a lot, sometimes freezes for many seconds and you just have to wait. Not too bothered about it though.
• Gong (retroarch): works, but I wouldn't care if it didn't to be honest!
• MrBoom: works
• Menu: tried to delete some shortcuts I don't wean.t, and your get a confirmation "Are you sure, press Y", but none of the buttons work. I believe that was already a bug on beta2, so not a regression.
• IPK installer: 1st time worked, 2nd time froze (had to do a hard reboot), 3rd time worked?!
• Commander/explorer: no issues (so no regression)
• ScummVM (retroarch): trying to load Monkey Island as I type this but it's taking ages, not sure if it froze. EDIT it works, but extremely slow. Indy3 froze when I tried to open the package from the desk, had to hard reboot. Gobliiins also worked albeit also very slow to load. King's Quest 1 took more than a minute to load as well, so size might not matter, I could walk to the castle door no problem, but then I don't know how to type text to open the door. Finally tried Day of the Tentacle, very slow to load as one would expect, and also freezes upon any action for several seconds.
• NXengine (native), works great, from here: https://github.com/Apaczer/NXEngine

[Apaczer]

1. FBA: this is the source we have been presented with (we added a few QOLI changes - correct bindings, allow for direct CLI launch), which comes with broken SEGA emulation (see Sega roms issue Rezzy-dev/fba-miyoo-playable#1) probably a bug in DrZ80 code. To remedy I've reworked existing MAME4all code and made a release, the frame rate seems much smoother there for SEGA arcade but you must use MAME ROMsets and you can also direct launch game from any place.

2. GnGeo: I've must misread smth about UNIBIOS in src and made assumptions, but it is fixed now in latest release (use gngeo config file for change to apply). The paths issue have been also resolved but you need full reinstall with latest IPK (you can launch ROMset freely from any path, the BIOSes are asumed to be in the same directory but can be changed/hardcoded with --biospath CLI option. If it goes about "some ROMsets work, some don't" (see README there) - similary to FBA it is the only source code of GnGeo that have been open-sourced and if there is/was version with more working ROMs then it is closed sourced thus will not get any support from development team (you can use FBA for NeoGeo then - it plays really well e.g. mentioned "Spin Master").

3. ECWolf / MAME cores: it might come to version rollback [ISSUE]

4. IPK installer: it is a script from /boot partition which executes bash in /dev/tty1 and indeed it sometimes doesn't display anything (you can then use HOME+SELECT hotkey to SIGKILL an app) [WIP]

Again thanks for tests and detailed outcomes 👍

[cricri-pingouin]

@Apaczer One question about GnGeo, you say:
"provide neogeo.zip or uni-bios.rom BIOS"
If I just copy uni-bios_4_0.rom into /mnt/roms/NEOGEO/ rename it uni-bios.rom and remove neogeo.zip, it doesn't work.

EDIT found someone on the old Dingoonity forum suggesting:

• Spelling should be unibios.rom (no hyphen)
• Add line "system unibios" in file .gngeo\gngeorc"
  Tried both of those and neither worked to use unibios.

Checking roms.c:

  if(!(r->info.flags & HAS_CUSTOM_CPU_BIOS)) {
    if(conf.system == SYS_UNIBIOS) {
      char *unipath;
      /* First check in neogeo.zip */
      r->bios_m68k.p = gn_unzip_file_malloc(pz, "uni-bios.rom", 0x0, &r->bios_m68k.size);
      if(r->bios_m68k.p == NULL) {
        unipath = malloc(strlen(rpath) + strlen("uni-bios.rom") + 2);
        sprintf(unipath, "%s/uni-bios.rom", rpath);

%s/uni-bios.rom is correct, so I presume one of the if statements in the 1st line fails, the 2nd one seems to imply adding the line to gngeorc is needed but that fails anyway.

A bit further up, we have:
memory.ng_lo = gn_unzip_file_malloc(pz, "000-lo.lo", 0x0, &size);

So it seems it looks for 000-lo.lo first, so I replaced this file with unibios in neogeo.zip and finally get to use unibios. Bear in mind v4 has graphical glitches in the boot screen, but seems fine in the start+a+b+c screen.

[cricri-pingouin]

More testing:

• Retroarch cores: fMSX, Handy, PC Engine and Colecovision working. For the latter, put colecovision.rom in .retroarch\system
• Meritous: no key works to display the map, making the game tedious. I'm aware this is not part of the MiyooCFW package, but just a heads up.
• PCSX: lags even with frameskip on, CD audio off and speed hacks on; same on 2D games such as Castlevania, Road Rash and Megaman X4. I wasn't really expecting the Bittboy to run is well to be honest, but just to confirm that the hardware just can't cope. Native PCSX rearmed didn't seem to do better than Retroarch core.
• WonderSwan: lags as well, even when set to 60Hz. Not knowledgeable on this system so didn't have expectations.

[cricri-pingouin]

MAME4all tested and working, thanks!
For anyone wanting to give it a go, get it from @Apaczer git here:
https://github.com/Apaczer/mame4all_miyoo/releases
Then launch ipk from explorer to install.
Bear in mind performance will be what the ARM can provide, so expect some frame drops, and as mentioned in the release, stick to:

• use "11kHz fast" sound by default (for speed)
• use "bestscale" MAME arg option when setting "Scale Aspect" should improve scaling on 3:4 games

[Apaczer]

• in libretro ECWolf core I've tried WL1, SOD and seems to be working (can't replicate)
• the libretro MAME cores have been fixed in b1cee2f (you got to be loged-out GitHub to see actual changes in src), the loading times are still quite long but at least they are useful/playable now
• fixed FBA standalone SEGA emulation in "m2" revision, so should be inline with legacy version.
• a GnGeo standalone's roms selection and uni-bios loading fixed in "m2" revision, haven't fixed any specific game but should be doable by merging recent changes from mainstream FBNeo or MAME.