sonkun

It seems this place pretty much became a ghost town since those wretched Android 9 upgrades and updates that turned everything upside down but I'll try to help the best I can since I still use HyperSpin on my Shield although I'm still on Shield version 8.2.3.

Are you on Android version 9? If so have you installed the "beta 2" version apk of HyperSpin?

29 minutes ago, C0ntrA said:

So where are you guys obtaining the Hyperspin launcher?

From the PlayStore under Android 11, it doesn't launch at all.

Is there a new updated APK that launches under Android 11 somewhere?

 

Confused.

Yes a new test apk was uploaded in this thread I believe on page 5 or something. Go back a few pages and you'll find it

52 minutes ago, pmindemann said:

That did it, @sonkun! 

I didn't touch the .opt files, since I don't know what they do. But I DID go and see where Retroarch expected the bios files to be located, and even though Bandit's build supposedly gets around all that by having bios files in the rom folders (and tells Retroarch to look there), that was clearly not working! The solution was just to move the bios file to the System folder, and then voila... it worked great in both Retroarch and Hyperspin!

That means I've not got every system (except Dolphin, which we know) working in Hyperspin when launched from Retroarch! 

This is a good day... thank you for the big-time assist! My next mission will be to venture beyond Bandit's build and start adding things like TurboGrafx, SuperGrafx, etc. and see what I can break (haha). I'm not sure why he didn't include systems like those in his build, but I guess he had to leave some things out. 

Anyway, Hyperspin is back in the game, for me!

Nice I'm glad you got it sorted out. Yeah so that's the folder you'll dump all your bios in. You say you plan to add in turbografx etc, that core also needs a bios file that'll need to be put in the same folder you put that saturn bios, along with any other bios you'll need for future cores you plan to add that need a bios.

As a bonus here's a wheel you and everyone else can add to their Hyperspin set up

It's a Sonic Hack wheel I put together not to long ago, every game on that wheel can be played using the Genesis Plus GX core. Games from Game Gear, Master System, Genesis and Sega CD are all included in that wheel. That should add some more fun to your set up.

52 minutes ago, pmindemann said:

 

Thanks, @sonkun! I was able to set the GL override for just Mupen, so that's great... appreciate the assist! I tried to do the same for Yaba Sanshiro, but...

Yaba Sanshiro doesn't work at all in Retroarch (I can get it to load as a standalone, however, which is odd). In Retroarch, it does say that the saturn_bios.bin is missing. I first used the bios provided in the Bandit build, but figuring maybe it was bad, I downloaded the supposedly Retroarch-approved bios from: https://github.com/Abdess/retroarch_system/blob/libretro/Sega - Saturn/saturn_bios.bin. So, yeah, I don't know what's up with Retroarch saying it's missing... or why it seems to work fine in the standalone app (?!). 

As for the system config file, boy was that hard to find! In my Retroarch->Config folder, all I have are system folders (and within those are .opt files). BUT... I did a "save current configuration," and Retroarch told me the file was here: \\SHIELD\internal\Android\data\com.retroarch.aarch64\files. So, that's where I found it, and I changed "Vulkan" to "GL" but it made no difference. The closest thing I could find to a per-system config file for Yaba Sanshiro was this mysterious "opt" file in the config folder. The only information shown for Sanshiro is: 

The yabasanshiro_addon_cart = "4M_extended_ram"
yabasanshiro_force_hle_bios = "disabled"
yabasanshiro_frameskip = "enabled"
yabasanshiro_multitap_port1 = "disabled"
yabasanshiro_multitap_port2 = "disabled"
yabasanshiro_polygon_mode = "perspective_correction"
yabasanshiro_rbg_resolution_mode = "original"
yabasanshiro_rbg_use_compute_shader = "disabled"
yabasanshiro_resolution_mode = "original"
yabasanshiro_sh2coretype = "dynarec"
yabasanshiro_system_language = "english"

Appreciate any additional advice you might have for getting Yaba working through Retroarch! 

Yaba Sanshiro definitely works on Retroarch as I've been doing a lot of Saturn gaming on it all this week even played a game a few minutes ago. Ok let's try a few things, first open RetroArch, go to Settings/Directory. The first thing you should see at the top is System/Bios. Whatever is displayed there is where RetroArch expects you to place all of your bios files so if your saturn_bios.bin file isn't in the folder that System/Bios line shows, that's the reason it shows up as missing when you load up the yaba sanshiro core so get that straightened out first to where it shows the bios file as present whenever you load the yaba sanshiro core, that'll also help with other cores that expects a bios file in the same location. Unless you've changed that location to a different folder of your choice, the default bios path should be:

/storage/emulated/0/RetroArch/system

So place the saturn bios file in your RetroArch/System folder if that is what you see. Take it a extra step by making sure the naming is correct, I use to have problems with my Hyperspin not loading a game because of case sensitive naming, example being that even though you might have the "saturn_bios.bin" It's possible that it could still show up as missing if it's spelled like "saturn_bios.BIN" so make sure all letters match letter for letter if it's all lower case.

Next, delete that system opt file it's not needed. See what happens after doing those two things and get back to me.

On 8/14/2022 at 11:33 PM, pmindemann said:

@sonkun - Thank you so much for the advice! Unfortunately, though I have a fair amount of experience with emulators in general (and Hyperspin on PC), I'm pretty new to both Retroarch and Android, and I'm having trouble doing even the most basic things you suggest...

• I could only find a broad video output option for GL/Vulkan in the Settings->Video->Output in Retroarch, and I assume that applies across cores. How do I locate individual core settings, so I don't have to change them across-the-board to GL? In my Retroarch->config folder, the per-system files are all in an .opt file format, not cfg. Is there a way to do a per-system video driver change through the Retroarch UI itself, or are you seeing a folder I'm not?
• Similarly, for Yaba Sanshiro, I couldn't even get it to run (at all). I changed the video driver to GL in the general settings (couldn't find the cfg file, as noted above), and even with the "entire" system set to GL, all the bioses in place, etc., Yaba wouldn't launch. Any suggestions appreciated!

I'm running Retroarch 1.10.3 on Android 9, for whatever it's worth. 

Yes, whichever driver output you set it to will save across all cores after you exit and re enter RetroArch, I suggest setting it to vulkan for everything use gl for just mupen64plus gles3 and yaba sanshiro (Assuming you're playing on Shield TV. If you're playing on a newer phone then I suggest using the more accurate Beetle Saturn core and maybe try mupen using both the parallel plugins which those two cores should also be played using the vulkan driver instead of gl.). I'm not sure why you have system.opt files, I only have system.cfg files and game.opt files depending on if I tweak and save a specific game option in the core options. What are in your system.opt?

To get to individual core settings you first have to start up any game in any core then head into the quick menu and go down to core options, but that's not how you would set a individual core to just use gl while the others use vulkan etc. To set a individual core to gl while your global setup is on vulkan load up any game, go to the quick menu/main menu/settings/drivers/set it to gl/settings/quick menu again/overrides/save core overrides. After saving I suggest going back to to quick menu and then hit close content to ensure that your settings have been saved properly then go down and hit quit retroarch. Saving a override is also how you create a system cfg in the config folder as well. Now when you load up that system again it will always play in gl driver mode even though your global driver is set to vulkan.

For yaba sanshiro, does it not work only when you run a game from hyperspin or it also doesn't work through retroarch alone? If it's through hyperspin try using this:

parameters=cores/yabasanshiro_libretro_android.so

If that doesn't work let's confirm that it's finding your bios when you load the core so go into retroarch and load up the yaba sanshiro core then go down to information/core information then look at where it says Firmware, the only bios you need is that saturn_bios.bin file, if it says the word Present that means it sees your bios file, if it says Missing then that could be your reason for the crash. If it sees your bios file and it still crashes maybe you have a bad bios which I could help get you a better one through a pm only.

Let me know how things go.

I see people here making the switch to RetroArch for this new version of HyperSpin, that's good as I feel RetroArch is one of the best all in one ways to play these retro games. I see people having trouble on RetroArch with the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 cores, I'll try to help out the best I can. Mind you I'm still on 8.2.3 on my Shield and will not update it to 9 until I know for sure HyperSpin works again at the least but first thing's first, for Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 use the Yaba Sanshiro and Mupen64Plus-Next GLES3 cores, the Parallel N64 core use to be good but is now outdated so it's not recommended. For the other Sega Saturn cores Yabuse does work kind of but it's also really old and outdated and the best Saturn core Beetle Saturn is the most accurate but the Shield simply isn't beefy enough to handle it so it runs slow as hell ( I wish it worked). Next, those two cores (Yaba and Mupen) only work fast on the Shield in GL mode so make sure your driver in the settings options is set to "gl" and not vulkan, use vulkan for all other systems though.

Next I'll point out that the Yaba Sanshiro core has not been updated in almost 2 years or more, it's still stuck on the old 3.4.2 version and the mod that runs that core refuses to update it for reasons he stated on the libretro forums you can find if you do a search there.

For N64 after you load up a game I recommend you go into the core options, there you'll see a few settings, one named RDP Plugin and RSP Plugin. Leave RDP Plugin on the GlideN64 settings and leave RSP Plugin on the HLE setting. Most people would recommend changing both of those settings to Parallel which is suppose to give you better speed but for some reason on the Shield it does the exact opposite and slows games down so I don't use it and it has not been addressed yet.

Anyway go into the GlideN64 settings and change all these settings I'm about to list below to give you a better and closer to accurate gaming experience:

4:3 Resolution - 320x240

Bilinear filtering mode - 3point

Dithering - On

MSAA level - 8

Copy auxiliary buffers to RDRAM - On

Background Mode - Stripped

Continuous texrect coords - Force

Native res. 2D texrects - Optimized

Less accurate blending mode - Off

GPU shader depth write - On

Anything not mentioned you can leave as is.

For Yaba Sanshiro I recommend using chd files over the bin/cue format, for some reason when I used bin/cue I had problems with bgm tracks not looping properly and playing bgm from whole different parts of the game instead of the intended stage bgm, that all stopped when I switched over to the chd format.

If both the Yaba and Mupen cores crash for you before even loading up try going into into your folder program and the RetroArch/Config and then go into both the Mupen or Yaba folder and then open up the cfg file and look and type in "video_driver = "gl" then save it, that way way even if your video driver setting is set to vulkan those two cores will always start in gl automatically for you. Also make sure you're using the latest version of RetroArch and not some old outdated version, a lot of problems happen because a user is using an old version of RetroArch.

Dolphin stopped working on Android RetroArch for almost 3 years now as well so your only choice is the stand alone emulator for that. I'm sure some of you know PS2 now works on the Shield and I posted the parameters needed in the ps2 settings thread to get that up and running on here as well.

Finally this one is a little off topic but for those now switching to RetroArch and would like to apply a filter/shader I made some nice looking shader presets you can use to get that old school crt look. I made a shader pack that only works with the vulkan driver and then I put together a gl shader preset you can also use specifically with the Yaba and Mupen cores in gl mode that you can check out here:

https://forums.libretro.com/t/please-show-off-what-crt-shaders-can-do/19193/4855?u=sonkun

and here:

https://forums.libretro.com/t/a-new-little-shader-i-did-glsl/36028/114?u=sonkun

Another benefit to switching over to RetroArch is you can use overlay bezels to fill in the black spaces on the side of the screen to get your games looking like this:

https://ibb.co/C7Ry3x5

https://ibb.co/9TbRDB1

Any other questions and I'll try to help out the best I can. I can't wait until everything is sorted out and we all can use HyperSpin again new and improved again.