Did anyone get Retroarch to work? How?

[Jayson]

The version that comes with the latest OS image does not work. If you update the core updater url you can at least get cores to show up but they do not load. Roms seem to also not get recognized. Did anyone get Retroarch to work? I bought the uConsole as mobile gaming device among other things and this is quite frustrating.

Can we expect any OS updates?

[guu]

PSA: arm64 Retroarch cores

For anyone interested in retro gaming: it’s easy to install Retroarch on DevTerm with sudo apt install retroarch, but then it’s a bummer the first time you navigate the UI to learn that there are no emulator cores. This is because the main core library in the Libretro repo doesn’t include arm64 (aarch64) builds. I wanted to let folks know that this repo does provide arm64 core builds. I wasn’t able to just point Retroarch to the URL and install them through the UI though. Instead I had to manua…

retroarch -L xxxxx.so rom.zip

I got retroarch working by this way on devterm & uConsole

seems that official retroarch does not have arm64 core pre-compilied ,that’s why the core updater will fail

[DoornailRumba]

See this post for info getting ARM64 cores to work in Retroarch. That post is focused on the devterm, but I’d expect the uconsole should be identical in that regard.

[Alienxdroid]

I got retroarch working by installing PIApps, used that to Install Pikiss too. Install retroarch (with piapps) and the cores will be loaded from what I can tell. You just need to manually load the core and find the rom directory. I think I used PiApps for retroarch.

[poetaster]

I got it working with this approach, but the retroarch game selection screen won’t go away after loading the game (game boy color, aladin). Game loads and can be played, sort of. But the Rom selection screen doesn’t disappear? Any one have an idea?

[talia9tailz]

Hitting F1 then Resume makes the menu go away at least but it’s not a permanent solution

[poetaster]

Yes, I did stumble on that solution! Thanks.

[poetaster]

@king360

You need to install core first。

That is not relevant. Even with core(s) there and loaded, loading content still leaves the menu ‘laid over’. Have to do F1 followed by ‘resume’ to get the overlay to go away. Not sure if I should ask upstream…

[Gromitt]

So I got retropie working by using bookworm and I can go into the UI but there are no cores but I go into the setup and this is what I see

Can anybody help I’m so close I can see all my ROMs on my USB stick I can open retropie the option to scan directory for ROMs isn’t there I don’t care if I got a manually load a ROM I just need the cores it says are installed to be there and every time I try installing one it keeps popping up libVulcan unable to install or other things

[Rex]

You’ll need to change the path that retroarch looks for the roms in you usb drive or you can mount you usb drive to the roms folder assuming you have your folder structure right.

[mikeschnier]

I want to help you. You are making decisions that make it difficult to help you.

1. You are having an issue with Retropie and you are posting in a thread about Retroarch. Retropie uses Retroarch to emulate games but the setup process is different.
2. You are not separating your thoughts into sentences. This makes it difficult to understand the problem you are experiencing. Rex thinks that you are having issues with the ROMs but I think you are having an issue with cores.
3. By posting about the same issue in different threads, it’s difficult to keep track of what issue you are experiencing.

I think you would have a much easier time with Rex’s Retropie distro. It’s preconfigured. The cores work. There aren’t weird permissions issues to deal with. And the emulation performance is better.

[mikeschnier]

Have you tried installing the missing dependencies?

Also, if you really need cores you can find precompiled aarch64 cores here. Not all of them work on the Pi4 but many of them do. retroarch-cores/aarch64 at master · christianhaitian/retroarch-cores · GitHub

[Gromitt]

So new problem I got retro pie working I can get to the menu but it has zero cores when I go into the setup it says all the cores are installed I even tried manually installing optional cores and it installed it and I went to manually load a game and it says that there are zero cores installed. I mean the advertising for these things kind of implied good to go out of the box and a lot of people bought these with that in mind or under the assumption it was just like a regular raspberry and you know I like having to do work around and stuff and gain knowledge but this is just getting I mean massively ridiculous the screen orientation is always messed up I got a boot it from a command line first then start the desktop environment then turn my screen to the right because it loads sideways then everything’s working then I go to load a rom just to find out that there’s no cores but all the cores are installed according to the config it’s just frustrating at this point cuz I’ve been trying to get this running for months now and so have a lot of others and it’s sad because it’s putting a lot of people off something that can be extremely fun. Last problem is because I’m new to this forum it only lets me post three times into one topic which is super neat I don’t even know if this is going to post I really hope it does and can get some feedback but if not if anybody can help me or anything feel free to email me at any point gromittvomitt which is at yee ol gmail. I really don’t know the rules for forums if I can put an email into here or not I rarely use them but I appreciate any and all help anybody can give me and thank you so so much mr rex as you have been very instrumental on getting me this far I truly appreciate it and it is anything I can do I’ve never donated to anybody before but I feel as though I would love to make an exception in your case I can scrounge up a couple munnies to send you a digital coffee or the like let me know:-)

[Gromitt]

Could you list in order the terminal commands that I would need to input to get the dependencies required please that’s been a missing piece I think maybe I don’t know but every time I go to update it blocks half of a bunch of stuff and same thing with retro pie I’m trying to install things and it says missing libvulkan missing this missing that a bunch of libs missing but like previously stated it’s running it says all the cores are installed when I to the emulation station menu because nothing’s popping up in retropie I go to load Court and it says there are none installed confusion has set in im afraid

[mikeschnier]

@Gromitt

I mean the advertising for these things kind of implied good to go out of the box and a lot of people bought these with that in mind or under the assumption it was just like a regular raspberry and you know I like having to do work around and stuff and gain knowledge but this is just getting I mean massively ridiculous

Hey, welcome to Linux. I’m sorry that you’re getting frustrated. If you want an experience that works “out of the box,” you can install the Retropie distro. It’s great. I use it. You’ll have a good time. RetroPie for uConsole and DevTerm CM4

If you’re so frustrated that you don’t want to use your uConsole anymore, I’m sure you can find someone who would be willing to take it off your hands at a fair price.

[Rex]

download this image and flash it to a sd card using raspberrypi imager. DO NOT APPLY CUSTOM SETTINGS.

667.17 MB file on MEGA

Then insert the sd into the uConsole and let it boot and expand the filesystem it will reboot during this. After reboot, choose a username and password. Enter the command for your device at the prompt. sudo retropie-device uconsole that will set RetroPie up for the uConsole instead of the DevTerm, then reboot. You will be loaded into EmulationStation with almost all emulators and cores that will work on the CM4. You can remove your sd and instert it into a computer and load your roms into the roms folder in the home directory in ~/RetroPie/roms/ after you load some roms, eject the sd and insert into your uConsole.

[Gromitt]

I had tried that that was the first thing I did I was like oh this should work just like a raspberry I flashed the retropie image for the retropie 4/400 fired it up to a black screen and nothingness

[Gromitt]

Did something change are you saying I can go Flash the retropie image right now stick it in my Clockwork and it’ll work cuz if that’s the case right on the whole reason I bought this was to have a pocket console I have a 2 terabyte USB stick that has every game ever made for every system from PlayStation 1 down and that’s all I want to be able to hook it up to an external monitor for playing with friends and to have it in my pocket to kill some time

[Rex]

you need the kernel and drivers for the uConsole thats why the distro from where ever you got it from won’t work. download the custom made image I made for the device and it will work.

[mikeschnier]

Yeah, that’s what happens if you try to use a Raspberry Pi distro that doesn’t have the uConsole drivers. If you use the Retropie distro that Rex compiled then everything works.