Picodrive (standalone and libretro core) Mega Drive emulator

I think that this would be a great improvement to the system, thank you!

If you have a .so for it, I wouldn’t mind keeping it all within retroarch so I can use the hotkeys.

Send it my way!

Currently I am configuring the build for GameShell, I hope in the next days I will upload a standalone executable. It seems that it is possible to also build a libretro core so I will also try it and post the results here

Why Picodrive instead of Genesis Plus GX? I thought the later was the most accurate (it doesn’t have 32x support though).

Isn’t Genesis Plus GX provided as core through the RetroArch? I think the respective picodrive core crashes immediately. I am trying to provide some pluralism since there are comments about the poor emulation of Mega Drive on GameShell.

Maybe Genesis Plus GX will be the next in line to provide a standalone binary. For now I will focus on PicoDrive.

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For anyone interested in the libretro core of PicoDrive, I have updated the original post of this thread

Quick Instructions:

  1. ssh to GS and issue:
curl -sL https://github.com/pleft/picodrive/releases/download/v1.92-gameshell/picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92.tar.gz | tar -xvz --directory ~/.config/retroarch/cores/
  1. Launch the Retroarch from the menu,
  2. “Load core”: choose “picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92”
  3. “Load content”: browse to your sega roms directory and pick a rom to play
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All I did today was eat Doritos and play Sega.

Thanks, man.

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Let’s put things where they belong…

mv .config/retroarch/cores/picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92.so /home/cpi/apps/emulators/

Then fix the Sega launcher by editing /home/cpi/launcher/Menu/GameShell/20_Retro Games/SEGA/action.config:

ROM=/home/cpi/games/SEGA #ROM_SO=/home/cpi/apps/emulators/picodrive_libretro.so ROM_SO=/home/cpi/apps/emulators/picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92.so EXT=bin,zip LAUNCHER=retroarch -L TITLE=SEGA SO_URL=http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/armv7-neon-hf/latest/picodrive_libr$

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Thanks @lasvegas, I was too lazy last night to write instructions about it. Just some corrections

there is a space missing in the mv command (between the .so and the /home/cpi:

mv .config/retroarch/cores/picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92.so/home/cpi/apps/emulators/

should be:

mv .config/retroarch/cores/picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92.so /home/cpi/apps/emulators/

Add some more extensions not just bin, zip in the action.config. The SO_URL is obviously wrong but I guess we don’t mind.

ROM=/home/cpi/games/SEGA 
ROM_SO=/home/cpi/apps/emulators/picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92.so 
EXT=bin,zip,gen,32x,smd,iso 
LAUNCHER=retroarch -L 
TITLE=SEGA 
SO_URL=http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/armv7-neon-hf/latest/picodrive_libr$
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Thanks @elefas… Corrected in my post. Cool that more formats are supported!

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Great work!
I have create a menu!
Thanks @lasvegas @elefas

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Updated original post with standalone version coming in two flavors in rendering: software and opengl!

How could I install this emulator to appear in the “Retro Games” folder? So I would have it with other emulators such as PCSX.
PS: Can you tell me how to change the icons for ones in which the system appears? Any post with those icons, if it’s not too much trouble?
Thank you!

Hi! The Retro Games folder contains RetroArch emulators (cores). There exist a PicoDrive RetroArch core so you can either create a similar menu for this core following the instructions a few posts above: Picodrive (standalone and libretro core) Mega Drive emulator

If you still want the PicoDrive standalone emulator to appear in the Retro Games menu ssh to GameShell and do:

 curl -sL https://github.com/pleft/picodrive/releases/download/v1.92-gameshell/PicoDrive.tar.gz | tar -xvz --directory ~/launcher/Menu/GameShell/20_Retro\ Games/

And here are icons for most consoles:

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Hi. A question. Does the Core “picodrive_libretro_gameshell_v1.92” also work on OS 0.3 with Lima?

it should work, but don’t forget that the lima drivers are unstable currently so you may get varying results

You still can use standalone PicoDrive just like RetroArch. I tried with such action.config

ROM=/home/cpi/games/SEGA
ROM_SO=
EXT=7z,bin,gen,md,smd,zip
LAUNCHER=/home/cpi/launcher/Menu/GameShell/20_Retro\ Games/PicoDrive/PicoDrive
TITLE=SEGA
SO_URL=

quick question here… where should I put the bios files for 32X?

The BIOS location is identified in RetroArch’s configuration. You can find it at RetroArch->Settings->Directory->System/BIOS. Mine is set to /home/cpi/games/retroarch/system

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I did Las Vegas and your steps the way you guys said, but every time I boot up a rom it tells me that picodrive_libr$ Download failed. What do I do?