Can't start a SNES Game with the Retroarch Emulator

[Luftritter]

Hi, at the moment I test both (Retroarch and Launchbox) and I can't start SNES Games with Launchbox. When I start a ROM in the commandbox it works (retroarch.exe "FULLPATH\FILENAME.zip"), I can play the game. With Launchbox nothing happens, only "Play count" goes up. No error, nothing. Is there a logfile I find more information what goes wrong? I run the apps with Win10 64Bit, are there known problems with snes9x, because some roms doesn't start with the retroarch commandline. Thanks a lot, Christian

[SentaiBrad]

While the Snes9x core is similar to the emulator they are still different, so the same things don't necessarily apply. Either way you can't use zip's to launch games they need to be unzipped.

[Jason Carr]

Hi @Luftritter, are you using the default Retroarch configuration? What core are you using in Retroarch?

[Luftritter]

Hi, thanks for your answers. I unzip some games and import them new in the launchbox and than I start them again. Now the result is a little bit different. In the taskbar I can see the retroarch, but the screen is freezed. I even can move my mouse. With Alt-Tab I switch to retroarch (now the screen is white and Windows try to close the app, cause there is no response. Thats all. I use the core: snes9x_libretro.dll

[Jason Carr]

Alright, sounds like Retroarch is just fried somehow. Are you able to start Retroarch at all? Is that snes9x_libretro.dll core the same one that is referenced in LaunchBox for Super Nintendo on the Retroarch emulator? Screenshot us the Retroarch emulator's Associated Platforms tab.

[fromlostdays]

Luftritter said Hi, thanks for your answers. I unzip some games and import them new in the launchbox and than I start them again. Now the result is a little bit different. In the taskbar I can see the retroarch, but the screen is freezed. I even can move my mouse. With Alt-Tab I switch to retroarch (now the screen is white and Windows try to close the app, cause there is no response. Thats all. I use the core: snes9x_libretro.dll

I may be stating the obvious, but what extensions do your snes roms have? You should try backing up and then deleting your snes9x.libretro config file (if you're running config per core) and/or the retroarch.cfg in the main directory, and rerunning retroarch. I've never had the issue anything like your above in RA except when A: I tried to load too many shaders at once, bad idea B: I set the video driver as D3D instead of GL and C: I tried to load a rom with an unsupported extension. Let me know what you find.

[SentaiBrad]

Make a backup first of the cfg's before deleting.

[Oats]

Not sure if you ever figured this one out but in case it will help someone else out....I had the same issue a short time ago. I was able to fix the problem by editing the retroarch emulator settings within launchbox under associated platforms tab using snes9x2010_libretro.dll instead of snes9x_libretro.dll

 

[Lordmonkus]

Or you could have just downloaded the actual Snes9x core.

[Oats]

Thats the problem.... I did have that core already and it wasn't launching the games 

[Lordmonkus]

Then something else was setup wrong.

Did you try the BSnes cores at all ?

I only say this because the Snes9x2010 core is based off an older 1.52 build of Snes9x and has more incompatibilities than even the standard Snes9x.

[Oats]

I can agree that something else must have been wrong 

This all started because I was attempting to create a 4tb portable HD that would run launchbox with all of my emulators/roms on it. I worked on it at home first using my gaming PC and organizing a folder structure on the drive. When I took the drive to my office where I have my arcade cabinet I hooked it up to a different PC and tried to launch everything to verify that it would work. Everything was functional at home but not on that PC so this was the last thing I ended up having to "fix" 

[Oats]

I didnt try any of the Bsnes cores either because most of the research I had done here and elsewhere on the web indicated that snes9x was the way to go

Originally I was using different emulators for all of the systems but I wanted to consolidate as much as possible into one emulator

Either way I got it working and launched a few games. I suppose I could do some more troubleshooting to figure out if there was something else I missed but i'm not sure if it's worth it

What do you think?

[Lordmonkus]

Snes9x is a good all around core, it has decent compatibility and works well on not so high end hardware but personally I prefer the BSnes_Balanced core over it. BSnes has a bit higher CPU requirements but you get near 100% compatibility.

I just think the Snes9x2010 is a step backwards unless you are really struggling for perfomance.

[Oats]

I'll check it out on the recommendation 

The PC i'm using at the office has no where near the power that my gaming machine does but it isn't weak either so its worth a shot

Thanks

[Lordmonkus]

I'm not sure what the exact CPU requirements are on the BSnes Balanced core but the Accuracy core is around the 3 GHz mark so if you are close to that you should be more than good to go with the balanced core.

[SentaiBrad]

The reason why it's probably not working is because the pathing is all wrong, most likely. If you're taking a hard drive from one PC to another, Windows will assign it a different letter on different machines (assuming it's using absolute paths). So if it's an E drive at home, at work it might be a D drive. If LaunchBox, the emulators and roms are all on the same drive, then it should be using relative paths (you'll know it's using relative paths if you see '../' instead of a drive letter when viewing the paths of roms and emulators. If you're set up with relative paths, then my guess is it could be a setting. Also, I would still choose Bsnes Performance over Snes9X also, so if you do get it working and Bsnes Balanced is still not performing as it should, then try Performance. Compatibility should be just as good, but accuracy will take a hit where Snes9x has accuracy and compatibility issues.

[Oats]

Pathing is fine as I adjusted that prior to trying to firing any of these apps up but they are using relative paths anyway with the emulators and roms all being on the same drive.

I am fairly certain that it was a setting in retroarch but I switched it over to bsnes balanced core this morning and everything still worked. I'm working on PS1 games now using the mednafen_psx core and everything is moving along smoothly. 

I think I might run into problems with the PS2 since I can't use retroarch for it but I have found some promising posts about older versions of PCSX2 which can be made portable. 

Thanks for the assist !

-Oats

 

[SentaiBrad]

As long as you keep the data PCSX2 wants in your PCSX2 folder, and not in your documents folder, then you should be good to go. I recall every version of PCSX2 coming with in an installer and an archive that was "portable", but it's been a while. You won't need to worry about the file paths per-se in PCSX2 as long as LB is still using relative paths.