Mesen Retroarch Core & HDNES Packs

[Aclectico]

Also, the Castlevania pack should be the same scale as the Metroid pack. I'm not sure about Mega Man.

[Lordmonkus]

Removing the jumping sound does seem to get rid of that "popping" sound that happens. I guess there is something going on with that sound effect that causes it to make a loud pop every so often.

As for the shader differences with Castlevania and Metroid goes i'm not sure what to say other than with Castlevania the shader looks correct, the scanlines are the proper size but with Metroid using the same shader it has the same look as when used with a 480p game (N64 and Dreamcast).

Here are some screenshots to show this off.These 2 Castlevania shots are using the stock crt-aperture shader.

This Metroid shot is showing the stock crt-aperture shader, same as the Castlevania shots. Notice the scanlines are thinner and there are more of them.

This last Metroid shot is crt-aperture but with a 240p "descale" pass applied before the crt effect pass. It shows the scanlines in line with how they look in the Castlevania shots.

 

[Aclectico]

I'm stumped. Both Castlevania and Metroid output at 512x480. That's really odd that the default CRT shader option plays nicely with one, but behaves differently for the other. @Lordmonkus I noticed you wrote a tutorial about using SweetFX / Reshade to introduce shaders last year. Do you see the same issue in both the standalone version with SweetFX / Reshade and the Retroarch version with integrated shaders? Aside from that, I may be out of ideas.

As far as audio goes, I just remembered that the Metroid game uses the jumping sound to indicate lava damage as well. I think it was a very odd choice for the developers of the Metroid game. But, they programmed the jumping sound to play in a rapid loop when the player is damaged by lava or acid. This means if you delete the jumping sound, there will be silence when damaged by lava (this may, or may not be okay for you). An alternate strategy you could try is duplicating the running sound and renaming one of them to the jumping sound (since they are the same sound anyway with the running sound just being a bit softer). I'm not sure if that would help.

In any case, if the popping sound is intermittent, and the Retroarch version causes it to occur more frequently, my best guess is that it may be a performance issue. I notice audio popping issues on my end as well if I have too many windows open while running Mesen. If I close the windows, it seems to get better.

With that said, programming of sound did require 6502 assembly knowledge as part of the replacement process. This was beyond my area of expertise. So, KYA (the developer of the Castlevania pack) was gracious enough to assist during this part of development with the Metroid pack. So, KYA may also know something of the sound popping issue that I may not.

[Lordmonkus]

I very rarely use SweetFX / Reshade anymore and never in Retroarch.

[TonyRamirez]

Mesen standalone is now my favorite stand alone NES emulator.  I was not even looking for it and found it by accident.  I always prefer standalone emulators on the PC as I hate retroarch it is a PITA to configure and very easy to corrupt.  Many times I just changed one setting and something stops working had to restore a full backup on my external drive.  Standalone emulators I rarely corrupt.

[Lordmonkus]

Metroid HD received an update http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26811.msg362529#msg362529

[CDBlue]

FYI, I found this on the nesdev forums... Pac-Man HD Pack:

https://github.com/PepCodes/HDNes-Graphics-Pac

[CDBlue]

FYI, there's been an update to the pack for Metroid HD (version 1.3) http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26811.0

[Lordmonkus]

Grabbed this yesterday, great update.

[JamesBond@ge]

On 9/8/2018 at 6:46 PM, TonyRamirez said:

Mesen standalone is now my favorite stand alone NES emulator.  I was not even looking for it and found it by accident.  I always prefer standalone emulators on the PC as I hate retroarch it is a PITA to configure and very easy to corrupt.  Many times I just changed one setting and something stops working had to restore a full backup on my external drive.  Standalone emulators I rarely corrupt.

After using RetroArch for the last 5 years, I'm starting to think this way too. I updated to the latest 1.7.6 and for some reason the "Frame Counter" would display on every single system, no matter what config file was used. I had never set it like that before so it no reason to display after the update. And without mentioning updates, my custom ratio's would reset themselves for no apparent reason so I would have to reset them again in 80 odd config files. I dunno.

[FormulaFox]

I know this thread is a bit old, but it seems to be the best place to inquire about my own issue...

I only recently learned of these HD packs and decided to try them for myself on my arcade unit. I'm trying to apply to Castlevania, Mega Man, and Metroid.

I've set things up as instructed in the first post(which is in line with other documentation I've found) - put it in the system folder, made sure all the folder names match up with the ROM names, but... If I use Retroarch, the HD packs won't apply - even though the correct setting is on.

If I use the standalone version, the HD packs will work, but it won't let me play - I map my controls in the emulator(and it sees and accepts the input), but it won't respond to any button pushes once finished.

No idea what do from here.

[CDBlue]

I haven't played with the HD packs in a while, but it sounds like maybe a corrupted HD Pack.  If it doesn't allow you to play in the stand-alone, or the retroarch core, it might be related to that.  But, just because you didn't specify, you should also make sure you're running the latest version of the stand-alone, and the latest version of Retroarch and the Mesen core.
 

As of the time of this post:
Mesen standalone - latest version is 0.99 (https://www.mesen.ca/#Downloads)
Retroarch - latest version is 1.8.9 (https://www.retroarch.com/?page=platforms)
Mesen core - You can download it via the Core Installer option in retroarch, or update via the core updater option in retroarch (or if you do cores manually, you can grab the latest version from the nightly buildbot - https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/windows/x86_64/latest/mesen_libretro.dll.zip)

It's especially important to keep retroarch updated, because sometimes they introduce new features that the cores use. So, if you're using an updated core on an older version of retroarch, it might be glitchy and/or not work at all.  Not sure if that's the case with Mesen, but it's good to keep them both updated either way to ensure smooth functionality in general.

Hope this helps,
CDBlue

[FormulaFox]

Oh, updating Retroarch and the core was the first thing I did after it wouldn't load. I immediately downloaded the standalone version for the first time to see if it would work.

I should ahve been more clear, but the standalone version of Mesen won't accept my inputs even without an HD pack being applied - my bad for not being clear on that.

[CDBlue]

Hmm, ok.  next thoughts then :).  In the stand-alone Mesen, did you go through the input mapping section in the options?  And, if so, did it recognize/map properly there?  By default, the Mesen stand-alone won't likely work with a controller until you map the inputs to your actual controller, as opposed to Retroarch which usually just works with most controllers without having to map the inputs.

Open Mesen, select Options/Input. On the window that pops up, select setup next to player on, then go through and assign mappings to all the buttons/d-pad inputs, etc.

 

[CDBlue]

Just re-read your original post.  I guess you can ignore the above because you said you mapped it in the emulator lol.  I'll test my HD Packs when I get home to see if maybe they're broken in the latest versions.

[CDBlue]

Ok, I tried Mesen stand-alone and the lastest Mesen on on the latest nightly of Retroarch, and had no issues with the HD Packs I have installed.  On both, the packs worked, and the controls worked without issues. Not sure what the issue might be for you now, as I can't reproduce it. I'm out of ideas as to why it wouldn't work for you, because if the buttons mapped correctly, then your controls should work with or without the HD packs

Edited June 26, 2020 by CDBlue

[CDBlue]

FYI, Legend of Zelda HD Pack now available .... https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=31559.0

Note: You need to use the latest core version of Mesen in retroarch, or the latest dev build of the stand-alone Mesen for this pack to work (it will not work with the stable release of stand-alone Mesen)

[Monyet]

On 6/26/2020 at 10:43 AM, FormulaFox said:

I know this thread is a bit old, but it seems to be the best place to inquire about my own issue...

I only recently learned of these HD packs and decided to try them for myself on my arcade unit. I'm trying to apply to Castlevania, Mega Man, and Metroid.

I've set things up as instructed in the first post(which is in line with other documentation I've found) - put it in the system folder, made sure all the folder names match up with the ROM names, but... If I use Retroarch, the HD packs won't apply - even though the correct setting is on.

If I use the standalone version, the HD packs will work, but it won't let me play - I map my controls in the emulator(and it sees and accepts the input), but it won't respond to any button pushes once finished.

No idea what do from here.

Hey mate, I was running into this problem today. It worked fine in the standalone Mesen but wouldn't load in the RetroArch Mesen Core. I think I've tracked it down to the fact that the ROM is zipped. While Mesen supports loading from zips, it doesn't look like it can also apply an HDpack while opening from a zipped file in RetroArch. The Mesen core was made by the same guy that wrote Mesen I think, M. Bibaud (aka Sour) is the name I've seen. The project looks to be archived on github and I'm not signed up so I don't even know if I could email the guy. Maybe someone here knows? I also could be wrong, can anyone else load an HDpack while opening the rom from a zip?

[FormulaFox]

14 hours ago, Monyet said:

Hey mate, I was running into this problem today. It worked fine in the standalone Mesen but wouldn't load in the RetroArch Mesen Core. I think I've tracked it down to the fact that the ROM is zipped. While Mesen supports loading from zips, it doesn't look like it can also apply an HDpack while opening from a zipped file in RetroArch. The Mesen core was made by the same guy that wrote Mesen I think, M. Bibaud (aka Sour) is the name I've seen. The project looks to be archived on github and I'm not signed up so I don't even know if I could email the guy. Maybe someone here knows? I also could be wrong, can anyone else load an HDpack while opening the rom from a zip?

My ROMs are all in .nes format, not zipped.

[Monyet]

28 minutes ago, FormulaFox said:

My ROMs are all in .nes format, not zipped.

After posting that above and investigating it more with a person that works on the core it looks like there was a regression introduced recently so I guess my problem was different to yours since yours happened last year. Did you figure it out in the end?