Taking a crack at the WindowCast core for Retroarch, anyone have any experience?

[onebadveggie]

So, I'm currently trying to use the WindowCast core for Retroarch. For those who don't know what that is:

https://forums.libretro.com/t/official-release-thread-for-windowcast-core/40464

Simply put, it's a core for retroarch that allows you to launch stand alone emulators through retroarch, so you can enjoy the shaders that retroarch uses. The thing is, it's a bit finicky, and seems to have stopped development. That said, I was wondering if anyone had had a lot success with it? Right now, the big pain I'm having is with PCSX2. I found a python wrapper that makes it "more" simple to use in front ends, but my specific issue is with it not being able to launch a game directly. Here's the wrapper here:

https://github.com/AmateursPls/wincast/

Now, I am totally uneducated when it comes to scripting/ahk/etc. But I feel like I'm so close to getting this working how I'd want it to, but I just don't have the knowledge to get me over that last hump. The main problem being WindowCast grabs the emulators by using the title in the windows. This works for a lot of emulators, but the issue here is when you launch PCSX2, the title of the window becomes the game title, and WindowsCast is looking for the name of emulator itself. So, if you wanted it to work properly, you'd have to manually input every title of every game so that WindowCast finds it. This is also true for the Wincast wrapper as well, except for in this case, you'd have to manually input the full path to each rom in the running script.

So in launchbox I set up the wincast wrapper as an emulator. Then in the running script for it I put something akin to this:

Run, "...\Emulators\wincast.exe" --emulator "...\Emulators\PCSX2\pcsx2-qt.exe" --retroarch "...\Emulators\RetroArch\retroarch.exe"

Now, this script will use wincast to launch PCSX2, and Retroarch with the windowcast core running. And as far as that goes it works great, but I can't get it to run a rom, it just boots up the gui, which you can't really do much with.

However, wincast does have a command you can add to the end of this.

--rom "...\ROMS\PS2\Game title.chd"

Which when I use this, it works great, no issues, other than the obvious fact that I'd have to do separate launch conditions for every single rom if this was how I want to go.

So, to sum it up, what I guess I'm looking for is if someone knows a way I can either fool the wincast wrapper into "knowing" what rom I want it to use, so I don't have to make separate launchers for each game. OR does anyone have perhaps a script that would launch the windowcast core/PCSX2/rom, without the need of the python wrapper at all?

[skizzosjt]

I'm kinda just rambling and thinking out loud in the linked post below but I share everything so should at least give you an idea of how to implement something for yourself. I sure didn't use that wrapper, it was garbage when I tried it!

I did not want a bunch of random text files with just a single game name in them. Pretty dumb in my opinion. So I have a single file which can have different games on each line. Script will parse through the file looking for the game/emulator window title or executable (hint you should be using executable for a emulator!) Pic of the WindowCast file for ex below. You def do not need to do it like this, but thought I'd point out that is sort of "above and beyond" what you likely need to implement. I did this bc my main use is more on native PC games.

 

 

[EvoluZion3]

I've been using this for Xemu quite successfully. The way I have it set up is:

In my \LaunchBox\Emulators folder I have a WinCast folder, containing just two files:

• wincast.txt, which literally has the text:  xemu, to identify the emulator window when it opens
• wincast_xbox.bat, which looks like this:

start ..\RetroArch\retroarch.exe -L "..\RetroArch\cores\wgc_libretro.dll" "wincast.txt" -f --appendconfig "..\RetroArch\overlays\Microsoft Xbox.cfg" --set-shader "Microsoft Xbox.slangp"
..\Xemu\xemu.exe -dvd_path %1
del xemu.log

In the LaunchBox Emulators list, all I have in the Application Path is: Emulators\WinCast\wincast_xbox.bat

This allows me to pass any Overlay and any Shader into the WinCast core for Xbox, along with the game filename of course.

In RetroArch I have to turn off the "save config upon exit" option for the above --appendconfig to work, otherwise I think it'll keep spamming the config file with overlay pathnames. I do this for everything I run via RetroArch so I can pass Overlay and Shader per-platform, not per-core. 

EDIT: I've just got it working with Pico-8 as well:

Create a second batch file inside the WinCast subfolder called wincast_pico8.bat:

start ..\RetroArch\retroarch.exe -L "..\RetroArch\cores\wgc_libretro.dll" "wincast.txt" -f --appendconfig "..\RetroArch\overlays\Pico-8.cfg" --set-shader "Pico-8.slangp"
..\pico-8\pico8.exe -run %1 -windowed 1 -home "..\pico-8"

Inside my pico-8 emulator folder I need a config.txt file with: read_controllers_in_background 1   otherwise the gamepad input doesn't go into it.

Then, under my emulators list in RetroArch, Pico8 is just: Emulators\WinCast\wincast_pico8.bat

Edited Thursday at 07:58 PM by EvoluZion3
Added second platform