Retroarch with Mendafen/Beetle PSX HW fails to launch PS1 games

[prYldfire]

First, my goal is to apply shaders using the multi pass options.  If you know another way that would be ace.  

As is, I've gotten Retroarch to work with Beetle PSX HW core selected and have applied wonderfully beautiful shaders, but I want more.  I'd gotten used to launching PS1 titles through LaunchBox along with all other games, but I had to use the SwanStation core which just doesn't run shaders it seems.  I've also had to switch UI cores within Retroarch, because with Beetle selected as the core I get a failed to load hardware renderer with the UI core that was already selected.  

But here's the rub.  When I go to play the game from Launchbox, it fails to open if I have the Beetle/Mendafen core selected under the associated platforms screen.  I press play, I get the spinning loading cursor for a second, and then nothing.  If I switch to the SwanStation core, it works fine.  But if I just open the same Retroarch .exe from within the Launchbox folder, I can select the Beetle core and as I stated before, it looks freakin' fantastic! 

Can you help me get this goin?!

[faeran]

On 11/24/2024 at 4:19 AM, prYldfire said:

First, my goal is to apply shaders using the multi pass options.  If you know another way that would be ace.  

As is, I've gotten Retroarch to work with Beetle PSX HW core selected and have applied wonderfully beautiful shaders, but I want more.  I'd gotten used to launching PS1 titles through LaunchBox along with all other games, but I had to use the SwanStation core which just doesn't run shaders it seems.  I've also had to switch UI cores within Retroarch, because with Beetle selected as the core I get a failed to load hardware renderer with the UI core that was already selected.  

But here's the rub.  When I go to play the game from Launchbox, it fails to open if I have the Beetle/Mendafen core selected under the associated platforms screen.  I press play, I get the spinning loading cursor for a second, and then nothing.  If I switch to the SwanStation core, it works fine.  But if I just open the same Retroarch .exe from within the Launchbox folder, I can select the Beetle core and as I stated before, it looks freakin' fantastic! 

Can you help me get this goin?!

It should be as simple as what you did there. Cores don't really need anything special to function. I mean this one does need a bios file, but sounds like you already have that sorted out if the same game is working in RetroArch that isn't working in LaunchBox.

A few things you can check. First concentrate on just one game that you've double checked is working in RetroArch, but isn't working in LaunchBox.

• Edit the game, go to the Launching section and make sure the path to the file is the same as where the file actually is.
• Confirm what kind of game file types you have for this game. Is it bin/cue, chd, something else? If it's bin/cue, is the file path pointing to the cue file?
• Still under Edit game, go to the Emulation section. Is the emulator chosen the correct RetroArch emulator you are expecting it to launch in? If it's not, choose it. If it is, Edit the emulator and make sure everything in there looks good with its Details and Associated Platforms section
• Under the Dependency Files section, choose PS1 from the dropdown, is LaunchBox seeing the right dependency files there?

Let us know how this goes. If you are still having issues, zip up your entire LaunchBox\Data folder and PM it to me and I can help sort you out.

[prYldfire]

3 hours ago, faeran said:

It should be as simple as what you did there. Cores don't really need anything special to function. I mean this one does need a bios file, but sounds like you already have that sorted out if the same game is working in RetroArch that isn't working in LaunchBox.

A few things you can check. First concentrate on just one game that you've double checked is working in RetroArch, but isn't working in LaunchBox.

• Edit the game, go to the Launching section and make sure the path to the file is the same as where the file actually is.
• Confirm what kind of game file types you have for this game. Is it bin/cue, chd, something else? If it's bin/cue, is the file path pointing to the cue file?
• Still under Edit game, go to the Emulation section. Is the emulator chosen the correct RetroArch emulator you are expecting it to launch in? If it's not, choose it. If it is, Edit the emulator and make sure everything in there looks good with its Details and Associated Platforms section
• Under the Dependency Files section, choose PS1 from the dropdown, is LaunchBox seeing the right dependency files there?

Let us know how this goes. If you are still having issues, zip up your entire LaunchBox\Data folder and PM it to me and I can help sort you out.

Thanks for your response, Admin.  I got to suggestion 2, and found that it was pointing to the bin file, so I changed that and it did the trick.  Save states no longer work though but new ones are so I'm guessing they are associated to the .bin.  I'm not sure at all how it was working before.  Maybe in the other core it's not needed to point to the cue?  In any event, it is now working and here is the result:

And a couple more at 4x internal resolution for good measure:

Quite finicky core and there is a specific order to press buttons in the shaders menu to get this to work correctly and I had to change renderer to keep the UI from crashing (fingers crossed it keeps working), but I think the results speak for themselves.  Just like the good ol' days, eh?

Thanks for the help in getting this running. I think I should be all set now.

Edited November 29 by prYldfire