OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES

[cyperghost]

@darknior said in OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES:

Now the 3 problems we must solve to play fine BOR games on PI are :

OpenBOR not saving Hi-score and game progression :( The most important!
Some games are in 16/9 (full screen) and there are black bar, we can't use the full screen!
Some games crash when they use script functions that this OpenBOR version don't understand.

Out of my basic buisness ... we need a C coder here!

But I rearranged my scripts a bit. The UserMenu was rewritten to 100% and is now very powerfull and more self explaining. Need some tests to do. I think I got a method to get an ultimate config file by stripping the inputs just to basic commands. Then the user gots gamepad input and can change the inputs directly with a joypad.
Maybe we can together create a master-file that's to 90% compatible with controllers.

My personal button layout is:

D-PAD for up/down/left/right
then the 4 buttons
                    O Attack 2
O Special                           O Attack 1
                    O Jump

Shoulder Left and Right are Attack 3 and 4
Start is clear, isnt' it?

In my setup (for sliced config) file you will be able to download later the button layout is just for the 4 buttons. This is enough to setup a game with correct button layout.

                    O UP
O ATTACK1                         O START
                    O DOWN

So we have basic movement but can rely most controllers will work kind this way (not all, but the chance is high to catch a button just by trying all buttons on the controller one by one) The D-PAD is a bastard. Some controllers are using a DPAD but is it setted as analog input. So movement is better setted on these buttons just for configuration purposes (!!!).

I think the ultimate fitting file for all controllers is impossible to find. May you and @BiZzAr721 can try the settings.

I will release the new script in the next few days.

[darknior]

@cyperghost I use the same button layout than you :)
When you release it i will try it with pleasure ;)
I have ALL the 8bitdo controllers lol
And some x360 and one USB xBox One.

[cyperghost]

@darknior It's on my github account... I will make description and setup in annother topic later.

So far I've installed only the "sliced" controller config. It's a first aid setup to get controller working ;) Maybe you can report how it works with your bunch of controllers.

You need to delete the game or the master config before you can overwrite the settings via github, this can be done via the script. One hint ... change pathes again for KEYCONF_DIR and MASTERCONF_DIR as you like

[BiZzAr721]

@darknior I downloaded Bare Knuckle 6 v6.02 (Final version will not load) I am having the same problem as you with the force close. Shame, looks to be a good game.

@cyperghost I tried out your ULTIMATE joypad config. Spot on with the options. Did a lot of deleting/creating configs. After removing master.bor.cfg, I get a 404 error trying to d/l the default (I see it's not on your git, so that makes sense). When trying to d/l the sliced file it gives a box letting me know the file is 0 bytes.

I manually copied the sliced file, but unfortunately it didn't work too well. On a cheap SNES controller L1 was up, I believe Y /X were attack/start. (no down) That is still workable, but once you have to overwrite a temporary directional button your at a standstill. It could be done, but it will have to be well thought out to save the d-pad first, SAVE, then edit the rest. Unfortunately, I don't think it makes it simple enough for the average user.

It would be nice if the keyboard worked as a fail-safe. (At least ESCAPE worked) I didn't try it yet, but I wonder if mapping the keyboard as player 2 would allow menu selection.

Another option I can think of is having default controller profiles
Example
Select contoller config

• Xbox 360 default mapping
• PS3 default mapping
• SNES clone (tata) default mapping
• SNES clone (buffalo) default mapping
• 8BitDo default mapping

EDIT: Mapping a keyboard as player 2 will work as a failsafe

[cyperghost]

@bizzar721 said in OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES:

Another option I can think of is having default controller profiles
Example
Select contoller config

Xbox 360 default mapping
PS3 default mapping
SNES clone (tata) default mapping
SNES clone (buffalo) default mapping
8BitDo default mapping

Done!

I openend a new topic with this

[CathyCatheter]

@darknior I'm very grateful to you for making this OpenBOR tutorial.

I just wish somebody would make video tutorial on how to do this. I'm still new to Retropie.

[BiZzAr721]

@cathycatheter Using the written tutorial is always going to be the most up to date. (that's where they learn the information to make the video)

I agree, a video can be VERY helpfull - especially if you don't know what your reading is what you're doing .

Eg: car repairs

Right now, openBor is advancing at such a rapid pace that even if there is a video, it's still best to use it as a guide line then reference back here for the most up to date links.

[zanac]

@darknior

@darknior said in OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES:

@cyperghost I have change the path for me and it works fine. Thanks

Now the 3 problems we must solve to play fine BOR games on PI are :

1. OpenBOR not saving Hi-score and game progression :( The most important!

about this problem...
in openbor.c i see that it save in the wrong path! I just try to make this patch, not tested yet....
Actually i was able to port on ARM also latest version of openbor, but it run very slow, old version seems better for our use!

<code>

void saveGameFile(void) {
//char tmpname[256] = { "" };
//getSaveFileName(tmpname, ST_SAVE);

    char path[256] = { "" };
    char tmpname[256] = { "" };
    getBasePath(path, "Saves", 0);
    getSaveFileName(tmpname, ST_SAVE);
    strcat(path, tmpname);




    //save(tmpname, (char*) &savelevel, sizeof(s_savelevel) * MAX_DIFFICULTIES);
    save(path, (char*) &savelevel, sizeof(s_savelevel) * MAX_DIFFICULTIES);

}

void saveHighScoreFile(void) {
//char tmpname[256] = { "" };
//getSaveFileName(tmpname, ST_HISCORE);

    char path[256] = { "" };
    char tmpname[256] = { "" };
    getBasePath(path, "Saves", 0);
    getSaveFileName(tmpname, ST_HISCORE);
    strcat(path, tmpname);

    //save(tmpname, (char*) &savescore, sizeof(s_savescore));
    save(path, (char*) &savescore, sizeof(s_savescore));

}
</code>

[cyperghost]

@zanac i believe there is more todo. The load dialog seems to fail to find ANY files. About the speed ... Does unpacking the files speeds up OpenBOR? I do not believe in but just a try

[darknior]

Thanks @zanac to try to solve this big problem, for the moment i have so many work and i can't work on it :(

@zanac said in OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES:

Actually i was able to port on ARM also latest version of openbor, but it run very slow, old version seems better for our use!

WOAW excellent, create a git please, maybe there are some trick you take from the old version to use in the new one :)
The last version is very important for us to play all the last GREAT mods, and because they finally add a great feature :
Now when your game pad shut down, OpenBOR can find it again if you turn it on again :)
So excellent because with Bluetooth gamepads it is a recurrent problem ...

@cyperghost said in OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES:

Does unpacking the files speeds up OpenBOR?

I think it can help, it's why we must unpack them on the old version too ....
The PI3 is powerful to do it, but maybe the code is not really optimized for ARM ?

[zanac]

@darknior
An italian friend that is hacking like me on Pandora Jamma Box [*] has made a bad patch for enable saving! Keep the source patched here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ktoFqLj2Do6RHyeEdqffKsQOunb7c2Wz

[*] Actually we are not using RPI but a different chipset but that has ARMHF, anyway it's not difficult to make compile latest version of openbor, but it is very slow trust me! :( What kind of problems did you have compiling? I think that is much better use this very old version but at least it is fast!

[zanac]

Here you can find a version that seems better, it use pak...

https://github.com/rofl0r/openbor/releases/tag/compatible-official-3400%2B

For compile it just remove Werror from Makefile (i remove also BUILD_OPENGL and BUILD_LOADGL on pandora actually), it seems support also save game!

[darknior]

@zanac Thanks a lot for this fix, i wish some one will add it to my git with issues system.
For the moment i can't do it myself :(

I understand the last version is slow, but it is strange because it's the same engine. Nothing more than new script functions.
And the last mods use them ... and are fantastic for sure !!!
I wish one day it will be possible to use the last version on pi :D

[cyperghost]

@darknior @zanac I am in journey. Can't do anything at the moment. But I think there are great leaps made

[zanac]

I think that new version is slow for SDL2.0 usage.... I compiled the new one using:
make BUILD_PANDORA=1 -j 3

I don't know if it's slow also on rpi, as i said i use allwinner chipset that for rendering use a mali-mp400, maybe the video card of rpi work better!
Just try to compile by yourself using that command... and of course install sdl-2.0-dev headers: trust me it compile fine and run!

[cyperghost]

@zanac Thank you. Can you share the binary? I think this would speedup progress.

AFAIK the GPU of the Pie is not very powerful ... Sorry I can not test yet

For speeding up SDL2

https://choccyhobnob.com/raspberry-pi/sdl2-2-0-8-on-raspberry-pi/

[zanac]

here you are two binary, but i compiled with cortex-a9 (for allwinner), if it don't run i must recompile for generic arm... let me know! The first one is without GL, the second with GL, try both!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1w1g2twe294LnhZHue69xGOliRs4-R_zM
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FuJ7PJNQ3fCnk4Rx_tqdWG2uwpMsxno_

@cyperghost said in OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES:

@zanac Thank you. Can you share the binary? I think this would speedup progress.

[cyperghost]

@zanac Thank you
Here are some SDL2 prebuilds with stripped down dependencies. This should speedup

https://github.com/dotsha747/libsdl2-rpifb

[zanac]

@cyperghost said in OpenBOR finally working fine on RETROPIE with ES:

@zanac Thank you
Here are some SDL2 prebuilds with stripped down dependencies. This should speedup

https://github.com/dotsha747/libsdl2-rpifb

Sorry, i cannot use sdl prebuilds for rpi, i must use patched version of libsdl2 for mali... ;)
i already patched sdl2 with this patch https://github.com/recalbox/recalbox-buildroot/blob/master/board/recalbox/xu4/patches/sdl2/sdl2-0003-mali.patch

but this is another story, i don't use rpi as i said ;)

[cyperghost]

@zanac I think RetroPie is installed by default with SDL2 maybe some admin @mediamogul can confirm?

So indeed if someone will rebuild OpenBOR chances are high for a good speedup