[SOLVED] - N64 - something overriding my emu choice...?

Ranma · 1 Apr 2019, 18:43

Hi folks, having a bit of fun with N64 on Retropie but have hit an odd snag. I was happily playing with it the other day and noticed that GLES2N64 runs Yoshi's Story really pretty well, so I set that as the default emulator for it. However, upon coming back to it the next day I notice that it doesn't seem to start the game with GLES2N64 anymore, and instead uses GlideN64. I can tell this is so because the game doesn't run as well, and you get the GlideN64 launch text ("init textures" etc.) as well as the frame counter in the bottom left corner of the screen.

I check runcommand before launching and my choice is still set to GLES2N64. I just checked my emulators.cfg and its states:

n64_YoshisStoryUSAEnJa = "mupen64plus-gles2n64"

Yet it uses GlideN64. So what gives? Any help very much appreciated. :-) Thanks all.

mitu · 3 Jan 2019, 20:35

@Ranma Are you sure you're starting the same ROM ? Can you paste the contents of the n64 system's emulators.cfg file ?

Ranma · 1 Mar 2019, 22:05

Thanks for replying Mitu. :-) Yes I'm sure I'm starting the same ROM...dunno how I could be selecting a different one in any case. My emulators.cfg is detailed below:

mupen64plus-GLideN64 = "/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-GLideN64 %ROM% 320x240"
mupen64plus-gles2rice = "/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-rice %ROM% 320x240"
mupen64plus-GLideN64-highres = "/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-GLideN64 %ROM% 640x480"
mupen64plus-gles2rice-highres = "/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-rice %ROM% 640x480"
mupen64plus-gles2n64 = "/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-n64 %ROM%"
mupen64plus-auto = "/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh AUTO %ROM%"
default = "lr-mupen64plus"
lr-mupen64plus = "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mupen64plus/mupen64plus_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/n64/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"

You can see my default is lr-mupen64plus, but for many ROMs I change this in runcommand and Yoshi is one of them. Thanks again for your help.

mitu · 3 Jan 2019, 22:23

@Ranma I remember some time ago there were problems with corrupted emulators.cfg, can you check if there isn't anything funny/strange characters in the file where the override is saved ? I'll try to reproduce the problem also.

Ranma · 3 Jan 2019, 22:33

By this I think you mean /configs/all location? I've had a quick look and it all looks OK to me, no obvious corruption. I'll apologise now if I take a while to respond as I have to be up for work in the morning, but I will definitely reply here as I really appreciate your help Mitu.

Like I say it seemed to work great at first but after playing a couple of different N64 games, changing one or two of their default emus, and then rebooting the system it seemed to reset the choice for Yoshi. See how you get on Mitu and thanks again. :-)

quicksilver · 1 Apr 2019, 04:37

@Ranma did you update mupen64plus recently?

Edit: so I just tried to run Yoshi's story on my pi and even when I choose gles2n64 it forces me to use gliden64. Very likely the Yoshi's story was added to the gles2n64 blacklist. You can remove it from the blacklist by editing your mupen64plus.sh file located at: /opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin

Though I suspect there was a good reason for it to be put on that list

mitu · 4 Jan 2019, 05:34

@quicksilver is almost right, Yoshi is part of the blacklist for glesn64rice (defined here), but not gles2n64. I haven't got around testing it, but will try tonight to give it a go.

quicksilver · 4 Jan 2019, 12:54

@mitu are u sure? I just checked and "story" is on my gles2n64 blacklist. Or is that referencing a different game?

mitu · 4 Jan 2019, 13:14

@quicksilver Not sure yet, haven't got around testing on the Pi. A cursory look (hence the reply and the link) shows

     # these games do not run with rice
    local glesn64rice_blacklist=(
        yoshi
        rogue
        squadron
        gauntlet
    )

I don't see any entries for story in any blacklist present in the default mupen64plus.sh (https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/emulators/mupen64plus/mupen64plus.sh).

quicksilver · 4 Jan 2019, 13:27

@mitu that's really odd. I'll check mine again. I may have updated from source a week or two ago but that wouldn't affect the mupen64plus.sh file right? That's maintained as part of retro pie correct?

mitu · 4 Jan 2019, 13:37

@quicksilver said in N64 - something overriding my emu choice...?:

That's maintained as part of retro pie correct?

Yes, that's part of the mupen64plus emulator package, it's not part of the upstream source.

quicksilver · 4 Jan 2019, 13:48

@mitu I just checked and Yoshi's story is not on my gles2n64 blacklist (could have sworn I saw it on there as "story", guess I'm losing it). However my list doesn't match what you posted, I have about 9 games on my gles2n64 blacklist.

mitu · 1 Apr 2019, 14:05

@quicksilver I posted the list for glesn64rice, the glesn64 list has indeed more entries:

     local glesn64_blacklist=(
        zelda
        paper
        kazooie
        tooie
        instinct
        beetle
        rogue
        squadron
        gauntlet
)

quicksilver · 4 Jan 2019, 14:30

@mitu man I'm just out of it today. I'm going to stop trying to help now haha

mitu · 4 Jan 2019, 17:38

@Ranma ok, so the problem seems that yoshi appears in the glesn64rice_blacklist list, but the startup script tests the ROM blacklist for both glesn64rice and glesn64altogether. Since yoshi appears in one of them, the video plugin is overriden and switched to mupen64plus-video-GLideN64 (which is what you noticed).

From the startup script

     "mupen64plus-video-n64"|"mupen64plus-video-rice")
            for game in "${glesn64_blacklist[@]}"; do
                if [[ "${ROM,,}" == *"$game"* ]]; then
                    VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-rice"
                fi
            done
            for game in "${glesn64rice_blacklist[@]}"; do
                if [[ "${ROM,,}" == *"$game"* ]]; then
                    VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-GLideN64"
                fi
            done

It looks like a bug, but there may be another reason why this was coded this way. @gizmo98 was this on purpose or it's just a bug ? If we switch the test for the video plugin blacklist individually, when starting with mupen64plus-video-64, the ROM would not be tested with glesn64rice_blacklist and the video plugin override would not be applied.

Ranma · 1 Apr 2019, 17:52

That is very interesting. All I can tell you is that when it did work at first, Yoshi ran extremely well on gles2n64. The best I'd ever seen it run tbh, so I'm sad this has been coded this way. Can I change this manually? Also, thanks again to Mitu for your Holmesian work here. :-)

We have our men working on it now...

mitu · 4 Jan 2019, 17:57

The thing is, I don't understand how it run in the first place ? If my 'analysis' is correct, you wouldn't have been able to run it - when I started it myself it would still load the Glide64 plugin.

mitu · 1 Apr 2019, 18:02

You can change

 "mupen64plus-video-n64"|"mupen64plus-video-rice")
            for game in "${glesn64_blacklist[@]}"; do
                if [[ "${ROM,,}" == *"$game"* ]]; then
                    VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-rice"
                fi
            done
            for game in "${glesn64rice_blacklist[@]}"; do
                if [[ "${ROM,,}" == *"$game"* ]]; then
                    VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-GLideN64"
                fi
            done

to

 "mupen64plus-video-n64")
            for game in "${glesn64_blacklist[@]}"; do
                if [[ "${ROM,,}" == *"$game"* ]]; then
                    VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-rice"
                fi
            done
  ;; 
"mupen64plus-video-rice")
            for game in "${glesn64rice_blacklist[@]}"; do
                if [[ "${ROM,,}" == *"$game"* ]]; then
                    VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-GLideN64"
                fi
            done

and it should work - no more GLideN64 override.
The file is /opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh. It will be overwritten when you update the mupen64plus package, but hopefully we can find a fix for it and update the package - if it's just a bug.

Ranma · 4 Jan 2019, 18:06

@mitu Hmmm, yeah that is odd. Maybe I'm mistaken but it definitely did not run the Gliden64 plugin on my first play. I got to about level three (lightweight!), chuffed to bits with the performance, before powering down for the evening. I had also tried other emulators before settling on gles2n64.

Thanks so much for your fix above Mitu and all the assistance you have given me here on Retropie Forums. You are always one of the first to reply and always get it sorted for me. :-)

quicksilver · 4 Jan 2019, 18:39

@Ranma so I removed Yoshi's story from the rice blacklist and I was able to run it with gles2n64 but it runs terribly. Missing textures and backgrounds make it pretty much unplayable. Are you sure it was gles2n64 you were using?

	# these games do not run with rice
	local glesn64rice_blacklist=(
	yoshi
	rogue
	squadron
	gauntlet
	)

	local glesn64_blacklist=(
	zelda
	paper
	kazooie
	tooie
	instinct
	beetle
	rogue
	squadron
	gauntlet
	)

	"mupen64plus-video-n64"\|"mupen64plus-video-rice")
	for game in "${glesn64_blacklist[@]}"; do
	if [[ "${ROM,,}" == "$game" ]]; then
	VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-rice"
	fi
	done
	for game in "${glesn64rice_blacklist[@]}"; do
	if [[ "${ROM,,}" == "$game" ]]; then
	VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-GLideN64"
	fi
	done

	"mupen64plus-video-n64")
	for game in "${glesn64_blacklist[@]}"; do
	if [[ "${ROM,,}" == "$game" ]]; then
	VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-rice"
	fi
	done
	;;
	"mupen64plus-video-rice")
	for game in "${glesn64rice_blacklist[@]}"; do
	if [[ "${ROM,,}" == "$game" ]]; then
	VIDEO_PLUGIN="mupen64plus-video-GLideN64"
	fi
	done