(x86) Libretro Dolphin doesnt load games after update

[HoJo215]

@mitu

x86 Ubuntu
Retropie 4.5.13

link text

I periodically update retroarch myself through script edit and never had any problems running emus before.

I tried retropie update with the recent setup script, libretro nightly buildbot and even built it from the libretro git.

I think it just broke on the libretro side since it hasn't been updated in a while.

Hopefully someone can send me an older working dolphin_libretro.so in the meantime.

[mitu]

x86 Ubuntu

Which version ?

I periodically update retroarch myself through script edit and never had any problems running emus before.
I tried retropie update with the recent setup script, libretro nightly buildbot and even built it from the libretro git.
I think it just broke on the libretro side since it hasn't been updated in a while.

Your error is:

[INFO] [Font]: Using font rendering backend: bitmap.
[ERROR] GL: Invalid enum.
[ERROR] [Video]: Cannot open video driver ... Exiting ...
[ERROR] Fatal error received in: "init_video()"
malloc_consolidate(): invalid chunk size

You're running a pre-release version (?) of RetroArch (1.8.5) and a bleeding-edge Mesa version (20.0). I don't think that the core is at stake here - it hasn't been updated since Oct 2019; RetroPie doesn't package 1.8.5, latest version of RetroArch in RetroPie's repository is 1.8.4.

I'd try rolling back to that version (1.8.4) and also running the distribution provided Mesa packages, instead of the PPA with the Mesa development/latest version.

[HoJo215]

@mitu

Ubuntu 18.04.4

I reverted retroarch and purged the mesa ppa and it's still not working.

It's weird that it's the only core not working even with the updates I did have. Flycast, mame, etc. All work fine. Even stand alone dolphin works. It makes no sense other than something went wrong on Libretro's end.

That's why I would like someone to link me to their working dolphin_libretro.so to rule out my setup.

[HoJo215]

Okay so after building multiple git checkouts. The one working on my x86 setup is the last August commit. All the commits in October are borked or something changed.. Either way, I'll just keep the August commit backed up until I know what's going on.

[movisman]

@HoJo215

Curiously, I was playing around with a new installation of 18.04.4 when making additions to an install script, and I experienced exactly the same error on this core. As I was just testing I haven't kept the install - it still works ok on my other machine which runs 18.04.4, but I haven't updated the core packages for a few months possibly (I have updated OS packages and retropie-setup though).

Strange one!

[HoJo215]

@movisman

I managed to get the last October commit working now. I switched the video render to vulkan in the Doplhin.cfgs and the dolphin retroarch.cfg

The only game not working is Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings.

@mitu

On another note.. There are 3 different dolphin "User / sys" folders. Is that supposed to be like that?

[mitu]

@HoJo215 said in (x86) Libretro Dolphin doesnt load games after update:

There are 3 different dolphin "User / sys" folders. Is that supposed to be like that?

I'm not sure - haven't used Dolphin so far.

[movisman]

@HoJo215 said in (x86) Libretro Dolphin doesnt load games after update:

On another note.. There are 3 different dolphin "User / sys" folders. Is that supposed to be like that?

I would say not, if using the Libretro Dolphin emulator it's advised to get the latest 'sys' folder from the Dolphin GitHub and copy the 'sys' folder to: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/dolphin-emu/

Can't say i've noticed any other sys folders appearing elsewhere?

If using Dolphin standalone installed by RetroPie, there is only one 'sys' folder under /opt/retropie/emulators/dolphin/share/dolphin-emu

Cheers

[RulerOf]

@HoJo215 I'm having the same problem as you, but it's a little unclear how I should go about this reversion. Retropie's build scripts appear to checkout the latest master commit, so it's unclear to me that reverting the retropie-setup repo to an older commit will resolve this problem for me.

Or am I interpreting this wrong? Can I just go into detached HEAD on a specific commit and reinstall dolphin?

If possible would provide a little more direction and a commit hash that would get me to where I need to go?

Thanks.

[RulerOf]

@mitu perhaps you could lend a hand here?

Can I downgrade just the core, or do I have to revert the entire of retropie-setup repo and reinstall?

As I mentioned before, I'm not confident that this will fix anything because RetroPie appears to always grab the tip of master and build from source, so even the old retropie-setup will still build the broken core.

Maybe this is the problem?

[mitu]

@RulerOf said in (x86) Libretro Dolphin doesnt load games after update:

@mitu perhaps you could lend a hand here?

As I said, I have no experience with Dolphin.

[RulerOf]

@mitu My question is about how to downgrade a core that's been installed by Retropie-Setup.

It looks like I have to modify the installation script to point to a specific commit. I think. I just didn't want to spend hours walking the bash scripts when two people have clearly already done something very similar in this thread above, but haven't really given enough details for me to figure out what to do.

[RulerOf]

I got this resolved on my system (Ubuntu 18.04, Intel i5-3470 iGPU) by installing and using Vulkan rendering. I did not have to download the Sys folder from the Dolphin source repo.

I must note that Vulkan is not supported on any CPU earlier than Ivy Bridge, so this may not be a viable solution for some people. Mine is the earliest possible generation chip this even works on, so I guess I got lucky.

---

Install Vulkan support and testing application

sudo apt install -y mesa-vulkan-drivers vulkan-utils

Test Vulkan (successful example):

vulkan-smoketest

Modify the GC and Wii cores' config files to use Vulkan renderer:

sed -i '$ i\video_driver = "vulkan"' /opt/retropie/configs/wii/retroarch.cfg
sed -i '$ i\video_driver = "vulkan"' /opt/retropie/configs/gc/retroarch.cfg

After doing this, GC games worked fine. I'll come back and modify this post if necessary whenever I get around to adding Wii to my system.