Intellivision: TV Powww! - Will it work on RetroPie?

OneSwitch

Two questions.

Does TV Powww! work on the Intellivision emulator (ideally Raspberry Pi RetroPie (3+ ideally) for anyone here?: [link text]https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ekfck0oz7wd2ah6/AABLqQJFaK1zQYPmakwncGHua?dl=0(link url) - I beleive it may need the ECS system.
Any tips on getting it working much appreciated. I've tried jzintvecs and lr-freeintv and have the bios ROMS in place I beleive.

I think my emulators.cfg file is a mess, but not sure how to fix it:

"lr-freeintv = "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L --config /opt/retropie/configs/lr-freeintv/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"
default = "jzintvecs"

jzintvecs = "/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintvecs/bin/jzintvecs %ROM%"

jamrom2

@oneswitch not trying to be a wise ass here...but what do you mean by it working?

I have it running fine on mine minus the voice input. I use JzIntv. I haven't tried it on freeintv as it does not support the Ultimate PC interface for the Intellivison controller...which you really need to play many of the Inty games.

Freeintv should work good with a SNES style USB controller though

OneSwitch

@jamrom2 said in Intellivision: TV Powww! - Will it work on RetroPie?:

@oneswitch not trying to be a wise ass here...but what do you mean by it working?
I have it running fine on mine minus the voice input. I use JzIntv. I haven't tried it on freeintv as it does not support the Ultimate PC interface for the Intellivison controller...which you really need to play many of the Inty games.
Freeintv should work good with a SNES style USB controller though

:) You're not being a smart-arse. Good to know it runs. It won't run at all for me, so it seems I have something set wrong. The best I had was the I'd get a checksum thing saying a few of the ROMs were good, it would then go to an intellivision screen of borked characters - nothing intelligible... and then crash.

Now I have nothing at all, just fades in and out.

Don't suppose you could share any of your settings, please? E.g. your retropie > configs > intellivision > emulators.cfg I think this is wrong now....

lr-freeintv = "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L --config /opt/retropie/configs/lr-freeintv/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"
default = "lr-freeintv"
jzintvecs = "/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintvecs/bin/jzintvecs %ROM%

My retroarch.cfg is:

Settings made here will only override settings in the global retroarch.cfg if placed above the #include line

input_remapping_directory = "/opt/retropie/configs/intellivision/"
#include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"

jamrom2

@oneswitch

Ok... good!

So before we start, just wanted to point out the you need to have the 4 "BIOS" files for JzIntv and 3 for FreeIntv. If you don't already have them.. Google helps.

After you finish loading these two emulators in... don't mess with any of the default files. You don't have to. They point to the correct BIOS locations out of the box, you just need to know where they are. If you change anything, remove the emulators and start over.

For JzIntv...
Use WinSCP or some other navigator to get into the Pi and work with Retropie. Navigate to a folder located here ...
\usr\local\share
Once you're there... create a folder called "jzintv" and open it. Create another folder called "rom" and open it. Place all 4 of the BIOS files in there (EXEC.bin, GROM.bin, ECS.bin, ivoice.bin)
Test it. It should work now. Make sure you you select JzIntv as the emulator when you load the game by pressing "A" and going through the selection menu. It's intuitive, so no instructions needed.

I suggest testing with "Frog Bog" . It is the only Intellivision game that has no button, or keypad controller input. So it's all controller input. It should open... and you should be able to control 1 of the Frogs.

JzIntv also uses a 'hackfile' to set the controller inputs... but that's down the road for now. Just need to get it working first.

For FreeIntv...
Place the 4 files in the standard BIOS folder as all others need to be dropped in. You can navigate to that folder using your PC or WinSCP as well. Up to you. FreeIntv does not have Intellivoice support at this point, so it's moot. Just in case it does down the road, you're already set to go.

Placement of the BIOS files needs to be correct, and they need to be good files. The only other issue could be the game ROMs themselves. I have all three types running on mine, unzipped. I don't think it matters zipped or not... but I have .int, .rom and .bin files.

TVPowww will work fine once these are setup right. I also went ahead and tweaked the color palette of JzIntv to reflect a more correct looking Intellivision as it should show on an LCD. The included palette Joe made to reflect what the Intellivision looked like on a standard CRT back in the day. It's hard on the eyes running on a clean LCD with no filters or shaders. JzIntv presently doesn't support either as it's more of a developer/designer emulator moreso than it was meant to just play games. With the addition of the Ultimate PC Intellivsion Controller interface, you can play Intellivision games as they were meant to be played... with the keypad and there is no noticable difference at all between a real Intellivision and JzIntv.

FreeIntv is a game playing emulator and does support shaders and overlays in the lr-freeintv version. It's a great emulator, but you can't use original Intellivision controllers, which is hard to do with many of the complex games that require input.

Start there and see how you do... from there I can show you where to place my color palette.

JR

PS.. not sure of you are a member of AtariAge forums... but I'm "IMBerZerK" on that one...you must be because that's the only place this ROM is posted so far... lol.

OneSwitch

Many thanks for all this, appreciated. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling them. I'm reasonably sure I have the BIOS files in the right place, as I've got all other platforms working, and I can get get the Nostalgia Intellivision emulator working on a PC.

Will get back once I try this again.

BTW, I'm OneSwitch.org.uk on Atari Age.

OneSwitch

Some progress, thanks. Not quite there yet though.

Using lr-freeintv I can get Frog Bog running fine. However, I can't find a way to copy the 4 BIOS files into \usr\local\share\jzintv\rom, as permission is denied. I tried changing the directories above to 777 permission so I can write, but it repeatedly denied me.

I read something about needing to log in at the root level, but I don't understand how to do that. I've tried dragging the folder and files across in Filezilla and Cyber Duck, but where I've had success in the past with stuff like this, I'm failing this time.

Also of note, Sharp Shot on lr-freeint

says that it loads exec grom cart as OK, with a size of 8192 - then I get a very Intellivision-esque blue screen full of corrupted graphics, then it crashes back to the RetroPIe menu.

TV Powww doesn't even do that, and just goes to a black screen then back to the RetroPie menu.

Any more help, much appreciated.

jamrom2

@oneswitch Hiya. Happy New Year!

Yes, that location does require you to release the permissions to /root. If you don't feel comfortable with that, then we'll skip it. It's not terribly hard to do, but it's definitely an 'advanced' step that can be avoided.

First, run any game in JzIntv and let it fail. Then go to /dev/shm/runcommand.log which will tell you exactly what went wrong with the rom load.

That's where I pulled the location of /usr/local/share/jzintv/rom from. I couldn't read the other location as it was truncated. So I went for that one, and released the folder permissions. If this is done wrong, it might screw up other issues with other emulators.

If you can read the other location, drop the BIOS files in it.

Here is the exact error that will appear in the log when it fails....

Note my runcommand in /jzintv/emulator.cfg is probably different as I have an added color palette, as well as the Ultimate PC Intellivsion interface which requires the hackfile to work.

Parameters:
Executing: SDL1_VIDEODRIVER=dispmanx /opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -v1 --gfx-palette=/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/tv_colors.txt --kbdhackfile=/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/hackfile.cfg -z1 -f1 -q "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.rom"
file_read_rom16: No such file or directory
ERROR: Could not read EXEC image 'exec.bin'

Search path:
.
/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/../rom
/usr/local/share/jzintv/rom

AVI: 1.000 1.000 1.000

The search path is what you are looking at... I don't know where the /opt/retropie... location is. So I went for the next one listed and put mine in there. It works fine now. If you can figure out where the other folder is, or guess the name, use that.

Here is a really good run-down of how to get JzIntv to work on Retropie and other O/S's.

https://www.reddit.com/r/intellivision/comments/4etfy4/howto_use_jzintv_emulator_the_easy_way/

It's unfortunately one of those emulators that requires a little more work, but is WELL worth the effort once you get it going. It's not native to a simple install, it's only native to run in the environment. Meaning, it takes a little bit to get it setup.

Read through that guide and see if that helps. I'm here... so we'll keep plugging at it till you get it working.

Here is a simple explanation of how to set permissions in the Linux environment. But again... be careful with it.

in the end JzIntv need 'execute' permissions to run.

https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/how-manage-file-and-folder-permissions-linux/

JR

OneSwitch

@jamrom2 Happy new year too. Thanks again. This is the message I got....

Parameters:
Executing: SDL1_VIDEODRIVER=dispmanx /opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/TV Powww.rom"
icart: Error 2 while decoding ROM.
ERROR: Failed to register Intellicart
AVI: 1.000 1.000 1.000

I'll try some other things, and see if I have any luck.

OneSwitch

No luck so far. Is it only JzIntv that will run TV-Powww!? I'm guessing no point trying with the Libretro versions.

jamrom2

@oneswitch it will run in lr-freeintv, just make sure the exec and grom are both in the BIOS folder.

Can you run another rom with JzIntv and show me the runcommand.log file?

By what you posted, it looks like JzIntv worked but didn't like the rom file

OneSwitch

@jamrom2 Thanks again. I'd rather be using a LR- emulator, as it would enable me to exit the system using the game controller alone. Better for accessibility for me. But meanwhile with JZintv emulator looking at /dev/shm/runcommand.log

Pinball works:

Parameters:
Executing: SDL1_VIDEODRIVER=dispmanx /opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/Pinball (1981).int"
AVI: 1.000 1.000 1.000
active x: 0, 159, 8 active y: 4 195, 16

Sharp shot fails:

Parameters:
Executing: SDL1_VIDEODRIVER=dispmanx /opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/Sharp Shot (1982).int"
CPU off in the weeds @ PC == c1c3, w = ffff
instruction count: 3961703
AVI: 1.000 1.000 1.000
active x: 0, 159, 8 active y: 4 195, 16

TV Powww fails:

Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-freeintv/freeintv_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/intellivision/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/TV Powww (1981).rom" --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Succeeded loading Executive BIOS from: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/exec.bin
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Succeeded loading Graphics BIOS from: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/grom.bin
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Attempting to load cartridge ROM from: /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/TV Powww (1981).rom
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Raw ROM image. Determining load method via database.
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Cartridge fingerprint code: 0
[INFO] [FREEINTV] No database match. Using default cartridge memory map.
[ERROR][FREEINT] Bad opcode: 8240

[ERROR] [FREEINTV] HALT! at 10604

jamrom2

@oneswitch

It looks like a bad rom. Works fine on my system and I pulled it right from the AtariAge forum. I noticed your rom has been renamed "TV Powww (1981)". This is not from decle's original post on the forum. He created the rom.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/313835-replica-tv-powww-system-and-games/

Next... same for the "Sharp Shot.int" rom. If one game works, you can bet that you have the system set up right. If you get fails on specific games, or 3 out of 5 work... you have bad roms. Wherever you pulled them down from, find another source and try it again.

It's solely up to you which emulator to use. They are both good and have ups and downs. I split the games between the two because I made my own overlay with an old RCA TV as the bezel.. so I enjoying seeing that on the games in lr-freeintv. Whereas JzIntv is just the emulator...but.. uses the correct controllers which you really need to play many of the more complicated games.

Here is the result from lr-freeintv after a healthy TVPowww start on my system.

Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-freeintv/freeintv_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/intellivision/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/tvpowww.rom" --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Succeeded loading Executive BIOS from: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/exec.bin
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Succeeded loading Graphics BIOS from: /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/grom.bin
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Attempting to load cartridge ROM from: /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/tvpowww.rom
[INFO] [FREEINTV] Intellicart cartridge format detected

OneSwitch

I'll try some different ROM versions. Could I finally just check with you that your retropie > configs > all > emulationstation > es_systems.cfg - file matches mine below....

<system>
<name>intellivision</name>
<fullname>Intellivision</fullname>
<path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision</path>
<extension>.7z .bin .int .itv .rom .zip</extension>
<command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 SYS intellivision %ROM%</command>
<platform>intellivision</platform>
<theme>intellivision</theme>
</system>

...as this may be the weak spot on my set-up.

Thanks again for all your help. Appreciated.

jamrom2

@oneswitch

Sure thing. I'm happy to help you. I've been a long-time user of Retropie (5+ years) and have been through many issues with it. Just passing along good karma!

Here is my es_systems.cfg for Intellivision.

<system>
<name>intellivision</name>
<fullname>Intellivision</fullname>
<path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision</path>
<extension>.7z .bin .int .itv .rom .zip .7Z .BIN .INT .ITV .ROM .ZIP</extension>
<command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 SYS intellivision %ROM%</command>
<platform>intellivision</platform>
<theme>intellivision</theme>
</system>

Just want to point out that this info really doesn't do much... it's very generic and is simply a means to tell ES/Retropie where to point at when you click the button...and what name ES loads for correct theme per system. It also shows the platform for scraping, as well as where to look for the runcommand... which you should not touch, these are all generic. You set your viewable file extentions here as well. So ES only shows these files in the theme... some Intv files that are not .ROM based file extentions require a .CFG file with it. So ES does not display that file in your list. Lastly, if you wanted to put your ROMs in a specific location other than the generic, you would set that here.

Which brings up another point... some of the .INT/.BIN files are not full .ROM files. A .ROM file for Intellivsion is a complete file. There are several games that require a .CFG file which points the memory mapping of the Intellivision BIOS where to point at when the game starts. Kind-a like an executable file if you will. Without it, the game will not run.

So if you have all .INT/.BIN files... that may be the case as to why some of the games do not work. Those would be considered "bad" ROMs...really, they are just incomplete and fail when you go to run them.

So try and look for Intellivison games with the .ROM (dosen't have to be in caps) extention. They tend to be the complete and correct file. I can't point to anywhere because that is against Forum policies.

The TVPowww is a freely offered ROM, so grab that one (from the link I gave you) and test it . From what I can see in your runcommand.log, it should work in lr-freeintv. If not, we'll look further.

JR

OneSwitch

@jamrom2 I took the ROM direct from AtariAge, and dropped it in as a ZIP, instead of an extracted .INT file (which I'd been trying for ages - as most of the other files work like that), and it's running perfectly in lr-freeintv.

The only one that isn't is Sharp Shot, but I'll try later with that. TV Powww was what I wanted working though.

Thanks so much for all your patient help. I hope this thread helps some others too.

Good on you!

OneSwitch

And now I have Sharp Shot working from a different source. I do own this cartridge by the way. :)

Thanks massively again. :)

jamrom2

@oneswitch no problem... I'm happy to help.