Announcing Pegasus Frontend

prefor

I have a few problems with this front-end. Don't get me wrong, so far this is the best looking Front-end I've used for Android, and that it includes Video snaps and the layout is gorgeous!

I'm using this on Android

However I have these two problems:

I'm using GameOS theme with this front-end and it looks good!
However 60% of the time when I launch a game (NES game in this case) through Pegasus Front-end using Retroarch, Retroarch just crashes and redirects me back to Pegasus Front-end...
And also when I launch a game the navigation bar shows up in Retroarch for some reason, which I can't remove.. Maybe that's the cause of the crashing? :/

Here is a crash log i get from Retroarch: https://del.dog/dunimuriph.txt
And here is a picture of what I mean about Navigation bar: https://i.imgur.com/cByCchc.jpg

The second problem I noticed is when I tried to install this on another phone. For some reason I can't set game directories. It's all empty no matter which folder I open. Does someone knows why? I have granted permission on Pegasus-frontend to use and read file storage etc, but it stills happen. Does anyone knows why? :(
Here is a picture of what I mean: https://i.imgur.com/DWP4PgG.jpg

msheehan79

@fluffypillow I have a question around theme development. Is there a means within QML to identify when Pegasus is first being loaded up vs. when Pegasus has just returned from launching a game? From what I can gather the Component.onCompleted is usually where any logic is stored that executes when the theme finishes loading, but that triggers both on initial startup as well as after a game ends.

The use case I could envision is trying to control where Pegasus first lands on startup, for example to always display a specific home page or specific collection as a starting point, but I would not want to redirect there after launching every game, in those cases I would want to return the user to the last viewed collection etc.

PlayingKarrde

@msheehan79 said in Announcing Pegasus Frontend:

@fluffypillow I have a question around theme development. Is there a means within QML to identify when Pegasus is first being loaded up vs. when Pegasus has just returned from launching a game? From what I can gather the Component.onCompleted is usually where any logic is stored that executes when the theme finishes loading, but that triggers both on initial startup as well as after a game ends.

The use case I could envision is trying to control where Pegasus first lands on startup, for example to always display a specific home page or specific collection as a starting point, but I would not want to redirect there after launching every game, in those cases I would want to return the user to the last viewed collection etc.

What I do is store a variable when I launch the game and then check for it in Component.onCompleted, then clear it from memory.

// Launch the current game
    function launchGame(game) {
        if (game !== null) {
            saveCurrentState(game);
            game.launch();
        } else {
            saveCurrentState(currentGame);
            currentGame.launch();
        }
    }

    // Save current states for returning from game
    function saveCurrentState(game) {
        api.memory.set('savedState', root.state);
        api.memory.set('savedCollection', currentCollectionIndex);
        api.memory.set('lastState', JSON.stringify(lastState));
        api.memory.set('lastGame', JSON.stringify(lastGame));
        api.memory.set('storedHomePrimaryIndex', storedHomePrimaryIndex);
        api.memory.set('storedHomeSecondaryIndex', storedHomeSecondaryIndex);
        api.memory.set('storedCollectionIndex', currentCollectionIndex);
        api.memory.set('storedCollectionGameIndex', storedCollectionGameIndex);

        const savedGameIndex = api.allGames.toVarArray().findIndex(g => g === game);
        api.memory.set('savedGame', savedGameIndex);

        api.memory.set('To Game', 'True');
    }

    // Handle loading settings when returning from a game
    property bool fromGame: api.memory.has('To Game');
    function returnedFromGame() {
        lastState                   = JSON.parse(api.memory.get('lastState'));
        lastGame                    = JSON.parse(api.memory.get('lastGame'));
        currentCollectionIndex      = api.memory.get('savedCollection');
        storedHomePrimaryIndex      = api.memory.get('storedHomePrimaryIndex');
        storedHomeSecondaryIndex    = api.memory.get('storedHomeSecondaryIndex');
        currentCollectionIndex      = api.memory.get('storedCollectionIndex');
        storedCollectionGameIndex   = api.memory.get('storedCollectionGameIndex');

        currentGame                 = api.allGames.get(api.memory.get('savedGame'));
        root.state                  = api.memory.get('savedState');

        // Remove these from memory so as to not clog it up
        api.memory.unset('savedState');
        api.memory.unset('savedGame');
        api.memory.unset('lastState');
        api.memory.unset('lastGame');
        api.memory.unset('storedHomePrimaryIndex');
        api.memory.unset('storedHomeSecondaryIndex');
        api.memory.unset('storedCollectionIndex');
        api.memory.unset('storedCollectionGameIndex');

        // Remove this one so we only have it when we come back from the game and not at Pegasus launch
        api.memory.unset('To Game');
    }

    // Set default state to the platform screen
    Component.onCompleted: { 
        if (fromGame)
            returnedFromGame();
    }

msheehan79

@playingkarrde Ah! That makes sense. Set it during the launch command and unset it when you come back. Wasn't sure if there was any native way to detect it, but managing it with a variable indeed looks like a solid approach. Thanks for the advice!

Grila

Hi @fluffypillow . I recently received my Retroid Pocket 2 and am in the process of setting up with Pegasus. The RP2 comes with 2 versions of RetroArch, a up to date version and an older 1.5.0 version that is specifically for playing GBA.

My problem is that I can launch the up to date version thru Pegasus, but when I try to launch a GBA game with the 1.5.0 version of RetroArch it just exits immediately and returns me to Pegasus. (The 1.5.0 version works correctly if I load roms directly in RetroArch)

Here's my GBA metadata file and my lastrun.log

My guess is it has something to do with the launch parameters, but I've rooted the RP2 and double checked all the directories and they are correct.

If you have any suggestions it would be appreciated. Thanks!

fluffypillow

@prefor Sorry for the late reply!

Retroarch just crashes and redirects me back

That seems like a crash on RetroArch's side, maybe it expects some launch parameter it doesn't receive? Could you upload your metadata file and the Pegasus log (<storage>/pegasus-frontend/lastrun.log)?

For some reason I can't set game directories

Yeah, that looks like a permission issue. Could you try the very latest version? Try going up (..) as far as you can, on the top you will find all the storages Android allows Pegasus to use.

@Grilli Yeah, it likely requires a different launch command, but that's hard to tell without the exact source code. Is there a practical reason to use the older version? The latest official stable version is 1.9, according to the RetroArch site, which should also support playing GBA.

fluffypillow

"Weekly" update! This month there were lots of small fixes, following the data source rewrites from last time, Android updates, lots of new languages and the usual general improvements:

Added support for having multiple metadata files in a directory: similarly to the global metafiles directory, Pegasus can now see all files with .metadata.pegasus.txt or .metadata.txt extensions
Improved Android 11 support
Added Chinese (zh-TW) translation (thanks kenjivo1!)
Added Bosnian, Dutch and British English translations (thanks SecularSteve!)
Updated German translation (thanks SecularSteve!)
Fixed a crash on Android
Fixed portable mode issues
Fixed missing metadata for games present in multiple collections
Fixed ES2 games missing in certain cases
Fixed some log messages and typos
Linux: Fixed Markdown files not getting installed with make install
Updated the Android metadata generator page with new emulators and corrected the commands for some others
Updated the documentation and fixed some typos

sergioad

@fluffypillow I can not wait to see a possible future RetroPie release with Pegasus by default

Patientgamerfr

@fluffypillow Thank again for this wonderful frontend !

fluffypillow

Happy new year update! The winter holidays are over, and so I've also continued the development with some updates.

Main changes:

Added support for WebP and animated PNG image formats: themes now have the ability to use, and optionally, to enable animation on them (Note: APNG images should have .apng file extension to work)
GOG support is now turned on by default again
Minor Android improvements

Theme changes:

You can now use WebP and APNG images: similarly to GIFs, the QML AnimatedImage element (https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtquick-animatedimage.html) can be used to display them animated, and the regular Image to display still images

Tool changes:

Updated the RetroArch command on the Android metadata generator page

Notes for maintainers:

WebP support requires Qt's imageformats module with WebP support
APNG support requires libpng with animation support (ie. the "APNG patch"). libpng might come from various sources (system/Qt/other library/custom), but this feature may not be enabled on them - to avoid breaking builds, APNG support in Pegasus is NOT enabled by default. You can define the ENABLE_APNG QMake variable to enable support. For the same reason, Pegasus also does NOT try to link to libpng automatically. Similarly to SDL2, you can use the PNG_LIBS and PNG_INCLUDES QMake variables to affect the build.

pootis spencer

Is it possible to start Pegasus on a category such as Arcade?

h2805270

https://pegasus-frontend.org/docs/user-guide/meta-files/

It seems kind of "exhausting" to add all of the game lists manually to Pegasus.

So I propose a few ideas:

A simple GUI program that let's you make metadata files much more easily on OSes. Instead of doing it the old fashioned way:

# Selects all files with the provided extension, except two games
collection: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
shortname: snes
extensions: 7z, bin, smc, sfc, fig, swc, mgd, zip, bin
ignore-file: buggygame.bin
ignore-file: duplicategame.bin
launch: snes9x "{file.path}"

# A collection of 3 games. They're also part of 'My Games'.
collection: Platformer games
files: mario1.bin
files: mario2.bin
files: mario3.bin

# A regex example; includes games with '[number]-in-1' in their name.
collection: Multi-game carts
regex: \d+.in.1

An auto-detect program that you drop in where you want it to find the games based on very simple "[systemname].txt" files stored in the ROM folders themselves (and [emulatorname].txt for the emulators)
Better integration with RetroArch that converts everything you already set up in libretro, and uses Pegasus to open it.

But those are just my suggestions, let the debate commence.

fluffypillow

@h2805270 There's actually a GUI tool for metafiles (even if it's a bit simple): https://github.com/mmatyas/pegasus-metadata-editor

tronkyfran

Hi!
It would be possible to install pegasus on a chromecast with google tv? in theory its just an android underneath, but Im not really sure. Well, anyway I bought one and will try this weekend, so ill tell you if I succeed, just wanted to know if anybody tried it beforehand. Thx for your work @fluffypillow !!!!

tronkyfran

@tronkyfran Yep, it works!!!!!

Grila

@grila said in Announcing Pegasus Frontend:

Hi @fluffypillow . I recently received my Retroid Pocket 2 and am in the process of setting up with Pegasus. The RP2 comes with 2 versions of RetroArch, a up to date version and an older 1.5.0 version that is specifically for playing GBA.

My problem is that I can launch the up to date version thru Pegasus, but when I try to launch a GBA game with the 1.5.0 version of RetroArch it just exits immediately and returns me to Pegasus. (The 1.5.0 version works correctly if I load roms directly in RetroArch)

Here's my GBA metadata file and my lastrun.log

My guess is it has something to do with the launch parameters, but I've rooted the RP2 and double checked all the directories and they are correct.

If you have any suggestions it would be appreciated. Thanks!

I've found the solution for this for anyone in the future that needs it:

collection: Nintendo GameBoy Advance
shortname: gba
extensions: gba, zip

#For the Retroid Pocket 2 special version of RetroArch for GBA

launch: am start --user 0
  -n com.gpsp/com.retroarch.browser.retroactivity.RetroActivityFuture
  -e ROM {file.path}
  -e LIBRETRO /data/user/0/com.gpsp/cores/gpsp_libretro_android.so
  -e CONFIGFILE /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.gpsp/files/retroarch.cfg
  --activity-clear-top

tronkyfran

I've got a beginners question.
Im surfing the pegasus wave on my new Chromecast right now, but I lost track on how to scrape and generate metadata files for a bunch of roms(roughly 3 systems and 100 roms per system). I know how to do it the "hard" way(via documentation) but dont want to get into it and realize one week later that there is an easier way. Im looking for something too easy?

Thanks in advance!!!

fluffypillow

@tronkyfran Skyscraper has built-in Pegasus support, and the Generic Emulator output of Skraper can also be loaded (though that doesn't have the emulator launch informations).

fluffypillow

Also a minor weekly update!

Fixed storage access issues on Android 10
Fixed games not present in metadata file collections
Added Arabic translation (thanks phwright!)
Updated the list of automatically recognized gamepads
Linux: Fixed out of date APT repository packages
Themes: Updated the Famicom Beach theme with authentic animated fire (thanks SecularSteve!)

FlyingTomahawk

I'm a bit at a loss here and require some help regarding ScummVM and game images and metadata.
I have setup Pegasus with Retroarch and a few standalone emulators on my old Win10 Laptop.
laptop specs are i5-2410M, 8GB RAM, Intel HD3000 on board graphics

I was able to setup NES, SNES, MegaDrive and so on with ease using Retroarch and Skraper.
Now I am trying for hours to get the images to show for my ScummVM games. Screenscraper is currently down so I thought I'll add the data for those 3-4 games myself inside the metadata.pegasus.txt file.
But for some reason that I can't seem to find or see it won't load any images nor any game info like description.
Usually Pegasus recognizes the folder structure by itself and loads the correct images and metadata. But right now I get this

alt text

The games run just fine using ScummVM as standalone, not as core from Retroarch. ScummVM starts and loads the game which I choose using the following launch command inside the metadata file

collection: ScummVM
extension: residualvm(residualvm), scummvm(scummvm), svm, zip
launch: C:\Users\***\Desktop\Pegasus\Emulators\scummvm\scummvm.exe -c C:\Users\***\AppData\Roaming\ScummVM\scummvm.ini {file.basename}

Even if I remove anything else but the launch command code games will run. which is strange because I'm using the variable {file.basename} which would mean it takes the name without extension from file: monkey2.svm, right? Even if i remove monkey2.svm the game will launch and run just fine. So not sure where {file.basename} takes the name from. But removing {file.basename} will only launch ScummVM menu without any game loaded.

Anything else I add into that metadata file has no visual effect on the pegasus frontend. Even if I use the assets paths directly it won't show anything.

My file structure is like this (example with monkey island 2)

Pegases/Roms/scummvm/Monkey Island 2/monkey2.svm
Pegases/Roms/scummvm/Monkey Island 2/MONKEY2.000
Pegases/Roms/scummvm/Monkey Island 2/MONKEY2.001
Pegases/Roms/scummvm/Monkey Island 2/MT32_CONTROL.ROM
Pegases/Roms/scummvm/Monkey Island 2/MT32_PCM.ROM
Pegasus/Roms/scummvm/metadata.pegasus.txt
Pegasus/Roms/scummvm/media/box2dfront/monkey2.png
Pegasus/Roms/scummvm/media/screenshots/monkey2.jpg
Pegasus/Roms/scummvm/media/videos/monkey2.mp4
Pegasus/Roms/scummvm/media/wheels/monkey2.png

Any metadata info I add to the metadata.pegasus file doesn't seem to have any effect except for the launch code.
Adding metadata like this won't show at all in the front-end

game: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
file: monkey2.svm
developer: LucasArts
publisher: LucasArts
genre: Adventure
description:
  Guybrush Threepwood, the mighty pirate who can hold his breath for ten minutes, could have lived quietly and happily with his sweetheart Elaine, the governor of Melee Island. But the restless pirate spirit won't let Guybrush in peace. Things don't go very well with Elaine, and Guybrush (now with a beard) embarks on a new adventure: searching for the legendary treasure of Big Whoop. However, the evil ghost pirate LeChuck hasn't left the stage yet. His subordinates are trying to bring him back from the dead one more time. Will Guybrush be able to defeat his archenemy again?
release: 1992-01-01
players: 1

Is there something I missed regarding paths or setup for ScummVM? Any help is appreciated. Thanks