Games on demand?

jkristof94

Hi guys!

I don't know if it has been brought up here before, but is it possible that instead of storing GBs of data on a flash drive or an SD card, we only store a list of available games, and if someone wants to play a game, and it is not on the device yet, it is downloaded from a central server, otherwise it is launched instantly. Is this idea too far fetched? If it would involve programming hit me with the idea, because I am a programmer :)

Thank you in advance!

dankcushions

@jkristof94 problem #1 = illegal :)

meleu

@jkristof94 let's ignore the illegal issue and think: I boot up my pi and am avid to play Rival Schools on PSX emulator, I launch the game and the game isn't on my SD, then the ~500MB file will be downloaded from the so called "central server". The delay would be very inconvenient. And there is the BIOS problem too...

Well, if we had such feature I surely wouldn't use it.

lilbud

@meleu said in Games on demand?:

then the ~500MB file will be downloaded from the so called "central server".

Yeah, i got shitty internet, so downloading a 500mb file through the pi would take hours.

pjft

As a conceptual "what if" scenario, it is an interesting exercise that would perhaps have some use cases, but being mindful of the considerations around latency and internet speeds to get a game. It could be reasonable for smaller games though.

That being said, as a practical suggestion, it isn't something we'd even consider exploring, given the legality issues. RetroPie is not meant to be a vehicle for piracy, but rather a vehicle for playing and revisiting old games one might have the rights to play.

Whatever people choose to do with it is their responsibility, ultimately, but that's the same as owning a computer or any media device: the users are responsible for their actions.

If one would implement that use case, though, that would definitely put the project itself clearly in the piracy category, and that would threaten its entire existence as well as the entire contributors for being associated with something illegal out of the blue.

Imagine if Windows would ship with a torrent client and a torrent search engine so that if anyone would want to run a program and they wouldn't have it locally, it would download it on demand. :)

Hope this helps understanding the context (or at least, the way I understand it) and welcome to the community.

If you're a programmer, there are certainly plenty of opportunities to help improve it in a sustainable way for everyone!

jkristof94

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I did think about the piracy issue, but then again, most people download a few thousand ROMs anyway.

I guess RetroPie would have to own the games uploaded to it's database and include a line in the TOS which states that people should only download games that they own? Would that take the legal stuff off of RetroPies shoulders?

As for the size, yes, I was only thinking about the smaller games :)

mediamogul

@jkristof94

most people download a few thousand ROMs anyway.

Not everyone is doing this illegally though.

Would that take the legal stuff off of RetroPies shoulders?

People from all over the world use RetroPie. The laws are so different wherever you go that you could never hope to stay legally clear everywhere no matter what safeguards were put in place. It's really just best not to borrow trouble with something like this, especially since adding your own ROMs is so easy to begin with.

pjft

The RetroPie project does not want to be in any way associated with anything that's illegal, even if remotely. As you understand, that kind of disclaimer or statement does not in any way prevent sites with illegal content from being targeted by the authorities and shut down.

TL; DR: worthy exercise in intellectual/conceptual terms, but not something that'll get any traction or interest from the community. Let's please not explore this any further.

mediamogul

@pjft

worthy exercise in intellectual/conceptual terms

To that end, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the Kodi team, as they are currently exploring a legitimate addon to host on their own repo that will allow this same functionality with RetroPlayer in Kodi 18. To my understanding, it would only be legal to use in the United States, but of course it would spread everywhere. Seems way too dangerous to me.

jkristof94

Thank you all for the replies. Hosting files on a NAS is a thing though, right?

mediamogul

@jkristof94

It is indeed.

jkristof94

@mediamogul Thank you!

pjft

@jkristof94 a private network server for your own use? Sure. No different to using an external hard drive, only through your local network. I actually don't know if that's already supported or not.

@mediamogul with the current status of Kodi in the EU, namely the crackdown on Kodi boxes, that's a... brave route they're taking. I wasn't aware of that development.

I feel I should add this here:

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mediamogul

@pjft

Too funny! My bet is that they have second thoughts before the final release of Leia, but it amazes me that they've entertained the notion at all.

BenMcLean

Contrary to popular belief, RetroPie as it stands now actually in fact does ship with a working built-in option to download legal ROMs and other game content, not just emulators. It is just part of RetroArch.

To access this, (be warned, I am writing this from memory -- I don't have it in front of me right now) I believe you go to RetroPie > RetroArch Config > Online Updater > Update Content. I am very excited to play Super Boss Gaiden for the SNES which I downloaded this way having never heard of it before. It also lets you download the shareware releases of Commander Keen 1 and 4 for DOS, among other things.

That's the good news. The bad news is that RetroArch does not download this content to the correct folders for RetroPie to automatically recognize it. You have to manually move each thing into it's proper folder. Maybe RetroPie + RetroArch could be tweaked to automatically move this free content into the proper folders for convenience sake.

I'm going to see about working with the RetroArch team to expand the free content available this way.

CodeDrawer

@BenMcLean How does one get the legal roms?

herb_fargus

@CodeDrawer you consult Sega:

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/6fyex9/i_would_buy_roms_if_they_sold_they_sold_them

CodeDrawer

Also did you know that the hacked roms are legal?

pjft

@herb_fargus oh wow. Thanks for sharing that. I have most of those games in some system or the other - either Genesis or the later psp collections - but will look into it tomorrow and complete the library. There are certainly some I never managed to get a hold off.

BenMcLean

I was referring to homebrew ROM files which are freely redistributed by their authors, but it occurs to me that I should write a comprehensive guide on where and how to procure content to play on RetroPie without violating copyright laws, both free and commercial content. If that's allowed then I'll post it on this forum.

Not that I have anything against pirates. I just think its also nice to have as much content as possible which we can actually prove is legal to refute stupid claims like "Emulators are illegal"