LibRetro not yet ready for Ubuntu 18.04

Neo-Rio

Tried compiling RetroPie onto Ubuntu 18.04 LTS x64 as it just came out. Had two different computers to try this out on.
While most everything I tested compiled, when it came time to work the libretro emulators didn't.

What would happen is that loading would get as far showing the yellow text that the joysticks were detected. After that, the display would appear for a short time and then freeze while the sound would continue working. That effectively made the games unplayable.

Seems like other emulators are OK... so far at least. I will try more

mitu

@neo-rio What video driver are you using ? There might be a mismatch between the one configured in RetroArch and the video driver capabilities you have on the system.

Neo-Rio

Note that I've tried this on two systems already. Same results.
Once on an Intel NUC.
The other one on an AMD A6 with built in graphics.

Pretty sure this isn't graphics driver related.

esmith13

I have the same issues on two systems I upgraded to 18.04 from 17.10 (Lubuntu). One is a Dell Optiplex 3020 and the other is a Surface Pro 3. Both worked great before the upgrade and both have the same issues now. You can play and game from any core for about 30-60 seconds then video freezes. I have noticed that not only does sound continue, but the game is still technically running too. One game I tried was an arcade beat 'em up and I could still fight and kill enemies while the image was locked up. punches would make sounds and death screams could still be heard.

Neo-Rio

I also note that trying to exit a game with Start+Select doesn't work either. The picture just stays on screen.

aammeloot

@neo-rio said in LibRetro not yet ready for Ubuntu 18.04:

Tried compiling RetroPie onto Ubuntu 18.04 LTS x64 as it just came out. Had two different computers to try this out on.
While most everything I tested compiled, when it came time to work the libretro emulators didn't.

What would happen is that loading would get as far showing the yellow text that the joysticks were detected. After that, the display would appear for a short time and then freeze while the sound would continue working. That effectively made the games unplayable.

Seems like other emulators are OK... so far at least. I will try more

Hi,

I'm new here and I created an account because of this issue.
I run Ubuntu 18.04 on a 2011 Apple Mac mini so Intel video.

I have the same issue in the default Ubuntu session (X.Org) however it seems to work when I log out and start a session with Wayland instead of X.Org.

It previously worked fine on Unity/X.Org (16.04) and Gnome/Wayland (17.10).

Not sure what the issue might be.

Neo-Rio

@aammeloot

Just tried switching to Wayland (from the settings cog on the login screen)

Yep that works. Seems like a good workaround for the time being.

rthorntn

On 18.04 I was getting a freeze on loading the ROM, using Wayland fixed it.

mitu

Have you tried switching the RA video driver to opengl or vulkan to see if it would work without Wayland ?

thelostsoul

Thats sad to hear. I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 on my main pc and was thinking about to install RetroPie on it. If its not working correctly under xorg, I will not using it sadly. Didn't it work with older Ubuntu versions?

In the official Ubuntu repository is Retroarch. How does this differ? I see it have a different UI than RetroPie.

mitu

@thelostsoul said in LibRetro not yet ready for Ubuntu 18.04:

Thats sad to hear. I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 on my main pc and was thinking about to install RetroPie on it. If its not working correctly under xorg, I will not using it sadly.

It works, you just need to adjust the video driver to be different than Wayland.

Didn't it work with older Ubuntu versions?

Yes, it did, however the 18.04 is the first one to ditch Unity and use Gnome again, so I think they changed something also on the X.org/Wayland side.

In the official Ubuntu repository is Retroarch. How does this differ? I see it have a different UI than RetroPie.

The RetroArch version in 18.04 is 1.4.1 (https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/retroarch) which is a quite old. However the RA team provides their own packages - either in flatpak format or directly via their PPA: https://docs.libretro.com/guides/install-gnu/.

thelostsoul

@mitu ok thank you for this info. I really was discouraged when I saw this thread. I'm still not ready for, but I will try RetroPie on my pc, if I can use it stable without Wayland.

Neo-Rio

I tried retropie again on a laptop using nvidia graphics and non-free nvidia driver.
Libretro games worked but the nvidia non-free additional driver caused system instability and the system would eventually crash

BuZz

On my desktop PC with 18.04 Xubuntu using Intel integrated graphics and xorg, everything seems to work fine. Unfortunately I am unable to reproduce the problems on this thread.

sabrecheeky

@buzz

I am running a udoo x86 hobby board, with Ubuntu MATE. Everything ran fine in retropie under 17.10, but my upgrade to 18.04 has broken it. It freezes right at the start of the game emulation - the controller indicator in the bottom left of the screen is still there, and I can sometimes get to a splash screen, but it is rarely running more than a fraction of a second. Wayland is not an option in the MATE desktop, iirc. Anyone found any other fixes?

mitu

@sabrecheeky said in LibRetro not yet ready for Ubuntu 18.04:

Anyone found any other fixes?

Change the RetroArch video driver to gl or sdl and try again.

esmith13

@mitu said in LibRetro not yet ready for Ubuntu 18.04:

@sabrecheeky said in LibRetro not yet ready for Ubuntu 18.04:

Anyone found any other fixes?

Change the RetroArch video driver to gl or sdl and try again.

That temp fix works for Lubuntu as well (which does not have wayland support) but unfortunately does not allow shader use.

sabrecheeky

@mitu Thanks - That got it going for now! (Although it still has a random 'bug' which causes the desktop to change the audio settings from HDMI to built in audio, which does not exist. - I thought this was a 17.10/pulseaudio thing - shame upgrading hasn't fixed it.)

Thanks again for your (incredibly swift) reply and help!

mitu

@sabrecheeky It wasn't me that suggested this, but a another forum user, I'm just using his/her suggestion. For curiosity, which setting worked for you ?

sabrecheeky

@mitu sdl2. Just playing round with it, I seem to losing parts of the display from the top and bottom in gba, psx and spectrum emulators I've quickly tried - can't seem to be able to fix that (My TV says the display is changing to 'VGA' - ah, the memories!) Also, I can't use my keyboard in the spectrum (lr-fuse) - although that could be unrelated to the driver. I'll keep messing about, see what I can find in the meantime!