lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing

darknior

Hi
I really love this project, i'm a fan of ScummVM and using it with overlay is a dream for me :p

I have try your version and using your tutorial in first post.

This lr-scummvm working for me.
Overlay is working, with joystick, and menu access key on START and START + SELECT to exit.
But it is less smooth than the original one :(
I can't understand how to launch a game from ES :(

I have add the directory of the game with the complete game in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/scummvm/freddi-win-fr.svm
When i try to launch it it show me the ScummVM menu empty.
I add it like with the old ScummVM official version and i can see it on the INI file

[freddi-win-fr]
description=Freddi Fish 1: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (Windows/French)
talkspeed=85
path=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/scummvm/freddi-win-fr.svm
subtitles=false
gameid=freddi
language=fr
LastBottleLocations=2
TextOn=0
platform=windows
guioptions=sndNoMIDI launchNoLoad noAspect lang_French

If i try to launch it again i come back to the ScummVM menu and i must click start

Then like you write i add and create in the game directory a file freddi-win-fr.svm
When i try to launch it, i have a black screen and go back to ES.

In runcommand.log i have

Parameters: 
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-scummvm/scummvm_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/scummvm/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/scummvm/freddi-win-fr.svm"/*.svm --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg
scummvm: Stray argument 'Freddi'
Usage: scummvm [OPTIONS]... [GAME]

Try 'scummvm --help' for more options.

If i launch the same game with the old version of ScummVM it works fine.

hhromic

@darknior thanks for testing! and thanks for the support on this scriptmodule, I hope it gets ready to merge upstream soon!

Beware that this core doesn't use the very latest upstream scummvm, so do not expect the exact same compatibility. It is not (yet) intended as replacement of the standalone scummvm.

However, I just tried the game you mention (Freddi Fish 1: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (Windows/French) and worked fine for me on first try.
Did you add the string freddie inside the freddi-win-fr.svm file? If still no luck, let me help you get things clear/correct so you can try again.

First, make sure you are using the current version of the scriptmodule. Uninstall lr-scummvm, and remove the scriptmodule and associated files as instructed on the OP. Also make sure to remove your ~/RetroPie/BIOS/scummvm folder and ~/RetroPie/BIOS/scummvm.ini file. This should put things back to the beginning. Then, re-install the scriptmodule and re-build/re-install the core. I know this can take some time, but is just to make sure you are on the right state. This is a summary of commands for accomplishing all this:

cd $HOME/RetroPie-Setup  # go to the RetroPie Setup directory
sudo ./retropie_packages.sh lr-scummvm remove  # remove lr-scummvm core
rm -rf scriptmodules/libretrocores/{lr-scummvm.sh,lr-scummvm}  # remove scriptmodule and old scriptmodule data
rm -rf $HOME/RetroPie/BIOS/{scummvm.ini,scummvm}  # remove config file and extras folder
patch -p1 < <(wget https://github.com/hhromic/RetroPie-Setup/compare/master...add-lr-scummvm.diff -qO-)  # re-patch with new version of the script
sudo ./retropie_packages.sh lr-scummvm clean  # clean any old build directory
sudo ./retropie_packages.sh lr-scummvm  # re-build lr-scummvm, configure and re-install

Also make sure there are no scummvm options in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-core-options.cfg before re-installing/re-configuring.

At this point you should have a freshly built and configured lr-scummvm core. Do not modify scummvm.ini. Please also consider that the lr-scummvm core doesn't need to add games to the internal ScummVM launcher, doing so might confuse the loading of games from the core.

Make sure your games are in the scummvm roms folder using the following structure:

roms/scummvm/freddi-win-fr.svm     <-- this is a directory not a file
    FREDDI.HE0
    FREDDI.HE1
    FREDDI.HE2
    FREDDI.HE3
    FREDDI.HE4
    freddi-win-fr.svm   <-- this is a file with the string "freddi" inside

~~Make sure there is no *.svm file with the same name outside the game folder (I think standalone scummvm does this?), EmulationStation might get confused with this layout.~~ I confirmed now that having standalone svm files does not affect.

At this point, the game should appear as a single entry in the scummvm system in EmulationStation and should launch fine. It can even be scraped (I did and got a nice box art for the game).

Regarding the speed, what devices are you using? on my non-overclocked RPI3B+ all seems to be working fine and smooth. I agree the mouse pointer speed (not the game itself) can be a bit slow in some games, you can adjust this in the RetroArch core options of the core (Gamepad Cursor Speed). Also check there that the Speed Hack option is enabled (should be done automatically if you cleaned the core options before re-installed.

Let me know if this works for you. ~~If this folder layout is not compatible with the standalone scummvm let me know, we can work out a co-existing system so both the standalone and lr-core versions work with the same game files/folders.~~ I also confirmed now that they can co-exist, but standalone scummvm will create svm files in the roms/scummvm folder, you still need the ones inside each folder for lr-scummvm with the gameid as content.

Thanks again for testing, much appreciated! Your feedback helps making the core integration better!

hhromic

@darknior said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

I have add the directory of the game with the complete game in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/scummvm/freddi-win-fr.svm
When i try to launch it it show me the ScummVM menu empty.
I add it like with the old ScummVM official version and i can see it on the INI file

I think I got what you did now :), did you put the folder name as content to the file? If so, that is not how it works. Sorry for the confusion! Check my last post carefully and reproduce the structure mentioned.

And again, do not add the games using the scummvm internal menu, is not needed for this core, just make your games in the described layout.

hhromic

@BiZzAr721 said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

(...) but my mouse would not work. (neither Trackpad incorporated in logitech KB, or corded USB mouse) Is there an option to allow joypad and KB & Mouse simultaneously? (...)

I tested this now and I can confirm that a connected mouse also works in lr-scummvm with default configuration. I can move the mouse pointer and clicks are registered fine. Make sure your mouse is not mapped weirdly in RetroArch and is correctly detected by RetroArch too.

However, a connected keyboard will be considered a gamepad, mapped accordingly in RetroArch, and the keys sent to the core using this mapping. This means that F5 for example won't open the internal scummvm menu, but pressing ENTER (which most of the times is START) will do. This is by design (Retroarch focusing on gamepad gaming).
It is possible to create a custom mapping only for the scummvm core if desired to use a keyboard with mappings close to a real keyboard, but this is considered a per-user customisation.

darknior

@hhromic said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

freddi-win-fr.svm <-- this is a file with the string "freddi" inside

Ok sorry i don't understand this, i write this on the file :p
Freddi Fish 1: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (Windows/French)

Now with your trick it works fine ;)
Thanks a lot

Beware that this core doesn't use the very latest upstream scummvm, so do not expect the exact same compatibility. It is not (yet) intended as replacement of the standalone scummvm.

What do you mean about this ? Where can we read information ? It's the last stable official 2.0.0 if i read fine.
Will they update it like the official standalone version ? Because there are some avantage to use it :)
And maybe one day more will come with savestate etc ...

Regarding the speed, what devices are you using? on my non-overclocked RPI3B+ all seems to be working fine and smooth.

Not for me, i remove rewind, filter, overlay and the sound is always crackling and slow :(
I'm on PI 2 with Retropie 4.3 and overclock.

scummvm_gamepad_cursor_speed = "2.0" -> Is perfect for me
scummvm_speed_hack = "enable"

EDIT : I have change my old Nespi Case + by my new Megapi Case and now it works fine, near perfect.
As I had guessed it came from the bad power supply of the Nespi Case

Now i will try some other games with filter and overlay, but for my part it will replace the official release for all the games that works fine with it <3
I wish it will become an official Retropie-Setup emulator :D

marus

@hhromic Finally I'had time to test your patches: everything works fine! I was able to run all LucasArts games from gamelist root (thank to folder rename tip).
The select+start issue seems disappeared too.
Now this is the best option to play scumm games in Retropie IMHO.
Great work! thank you again.
Cheers

hhromic

@darknior said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

Now with your trick it works fine ;)
Thanks a lot

You are welcome! I'm glad it's working for you now.

@darknior said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

What do you mean about this ? Where can we read information ? It's the last stable official 2.0.0 if i read fine.
Will they update it like the official standalone version ? Because there are some avantage to use it :)

I meant that lr-scummvm is a fork of the official standalone scummvm but with libretro integration as a backend. Yes, the fork currently is based on scummvm 2.0.0, however it is not constantly being updated to the very latest official all the time. Also, because it is a fork, any changes in upstream official needs to be ported down to the libretro version, which depends on people from LibRetro to do. This is the very same with many other libretro cores. Fortunately the current lr-scummvm seems to be working very fine despite not being on the bleeding-edge with upstream.

@darknior said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

EDIT : I have change my old Nespi Case + by my new Megapi Case and now it works fine, near perfect.
As I had guessed it came from the bad power supply of the Nespi Case

Ah the infamous Nespi Case :). I also own one of the original non-plus versions and had the same power supply issues. I ended up fitting a PowerBlock (very recommended!) and also changed the internal wires for thicker ones. This completely made the case work as expected for me.

@darknior said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

Now i will try some other games with filter and overlay, but for my part it will replace the official release for all the games that works fine with it <3

Again I'm happy it is working great for you now. Please keep testing as much as you can, the more the better to spot scriptmodule bugs or think on enhancements. Cheers!

hhromic

@marus said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

@hhromic Finally I'had time to test your patches: everything works fine! I was able to run all LucasArts games from gamelist root (thank to folder rename tip).
The select+start issue seems disappeared too.
Now this is the best option to play scumm games in Retropie IMHO.
Great work! thank you again.
Cheers

I'm very happy to hear the hotfix patch for the HOTKEY+START quitting is also working for you! If more users report the problem gone then I think I will send a PR upstream to see if it's merged for good.

Thanks for all the testing!

hhromic

Update
The scriptmodule is now part of official RetroPie :) To install/uninstall lr-scummvm, just go to the experimental section of the package manager and you will find it there. Some documentation will be put in the official Wiki later.

Thanks to all the testers and if you find any issues just post it here and we can sort it out. Cheers!

EctoOne

@hhromic does that include your fix for the closing crash in the upstream core (or whatever the right term is)? For the android version in my case.

hhromic

@EctoOne yes, the scriptmodule includes the fix for the closing crash as a local patch, however I haven't send it yet to the upstream repository as I wanted to leave some time for players to test. At least for me is working fine so far, and others seem happy as well.

Maybe I will send it next week, however the upstream maintainers don't seem to be very active and I don't expect them to merge it too soon :(. Once submitted, fingers crossed.

EctoOne

@hhromic It's OK, I just bought a big SD card for my tablet and still have some games that I can play with the normal ScummVM version. But in the feature I probably need a better way to right click things, touch controls are awful for that. Or maybe I need to buy a Bluetooth mouse and see if that works on my tablet.

ParadoxGBB

This core is better I think than the standalone Scummvm. The cursor seems a bit easier to deal with and it's convenient to have the controller hotkeys. Some of the audio seems better but that might be because I hadn't updated ScummVM recently.

A few things I noticed:

Initially, the runcommand for the core seemed to not launch scummvm correctly (explicitly launched retroarch, passing in the romdir launcher shell file), but the "official" copy I got through the retropie script doesn't seem to do that anymore.
This is a minor thing, but when you gracefully exit out of a game (without utilizing the hotkey combo), you're left with a retroarch quick menu that just shows "no items", and to boot back into emulationstation you need to back out of there and select "quit retroarch" or do the combo there. It's a bit annoying to have that extra step.
A few of the games require specific settings (for example, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade appears to require a specific FM-TOWNS audio option to hear the music), but I haven't been able to figure out how to set per-game emulator overrides. The documentation says you should be able to drop a [SHORT_NAME].ini file but either I'm dropping in the wrong place or doing something else wrong. Anyone have one working? I'd also recommend turning off the speed hack for The 7th guest if you like the intro to stay in sync.
A random interesting thing for Shivers fans --- lr-scummvm has really bad video performance for its intro, but it works perfectly for the standalone emulator for some reason. I found this curious because I had assumed the cores were pretty much the same --- but it's rather moot since on the RPi there appears an access violation bug you hit right after the intro that makes the game unplayable (although I suppose you could try restoring a game outside of that area to start). I opened up a bug here but no takers yet (https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/10431). Oddly enough this doesn't get hit on a Windows ScummVm install, or launching the game through DosBox / Windows 3.1 on a RetroPie.

Thanks for this installer script, it really makes it easier to scrape the titles' metadata too as has been noted.

darknior

@ParadoxGBB said in lr-scummvm: request for comments and testing:

A few of the games require specific settings (for example, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade appears to require a specific FM-TOWNS audio option to hear the music), but I haven't been able to figure out how to set per-game emulator overrides. The documentation says you should be able to drop a [SHORT_NAME].ini file but either I'm dropping in the wrong place or doing something else wrong. Anyone have one working? I'd also recommend turning off the speed hack for The 7th guest if you like the intro to stay in sync.

Have you try to configure the game with the scummVM ini general file ?

hhromic

@ParadoxGBB thanks for testing and sorry for the delay replying :)

Initially, the runcommand for the core seemed to not launch scummvm correctly (explicitly launched retroarch, passing in the romdir launcher shell file), but the "official" copy I got through the retropie script doesn't seem to do that anymore.

There were some enhancements to runcommand and the underlying addEmulator scriptmodule function to better support this script, so the preliminary patch probably stopped working once RP was updated with this. The official module in RP is now the preferred way to install/manage lr-scummvm.

This is a minor thing, but when you gracefully exit out of a game (without utilizing the hotkey combo), you're left with a retroarch quick menu that just shows "no items", and to boot back into emulationstation you need to back out of there and select "quit retroarch" or do the combo there. It's a bit annoying to have that extra step.

Yes this is "normal" behaviour. When you close the game in ScummVM's GUI, the core simply finishes and you are taken back to RA. AFAIIK there seems to be no way for a core to quit RA from within as this is not hot RA was designed. So unfortunately this won't change and better is to get used to the combo in-game.

A few of the games require specific settings (for example, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade appears to require a specific FM-TOWNS audio option to hear the music), but I haven't been able to figure out how to set per-game emulator overrides. The documentation says you should be able to drop a [SHORT_NAME].ini file but either I'm dropping in the wrong place or doing something else wrong. Anyone have one working? I'd also recommend turning off the speed hack for The 7th guest if you like the intro to stay in sync.

as @darknior mentioned, you need to add these settings into the general scummvm.ini file located in your $HOME/RetroPie/BIOS folder. When adding options to a game, you must use the game id as the section name, and make sure there is a path option pointing to the folder of the game.
I haven't had time recently to document this officially in the RetroPie Wiki, but will do as soon as I get the chance. Thanks for your patience.

A random interesting thing for Shivers fans --- lr-scummvm has really bad video performance for its intro, but it works perfectly for the standalone emulator for some reason. I found this curious because I had assumed the cores were pretty much the same --- but it's rather moot since on the RPi there appears an access violation bug you hit right after the intro that makes the game unplayable (although I suppose you could try restoring a game outside of that area to start). I opened up a bug here but no takers yet (https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/10431). Oddly enough this doesn't get hit on a Windows ScummVm install, or launching the game through DosBox / Windows 3.1 on a RetroPie.

The lr-scummvm core is currently based on ScummVM 2.0.0, however the upstream maintainers haven't synced the upstream changes recently into the core, so it's a bit behind the upstream progress. There is not much we can do regarding this, but to wait patiently for the core to be updated by libretro's folks.

Thanks a lot for testing and thanks for the good words on the script :) Hope you have fun playing ScummVM games!

Dipkid

Umm sorry guys, but how does one create a .svm file?

(Google just sends me all over the place, and just nameing txt file as .svm
dosent seem to work. Im very excited about a stable lr version of ScummVm. Great job guys! Now If I could just get it to work..)

marus

@Dipkid I've simply created a file from text editor typing the short name inside it ;-)

EctoOne

@Dipkid the original scummvm port was creating them when you added games in the gui. i dont't know if the lr core does the same. otherwise svm are just txt files and therefore it should work to rename them.

you could also try to download the default *.scummvm files from libretro here and rename them.

Dipkid

Ok, thanks guys! I did create a text file, saved as .svm. Games show up in ES, but i get kicked out after seeing the Run Command box.
Does it mather if the short-name is in capital letters?
(Mass) add and run the games with the org scummvm core works fine though. Going to thinker with it after work..

hhromic

@Dipkid I can't confirm right now, but I would suspect that it does matter to use capital letters for the game-id inside the text file. This is read by the core to know which engine to use for the game. Please use all-lowercases inside the file and try again. A simple text file should suffice.

As @EctoOne pointed out, you can download the files in the link he provided from libretro. Just make sure you only put one of these files for each game directory, and that the file is renamed to .svm.

Let us know how it went!