Poor Performance + Wonderswan, Wonderswan Color, ZX81 PC98, PC88 not showing up, no matter how many times I update

metallo

Greetings, I have scoured this forum, even editing es_settings.cfg file in Retropi/Emulationstation so that it doesn't just scan from a previously approved list. There doesn't seem to be a "es_systems.cfg" in that folder, by the way.

I'm unable to get my machine to read ZX81 (Zed Ex 81), but my ZX Spectrum folder seems to be working fine. As mentioned in the title of this post, Wonderswan, Wonderswan Color, ZX81, PC98, and PC88 (all of which are supported by Retropie and can run on the Pi Zero) will not show up.

Lastly, Sega 32X suffers from stutters/sever sound issues, Gameboy Advance seems to suffer (a lot), no matter what setting I pick. I also can't find a way to overclock (that was another solution suggested). I've been running around in circles for nearly a year and finally decided to ask for help, after having fixed a decent amount of issues from reading the forums. I would appreciate any help.

Lastly, I've also seen people on various forums (including this one) state the the Pi Zero can't handle these games, however, there are other users (including Youtubers) who've shown that GBA and 32X can function decently on the Pi Zero. As mentioned, I'm unable to Overclock (if anyone can also help with that, I'd appreciate it). There is a thing called "Option 2" Overclock option that people have mentioned being a work around for the GBA issue. Thanks in advance!

mitu

Please add more info about your system, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.
From your post, it looks like you're using a Pi Zero ? The overclocking - "Option 2" - might be something that you can do from the raspi-config utility, but a Pi Zero is kind of an overclocked P1, so I think you're all set here.

Depending on the system emulator, there are a few emulators which trade speed for accuracy or compatibility - lr-armsnes will perform better on SNES, or gpSP for the Game Boy Advance.

For the problem you have regarding games or systems not appearing - did you install the emulators for those system and did you check that the ROMs you copied have the right extension ?

metallo

@mitu said in Poor Performance + Wonderswan, Wonderswan Color, ZX81 PC98, PC88 not showing up, no matter how many times I update:

mulators which trade

My apologies for the late response, I believe mine already has the overlock. It's Adafruit, Pi Zero, Version 1.3:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2885

I do not know, to be honest. I'm unsure if the Emulators were installed. According to the Wiki on RetroPi, the emulators are compatible, however, I'm unsure of how to go about installing them. I tried using the Menu that automatically updates and installs Emulators and left the Pi Zero on.

As for the SNES emulator/switching them out recommendation, thanks! Nice looking out. I'd figured out some of that by experimenting on it last year. I can't seem to get the 2 GBA emulators included to run most of the games (and by most, I mean 90%. A tiny percentage of them work, while the rest stutter so badly with broken frames and sound, I dare not say they're playable). Is there any way to install a new GBA emulator? Perhaps the solution would be similar to installing the appropriate Wonderswan emulator as well.

Thanks in advance :)

mitu

@metallo said in Poor Performance + Wonderswan, Wonderswan Color, ZX81 PC98, PC88 not showing up, no matter how many times I update:

Is there any way to install a new GBA emulator? Perhaps the solution would be similar to installing the appropriate Wonderswan emulator as well.

Take a look at the docs to see the available emulators for each system; I doubt any of the newer emulators would perform better. For GBA, try using gpSP, it should be the fastest (also less accurate) than the newer ones.

For Wonderswan, I guess the system is too slow to play it. There's just one emulator available in RetroPie (see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/WonderSwan/), so there's no alternative here.

Try lowering the video resolution of the emulator using the Runcommand launch menu, that might speed things up a bit.

metallo

@mitu

Yea, that's probably a good idea. Though there's Youtubers who've posted videos of Wonderswan running on their Pi Zero. Here's one for example:

I'll have to figure out how to install "lr-beetle-wswan" onto the Pi-Zero. Probably via Command line if the pre-packaged software doesn't have it loaded up by default.

Thanks a bunch! You've been super helpful! :)

mitu

@metallo said in Poor Performance + Wonderswan, Wonderswan Color, ZX81 PC98, PC88 not showing up, no matter how many times I update:

I'll have to figure out how to install "lr-beetle-wswan" onto the Pi-Zero. Probably via Command line if the pre-packaged software doesn't have it loaded up by default.

It's part of the 'Getting Started' docs section - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#updatinginstalling-individual-packages