c64, lr-vice still the preferred emulator?

Retro Arcade Fan

Hi all,

Is there a better/faster emulator on the RP4 than lr-vice? I find that a majority of games are pretty slow to load (or don't load at all). Or is that still the preferred emulator for C64?

Thanks!

Neo-Rio

@Retro-Arcade-Fan
The thing I hate about lr-vice is that you can't flip disks.
(Or maybe you can, but if so, it's not intuitive and I haven't figured out how to do this yet). Additionally I see no toggle to switch off "true drive emulation". TDE is needed for a good number of games with fastload systems that require an emulated 1541 to be present. Every game will work with it switched on, but with some games that don't require it, you end up waiting forever for games to load.

Otherwise I would stick with standard vice - which has a less than friendly interface for "joypad only, no keyboard" players, but at least has all the features.

Lolonois

@Neo-Rio Been there, done that: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/post/179593

In general lr-vice sets vice into warp mode during loading (unless true drive emulation is set). Loading time is much faster than on pristine C64 HW, YMMV.

Retro Arcade Fan

@Neo-Rio Maybe there's a .cfg file somewhere to toggle this per game? Anyone know?

Retro Arcade Fan

@Lolonois Curious what your settings are under Options in Retroarch. Trying to make sure lr-vice is setup optimally.

jamrom2

@Retro-Arcade-Fan

Then of course, if you like to hear the "drive" running, you can do that as well with lr-vice.

Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I love the nostalgic sound of the drive loading tracks and the head skipping around like the original 1541 did.

Lolonois

@Retro-Arcade-Fan I have put this

vice_autoloadwarp = "enabled"
vice_drive_true_emulation = "disabled"

in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/config/VICE x64/VICE x64.cfg
and boolean invert both values of the settings for games that otherwise won't load and keep it in a <ROM>.cfg file in that folder.

Retro Arcade Fan

@Lolonois Interesting. In the /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/config folder, I have no vice folder.

Lolonois

@Retro-Arcade-Fan which retroarch config files are checked and applied when present can be seen when you start any libretro emulator with the verbose logging (select verbose logging in the runcommand menu, this menu can be entered when the screen "Loading xyz.file ... Press any button to configure ..." screen is shown).

Not all folders and files must be there, but if they are, they are processed.

For instance this is shown on my side when I start Beach Head II with verbose logging:

[INFO] [Overrides]: Core-specific overrides found at "/home/pi/.config/retroarch/config/VICE x64/VICE x64.cfg".
[INFO] [Overrides]: No content-dir-specific overrides found at "/home/pi/.config/retroarch/config/VICE x64/c64.cfg".
[INFO] [Overrides]: No game-specific overrides found at "/home/pi/.config/retroarch/config/VICE x64/BEACHHD2.cfg".

Check the output with less /dev/shm/runcommand.log on the commandline. It will give you hints where to put the files on your setup.

HTH