Adding console Vircon32 to RetroPie

Vircon32

Hi. A few years ago I made Vircon32, a new 32-bit console I created from scratch. It's been some time since Vircon32 has a libretro core, and it has been officially added to RetroArch and some other emulation systems like Lakka and EmuELEC.

Reading RetroPie's supported systems it seems that Vircon32 is not supported at the moment. I wanted to ask here if there is anything I can do to help get the console integrated into RetroPie.

Vircon32 already has a database, core info and game thumbnails available in the libretro repositories. If needed I can provide console logos, art or other additional help. Also there should be no problem with roms since all current games are free.

If you want to know about the console itself, all basic info is in the website: www.vircon32.com. And you can have a quick idea of what the games look like in this YouTube playlist.

I hope this is the correct place to ask for this, but if not please direct me to the correct way. Thank you!

ExarKunIv

@Vircon32
First a script needs to be made to build and install the system into retropie.

once thats done you need a way to get that script into the RetroPie. there are a few ways to get that done.

open a pull request on the Retropie github to have in incorporated into the official build
host it on your own github and just have instructions on how others can install the script in to their build so they can use the scipt
add it to existing collections that make it easier to people to install the script and people have heard of the collection (IE RetroPie- Extras )

Me i would to 1 and 3. there is no set time on how quickly it would be added into the main github.
so adding into a outside collection is a good way so people still have a way to use it.
or do all 3. there is no wrong way to go about this as long as its out there

Vircon32

@ExarKunIv Thank you for your pointers on this.

I'm not familiar with the systems Retropie uses. Is there any document or guide I can follow to get started on that?
Knowing where to find the existing scripts for other cores would also help a lot.

ExarKunIv

@Vircon32

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/27127/is-there-a-guide-somewhere-to-create-install-scripts-if-you-can-get-a-game-to-compile?_=1610563661710

and going to the github and looking at the scripts that are all ready included

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/tree/master/scriptmodules/libretrocores

Vircon32

@ExarKunIv Thank you! I will have a look at those and try to write my script. Luckily my core only depends on OpenGL so I hope it won't be too hard...

Vircon32

(continuing from the other thread)

@Lolonois thank you for making the initial install script for the Vircon32 core!

Sorry I hadn't looked at it yet, I had a few busy days working on adding savestates to Vircon32, both in the core and the standalone emulator. But those are done now.

Having a first look at it now it looks good to me. Just one note: the script says to copy the bios to system folder, but this is not needed. The current version of this core has the bios embedded in it. Other than that the only dependency is OpenGL so I think this should work.

I'm in doubt on a couple of things:

Should the script also install additional core files, like core info? The console game database might be needed, since we are adding a new system (not just a new core).
Vircon32 does require OpenGL to work. I don't know if the script has a way to account for this and not install in machines that can't run it.
The core can also work with OpenGL ES 2.0 or 3.0 in devices that have it, like the Pi 4. There are different builds for the core library file depending on the OpenGL to use.

If needed I'll have a deeper look at the other install scripts and mitu's guide in a couple of days, to sort this out.

Lolonois

I just filed a PR to fix the build on GLES platforms and enable Buster builds - https://github.com/Exarkuniv/RetroPie-Extra/pull/201

@Vircon32 on your GitHub builds for RPI I would recommend to enable also OpenGLES for the builds. The current binary build from here shows me:

$ ldd vircon32_libretro.so 
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0xb6ff7000)
	/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-${PLATFORM}.so => /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-v7l.so (0xb693d000)
	libOpenGL.so.0 => not found
	libm.so.6 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libm.so.6 (0xb689d000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6 (0xb6750000)
	/lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3 (0xb6fc8000)

Other than that I think your virtual console fits in well into Raspberry Pi and RetroPie universe as it allows everyone learning by inspecting and adapting the code.

ExarKunIv

@Lolonois I will take care of this once I'm back home. Thanks for doing this

Vircon32

@Lolonois said in Adding console Vircon32 to RetroPie:

Other than that I think your virtual console fits in well into Raspberry Pi and RetroPie universe as it allows everyone learning by inspecting and adapting the code.

That was my intention. The console is designed to be very simple and it is fully documented. All my programs and games are open source too. (And games are free, so no problem to distribute the roms).

About the Pi versions, this core has only been tested from Pi 3. I don't think the Pi 1 is powerful enough to run Vircon32. And I have no idea about the Pi 2.

My core builds for Pi 4 have always been done with flag -DENABLE_OPENGLES3=1, so that is what the binary at GitHub release v1.3 should be. In fact, if you try to build the core without GLES3 it will succeed, but it won't run (in my system at least). With GLES3 it does run the games.

EDIT: Still, if you need me to generate some other binaries from the Pi's I have (3 and 4), I will try to do it.