[garbear]

agreed. I can use this to implement resource add-ons for games

[RockerC]

agreed. I can use this to implement resource add-ons for games

Note that most of those BIOSes are not revered engineered releases but binary ROMs ripped from the EEPROM inside of an actual game console system hardwarre, so it is proprietary software blobs which might still be under copyright depending on the console age and origins.

Maybe some are can be seen as Fair use since these game consoles are no longer sold and there is probabably no commercial value of them, but that is something that the XBMC Foundation should think about talking to their attorneys about before freely sharing those BIOS files as resource add-ons in an official repository.

For example, since all PlayStation1 emulators, like Beetle PSX & PCSX ReARMed, (as well as some other libretro cores), require a closed source BIOS file to work, these BIOSes are usually considered to be in an legal gray-zone and can be a little difficult to aquire, at least legally.

[zachmorris]

Note that most of those BIOSes are not revered engineered releases but binary ROMs ripped from the EEPROM inside of an actual game console system hardwarre, so it is proprietary software blobs which might still be under copyright depending on the console age and origins.

Maybe some are can be seen as Fair use since these game consoles are no longer sold and there is probabably no commercial value of them, but that is something that the XBMC Foundation should think about talking to their attorneys about before freely sharing those BIOS files as resource add-ons in an official repository.

For example, since all PlayStation1 emulators, like Beetle PSX & PCSX ReARMed, (as well as some other libretro cores), require a closed source BIOS file to work, these BIOSes are usually considered to be in an legal gray-zone and can be a little difficult to aquire, at least legally.

Agreed that it's best just to let the user find what they're looking for in terms of these types of support files, IARL wiki just points to the Lakka documentation currently. For what it's worth, the verbose output of retroarch typically will complain about not having what it needs to run the requested game. Something like that for Retroplayer would be helpful if it's not already built in.

[holydhaliwal]

Note that most of those BIOSes are not revered engineered releases but binary ROMs ripped from the EEPROM inside of an actual game console system hardwarre, so it is proprietary software blobs which might still be under copyright depending on the console age and origins.

Maybe some are can be seen as Fair use since these game consoles are no longer sold and there is probabably no commercial value of them, but that is something that the XBMC Foundation should think about talking to their attorneys about before freely sharing those BIOS files as resource add-ons in an official repository.

For example, since all PlayStation1 emulators, like Beetle PSX & PCSX ReARMed, (as well as some other libretro cores), require a closed source BIOS file to work, these BIOSes are usually considered to be in an legal gray-zone and can be a little difficult to aquire, at least legally.

Agreed that it's best just to let the user find what they're looking for in terms of these types of support files, IARL wiki just points to the Lakka documentation currently. For what it's worth, the verbose output of retroarch typically will complain about not having what it needs to run the requested game. Something like that for Retroplayer would be helpful if it's not already built in.

PCSXR shows a message when no bios is found and then uses a simulated one. Although it says "expect bugs". I'm curious though as to where we are supposed to place these files. In Retroarch you can set a system folder in the settings in which the user places the bios file. You're also able to configure this via retroarch.cfg but I couldn't find any such file for Retroplayer.

[OmniBlade]

An addon for installing the BIOS files might be in order even if a down loader for them might be too much on the darker side of a grey area. I would imagine it working something like:
Run bios checker -> it tells you what bios files are missing for the cores you have -> you select one of the missing files from the list presented and point it to a file on disk -> addon renames the file to the correct name(s) and copies it to the relevant directories for the core(s) that use it.

This would make the user responsible to obtaining the bios files but provide a user friendly way to 1. check if you have all the needed files and 2. install them correctly.

[MasterPhW]

But please, if you want to rename after you point to the file, only do it with files, that are known good dumps of the bios (check hashes).
Not that someone is selecting his/her computer bios update file or something like that and wonders afterwards, why it doesn't work, since "it is from his/her machine"...
You know, that some users try everything without thinking first.

[bakito]

hello, just test your add on with the last version of skin helper ( or service...) the one that led to annoying message " rom corrupt clear cash" and making advance launcher making error too...Well the good news is advanced launcher problem is fixed but archive launcher doesn't seem to... in some skin it still ask the same message ( when starting kodi) several times, I'll post a log as soon as I can...

[Robban67]

Hello!

I have installed your plugin according your tutorial but is nor able to start any game in iarl in kodi. I use a mac with osx el capitan and here is my log file:

Can you help me?

MODERATOR: Please use a pastebin site for logs: http://paste.ubuntu.com/12921395/

[bakito]

hello, just one question, is it possible to add rom that are stored in my drive?
It would be great as psx or saturn images are rather slow to download...
thanks!
cheers

[petanque]

yes if you know the file name used by iarl, copy to Userdata\addon_data\plugin.program.iarl\temp_iarl\

[zachmorris]

Update to version 1.2.5:
- Fixed Lynx Roms by adding ROM header to the file post download. Games work with the latest version of Retroplayer!
- Main focus over the past few weeks was updating the game scraper I'm using. Did quite a bit of research for all the various scraping methods out there and came up with my own I'm calling the 'shotgun' scraper. A lot of it is based on scraping by ROM CRC (a la Heimdall and some others) which gets rid of a lot of the headache with name matching. I've rescraped NES ROMs and I'm fairly confident the metadata available now is very accurate. As a side benefit, additional metadata is being added: Game Rating (based on available Metacritic info), ESRB Rating, Game Perspective (i.e. side scroller, top down, etc), and then some added reference info such as GamesDB ID, GameFAQs URL, Giantbomb URL, MobyGames URL. Information in the plot for each game was also updated, providing game history, and any cheats / codes that are available.
Using this I rescraped NES games available in the internet archive. Total NES games now available is up to 1903 filtered by me (getting rid of most duplicates, Betas, Propotypes, Mahjong type games people don't care about), and 2677 games total available if the user wants them (available in a separate zipped file in the addon). I'll be using this same method to rescrape most other archives (except for MAME, DOSBox and a few others which are already as accurate as possible).

[zachmorris]

hello, just one question, is it possible to add rom that are stored in my drive?
It would be great as psx or saturn images are rather slow to download...
thanks!
cheers

Bakito,

Yes I think thats possible. You can update the download folder for the PSX or Saturn archive to the same folder you keep your ROMs in. You'll also have to update the ROM filename within the XML so it matches the ROM filename on your local drive. When you go to launch the game then it will tell you the game is already downloaded, you'd just have to select 'Dont re-download' and the game should launch using the local file.

[zachmorris]

Hello!

I have installed your plugin according your tutorial but is nor able to start any game in iarl in kodi. I use a mac with osx el capitan and here is my log file:

Can you help me?

MODERATOR: Please use a pastebin site for logs: http://paste.ubuntu.com/12921395/

Robban, I sent you a PM. Looks like the addon is sending the correct command to launch the game. Most likely it's an issue with your external setup. Try copy / pasting the external command into a Terminal after you've downloaded the game. It should give you a better idea of why it's not working.

[rascas]

This addon shouldn't be permited here because of obvious reasons.

[Solo0815]

This was discussed already in the sticky thread "public Domain rom sites". Please read it