[proximulator]

Hey guys,

Installed Kodibuntu v 16.0 x86, got RetroArch and IARL. All was more or less working for some time.

Several questions:

1) Today I changed the way how my TV is connected. Ditched VGA cable and hooked my HTPC using HDMI. Now once ROM is launched - i only hear game sounds in the background while on TV there's Kodi interface. Tried setting monitor index from 0 to 1 in retroarch config file, no luck, still the same. I've also set my HDMI connection to be the primary using xrandr - no help either. What's the remedy for this?

2) Another problem - I control my Kodi with GamePad only. Once game is launched - Kodi still receives all the gamepad input. You play the game and at the same time gamepad affects Kodi as well (only you do not know where and what are you doing). Any easy way to prevent this?

3) Was looking into external_command_database.xml to maybe somehow solve my 2nd question by shutting down Kodi during the gameplay and then relaunch it back. However in external_command_database.xml there are no os="Linux" entries. I am not using win, mac or OpenElec. I use Kodibuntu. So I have no clue how to make IARL launch applaunch.sh from resources/bin? Tried adding os="Linux" os="Lubuntu" os="Kodi" os="KODIBUNTU" nothing seems to execute the script.

Thanks

[onizuka]

Zach - Sent you a PM

[proximulator]

Okay, i've managed to start the script upon rom execution. Now the problem is that Kodi process auto-resurrects after kill. There's a loop in kodi-standalone. However as soon as that loop is made no loop no more - Kodi exiting/killing leads to nothing else but login screen of Lubuntu... any suggestions?

[MegaForce]

Hi Zach,

This is amazing, is there a way to get this working on an Amazon FireTv Box?

If you can install Kodi and Retroarch, then it should work (although I haven't had a lot of testers for android). Just follow the instructions for setup after both are installed and working.

Thanks for the fast reply Zach i have looked through the instructions and got to to open with retro arch. However when it opens the game it just shows scrambled pixels on the screen with buttons around it.

[zachmorris]

Hey guys,

Installed Kodibuntu v 16.0 x86, got RetroArch and IARL. All was more or less working for some time.

Several questions:

1) Today I changed the way how my TV is connected. Ditched VGA cable and hooked my HTPC using HDMI. Now once ROM is launched - i only hear game sounds in the background while on TV there's Kodi interface. Tried setting monitor index from 0 to 1 in retroarch config file, no luck, still the same. I've also set my HDMI connection to be the primary using xrandr - no help either. What's the remedy for this?

2) Another problem - I control my Kodi with GamePad only. Once game is launched - Kodi still receives all the gamepad input. You play the game and at the same time gamepad affects Kodi as well (only you do not know where and what are you doing). Any easy way to prevent this?

3) Was looking into external_command_database.xml to maybe somehow solve my 2nd question by shutting down Kodi during the gameplay and then relaunch it back. However in external_command_database.xml there are no os="Linux" entries. I am not using win, mac or OpenElec. I use Kodibuntu. So I have no clue how to make IARL launch applaunch.sh from resources/bin? Tried adding os="Linux" os="Lubuntu" os="Kodi" os="KODIBUNTU" nothing seems to execute the script.

Thanks

I think the fix for your issues will be to close Kodi and launch retroarch using the applaunch script as you tried. I see that I never got that into the external launch database, so I'll include it in the next update (hopefully within the week). As far as the external_command_database.xml, Kodibuntu is covered by the "Nix" category - I'll fix that as well in my next update to be clearer and make it more GUI friendly for setup.

I'm currently working on a wizard to automagically set up external launching in one step, I think/hope that will resolve a lot of peoples issues.

[zachmorris]

Thanks for the fast reply Zach i have looked through the instructions and got to to open with retro arch. However when it opens the game it just shows scrambled pixels on the screen with buttons around it.

Hmm. If you open retroarch and launch a game from the android app directly, do you have the same issue? Sounds like some sort of video setting issue. It's possible there's an issue with Kodi not exiting before Retroarch starts (similar issues for other people on other systems). I'm working on a method to do the same in Android.

[proximulator]

Hey Zach,

The very idea that your answer didn't came immediately - gave me an opportunity to solve this on my own. Thank you for that

One sidenote before we go deeper into this is: in kodibuntu you cannot kill kodi so it doesn't launch another process of kodi right after. Why? because kodi is being launched from kodistandalone which has a loop of re-launching it.

I've spent a day and actually reached what I think a pretty good solution. It requires modifying one of your applaunch.sh scripts as well as adding one extra IF in /usr/bin/kodistandalone. The idea is that applaunch.sh is being specified in IARL's settings where you point where the retroarch executable is. Instead - you simply point to applaunch.sh

This way applaunch.sh receives three parameters: first -L, then core and finally rompath

Then applaunch does nothing more than creates a .txt file with full executable command inside it (with full retroarch path, core name, rom path etc) and then - shuts the Kodi down, waits another 10seconds, and kills the .txt file (see below why).

Next - since kodi automatically starts up upon kill, we modify kodistandalone file in a way that it checks whether there is a .txt file we created with applaunch.sh. If there is - we read the contents and execute the command (e.g. launch a game). That way - we have no kodi running and have started up our game. As soon as we exit the game - kodistandalone finds our .txt file no more (since applaunch.sh killed it) and therefore launches kodi.

The only thing that .txt file should be fullperm, since kodistandalone is being executed as root, but applaunch.sh is not.

Beautiful, or?

Let me know if you need actual script files!

P.S. Saved by the bell was my favourite series in childhood! Thanks for bringing the memories back

[bakito]

Hello everyone!
Still no complains about this wonderful add on! Just a quick word about something I find interesting for its future:
https://archive.org/details/bigbluefevideos

Maybe in a next update could we have a contextual menu like for movies trailer but for games! Just by streaming them from archive.org!
Evidently I. Have no idea if this is possible and if so not to hard/long to implement BUT if this is doable... I sure think it would be a great feature!
Thanks for your time!
Cheers

[zachmorris]

Hello everyone!
Still no complains about this wonderful add on! Just a quick word about something I find interesting for its future:
https://archive.org/details/bigbluefevideos

Maybe in a next update could we have a contextual menu like for movies trailer but for games! Just by streaming them from archive.org!
Evidently I. Have no idea if this is possible and if so not to hard/long to implement BUT if this is doable... I sure think it would be a great feature!
Thanks for your time!
Cheers

Thanks for the link Bakito. Just a note that a large number of the games in the addon already contain a trailer, streamed from YouTube.

[bakito]

oups, did not know that...how can I see them?
edit: if we can get them by choosing " rom info" when "open" , I just did not do that as I do not like the design of this screen I would prefere direct access from context menu...but that's not very important...
cheers!

[hansolo77]

That command looks right, so if it didn't start, then there's an issue with either the shell script (maybe you need to chmod the shell script again?) or retroarch isn't setup correctly. You could try running the command listed in the log from the command line to see if it works after downloading a game.

Finally had a chance to come back to this. I ssh'ed into my Pi2 and looked at the ls of the shells. Looks like they were all set as just files and not executable. CHMOD'd them and it looks like it fixed it.. at least for the test of Frogger on the Atari 7800. Don't have much more time to mess with this now, but I'll try a few more games out. I tried to load the Atari 2600 list (it's the first on the list off the main menu) and it failed to load. Just sort of sat there. So I don't know if that's an indication my list is corrupted, or if maybe the online resource is no longer available.

[zachmorris]

A new beta updated version of IARL is available from github. I changed a lot of stuff. Most of the changes I made were me trying to get the code to be more robust as I learn python. Major changes in this version include:
- Added support for multi-disk games (one ‘game’ in the list will download all the disks required for a game)
- Added Amiga
- Added Best of Amiga
- Added CD32
- Rescraped PS1 (7zip archive), Best of PS1
- Completed code robustness changes, i think the code is more efficient and runs faster now
- Updated add-on caching, should work on all systems now hopefully
- Added binaries for 7zip and chdman along with the required license stuff. CHDMAN is still not available for Openelec or Android (I think I would need help compiling this for those sytems).
- Added support for non-retroarch emulators. Currently FS-UAE, Win-UAE, and Project64 are included, others to be added as necessary.
- Added addon requires for dateutil, to fix game dates (various archives use different date schemes, and dateutil makes it Kodi friendly)
- Added add-on wizard for one-click setup for external launching. The wizard seems to work pretty well and hopefully will solve a lot of people's issues in setup. General instructions for the wizard are as follows:
In addon settings, select external launchers, and then select your system. Point to retroarch, and any other emulators your system requires
On the setup wizard tab, choose setup for 'most playable', 'balanced', and 'accurate' (I have some default cores selected, which can be changed if needed)
Then hit OK. Open up the addon to run it at least once. The addon requires the settings be saved before the wizard can run, I can't really find a way around that.
Reopen the addon settings, then select the wizard tab and hit run. it should setup all archives to work with your system in one step.

This is a beta version, so let me know if you run into any bugs.

Thanks!

[lefty420]

Wizard is working great awesome edition for those who are not familiar with setting up the addon. The addition of selecting your base for retroarch is also a welcome edition. Especially with the updated gamestarter / retroarch from bite_your_idols. Top stuff as usual mate.

I had to remove both the addon and userdata before the new beta would launch. But after that it was flawless.

Couldn't get amiga to launch, it downloads fine but doesnt boot. I suspect you are aware of this.
If you need a log let me know. I'm using a rpi atm but also can test it on x64 openelec .

I've also re-made some of the console thumbs just for personal use. But I could upload them also if you'd like a peek.

Awesome update zack keep up the amazing work!
Lefty

[onizuka]

Still no go on my Shield. Will post logs ands video shortly.

[hansolo77]

I just fixed all my emulators, and you go and make a new beta. I think the problem I had before (recently, from my delay in playing) is that when the new official update was installed, it re-wrote all the default settings for IARL. This caused all my emulators to apparently default to the internal RetoPlayer. Since I'm using a Raspberry Pi2, and Openelec, I don't have the RetroPlayer as part of my Kodi installation (we're still on Isengard 15.2). The install of the updated IARL overwrote all the customized path's too. So I had to reset everything. The update also caused me to have to go back in and manually run the chmod on the executable. This was the problem I had.

Since this "release" is a beta, it might be a prudent suggestion that you go through and verify that any of the system changes it enforces does not cause pre-existing installations to stop working. I'm not going to try installing the beta until you can confirm that it won't overwrite my current settings. I'd be happy though to test the beta to see if it DOES break things, provided I can easily backup my settings. Right now the only way I have to do that is to create a complete SD card backup image. I can't do that right now though, since I lent my brother my microSD -> SD card for his reader so he could make his own working backup for HIS Pi..

Something else I'd like to mention... have you worked out a way for me to be able to download (not temporarily) a ROM and keep it stored so it's not automatically erased when a new ROM is downloaded? Since I'm limited on SD card space, I have to limit my "saved" setting to 1 (so it auto-erases when I close). There are a few games though that I really like and would like to keep stored locally. However, simply increasing my limit to 2 (save 1, erase 1) won't necessarily keep the ROM I want. So it might erase it. There should be an option (perhaps on the details page) to Download and SAVE, along with Download and RUN, and have it keep an .xml or something to list which ones I've manually downloaded so it doesn't erase those. Maybe even have the manually downloaded .xml be visible from the main menu? Of course that could run into a problem if you're running multiple systems (Sega, Nintendo, etc). The reason I'm asking for a feature like this is because some of the newer games have SAVING functionality (Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, etc), and if the ROM is deleted, won't that erase your save too? Or does RetroArch (in my particular case) store the temporary save RAM to a file local to RetroArch? Maybe something I can investigate going forward on my next day off.

All said though, it's nice to see this addon is still being developed.