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hansolo77 · 2016-06-04, 04:07

Hey Zach. Been a while since I dropped in here. I see you've been busy with some updating. I'm curious as to your recommendations for this going forward. Since I'm using an RPI2 and OpenELEC. I see you are starting to push for Gamestarter. I'm still new to the whole RPI "scene". Is this a completely new emulator to replace RetroArch? Or is this something else entirely? I'm coming up with a day off soon to mess around with this more and would like your feedback for the best possible solution. For the record, I'm using the latest official build of OpenELEC which comes with Kodi Isengard 15.2. The beta OpenELEC comes with Jarvis but crashes to much so I'm not using it. How to hear from you soon!

storum · 2016-06-06, 13:31

Guys, do not forget that the retroarch need the bios file to run emulators , this page contains all the essential bios for emulators:
Put this files on paste of your roms

https://github.com/libretro/Lakka/wiki/ROMs-and-BIOSes

staplz41 · 2016-06-09, 23:02

I have the Mad Katz Mojo gaming device. I downloaded Internet Archive Rom Launcher. I can see all the games for all systems but I cannot launch anything, are there specific settings I need to apply, any help would be greatly appreciated.

zachmorris · 2016-06-10, 22:51

(2016-06-09, 23:02)staplz41 Wrote: I have the Mad Katz Mojo gaming device. I downloaded Internet Archive Rom Launcher. I can see all the games for all systems but I cannot launch anything, are there specific settings I need to apply, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I've never even heard of this device before. Looks like a neat little box. How well does it work?
Anyway, since it's Android, IARL should work. Just make sure Retroarch app is installed and you start it up and update all your cores/settings/etc. Then in the IARL addon settings, ensure you point to the Retroarch cfg file.

zachmorris · 2016-06-10, 22:54

(2016-06-04, 04:07)hansolo77 Wrote: Hey Zach. Been a while since I dropped in here. I see you've been busy with some updating. I'm curious as to your recommendations for this going forward. Since I'm using an RPI2 and OpenELEC. I see you are starting to push for Gamestarter. I'm still new to the whole RPI "scene". Is this a completely new emulator to replace RetroArch? Or is this something else entirely? I'm coming up with a day off soon to mess around with this more and would like your feedback for the best possible solution. For the record, I'm using the latest official build of OpenELEC which comes with Kodi Isengard 15.2. The beta OpenELEC comes with Jarvis but crashes to much so I'm not using it. How to hear from you soon!

Gamestarter is just a Kodi addon that installs Retroarch (and other games) easily for the RPi. The only reason I suggest it over the other options is that it's well supported by the author and it works pretty well. See info on his addon here.

hansolo77 · 2016-06-11, 15:42

Sounds interesting. Of course, I'll backup my SD card prior to making changes... So going forward with this, it looks like I need to wipe IARL and RetroArch from my Pi, then install GameStarter, and it will automatically re-install those right? Or should I just keep IARL installed and just remove RetroArch?

hansolo77 · 2016-06-12, 21:49

Ok... not working..

I made a backup of my SD card.. then removed the paths relating to IARL and RetroArch (both in the ADDONS and USERDATA folders). I then followed the online instructions for GameStarter. Completely installed it and then set it up to use RetroArch. I then told it to install IARL (which all it does it download the install script/zip. I then ran the installer for IARL. It says it installed successfully. I then went in to try and configure it, using GameStarter/RetroArch. Saved it a few times and tried to run the setup wizard. It doesn't do anything at that point. The online documentation for IARL says to wait a minute while it sets things up, but nothing ever pops up showing progress or completion. Since I knew it's had trouble in the past, I checked the chmod on the .sh files in the IARL path. They weren't setup, so I did the change and tried again. Still nothing happens. Checking the logs reveals that it downloads the ROM, but executing it causes Kodi to think it's a video file and tries to play them, which obviously doesn't work. I thought maybe RetroArch wasn't configured right, so I tried running GameStarter. It loads up RetroArch just fine. I verified all my settings for paths, BIOS, controller, etc. I then attempted to execute the core with the downloaded ROM in the IARL temp folder. It loaded up fine. So somewhere in IARL the settings are not correct.

houdin24 · 2016-06-13, 05:24

Reinstall it again happened to me before uninstalled reinstalled it worked fine afterwards

hansolo77 · 2016-06-13, 16:03

Uninstall which part? IARL or GameStarter/RetroArch? I'm thinking IARL. Is it possible the version GameStarter is linking to is maybe a bad/outdated version?

hansolo77 · (This post was last modified: 2016-06-15, 03:10 by hansolo77.)

Spent some more time on this tonight. I think I'm getting hung up on the External Launches tab of the IARL config screens. After telling it to use GameStarter (RPi/RetroArch), I then have to tell it where the RetroArch system files are. Now, am I looking for the RetroArch program files, or the emulated system's BIOS files? BIOS is easy, but RetroArch itself I can't find. I did find a RetroArch set of files in the "/storage/.kodi/addons/script.gamestarter/resources/bin" path though. Should I point IARL to that?

---------

EDIT 1

Checked the log when trying to run the wizard...

Code:
20:24:15 1909.829956 T:1967337472   ERROR: ExecuteAsync - Not executing non-existing script special://home/addons/plugin.program.iarl/resources/lib/run_iarl_wizard.py

Doesn't like that program/script for some reason...

---------

EDIT 2

Did some more log checking and file management. I thought to myself "hmm, maybe that script needs chmod'd too?" But when I went to go to that path, I couldn't find it. Turns out, the plugin.program.iarl was incorrect. It had instead installed (via the download through GameStarter) as plugin.program.iarl-master. So... aha! I uninstalled everything again, and looked at the zip file GameStarter had downloaded. Yes, it was called "plugin.program.iarl.zip" but when I looked INSIDE the zip, it had a subfolder called "plugin.program.iarl-master", wherein lies all the files. I suspect the whole "Install from Zip" option for addons simply means "extract this folder to /addons". So I simply renamed the subfolder in the zip and tried installing it again. This time, it installed it without the -master bit. The Wizard then was able to execute successfully.

As of right now, I have been able to download the NES rom list, download 1943, and get it to load up perfectly through GameStarter/RetroArch! I should also note.. I did NOT have to go into the /bin and do the chdmod to the scripts prior to making this work...It worked "out of the box" after the Wizard completed.

Going forward, as a friendly suggestion to Zach... If it's possible, add a catch option to check and see if "plugin.program.iarl" exists and use that path, and if not, check if "plugin.program.iarl-master" exists and use that.. then if NEITHER exists, prompt a warning/error box inside Kodi saying installation failed or something. Might help future users with this ridiculously easy problem that was insanely difficult to figure out. Smile

Also, if you're interested.. when I have some time tomorrow and Thursday, I can go through the lists and give you a breakdown of what is working on my RPI2 (since you don't have that data on the Wiki).

zachmorris · 2016-06-15, 04:31

(2016-06-15, 02:02)hansolo77 Wrote: Spent some more time on this tonight. I think I'm getting hung up on the External Launches tab of the IARL config screens. After telling it to use GameStarter (RPi/RetroArch), I then have to tell it where the RetroArch system files are. Now, am I looking for the RetroArch program files, or the emulated system's BIOS files? BIOS is easy, but RetroArch itself I can't find. I did find a RetroArch set of files in the "/storage/.kodi/addons/script.gamestarter/resources/bin" path though. Should I point IARL to that?

---------

EDIT 1

Checked the log when trying to run the wizard...

Code:
20:24:15 1909.829956 T:1967337472 ERROR: ExecuteAsync - Not executing non-existing script special://home/addons/plugin.program.iarl/resources/lib/run_iarl_wizard.py

Doesn't like that program/script for some reason...

---------

EDIT 2

Did some more log checking and file management. I thought to myself "hmm, maybe that script needs chmod'd too?" But when I went to go to that path, I couldn't find it. Turns out, the plugin.program.iarl was incorrect. It had instead installed (via the download through GameStarter) as plugin.program.iarl-master. So... aha! I uninstalled everything again, and looked at the zip file GameStarter had downloaded. Yes, it was called "plugin.program.iarl.zip" but when I looked INSIDE the zip, it had a subfolder called "plugin.program.iarl-master", wherein lies all the files. I suspect the whole "Install from Zip" option for addons simply means "extract this folder to /addons". So I simply renamed the subfolder in the zip and tried installing it again. This time, it installed it without the -master bit. The Wizard then was able to execute successfully.

As of right now, I have been able to download the NES rom list, download 1943, and get it to load up perfectly through GameStarter/RetroArch! I should also note.. I did NOT have to go into the /bin and do the chdmod to the scripts prior to making this work...It worked "out of the box" after the Wizard completed.

Going forward, as a friendly suggestion to Zach... If it's possible, add a catch option to check and see if "plugin.program.iarl" exists and use that path, and if not, check if "plugin.program.iarl-master" exists and use that.. then if NEITHER exists, prompt a warning/error box inside Kodi saying installation failed or something. Might help future users with this ridiculously easy problem that was insanely difficult to figure out. Also, if you're interested.. when I have some time tomorrow and Thursday, I can go through the lists and give you a breakdown of what is working on my RPI2 (since you don't have that data on the Wiki).

I think the -master folder appendage is a problem with the gamestarter addon. Thanks for pointing it out, i'll let the author know. If you install IARL from my repo, it should install normally.

hansolo77 · 2016-06-15, 22:57

Yeah my process was from starting from scratch and install in this order:

1 - Download GameStarter from GitHub.
2 - Transfer installer zip file to RPI /storage/downloads
3 - "Install via Zip" GameStarter
4 - Configure GameStarter to use RetroArch.
5 - Download IARL via GameStarter config tabs.
6 - Run GameStarter and then, configure RetroArch.
7 - Transfer IARL installer zip to home PC and rename the subfolder in the zip to not include -master.
8 - Transfer IARL installer zip to RPI /storage/downloads
9 - "Install via Zip" IARL
10 - Configure IARL to use GameStarter.
11 - OK/Save out before running IARL Setup Wizard.
12 - Run IARL Setup Wizard.
13 - Run IARL
14 - Open NES games, Open 1943, Download and Play ROM.
15 - GameStarter closes Kodi, Launches RetroArch and ROM.. play for awhile, then Escape out
16 - Kodi restarts.

As I said, I'll experiment a little to see what consoles work. I assume GameStarter does not include all of the available cores. Especially since it's geared towards RPI and Kodi users, who won't necessarily be able to play consoles like Playstation or N64 very well. Plus you have some more consoles in your list that I know weren't available as cores as of a few months ago, so I might need to check and see if there's something new.

leestow · 2016-06-18, 07:45

Zach,

Great addon!. Got everything up and running with libreelec and tssemek's retroarch addon and everything is working smoothly except PSX games won't download. I believe they are now missing from the archive. Can u confirm? Not sure if there is another place in the archive that hosts PSX games?

zachmorris · 2016-06-21, 03:59

(2016-06-18, 07:45)leestow Wrote: Zach,

Great addon!. Got everything up and running with libreelec and tssemek's retroarch addon and everything is working smoothly except PSX games won't download. I believe they are now missing from the archive. Can u confirm? Not sure if there is another place in the archive that hosts PSX games?

Thats a bummer, if they're removed from archive.org there's nothing I can do.

I'm working on an update to the addon, any other retro systems that aren't included people like?

leestow · 2016-06-21, 19:19

Zach,
After looking I believe that it is still there but requires u to log in with an archive account in order to view. Also wondering if there might be another archive of psx games on the website. Would it be possible to add login info to the addon?