[hansolo77]

Favorites should work, although there is a little work to do if you make your own list (I'll update the wiki with this). If you select 'Add to IARL Favorites', it will guide you through making a new list, or allow you to add to an existing favorites list. It will copy the xml from the selected game into a new xml file. For it to show up, you do have to restart the addon.

The new list doesn't automatically copy external launch commands though. I have it default to allow launching with Retroplayer (which will hopefully be merged soon )

So for your new favorites list, you'll have to select 'Update Launcher' and 'Update External Launch command' to choose what it will launch with externally. Note however that if you have a favorites list with multiple game types in it (NES and Genesis for example), this wont work since you can only have one external launch command per list. Again, when Retroplayer is part of Kodi this wont be an issue.

Alternate option for you: Add the game as a Kodi favorite. When you do this, I have the addon go to the bookmarked location directly. It's a little slower, but works. You can also just make multiple game type favorites lists with something like Super Favorites.

Hope this helps.

Ah I see.. So there isn't a way to have a favorites list for multiple systems. I'd need to create a separate list for each one. That kinda stinks. I created one called "Achievements", where I'd set aside games that I know have achievements at RetroAchievements.org. The plan was to use that until some future development with IARL is made that will incorporate them. I wonder how difficult that task would be, since you created the Top 50/etc for some systems. I'm sure if you asked, the admins over at RA would be willing to share some form of list for you (xml or otherwise).

[zachmorris]

today sucesfully added a game ...

and it give's me a idea howmany work this has to be creating all those XML's

Looks awesome! And yeah, most of the work for this addon is making the XMLs. Most of the time I've spent on this project is coming up with my own game scraper. Hopefully I can put that work toward a Kodi scraper in the future, whenever Retroplayer makes it in.

[hansolo77]

Hey Zach...

Does the latest version of IARL have 7zip support? I seem to recall seeing that in the folders. If so, does it work with the Pi's? Again, if so... I found a link to some USA PSX Redumps that might be helpful:

https://archive.org/download/psx_redump_usa_20141221

[russ71]

Hi Zach,

thanks for the good work in coding this.

question, Im not sure if you have the answer for this, but regarding defining the retroarch location folder, do you know the location of it for the Libreelec OS for raspberry pi 3?

thanks

[zachmorris]

Hey Zach...

Does the latest version of IARL have 7zip support? I seem to recall seeing that in the folders. If so, does it work with the Pi's? Again, if so... I found a link to some USA PSX Redumps that might be helpful.

7zip support is included.
Thats the archive used in the addon currently. Archive.org has flagged it though, which now requires a login to view the archive. The addon currently doesn't support logging in so the archive is not accessible from IARL. Perhaps in the future i'll add login support.

[zachmorris]

Hi Zach,

thanks for the good work in coding this.

question, Im not sure if you have the answer for this, but regarding defining the retroarch location folder, do you know the location of it for the Libreelec OS for raspberry pi 3?

thanks

I don't know the location off the top of my head, but the next revision of the addon will add support for LibreElec (x86 and RPi versions).

[hansolo77]

@ZACH - I'd love to get a simple login option on the settings screens. I created an Archive account so I could access that archive as well when I was trying to find an alternative. I wonder how hard that would be to program in?

@russ71 - RetroArch isn't installed by LibreELEC or the Pi3... if you install it yourself, then you should KNOW where it is. If you install it as part of say "GameStarter", then he has it hidden in the /storage/.config/ path. I actually like having it there because it keeps it hidden away and won't be as easy to mess with once all is working. GameStarter is definitely a lot better than the way I was doing it before. And he's included IARL as an "addon" option to his installer, which makes everything perfectly streamlined.

[zachmorris]

Ah I see.. So there isn't a way to have a favorites list for multiple systems.

Current 'workaround' for this is to use Favorites, or even better, use the plugin 'Super Favorites'. You can add and organize any number of games to various folders using Super Favorites. The add to superfavorites context menu item creates a bookmark that goes directly to the game in the addon. I've tested this and it seems to work pretty well.

[hansolo77]

Current 'workaround' for this is to use Favorites, or even better, use the plugin 'Super Favorites'. You can add and organize any number of games to various folders using Super Favorites. The add to superfavorites context menu item creates a bookmark that goes directly to the game in the addon. I've tested this and it seems to work pretty well.

Yeah I use SuperFavorites a lot. It's pretty much one of the first addons I install with every new Kodi installation. I'll give that a try. By adding a favorite that way, does it retain the launch settings? So say I create a SuperFavorites folder (Game Favorites) and add links to games from different systems.. will this be all launched correctly? I assume it will, since that's what brought up the original suggestion in the first place.

[lefty420]

Super favorites is indeed a great addon. Looks like there's some awesome new additions to the addon on the git. No spoilers go check it out
Awesome work as per usual Zack !

[zachmorris]

New version of IARL is available in the repo (1.5.3). Changes include:
- Rescraped MAME (0.172 archive), Best of MAME
- Added MAME CHD games archive (92 Games)
- Added MAME 2010 core specific games archive (4456 Games)
- Added Final Burn Alpha games archive (1415 Games)
- Added SCUMMVM games archive (150 Games, 275 Unfiltered)
- Added Vecrtrex games archive (36 Games)
- Added Atari 5200 games archive (93 Games)
- Added Atari 800 games archive (225 Games)
- Added Intellivision games archive (127 Games)
- Added Apple IIGS games archive (168 Games, 468 Unfiltered)
- Added Wonderswan games archive (112 Games)
- Added Wonderswan Color games archive (95 Games)
- Added support for LibreElec x86 (Escalade build), for Rpi use gamestarter
- Added support for scummvm config file auto generation
- Updated MAME softlist database for new archives
- Updated Wizard for new archives and LibreElec

For libreelec x86 users, see builds here if your interested in trying it out. I tested it and it's pretty slick - worked with every system I tried (although I did not try them all).

MAME was the biggest update, and it's as comprehensive as I think it could be. It includes a new romset (0.172) along with full artwork and video snaps. The full archive was a whopping 33,000 games / machines!
After filtering out all clones, non-playable games, mahjong games, etc it's a mere 4,700 games. This rescrape also allowed for some additional game lists to be made, namely a MAME_2010 core list (which is good for RPi users, because that seems to be the latest version of MAME core available) and a MAME CHD list. A warning about the CHD games, they are HUGE. Some of the old games that included video scenes top in at over 10GB. If you're going to try a CHD game, I recommend changing the IARL listing to include the game size so you can decide if you actually want to play the game.

In addition, the big updates for IARL include some core specific game listings like Final Burn Alpha (FBA) and ScummVM. ScummVM was recently updated in libretro to allow direct launching to the game which my addon takes advantage of by auto generating a config file to launch the game. It works, but there are still a few bugs I found in the core itself that I've told the libretro folks about.

Happy gaming!

[hansolo77]

Wow awesome update!

I wonder if there are any RetroArch cores available to play Atari 800. Also, what is the best core to use for MAME? RPi users and GameStarter...

[zachmorris]

Wow awesome update!

I wonder if there are any RetroArch cores available to play Atari 800. Also, what is the best core to use for MAME? RPi users and GameStarter...

MAME (latest core, which now includes MESS) will play Atari 800 games. There is also a MESS core, although I haven't tried it yet (and I don't have it in my external launch database, if you wanted to try it you would have to add it to your launch database file).

For Raspberry Pi, MAME was hit and miss for me depending on the game. Many of them would flat out crash using iMAME4All or MAME_2010 - although thats an issue with the core rather than IARL. I had good success with the new Final Burn Alpha game list on RPi using gamestarter, which includes a lot of the games people are interested in playing anyway. MAME_2010 is probably the best bet beyond that, but again it can crash depending on the game. Here's a good compatibility list for reference.

[hansolo77]

Do you ever use GameStarter and launch RetroArch directly (not from IARL)? The latest version he just released seems to have broken my ability to play games from the playlists. I'm Just curious if other people are seeing the same thing.

[lefty420]

Just tested the new update on the LibreElec x86 (Escalade build) had to change the mame core from /tmp/core with an older core from retroarch 1.2.2. (i don't know why the nightly doesn't work,is that just me?) But with the older core all the softlist systems worked, as well as everything else I tried.

Bravo on getting scummvm to boot thats so cool ! Another amazing update filled with new system support and more consoles. Thank you!