[garbear]

Given that I can't reproduce on my macbook, I'll next set up my Android box and test on that. Will report back when I have results.

[zachmorris]

OK!  So now I have .28 for the GearColeco.  I have sorted out the IAGL problem, I guess it lost my login info too, so I had to reconfigure it.  But now I have the latest and greatest IAGL, thanks Zach, so I should be ready to go!

So what happens NOW is I open IAGL, I go to the Coleco section, I pick my game.  I DON'T get the preview of the game with the screenshots and the description anymore, so maybe I'll have to do more configuring in IAGL, but the important thing is now Kodi doesn't crash!  I see a little progress bar showing me the game is downloading and then it tries to start!

The bad news is instead of showing me the intro screen, it just says in big letters NO BIOS!  Which is an improvement from crashing Kodi, but still....

Apparently the included BIOS isn't being seen by...something.

Just for fun I'll restart Kodi completely....nope, still NO BIOS.

Your move!  :-)

The IAGL addon is completely different and separate from Kodi Retroplayer. If the issue is with IAGL, you can ask in the IAGL forum post here.

Specific to game addons and gearcoleco:
BIOS files are required for certain cores. See setup in the wiki:
https://github.com/zach-morris/plugin.pr...bios-files
or in the getting started forum post:
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=340684

The files required are documented in the libretro wiki:
https://docs.libretro.com/library/gearcoleco/#bios

[ms009986]

I got bored visiting this thread and hitting refresh every two minutes (  ), so I searched around to see where the BIOS file should go.  If the information I found is right, it should go in Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata.  I hadn't tried there yet, so I copied my colecovision.rom filed there and ran IAGL again to see if it would work.  I still get the NO BIOS screen.

So either that's the wrong place or I have the wrong BIOS file, or something else I haven't thought of.  There was a checksum listed on Zach's page listing some long string of characters, I guess to verify whether you have the right BIOS, but I wouldn't know how to use that.

So back to hitting refresh 

[garbear]

Sorry for not reproducing yet, I need a Linux box to debug the Android box and my main workstation has been in pieces on the floor since I started rebuilding it after the CPU burnt out. Fortunately I was building a Kodi box for a friend out of random computer parts I found lying around the apartment. Today I'll get that setup for Android debugging.

I'm still confused why the BIOS (colecovision.rom) isn't found with the latest Gearcoleco version. We should be shipping it now. It should put the BIOS in the right place. You can see the BIOS here: https://github.com/kodi-game/game.libret...ces/system

If you can find the addon.xml file of Gearcoleco, you should check and see if the BIOS is located relative to that. If you post your debug log I'll tell you the exact path the BIOS is expected at.

I haven't checked the checksum, but I was able to boot Frogger with the BIOS, so I assume it's the correct colecovision.rom file.

If the BIOS still isn't found, I'll ship you a modified Gearcoleco that logs the path it expects the BIOS to be at before loading it.

[garbear]

It worked fine. I uninstalled to clear the userdata, then installed Kodi from the Play store, then added my samba share, browsed to a coleco ROM, launched it, installed Gearcoleco (1.3.0.27), and the game instantly started playing. It used the BIOS that now ships with Gearcoleco.

Maybe try uninstalling and reinstalling? Maybe try the Play store version? (which doesn't have the controller fix, but you can still see if the game launches).

If those steps don't work, the next step is to post a debug log showing the BIOS not found screen.

EDIT: I also tried with my latest build that includes the controller fix. Coleco games play just fine.

[zachmorris]

I got bored visiting this thread and hitting refresh every two minutes (  ), so I searched around to see where the BIOS file should go.  If the information I found is right, it should go in Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata.  I hadn't tried there yet, so I copied my colecovision.rom filed there and ran IAGL again to see if it would work.  I still get the NO BIOS screen.

So either that's the wrong place or I have the wrong BIOS file, or something else I haven't thought of.  There was a checksum listed on Zach's page listing some long string of characters, I guess to verify whether you have the right BIOS, but I wouldn't know how to use that.

So back to hitting refresh 

For gearcoleco, if you're not using the BIOS garbear suggests, the user BIOS would need to be located at:

xml:
Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/game.libretro.gearcoleco/resources/system/colecovision.rom

This is where my file is located (on a mac), and gearcoleco works just fine:


Is it difficult to put the files in the correct spot? Yes. There's an addon for that though because it is confusing:
https://github.com/zach-morris/plugin.pr...-bios-tool

This is a true / common issue for every core that requires a BIOS file, which is probably more than half of them. Unfortunately, there's no way around this. BIOS files are required for a good portion of the cores and have to be separated from the shipped core/addon (unless its an open source BIOS like the one garbear mentions).

More general information on BIOS files:
https://docs.libretro.com/library/bios/
https://github.com/zach-morris/plugin.pr...bios-files

[garbear]

Is it difficult to put the files in the correct spot? Yes. There's an addon for that though because it is confusing:
https://github.com/zach-morris/plugin.pr...-bios-tool

I just installed and tried this, and it's a really cool tool! It should get more visibility.

Something I was working on in the past was "game resource add-on". We could package some of the free and "less" encumbered ROMs in an add-on, and the bios tool could pull files from that add-on.

[zachmorris]

Is it difficult to put the files in the correct spot? Yes. There's an addon for that though because it is confusing:
https://github.com/zach-morris/plugin.pr...-bios-tool

I just installed and tried this, and it's a really cool tool! It should get more visibility.

Something I was working on in the past was "game resource add-on". We could package some of the free and "less" encumbered ROMs in an add-on, and the bios tool could pull files from that add-on.

Yes, a one stop location as an alternate or additional search path would be a great addition.

[garbear]

What about pulling files from https://github.com/Abdess/retroarch_system ?

[zachmorris]

What about pulling files from https://github.com/Abdess/retroarch_system ?

Finding them isn't a problem. Shipping them with addons is probably going to be a nono since these files are copyrighted and/or proprietary. Having the retro bios tool pull them from the internet? It's a pretty grey subject IMO...

[garbear]

The technical and regulatory questions are easy to answer, it's the ethical question that lives in the grey area. I made the decision to put colecovision.rom directly in the add-on. I personally subscribe to the "do no harm" framework. Pirating a Switch ROM? That directly harms Nintendo by depriving them of revenue. Sharing a 40 year old software only used to experience preserved games that few will play? Sue me. That's why I made the decision to ship colecovision.rom.

I believe that it's the responsibility of each author to determine their own ethical framework, and then to work within that framework.

[zachmorris]

The technical and regulatory questions are easy to answer, it's the ethical question that lives in the grey area. I made the decision to put colecovision.rom directly in the add-on. I personally subscribe to the "do no harm" framework. Pirating a Switch ROM? That directly harms Nintendo by depriving them of revenue. Sharing a 40 year old software only used to experience preserved games that few will play? Sue me. That's why I made the decision to ship colecovision.rom.

I believe that it's the responsibility of each author to determine their own ethical framework, and then to work within that framework.

Fair enough. The libretro team essentially has the blanket policy of not providing these files. There are plenty of alternate open source replacement BIOS' out there which skirt around the issue as well. Overall, I'd say it's a hurdle that users need to jump over themselves.

[garbear]

Fair enough. The libretro team essentially has the blanket policy of not providing these files. There are plenty of alternate open source replacement BIOS' out there which skirt around the issue as well. Overall, I'd say it's a hurdle that users need to jump over themselves.

I think your ethical framework is perfectly fine. I appreciate the value it brings to myself and others. Do what you ethically subscribe to.

[zachmorris]

One additional note. Some BIOS files can be downloaded with libretro from here:
https://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/system/

Depending on the system.

BlueMSX for example, which supports Colecovision, is included, The files for it were originally sourced from the BlueMSX Source / website:
http://bluemsx.msxblue.com/resource.html

The colecovision rom included is the same md5 hash as the one required for gearcoleco.

As I said, seems pretty grey. Sometimes it's OK, and sometimes it's not. I'm sure it depends on if the source has been opened, or approval was granted for use for such an old system, etc.

[garbear]

I think I remember actually going through the buildbot and adding the BIOS files available to the cores, I got bluemsx 9 years ago: https://github.com/kodi-game/game.libret...ces/system

This must have been before I create the gearcoleco add-on. I'll do another check and add any other BIOSes there to the add-ons.