[Guide] Getting Started with Kodi Retroplayer
#16
Can I get help how to add free old games?

I hope North and south, defender of the crown, Silent hunter, and das boot is available..
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#17
(2019-04-24, 17:18)IIDexII Wrote: Can I get help how to add free old games?

I hope North and south, defender of the crown, Silent hunter, and das boot is available..

The first post says:
2) Getting Games
Once you've installed game emulator addons, now you need game files to play a game. Note that linking to game files is not condoned in general on the internet, so no one in this forum can help you find a particular game you're looking for. Use google.
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#18
(2019-04-22, 06:38)zachmorris Wrote: I think thats all that is available currently. The buildbot for some game addons doesn't seem to be fully working yet. 
Hi 

I am trying to get games working on my HTPC, with no luck so far. Also I am trying to understand the current status of RetroPlayer. Do I understand correctly, that :
- the current Ubuntu x86-64 releases avaliable on ppa (including nightlies) don't include the RetroPlayer support
- the lack of RetroPlayer support can be recognized by lack of "Emulator" type addons in Kodi repository (Addons > Download > Install from Repository > Kodi Addon-Repository > Game Addons > Emulators)
- in order to be able to use RetroPlayer on Linux x86-64, one has to compile Kodi from the "game branch"
- when Kodi is compiled with RetroPlayer support, and Emulators appear in Game addons repository, only a few of emulators will be available for Linux x86-64 eg no NES emulator ?

How recent is this wiki? https://kodi.wiki/view/Game_management
Has anyone attempt to contenerise build environment?
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#19
(2019-05-01, 19:12)uowiec Wrote: - the current Ubuntu x86-64 releases avaliable on ppa (including nightlies) don't include the RetroPlayer support

No, thats not correct. Kodi v18 includes support for retroplayer. Kodi the application is completely separate from game emulator addons (which are addons that contain binaries). Kodi is not shipped with any game emulator addons so they have to be installed separately.

(2019-05-01, 19:12)uowiec Wrote: - the lack of RetroPlayer support can be recognized by lack of "Emulator" type addons in Kodi repository (Addons > Download > Install from Repository > Kodi Addon-Repository > Game Addons > Emulators)
- in order to be able to use RetroPlayer on Linux x86-64, one has to compile Kodi from the "game branch"
- when Kodi is compiled with RetroPlayer support, and Emulators appear in Game addons repository, only a few of emulators will be available for Linux x86-64 eg no NES emulator ?

Also incorrect. I think the trouble people are having is that the official ppa isn't building a good number of the emulator addons currently, so people take that to mean it's not working. I think this is just a buildbot issue that the Kodi team needs to look into (I'm unsure where to post issues regarding ppa addon building, otherwise I'd do it myself).

For Linux, you don't install binary addons the same way you'd install a standard python Kodi addon. As far as I know, this is true for screensavers, pvr addons, game addons, etc. You have three options:
1) Install from the ppa using the instructions in the first post. Note again that many game emulator addons aren't building currently so they're not in the ppa
2) Build and install the game addons yourself using the instructions here.
3) Search the internet for an unofficial repository of pre-built game emulator addons and install by zip. I am not recommending this and I'm sure the Kodi team would not recommend it either, since it's likely a pretty big security risk (i.e. it's your funeral if this is what you choose to do).

For windows/OSX/android, the binary addons are distributed in the same way other addons are (why it's different for Linux I have no idea, but this is the same limitation that Retroarch has in linux, and cores for retroarch are installed using a ppa as well).
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#20
Thanks for shading more light. By now, the easiest answers were hardest to get.
So far I managed to build the emulator cores using your option 2) but since I have my kodi installed from ppa, under the prefix /usr, and owned by root, I wonder where should I copy the bin-kodi contents. I copied bin-kodi/lib/kodi to /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/kodi and bin-kodi/share/kodi to /usr/share but I'm running Kodi as kodi user, and now I have problems with getting my gamepad working in games. When I launch eg Super Mario Bros, kodi.log says
ERROR: GetDirectory - Error getting /usr/share/kodi/addons/peripheral.joystick/resources/buttonmaps/xml
ERROR: AddOnLog: Joystick Support: Error opening /usr/share/kodi/addons/peripheral.joystick/resources/buttonmaps/xml/application/Keyboard.xml: Failed to open file
Maybe I should have copied the addons somewhere to /home/kodi/.kodi ?
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#21
Great guide! Thanks a lot
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#22
(2019-05-03, 00:08)uowiec Wrote: Thanks for shading more light. By now, the easiest answers were hardest to get.
So far I managed to build the emulator cores using your option 2) but since I have my kodi installed from ppa, under the prefix /usr, and owned by root, I wonder where should I copy the bin-kodi contents. I copied bin-kodi/lib/kodi to /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/kodi and bin-kodi/share/kodi to /usr/share but I'm running Kodi as kodi user, and now I have problems with getting my gamepad working in games. When I launch eg Super Mario Bros, kodi.log says
ERROR: GetDirectory - Error getting /usr/share/kodi/addons/peripheral.joystick/resources/buttonmaps/xml
ERROR: AddOnLog: Joystick Support: Error opening /usr/share/kodi/addons/peripheral.joystick/resources/buttonmaps/xml/application/Keyboard.xml: Failed to open file
Maybe I should have copied the addons somewhere to /home/kodi/.kodi ?

It's not just copying the binary .so file, the binary addon has some other supporting XML, PNG, etc. files. You can have a look at a packaged Windows binary addon, for example this, to get an idea of what you need to copy. I think it is not a good idea to copy files you have compiled into /usr/, you can harm your system if you do something wrong.

The other alternative, by far the easiest, is that you compile both Kodi and the binary addons, and execute Kodi as in the tutorial instructions. Note that you can have both the Kodi PPA and your compiled Kodi installed in the same machine. Keep in mind that both Kodis will use the same /home/kodi/.kodi user data directory, but this should not be a problem at all.
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#23
I'm trying to install emulators in kodi 19.0-alpha 1 for Ubuntu 18.04.
I added the nightly ppa by following these steps: sudo add-apt-repository ppa: team-xbmc /xbmc-nightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt get install kodi-game *
but just a few emulators are installed. I'm interested in mame, master system, Genesis, snes ... and I just can not add those.
What am I doing wrong?
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#24
(2019-05-08, 01:37)peibolmeneibol Wrote: I'm trying to install emulators in kodi 19.0-alpha 1 for Ubuntu 18.04.
I added the nightly ppa by following these steps: sudo add-apt-repository ppa: team-xbmc /xbmc-nightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt get install kodi-game *
but just a few emulators are installed. I'm interested in mame, master system, Genesis, snes ... and I just can not add those.
What am I doing wrong?

Not all the Libretro cores binary addons are in the Team Kodi PPA. I don't know if the reason is problems with the CMake build system reported in this thread or any other. You can use my build scripts to build both Kodi and the binary addons. If you get stuck in the message Built target kodi-platform just press ENTER and then n. If you get stuck you will need to repeat this a number of times, it's annoying but will work. If you have a medium-power machine you will be done in 30 minutes if you compile both Kodi and the addons, skipping MAME cores and ScummVM (just one MAME core takes about 1 hour to compile, depends a lot on the version, the more recent the longer).
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#25
(2019-05-08, 07:39)Wintermute0110 Wrote: Not all the Libretro cores binary addons are in the Team Kodi PPA. I don't know if the reason is problems with the CMake build system reported in this thread or any other. You can use my build scripts to build both Kodi and the binary addons. If you get stuck in the message Built target kodi-platform just press ENTER and then n. If you get stuck you will need to repeat this a number of times, it's annoying but will work. If you have a medium-power machine you will be done in 30 minutes if you compile both Kodi and the addons, skipping MAME cores and ScummVM (just one MAME core takes about 1 hour to compile, depends a lot on the version, the more recent the longer).
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#26
Thank you. I'm already trying.
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#27
Hi, I’m very new to all of this (no programming knowledge) - thank you for the tutorial. Smile 
I am running a Raspberry Pi2 with OSMC and Kodi Leia v18.2 and Vero 4k with OSMC and Kodi Leia v18.2.  Just managed to get some of the Kodi Retroplayer games up and running but noticed there isn’t a PS1 engine - is this in development?  I can see the engine on my Android tablet but not on Raspberry Pi.

I have managed to install Retropie with Emulationstation on Raspberry Pi but not on Vero 4k but have read that Raspberry Pi is unable to launch external cores e.g. I tried to get it to launch the missing consoles from Retropie via IAGL.

Any insight is much appreciated and I’m very much excited to see how this project evolves over time. Keep up the good work!
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#28
So I've got a fresh box, fresh Ubuntu 18.10 and latest Kodi (apt-get updated) and was excited about this brand new built-in emulation support (  https://kodi.wiki/view/Games ) , so I got a bunch of SNES roms, stuck em in a folder in my home dir, got a couple of USB controllers off ebay, sat down opened a beer and..

First I had to add the folder of roms as a source (obviously) and this was fine, browsed to it, nothing in there. Hmm. Thought, maybe I need to add the emulation as an Add-On. The only add on available was a MAME one, so I looked around the internet and found this guide:  https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=340684 

So, Kodi does not come with emulation, after all, you have to add the emulation to it as an add on, oh and if you've got linux you have to do it from the command line because linux. So I tried the instructions in the above and "Could not find package kodi-game-libretro-beetle-bsnes".

So I did some looking around and found this page  https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...ter=cosmic  which clearly shows that kodi-game-libretro-beetle-bsnes is there. Cue some adding/removing of package sources and faffing before I finally find this page -  https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...d/16378978  (x64, i386 is the same story). Missing dependencies, so the build is broken.

According to this page (albeit talking about Bionic, not Cosmic) the build has been broken for SIX MONTHS  https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues/15366 

Well, OK, so according to this reddit thread I should try building them myself  https://www.reddit.com/r/kodi/comments/a...s_it_work/ - which seemed to work until I got to make install, then it said something about not being able to find INSTALL

At which point I went to bed.

Can anybody help?
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#29
(2019-06-12, 10:00)ricstrr Wrote: So I've got a fresh box, fresh Ubuntu 18.10 and latest Kodi (apt-get updated) and was excited about this brand new built-in emulation support (  https://kodi.wiki/view/Games ) , so I got a bunch of SNES roms, stuck em in a folder in my home dir, got a couple of USB controllers off ebay, sat down opened a beer and..

First I had to add the folder of roms as a source (obviously) and this was fine, browsed to it, nothing in there. Hmm. Thought, maybe I need to add the emulation as an Add-On. The only add on available was a MAME one, so I looked around the internet and found this guide:  https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=340684 

So, Kodi does not come with emulation, after all, you have to add the emulation to it as an add on, oh and if you've got linux you have to do it from the command line because linux. So I tried the instructions in the above and "Could not find package kodi-game-libretro-beetle-bsnes".

So I did some looking around and found this page  https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...ter=cosmic  which clearly shows that kodi-game-libretro-beetle-bsnes is there. Cue some adding/removing of package sources and faffing before I finally find this page -  https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...d/16378978  (x64, i386 is the same story). Missing dependencies, so the build is broken.

According to this page (albeit talking about Bionic, not Cosmic) the build has been broken for SIX MONTHS  https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues/15366 

Well, OK, so according to this reddit thread I should try building them myself  https://www.reddit.com/r/kodi/comments/a...s_it_work/ - which seemed to work until I got to make install, then it said something about not being able to find INSTALL

At which point I went to bed.

Can anybody help?

If you are using Ubuntu, in my opinion currently the easiest thing to do is to compile Kodi and the binary addons yourself. I've written a guide about how to do it. Remember that you need a joystick/gamepad to use Retroplayer, otherwise emulation won't start. In addition, there is a bug if you use a custom XML for gamepad configuration, more details here (you will need to deleted the system-wide default XML config file for your custom file to work). If you choose to go this way and have any trouble understanding the tutorial please post in the Compilation of binary addons in Linux thread.
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#30
I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction to where i've gone wrong with this.

I've got a Rpi3 B+ running Kodi 19.0 Millhouse builds.

I've got IAGL installed, & when I go to a game, I get... Failed to play game. This game isn't compatible with any available emulators.

If I go to an emulator, say SNES from Add-ons>Game add-ons>Support add-ons and then select any of the SNES emulators (all 7) hit install, then select a version, I get a screen with the additional add-ons that will be installed.
Libretro Compatibility is installed, & the controller. If I hit install, I get installation failed. There's no check mark by that emulator either.

I have to be missing something, but i'm not sure what. Any help would be appreciated.
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[Guide] Getting Started with Kodi Retroplayer1