Gamestarter: Retrogaming add-ons (RPi/Generic)

    Thank you for this bite_your_idols.. you are a saint! :)

    One question though... where is the scraper directory? In retropie, I have a script set up that scrapes everything, finding stuff that the built in scraper links seem to miss.. even though I can see them on the site being used.


    I have close to 900 games... having to choose a title based on it's version for every game manually is a little much. So.. I run the script, then go back and manually re-scrape to find the stragglers. I just need to know where the scraper's actually been installed.

    Also.. I used a spare sd card to do a quick install of retropie, then used that to download all the esthemes. Transferred that over to ~/Configfiles/emulationstation/themes. I was going to upload them, but it's 260 mb's. :P

    Quote from greenbag


    Thank you for this bite_your_idols.. you are a saint! :)

    One question though... where is the scraper directory? In retropie, I have a script set up that scrapes everything, finding stuff that the built in scraper links seem to miss.. even though I can see them on the site being used.


    I have close to 900 games... having to choose a title based on it's version for every game manually is a little much. So.. I run the script, then go back and manually re-scrape to find the stragglers. I just need to know where the scraper's actually been installed.

    Also.. I used a spare sd card to do a quick install of retropie, then used that to download all the esthemes. Transferred that over to ~/Configfiles/emulationstation/themes. I was going to upload them, but it's 260 mb's. :P

    I really don't know... I suppose it is something built in inside emulationstation because it works and there is no file/binary included to make it work... mayme escalade can tell anything else about since I use his emulationstation compilation.
    Gamelists are stored in storage/.config/emualtionstation/gamelists

    That's sselph's scraper. It's included in my build, I simply download the binary from github. Haven't used it much though as it doesn't support all the platforms I use (i.e. amiga and c64), so I just use regular lists. There is ongoing work in integrating that scraper into Emulationstation as well.

    Edited once, last by escalade (October 2, 2016 at 7:41 PM).

    Thanks... I tried looking through all the directories, even looking through logs.. hoping something popped up. I wound up just inserting my RetroPie card, doing the scrape, then reinserting LE. I only had 200 or so to do manually after that. :P
    [hr]
    I should also mention... I don't know what in that command string makes the scraper do it's job any differently than when running it through the gui, but the command string seems to make the scraper go by the hash of the file, rather than the name of the file. Even if I manually remove all the (USA)'s from the iso's file names, it'll just add them back when it uses the hash. Scraping it manually, and it keeps the changes that I've made. In the end though, the search by hash method finds games on the database site that the manual scraper can't seem to find.. even though you can see it yourself when searching the site.

    Also.. I've tried escalade's builds, and they're great. He's built in the ds4drv driver for the ps4 dual-shock controller, so my controller not only rumbles, but it works wireless via bluetooth. Only issue I had though.. after configuring my controller to use the bluetooth, then actually playing a game.. my Hauppauge 950q's remote would become unresponsive. I couldn't navigate Kodi with anything but my keyboard and mouse. I thought it was just his build, but even a regular LE8 source was having issues with the remote.. every 2nd or 3rd reboot, and it didn't work. I was also experiencing freezing while powering down or rebooting. I'm guessing there's a bug in Kodi17. So.. I went back to the current stable version, and installed your gamestarter instead. No freezing, remote still works, and I enabled the rumble feature. Can't use the bluetooth with it though.. it needs the ds4drv. :P

    My Hifiberry soundcard works with it though. :) Everything else to do with Retropie or emulationstation, and only the hdmi would work. Even escalade's build. But with your plugin... I can't use the hdmi for some reason, but it's using my Hifiberry as default. I just can't adjust the frequency rate.. it's stuck at 48000. I was hoping to reduce it as the sound's a bit choppy in some games, and I read reducing it could solve a lot of problems. Maybe I'll try manually editing the file. Just gotta find it first. :P

    Edited once, last by greenbag (October 3, 2016 at 3:28 AM).

    Quote from escalade


    That's sselph's scraper. It's included in my build, I simply download the binary from github. Haven't used it much though as it doesn't support all the platforms I use (i.e. amiga and c64), so I just use regular lists. There is ongoing work in integrating that scraper into Emulationstation as well.

    ok, so I will include it in my addon... maybe scraping can be executed from addon settings, it can be a nice feature... I will take a look...

    greenbag

    The DS4 controller works fine over bluetooth without ds4drv. In fact, if you haven't manually started the ds4drv service, then you haven't been using it at all. The only reason for using it would be if you wanted to map buttons to keyboard buttons and/or use different profiles. Even then, you should also consider input lag because games like Super Mario will not be very playable due to some lag.

    Kodi has nothing to do with the shutdown procedure, other than telling systemd to shut down. Could be that you've installed some addon that has a faulty shutdown routine.

    Quote from escalade


    That's sselph's scraper. It's included in my build, I simply download the binary from github. Haven't used it much though as it doesn't support all the platforms I use (i.e. amiga and c64), so I just use regular lists. There is ongoing work in integrating that scraper into Emulationstation as well.

    Your right.. looking through your source, then reading the info on sselph's scraper, that's the same scraper. Then looking at retropie's source, the '/opt/retropie/supplementary/scraper/scraper' being called in my commands is actually a scraper.sh, using the same scraper.

    As for Kodi not controlling the shutdown procedure.. that makes sense. As for plugins not shutting down properly.. all I had installed was tvheadend and the zap2it plugin, which also needed mechanize. It's definitely a difference between LE8 and LE7/OE7(6.95) though. LE8, and I have issues. LE7 or a self compiled OE7 beta, and it's fine.

    As for the ps4 and bluetooth though.. I paired the device, emulationstation detects it, but you can't configure it. The same thing in retropie.. until you install the ds4drv. Only problem after that, is retropie/emulationstation then detects 2 controllers.. you can navigate through emulationstation, but it then says game pad not configured when trying to play a game. That's why I was surprised you actually got it to work in your build. Just google it... everybody's having issues with the ps4. :P

    I also just found that the rumble function actually bugs out on some games.. it literally froze everything up in one game. :P

    Try a clean install of LE8 and see if shutdown works before installing any addons.

    I have DS4 controllers myself, I've paired and used them (through bluetooth) in Kodi and Emulationstation since LE7 without ds4drv, so any problems people are having = user error.

    Quote from escalade


    Try a clean install of LE8 and see if shutdown works before installing any addons.

    I have DS4 controllers myself, I've paired and used them (through bluetooth) in Kodi and Emulationstation since LE7 without ds4drv, so any problems people are having = user error.

    I'll give it a try tomorrow. I'm just remembering that I did have it set up in a dual boot using berryboot, but it's the same set up I had with LE7. I've just installed LE7 on it's own since getting the python version of zap2xml installed, and now emulationstation. The only thing missing is a browser. :P

    The problems with the ds4drv are in retropie, in raspbian. Your build was the first I knew of it in Kodi. :)

    I uploaded the esthemes to dropbox, so if anyone wants them, it's 350mb's. They go in ~/Configfiles/emulationstation/themes. I just opened the directory in 'network' in Ubuntu, then copied the files over.

    Code
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/si262jbrkk477fc/esthemes.zip?dl=1

    I've been testing the scraper and it seems to work ok for systems I tried (nes & snes) with this script:

    Code
    /storage/.config/emulationstation/sselph-scraper/scraper -thumb_only -rom_dir="/storage/emulators/roms/nes" -output_file="/storage/.config/emulationstation/gamelists/nes/gamelist.xml" -workers=3 -add_not_found=true -image_dir="/storage/.config/emulationstation/artworks/nes" -image_path="/storage/.config/emulationstation/artworks/nes" && /storage/.config/emulationstation/sselph-scraper/scraper -thumb_only -rom_dir="/storage/emulators/roms/snes" -output_file="/storage/.config/emulationstation/gamelists/snes/gamelist.xml" -workers=3 -add_not_found=true -image_dir="/storage/.config/emulationstation/artworks/snes" -image_path="/storage/.config/emulationstation/artworks/snes"

    I think i can include the script as an option in addon settings for auto-scrape all systems more quickly than inside emulationstation...

    Hey Bite...
    I know you don't support RetroArch and IARL directly, you're program is just a launcher. However, your launcher installs versions of both of these that are compatible with each other. To that end, I was wondering you have any recommendations for me trying to get the Atari 800 roms available from IARL to work. I've asked the IARL author what emulator (core) I should be using, but I can't get it to work with his suggestion. He said that since MESS is now encorporated into MAME, then MAME should work. The versions of MAME that comes installed with GameStarter's version of RetroArch doesn't work with it. Do you have any suggestions? Besides the 16-bit systems, Atari 800 was the only other gaming device I grew up with and would love to have it working on my Pi.

    Edited once, last by hansolo77 (October 5, 2016 at 6:09 PM).

    Quote from hansolo77


    Hey Bite...
    I know you don't support RetroArch and IARL directly, you're program is just a launcher. However, your launcher installs versions of both of these that are compatible with each other. To that end, I was wondering you have any recommendations for me trying to get the Atari 800 roms available from IARL to work. I've asked the IARL author what emulator (core) I should be using, but I can't get it to work with his suggestion. He said that since MESS is now encorporated into MAME, then MAME should work. The versions of MAME that comes installed with GameStarter's version of RetroArch doesn't work with it. Do you have any suggestions? Besides the 16-bit systems, Atari 800 was the only other gaming device I grew up with and would love to have it working on my Pi.

    Hi!
    As you know I basically use libretro cores as emulators, well, I can see there is libretro atari 800 core, and it is included in my installation :) The bad news are that I tried to make it run but it didn't... Maybe you can dedicate some more time and discover how to run it... I see in gamestarter.log that the core is creating a config file in /storage/.atari800.cfg and I can see that there are some BIOS files needed... maybe you can start working with this point...
    Let us know iy you can make some progress. Good luck!