[Archived] ANNOUNCING RECALBOX FOR THE ROCK64 - ALPHA RELEASE

[Luke]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IQxohTsbS-GwY0ZsmgpIe7m5Hwuz

In the link above I am attaching this video of Tekken III (PSX) - probably the most demanding game on PSX (?) - on the Rock64 (2GB) playing with Enhanced resolution / slow enable. So far you're the only person experiencing issues with PSX.


To get logs the easy way:

Enter the IP of your board (can be checked from ES) and go to -> logs (pastebin those). Then go to -> support -> Launch Script (It should give you a link to post).

As for N64, I don't quite understand your question - you don't have to download any cores. You can set N64 cores AFTER adding N64 games in supported format (NOT ZIP) and going to advanced settings -> emulators -> Nintendo 64 ... You'll need to choose between Mupen and Libretro AS WELL AS the core/ plugin (don't leave it at default). But N64 should work without without any setting up.

Also please provide the following info: 1) Which board version are you using 2) Do you have a heatsink on ? 3) what PSU are you using.
Thanks for the help!

[Raere]

OK - if other people aren't having PSX issues then I suspect it may be throttling because I don't have a heatsink. I will report back once I've installed it. I haven't changed any settings from the defaults and my board is working fine otherwise so I'm guessing that's the problem. Thanks!

[Danielsan]

Ok guys my specs:

• Rock64 4GB
  
• standard PSU shipped with the board (I mean in this moment I can't disconnect it )
  
• Passive (cheaps) heatsinks on both CPU and GPU
  

Respect the N64 I had the roms stored as zip file I extracted them but I haven't tested it yet.
I activated the FPS on screen I will update this post to notify my experience:


GBA : fine
SNES: fine
PSX : fine without shaders
MEGA CD: fine
N64 : fine - retroarch menu does not work

[Luke]

Raere are you having issues with PSX too?
Danilesen - thanks for the logs, I'll look at them tonight.

Danilesen and Raere, could you both re-flash a to a different SD (but keeping the builds you currently have with the PSX issue) and see if you still have issues with PSX?

[Danielsan]

Hi Luke,

I don't have another flash card to make other test, I can reflash the same with another build when is going to be available.

Personally I prefer Lakka, Emulation Station is nice however it is not well integrated with Retroarch like Lakka does.

Just for curiosity there is something that I do not understand, if Lakka and Recalbox are built upon libreelec why has the latter the correct hardware acceleration?

Right now it seems to me that Retroarch on Android is better than the emulation on Recalbox (while Android is awful IMHO), a build of Lakka with the correct blob binary, drm and kms properly enabled should work fine like Recalbox. I guess.

[Raere]

@Luke yes I'm having PSX issues. I will flash a different SD card and try that.

[Luke]

Hey, Danilesan.
Just to make it clear, Recalbox is NOT built on LibreELEC (LAKKA is however). I am not an expert, but the way LAKKA and LibreELEC implement acceleration is different to Recalbox.

I know you're experiencing performance issues but I'd like you to be aware that currently for me - and others - emulation of PSX and N64 in Recalbox is better than on Android (apart from artifacts in N64).Substring from Recalbox devs even wrote:

N64 does work pretty fast, I'm impressed !

The reason I am writing this is: try refinishing again, perhaps some odd thing happened on first boot or during flashing (?). Also, perhaps there is a driver issue with your gamepads or something else you have plugged in.
Regardless, we're working toward alpha v2 which will resolve some of the fundamental issues of v1.

Thanks for taking the time to test and respond.

[Danielsan]

@ Luke

I am going to reflash Recalbox to another sd card, I mean I am going to erase my android os, however both flash cards I bought for this board are "Samsung 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC EVO", the only difference is on the GB: one is 128 and the one I bought to test Recalbox is of 64GB.

If you suspect the issue might be is the sd card maybe I may experience the same issue because the same model, I'll let you know though...

[Luke]

@ Luke

I am going to reflash Recalbox to another sd card, I mean I am going to erase my android os, however both flash cards I bought for this board are "Samsung 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC EVO", the only difference is on the GB: one is 128 and the one I bought to test Recalbox is of 64GB.

If you suspect the issue might be is the sd card maybe I may experience the same issue because the same model, I'll let you know though...

Just reflash the SD you originally used. I can't rule out that its an issue with the SD however ... or some other issue with the hardware of course. That said, you are not the only user reporting poor performance - so perhaps its something in the software. We're working towards an Alpha v2 (soon-ish), perhaps that will resolve your performance problems ...

[edit] Raere and Danielsan, if you still have poor performance with after a reflash, could you both please paste the output of the following two:

Code:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/cpuinfo_cur_freq

and

Code:

cat /sys/class/devfreq/ff300000.gpu/trans_stat

[Raere]

Sorry to be completely unhelpful, but it looks like the problem solved itself. PSX games are running fine now, even with smoothing on. I haven't done anything besides add more games for various systems and leave the ROCK64 on for a while. I was booting it and then immediately opening the game before while this time I've been leaving it on overnight. That's the only thing I can think of, nothing else has changed.

With that the system is working perfectly! Thank you so much for your hard work, I'm thrilled that I can play all my retro games in the living room now.