wraggster
January 14th, 2020, 18:10
A new software update is available, would you like to update now? No, not for one of your consoles, but for RetroArch! The first new version of the year, in fact. RetroArch v1.8.3 has just been released, and this version makes some major additions to our favorite emulator frontend. The most notable new feature in 1.8.3 is ANGLE support, which helps platforms that don't have good OpenGL core support get better performance, by converting OpenGL to Direct3D. ANGLE is available for two platforms initially: UWP (Xbox One) and Windows 64bit. This will help out users that have older integrated graphics cards or use RetroArch on the Xbox One.
For the regular Windows version, there are two binaries from now on – one with ANGLE (retroarch_angle.exe), one without (retroarch.exe). The non-ANGLE version will use your system-provided OpenGL driver, while the ANGLE version will use the ANGLE version of the OpenGL dynamic libraries.
ANGLE works over OpenGL ES. This means that ANGLE requires separately compiled cores targeting OpenGL ES 2/3 instead of desktop OpenGL. What this means is that 1) you need separate cores for every Libretro OpenGL core you want to run, since the current OpenGL cores available for Windows assume that desktop OpenGL will be targeted, and 2) a libretro core has to have a working OpenGL ES 2 or 3 implementation in order for it to work. This will mean that currently, cores like Quake 2/3/Doom 3 won’t work since there are no working OpenGL ES 2 codepaths in those cores. However, Mupen64plus Next and Flycast do have OpenGLES 2 codepaths.
Click to expand...
That's not the only improvement, though! Netplay has also gotten some lovely fixes and refinements. A major bug that had plagued netplay users--disconnecting all players from a server when one player quits the game--has been solved, after a year. A memory leak has also been patched out, meaning netplay should just be more stable, overall.
You can see the changes for yourself, by grabbing the latest version of RetroArch from the Libretro site, linked in the source.
Changes
1.8.3
ANDROID/BUGFIX: Fix ‘Install or Restore Core’ regression
BUGFIX: Ensure core info is always initialised when calling ‘drivers_init()’. This bug could prevent cores from doing content runtime logging
BUGFIX/MENU: History size can only be set to 1 at a minimum
BUGFIX/MENU: (XMB/OZONE) Fix ‘quick menu’ detection. XMB would not display savestate thumbnails in the quick menu if it was accessed via the main menu
BUGFIX/CRASH/CORE UPDATER: Fix potential double free error
BUGFIX/CRASH/OPENGL/WINDOWS: Fix regression in 1.8.2 that would cause GL-based cores to fail because it would try to erroneously load libGLESv2.dll instead of OpenGL32.dll (cores affected: VitaQuake 2/3/Dhewm3, possibly more)
BUGFIX/MENU/DESKTOP UI: Show desktop menu on startup does not launch Qt UI on Linux
CHEEVOS: Don’t disable achievement when AddAddress generates an out-of-range address
CHEEVOS: Don’t reset triggers/leaderboards that failed to load
CHEEVOS: Don’t count unsupported achievements as unlocked
CORE UPDATER: Display number of cores updated when updating installed cores
DINGUX: Initial port
D3D11: Block FL9_3 devices from D3D11 driver because they don’t work anyway (current D3D11 driver uses SM4.0 which requires FL10_0 and up)
D3D11: Fallback to GL driver when D3D11 fails
EMSCRIPTEN: Fix assets
HISTORY/FAVORITES: Bump up default to 200 entries from 100
FFMPEG CORE: Implement packet buffer, fixes MP4 video playback for many files
LOCALIZATION: Update Italian translation
LOCALIZATION: Update Polish translation
LOCALIZATION: Update Russian translation
LOCALIZATION: Update Spanish translation
MENU: Added ‘Hosting’ menu under Netplay menu
MENU: Added ‘Subsystems’ menu
MENU/FILEBROWSER: Fix file selection issues when starting from (or navigating to) the top level directory
MENU/WIDGETS: Prevent looping of task title text
RASPBERRY PI: Fix BGRA8888 color inversion issues in the menu and elsewhere with VideoCore GL drivers
NETPLAY/RELAY: Add Sao Paulo (Brazil) relay server
NETPLAY/RELAY: Fix the “spectator” bug when using the relay server – When a player switches into the spectator mode (pressing “i”) while using the relay server, all players will disconnect.
NETPLAY/RELAY: Overall stability has improved. Fixed a memory leak that would cause the relay server to become unresponsive after some time
NETPLAY/RELAY: Fixed critical bug that would cause all players to be disconnected from the relay server if one player was leaving the game. That bug had been open for one year and we were finally able to fix it
SWITCH/LIBNX/BUGFIX: Fix onscreen keyboard input regression
UWP: Add ANGLE support
UWP: Wire up get_metrics to the fake context of D3D9/10/11/12 driver, enabling proper scaling and mouse/touch gestures
VITA: Re-add Online Updater
VULKAN: Fix font driver ‘vulkan_get_message_width()’ function
VIDEO FILTERS: Only use threads when the number exceeds 1. Fixes race conditions with some CPU filters on Vita
WINDOWS: Add ANGLE support for x64, separate binary (for now?)
Click to expand...
https://gbatemp.net/styles/default/xenforo/clear.png Source (https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-1-8-3-released/)
https://gbatemp.net/threads/retroarch-1-8-3-released-offers-angle-support-and-netplay-enhancements.556107/
For the regular Windows version, there are two binaries from now on – one with ANGLE (retroarch_angle.exe), one without (retroarch.exe). The non-ANGLE version will use your system-provided OpenGL driver, while the ANGLE version will use the ANGLE version of the OpenGL dynamic libraries.
ANGLE works over OpenGL ES. This means that ANGLE requires separately compiled cores targeting OpenGL ES 2/3 instead of desktop OpenGL. What this means is that 1) you need separate cores for every Libretro OpenGL core you want to run, since the current OpenGL cores available for Windows assume that desktop OpenGL will be targeted, and 2) a libretro core has to have a working OpenGL ES 2 or 3 implementation in order for it to work. This will mean that currently, cores like Quake 2/3/Doom 3 won’t work since there are no working OpenGL ES 2 codepaths in those cores. However, Mupen64plus Next and Flycast do have OpenGLES 2 codepaths.
Click to expand...
That's not the only improvement, though! Netplay has also gotten some lovely fixes and refinements. A major bug that had plagued netplay users--disconnecting all players from a server when one player quits the game--has been solved, after a year. A memory leak has also been patched out, meaning netplay should just be more stable, overall.
You can see the changes for yourself, by grabbing the latest version of RetroArch from the Libretro site, linked in the source.
Changes
1.8.3
ANDROID/BUGFIX: Fix ‘Install or Restore Core’ regression
BUGFIX: Ensure core info is always initialised when calling ‘drivers_init()’. This bug could prevent cores from doing content runtime logging
BUGFIX/MENU: History size can only be set to 1 at a minimum
BUGFIX/MENU: (XMB/OZONE) Fix ‘quick menu’ detection. XMB would not display savestate thumbnails in the quick menu if it was accessed via the main menu
BUGFIX/CRASH/CORE UPDATER: Fix potential double free error
BUGFIX/CRASH/OPENGL/WINDOWS: Fix regression in 1.8.2 that would cause GL-based cores to fail because it would try to erroneously load libGLESv2.dll instead of OpenGL32.dll (cores affected: VitaQuake 2/3/Dhewm3, possibly more)
BUGFIX/MENU/DESKTOP UI: Show desktop menu on startup does not launch Qt UI on Linux
CHEEVOS: Don’t disable achievement when AddAddress generates an out-of-range address
CHEEVOS: Don’t reset triggers/leaderboards that failed to load
CHEEVOS: Don’t count unsupported achievements as unlocked
CORE UPDATER: Display number of cores updated when updating installed cores
DINGUX: Initial port
D3D11: Block FL9_3 devices from D3D11 driver because they don’t work anyway (current D3D11 driver uses SM4.0 which requires FL10_0 and up)
D3D11: Fallback to GL driver when D3D11 fails
EMSCRIPTEN: Fix assets
HISTORY/FAVORITES: Bump up default to 200 entries from 100
FFMPEG CORE: Implement packet buffer, fixes MP4 video playback for many files
LOCALIZATION: Update Italian translation
LOCALIZATION: Update Polish translation
LOCALIZATION: Update Russian translation
LOCALIZATION: Update Spanish translation
MENU: Added ‘Hosting’ menu under Netplay menu
MENU: Added ‘Subsystems’ menu
MENU/FILEBROWSER: Fix file selection issues when starting from (or navigating to) the top level directory
MENU/WIDGETS: Prevent looping of task title text
RASPBERRY PI: Fix BGRA8888 color inversion issues in the menu and elsewhere with VideoCore GL drivers
NETPLAY/RELAY: Add Sao Paulo (Brazil) relay server
NETPLAY/RELAY: Fix the “spectator” bug when using the relay server – When a player switches into the spectator mode (pressing “i”) while using the relay server, all players will disconnect.
NETPLAY/RELAY: Overall stability has improved. Fixed a memory leak that would cause the relay server to become unresponsive after some time
NETPLAY/RELAY: Fixed critical bug that would cause all players to be disconnected from the relay server if one player was leaving the game. That bug had been open for one year and we were finally able to fix it
SWITCH/LIBNX/BUGFIX: Fix onscreen keyboard input regression
UWP: Add ANGLE support
UWP: Wire up get_metrics to the fake context of D3D9/10/11/12 driver, enabling proper scaling and mouse/touch gestures
VITA: Re-add Online Updater
VULKAN: Fix font driver ‘vulkan_get_message_width()’ function
VIDEO FILTERS: Only use threads when the number exceeds 1. Fixes race conditions with some CPU filters on Vita
WINDOWS: Add ANGLE support for x64, separate binary (for now?)
Click to expand...
https://gbatemp.net/styles/default/xenforo/clear.png Source (https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-1-8-3-released/)
https://gbatemp.net/threads/retroarch-1-8-3-released-offers-angle-support-and-netplay-enhancements.556107/