Finally: Game & Watch handhelds decently run in RetroArch with the koko-aio shader
This has been a major struggle, and with the spontaneous help of the creator of the koko-aio shader, these handhelds are up and running in RetroArch as well. Thanks to the capabilities of koko aio and its creator, the shader presets are compelling and even superior over official MAME.
If you want to test this out immediately, download my today's release of koko-aio with all the Arcade textures included here:
https://github.com/estefan3112/koko-aio-slang/releases/tag/0.8ng
These two Game & Watch presets are already included in the base package:
Technical Notes on the challenges:
- Partial reliance on MAME.lay file: For certain effects, such as a consistent overlay and a proper dual screen setup, you still need a reduced .lay file. The respective .zip files are provided in my koko-aio release (under system) and need to be placed under RetroArch/system/mame/artwork. So I had to split the layout between koko-aio (for the bezels and the shader) and the functions that koko-aio does not and will never support.
- MAME Alternative Renderer required: These games only look good if you use the Alternative Renderer of MAME current, which does own upscaling. In my koko-aio release, I provide game-specific .opt files for activating the Alternative Renderer and a resolution that runs on my M2 Mac Mini. Files need to reside besides the .slangp files in the RetroArch/config/MAME folder to be used automatically.
- Reference to koko-aio fast hires presets: As MAME does its own upscaling in the Alternative Renderer, it was very important to use one of the fast Hires shader presets. As regular koko-aio does its own upscaling, a reference to this preset resulted in very laggy performance.
- No Runahead or other latency option: Another very important catch is if you have Runahead or any other latency option of RetroArch enabled. Disabling Runahead (in any form) significantly improved performance. In my koko-aio release, I provide game-specific .cfg files for disabling Runahead, because for all other games, it is of great help.
The developer of koko-aio also provided a last minute patch for even nicer looks, so be sure to use my install file, which contains an entire instance of the koko-aio shader, bleeding edge.
Feel free to feedback on this release, should you run into any issues. It would also be very interesting to get feedback on performance of this setup on other machines. Thank you, and cheers!
Just a fast very honourable mention of the large efforts that the MAME community undertook in order to preserve the original Game & Watch LCD handheld games from the 80ies.
As of MAME 0.223 every Game & Watch handheld is supported in MAME. While previous emulations, such as the Retroarch Core, were not based on the original dumped roms, I understand that MAME versions actually preserve the data of the old handhelds. Huge kudos for this, this was the time of sitting together and sharing the handheld from one friend to another. I particularly liked Mickey Mouse (screenshot below). This is very nice to look back.
However, if you only have the roms availabe, there is no way to play them properly. You also need the artwork.
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| Mickey Mouse without Artwork |
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| And here it is, with artwork included! |
Some hints here for conveniently getting it running:
- The good news: Game & Watch roms are no Software List Roms. All roms have the format gnw_xxxx.zip, so you can conveniently identify them. The MAME UI also finds the games if you search for 'Game & Watch'.
- There are two main repositories for Game & Watch Artwork: here at Progetto and here on a Google Drive. I personally rely on the Google Drive respository, it contains absolutely outstanding artwork. As always, place this zip files in the artwork repository.
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| click to enlarge |
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| no idea that there were even tabletops! |
Hi, I'm trying to play Game&Watch in Retroarch using MAME core, but performance is poor: < 40fps, while it's quite powerful MBP with apple silicon M Pro CPU (or even on legacy Apple iPhones etc!). The same games run perfect in standalone MAME, but it lacks HiDPI support and many feature Retroarch has, so I'm trying to figure out how to solve the issue. Have you tried Retroarch for Game&Watch emulation?
ReplyDeleteHi, such a good idea to run G&W games in RetroArch MAME current, never tried before. I tried two games briefly, and they ran far too fast! I then realized that I had bad core options, since I had Emulation Hacks enabled, so that the game ran at 200%. With this corrected to 100%, everything runs perfectly here.
DeleteThis is a great inspiration to actually move over all the overlays for G&W games to RetroArch, because without them, playing doesn't make any sense. Another task for my koko-aio shader repo.
Can you, please, check with on-screen performance statistics ON to see if any frames are missing and fps?
DeleteBecause I’m struggling to make Retroarch to play these 4bit Game&Watch games on overpowered MBP which easily handles heavy emulators and games… While iPhones/iPads run these G&W games flawlessly using MAME for iOS including Retina support.
Thanks!
Hi again, please see details in this post, hope that this can also resolve your problems with these funny G&W games. Such a nice time travel back, but with much better monitors and controls - I still remember those very bad buttons on the Mickey Mouse handheld :-)))).
Delete