[Finished] Integrated Video Game Emulation Via LibRetro (1 Viewer)

[Daniel Hitchcock]

I have scanned this forum and the web for a suggestion similar to this but cannot find one - So thought I would suggest this myself.

There is an interesting development over at XBMC on this and thought that MediaPortal would be an ideal candidate also for this. Please see link for information:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=146711&pid=1252596#pid1252596

The advantages of integrating emulators in this manner is that MediaPortal would not need to launch an external programme to handle emulation - Everything could be handled by MediaPortals video engine and controls and handlers i.e. stop, play, pause, etc would work as they do using MediaPortal.

I am not sure how feasable this is as I am reletively new to MediaPortal but thought that it is a worthwhile suggestion nonetheless.

Please let me know your thoughts...

 

[chefkoch]

First: I was thinking and dreaming of such kind of integration aprox. 5 years ago, but I am not professional developer and lacking of skills to make such things and it's required to have them much more integrated than launching an exe only and hiding the MP GUI (like has always been done) to get the absolute awesome user experience.

Thanks for sharing this link and the information
After looking at your link and the thread that is linked from there http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=164725&pid=1336026#pid1336026 I am also very interested in something like.

MP2 has a clean and powerful architecture:

• The media library, which could host the roms metadata as a new major media type games and several subtypes for the various systems (similar to video and movie/series).
• There is also a well designed player interface which could be used to provide a new game/roms player.

Would be great if there are any developers in the community (maybe working on the MP1 game and emulator plugins??) that would like to start working on such a project.

 

[catavolt]

AFAIK there is the plugin MyEmulator already?

 

[chefkoch]

AFAIK there is the plugin MyEmulator already?

Nope, because that's the MP2 forum and the idea behind the xbmc thread is, like I described in my post as well, different from the MyEmulators plugin (at least what I know about MyEmu...).

 

[Daniel Hitchcock]

MyEmulators plugin as far as I know, handles command line switches and the hiding of the GUI.. What I am proposing is providing an integration into media portal that shouldn't require any special command line arguments or GUI hiding. The project page at xbmc explains it quite well plus a Google search will bring up the libretro page that further explains it.

 

[catavolt]

Sorry for my dumbness

 

[chefkoch]

Sorry for my dumbness

Nahh, if not you then another one would have asked that question. And regarding the mix-up of the forums, that also happens quite often.

 

[Daniel Hitchcock]

Right,

I have been looking into the documentation for LibRetro and it seems pretty straight forward to implement (although I am not a strong programmer). I am willing to have a go at creating a basic plugin with one of the simpler 'cores' to test the water - This wont be an instant thing as I will be self-teaching myself as I go. I will post progress (perhaps in a separate post) when I come up with something.

In the meantime, if anybody else wants to have a crack, please feel free!!

 

[riggnix]

I love that idea!
I don't really get where I should look for documentation though. Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

[Daniel Hitchcock]

I believe RetroArch (an already full implementation of libretro) hosts all of the documentation needed. Please look here:

http://www.libretro.com

My current efforts so far have led me into looking at how the XBMC team are doing it - They are achieving good results from creating a new player core using libretro fused with elements of XBMC - They are calling it RetroPlayer. It may be easier using what they have already created and porting it across (with appropriate permissions of course)..