gemrb libretrocore?

[klopjero]

Eya, I was wondering whether there are plans to develop a a gemrb libretro core for use in retroarch?

 

Retroarch is an emulation ecosystem based on cores. Each core represents a system, emulator or a code interpretor. Scummvm has one for instance, so does bsnes you get the idea.

 

Retroarch is a multiplatform app, including various consoles, home computers and mobile devices.

 

Now I love these games, my favorite is torment(I'm looking

Forward to it's platonian sequel) but I found setting up gemrb on my pc a bit tedious. Now the thread on this forum was very enLightning but I can imagine that people less pc savvy could be daunted of setting up gemrb on their windows pc.

 

I think you get the idea.. I'm rambling I suppose. I for one would love to see a libretro core of gemrb, and maybe more people will be able to play these RPG gems once again.

[SyntaxError]

maybe I dont understand what you are asking, but gemrb doesnt have anything to do with emulation. gemrb is just an engine, like the original IE. Im not sure what you think we would be emulating here.

 

Regardless of wether or not I understand, I feel safe in saying "no" there are no plans, and such plans are never going going to be made by us. That said gemrb is open source so whomever wants to try to do anything with it is welcome to

[klopjero]

I know gemrb isn't an emulator its an engine or interpretor, that can handle instructions like the I E could. A few game engines have a libretro core, scummvm, doom, quake also cave++. All in all great games and game engines.

 

I'm just saying that, in light of the awesomeness of bg iwd pt,it wouldn't be unbefitting of gemrb. The games would deserve a core so that they could be played on a bigger variety of platforms, although the current list that gemrb supports is already extensive.

 

Anyway, i'm not a dev..and I'm not a share holder of retroarch either. I am just curious whether there were plans of making a core And I want to thank you for responding.

 

Best regards

Klopjero

[klopjero]

last thing though I would like tosay about it, is that you can consolidate all effort on the core, as it would work on all front ends that would use a libretro cores..

[lynx]

I don't see any glaring missing platform support on our end. Which systems aren't we working on that retro is?

[klopjero]

You are not missing anything.. You covered all bases you have android/ ios you can compile the engine to linux/windows probably Mac.. thats not the point.

I might seem like an annoying n00b who is criticizing or something, I'm not I love GemRB and what it has done for making these gems playable again.

 

GemRB is being developed for android, android development can be tedious, you have to keep in mind the different screen sizes, cpu architectures, gpu's, avaliable memory etc. IOS less so but it's still a different platform, linux, windows have to compile their own executable, which can be tedious.

 

what I understand of how libretro works, is that once your core is done, it can be used on all different platforms that is supported by the frontend. you don't have to worry about, different screen sizes/ cpu architectures, audio handling, input devices.. all those things will be handled by the front end.

 

I'm not a dev, I'm not even a programmer, I'm a retro gaming enthusiast, but in my layman's understanding if you can bring back your development down to your core engine and not have to worry about hardware or OS versions, wouldnt that make life easier for the development team and free up time spending on tinkering with the engine instead of worrying about body work ?

 

http://www.libretro.com/

http://www.libretro.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/RetroArch-Libretro-Technical-Brochure.pdf

[lynx]

We hardly have to care about OS versions, as their APIs and ABIs are pretty stable. Hardware even less, as it is abstracted by the OS and libraries like SDL, but we can't ignore the different classes of input (buttons vs touch). It requires specific work that I doubt libretro would help much with. Screen sizes are only a problem due to the original data (gui) not being flexible, but the widescreen mod mostly fixes that (we'll eventually add proper autoadaptation too). Coupled with our arbitrary font (size) support, the visual part on small screens is solved.

 

retro would perhaps have been useful 10 years ago. It's not even clear if all the work for a port would result in a net benefit, as the project is quite young.