[OS] ODROID GameStation Turbo with Kodi for C1

[meveric]

ODROID GameStation Turbo with Kodi for C1

About
ODROID GameStation Turbo is an entertainment Image for ODROIDs.
Originally created to be a gaming image for children (and retro gamers) it evolved to be much more than that.
It is a full blown desktop and entertainment image using the MATE Desktop Environment, where you can browse the web, listen to music, watch movies, play games, do office work, compile program, or what ever you like to do.
It offers 3D acceleration for X11 allowing you to run 3D games, and applications hardware accelerated.




Since it was originally created for gaming you can use frontends like EmulationStation



Or as per default Rom Collection Browser from within XBMC/Kodi which allows for seamlessly switching between gaming and watching movies, without leaving the interface:


I also offer a large library of games and programs for ODROIDs.
Checkout the Package List section to find what packages I offer. You can also suggest new packages for the repository or contribute yourself.

Thanks and greetings
I want to thank everyone who's supporting me and help me to improve my image, especially:

• AreaScout
• OverSun
• babyburgers
• monstercamf
• Olivier BERT
• robroy
• fishtank
• stef5636
• skint
• Jojo
• And of cause the entire HardKernel Team

Features

• Debian Jessie
• MATE (preconfigured) or LXDE
• Kernel 3.10.80
• Joystick Suppot Enabled (XBox 360 controllers preconfigured)
• Emulators for running many game systems
• Low RAM usage
• Preset environment with Kodi -> ready to play
• Autostart of Kodi (no failover on exit)
• Full Joystick Control
• Rom Collection Browser (Kodi) or EmulationStation as a gaming frontend
• Mali r5p0 x11 drivers

Supported Systems

Code: Select all

System             Emulator used                Where to put ROMS                    Supported Extensions      Notes
3DO                4do_libretro                 /home/odroid/ROMS/3DO                *.iso,*.cue               can be laggy
AMIGA              fs-uae                       /home/odroid/ROMS/AMIGA              *.adf,*.adz,*.zip
AMIGA 1200         fs-uae                       /home/odroid/ROMS/AMIGA1200          *.adf,*.adz,*.zip
AMIGA CD32         fs-uae                       /home/odroid/ROMS/AMIGACD32          *.cue,*.iso,*.zip
AMSTRAD CPC        cap32_libretro               /home/odroid/ROMS/CPC                *.dsk,*.sna
ATARI 2600         stella_libretro              /home/odroid/ROMS/ATARI/A2600        *.a26,*.bin
ATARI 7800         prosystem_libretro           /home/odroid/ROMS/ATARI/A7800        *.a78,*.bin
ATARI 800          atari800                     /home/odroid/ROMS/ATARI/Atari800     *.a52, *.bas, *.bin, *.car, *.xex, *.atr, *.xfd, *.dcm, *.atr.gz, *.xfd.gz
ATARI Jaguar       virtauljaguar-odroid         /home/odroid/ROMS/ATARI/Jaguar       *.jag,*.j64               can be laggy
ATARI Lynx         handy_libretro               /home/odroid/ROMS/ATARI/Lynx         *.lnx                     
ATARI ST           hatari-odroid                /home/odroid/ROMS/ATARI/Atari ST     *.st, *.stx, *.img, *.rom, *.raw, *.ipf, *.ctr, *.msa, *.dim
CPS1               fbalpha2012_cps1_libretro    /home/odroid/ROMS/CPS1               *.zip
CPS2               fbalpha2012_cps2_libretro    /home/odroid/ROMS/CPS2               *.zip
CPS3               fbalpha2012_cps3_libretro    /home/odroid/ROMS/CPS3               *.zip
FB Alpha           fbalpha_libretro             /home/odroid/ROMS/FBA                *.zip,*.iso
Game and Watch     gw_libretro                  /home/odroid/ROMS/GW                 *.mgw
GB                 gambatte_libretro            /home/odroid/ROMS/GBx                *.gb                      
GBA                mgba_libretrp                /home/odroid/ROMS/GBA                *.gba                     
GBC                gambatte_libretro            /home/odroid/ROMS/GBx                *.gbc                     
LINUX              native                       /home/odroid/ROMS/LINUX              *.sh                      
MAME               mame_libretro                /home/odroid/ROMS/MAME               *.zip,*.7z,*.chd          
MSX                bluemsx_libretro             /home/odroid/ROMS/MSX                *.rom,*.mx1,*.mx2         
N64                mupen64plus_libretro         /home/odroid/ROMS/N64                *.rom,*.v64,*.V64,*.n64,*.z64,*.Z64  
NDS                desmume_libretro             /home/odroid/ROMS/NDS                *.nds                     
NeoGeo             fbalpha2012_neogeo_libretro  /home/odroid/ROMS/NeoGeo             *.zip                     
NeoGeoPocket       mednafen_ngp_libretrp        /home/odroid/ROMS/NeoGeoPocket       *.zip,*.ngp,*.ngc         
NES                fceumm_libretro              /home/odroid/ROMS/NES                *.nes,*.fds               
Odyssey 2          o2em_libretro                /home/odroid/ROMS/O2EM               *.bin                     
PC-Engine          mednafen_pce_libretro        /home/odroid/ROMS/PCE                *.cue,*.pce,*.ccd,*.chd
PC-FX              mednafen_pcfx_libretro       /home/odroid/ROMS/PCE                *.cue                     
PSP                ppsspp-odroid                /home/odroid/ROMS/PSP                *.iso,*.cso
PSX                pcsx1_libretro               /home/odroid/ROMS/PSX                *.cue,*.iso,*.mdf,*.ccd,*.pbp,*.PBP  
ResidualVM         residualvm-odroid            /home/odroid/ROMS/ResidualVM         *.rvm
SCUMMVM            scummvm                      /home/odroid/ROMS/SCUMMVM            *.svm                     
SEGA 32X           picodrive_libretro           /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/Sega32X       *.32x                     
SEGA CD            picodrive_libretro           /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/SegaCD        *.iso, *.cue                     
SEGA Dreamcast     reicast-odroid               /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/Dreamcast     *.cdi,*.chd                     
SEGA GameGear      genesis_plus_gx_libretro     /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/GameGear      *.gg                      
SEGA Genesis       picodrive_libretro           /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/Genesis       *.bin,*.md,*.mdx,*.gen,*.smd   
SEGA MasterSystem  genesis_plus_gx_libretro     /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/MasterSystem  *.sms                     
SEGA Saturn        yabause-odroid               /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/Saturn        *.cue,*.iso, *.mds, *.nrg         can be laggy
SEGA SG-1000       genesis_plus_gx_libretro     /home/odroid/ROMS/SEGA/MasterSystem  *.sg                      
SNES               snes9x_libretro              /home/odroid/ROMS/SNES               *.smc ,*.sfc
PC-E SuperGrafx    mednafen_supergrafx_libretro /home/odroid/ROMS/SuperGrafx         *.sgx,*.pce               
Virtual Boy        mednafen_vb_libretro         /home/odroid/ROMS/VB                 *.vb,*.vboy               
Vectrex            vecx_libretro                /home/odroid/ROMS/Vectrex            *.bin,*.vce               
WonderSwan         mednafen_wswan_libretro      /home/odroid/ROMS/WS                 *.ws,*.wsc                
ZX81               81_libretro                  /home/odroid/ROMS/ZX81               *.tzx,*.p
ZX Spectrum        fuse_libretro                /home/odroid/ROMS/ZXSpectr           *.tzx,*.tap,*.z80,*.rzx,*.scl,*.trd

Importing games
Put the roms for the games you want unter /home/odroid/ROMS in the folder of the system the game was made for.

On the first start Kodi wants to import the games since the database is empty.
After you imported your games and later on want to import more games you can do that by either pressing the X button on the XBox 360 controler, or the C key on the keyboard.
There are different ways to import them:
Automatic - accurate -> which will only import games if it's 100% sure what it is
Automatic - guess -> it will check through different sites which game it COULD be and takes the best match
Interactive -> means it's going to ask you what game it really is.

Configuration
When you exit Kodi, you'll find a ODROID GameStation Turbo Setup shortcut on your Desktop. Here you can change different settings of your ODROID GameStation Turbo image.
Such as:

• Changing the name of the default user (if you don't want it to be "odroid")
• Changing the default language of your desktop environment
• Changing the passwort of the root user
• Changing the hostname of the image
• Disable autostart of the Rom Collection Browser in Kodi
• Disable autostart of Kodi or EmulationStation (in case you want a Debian desktop image)
• Changing the default frontend (Kodi's Rom Collection Browser or EmulationStation)
• Enable/Disable ZRAM (compressed RAM as SWAP)

Where can you get it
From my webspace hosted by mdrjr:
old Debian Wheezy Version: http://oph.mdrjr.net/meveric/images/OGS ... -C1.img.xz
Debian Jessie Version (recommended): http://oph.mdrjr.net/meveric/images/OGS ... sie.img.xz

If you have any question or want to give feedback, i'm happy to help as much as i can.

I changed the default display resolution to 720p since the C1 can't handle scaling under X11 very well, we have to force the image to scale as little as possible.
We had the similar issue on the U2 and X2 a couple of years ago, so i guess we have to go old school and work with what we can get for the C1.

Mali 3D drivers are up and running, but the C1 has issues with alpha channel so transparenting is not working everywhere, can easily be seen by starting PPSSPP.

Old overview of emulator performance (Debian Wheezy image):

Code: Select all

System       Emulator/Core                 State           Comment
2048         retroarch/2048                fine            not full speed, but doesn't matter on that kind of game
3DO          retroarch/4do                 very slow       that was expected, it runs only good on the XU3, but the U3 is definatly faster than the C1
Atari 2600   retroarch/stella              fine            no issues
Amiga        FS-UAE                        aweful          the C1 can't even handle A500 games let alone A1200 AGA games, that's really sad.. (CPU to slow)
dinothawr    retroarch/dinothawr           fine            the game is working fine on the C1
DreamCast    reicast                       fine            seems to be full speed
GameGear     retroarch/genesis_plus        fine            doesn't seem to have any issues
Genesis      retroarch/genesis_plus        fine            no issues
GBA          retroarch/meteor              mostly fine     maybe i need to replace with a faster core, C1 is too slow for meteor
GB/GBC       retroarch/gambatte            fine            no issues
Lynx         retroarch/handy               ok              seems a little slow but mostly playable
MasterSystem retroarch/genesis_plus        fine            no issues
MAME         retroarch/mame(0155)          ok-ish          it's working but too slow.. C1 can't handle 0155 mame core under X11, 078 doesn't do any better
MSX          retroarch/fmsx                fine            no issues
N64          mupen64plus                   ok-ish          C1 is limited by the slow CPU.. Some games (like Mario64) work fine, others are slow (no glide for now)
NES          retroarch/nestopia            fine            no issues
NDS          retroarch/desmume             slow            C1 can't handle NDS emulation it's often too slow, even for 2D games, if you accept lagging it's "playable"
NeoGeoPocket retroach/mednafe_ngp          fine            no issues
NXEngine     retroarch/nxengine            fine            Cave Story runs fullspeed without issues
Odyssey 2    retroarch/o2em                fine            full speed, althoug i still have no clue how the controls work
PC-Engine    retoarch/mednafen_pce         fine            no issues (actually nice since this is a CD bases system)
PCFX         retroarch/mednafen_pcfx       very slow       that was expected the system is very demanding
PS1          retroarch/pcsx_rearmed        fine            seems to be full speed
Sega CD      retroarch/picodrive           fine            seems to be full speed
Sega 32X     retroarch/picodrive           fine            seems to be full speed
Sega Saturn  retroarch/yabause             extremly slow   as expected less than 20 FPS way too slow
SNES         retroarch/snes9x_next         fine            nearly full speed (no lags) 
Supergrafx   retroarch/mednafen_supergrafx fine            no issues
Vectrex      retroarch/vecx                fine            seems to work fine
VirtualBox   retroarch/mednafen_vb         fine            seems to be fine
WonderSwan   retroach/mednafen_ws          fine            no issues

FAQ
How can I run ROMS from a harddrive instead of the SD/eMMC?
There are three options to do so easily:

1. Symlink to a connected HDD
   • Copy over the folder /home/odroid/ROMS to a connected harddrive

     Code: Select all

     cp -av /home/odroid/ROMS /media/odroid/MyHDD/

   • delete or rename the folder on your SD/eMMC card

     Code: Select all

     mv /home/odroid/ROMS{,.bak}

   • create a symlink from your HDD to where the original folder was located.

     Code: Select all

     ln -sf /media/odroid/MyHDD/ROMS /home/odroid/ROMS

   Make sure the user odroid has full write privileges for the folder! (this depends on the filesystem of your HDD, for example ext4, NTFS, Fat32, etc.)
2. mount a partition on an HDD as the ROMS folder
   • mount the partition somewhere so you can copy files over

     Code: Select all

     mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

   • copy the CONTENT of ROMS folder on the partition

     Code: Select all

     cp -av /home/odroid/ROMS/* /mnt/

   • unmount the partition from where you put it to copy the files over

     Code: Select all

     umount /mnt

   • create a fstab entry for the new partion
     -> Edit /etc/fstab with your favorite editor as ROOT and add an entry for the partition:

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     /dev/sda1        /home/odroid/ROMS        ext4        defaults        0        0

   • mount the partition

     Code: Select all

     mount -a

   • make sure the folder and it's content belongs to user odroid

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     chown -R odroid:odroid /home/odroid/ROMS

3. Mount a samba share
   • make sure cifs-utils are installed

     Code: Select all

     apt-get install cifs-utils

   • edit /etc/fstab as ROOT with your favorite editor and add an entry for your samba share
     For example:

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     //10.0.0.1/ROMS        /home/odroid/ROMS        cifs        credentials=/home/odroid/.smbcredentials,uid=odroid,gid=odroid        0        0

   • as user ODROID create a file .smbcredentials in the homefolder of odroid (/home/odroid) with the following content:

     Code: Select all

     username=<YOUR-SAMBA-USERNAME>
     password=<YOUR-SAMBA-PASSWORD>
     domain=<YOUR-DOMAIN> (mostly WORKGROUP)
     

   I prefer the Samba option since it allows to mount the same ROMS on different devices/odroids and share them over different machines.

There are probably more options like mounting NFS, but the three above are probably the easierst to use.

[odroid]

I will try this image tomorrow.

Is this Debian Wheezy? or Ubuntu? It seems to be Debian as you always preferred...

[meveric]

It sure is Debian Wheezy
As i said it's based on the U2 image just exchanged the necessary drivers, kernel, etc.

[ryecoaaron]

Thank you very much for the image and your work! Just booted the image and it is working fine I will leave openbox until we have a working framebuffer console.

[meveric]

Got some time to do some performance testing for retroarch and the different cores it's pretty much what i expected.. here some results:

3DO: Really slow only about 25 FPS sometimes even lower, makes it really slow
NDS: really slow, i expected more from that, since it's working nearly perfect on the U3.. i get only 25 FPS on movies while U3 gets a steady 60 FPS, gameplay is similar
MSX: although it shows only around 35~40 FPS it's rather playable i'm testing on the ODROID-VU right now in 1080p could be that it's only using 40 FPS
GB/GBC: also around 40 FPS seems rather playable (kinda full speed)
Atari 2600: around 40 FPS seems ok to play
Atari Jaguar: around 10 FPS unplayable
Atari Lynx: 42 FPS fastest emulator so far
GBA: steady 40 FPS very playable <--- always good!
MAME/NeoGeo: 35 FPS on 1944 Loop Master which is kinda slow and the game actually does feel slow like in slow motion.. still somewhat playable.. doubt any big MAME games will work on this
N64: nope don't see that anytime soon.. way too slow
NES: looks good slightly below 40 FPS but playable
PC-Engine CD: 40 FPS tried Prince of Persia.. it actually plays too fast..
PCFX: about 20~25 FPS not very fun to play with
PS1: this one acts strange... the emulator seems to run full speed at about 40 FPS sometimes 42, but it seems to stop completely when it loads something so picture freezes but game goes on but picture continues after a few seconds.. strange
NeoGeo Pocket: 40~42 FPS looks fine..
Sega GameGear: 40~42 FPS seems slightly too fast
Sega Genesis/Megadrive: slightly below 40 FPS looks fine to me
Sega Master System: ca. 41 FPS looks fine maybe a little bit too fast
Sega CD/Mega CD: 39 FPS looks good to me
Sega 32x: 39 FPS looks good so far
SNES: 38~39 FPS very good so far <-- guess that's a relief for some poeple
Virtual Boy: although 38 FPS it feels a little slow
PSP: is having some alpha channel issue which results in black boxes around certain elements.. depending on the game you will notice this more or less.. all in all PSP is working still rather fine.. some games can work in a rather decent speed, but are not as good as on the U3 or XU3

Not sure what's with the 40 FPS if that's from the ODROID VU or from the ODROID C1 but it seems to work ok.

Basicly every 8,16 and 32 Bit emulator should work fine.. when it goes over to 64 bit era it's getting more complecated.. everything that uses higher CPU power won't work as much on the C1 as it's working on the U3 oder XU3.. but for a good round of SNES it should work.

In fact i'm surprised that still so many emulators work as good as they do with the current image.

[da-gonzo]

Why the bleak outlook on N64?

I figured this would work without breaking a sweat on the c1 since it ALMOST works on the rpi b+.

Really appreciate your work on this, totally looking forward to testing this image as soon as my wireless xbox receiver comes in

[meveric]

N64 does not support JIT interpreter yet.. which has a huge performance impact.. and although it's working "ok-ish" on the U3 and XU3 the C1 is simply not having enough CPU power.

[DiskyToy]

Wow, I'd love to see this one finished (or at least ready to go)

I'll take a seat and watch it

[odroid]

It booted the Debian Wheezy beautifully.
I will put some SNES games tomorrow because our internet connection is extremely slow today.

[DiskyToy]

... because our internet connection is extremely slow today.

(sorry for being a little bit offtopic and no help)

[meveric]

It booted the Debian Wheezy beautifully.
I will put some SNES games tomorrow because our internet connection is extremely slow today.

I think it's not so beatifully.. the sounds doesn't seem to work yet.. boot up with running UART console.. and you'll see what i mean

[steev]

I'm thinking about getting one of these for an emulation box, but I have a few questions first:

• Do the emulators run fullscreen? (I've had problems with this on other ARM boards)
• Is 40Hz the refresh rate of your monitor? 40 fps seems a bit low since even the RPi is capable of 60 fps on some of those emulators.
• These emulators require X, right? Or is it possible to run them directly on the framebuffer like the RPi?

Thanks in advance

[meveric]

I'm thinking about getting one of these for an emulation box, but I have a few questions first:

• Do the emulators run fullscreen? (I've had problems with this on other ARM boards)

yes they do..

• Is 40Hz the refresh rate of your monitor? 40 fps seems a bit low since even the RPi is capable of 60 fps on some of those emulators.

not sure.. i haven't had much time testing everything and used an ODROID-VU as a Monitor for testing.. i don't know if this only runs on 40Hz or if it can do 60 Hz.. But the board itself can run on 60 Hz (had it on my TV once), just don't know if the emulators are able to go work at 60FPS, U3 works much better when it comes to emulators.

• These emulators require X, right? Or is it possible to run them directly on the framebuffer like the RPi?

Thanks in advance

Yes the emulators require X there are no framebuffer drivers for the C1 yet, even if there were the image i use would probably still be running on X for quite some time, since it takes a lot of time to prepare all parts that are needed for the image.

[meveric]

Figgured out how to get sound on the Image since i haven't made a new image yet here's how you can fix it:

Fixing sound until next image:
create a file /etc/asound.conf

Code: Select all

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave {
    pcm "hw:0,1"
  }
}
ctl.!default {
  type hw
  card 0
}

also you need to alter /etc/pulse/default.pa
search the following two lines:

Code: Select all

#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0

and change them into:

Code: Select all

load-module module-alsa-sink
load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:0,1

please note: it's hw:0,1 NOT hw:1,0

======================================================================

I also noticed the 40 FPS i get in emulators seem to be an issue with the Graphics drivers.. if you leave fullscreen mode (by pressing "F"-key on the keyboard) the window runs at 60 FPS, so it's similar to the results of glmark2-es2 which in window mode get 170 FPS and more while in fullscreen mode get's around 40 FPS as well.

So i guess until the GPU drivers are fixed this image will only be able to emulate games in window mode.

[meveric]

more infos.. i kinda try to get back to the roots and use mednafen for some emulations.. sadly the version i have for X/X2/U2/U3/XU3 does not work with ODROID-C1 so i have to create a new one.
Therefore i compiled mednafen on the C1... it shows very clearly the speed differences between ODROID-U3 and ODROID-C1
Compiling mednafen on ODROID-C1 without any optimization took:
real 40m35
user 89m33
Means it took 40 minutes to compile in real time, but used 89mins CPU time (multiple cores)
On the U3 with very high optimization activated it took:
real 21m15
user 48m33
so basicly the C1 takes twice as long to compile the same project as the U3 and considering i used high optimization on the U3 (which increases the time that's needed to compile the project) it's even slower.
With less optimization (but still quite some optimization flags) i got following times on the U3:
real 15m7
user 33m38

All in all i would say ODROID U3 is up to 3 times faster than the C1 when it comes to raw CPU processing power during compiling.

Still not done with the mednafen for the ODROID C1, i'm gonna report back when it's actually working.. i hope it allows to play emulators such as GB/GBC/GBA numerous SEGA emulators and probably PC-Engine and a few others in full speed.

Edit:
Ok, the emulator itself seems to be working.. i can hear sounds, but can't see any pictures.. from what i can hear, i can tell the emulator is performing really good on the C1 (as expected) now if i only could figure out why i see no picture

[odroid]

I think you should change the CPU governor to "performance" instead of default "interactive"
When I did Kernel build or UnixBench on board, the governor affected the build time about 20~30%.

[meveric]

on my Debian Wheezy image it's already performance as default, so that's not the issue

[odroid]

Oh.. I see.
I forgot the emulation world!

[blockofdynamite]

Hmm... For some reason I cannot get it to boot up.
I flash the img to my SD card using Win32 Disk Imager and try to run it on the C1. I've edited the boot.ini file to set to the correct resolution.
Any suggestions? I've tried reflashing, and it didn't work.

[meveric]

what's "the correct resolution"?
Cause i encountered that messing with the resolution results in a non booting image.
Also it's always good to watch the boot process with a UART if you have one.. it often shows what's wrong, IF something is wrong.

[blockofdynamite]

The correct resolution would be 1280x1024 (sxga). If I had the money I'd buy a full HD monitor but oh well.
And I don't have a UART (nor do I know what that is, but I'll research it)

[meveric]

UART is a serial console adapter for ODROIDs so you can debug via USB what's going on on your ODROID... very useful
i'm not sure how resolutions work... i had 1280x720 at first but after a system update to a certain kernel that weren't working for me anymore.. i left it unconfigured and it's starting at 1920x1080...
not sure how stable other resolutions working..

[blockofdynamite]

I still couldn't get it to boot at all (or show the splash image).
I tried using the boot partition files given in this post http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f ... ght#p61357 and it gave me a splash screen but no full boot.

Edit:
I just tried reflashing the SD with the image and then resizing the OS partition with my lubuntu laptop, but it still wouldn't give me so much as a splash screen

Edit:

Aha
Got this message after I tried flashing using dd on lubuntu.
This has got to tell us something, right?

Does that mean that there's something wrong with the image I'm trying to flash?

[Wylee_Kiot]

I just downloaded the image last night, made the sound fix changes and it booted right up...was out of time to do more than boot it but so far it seems to be error free

[meveric]

I still couldn't get it to boot at all (or show the splash image).
I tried using the boot partition files given in this post http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f ... ght#p61357 and it gave me a splash screen but no full boot.

Edit:
I just tried reflashing the SD with the image and then resizing the OS partition with my lubuntu laptop, but it still wouldn't give me so much as a splash screen

Edit:

Aha
Got this message after I tried flashing using dd on lubuntu.
This has got to tell us something, right?

Does that mean that there's something wrong with the image I'm trying to flash?

First, my image doesn't have a splash screen.. second.. don't try a different boot folder on this.. there is a high chance this will damage the image.. it's probably a different version then i have on my image and you would miss all the modules that are required and not build into the kernel directly..

as you can see from others the image is working.. try connecting it to a 1080p TV/Monitor and wait a while.. probably try to reastart it once or twice if nothing happens after 3 minutes or so.

Edit
btw.. the picture looks like a filesystem problem.. have you tried using fsck to see if it can fix superblock and other issues?

[theBOSS]

Very interesting proyect, i will follow this proyect. Thanks for your work.

Best regards!

[blockofdynamite]

First, my image doesn't have a splash screen..

Theres the hardkernel boot screen...

second.. don't try a different boot folder on this.. as you can see from others the image is working..

Wasnt working for me, so worth a try.

try connecting it to a 1080p TV/Monitor and wait a while..

I dont have a 1080p monitor.

probably try to reastart it once or twice if nothing happens after 3 minutes or so.

I've done that.

I did try fixing the partition after I flashed it. Just game me some other errors I don't remember and didn't work. I will leave the boot.ini alone and see if it squeezes the image onto my 1280x1024 monitor. I'll redownload and flash and see if that works. My C1 should be the exact same as your C1.

[meveric]

First, my image doesn't have a splash screen..

Theres the hardkernel boot screen...

Nope, once again not on my image.. not by default.. only when you added it, but it's not on the image you downloaded..

second.. don't try a different boot folder on this.. as you can see from others the image is working..

Wasnt working for me, so worth a try.

True, but you might want to change different resolutions.. and see what happens.. maybe something weird like 800x600 or something else does work.. not sure.
I remember my first image was set to 1280x720 (or 1280x800 not sure) since i was running it with the ODROID VU.. After a kernel update nothing showed up anymore although the UART showed everything was normal.. so i removed the option for 720p and bootet up again and suddenly my ODROID VU showed the picture in 1080p... i didn't even know it could do that.

try connecting it to a 1080p TV/Monitor and wait a while..

I dont have a 1080p monitor.

Well as i said just try every resolution there is on the boot.ini.. if you're lucky one works

probably try to reastart it once or twice if nothing happens after 3 minutes or so.

I've done that.

I did try fixing the partition after I flashed it. Just game me some other errors I don't remember and didn't work. I will leave the boot.ini alone and see if it squeezes the image onto my 1280x1024 monitor. I'll redownload and flash and see if that works. My C1 should be the exact same as your C1.

Not the exact same image.. i try to change a lot on my image to get different stuff to work.. i already exchanged SDL and some other drivers to get mednafen to work.. actually compiled a new version of mednafen for the C1.. seems to work great even in fullscreen, problem is, i don't see anything.. just hear that the emulator runs fine.
Anyway.. it's probably gonna be a while since i can get back to the C1..
Right now i'm working on a new ODROID X/X2/U2/U3 image and after that we did some very good process on the XU3 and i want to fix that image to be nearly as stable as the U3 image. After that i will go back to the C1.. Lots of work.. only so little time

[PeteW]

Hello,

@blockofdynamite - I replaced the ODROID-GameStation-Turbo-0.6.1-20141227-C1.img BOOT.INI with this one:
http://odroid.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id= ... _note_v1.3

Important BOOT.INI settings (for me) are:

1) CRITICAL: without this the C1 appears to fail to boot; blank screen & doesn't obtain an IP (so can't SSH-in to repair it)

# Disable HDMI Output (Again, saves ram!)
# 0 = disabled
# 1 = enabled
setenv hdmioutput "1"

2) either use 1080p or don't specify a mode (despite the comment in BOOT.INI)

setenv m "1080p"

I've only tried 720p as an alternative: got a blank screen, though C1 seems to have booted OK (I can SSH-in). Now it's booting, I may see how / if I can change to 720p

[BTW, I'm not sure what 'setenv vout_mode "hdmi"' (HDMI/DVI Mode Configuration) does exactly but the C1 boots fine with or without this setting].


Hope this helps!


Cheers,
Pete

P.S. I first tried - with no sucess:
Using the same BOOT.INI that worked for Android
Re-downloading and re-imaging (I'm using a SanDisk Ultra microSDHC 8GB UHS-I Class 10)
Imaging via Linux dd (instead of Win32DiskImager)

[robotza]

tested this image tonight , and it seems to be governed to 37fps , its really strange

[robotza]

Further testing and you can see that C1 is struggling to run the games . Framebuffer mame emulation is much much faster

[meveric]

yes and no.. the problem is not the image itself but the very bad x11 drivers.. or even more precisely the xf86-video-mali drivers provided by HardKernel...
in fact we had a similar issue on the U2 when there were no xf86-video-armsoc drivers available yet.

The X11 driver do a very very bad job in scaling.. the driver itself are rather fast.. if you run glmark2-es2 you can get up to 190 FPS.. if you run the same test in fulscreen mode the framerate drops to 40 FPS and lower.. this is just a scaling issue.. and it's the same on the offical Ubuntu 14.04 image.. all caused by the xf86-video-mali driver.

If you start a game and leave fullscreen mode (press F on the keyboard) you will see most emulators will run instantly at full speed without issues.. some of them might even be faster as the fbdev emulators.

I will update this image in a little while and change the default from fullscreen to window mode to address this issue.. it's not pretty, but it's nothing that can be helped until HardKernel gets their hand on proper X11 drivers.

[robotza]

i tried in window mode and it still drops framerate in games

[meveric]

still issue stays the same.. even window mode is scaled 3x already..
besides that if you tried mame games only then the issue is, that you probably use a different core.. if i read right you're using mame 078 which is very fast and stable, but this image uses mame 0155 that alone is a major difference already..

[robotza]

I was using my mame078 core

Not saying your image is bad , i think the drivers are not working very well at all in X , framebuffer driver is much faster but has no vsync

[meveric]

I've updated the Image, please check the OP...

Some new things i added:
compositite desktop (smother window movements)
clementine nice music player (similar to itunes)
Otter Browser (nice Qt5 based web browser which offers hardware acceleration through Qt5 GLES)

i also fixed some issues...
sound is now working without manual steps
temperature is working correctlyy now
network issue is fixed
fixed permissions for /dev/input/event* devices
and some other things i can't remember right now

[RoboCake]

Hello, I have a strange issue with GameStation Turbo. I write the image with win32diskimager much like I have for my RasPi projects and I am able to boot into the OS, but I can't resize the memory card.

It only has about 70 meg free. There are two partitions, a small fat32 part and a EXT3 part that is around 14 gig.

So my question is, how do I write the image to the memory card and partition it properly?

[meveric]

well that's indeed strange, since the image is build in a way that after the first boot it does a second boot right away that should increase partion size and other things...

you can start the script manually by typing the following commands:

Code: Select all

su -
/root/scripts/first_boot.sh

it should reboot in the process.. if it still doesn't resize the SD card, than that's probably the same issue that many other have with the C1..
In that case it would be best to use another Linux system and use gparted to increase the ext4 partition.

[RoboCake]

So how long does this take?I noticed after first boot it would stay at a black screen, but still have the heartbeat light. I let it sit for five minutes but it didn't change.

[meveric]

that's hard to tell.. normally it should take 2 to 5 minutes only... question is, if your monitor can handle the resolution and everything... it's hard to tell without debug output..

you probably have to check syslog or Xorg.0.log file to see if everything is working.

[RoboCake]

That makes way more sense, as I am using my TV as a monitor.
I will do some experimenting this weekend.

Thank you for taking time to answer my questions.

[primustimus]

First of all, thanks so much for providing this image. I had been struggling for a number of hours to get EmulationStation compiled and running properly on my C1, following the popular thread in this forum, with no luck. I burned my SD with this image and it worked beautifully. I'm mainly looking at running older MAME roms, so this is great, although I did see some lag with sf2.
I'm not sure if this is right forum to post this, but I've been having a lot of trouble trying to get my dual arcade controller recognized by this. This is controller I'm working with. http://www.juyao999.com/h-pd-65-0_304_12_-1.html
Any help or direction would be really appreciated. I'm strongly considering hacking a keyboard for its controller, or I've thought of trying to connect my controls directly to the GPIO pins of the ODROID and seeing if I could get that working, but would prefer USB if I can get it working.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[meveric]

try updating the image, i updated a software called antimicro today.. it allows to map any controller to a xbox360 like configuration.. this should help so you can use any controller without having to remap everything.
besides that all emulators can be remapped.. retroarch allows remapping from within the emulator.

But also mapping it to keyboard should work fine if you can do this

[robotza]

Hey primustimus , the controller looks like a XINMO controller that i am using , it wont work properly unless you patch the kernel with the xinmo patch. They have included the patch for future kernels

[meveric]

@primustimus you can ignore the comment from @robotza since the patch is part of the Kernel since the 22nd of February and the latest Kernel i build is from the 27th this means is already included.

[primustimus]

Thanks guys for the quick responses. I'll try the antimicro you described. I'm familiar with the xin mo, however, the pin config of this one is different, and the most frustrating thing is that when I enter MAME and push tab to remap the buttons to my joystick and arcade buttons via the dual arcade controller, nothing registers at all. I know the buttons are correctly hooked up because I was able to run evtest and saw signals being sent and received, but every MAME emulator I've tried with the C1 or RaspPi doesn't recognize the input. Hopefully after I update the image it will recognize it.
Thanks again! With all the trouble I was having trying to get ES working on the C1, I was beginning to regret buying it, since they're is so many more tutorials out there for the pi, but seeing such a supportive community here gives me hope. Cheers! I'll let you know what happens.

[meveric]

well the RPi is much longer on the market as the C1.. so it's just natural that there are more tutorials for it than for the C1.. But since the devices are kinda compatible to each other, most of the RPi tutorials apply as well for ODROID C1.
Still i'm not sure how good the MAME performance will be.

[primustimus]

I did it! I finally got the USB controller working. I tried using the antimicro, however, it still wasn't recognizing it as a joystick. What I ended up doing was mapping each button and joystick using the instructions found here. https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/d ... 738497361/
After doing that, it was recognized as a joystick and I could configure the controls in every MAME game! So relieved to finally get this working. However, as you had indicated. MAME performance is VERRRRY slow. I've been following memeka's development of ES and how he got SDL2 running on it. If we were to install his patched SDL2 would it speed up the performance, and no longer rely on X11? Am I just venturing way over my head? I must admit my understanding is limited when it comes to drivers and configuring a system like this to rely on hardware instead of software processing.

[meveric]

SDL2 is not the issue.. retroarch is using SDL2 as well, and a version of SDL2 compiled against OpenGL ES should already be installed.
But yes the X11 drivers are the issue.
memeka is using fbdev drivers rather than X11 this means all programs have to be compiled against fbdev drivers in order to use them, which means most X11 (Desktop programs) do not run hardware accelerated.
You would have to compile a new version of retroarch against fbdev drivers, and if you want a fancy UI like EmulationStation, or XBMC they also need to be recompiled against fbdev drivers.
That's what is making it rather complicated (and limited).
Question is, why are the X11 drivers so bad.. I will make a test later this week and compile MAME again, but optimized for Cortex-A5 processors to see if this can improve anything.

Still, the C1 was not a good choice for MAME emulation, it generally lacks CPU performance and a U3 would have been the better choice. The U3 also doesn't have any issues with the X11 drivers and doesn't need fbdev drivers and supports vsync which the drivers from the C1 can't do.

[streetboy]

Is the Lakka using the fbdev? or x11?
http://www.lakka.tv/articles/2015/03/08 ... -and-more/