[Feature Request] Popup when core has missing required firmware/files

[cscd98]

Now that we have pop-up support, it would be useful if RA check to see if a required file is missing before launching a core, then if that file is missing a popup should appear reminding the users. The experience is quite bad at the moment, leading to blank screen or crashes.

This would be very beneficial to all users, for example launching Atari Lynx would give you a blank screen unless lynxboot.img is present in system.

This information is already present in:

https://github.com/libretro/libretro-super/blob/master/dist/info/mednafen_lynx_libretro.info

Should only apply when files are not optional - firmware0_opt = "false"

[sonninnos]

On the other hand: #18470

[hizzlekizzle]

Yeah, I think this is deceptively hard. We basically only want it to block if the core would fail to load otherwise, but we don't really know that until it happens. Some cores have added their own firmware warnings, like beetle-psx, melonds-ds and fbneo, but it has to happen on a per-core basis.

I don't know if there's any sort of cookie-cutter drop-in we could add when a core's internal firmware check(s) fail. We already write those failures to logs, so we should be able to fire a widget notification at the same time, right? And it'll stay on screen for a few seconds, even if the core closes?

[i30817]

What about checking if the core is being started from a playlist with optional firmware (that is missing). Like flycast can run atomiswave games but you only want to check for that bios if youre running from the atomiswave playlist.

That takes care of at least one common case for optional firmware with only retroarch available info (yes history and hybrid/custom playlists won't popup the warning).

Edit2: db_name might obviate that as the obvious "origin playlist/database the game comes from" proxy

Multi system playlists like mame or fbneo well... Theyd dont list all required bios certainly?
.edit : fbneo does, mame doesnt

This suggestion would need a way in core.info files to associate a bios to a database name (instead of calling them "optional").

Could be annoying if its truly optional though (like the Sony ps1 psp bios, or the non region bios). Maybe what I want is a more restricted way to call something optional - if its completely required for a db_name it's not optional and should be warned about when running games in that db

[i30817]

On the other hand @hizzlekizzle idea is much much better. Mark up the games/cores that had problems and popup a warning when its logged would be a dataless way to notify a problem... If cores used the right unique log type to only report bios problems that could be lifted from a log.

[RobLoach]

While I agree there needs to be a cleaner way for the user to verify their BIOS, a popup could get quite annoying. Having a dedicated User Interface for it may be nicer. Out of curiousity, I made this Lutro thing:
https://github.com/RobLoach/lutro-bioscheck

It uses System.dat, but doesn't check the CRC since that's time consuming. System.dat also has a bad habit of getting out of date too... Having something that's directly in RetroArch would be much nicer.

[cscd98]

Well I just fell into the trap myself testing on Android and I forgot to install dolphin.zip (yes, I know).. which results in a failure to load.

I think a popup, or some other notification, which can be disabled by the user, would be the way to go instead of having to waste time checking logs.

If its a matter of out dated .info files, then we should just update them, ones that fail properly if something is missing.