Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
update readme for latest bugifx release and emphasize how the stack w…
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
…orks
  • Loading branch information
ryan.kuba committed Nov 30, 2023
1 parent 659a572 commit c4c67c4
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 2 changed files with 6 additions and 2 deletions.
4 changes: 3 additions & 1 deletion README.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -68,12 +68,14 @@ The first thing you will need to do is click to download the default art/configs
The frontend application has been initially optimized around being used with a standard gamepad (more specifically for modern Xbox consoles that have chromium based Edge browsers). The navigation revolves around the up/down/left/right keys to browse the menus and launch games.
Mobile browsers will function, just keep in mind compatibility will be reduced especially for CD based games.

**It is important to note that some of the current emulators used for this frontend are obfuscated code, efforts are being made to [reverse engineer it](https://github.com/ethanaobrien/emulatorjs/) but you should know it can potentially reach out to third party services if you manually enable features like netplay (this should never happen in a stock setup). The point of this message is that on top of the de-obfuscation effort there is also effort to stop using binary blobs and shift to built from source libretro emscripten blobs, for now this web based emulation stack is the best for useability and compatibility. We are in the process to transitioning to libretro cores for emulators, currently 27/30 emulators have been replaced.**
**Currently only n64 is using an [EmulatorJS](https://github.com/EmulatorJS/EmulatorJS) core. I understand there may be some confusion as to project naming, but when this project (linuxserver/emulatorjs) started it was meant to be a simple frontend for self hosting folks to use the at the time deobfuscated code of [https://www.emulatorjs.com/](https://www.emulatorjs.com/) that [ethanaobrien](https://github.com/ethanaobrien) was working on. Since then [EmulatorJS](https://github.com/EmulatorJS/EmulatorJS) has evolved into it's own amazing project based on [Libretro](https://github.com/libretro) cores that have been highly optimized to function for web. Also since then I tried to roll my own cores, which while fuinctional have fallen out of maintenance as they are all pinned back to the Retroarch 1.11.0 days and comprise the majority of the systems. So in general despite the naming of this project and the logo this is just a docker container with a web based backend for generating a useable self hosted emulation website and is in no way affiliated with [EmulatorJS](https://github.com/EmulatorJS/EmulatorJS) outside of using their n64 core.**

**For Xbox users please click the select button a couple times after launching a game to ensure the B button does not trigger a "back" action in the browser. (official name "view button" it is the two small squares) Exiting the controller mode and back to browser controls can be triggered by holding the start button for 3 seconds. (official name "menu button" the three lines) You will be unable to use features like save states and modify controller layouts on the emulatorjs based emulators currently as I have not determined a methodology of re-entering controller mode once you exit it. All normal game saves will function given you exit the game play screen cleanly using the B button for back this includes multi disc games for psx. Your game saves are stored in browser storage by hostname so if you make any changes to your local hosted setup (port or IP) the saves will not follow with it. For libretro based emulators you can use the button combination start+select+L+R to access the libretro menu and change settings/save or load/etc.**

**We know about most of the oddities like crackling sound for some emulators, rendering issues, and games unreliably auto launching to fullscreen. In general full CD games on the Xbox web browser do not seem to work due to their size if you have a chd/pbp less than 450 megs it will run. Edge on Xbox has some kind of undocumented ram limitation of about a gigabyte. Until all emulators are transitioned to libretro cores the oddities of using self hosted EmulatorJS will not be something that can or should be solved using hacky workarounds interacting with obfuscated code. Just keep in mind these are full blown machine emulators running in Javascript in a browser, do not expect bare metal performance.**

**This container (outside of the profile functionality) only generates a static set of files that can be hosted on any web provider even object storage. Eveyrthing runs in the clients browser and there are no dependencies on this container. To extract/copy this website it is at the path `/emulatorjs/frontend` inside the container. If you are happy with the catalouge you have created and no longer want to run stuff like the IPFS backend or want to upload these files to some other hosting provider you can simply copy the contents of that directory and kill off this container.**

Mounting in existing rom directories can be achieved by pointing to the default folder structure, IE lets say you would like to mount your NES library:

`-v /path/to/nes/roms:/data/nes/roms`
Expand Down
4 changes: 3 additions & 1 deletion readme-vars.yml
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -43,12 +43,14 @@ app_setup_block: |
The frontend application has been initially optimized around being used with a standard gamepad (more specifically for modern Xbox consoles that have chromium based Edge browsers). The navigation revolves around the up/down/left/right keys to browse the menus and launch games.
Mobile browsers will function, just keep in mind compatibility will be reduced especially for CD based games.
**It is important to note that some of the current emulators used for this frontend are obfuscated code, efforts are being made to [reverse engineer it](https://github.com/ethanaobrien/emulatorjs/) but you should know it can potentially reach out to third party services if you manually enable features like netplay (this should never happen in a stock setup). The point of this message is that on top of the de-obfuscation effort there is also effort to stop using binary blobs and shift to built from source libretro emscripten blobs, for now this web based emulation stack is the best for useability and compatibility. We are in the process to transitioning to libretro cores for emulators, currently 27/30 emulators have been replaced.**
**Currently only n64 is using an [EmulatorJS](https://github.com/EmulatorJS/EmulatorJS) core. I understand there may be some confusion as to project naming, but when this project (linuxserver/emulatorjs) started it was meant to be a simple frontend for self hosting folks to use the at the time deobfuscated code of [https://www.emulatorjs.com/](https://www.emulatorjs.com/) that [ethanaobrien](https://github.com/ethanaobrien) was working on. Since then [EmulatorJS](https://github.com/EmulatorJS/EmulatorJS) has evolved into it's own amazing project based on [Libretro](https://github.com/libretro) cores that have been highly optimized to function for web. Also since then I tried to roll my own cores, which while fuinctional have fallen out of maintenance as they are all pinned back to the Retroarch 1.11.0 days and comprise the majority of the systems. So in general despite the naming of this project and the logo this is just a docker container with a web based backend for generating a useable self hosted emulation website and is in no way affiliated with [EmulatorJS](https://github.com/EmulatorJS/EmulatorJS) outside of using their n64 core.**
**For Xbox users please click the select button a couple times after launching a game to ensure the B button does not trigger a "back" action in the browser. (official name "view button" it is the two small squares) Exiting the controller mode and back to browser controls can be triggered by holding the start button for 3 seconds. (official name "menu button" the three lines) You will be unable to use features like save states and modify controller layouts on the emulatorjs based emulators currently as I have not determined a methodology of re-entering controller mode once you exit it. All normal game saves will function given you exit the game play screen cleanly using the B button for back this includes multi disc games for psx. Your game saves are stored in browser storage by hostname so if you make any changes to your local hosted setup (port or IP) the saves will not follow with it. For libretro based emulators you can use the button combination start+select+L+R to access the libretro menu and change settings/save or load/etc.**
**We know about most of the oddities like crackling sound for some emulators, rendering issues, and games unreliably auto launching to fullscreen. In general full CD games on the Xbox web browser do not seem to work due to their size if you have a chd/pbp less than 450 megs it will run. Edge on Xbox has some kind of undocumented ram limitation of about a gigabyte. Until all emulators are transitioned to libretro cores the oddities of using self hosted EmulatorJS will not be something that can or should be solved using hacky workarounds interacting with obfuscated code. Just keep in mind these are full blown machine emulators running in Javascript in a browser, do not expect bare metal performance.**
**This container (outside of the profile functionality) only generates a static set of files that can be hosted on any web provider even object storage. Eveyrthing runs in the clients browser and there are no dependencies on this container. To extract/copy this website it is at the path `/emulatorjs/frontend` inside the container. If you are happy with the catalouge you have created and no longer want to run stuff like the IPFS backend or want to upload these files to some other hosting provider you can simply copy the contents of that directory and kill off this container.**
Mounting in existing rom directories can be achieved by pointing to the default folder structure, IE lets say you would like to mount your NES library:
`-v /path/to/nes/roms:/data/nes/roms`
Expand Down

0 comments on commit c4c67c4

Please sign in to comment.