General Emulation Discussion

80s Synth Pop

nice to have other emulators supporting the same easy to find MAME set.

I wonder if the CD drive emulators like rhea and mode support CHD format too?

KeRbDoG

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

nice to have other emulators supporting the same easy to find MAME set.

I wonder if the CD drive emulators like rhea and mode support CHD format too?

Seems MODE doesn't but for the price you think it might.

• Compatible with CDI, GDI, CCD, MDF, bin/iso+cue images

Nor Rhea

Supported image types:

CDI
CCD+IMG+SUB
MDS+MDF
ISO (games with no audio tracks and homebrew)
IMPORTANT: Images based on CUE sheets are not supported.

The Last Bandit

You need (some) processing power and memory to decompress those CHD images, older one like Rhea/Phoebe certainly don't have the resources to do it.
And from the developers prospective, its probably a case of meh get a bigger sd card.

Different images are a pain alright, trying to use the Redump collections for most of mine now where possible.

Inviere

The Last Bandit wrote: »

You need (some) processing power and memory to decompress those CHD images, older one like Rhea/Phoebe certainly don't have the resources to do it.
And from the developers prospective, its probably a case of meh get a bigger sd card.

Different images are a pain alright, trying to use the Redump collections for most of mine now where possible.

I'd the same thought, there's some processing power required to decompress a chd. I suppose its possible to incorporate a processor onto the board to do it, but it'd certainly push the price up. Probably not cost effective when there's large storage options out there.

Redump is the only way to go if you need disc images. What I like about CHD is it'll combine multi-bin disc images into a single file...makes storing and maintaining a large collection that bit neater. Plus you can undo the conversion and go back to disc image losslessly if needed.

The only system I haven't converted to CHD is PS1 games. I left them as PBP files (converted from bin cue to PBP) because PBP supports multi disc games (disc 1 and disc 2 together in a single file), which makes disc swapping a complete breeze. PBP is lossy though, so there's a slight tradeoff.

paul79

Really miss lightgun games one of my favorite genres,The Sinden lightgun Looks really good and a nice review below.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hduEzZdm95Y&feature=youtu.be

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hduEzZdm95Y&feature=youtu.be

The_B_Man

Don't remind me. My 2 recoil guns are getting shipped on Monday apparently. I'm hoping I don't get stung for customs...

paul79

The_B_Man wrote: »

Don't remind me. My 2 recoil guns are getting shipped on Monday apparently. I'm hoping I don't get stung for customs...

I was only thinking this myself during the week hopefully it gets through for us without any .

TechnoFreek

Has there been any progress with those lightguns working on console?

The_B_Man

No, just people talking about PS2. It sounds like you need a DIY hardware mod, going by his Discord post from 2 weeks ago:

MrLightgun: I'm definitely happy to actually put together an official road map because community input into that is quite important, just trying to get rid of the backlog first so I can actually plan properly for the future, in general some of the priorities:

PRIORITY1 -> Get everyone their lightguns
Fix any bugs that can cause instability (bluetooth issues is an example)
Merge 2 player support into a single instance
Some kind of profiles system to change settings per game
Linux software add video preview on the test app to help configuration
Ability to update firmware on Linux
PS1/PS2 support, publish software, guides and videos
MiSTer support
Android support
Hardware adapter to make PS1/PS2 support easy instead of DIY mod
Any ways to make it easier to add borders
Making the case for new lightgun games and getting support added to games
More original console support Xbox, Saturn, Dreamcast, NES, SNES, Megadrive, Master system
Ship to more countries

Inviere

Not emulation per se, but just wondering if anyone has tried the Sinden with the new Singe 2.0 'emulator'? Seen a vid on RMC & seems to work perfectly for some Mad Dog McCree goodness (!)

Retr0gamer

So what's the best dreamcast emulator/retroarch core. And if I was to...... Transfer all my gd roms to a format.... What format would I be looking for rather than those awful cut down cd versions.

Doge

Inviere wrote: »

Not emulation per se, but just wondering if anyone has tried the Sinden with the new Singe 2.0 'emulator'? Seen a vid on RMC & seems to work perfectly for some Mad Dog McCree goodness (!)

Not sure if i used Singe 2.0 or some older version that was included in the Light Guns Crisis pack i downloaded, but I did play Mad Dog McCree and Drug Wars 1 & 2 and they worked great, (except when you're chasing a car in Drug Wars and they give you a ridiculously short window to shoot before the enemy even appears! :pac:)


I'll have to revisit d'oul Sinden Lightgun again, haven't been retro gaming in a good while actually.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

So what's the best dreamcast emulator/retroarch core. And if I was to...... Transfer all my gd roms to a format.... What format would I be looking for rather than those awful cut down cd versions.

I think I use the Flycast core for most things DC (will check tomorrow when I'm at the pc). Between that and the Redream core, you'll have most things covered.

For disc images, you'll want to grab the GDI images which are 1:1 to the original discs, and then convert them to CHD using the batch file I posted above a few days ago. CHD is lossless, and both cores are compatible with it.

Inviere

Inviere wrote: »

I think I use the Flycast core for most things DC (will check tomorrow when I'm at the pc). Between that and the Redream core, you'll have most things covered.

Just checked there, yep, I've Flycast set as my default DC core.

Inviere

Inviere wrote: »

I know it's more hardware emulation/simulation, but interesting times ahead for Mister

https://twitter.com/sentientsixp/status/1356831344966463490?s=21

Bios now booting...

Shapey Fiend

My Mega Drive seems to be dead so I ordered a Mister on Friday. Can't wait to start faffing about with it on the CRT. If they get the Saturn working it'll be the icing on the cake but until then I've plenty to be getting on with.

Inviere

I'm not normally a fan of bezel overlays, but this one takes the cake. Very interesting reflections! I think it's pretty demanding to run, which can be heard in the video (the uploaders computer seems to be struggling)

Also, there's a new "Super Mario 64 Plus", based on the original decompiled source code I assume. Plenty of new QoL improvements, and really shows what a piss poor and lazy job Nintendo did porting it to Switch recently...

Doge

Inviere wrote: »

I'm not normally a fan of bezel overlays, but this one takes the cake. Very interesting reflections! I think it's pretty demanding to run, which can be heard in the video (the uploaders computer seems to be struggling)

The reflections are cool, but the CRT filters dont look great unfortunately. I still haven't got around to trying SteveX2's custom filters he posted a while back but from memory they looked much better.

Inviere

Doge wrote: »

The reflections are cool, but the CRT filters dont look great unfortunately. I still haven't got around to trying SteveX2's custom filters he posted a while back but from memory they looked much better.

Agreed, though I only noticed it after you said it! I spent the whole time looking at the voodoo reflections

Inviere

Long standing bug in Mame's Contra emulation has been resolved:

urrtek fixed one of the long standing emulation bugs for Konami's arcade game 'Contra' in MAME.

This bug meant the game logic in Contra under MAME had never been correct, the ‘3D’ stages of the game were far too easy, with all mines, and the majority of the bullets being shot at you veering off to the right rather than coming down the screen towards you, thus requiring no effort to avoid. In reality Contra should have been considered a non-working game this whole time, because the gameplay logic was broken.

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/msr0df/game_logic_bugfix_for_konamis_contra_arcade_in/

From 6:30 on you can see it...

Retr0gamer

Well ****, I've beaten Contra on Mame and found it too easy...

This is probably why

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well ****, I've beaten Contra on Mame and found it too easy...

This is probably why

And you won't be able to blame the controller when you lose next time!

Retr0gamer

Discovered a big, biiiiiiiig annoying flaw with retroarch.

Was playing a RPG on it for a couple of hours, went downstairs to get a drink, came back up and retroarch had grand.

Annoying but not a big issue. It crashed on the save screen so I had just saved.

Booted it back up and my save game from the start of the session was the save in the game...

So I looked this up and got reams and reams of angry people giving out about this. Apparently you need to turn on an option to save the SRAM to disk incrementally. It isn't on by default. Otherwise Retroarch will only save on exit.

So I went to the options to turn it on.... and it was on already but it didn't work.

So apparently some games use the SRAM as working RAM and save data to them constantly. If the SRAM is different in the interval you set (10 seconds in my case) the SRAM isn't saved to the disk.

So I lost about 3 hours of progress last night.

Just a heads up to check if this is happening to a game you are playing and to exit the emulator once an hour just to make sure.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Discovered a big, biiiiiiiig annoying flaw with retroarch.

Was playing a RPG on it for a couple of hours, went downstairs to get a drink, came back up and retroarch had grand.

Annoying but not a big issue. It crashed on the save screen so I had just saved.

Booted it back up and my save game from the start of the session was the save in the game...

So I looked this up and got reams and reams of angry people giving out about this. Apparently you need to turn on an option to save the SRAM to disk incrementally. It isn't on by default. Otherwise Retroarch will only save on exit.

So I went to the options to turn it on.... and it was on already but it didn't work.

So apparently some games use the SRAM as working RAM and save data to them constantly. If the SRAM is different in the interval you set (10 seconds in my case) the SRAM isn't saved to the disk.

So I lost about 3 hours of progress last night.

Just a heads up to check if this is happening to a game you are playing and to exit the emulator once an hour just to make sure.

I'm not following you. There's two types of saves:

1) the game's own built in save system (sram). You use the game's own save mechanic to manually save the game. Other games might incrementally save the game at certain points. This is independent of Retroarch.

2) save states. You manually save the game at a certain state from within Retroarch.

What didn't work properly for you?

Inviere

OK found some info on it:

"As it turns out, RetroArch/LibRetro will only save whatever changes happen to the SRAM if you properly close the core, or if you turn on an option to do it once every 10 seconds (or more, 10 seconds is the minimal setting I can put it).

Apparently, the reason for that is that some games use the SRAM as part of their own RAM, and they keep overwriting it all the time, which could lead to potential wear of the storage media, and that’s why it has that behaviour."

https://forums.libretro.com/t/a-question-about-save-file-updating/6629

"So no offense to the OP, but this kind of seems like a non issue now. You can set the SRAM to 600 seconds (so that it doesn’t happen excessively) as a preventive measure, and the likelihood of losing anything is dramatically decreased. Unless you saved in game right after an SRAM backup occurred (unlikely), and the game crashed in that 10 minute window (also unlikely) between the next SRAM backup, I don’t think you’re going to have too many problems.

But, to be honest, I don’t completely understand how the current implementation could be improved. Do other emulators handle it differently/better?"

So the sram isn't actually written while the core is active, because the reasons above. I didn't know that, seems odd considering no other emulators seem to work this way. However, the interval setting mitigates it nicely - as a preventative though unfortunately for Retr0. The flaw here is that should be configured by default to have a low interval.

I've never had Retroarch crash and cause this, but nice to know its possible. I'll look at those settings later just in case.

Retr0gamer

It seems it's only for games that use the SRAM as RAM. That seems like a really bad use of SRAM so I say very few games use it.

The game I was playing was Live a Live, a very play Squaresoft RPG for the SNES so you'd expect the programming to be a little bit better than this (it came out around the time of Chrono Trigger but is probably as complex as FF4). It could also well be an anti piracy measure, I can only assume that saving contantly to SRAM would make the game unplayable on one of those floppy disk based piracy devices at the time.

So basically the interval thing is no use for this game. I had it set to 10 seconds, what retroarch does is check the current sram against the sram 10 seconds ago and if there are differences it doesn't save, this is probably to stop excessive disk writes. Unfortunately if a game is using the SRAM as RAM the SRAM is going to be constantly changing (probably every frame) and retroarch will therefore not save the SRAM at all.

Might just be wroth checking the time of the last sram file modification in any game you are playing to check that it won't be an issue.

It was my first retroarch crash as well.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It seems it's only for games that use the SRAM as RAM. That seems like a really bad use of SRAM so I say very few games use it.

The game I was playing was Live a Live, a very play Squaresoft RPG for the SNES so you'd expect the programming to be a little bit better than this (it came out around the time of Chrono Trigger but is probably as complex as FF4). It could also well be an anti piracy measure, I can only assume that saving contantly to SRAM would make the game unplayable on one of those floppy disk based piracy devices at the time.

So basically the interval thing is no use for this game. I had it set to 10 seconds, what retroarch does is check the current sram against the sram 10 seconds ago and if there are differences it doesn't save, this is probably to stop excessive disk writes. Unfortunately if a game is using the SRAM as RAM the SRAM is going to be constantly changing (probably every frame) and retroarch will therefore not save the SRAM at all.

Might just be wroth checking the time of the last sram file modification in any game you are playing to check that it won't be an issue.

It was my first retroarch crash as well.

Just use a save state in place of the game's own mechanic then in this case, rules out any headaches. Yeah I'd never heard of games using sram as ram, seems mad to do it.

Are you sure the interval works that way? I though it was to set the interval where the sram WOULD be saved?

Retr0gamer

Yep that's how it works. The people asking about it are being told it's working as intended. It's to save on excessive writes to flash media.

It's very strange it doesn't have a flash on change but then again on something like Live a Live that would probably mean a flash every frame which is excessive.

I'd imagine it was a copy protection thing rather than bad coding.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yep that's how it works. The people asking about it are being told it's working as intended. It's to save on excessive writes to flash media.

I get the excessive writes protection, as the sram would be constantly changing as you say. The interval would seem to make more sense as to when to initiate a save though wouldn't it? Strange.

Retr0gamer

I guess maybe I just got unlucky with my choice of game. I'll check with something more nromal.