Sega Saturn Retroarch cue file problem

[master333]

Hi I have a number of bin and cue Saturn games that all work fine. Some of them will not accept the .cue file and launch via launchbox. I click and a small black command window appears and then disappears. I have to assign the track1.bin to get the game to load but them it doesnt have the music because it needs to figure that out from the cue! Some cues works where there is only 1 bin file but mostly any games with more than 1 bin file wont work. How does one get around this? Convert program could be used? Something added into the cue file? Thanks

[DOS76]

I'm pretty sure I don't have any Saturn games that aren't just one .bin and one .cue. I don't know about converting them but maybe you can look around for a different file for which ever games you are having the issue with and see if it if formatted with a single .bin/.cue

[master333]

You say you have mostly multiple bins and 1 cue. How do you make it work?

[SentaiBrad]

If you have multiple bin's load the master cue sheet. Load them with Notepad++ and the cue sheet that has all of the tracks or shows all the excess files would be considered the "master" cue sheet. Load this one.

[DOS76]

You misunderstood I am saying I don't have any games with more than one .bin. Actually I used a double negative that might have been confusing.

[SentaiBrad]

Some Japanese games will use multiple bin's for audio tracks, sometimes they're mp3's or other files instead of bin's. Look up Dance Dance Revolution on Dreamcast and PS1 for example. I have really only seen this with some Japanese games though, the rest are usually 2 files, sometimes 3.

[master333]

Thanks Guys for your input. DOS76 - I did misunderstand but I understand now.

[DOS76]

Yeah the only Japanese Saturn games I have are Shining Force games and I believe they are only single bin files.

[MazJohn [Mr Arcade]]

 Does the retro-arch Saturn core only support US bios? maybe that's why the Jap games wont launch with Retroarch and Launchbox?  There are only 2 bios files used by the mednafen Saturn core...

Did anyone here successfully boot a Jap Saturn game with Retro-arch and Launch-box?

[Lordmonkus]

Yes Japanese roms work just fine if you have the Japanese bios files as well.

[SentaiBrad]

Yea I launch every game for Saturn just fine in RetroArch. Always check the core info files for more info:

Quote

firmware_count = 2
firmware0_desc = "sega_101.bin (Sega Saturn JP BIOS)"
firmware0_path = "sega_101.bin"
firmware0_opt = "false"
firmware1_desc = "mpr-17933.bin (Sega Saturn US/EU BIOS)"
firmware1_path = "mpr-17933.bin"
firmware1_opt = "false"

 

[castle]

I had this same problem--neither Mednafen or Yabause will open a cue with multiple tracks in Retroarch. Mednafen crashes and Yabause only works if you load the BIN or ISO directly (ignore the cue), but in the latter case the audio tracks are not loaded and there is no music in the game. 

This can be fixed by redumping the multi-track CD image into a single bin/iso and cue file. This is pretty easy. Here is a guide:

https://maguslogs.blogspot.com/2016/09/howto-convert-ps1-games-with-multiple-tracks-to-one-bin-and-cue.html

After re-dumping my multi-track images into single cue/iso images, almost everything works for me in both Mednafen and Yabause.

 

Edited January 27, 2017 by castle

[SentaiBrad]

Sweet, thanks @castle, that is very helpful.

[Krait Rosado Gaming]

Wow this is very usefull. I am sick with Saturn emulation. I will use your post when i will setup on LB.

[darkfalzx]

I am having a similar but even weirder issue with the Medanfen core.

Some of my games work, while others do absolutely nothing when executed. In case of those, the emulator doesn't even attempt to start!

I currently **don't** have a ton of games to try with the emulator, but out of the ones I have imaged 3 work and 7 don't with absolutely no visible pattern.

At first it seemed that games with only one audio track didn't work, and ones with multiple tracks did, but then Dracula X worked, and that only has one audio track, alternatively Puzzle Bubble 2 and Primal Rage didn't. Then I thought maybe only Japanese games work and euro and US don't, since all the games that worked were Japanese, but then Baroque didn't work.

Here are the games I tested

Worked: Dracula X (J), Night Striker S (J), Initial D (J)

DIDN'T work: Baroque (J), Deep Fear (E), Primal Rage (U), Astal (U), Gex (U), Nights Into Dreams (U), Puzzle Bubble 2 EX (U)

I'm at my wits' end!

Can someone suggest anything please?

[Lordmonkus]

Sounds like you need better disk images. I can absolutely confirm that Astal and Nights Into Dreams work just fine but the other games you listed that don't work for you I don't have so I can't test them.

[DOS76]

Okay I tested Gex and Deep Fear but mine is labeled as a US game and they work don't have any of the other games

[darkfalzx]

When I say "don't work" I mean the emulator wouldn't even fire up.  I click on them and literally nothing happens.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah Retroarch is annoying like that, if it doesn't like the image it will just shutdown without telling you why.

[darkfalzx]

It appears that this was a bios issue. I just had to find the exact bios files Mednofen requires, and not the ones I thought would work just as well.

Once I swapped the correct files in, suddenly most games worked, and the ones that failed, failed in a far more graceful way via in-emulator music player screen.

Wonderful to see my favorite console running again without the hoops of SSF, though I knew I will one day pay for not getting an optical media drive in my new computer (and Windows 10 doesn't want to play nice with an external drive I have - what a surprise), so I can't directly re-image my own Saturn collection.

Oh, since maybe I have your attention for a sec - is it normal that every time a game starts I have to re-enter date and time on the bios screen, or is there a way to fix that? 

 

Thank you for all your responses!

Edited April 4, 2017 by darkfalzx