Sega Saturn Retroarch cue file problem

[Charco]

For the Mednafen Saturn core in RA you should only have to do that once for each game and they will boot fine from then on.

[darkfalzx]

On second thought, you are absolutely correct. It only looked to me like it resets every time because I kept changing the game file names while setting everything up.

[MazJohn [Mr Arcade]]

Does anyone know if there is a fix yet for the Retroarch Mednafen core? It still keeps asking to set date & time everytime a game is launched.  

[DOS76]

That isn't typical behavior it should only be occurring the 1st time you launch a game.

[MazJohn [Mr Arcade]]

Interesting... In my case it prompts me every time a game is launched to enter date & Time, not just the first time it is run,,, I am using the latest Mednafen core in retroarch 1.41 and also tried the newer retroarch 1.5

Edited April 5, 2017 by mazjohn

[DOS76]

sounds like it isn't creating the files it should be that tells it that information when I open a game for the 1st time RA creates 3 save files all with the games name with the .bcr bkr and smpc file extensions in the RA save directory.

[SentaiBrad]

Or it could be a BIOS issue. Replacing my BIOS fixed that issue for me previously.

[darkfalzx]

I second the BIOS idea, as finding the correct bios files has eliminated 99% of problems with the emulator for me. The Mednofen core has so far been outstanding aside from it being really picky about disk dump format and quality.  I have only experienced very minor graphical glitching, like flickering polygons, and one instance of softlock while playing Burning Rangers (it only happened once, and the game worked fine for hours before and after)

[SentaiBrad]

RetroArch as a whole is picky actually. When it comes to BIOS and disc images, it's so damn picky. Cart images seem to be a bit relaxed, but those can be screwed up too. It's very shocking to learn that most sites you can download single games from have horrible quality control and never gave a crap, so when someone or something (like RA) comes along and wants quality, things aren't living up. I am thinking of a place with Palm trees and sunshine in it's name (metaphorically) that is extremely popular, and their downloads are literally some of the worst. The forums portion isn't too bad, and you can in fact find up-to-date rom packs in there. If it's not from one of the major rom pack guys though, I almost always try and stay clear.

[Lordmonkus]

Surprisingly I have had very good luck with that "palm tree" site outside of Saturn games. Their Saturn stuff is definitely atrocious but everything else I have had no problems with. And yeah like you said their forums have a lot of great stuff including some very hard to find stuff.

[DOS76]

So wait you think that the games would launch without the right BIOS but not save so it keeps showing the set date and language menu when he opens them that would be really weird and I wouldn't think that would be an issue.

Edited April 5, 2017 by DOS76

[Charco]

43 minutes ago, SentaiBrad said:

RetroArch as a whole is picky actually. When it comes to BIOS and disc images, it's so damn picky. Cart images seem to be a bit relaxed, but those can be screwed up too. It's very shocking to learn that most sites you can download single games from have horrible quality control and never gave a crap, so when someone or something (like RA) comes along and wants quality, things aren't living up. I am thinking of a place with Palm trees and sunshine in it's name (metaphorically) that is extremely popular, and their downloads are literally some of the worst. The forums portion isn't too bad, and you can in fact find up-to-date rom packs in there. If it's not from one of the major rom pack guys though, I almost always try and stay clear.

Their Mega CD stuff is garbage too.

[DOS76]

Their Sega CD stuff works fine though

[darkfalzx]

Hey, did anyone find a copy of Cho Aniki that works? I have tried multiple sources and they all crap out during launch.

[darkfalzx]

Another question - did anyone get multi-disk games to work? I tried using the .M3U playlists, but the tray toggle button doesn't seem to work properly, and neither do the disk change buttons, as I keep getting "Failed to set disk x of y"

[Lordmonkus]

@Zombeaver got them working using the .m3u playlist.

I have not tried it on the Saturn but I am assuming they used the same method as the famicom disk system where you have a button for the "tray" and one for the "disk # or side). So I assume you press the "tray" button once, then press the "disk" button and then close the tray and it should just continue on.

Hopefully Zombeaver will have a better response.

[SentaiBrad]

There is a disc swap button for these things. It should be similar to that of the Famicom, but it's probably most similar to the PS1. I don't know if it's the same across everything. A really easy alternative though, when it asks for disc 2, make a save state, load up the new disc and load that save state. Should continue on like normal.

[darkfalzx]

I followed the sequence, of ejecting tray and pressing the disk-swap button, then pressing the tray button again, but it appears to have failed at every stage.

Opening the tray didn't send the "tray open" signal to the emulated Saturn, even though the text at the bottom said the tray is open, and the disk cycling buttons popped up the "Failed to set disk _ of _" messages no matter which disk I tried to switch to.

I do like the savestate idea, but wish there was a less hack-y way of doing it.

[SentaiBrad]

It's not really a hacky way, or I wouldn't consider it that at all honestly. That's how (as far as I know) it used to be done years ago. For RetroArch, I'd be willing to bet the discs aren't all in the same location or the names are different than what it's expecting. I was gonna say too, that it could be because everything was loaded through LB, but so were the other examples that worked.

[Zombeaver]

It works the same way whether in RA or standalone Mednafen - you add each .cue filename into a text file, one cue per line:

Disc 1 Name.cue

Disc 2 Name.cue

Disc 3 Name.cue

Then save it and then rename the file extension to .m3u and use it as your "rom" in LB. The disc images do all need to be in the same folder as the .m3u.

Then in the emulator you press the the "open tray" key, the "next disc" (or "previous disc") key, and then the "close tray" key. You have to assign these in Input -> Hotkeys in RA. There are defaults for these in standalone though I don't recall what they are from memory.

Enemy Zero is the one game where this doesn't work and it's a known bug with the emulator itself that hadn't been fixed yet.