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Retropie SNES issues


Bedwyr

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So I've got RetroPie running on both a Pi Zero and 3. I think I know enough about how RetroPie manages things to download extra cores and change emulators per ROM. Unfortunately I have a large list of ROMs that are not running on the Pie at all. Under PC using Snes9x_next things are great. On the Pie using Snes9x_2002, 2005, 2010, Snes9x, and PiSNES not so good. I've looked through the verbose logs but no clues other than Retroarch isn't loading the rom as it doesn't see the rom as valid.

I'm not sure what to do next. The list follows (and many of these are bizarrely arbitrary:

  1. Lagoon (never had trouble before)
  2. Lufia fortress of doom (the other Lufia works fine)
  3. Mechwarrior 3050 (Mechwarrior works fine)
  4. Might and Magic II (don't care too much, this was just curiosity)
  5. Might and Magic III (don't care for same reasons)
  6. Pilotwings (a launch title I've never had trouble with? Plus other mode 7 games load fine)
  7. Prince of Persia
  8. R Type III
  9. Super Star Wars
  10. Return of the Jedi
  11. Empire Strikes Back
  12. Legend of the Mystical Ninja
  13. The Lion King (Aladdin works fine)
  14. UN Squadron (weird, never had a problem with this one)
  15. Ultima Runes of Virtue II (don't care; curiosity again)
  16. Ultima Black Gate (don't care; SNES version sucked anyhow)
  17. Ultima False Prophet (don't care; U6 controls are bad bad bad)
  18. Ultraman
  19. Uncharted Waters
  20. Wing Commander Secret Missions (Wing Command proper works fine though)

I should note that I don't use anything like a full collection. These are part of my actual SNES library or, as noted, pure curiosity that I don't really need. And to reiterate they *all* run on Snex9x_next Retroarch core on PC fronted by Launchbox.

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Troubleshooting accomplished so far:

  • Tested with a dedicated power supply (shouldn't be a problem as the demanding Star Fox worked while powered by my laptop's USB port)
  • SNES9x_2002: dumps back to Emulation Station
  • SNES9x_2005: loads and assigns controller but only has red and yellow noise
  • SNES9x_2010: dumps back to Emulation Station
  • SNES9x: loads and assigns controller but remains on blank screen

Again, logs don't show much. Just a "failed to load ROM message"

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Well, sir?

A few things.

First: I'm not currently a member on their forums and would just as soon not join if I can discover an answer for a one-off problem. I may have to, but I thought I would try here first.

Second: There's a critical mass of knowledge here that I thought on an offhand chance someone else has used the same hardware (or at least some kind of ARM architecture) and might be interested in helping out.

Third: This is off-topic emulation. I see no particular restriction that it be related to x86 architecture or that Launchbox be able to run on top of a particular emulator.

Edited by Bedwyr
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No problem. I bit my tongue long enough to keep a little flareup from happening. Pax it is and thanks for helping.

None are zipped. I've been trying to find repeatable patterns (and did search the retropie forums).

  • One thing I see responders suggesting is "header" problems. Maybe the ARM/Retropie cores are much stricter about processing ROM dumps. I have no idea what's valid or not valid as I've sourced these over time (no further details).
  • I have both smc and sfc files and there are instances of both working and not working, so no pattern there.
  • I have several old language hacks and *all* work (FFV, DQ I.II, DQ III, etc) oddly enough. If a strict checksum were needed I wouldn't think these would load.
  • Wing Commander and Wing Commander Secret Missions bugs me. Why would the former work and the latter not?
  • Lagoon used to be a reliable rom. It has run on every core I've tried on Windows, no problem where some that run on RetroPie have had issues (usually with Bsnes flavors).

I've tried a sequence of 2002, 2005, 2010, and plain vanilla Snes9x on about half of these, but didn't have the patience to do a full permutation yet. The pattern described above is holding.

Edited by Bedwyr
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Are you using a No-Intro rom set ?

That is the defacto standard set which Retroarch uses, it can support others of course but the No-Intro is highly recommended.

And just for a reference link here is the compatibility list for Snes9x showing which games are problematic to begin with. I realize that the games you mention aren't on these lists but I just thought I would link it here anyways. https://wiki.libretro.com/index.php?title=Nintendo_SNES_Core_Compatibility#SNES9x

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Yeah as per what @lordmonkus said I'm using no-intro and all my roms are .sfc I have just checked with pilotwings and super star wars with snes9x through retroarch (windows admittedly) and both worked fine. I also checked its file compatibility and .smc is also supported by that core, so not sure what to suggest. did you transfer them over your network? any chance they got corrupted during the transfer?

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As I said, my collection is a hodge podge. What is no-intro and its purpose and how would I know? I've seen it mentioned a fair bit on the Hyperspin forums, but remain confused about them.

Re: transferring. I copied over everything in my windows roms folders and then did a selective cp on a linux command line: *.smc *.sfc to the appropriate folder.

Edited by Bedwyr
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I see. So it's possible that in my hodge podge I have some units that will not match no-intro checksums and that this is most likely the culprit?

edit: I'll be taking care of some errands right now. This is helping me trace the root problem. Maybe when the RetroPie responders are talking about "headers" these no-intro sources are what they are talking about?

Edited by Bedwyr
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5 minutes ago, Bedwyr said:

I see. So it's possible that in my hodge podge I have some units that will not match no-intro checksums and that this is most likely the culprit?

edit: I'll be taking care of some errands right now. This is helping me trace the root problem. Maybe when the RetroPie responders are talking about "headers" these no-intro sources are what they are talking about?

Quite possibly.

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It seems to have worked. One question though. If I have a no-intro japanese rom, it appears that most of the full translation IPSs do not patch properly with these versions*. What rom is expected from most of the "famous" translations on romhacking.net? Or at least is there a way to process a no-intro rom that will be accepted by the ips patch and run correctly?

I preserved the translations I already have, so I'm good there. But now I'm curious. How does someone new to the scene do with, say, a full cart dump from a Super Famicom cart and get a successful translation patch?

 

*testing in retroarch in Windows right now, snes9x_next core

Edited by Bedwyr
clarification
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