Commodore VIC-20

[Lukeyboy67]

I’m still having no luck. Can you post a screenshot of yer settings plz

[MacGuyver]

Here is the settings for the one game I was having trouble with and solved with the -cart command.

The other screen is the settings I am using for VICE.

What game are you trying to get running?  I can sort it out on my side and let you know how I got it started.  Give me the exact file name of the ROM you are using.   

 

[Lukeyboy67]

It's not 1 particular game I'm having probs with but every 6000.prg rom I try. Here are my settings for 'Moon patrol' as you can see it's set up same as yours but still doesn't run.

 

[MacGuyver]

This one was tricky, mainly because there are a lot of Vic20 ROM dumps that are multipart, and I haven't quite figured out how to run two seperate files in Launchbox, one after another, with different custom command line parameters for each.

So until someone helps me with that, what I have been doing is finding alternative dumps where someone has already combined the two parts together.

 

What you were running with all the 6000 prg files you were finding was probably only half of the dump, with (very likely) some A000 files that need to be run as well.  

 

I was able to locate the following dump of The Vic20 Atarisoft version of Moon Patrol:   (Notice that is does not have "multipart" in the title)

Moon Patrol (1983)(Atarisoft)(NTSC)[6000].CRT

This file is located in the TOSEC.2016.11.11.Commodore.VIC20.AlphaBot ROM collection on Archive.org.

With this file, the -cart6 command will run the game without any problems.    (you MUST unzip the file first!)

 

A few notes:

For some reason I was not able to import this file with Launchbox.  I think the square brackets are causing problems.  Once I removed the square brackets around [6000] it worked fine.

Also I am noticing on my imports that when I import zip files, a lot of games get missed for some reason.  So I am only imported unzipped roms.  I am only noticing this with my Vic20 Roms.

I hope this helps.

[Lukeyboy67]

Sorted! Yeah your'e right about the multipart roms, each one I tried had two files, I thought they was different types of roms. Anyway, I grabbed that TOSEC collection you mentioned. Every rom I've tried (CRT) now works! Cheers for your help m8 :)

Little tip: There's no need to unzip each rom before you import it. Goto Tools/Manage Emulators/Winvice/Edit then tick the 'Extract rom archives before running' box.

Thanks again :)

[MacGuyver]

Thanks for the tip on avoiding unzipping roms!

[DerSchlachter]

Same Problem here, but my solution is a Programm called PRG Starter:

http://www.boray.se/software/prgstarter/

I add an emulator for VIC 20 witg the PRG executable. Now every PRG and Tape File starts. Now i will try to find out how i can close the Emulator with Escape per Autohotkeyscript.

 

[MacGuyver]

Quote

 

Interesting!   I'll try this.  Thanks for the tip.

[DerSchlachter]

The Programm recognize every prg and and opened the right Emulator in WinVice example: c64.prg = c64 Emulator c128.prg = C128 Emulator

[Zefrem23]

I must admit I'm having a rough time with getting the different types of files to work with Vice in LaunchBox. A few work fine, but most don't work at all. Can anyone who has all the tape, disk and cartridge files working nicely possibly share their configuration, please?

[MacGuyver]

Guys after playing around with PRG Starter and running into some snags, I'm moving onto a different solution.  Even though it's useful for many situations, from what I can tell it still does not provide an easy command line method of running multipart files, which means excluding some of the best Vic20 cartridges.  

I feel like the best option is to follow in Zombeaver's footsteps on the C64 Dreams project, and use RetroArch with the latest VICE xvic core.  There is a lot of great features being added right now on the VICE cores, and the ability to to use shaders etc from Retroarch is just too powerful to ignore.   I'll update when I'm further along.   

[Zefrem23]

11 hours ago, MacGuyver said:

I feel like the best option is to follow in Zombeaver's footsteps on the C64 Dreams project, and use RetroArch with the latest VICE xvic core.  There is a lot of great features being added right now on the VICE cores, and the ability to to use shaders etc from Retroarch is just too powerful to ignore.   I'll update when I'm further along.   

Thanks for the update, Mac. I'll be watching this thread veeeery closely

[Basher997]

I had the same problem with multipart files solved it by editing the 'use custom command line parameters' in the emulation tab of each game.

To get Centipede running I used this

-cart2 "C:\Commodore VIC20\Centipede2000.crt" -cartA "C:\Commodore VIC20\CentipedeA000.crt"

Thanks  MacGuyver your tips helped me when I was about to give up.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Basher997

[MJF]

I just removed all my Vic games that require a memory expansion from launchbox. That solves a lot of issues I was having. Most of the games that actually require an expansion are pretty blah anyway to be honest. Truthfully, the only game I played that required a memory expansion that I play on a regular basis is Super Amok, anyway. So it really was no big loss, as I can still play that game by opening vice separately anyway

 

 

 

 

[legolas119]

Hi guys, if it can helps, in the current Launchbox release, in order to run cartridge games (-crt or .prg) that don't automatically start, it is only necessary to add this line into the specific settings of the game:

 

[Dedaloso]

Hi there, I'm having trouble getting my Vic-20 ROMs to run on Launchbox using Retroarch. I've tried countless solutions, including both the dedicated core and the MAME core, but nothing seems to work. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Any specific configurations or settings I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[MacGuyver]

Hi there, recently I found a super easy way to set up any Vic-20 game to work easily on Launchbox by using Retroarch.   The trick is to make sure that every game you set up has the proper memory settings.  So many of the best Vic-20 games ran from cartridges that require specific RAM setup to run.   Running many of the popular Vic games on Launchbox has been frustrating many people, because lots of them don't work with Retroarch unless you update the RAM settings for every single game.   It's a little bit of work the first time you do it, but once you understand the steps, it's very easy to do for all your games.

Here is a step by step instruction.

For this example, I'm using the game called "Cheese and Onion" which needs 35Kb RAM to run properly.    Because it needs extra ram, this game won't run with the default Retroarch settings.   

Download the game here if you'd like to use it as an example:

https://misfit.itch.io/cheese-and-onion

The ROM file in this case is named "vic20_cheese_and_onion_32k.d64".   Save it where you'd like it to live on your computer.

1. On the Tools menu of Launchbox, select "Import ROM files", then single platform.
2. Choose the game file you downloaded, and select the Commodore Vic-20 Platform when prompted.
3. Choose "RetroArch" as the emulator you'd like to use to run this ROM
4. Copy/Move or Leave the ROM file where it is, per your preference
5. Click the checkmark to download Metadata for your game
6. Decide which media you'd like downloaded from Emumovies (there may not be any)
7. Skip "Download Bezels" because there won't be any for a Vic-20 game
8. Select custom options, if desired 

Now the game has been installed in Launchbox.   Next we need to adjust the per-game memory settings in the Launchbox menus.   This is the most important step that many people miss, mainly because the Retroarch menu system is not entirely intuitive.

Go ahead and double click on the game in Launchbox so that it starts running.   You will see the standard Vic-20 Loading screen displayed (load *, 8), and then the following screen:   (You can see that it's an unexpanded Vic currently, due to the 3583 bytes free.   We need to change that.

Very quickly the game will show you the below loading screen.   The loading takes quite a while, which is the perfect opportunity to change the RAM settings. 

What is important to do next is to change the memory settings for this particular game IN RETROARCH (not Launchbox).   You only have to do this once, and it will remember the setting!

While you see the screen above, press F1 to enable the Retroarch menu (or press the X-Box guide button, if you are using an X-Box 360 controller)

You will see the Retroarch menu appear over the game screen.   The game is paused.

Navigate to Core options->System->Memory Expansion

Set the memory expansion to 32K (the default is off (no extra memory), which won't allow the game to load correctly)

Back up one menu (using backspace key or controller) and go to Manage Core Options-> Save Game Options.   It has now saved a memory expansion profile for this game only.   The setup is complete, you can now run the game again and it will work correctly each time.

For a graphical walkthrough of the Retroarch screens and settings, see :https://ibb.co/3yKyY9qd 

If you have done it correctly, the game will load and you will see the game menu running perfectly:

If however you did not adjust the Retroarch game memory setting correctly, then the game will fail to load and you will see the following instead.   

If this happens, run the game again, and bring up the Retroarch menu while loading the game, and make sure you follow the above steps exactly to set the memory setting correctly for that game.

A quick tip for speeding up loading time, since this game takes quite a while to load:   You can press the spacebar in Retroarch to speed up the load time tremendously.   Just make sure to press space again to turn off the speed loading once the game loads, or it will continue to play at high speed.

I hope this helps folks on how to manage the memory settings per game on the Vic-20.   It allowed me to easily build the ultimate easy setup and play every single Vic game I ever wanted to play, easily, alongside all the other systems I have setup on Launchbox. 

For other Vic20 games, the same steps will apply, although some games will need different memory settings.   Often times the correct RAM needs are part of the file name.

A special thank you to the readme file on the Cheese and Onion Game page, which showed me finally how to properly navigate the Vic20 memory settings page PER GAME in Retroarch, and to save the setting permanently!

Let me know if anyone needs help with any specific ROM, and I'll do my best to help!

Edited Thursday at 04:41 PM by MacGuyver