Mednafen PSX screen flicker when launched in Big Box

[Jonesy91]

Greetings. So, I have the latest version of standalone Mednafen installed. It works perfectly, except when opening a  PS1 game in big box mode.  It will run fine so long as I make sure to run the game before closing my laptop. (It's already set to do nothing upon close, so that's not the issue.) If anything it's a minor inconvenience at best, but still troublesome. I thought the issue might be related to my hdmi cable connected to my hdtv, but when opening other games on different platforms via big box there is no such issue. I did change the settings within mednafen's config recently to change the aspect ratio as well as changing it to play games at the hq2x setting, I'm not sure if that has anything to do with my current problem. 

Anyways, I'm not sure if this is an issue on the emulators end or within Launchbox, but any insight would be much appreciated.

[Lordmonkus]

I haven't used the stand alone Mednafen in a while and not at all for PS1 emulation. I have used it for Saturn and a while back for TurboGrafx / PC Engine and there was never a problem with either.

Does the problem exist with other systems that Mednafen emulates ?

Have you considered using Retroarch and its Mednafen (Beetle) core ? It's what I use and it is really good.

[Jonesy91]

I'll give Retroarch's core a try, that seems to be the one everybody uses. I haven't played any other systems with it so I can't say. I chose standalone mednafen because it was supposed to be the most accurate/compatible.

I'll report back as to whether or not Retroarch fixes the issue.

[Lordmonkus]

Stand alone Mednafen is excellent, there is no question about it and the Retroarch version of the cores are pretty much kept up to date with it.

[Jonesy91]

Retroarch seems to be giving me issues as well, While it loads up psx games just fine and displays them correctly on my tv, quite a few games I have won't start up. They're all USA region and I have the correct bios in Retroarch's system directory folder. 

Not really sure what to do, perhaps I'll just keep using S.A mednafen for the time being. Perhaps it would be advisable for me to inquire further about this on mednafens forums, if there is one.

 

 

[Lordmonkus]

If you have some games not working and some that do then that would mean that you are either not loading the cue file for the games not working or they are bad dumps. If those non working games do work in the stand alone version they should work in the RA core as well.

[Jonesy91]

I've tested  said games, loading the cue. file for each. They run perfect on stand alone but they won't even start up through Psx Beetle or Psx Beetle HW. Not sure what the issue is. 

 

[Lordmonkus]

That is very strange if some of your games are loading but others are not while they do work in the stand alone.

[Jonesy91]

I'll attempt to reinstall retroarch and see if that fixes things, otherwise I'll just stick to what I'm doing.  

It's frustrating but not really a big deal.

[Lordmonkus]

I don't think reinstalling will fix it since you said it does load some of your games, unless I misread what you said.

I feel your frustration, I have been there many times when figuring out certain emulators. Retroarch in particular was on the frustrating side but now that I am used to it I wouldn't want to be without it.

[Jonesy91]

I think the issue has to do with the hdmi cord or possibly my tv, after playing around with the resolutions a bit more, I noticed my tv switched to HDMI 1680 x 1050i after closing my laptop, so it obviously changes the tv to my laptop's resolution when I close it. When the laptop is opened my tv's input just reads HDMI 3. I'm at a loss as to what I can do to make the tv not switch resolutions upon closing the laptop, any ideas?

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by Jonesy91

[Lordmonkus]

Hmm not really other than I know when I was using a laptop hooked up to the TV I just set it to use the TV as the monitor and disabled the "on lid close" functions of the laptop. It has been a while since I have used the laptop though because it stopped working.

[Jonesy91]

Well I finally solved the problem, or at least found a workaround. Apparently pressing the windows button + P allows me to change whether or not to duplicate my monitor display on both the laptop and tv, or project it to either only the pc or tv.

Gotta love finding an extremely simple solution to something you've spent hours trying to solve. lol

[Lordmonkus]

Just now, Jonesy91 said:

Gotta love finding an extremely simple solution to something you've spent hours trying to solve. lol

LOL yup, I have been there too like trying to figure out for an hour why my PC Engine CD games had no music playing until I realized I had the cd music turned all the way down in the core options in Retroarch.