CD-i emulation

[dragon57]

12 minutes ago, Dane said:

Unfortunately it did not work. Still the same result, they launch to the system home screen but no further.

Have you tried launching one of the chds from Mame itself? To make sure the chd runs, or not?

[Vampireslug]

I've gotten MAME to load CD-i games using .ISO & .CUE - I just imported all of my *.CUE files in Launchbox and set the emulator for MAME, with the BIOS roms in my MAME "ROMS" folder, and they fire up with no problem.  I've tried using .BIN & .CUE but they don't seem to work so I'm going to run those games through the CD-i to CHD tool and see what happens.

I do know that there seem to be a lot of games not supported by MAME, according to this list https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/hash/cdi.xml but I've gotten "Hotel Mario" and "Pac-Panic" to run so far.

[flatuswalrus]

On 4/29/2018 at 3:25 PM, dragon57 said:

Have you tried launching one of the chds from Mame itself? To make sure the chd runs, or not?

Sorry for the late reply. I moved on from this and have just come back. I couldn't figure out how to do that (check from MAME itself). Instead of launching to the official home screen now like it did before it launches to this screen regardless if it is from a .bin, .cue or .chd:

Just a blank aqua screen.

[Vampireslug]

44 minutes ago, Dane said:

Sorry for the late reply. I moved on from this and have just come back. I couldn't figure out how to do that (check from MAME itself). Instead of launching to the official home screen now like it did before it launches to this screen regardless if it is from a .bin, .cue or .chd:

Just a blank aqua screen.

I get the same thing but if I wait a minute or two, it eventually loads the game.

[flatuswalrus]

9 minutes ago, Vampireslug said:

I get the same thing but if I wait a minute or two, it eventually loads the game.

Does yours go from the aqua screen to the home screen THEN the game? Or from the aqua screen to the game? Mine loads into the aqua screen then after a bit to the home screen, the no further. I tried Hotel Mario as you said yours worked but unfortunately no go here.

[Vampireslug]

5 minutes ago, Dane said:

Does yours go from the aqua screen to the home screen THEN the game? Or from the aqua screen to the game? Mine loads into the aqua screen then after a bit to the home screen, the no further. I tried Hotel Mario as you said yours worked but unfortunately no go here.

I'm at work so can't verify but I'm pretty sure the menu comes up then I have to press "play".

[dragon57]

Sorry, I should have linked to this:

Check out the instructions in the first post and see if it helps.

[flatuswalrus]

9 hours ago, dragon57 said:

Sorry, I should have linked to this:

You should be sorry, I am never going to forgive you. Mine is all working just fine and dandy now, thank you very much dear sir.

[BurnCycle]

Hello everyone.

So i have a big number of games for this system on my desk so i decided to give a try and test the compatibility of this emulator with all the games i have. That said i run into a few issues with the recent MAME version. Every time i try to run the emulator on Mame i get a black window (instead of the aqua blue one) and it stays like that. (it doesn't crash or anything, just stay like that) It happens with both Bios (Magnavox 200 and 220 F2) included on the cdibios.zip that is included on most mame rom packs. Am i missing any specific configuration on the MAME emulator?

When i try to run a game from the LaunchBox it just opens and closes immediately.

 

The second thing i would like to ask is if there's any place where we can check or post feedback on games compatibility. Is there any sort of list out there?

 

Edit: I was able to find the problem. (apparently i had the wrong name on the bios pack)

Edited June 7, 2018 by BurnCycle

[OKTrashPanda]

17 hours ago, BurnCycle said:

The second thing i would like to ask is if there's any place where we can check or post feedback on games compatibility. Is there any sort of list out there?

As far as compatibility goes, here's what I can tell you.  The Digital Video Cartridge is not supported yet.  Every commercial game that I've tried that does NOT use the DVC will boot.  About half of the games I can get to run have some sort of issue that I think is just from the emulator itself.  For example, Burn Cycle is unplayable because the audio is so choppy I don't really know what's going on.  When you say feedback on compatibility, do you mean to the MAME dev team? Because they already know what's working and what's not.  

[BurnCycle]

I already began my testing (i am doing this to put the compatibility info on a CDi website me and some friends are working on) and so far there was a title that didn't even load. (it worked decently fine with the CDiEmu)

Knowing how difficult is to gather all the CDi game isos (I know a few rare titles that didn't even got to retail and are very hard to get) so i've imagine that they might missed some feedback on some titles. If that's not the case then my bad. ;)

 

 

[OKTrashPanda]

I don't know if they know on a per-game basis what bugs exist in CD-i emulation but launching cdimono1 brings up a yellow warning saying there are known issues.  I think a website that has anything on CD-i emulation would be helpful though since right now it's very much a case of the blind leading the blind.

[BurnCycle]

Right now what makes me pissed is the actual bin/isos. You gave a good example with Burn:Cycle. I've downloaded a bin version that doesn't even run on MAME. But the same bin file runs fine on CDiEmu. It seems it's easy to mess up an image container for MAME.

Btw, .bin files seem to be supported now. (Some actually loaded for me so they don't seem to be an issue anymore)

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by BurnCycle

[sundogak]

I just recently set this up and here are a couple items I found as well as will summarize previous comments:

1. cdimono1 is the only MAME machine that works currently and is listed as "imperfect" on sound and graphics.  Basically this means some games will not work.   The cdi490a, cdi910, cdimono2 machines are non-working.  They will get stuck at the "aqua" boot up screen.  Also found sound on some games was "crackly" and mouse sensitivity was very high/controls erratic. 
2. Per MAME/MESS setup for the machine these are the only extensions that will work with the cdimono1 machine (via -listmedia) :    .chd  .cue  .toc  .nrg  .gdi  .iso  .cdr  
3. I have converted all my ISO/CUE and BIN/CUE files to CHD format for easier use but ISO/CUE will work as well.  You can use the chdman.exe file to convert bin/cue and iso/cue files to CHD.  There are a couple Batch file CHDMAN examples here on LB site that I used and example BAT file is at end of this post.
4. I have found that some of the CUE files from web locations are INCORRECT and reference the wrong bin file.  That may result in a black screen depending on which BIN file is wrong (or just stops immediately). If you are getting this open up the CUE and verify the name of the BIN/ISO is exactly the same as your files. If not, change and save and try again.  If you use CHDMAN to convert files, then an incorrect CUE file will cause CHDMAD to gag and stop conversion.  Unfortunately, sometimes a black screen means it just doesn't work even though you have it all setup correctly. 
5. Test your MAME setup using command line in DOS CMD window.  This will help if something is amiss with your setup or command is incorrect since you can see the error.  Once you get working then setup in LB. An example command I used to test by going to the MAME directory and running is at end of post.  Adjust your path accordingly. The command below is identical for CUE files .  Again, handy to test and see what is going on if getting black screens.  Note you will see in the CMD window that CDIC.BIN and SLAVE.BIN have "NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN" errors.  You will get those even with games that work. These files are associated with the cdimono1 machine. 
6. When booting a game it will stay at an "aqua" colored screen for about 20 to 30 seconds.  Clicking will not speed it up. Remember it is emulating the 1.0x DVD player speeds so everything takes awhile.  It then should go to the "Philips" screen. You will see a "Play" button in the middle right of the screen next to the "Play CD-i" text.  Use your mouse to move the cursor over to the triangle/play button and click on it to run. Don't move your mouse too fast at first or it can zoom across off screen and appear to be "hidden". Move slow and should see black cursor on screen.   I have looked and haven't found anything that skips this step.  If the aqua boot screen stays up for longer than 45 seconds to 60 seconds, then the game is broken and will not work in MAME. 
7. Some games  you will get an error splash screen that says something along lines of "you need a Digital Video Cartridge to play this game".  MAME does not emulate this currently.  7th Guest, Space Ace and Mad Dog Mcree are good examples of games that will boot but cannot run without the DVC since they need the MPEG1 decoder in the DVC to run.  Edit: see link on MAME Developer site on this issue.
8. Unless you do substantial remapping in MAME, this emulator is setup for keyboard and mouse input with mouse doing most of work.  Clicking button mouse on many games is like "Start" on controller.
9. Once booted into a game, you will notice a digital/LCD looking "CD-I" at top screen.  You can remove that by going into the setup menu in MAME.  So TAB, Video Options and then select MAIN SCREEN only and not Main + LCD. Basically, MAME is also emulating the LCD screen on the front of the CD-i player which is basically useless for our purposes.  It should save the setting in your CFG file so you won't have to do on subsequent games. 
10. Once you know things are working then you can go back into LB and under the MAME emulator and enter into Philips CD-i associated platform command-line parameters: cdimono1 - cdrom
11. On side note, I was just out of college when CD-i released at an obscenely high price and also at same time as SNES came out.  After playing some of the games, I am glad I bought a SNES!

Example MAME Command (launch in MAME directory):

mame64.exe cdimono1 -cdrom "G:\Emulators\Philips CD-i\roms\Alien Gate (CD-i).chd"

Example CHDMAN batch file contents.  Make sure  to copy your CHDMAN.exe and batch file to same folder.  Set your paths to your locations as well as change "ISO" to "CUE" if you are doing BIN/ISOs.

@echo off 
@cls 
set rompath=G:\Emulators\Panasonic 3DO\roms\
set destpath=G:\Emulators\Panasonic 3DO\chd\
for /R "%rompath%" %%G in (*.iso) do ( 
echo. 
echo === Converting %%~nG to CHD ===
chdman createcd -i "%%G" -o "%destpath%\%%~nG.chd" -f 
echo. 
echo. 
)

 

Edited June 9, 2018 by sundogak
Added to #7 link to MAME Dev site on DAV issue.

[DOS76]

I don't emulate CD-I although I've done some minor testing in MAME and I thought I would add that if you are having issues with disks there is the MAME Software List CHD pack available on PleasureDome that has a CDI folder and has a large number of CDI games. The whole pack is over 2TB but you can opt to only download the CDI folder when you set up the torrent.

[Vampireslug]

Wow, Sundogak FTW... this needs to be stickied, it's the most definitive guide for CD-i I've yet seen.

[Vampireslug]

On 5/15/2018 at 8:54 AM, Vampireslug said:

I'm at work so can't verify but I'm pretty sure the menu comes up then I have to press "play".

I've verified; it stays on the aqua screen for a loooong time, then goes to the menu screen where I have to click "play".

[BurnCycle]

Just as side note, the .bin files seem to be working now. During my tests at least one of them worked. (at least till i got to the menu)

[MuddyWaters79]

On 9/23/2017 at 2:44 PM, 5thWolf said:

Thus far I tested the Following using MAME's CHD for:

Link - Faces of Evil (seems 100%)
Zelda - Wand of Gamelon (seems 100%)
Zelda's Adventure (Seems 100%)
Hotel Mario (Seems 100%)
The Apprentice (Plays well, has few discolorations during title, just little tearing in gameplay)

I don't really care for any other games unless they are exclusive. I play all the other big CD-i games in better systems like DOS or other console emulators.

Also, instead of using just MAME... I am using MAMEUI 64. It is set up exactly the same however you will have a GUI for working on the video settings in the menus. Highly recommend this over the command/basic MAME!!!

I am still struggling to get CD-i to run. I just tried MAMEUI64, put the CHD files and the mono1.zip (extracted cdi200.rom, cdi220b.rom) all into the roms folder included in MAMEUI64. No boxes checked in emulator settings for quotations or anything. Also I have the command line parameter cdimono1 -cdrm. I am getting an error stating required files missing to run? Am I missing more bios files? I noticed in the outdated video there was also a cdi220.rom. When I unzip my mono1.zip all I get is cdi200.rom and cdi220b.rom. Or do I need empty zip files for the games and should I place the CHD's in their own folders kind of like arcade games in MAME? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[sundogak]

@MuddyWaters79 You never extract the ROMs. They stayed zipped in your main MAME folder that you have pointed MAME to in your setup. 

Edited October 2, 2020 by sundogak