Kronos EMU Setup for STV Arcade ROMs

[MayorQwert]

I'm having some trouble getting Kronos to properly function with Launchbox. I originally had it working well enough for one troublesome STV arcade game (Cotton 2, since the music is fixed in Kronos as opposed to MAME) but I realized that when I tried to add more MAME-incompatible games it just loads whatever game was set up to load last in the Kronos UI instead of the game it should be loading. For example, Cotton 2 only worked because I had loaded it previously with the UI but if I change it to be anything else it will always load that game instead of the one I am wanting.

I can't find anything conclusive after doing a bunch of searching and my current config is shown here:

Is this just a command-line issue or is Kronos not able to play STV games via command line? If it is not possible, does anybody have any good alternatives they recommend for STV games on Launchbox? If it is possible, is there a way to set the bios region on a per-game basis? (US bios for games that support it, JP for ones that don't)

[RULLUR]

I'm also trying to figure out Kronos, but for Saturn. Works okay on its own, but doesn't do anything in LaunchBox or BigBox. Apparently this is some form of Yabause since they seem to work very similar. I would guess maybe if you or someone else used that one from before and set it about the same, then it would totally work. Yabause from my understanding is outdated though. I'm still new to Saturn emulation. I've heard RetroArch might work to some degree, and Mednafen also is another choice. Just not totally sure on how all that does for STV though.

[Headrush69]

45 minutes ago, RULLUR said:

I'm also trying to figure out Kronos, but for Saturn.

Try the Retroarch Kronos core. I use the Mednafen based core mostly for Saturn but a few minor issues are fixed using the Kronos core on some games. (You can use different core per game.)

 

[RULLUR]

26 minutes ago, Headrush69 said:

Try the Retroarch Kronos core. I use the Mednafen based core mostly for Saturn but a few minor issues are fixed using the Kronos core on some games. (You can use different core per game.)

 

I was digging around in what I have, and totally did switch to Mednafen which seems to run Saturn pretty flawlessly in launching and everything. So for now I kinda have done away with Kronos.

In the past, my i3 Laptop used speed it up to where there was no sound when I would HDMI it along with issues where RetroArch just would refuse to run on HDMI along with Demul loading up but not running the games too, but on the i7 ThinkCentre I have now it runs all of that without a problem. So glad I upgraded! I just wish the Kronos issue could be fixed for some who really need that one since I know how that can get sometimes where other Emulator choices act up on some device setups than others and you find one that works for you, but can't quite get it to launch right in LaunchBox or BigBox.

[Headrush69]

Could be your issue was more related to the included GPU on the CPU rather than the CPU itself.

My cabinet has an i3 and runs everything fine except for a single Teknoparrot game.

[MayorQwert]

11 hours ago, Headrush69 said:

Try the Retroarch Kronos core. I use the Mednafen based core mostly for Saturn but a few minor issues are fixed using the Kronos core on some games. (You can use different core per game.)

 

Would the Retroarch Kronos core also be a good thing to try for STV on Launchbox? Anybody have any experience with this and if so, is there any special setup for the emulator in Launchbox for STV roms? I have no interest in Saturn emu on Launchbox/Bigbox personally, as I can just use my Saturn for that. I only use my Bigbox setup for purely arcade gameplay.

I've never used Retroarch before, so I'll need to figure it out from scratch for this so I want to make sure It'll actually work before I bother with setup. ?

Edited October 3, 2020 by MayorQwert

[MayorQwert]

On 10/2/2020 at 11:36 PM, RULLUR said:

I'm also trying to figure out Kronos, but for Saturn. Works okay on its own, but doesn't do anything in LaunchBox or BigBox. Apparently this is some form of Yabause since they seem to work very similar. I would guess maybe if you or someone else used that one from before and set it about the same, then it would totally work. Yabause from my understanding is outdated though. I'm still new to Saturn emulation. I've heard RetroArch might work to some degree, and Mednafen also is another choice. Just not totally sure on how all that does for STV though.

Managed to get it working @RULLUR! I ended up going with Retroarch's Kronos core. You just have to make sure you drop stvbios.zip in "RetroArch/system/kronos/" so that the bios will be present then use the following emu config settings:

It's a bit of a pain to config all the controls how I wanted them in RetroArch, since I'm using an X-arcade control scheme, but for STV arcade the button config goes something like this:

Starting with the typical 6-button arcade controls that the real arcade would have:

X Y Z
A B C

Coin     Start

Matches up to the Retroarch Equivalent (using Xbox button conventions for the retroarch face buttons):

Y  L1 R1
A  B   X

Select   Start

 

With this config, I seem to have games launching through launchbox/bigbox without issue, though I seem to have issues with the following games:

- Columns 97 (freezes right after bios screen)
- Batman Forever (crashes after character select)
- Virtua Fighter Remix (crashes after finishing round 2 (vs. Jeffry))

Please let me know if any of this games give you issues as well, since I'd love to be able to get them working if it is a video config issue or something.

One fun fact, if you have issues with improper transparencies you can turn on an improved mesh in the options once you launch the game and it will fix most transparency issues, this worked well when I tried it for Elan Doree. Additionally, you can use the options menu to set your preferred Bios region on a per-game basis. The default seems to be EU, which is fine but thought you'd like to know.

Edited October 8, 2020 by MayorQwert

[RULLUR]

Very Cool! I used to use the Retro-Bit Saturn Controllers, but are crap even with being officially licensed by SEGA. So I'm using the 8bitdo M30 now.

I haven't played any of those you listed except for Batman Forever, and I did it on MAME a week ago, but I forget which version of MAME I used since I had to skip some frames to like 6/10 so that it doesn't sound choppy. Thing is I got as far as the Riddler's place and it got extremely slow that even it happened on an i7 ThinkCentre. I think if I switch to the latest MAME I have then there may be a chance I won't have to skip any frames and maybe get the Riddler level at full speed too.

Edited October 7, 2020 by RULLUR

[Headrush69]

9 hours ago, MayorQwert said:

- Columns 97 (freezes right after bios screen)
- Batman Forever (crashes after character select)
- Virtua Fighter Remix (crashed after playing a few rounds for me)

Same for columns and batmanfr. Only played 2 rounds on vf.

Only played for a bit but MAME seem to play Batman Forever on my lowly i3 just fine.

[MayorQwert]

15 hours ago, Headrush69 said:

Same for columns and batmanfr. Only played 2 rounds on vf.

Only played for a bit but MAME seem to play Batman Forever on my lowly i3 just fine.

Actually tested more and realized it crashes once you finish Stage 2 (Vs. Jeffry). It crashes right after you a second round against him

Also, about MAME. You actually may be lucky since you're on i3, seeing as MAME doesn't really support multicore. If you happen to have 3 robust cores, the single core performance could be higher than single core performance on an i7 and therefore get a bit more out of your machine. I've actually had luck disabling hyperthreading in the past to boost MAME's performance a bit.

21 hours ago, RULLUR said:

Very Cool! I used to use the Retro-Bit Saturn Controllers, but are crap even with being officially licensed by SEGA. So I'm using the 8bitdo M30 now.

I haven't played any of those you listed except for Batman Forever, and I did it on MAME a week ago, but I forget which version of MAME I used since I had to skip some frames to like 6/10 so that it doesn't sound choppy. Thing is I got as far as the Riddler's place and it got extremely slow that even it happened on an i7 ThinkCentre. I think if I switch to the latest MAME I have then there may be a chance I won't have to skip any frames and maybe get the Riddler level at full speed too.

Let me know if you manage to. I just tried MAME220 (a few versions old, still) and on that version I definitely will need frameskip.

 

 

I submitted these problems to the Kronos git as issues so they should be on the radar now at least. Apparently the Columns one has been reported before.

Edited October 8, 2020 by MayorQwert

[Headrush69]

5 hours ago, MayorQwert said:

Also, about MAME. You actually may be lucky since you're on i3, seeing as MAME doesn't really support multicore. If you happen to have 3 robust cores, the single core performance could be higher than single core performance on an i7 and therefore get a bit more out of your machine. I've actually had luck disabling hyperthreading in the past to boost MAME's performance a bit.

Definitely. My dual core i3 @ 3,9 GHz out performs my old quad core i5-6500K @ 3.5 GHz on MAME games. 

[MayorQwert]

Yeah a shame MAME can't take advantage of newer machines very well. It's kind of ironic that you can get better performance on older machines with MAME. haha

[RULLUR]

So it seems I'm trying to make the switch to RetroArch's Kronos core since things are to be more accurate, but for some reason all I get is the Saturn startup screen to the dash where it claims to have an "Empty Drive". Anyone know what the issue may be?

[Lordmonkus]

No idea where you got the idea that Kronos is supposed to be more accurate, Mednafen / Beetle is the best Saturn emulator going right now. If you can show me a link which shows the Kronos core to be more accurate I would love to see it.

In any case the screen you are seeing is generally either a bad / missing bios or bad disc image.

[RULLUR]

13 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

No idea where you got the idea that Kronos is supposed to be more accurate, Mednafen / Beetle is the best Saturn emulator going right now. If you can show me a link which shows the Kronos core to be more accurate I would love to see it.

In any case the screen you are seeing is generally either a bad / missing bios or bad disc image.

Not about Saturn, but about STV as the thread specifically titles. Again you come all cranky at me with no real reason or true help, but here is that link though:

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Sega_Saturn_emulators

 

P.S. I already use Mednafen for Saturn