Cannot get PC Engine games working???

I’m trying to get Rondo of Blood working and I just can’t. Retroarch just crashes or loads a black screen. No combination of cores/rom files/bios files work. This is making me angry, how do I get this stupid thing to load pc engine games?

That’s a tough game to get running, as there are a lot of bad/incompatible dumps floating around. If you get a proper dump, it should fire right up.

Can you post a log of you trying to load it?

Link to github issue.

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It took me forEVER to find a proper copy of Rondo of Blood. There was a pre-patched English translated one out there before rompacolypse that works, might be worth looking for if standard copies you are looking for aren’t doing it.

I also suggest using the SGX core instead, I feel like it runs better ‘personally’. It’s certainly the only way I ever got Arcade CD-ROM^2 games to work.

hmm i cant remember anything if i have modified arcade card stuff the last time i touched this core (sgx), but this core is indeed is more near to the latest mdfn release.

mind sharing what specific arcade game this is and details of exact problems you have with this arcade card game in pce_fast?

and to be on topic, Yeah, PCE cd’s are quite a pain. you need the correct file with the correct TOC to be able to play it properly. if you are using Windows, you can use TurboRIP to rip the game into a correct bin/cue format (you need to mount your existing ISO with daemon-tools lite or similar tool. you have also use OOtake to create a dump of your iso using its InstallCD function (forgot actual name bit something like that)

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Strider, when you go to start, it will freeze as soon as the dev/pub logo comes up. It should spin, but all of RA locks up instead. I convert all my CD games to .bin/.cue (and then .chd if I can) but I’ve not had many problems with these games outside of Castlevania and the Arcade CD-ROM^2 stuff.

Savestates have a funny/strange behavior if you load one that was saved with force sgx on/off too haha.

save states does do wierd stuff since sgx and non sgx are not compatible. with most of what i did for sgx, i find no reason to switch this off honestly, unless on an old or slow computer.

ill try and see if i can just combine the states required for both, but this will break current states compatibility.

ill take a look at strider and arcade card. i believe i never had problems with this cd game, unless i have a different version of the iso.

UPDATE: nah… mine works fine to be honest. see if you cd layout has similar LBA offsets of each track:

[libretro INFO] Loading /mnt/shared/EMULATORS/ConsoleISO/PCE-CD/Strider_Hiryuu_(NTSC-J)[NAPR-1041]/Strider_Hiryuu(NTSC-J)_[NAPR-1041].cue…

[libretro INFO] Loading SBI file “/mnt/shared/EMULATORS/ConsoleISO/PCE-CD/Strider_Hiryuu_(NTSC-J)[NAPR-1041]/Strider_Hiryuu(NTSC-J)_[NAPR-1041].sbi”… [libretro INFO] CD 1 Layout:

[libretro INFO]   Track  1, LBA:      0  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track  2, LBA:   3590  DATA

[libretro INFO]   Track  3, LBA:  25449  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track  4, LBA:  30841  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track  5, LBA:  37947  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track  6, LBA:  38735  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track  7, LBA:  39927  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track  8, LBA:  40826  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track  9, LBA:  50272  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 10, LBA:  58813  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 11, LBA:  66518  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 12, LBA:  76118  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 13, LBA:  85007  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 14, LBA:  93980  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 15, LBA: 102145  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 16, LBA: 109007  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 17, LBA: 118850  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 18, LBA: 128199  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 19, LBA: 139765  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 20, LBA: 149915  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 21, LBA: 157634  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 22, LBA: 160832  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 23, LBA: 163340  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 24, LBA: 164984  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 25, LBA: 166803  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 26, LBA: 168761  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 27, LBA: 171137  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 28, LBA: 173123  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 29, LBA: 175917  AUDIO

[libretro INFO]   Track 30, LBA: 184836  DATA

[libretro INFO]   Leadout: 206396

[libretro INFO] 

[libretro INFO] Using module: pce_fast.

[libretro INFO] MDFN_MakeFName: /mnt/shared/EMULATORS/retroarch/system/syscard3.pce
[libretro INFO] Arcade Card Emulation:  Enabled

I assumed that it would force the 2 darius games (alpha and gaiden) to use their ‘enhanced sgx’ features. I’m not sure what they are, I just know the are the only 2 PCE cards to get SGX upgrades.

I have no idea what this information means.

i think only 1 of the darius games is a real hybrid-meaning i can run on native PCE and enhanced SuperGrafx .

youll see that on the log window when you load your game. it is sort of the “table of contents” of each track of the CD. PCE engine is very picky with that and each track should be in correct location else problems arises.

I’ve been looking all over for help, and I’m losing my mind. Please help me? I’ve been trying to get ANY rom of Rondo of Blood working in my Windows PC running retroarch with an emulationstation front end.

Here’s what I got: I’m certain I have the correct bios with the correct checksum. I have the original Japanese rom of Rondo in iso/cue. I have an English translated rom in bin/cue. Before I switched to Windows, I installed batocera on a laptop, and I was emulating Rondo of Blood flawlessly. But no matter what I do with retroarch, I can’t get the game to run, using either of the 2 mednafen cores (and please, let me know if there’s another core I should try).

This is what’s bothering me: I have a separate install of just Mednafen. And when I load the rims through that, they start up perfectly!!! Which makes me assume the problem is me, but everything looks right to me. The rom is present in my PC Engine CD gamelist. My gamelist.xml is set up correctly. When I try to start the game, the screen turns black, the screen resolution changes to 1080p, but then immediately changes back to 720p and goes back to emulation station.

Does anyone know how I can get the game to run through retroarch? I’m pretty sure it’s set up correctly, but could it just be something with my es_setup.cfg?

Please post a verbose log of you trying to load the game.

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lol… oh man… First off, I want to say thank you because you fixed my problem without even trying. Here’s the log in case you’re curious:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JI_tetepnXnfgZ3mKvj5VRbXGYg8WYJK

I had everything correct, and I had syscard3.pce in both my bios folder and in the rom folder, but it was clearly looking for the bios in E:.emulationstation\system\retroarch\system

I threw syscard3.pce in there and the game started up, no problem. Am I missing something? Is there a setting to tell the core where to look for the bios that I have set up incorrectly? Or is that just the setting for Mednafen cores?

I have all my bios files in: E:.emulationstation\bios

Either way, I’ve been literally trying to get this to work all day, so thank you!

Scott

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I’m glad you got it going :slight_smile:

I don’t know of any reason why it would look in a different place than any of your other cores. Typically, BIOS images go in whichever directory you have specified as system/BIOS in settings > directory. Occasionally, cores will use a subdir in there (such as dreamcast’s “dc”), but if your other cores are all looking in the right place, I don’t know of any reason why this one wouldn’t too.

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Yep, that’s exactly what it was. My directory setting for BIOS was pointed at the wrong directory. I guess I just hadn’t encountered any other BIOS issues. I changed the default directory and now all is well. Thanks again!

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