Mednafen question (standalone)

[RokkumanX]

In most emulators which are GUI based there usually is an option to boot straight to the BIOS without loading a game, however I have never been able to fully do so with the standalone version of Mednafen unless I completely missed something.

I made a blank dummy .bin and .cue however which I can use to enter the BIOS for example in PSX. I just want to manage my memory cards and I know about DuckStation and other tools but is there really no other way to reach the BIOS in Mednafen besides using dummy files?

[md2mcb]

Have you tried loading the BIOS file itself?

[RokkumanX]

While I hadn’t thought about doing so, sadly it didn’t work.

Great idea nevertheless!

[RokkumanX]

Much like Eden (yuzu) vs. Ryubing (Ryujinx) which both complements the other I decided to use both DuckStation and Mednafen as my main Sony PlayStation emulators.

DuckStation will be the main one obviously and Mednafen will be the secondary just in case.

I’m always using Software rendering and Native resolution anyway and now I can boot straight to the BIOS and manage my memory cards.

TL:DR I like inventing the wheel many times

[md2mcb]

Not soulful at all, but you can always use an external tool for managing memory cards. Like this one: https://github.com/ShendoXT/memcardrex/releases/tag/1536670

[Broski86]

Haven’t tried with Mednafen standalone but it’s very much possible to boot directly into the bios with Beetle PSX or Beetle Saturn (The PSX and Saturn cores of Mednafen PSX/Saturn) no need for dummy files.

All you need to do is eject your disc (disc image I mean cue/bin, chd iso or whatever format) as soon as you start the emulation during the boot animation. Which effectively has the same results as booting with no disc. So on Saturn:

During this, before the animation completes/before it finishes booting the game press ‘eject’ on the keyboard or gamepad or wherever you mapped it and this is what you’ll see afterward as the console detects no disc is inserted at this point.

From there, you can then go to the memory manager of the bios:

You can eject the disc by either going to the disc control menu or better yet by simply having a key predefined in the core’s cfg file. For example if you add this to Beetle PSX or Beetle Saturn:

input_disk_eject_toggle = “F10”

When you press f10 on your keyboard at any point during the game the virtual disc/image will be ejected. If you press it again when ejected, it’ll insert the disc again and you can then listen to the disc’s audio tracks if you want (if there are any -a lot of games’ music can’t be played this way as they are stored in a different format)

This works with basically any optic disc based system (3DO, CD32, Sega CD Dreamcast etc)

[md2mcb]

You’re absolutely right. It works even with Beetle PSX. You’re very creative, thanks for sharing your knowledge!

I guess only the GameCube had a practical way to access the BIOS. You just had to spin the cube logo holding the A button and you could easily see your saves and system settings. Didn’t matter if you had a disc in.

[RokkumanX]

I think it actually might be possible in the standalone version also. If I’m not mistaken I use the F8 key to eject discs and change discs with F6 whenever I play the Lunar games, Resident Evil 2 or Abe’s Exoddus on PlayStation.

Not that it matters now, I’m quite pleased with DuckStation. Only using Mednafen if all else fails.

Thanks for your post!

[aorin1]

The Saturn has hotkeys during the boot and even during gameplay that allows the user to easily access functions without having to touch the console, here are some of them:

Boot or reset holding L or R to go directly into the memory management screen

Turn on holding A loads into CD Player even with a game inserted

A+B+C+Start in-game brings the game back to the “press start” screen, pressing the combination again, will boot the game to CD Player (BIOS)

The console manual highlights such features too

[RokkumanX]

Thanks for the information! I never knew this at all, I own a white japanese Sega Saturn but it came completely naked, let alone with an instruction manual.

Haven’t really touched it since 2006, I switched over to emulation as with my other consoles over the years.

Started with SSF back then, now it’s only Mednafen and it emulates all my Saturn games nicely.

[aorin1]

I wish the PS1 and other consoles had the same shortcuts/hotkeys. The Sega CD has actually, even the A+B+C+START, I’m pretty sure some Saturn shortcuts should work there too. So it’s the other way around, the Sega CD inspired the Saturn shortcuts.