PSX 'any' core allow booting to BIOS?

Libretro Cores
#1

I’m not seeing an option in the PSX cores to boot into BIOS at all. Is this possible with any existing core?

To be clear, I don’t mean showing the BIOS boot sequence with the iconic noise prior to a game loading, I mean the internal menu you’d get with the drive open during startup, seen here:

epsxe-memory-card2
epsxe-memory-card21280×958 30.1 KB

#2

does the ol’ open-tray-soft-reset not work?

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#3

I hadn’t thought to try using disc control. I also hadn’t realized that “Restart” was a soft reset (very cool to know!). So, that ‘did’ work, and took me to the menu.

Going off my other post though, you probably can guess when I’m working towards here haha.

Is there any kind of way to start a core like this (or Sega Saturn & Sega CD) with the disc already ejected? I’m def gonna try to do the same with the N64 DD’s English BIOS, but that’s a whole other beast because of the subsystem I’d imagine.

I did (just now) create a dummy .cue/.bin with this info, and it does get me to the interal setup, though they both are booting the CD player by default.

FILE "~BIOS.bin" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
    INDEX 01 00:00:00

Also brainstorming how I would create a .bat to force loading other versions of these things, I know, for example, there are at least 2 visually distinct PSX BIOS.

#4

I know if you hold L or R while booting any Saturn game, it will bring you to the Memory Manager menu, while holding A will take you to the music player, where you can boot the game or go to the memory manager. Sega CD bios can be accessed while booting a game if you press A (maybe even B or C) instead of start, there may be a hotkey to access its memory manager directly like the Saturn, but I’m not aware how. I don’t know of any way to access the PS1 boot menu without ejecting the real or virtual tray, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a combination of buttons while booting, I’ve tried some with no luck. It’s easy enough to add a hotkey on Retroarch itself to eject it without accessing the menu, if you use a hotkey enabler, like Select+any other button or dpad/analog direction, it can be used safely, let’s say, if you set it hold select (hotkey enabler) and press R3 (or whatever) it can cycle open/close the tray. Apart of that, both Sega CD and Saturn, I believe Dreamcast (never had one) and definitely some PS1 games, allow you to reset the game and going to their memory manager/bios within the game. Sega CD and Saturn is A+B+C+Start, if you’re into the game, it will usually take you back to the title screen and if pressed again, BIOS. Dreamcast is probably the 4 face buttons+Start and some PS1 games, like Monster Rancher 2 is Start+Select, but it will only take you to the title screen, same for Tenchu 2 and possibly Tenchu, but many games allow that. Edit: Just tried and the DC indeed works as both Sega CD and Saturn, pressing the 4 face buttons+Start.

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