SOLVED: bsnes-balanced doesn't run "Lost Vikings II, The (U) [!]" rom

Libretro Cores
#1

Hello.

Loading “Lost Vikings II, The (U) [!].smc” rom with bsnes-balanced core gives me a black screen. With snes9x core game runs normally. I remember byuu had some problems caused by GCC optimizations. Could it be the case here?

versions, md5 sum 
$ apt-cache policy libretro-bsnes-balanced 
libretro-bsnes-balanced:
  Installed: 094-r201704052216-fcc7244-5~ubuntu16.04.1
  Candidate: 094-r201704052216-fcc7244-5~ubuntu16.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 094-r201704052216-fcc7244-5~ubuntu16.04.1 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/libretro/stable/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ apt-cache policy retroarch
retroarch:
  Installed: 1.5.0-r201703101624-51581e1-62~ubuntu16.04.1
  Candidate: 1.5.0-r201703101624-51581e1-62~ubuntu16.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 1.5.0-r201703101624-51581e1-62~ubuntu16.04.1 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/libretro/stable/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ md5sum Lost\ Vikings\ II\,\ The\ \(U\)\ \[\!\].smc 
6808b453828d6a6f228e3225055df4c4  Lost Vikings II, The (U) [!].smc
#2

Works with “Lost Vikings 2 (USA)” from no-intro, bsnes and bsnes-mercury balanced on Linux (ubuntu 14.04 and 16.10).

Edit: it’s the same MD5 here: 6808b453828d6a6f228e3225055df4c4

Edit 2: works in 16.04 too

#3

Are you using retroarch and cores from the same PPA?

PS: I tried bsnes-mercury-balanced and bsnes-accuracy cores, same result, just a black screen. Other roms work fine with all cores.

#4

Yes.

Extract your file, rename properly and zip it again I guess. The extension here is sfc, not smc

#5

Renamed, didn’t help. Also tried with http://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/x86_64/latest/bsnes_balanced_libretro.so.zip, same result. I believe it’s related to optimizations and probably only triggers on some CPUs, including mine. I’ll try running it on a different CPU later.

#6

Does it work in snes9x? If not it is a broken ROM or cores are not loading right.

#7

Yep, as I mentioned in initial post.

#8

Sorry, I did not see that in the post.

#9

Also @sergio-br2 runs the same rom on the same version of retroarch/core without a problem. So rom is not a problem, it’s something specific to my system and I suspect it’s a CPU/optimizations issue, since byuu already had something like that with bsnes before.

#10

I’ve had some problems last week when I wanted to play Yoshi’s Island on this core as well

#11

What processor do you have? i7-4558U here.

#12

I have a laptop computer hooked to a monitor The processor is a core2duo model T8300. It has a good performance. I play in KMS mode on Linux.

#13

Ok, I remembered I had Windows on this laptop, so I started it, downloaded latest RetroArch, downloaded bsnes Balanced core from within the RetroArch itself, loaded rom and still got nothing but a black screen. I then downloaded higan, loaded the same rom, and it worked perfectly.

#14

works fine here with the no-intro ROM Core i7-2600

#15

Well, we already figured that no-intro rom has the same md5 sum, so we are running the same rom, only on different hardware. I need non-optimized binary to test, I’ll try to build one myself later. Or if someone could provide one, I’d be happy.

Edit: Ok, it was easier than I thought. Compiled non-optimized binary, nothing changed. I’m out of ideas now.

#16

I reset configuration again and didn’t enable rewind this time. Game started. So it’s rewind doing something nasty.

#17

bsnes serialization is a little weird (which is why lsnes, the TAS fork, has patches that modify it) and that probably tripped something up with the game. I would guess you can re-enable it after the game is started, if you want to be able to rewind during the game.

#18

I’ll just have it disabled to be safe. :slight_smile: