Sony PlayStation

[opal carbon]

I’ve heard good things about 13, it’s on my list! I suspect I’d enjoy 15 and 16 too

[manic dirge]

I skipped 15, it looked cringe. Just 3 K-pop rejects in a car taking selfies and eating ramen. Not very true to the final fantasy universe in my opinion.

looks at FF X-2

[somber steppe]

I played it at release. Preordered it even. Was a year long fan and never disappointed. 13 was what told me I'm done with the franchise.

[opal carbon]

X-2 is a good game tho

[somber steppe]

X-2 is ok. Weird structure but decent class system and good main story.

[manic dirge]

I want to buy the asian version of the FFX and FFX-2 remasters on Switch, because you get both cartridges, and English is supported.

[manic dirge]

Not to mention the main theme song is a total bop.

[somber steppe]

Yeah I only wish they'd have taken ||Lulu|| in the main cast instead of ||Paine||. Imagine jpop ||Lulu||!

[dense wharf]

the final fantasies still seem pretty good to me! dev cycles though...

[abstract drift]

the time limit thing in ffx-2 puts me off whenever i try playing it

[dense wharf]

all the final fantasies seem to stick out in some way

[abstract drift]

maybe there's a cheat or something to disable it so i can enjoy it a bit

[somber steppe]

Which ones?

[dense wharf]

15 sticks out, 13 sticks out, 12 sticks out, 10 sticks out, 9 sticks out, 8 sticks out, 7 sticks out

[serene nebula]

cope and seethe Chrono Trigger DS haters!

[dense wharf]

i havent even seen 16 yet i have no idea what its like

[serene nebula]

You’ll never have the cutscenes on the SNES. Version!!!!!!!11111

[somber steppe]

I don't like the cutscenes tbh. They're very redundant.

[abstract drift]

didn't someone already romhack that

[serene nebula]

lol yeah, there’s a MSU1 version

[abstract drift]

the cutscenes are mid, watch them all on youtube sometime or something

[dense wharf]

FF13 seems like a FF10 where it's just something where the graphics and visuals are highly elaborate when compared to everything else that generation, very cool

[buoyant plinth]

Who on earth is saying good things about FF13? Mad people, surely. It's got no redeeming features at all, imho. The first 30 hours are a corridor, then when it "opens up" it's just one big area that's like a room in that corridor. Then it goes back to corridor again. I was literally falling asleep while doing boss fights, and waking up to find I'd won. The only reason I completed it was sunk cost fallacy.

[serene nebula]

"Final Fantasy XIII" is a game that shines with its breathtaking visuals and captivating storytelling. The graphics are stunning, featuring beautifully crafted environments and character designs that immerse players in the futuristic world of Cocoon and the wild expanse of Gran Pulse. The game's narrative is rich and complex, centered around a diverse cast of characters each with compelling backstories and emotional depth, particularly the strong and determined protagonist, Lightning.

The battle system in FFXIII is another standout feature. Its fast-paced, strategic approach through the Paradigm Shift system allows players to adapt quickly during combat, creating dynamic and engaging battles. The soundtrack, composed by Masashi Hamauzu, complements the game perfectly with its emotive and memorable scores.

Overall, "Final Fantasy XIII" offers a unique, cinematic RPG experience that blends innovative gameplay mechanics with a deeply emotional story, making it a memorable entry in the "Final Fantasy" series.

[buoyant plinth]

I still remember the feeling of ".... this is it?" when I got out of the corridor to the part where people at the time had said "that's where it gets good!"

Put the LLM away, Robbie. You know you're only allowed to use that in #bot-play

[serene nebula]

Just found out how to use it, will be using llm to compose all my posts now

[dense wharf]

to be fair most jrpgs take place in corridors, some are just wider than others

[buoyant plinth]

I have heard mildy positive things about Lightning Returns, which is 13-3; but 13-2 is generally considered even duller than 13 soooooo

[dense wharf]

also i'd like a HUMAN to write ME a wall of text about the greatness of final fantasy 13 thanks

[abstract drift]

did you all play expedition33 btw

[dense wharf]

no

[buoyant plinth]

Not yet! It's literally next up on my list

[dense wharf]

anyhow i will taste final fantasy 13 tomorrow and OBJECTIVELY judge it

[abstract drift]

thats the best final fantasy game i've played in forever

[dense wharf]

expedition33 more like worsethanFF13

[buoyant plinth]

I meant to get into it but then Donkey Kong Bananza happened and derailed me

[serene nebula]

OH BANANA

[abstract drift]

its a delight, i've not quite finished it yet but just wow

[serene nebula]

I am waiting for a Switch 2 port

I am hoping

Please

[dense wharf]

yeah im waiting for the switch 2 port of donkey kong bananza too

[abstract drift]

its pretty enough i'd say play it on something more powerful

but the switch2 has been surprising me in that regard so who knows

[serene nebula]

I just need it portably

Sorry I’m off topic

[abstract drift]

it runs on steamdeck apparently

oh yeah this is the psx channel 😄

[somber steppe]

Yeah it's really bad but as always there are modern contrarians who want to turn it into a hidden gem. It's just the worst.

[dense wharf]

that's me

im the video game contrarian, im BRAVE enough to have my OWN thoughts on video game

[serene nebula]

There was a game journo years and years ago who had a contrarian shtick and people kept falling for it.

It’s one thing to go against the grain once in a while but it’s another thing to make the your whole review personality.

[buoyant plinth]

I'm sure it's just to get engagement arguments going in the youtube comments

[dense wharf]

i know people who like final fantasy 13 for non-contrarian reasons so i'm quite interested

[serene nebula]

Yeah give it a shot

[buoyant plinth]

Really? It's just.... crap.

[serene nebula]

It’s got an almost racist character in it

Who just happens to be the best character

[buoyant plinth]

I suppose being able to turn it into an autowinning autobattler could be seen as a plus from some deranged lazy-gamer point of view

[somber steppe]

Last year I played through ff1-9 on mister and it was such a delight. FFX surely has its issues but ff13 just completely shit the bed. I remember interviews at the time where the devs mentioned they wanted ff to be more like call of duty. FF15 also shit the bed. But with SHOTGUN DIARRHEA!

[dense wharf]

isn't that a common feature of the series?!?

[serene nebula]

His entire shtick in the first part of the game was like “woah who are you people, what’s going on, do you see this shit?”

That was me

I was that character

It’s like someone on the writing team woke up and realized they were making the most confusing shit possible and wrote a character reacting to it

[dense wharf]

it does seem like quite the spectacle and I might fall for the vibes

[serene nebula]

That battle theme is pretty good

It has violins so I love it

[buoyant plinth]

They really had. The world makes no sense, the events make no sense, the journey makes no sense, the characters are awful idiots

[dense wharf]

people say its unengaging and then say the storyline is confusing!?!? that sounds great!!! i want to think about confusing storylines!!!

[serene nebula]

You are the hero we need

[somber steppe]

Don't forget to read the ingame wikipedia every 10 minutes so you know what's going on!

[buoyant plinth]

Best of luck. See you on the other side.

[dense wharf]

you people keep saying wonderful things about final fantasy 13 and then you say its bad?!?! im excited now!

[serene nebula]

I forgot about that lol, I legit used it a lot

[somber steppe]

Tell don't show. That's how good stories work.

Also it's a difference between a convoluted story and a plain nonsensical one.

[buoyant plinth]

It is quite spectacular. Or it was when it was new, anyway. I've not revisited it. But the spectacle is at the expense of absolutely everything else.

[serene nebula]

I thought it was “rip off Kurosawa”

[somber steppe]

The sequels are even worse.

Deep trash.

[serene nebula]

@dense wharf do you have a series X

[dense wharf]

i did recently get ff13 on the ps3, which is a PSX because it plays PSX games

just like a MiSTer

[somber steppe]

Just like.

[dense wharf]

i want the GOOD 2009 graphics not the good 2020 graphics!! ( i do not have a series x)

[somber steppe]

Play it. And finish it. That's your punishment.

[buoyant plinth]

Fitting.

Then come back and try and convince us you liked it.

[serene nebula]

Oh ok, I think the 360 version on series X is now the best version because of backwards compatibility

Yeah it’s 4k

The sequels got a 60fps boost on series X

[somber steppe]

I'd argue ff1 on nes has better gameplay and story.

||I love ff1||

[mortal oracle]

I like cutscenes

[somber steppe]

You also like eating chalk and licking windows. You play ff13 as punishment as well.

[dense wharf]

im not gonna finish final fantasy 13 im going to play like 4 hours of it like i do every rpg

[serene nebula]

Tell us what you think, I’m actually curious

[somber steppe]

Oh no, a second arnrh.

[serene nebula]

Maybe it fares better when played with a modern perspective

[dense wharf]

it's just a video game and video game opinions im going to be serious

[somber steppe]

...you're planning to make BL4 just as linear and play itself if he likes it, don't ya?

[dense wharf]

uh oh theyre on to you

[opal carbon]

I’m def not a contrarian but I do find that a lot of times the game that most people hate tends to be a game I like. Maybe it’s because my expectations are low? I had a friend tell me once that their mother liked every movie. Her stance was “why would I pay money to have a bad time?” I think about this a lot when I’m playing video games and I think it has legit helped me enjoy more games.

But I also have very bad taste in games there is a copy of Seventh Cross Evolution sitting on my shelf and it might be one of my favorite games.

Certainly in my top 10 on Dreamcast. Maybe top 5.

[serene nebula]

You don’t have a bad taste in-games, you have perfect taste for you.

[opal carbon]

That’s nice of you to say but have you seen SCO?

I might just have bad taste

[buoyant plinth]

Despite being a huge Dreamcast fan, I don't think I've ever even heard of the game

[opal carbon]

It’s very cursed and obtuse. There are very few guides on it and the official manual makes references to mechanics that I don’t think are actually in the game.

It legit has some interesting ideas

Kind of like a cross between Vagrant Story and Spore I guess?

[buoyant plinth]

That is a heck of a cross

[opal carbon]

Vagrant story just because it’s pseudo realtime combat, not in tone or story.

I recommend getting a group of like minded individuals together and going in blind with the game. Be patient and try to figure it out.

[wise skiff]

Same, makes me not want to use my PSIO.

[solar fable]

Okay, I'll try

[chilly kraken]

There is a save. Hold on

https://github.com/user-attachments/files/16741804/Grandia.Japan.4M.zip

Walk out of the building you’re in and into the building in the middle of town (with a stream around it). The texture flickering happens in that building

[dense wharf]

This is very real. People seek different things in their art and entertainment, and even with something widely popular people see different things they like in things. I think it's important to cultivate your own tastes and avoid falling for other peoples opinions in video games. You could be missing out on the video game just for you!

[somber steppe]

This is how I feel whenever @mortal oracle HATES on NES RPGs in the RPGs thread. In fact it's not just him, it's the whole gang. I thought them to be archaic and daunting at first as well. Until I, you know, actually started playing them and now I can't stop. So much better than modern games.

[lusty coral]

Messing with scanlines on the PSX core and they look amazing

[buoyant plinth]

Scanlines and phosphor grids really needed to slightly hide the geometry jitter

[frail storm]

I can't run a single low-res game without that stuff. I love clasic/old games, but they look horrible without scanlines and masks

[opal carbon]

They really do!!

Excited for my Crown Arcade SNAC adapter to show up this weekend so I can get some serious Vagrant Story time in. Have been playing it on my iPad via Retroarch and I am curious if chain timing will be easier on MiSTer (probably not I kind of just suck, lol)

Just hope my Multisystem doesn’t blow this new adapter up. The fact that I have to run SNAX in 5v mode makes me so nervous.

[dawn axle]

I was able chain perfectly fine (within my ability) using a reflex adapt so SNAC definitely will

[opal carbon]

Oh yeah I have no doubt in the MiSTer I am more curious if the iPad is holding me back. I suspect it’s not and that I just suck but it will be fun to A/B compare!

[dawn axle]

the timing windows are pretty tight, so any latency from emulation (and then Bluetooth if you were using a controller) would certainly contribute

It’s hard to describe but once you get the hang of it, chaining is almost like playing a rhythm game

[opal carbon]

I’m using a Reflex Adapt on the iPad but I suspect the total system latency is at least a few frames. I also don’t get rumble on the iPad which I understand is one of the cues they give you to get the timing right (besides the red exclamation mark). It’s such a cool game.

[dawn axle]

when I was playing through, reflex adapt didn’t have rumble for psx yet and I was able to use the audio cues just fine

mostly just takes practice!

but yeah, vagrant story is fascinating!

[opal carbon]

It has so many interesting ideas. I guess it turns out I’m a huge Matsuno fan since I tend to love all his games (Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, FFXII)

Need to check out Crimson Shroud apparently

[vestal thicket]

Simple RPGs are fantastic. Sometimes you feel like a complex RTS or turn-based strategy RPG but other times you just want to simply whack monsters and grind. That's why I like DQ games so much I think. Just simple fun. Doesn't have systems stacked on top of systems. Just simple RPG comfort food. They are the grandma's mac & cheese of the RPG world.

[somber steppe]

Yeah and I think modern players reject those games since they're not what they're trained to expect. But if you like dq1-3 on nes I highly recommend the delocalization patches. It's a way better translation doesn't use the grating Shakespearean translation dragon warrior used.

[vestal thicket]

While modern gamers may reject the NES originals, they are eating up the remakes/remasters. DQ3 HD2D was fantastic and from my understanding sold SUPER well. Like exceeded expectations by a ton. So modern players like them with a little creature comforts. Basically, they like to speed up the grind which I get.

Looks like even doing better than the 2 recent Final Fantasy games: https://www.eurogamer.net/dragon-quest-3-hd-2d-remake-exceeded-square-enix-expectations-but-game-sales-drop-overall at least by the metric of 'expectations'.

[somber steppe]

From what people told me it's no only the exp that daunts them (as those can easily be adjusted with a romhack) but "the simplistic combat" which doesn't make much sense since those old rpgs were a lot about recource management (looking at ff1 in particular) and what's part of it "missing handholding" since the games don't spell out what every ability does and you might actually have to try things for yourself and third: missing handholding. I enjoy being thrown into an unknown world, finding clues and exploring but those people pretty much expect a marker at all times.

[vestal thicket]

Yeah, and the non-linear gameplay is nice. DQ3 specifically you get the boat and can just kind of go anywhere. It gives you some names but that's it. You just roll around and go into places and see if mobs kill you or not lol. Great fun. But if you do them out of order you'll find some of them to be insanely hard while others insanely easy. Still fun though, way better than a linear path you play through. So many RPGs feel almost hampered in that regard due to them trying to tell a story a specific way (looking at you FF16)

[somber steppe]

Yeah, I never felt talking to npcs in a new town to be boring since you don't know what information might be useful later and what plays into stuff you already have theories on. But to be completely fair I think the final fantasy trilogy on nes is a better entry for modern gamers to nes rpgs than dragon warrior. While dragon warrior pretty much invented the console rpg ff defined it for decades to come, so it has more common ground with modern rpgs imo.

Both series are insanely good on nes though once you pick up what they lay down.

[serene nebula]

HOT TAKE - DQ3 remake is so good, it completely replaces the original and if you ever play the original game on the NES again you should be banned from gaming

[somber steppe]

Shush! I really have to restrain myself not to buy it at full price now that the switch2 patch is live!

[serene nebula]

I like that it retains the spirit of the games but is a huge change in presentation and quality of life.

Like it’s super cool to see them respectfully adhere to the original while tweaking to modernize it.

I would genuinely like to know your thoughts on it.

[somber steppe]

I'll pick it up next time it's on sale.

[vestal thicket]

Why in the Switch2 when you could play it on the PS5? PS5 is obviously 3 better than the Switch2!

And I agree with everything you said Robby. It’s fantastic

[somber steppe]

I know this is not a serious question but the serious answer is babysitting.

[serene nebula]

I’m probably being overly sensitive but I wasn’t happy with the game on the original Switch lol

It was super low res and 30fps while the game looked and ran great on PS5 but damnit I really wanted it portably lol.

[vestal thicket]

Yuck. That sounds not so good. They have a PC version of it? If so, anyone know how it runs on the steamdeck? I totally understand the need or want for mobile

[serene nebula]

I looked into it and the default settings have it run at 60fps. While not consistently hitting that mark, it’s still miles better than Switch. There’s this guide that recommends setting the fox cap to 45 - https://steamdeckhq.com/game-reviews/dragon-quest-3-hd-2d-remake/

[magic arch]

Does disabling “Fixed HBlank” mean you’ll get the internal resolution of the game?

And thus, will prolly at some point get wide-screened nonsense?

[tropic stratus]

If you disable both fixed blanks you should get the internal resolution and the aspect ratio just based on the resolution

[manic dirge]

Not until it's on a deep discount. Which I don't see for a year or more.

[sinful bloom]

Relish in Switch Dos' performance while it's good enough for 60 fps

[nimble pond]

friendly suggestion to robby 🙂 : could we please add to the pins the last dualram version of the core? I can't seem to find the github repository

its probably very outdated and useless at this point, but for the purpose of er.... archiving

[opal carbon]

Look what arrived today!

Has a switch in back that I’m not sure what it’s for yet.

I’m not going to plug it into my Multisystem since the user port does not behave the way it should and Heber will not acknowledge any of my support requests 😩 I have an order in for a proper stack from Misteraddons but it won’t arrive for a while.

I’ll post when I learn what the switch is for.

[manic citrus]

moderators, spammer

[cosmic tulip]

mine came on tuesday

[opal carbon]

Do you know what the switch does? I emailed Crown Arcade but haven’t heard from them yet.

I’m guessing it’s 5V rumble vs 7.5V rumble but that’s just a guess

[cosmic tulip]

no not sure

it might also just be a power cutoff

[opal carbon]

I’ll let you know what I find out! I’m sure the dev will respond at some point.

Worst comes to worst I might open it up and just try to guess lol

[clear rock]

Time to break out the multimeter and oscilloscope then

[cosmic tulip]

I remember there being an explanation back on the website but now that its not listed on their website I dont know

[cosmic tulip]

wayback machine says no

[shut escarp]

Looks super nice. They seem pretty responsive in general. They helped answer some questions about the Rpi Jamma kit pretty quickly for me

[opal carbon]

Awesome! Did you just email them? I reached out via the little business card they provided in the box but just wanted to make sure I contacted them properly.

[shut escarp]

They were posting on the Arcade-Projects thread for their stuff

[cosmic tulip]

I tried to contact through Ebay

[cosmic tulip]

Where is this?

oh they're actually here on the discord

okay

[clear rock]

Funny thing is, I mostly want a SNAC adapter for memory card support, which most don't have 🙁 Is it possible to use a real memory card but a usb controller? Or is that not an option?

[cosmic tulip]

not really

the memory card reads the pins

from the controller

so they are kind of bound together in terms of functionality

[clear rock]

But it is possible to use a controller through SNAC while using virtual cards right? But not the other way around?

Speaking of trying things, is it possible to load a different disk image from a different folder without the PSX core resetting?

[lilac scaffold]

Yep

just chuck an empty noreset.txt into the disc's folder

There's an option for snac controller with virtual memcard, pretty sure there isn't one for the other way around

[clear rock]

Into the disk I am switching to or from? And would I need that text file in the folder of the disk I switched to if I want to switch back?

[cosmic tulip]

Well, to be clear you need all your discs for a single game in a single folder

or else it will fuck up saving

So if you got FF7

All the CHDS/Bin-CUES for each disk needs to be in a single folder

[zinc jungle]

Do snac adapters handle EVERY ps1 accessory

Not seeing compatibility lists

[waxen elk]

Crash Bash is awful, however...

[clear rock]

I know, but I ment for something like Monster Rancher

[zinc jungle]

100% it is pure hell from what I've learned too lol

[lilac scaffold]

put the noreset.txt into the folder of the game you originally loaded (switching from)
eg the files in the screenie let you load an audio cue/chd from another folder without the core resetting

probably the same if switching back, never tried

[opal carbon]

Have been meaning to learn what vblank and hblank are thank you for sharing that!

[coral minnow]

crash bash is one of my guilty pleasures

...unfortunately

[waxen elk]

I think I'd like it way more if they didn't require you grind gems and crystals to do boss fights. That should only be for 100%

[coral minnow]

some of those challenges are pure bs, i agree, especially that fourth ball arena always infuriated me. then again the relics are almost even worse sometimes

[waxen elk]

I'm playing coop as well and playing with someone makes me feel bad since they can drain your shared life despite doing their best.

[coral minnow]

oof, i never dared someone to go througg this punishment together with me

[sinful bloom]

Okay, boys, so what it'll be?

[clear rock]

It didn't work. It let me switch to a disk, but when I needed to switch back to the original disk it reset.

I know this can work for Vib Ribbon since the game fully loads into the PSX's memory and you don't need to swap the game disk back in, but that does not work for Monster Rancher

[shut escarp]

Yes, but. If you have physical mem cards that you want to use the save data from, you can use SNAC, load the bios with a virtual mem in slot one and real mem in slot 2, and copy over

So you wind up with a virtual memcard save of you physical save

[lilac scaffold]

Did you put a noreset.txt into the folder of both games you are swapping back and forth between?

If that doesn't work, copy or symlink the games into the same folder I guess

[clear rock]

I didnt try putting a noreset.txt in both. But the problem is the whole main gimmick of the Monster Rancher games is that they can generate a monster from any CD. Audio, Playstation, or even other systems like Sega Saturn, Sega CD or PC CDs. It's not feasible to put that text file in the folder of literally every single disk image on the entire MiSTer.

[lilac scaffold]

True, test it with one or two. Others have mentioned using the feature in the past

[manic citrus]

I experimented with a 'hold to skip reset' thing, maybe I should drag that back out and convince Sorg

[lilac scaffold]

You normally want the core to reset when loading a new game and to create a virtual memory card per game, so you want each in their own folder
This game has its own requirements with the disc swap, if you want every single game available for monster rancher (and they're in .chd) then I guess symlink em all into the folder

Zakk with the better options 🙂

[manic citrus]

or convince Robert and then just tell Sorg it is essential for the psx core!

[waxen elk]

Feel like it would make more sense to have a quick swap option in the menu

[tropic stratus]

Msybe we should just have made two load options: "load new game", "swap to new disk" or something like this

[clear rock]

I was thinking pretty much exactly this if possible. Below the load option have a "swap" option where it basically opens the lid, loads the image, and closes the lid but does not reset the system. Monster Rancher is the most prominent example but I am pretty sure there were other PSX games that did something like this. IIRC some of the DDR games supported swapping in disk from other games or even using what were basically expansion disks.

[manic citrus]

yeah, another menu item would work. still requires cooperation from main. it should just act as if the image was in the same directory

[waxen elk]

Not sure what the character limit is but I think

Load new game from disc
Hot swap disc

[cosmic tulip]

Change disc

[waxen elk]

Change game
Change disc

[chilly kraken]

CHANGE DISKETTE

[dawn axle]

CHANGE TAPE SIDE

for maximum confusion

[dense wharf]

50 gems collected! Exit Open!

[clear rock]

Shine Get!

[clear rock]

Maybe even just the options "Load Disk" and "Load Disk (No Reset)"?

[waxen elk]

As long as it's obvious what the default is I think any could work

[magic arch]

https://tenor.com/view/vib-ribbon-ps1-gif-8384357940905199690

(Yes, I know the core also supports .CHD, but that’s not what I’m interested in)

[magic arch]

(it would be more convenient to just have to convert my .FLACs to .WAV or whatever, and then make a .CUE file for them, rather then having to make a whole disc image for MiSTer)

(If MiSTer can’t load .CUE/.WAV, then I’m willing to use CD authoring software, but I’d rather not have to, hence why I’m asking if MiSTer supports .CUE/.WAV)

[manic citrus]

it loads whatever the cue file tells it, and just reads it as raw data. for 99% of those dumps it'll probably be ok since the WAV is just raw pcm like the bin would be. it's probably worth trying one to see how it performs

[magic arch]

So .WAV and CDA data in a .BIN are basically the same picture?

Should prolly give it a try, then.

[magic arch]

Uh, I froze not only the PSX core, but the overlay as well, it wasn’t responding to any input, had to hit the reset button to fix it.

("Clone.wav" is there so Vibri doesn't eat up the song in an attempt to protect me from playing track 1 of a data CD)

[storm barn]

This cue is invalid, both file entries points to "track 01", make the clone.wav entry "track 02". Also fix the first entry and chante "track 1" to "track 01"

[magic arch]

That wasn't the right .cue sheet damm it.

Wait.

Wait, no, the tracks do change...

I don't know how CDs work.

[storm barn]

This one should work. Did it work?

[magic arch]

It's not popping anything up in the top left corner when I go to its folder.

Is it being on an external SSD doing some here?

[storm barn]

The .cue and the .wav needs to be on the same folder. Are the wavs 48Khz 16bit? I can't recall if that matters though

[magic arch]

The .cue and .wavs are in the same folder, but i don't know about the bitrate and hzs.

Let me check.

[storm barn]

Can you try with actual audio discs images to ruleout an issue with the files you're making?

[magic arch]

Like a .BIN/.CUE dump of an audio disc?

Or a more normal dump style?

[storm barn]

Yeah, or mount your cue on cdmage and then save it as a bin cue

[magic arch]

They're 44.1 khz.

But that's CD quality, isn't it?

[storm barn]

It is. Nevermind the khz part, you should be fine.

[magic arch]

FILE "Vitalization.wav" BINARY TRACK 01 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Clone.wav" BINARY TRACK 02 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00
Maybe I should chaange them back to "WAVE"?

Oh, and Vib-Ribbon can use audio CDs ripped as .BIN/CUE, as I've played (and then quickly died in, because I'm not a pro at this game) "Promise of Eternal Love" with this rip.

Maybe I should just turn my .FLACs and .WAVs into .BIN/.CUE CD images, rather then try and convince MiSTer that a .WAV file is part of a CD audio image?

[storm barn]

That's a good idea.

[magic arch]

ImgBurn can't write a music CD to .BIN/.CUE, so I'd need some kind of virtual CD drive software.

[serene nebula]

I commend your dedication to playing the games that use audio CDs

[magic arch]

https://tenor.com/view/senki-zesshou-symphogear-kohinata-miku-gif-25326408

[spark ermine]

What did she do to that card and end up with two?

[magic arch]

I need to hear sing about her love for her wife, while a vector bnuuy is dying because I'm not a primarily music game person.

[serene nebula]

The ice skater guy?

[magic arch]

(Watch Symphogear, we have singing lesbians!)

[serene nebula]

what

Wait nevermind no I don’t want to know lol

[magic arch]

I could explain, but nevermind.

Anyways...

https://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/
Do you have .BIN/.CUE write support?

Ok, ImgBurn prolly won’t work for my purposes, do you people have any other suggestions on software with CD Audio authoring support?

[storm barn]

wincdemu doesn't support windows 11. Support is up to 10.

[magic arch]

Joy.

[magic arch]

Now I guess it needs the end time in the- I don't even know.

I'm using ImgDrive+Exact Audio Copy+FreeAC (because my rips were apparently not CD audio spec after all, they were off by just a tiny amount

Maybe I should try using .CUE/.WAV again?

I don't even understand at this point.

[solar ermine]

I have this one for when I use my pocketstation
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mKOLviV

[clear rock]

Yeah, that's the only one I have been able to find, a bit messy though with the way memcards work on that. Was apparently designed for their specific MiSTer prebuilt though it will work with others if you use an extension cable.

[serene nebula]

@magic arch once you get this all figured out and working I want to know what music CDs you’re using

[magic arch]

ImgDrive appears to not correctly support Audio CDs via .WAV/.CUE or .BIN/.CUE, given that only the last track loads, even on Audio CDs that are dumped via .BIN/.CUE

[magic arch]

I'm getting tired of trying to make an audio disc image and failing for one or another.

I don't know why ImgDrive only lets me read the last track of music CD rips.

https://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Cue_sheet#A_single-file_cue_sheet_with_a_TRACK_01_INDEX_00_hidden_track

Is it due to this somehow-

but the MiSTer can handle all the .BIN/.CUE music cd rips fine-

Or, no that-

I dunno even know what this program wants from me at this point.

I'm glad I added a second unique audio track, because now it's only playing the second one, no matter what I do.

[serene nebula]

Why aren’t you people playing Mort the Chicken?

[cosmic tulip]

Robby, no.

[chilly kraken]

https://tenor.com/uWMFVBlyYsA.gif

[coral minnow]

best gamr

[clear rock]

I only know this exists because of funny pizza man game

[tulip moat]

Cool Pizza Tower reference

[visual depot]

This is the guide you should use for perfect rips. All others should be avoided.

https://eacguide.github.io/

There's a lot of misinformation of how to configure EAC

So a lot of guides are simply wrong.

I believe this guide comes from an old community that was notorious for having the most fact-checked guide around for having perfect rips. The community worked great lengths to research information and study rip differences for the guide, to be sure that the process guaranteed a perfect rip every time.

The only thing I'll add is I recommend saving the profile once you're done with the settings. That way you can always restore it later if you backup the AppData folder for EAC (like reinstalling Windows or using the same DVD drive on another machine)

Just make sure to only use the profile with that specific DVD drive.

[magic arch]

I was trying to turn .WAV/.FLAC files into a .BIN/.CUE CD image for the MiSTer to use, so this doesn’t help me.

[chilly kraken]

don't worry, the updated turbo core is fine. i'm sure this is going to be a great compile

[clear rock]

Is the core also wearing it's lucky red shirt and is two days away from retirement?

[chilly kraken]

It is getting too old for this shit

[visual depot]

Yeah I realized that after I posted my bad. Thanks for responding calmly lol

[unique marlin]

Tried playing wipeout, and the screen was flashing all black when I got hit with rockets, almost looking as if it was losing signal. Not sure if that's normal behavior for the game or not.

[rose ermine]

IIRC it has to do with a screen shake effect. Try playing with fixed hblank and vblank on. I may be wrong on this though

[lusty coral]

Hmm

I've noticed a bit of a bug with the turbo core for PS1. Sometimes when I launch a game I just get a white screen. I can hear what's going on in the background. I also don't get the Sony computer entertainment screen either

That's twice it's happened now

I'm trying to find the test core im using as it isn't the official turbo core. But trying to search through these threads feels impossible.

The date of the psx turbo core I'm using that has white screen thing is 25.07.16

@chilly kraken I think it might be your latest core?

But what is strange is that Ive used this core for a while now (probably when you released it) and the issue has only occurred now. It also seems random too.

Yeah thats the core I'm using

#1046940919607345272 message

[chilly kraken]

we will see if it happens with any of the new cores

[lusty coral]

What I find strange is that I've not had that white screen boot up error whatsoever apart from today.

But yeah no problem.

[chilly kraken]

maybe delete your bios files and redownload them

[lusty coral]

Can the bios just corrupt itself like that? I got it from the update_all ages ago.

Why do I feel like I'm getting deja vu. Did someone else recently report a similar issue

#help message

Ah but mine is a white screen. Probably not the same issue

[chilly kraken]

black screen is almost always bios. white screen is weird and maybe a corrupted bios. SD card may be to blame (if downloading a new bios works)

[lusty coral]

Hmm. What il probably do is try your new core when it's ready and just see what happens. If that white screen pops up il look at replacing the bios

The only recent change I did was get rid of the Console (Autoboot) folder. Well I just got rid of the 'underscore so it's hidden on the menu.

[serene nebula]

Has it happened since?

[lusty coral]

Strangely not. It happened twice but a reboot of the mister via the menu fixed it. Or re launching the core

Il just keep an eye on it

[serene nebula]

Yeah, it might’ve been a random fluke

[lusty coral]

I pushed my mister too hard trying to run the dual ram Gamecom TwinTurbo Hidden Gem core

[hallow quartz]

I have had a white screen with audio still playing a couple of times over the years when booting another game, just put it down to one of those things. Rebooted the core and everythign went back to normal.

[lusty coral]

Interesting, well at least it doesn't sound too bad.

[dense wharf]

hidden gems?!?

[clear rock]

Yes, usually in walls or behind doors, somtimes a fake wall that leads to a secret room

But it depends on the game

[chilly kraken]

I’m testing the turbo core and…is this a real thing that we did in 2003?

not sure why I attached two things but 👍

[serene nebula]

What do you mean

[chilly kraken]

it's just a montage of cheerleaders

over and over

that's the loading screen

[dense wharf]

sounds like 2003 to me

[opal carbon]

Yeah the 2000s were wild like that

And all the executives were like “why come no women gamers??”

Not that I don’t know plenty of women who like cheerleaders, but they had a very specific person in mind when they were making a lot of games back then.

[serene nebula]

Ohhhh lol

That and the guy game

[opal carbon]

Don’t forget about BMX XXX

[chilly kraken]

yeah but those games are the dude who shows up to the frat party with the "i fuck on the first date" shirt - you know what you're getting into

I didn't expect NCAA Football 2003 to also own that shirt

[somber steppe]

I'm super into Digimon again, raising 2 digimon color and guess what: playing Digimon world on the phenomenal psx core.😎 never managed to finish the game, but I have a good feeling this time around.

[lusty coral]

I really find the OG Resident Evil's Rocket Sound satisfying

[cosmic tulip]

got a dumb question. What does Fixed V-blanks do exactly?

[lusty coral]

Oh I have the answer for you

As I asked the same in the N64 channel. One moment

[lusty coral]

#1096015979055697940 message

[cosmic tulip]

interesting

[lusty coral]

I also forgot how different the B scenario is in RE2. I can understand why there was a few complaints in regards to RE2 Remake and it's B scenario.

[sinful bloom]

So I can guarantee proper aspect ratio even if I think the game's assets are wrong?

[lusty coral]

All I know is that I enable the fixed blanks and I get no resolution change sync issue things

Silent Hill runs like a dream

[cosmic tulip]

lol this was the exact game I was futzing with the setting on that led me to ask this question

[opal carbon]

And there’s no added latency or anything?

[serene nebula]

For what

[opal carbon]

Oh I wondered if there was any latency penalty for fixed blanks

I don’t really understand how it works on a technical level but it feels “scaler-y” to me and wondered if there was a latency penalty.

[manic citrus]

there is not

it doesn't involve buffering pixel data

[serene nebula]

It’s a good question, thanks for asking it

[clear rock]

Just checked, still happens in Chrono Cross

Is there a disadvantage to leaving the 24 bit color option on?

Err, wait, wrong channel for that... ironically

[opal carbon]

This is that glitch in Cross that gets solved by 24bit because we think it slows the GPU down slightly?

Well the video pipeline I guess, no idea if GPU is the accurate term in this case.

[clear rock]

I was just testing it and several video options fix it, not just the 24 bit rendering

But also if you enable the 480o to 480p hack, or any setting for the widescreen hack, or turning on texture filtering

[opal carbon]

Oh neat

[clear rock]

If all of those are indeed slowing down the GPU that makes sense

[opal carbon]

What about fixed blanks?

[clear rock]

no, pretty much just any option below dithering, everything else didn't have an effect

[opal carbon]

Awesome, thanks for sharing! A MiSTer playthrough of Cross is going to happen for me this winter and I was wondering if there were other workarounds

[clear rock]

No problem

Also, this made me realize that Chrono Cross is stupid how it handels loading your save...

I loaded up my old save from ages ago hoping that it would be easier to test if I was not starting a new game

Turns out I had only made one save... and it was a cleared save

I loaded in disk one and tried to load my save... it tells me to put in disk 2, so I did

... then it sees it's a cleared save and only gives me the option to start a New Game+, not continue... which requires me to put Disk 1 back in

Nice one square...

... hmm, that's odd

Anyway, yeah, just tested the overclocked core and sadly does not fix the issue, still need to enable one of those hacks

[dawn axle]

what is the issue again? Chrono Cross has been on my to play list for a while

[clear rock]

When selecting elements there will be random corrupted tiles

[dawn axle]

Ah

[clear rock]

There's a video of it here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PSX_MiSTer/issues/244

If only the DE-10 had a dedicated chunk of DDR3 just for the FPGA that the CPU dosen't touch apparently it would solve a lot of problems with PSX and N64

Not all, but many

[dawn axle]

I wonder if this is what triggers the random lockups in a late game boss in Xenogears as well. Supposedly that same crash can happen on PS2 hardware as well, but not PS1 hardware

[opal carbon]

Interesting! I don’t see any open or closed issues for that. Something you experienced?

I know the Saturn core can be RAM sensitive, and that the older RAM revision in the Multisystem can cause issues in some games but that’s all very vague.

I used to dread playing a game to the end and then having crashes / issues with emulators (or MiSTer) but then I got to the end of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and the game crashed during my fight with Dracula and deleted my save on original hardware soooo

Kinda ripped the band aid off for me, although I still obsess about it a bit

[clear rock]

I remember Portrait of Ruin, it was VERY finicky with earlier firmwares of romcarts at the time, especially when you used fast travel. I recall using an app to test specific access speeds of my microsd card to see if it was up to snuff, but it was fixed in later revisions.

Course, I had the workaround of... just playing the actual game cart, but it was more convinent to have just dumped my ds carts into a cyclods and load them from a list, easier to backup my saves that way too

[serene nebula]

I remember Portrait of Ruin, it played fine on my DS because I bought it!

[dawn axle]

Yep, I did. It’s apparently a fairly well known bug since it happens on software emulators as well. I did mean to report it but forgot and by the time i remembered my closest save file was hours before that part 😅

Guess I could have anyways, but doing a report for something that only happens like 40 hours into a RPG without a save file to accompany felt pointless

[nimble pond]

It can totally happen on PS1 hardware with ODEs

It happened on the PSIO until fixed. Not sure if rama fixed it early on in the xstation

[dawn axle]

Oh, interesting. Sounds like it’s more of a disc access timing thing then

[nimble pond]

Indeed

Or as usual, psx devs working out of spec

[dawn axle]

Would suck to deal with that on real hardware. I just used save states on mister since the attack is random

[dawn axle]

yeah that tracks for Xenogears honestly

[nimble pond]

Here is the man who fixed it

A CD timing issue, basically

But also devs working out of spec

If the fix hasn't been applied to the psx core then its probably a good idea to upload a commit to the psx core github, as kgmtl suggested

But this is just one of many edge cases of the console

[serene nebula]

That’s fascinating

[dawn axle]

Yeah it was probably almost 2 years ago when I played it so it could very well have been fixed by now

[nimble pond]

I wouldn't count on it without looking first

[dawn axle]

would have to dig up that save file that’s hopefully still there

[nimble pond]

Its easy to get a savefile from the internet and test, I may find the time sometime this weekend

[dawn axle]

True, good point lol

[nimble pond]

A quick search here shows there's other bugs still present in xenogears

Nothing on the github

Probably the end game fight bug is still there

[opal carbon]

Happy to contribute to testing when my MiSTer is tustworthy again. Transitioning from a Multisystem to a proper stack with v3.0 RAM and the parts are on their way. I should be up and running in a few weeks.

[serene nebula]

Looking forward to it bud, awesome to see your enthusiasm for testing

[opal carbon]

As much as I wish my hobby was playing games it’s really testing 👽

[opal carbon]

I can also test SDcard vs USB (SATA) SSD easily since my setup will have both.

[dawn axle]

PSX was only a 2x speed drive, so storage speed shouldn’t be a limiting factor afaik

latency maybe, but even then I think SD is more than enough. But of course never hurts to test anyways!

[opal carbon]

Yeah I was thinking more about ruling out flakey media

[waxen elk]

All my speed issues went away when using an SD card. Bonus is that I don't have an awkward harddrive leeching power

[sinful bloom]

I should probably do the same, my HDD is causing awkward temporary freezes during loading

Kinda surprised the second SD card slot is unused, I don't have 512gb card but two 256s and I would cram both of them in

[opal carbon]

Curious if y’all are using spinning disks or SSDs as hard drives

I’m building my setup around a SATA SSD and haven’t had issues yet but haven’t tested it enough to be sure.

[sinful bloom]

I was going to use SSD but it draws too much power to be usable with my PSU brick

So I put that on PS2 instead

[opal carbon]

Interesting, my understanding was that HDDs use more power than SSDs. Your HDD had an external power supply I suppose?

[sinful bloom]

No

SSD just doesn't work with this and it's drawing more power than this spinning rust

[opal carbon]

Weiiiiiird

My understanding is those SATA SSDs pull more like 10W peak vs 15W peak from even slow spinning rust but maybe not?

I mean clearly not since you’ve proven it

[dawn axle]

Technically, an NVMe SSD. Technically because it’s in my NAS and mounted to the mister over CIFS

Only for the games directory though, everything else still lives on the microSD

[opal carbon]

That’s the setup I would use if I didn’t need my setup to be portable

Would make my life so much easier. My game libraries are all on my NAS

[dawn axle]

Yeah that’s reasonable. And same! That’s why I went ahead and just did that. Makes it so much easier to add stuff to my library too. Don’t need to fumble with getting the microSD out or turning on the mister to FTP stuff over

I have to very carefully use a pair of tweezers to get my microSD out due to the shape of my case

[opal carbon]

I’m finding the SMB stuff in Mister works pretty well

Just had to do some firewall juggling since I run my MiSTer on a VLAN that goes out to a VPN.

But that’s a me problem

[dawn axle]

That’s way fancier than my setup lol. I just run retronas in a VM on the NAS

“just”… 🤣

[opal carbon]

I think retronas is way fancier than what I’m doing. I’m just paranoid and don’t want update-all pulling down stuff like the coin-op collection from my home internet connection.

[waxen elk]

Yeah, treated myself to a 2tb SD card and haven't looked back

[nimble pond]

Unfortunately, it will be a factor, but I can't quite articulate why. Let me dig up some old conversations on the classic gaming discord.

[manic citrus]

the requirements of the core are not the same as real hardware. the core needs a response for a given request within some time frame, maybe around 11ms?

less if you bump up the cd speed in the options

and that means you have to be under that threshold in worst case scenarios. like a seek nowhere near where you were just reading so all your cache is invalid

it's why reducing the chd hunksize lets you consistently hit higher cdrom speeds: the bigger the hunk the longer it takes to decompress

[serene nebula]

This right?

I still need to use your magic formula and re CHD my games.

[manic citrus]

yeah, that's a good number. 4 sector hunks

[mortal oracle]

Very hunky

[clear rock]

Well like I said, I did too 😛 I just found it more convenient to dump all my DS games to a flashcart than keep switching carts, espcially for backing up my saves. Neat that it was even possible to do that if you had a GBA 3-in-1 cart to go along with your DS cart

[nimble pond]

Looks like its more about seek latency, access speed, and the reliability of these

So either Sandisk A2 or better

The extreme pro being the gold standard

That is, if you care about cd based systems, or snes msu1

[serene nebula]

lol sorry, forgot I posted that and I was just trolling

[nimble pond]

Sd cards are one of those things where you get what you pay for

[clear rock]

IIRC that second slot is wired directly to the FPGA and is an obsolete holdover for a few PC cores from earlier days that would directly access it like a raw drive. It's not even populated on the Taki IO boards. Even if it worked like that though, you would have to split up which system's games are on which card, which can be a bit of a mess, and a good 512GB card is like $35 now, plus there is the option of USB... so I don't think being able to use two SD cards at once is really a thing many are interested in these days. (And you could always use a USB to SD adapter)

[nimble pond]

But then the only realiable brand seems to be sandisk

Not sure where Kingston stands nowadays

[clear rock]

I put a 512GB card in mine, I thought for sure it would be enough... then my PSX games were like almost 300GB, but that was still enough... at first... then I compressed them to CHD and had plenty of space again... then I got into MSU-1 hacks....

.... I might need a 1TB card soon

[sinful bloom]

I think at this point I'd do a 4tb NAS SMB instead

[clear rock]

Probably will go back to bin/cue if I go 1tb

No way will I ever fill that up

[nimble pond]

Oh well, if you want the technical details I would ask someone like rama on the xstation forums

I just learned that for Cd based systems or msu1, I need to spend $$$ on the best that Sandisk can offer

[clear rock]

Huh, for some unrelated reason I just got a flashback to when I said "No way will I ever fill that up" when I got a PC with a 1GB HDD back in 1995, odd that came to mind, espcially since I did fill that up quickly

[clear rock]

Why?

[nimble pond]

As I mentioned above, seek latency, access speeds and their reliability

[clear rock]

Even the slowest current Sandisk is going to be multiple times faster than the disk drive of any cd-based system on the mister

This is what I use and it works fine: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X7C2GBC

[nimble pond]

Also, about MSU-1, I found this:
"the problem with MSU-1 and card speed is that cards tend to optimize for sequential IOPS, and random IOPS suffer for it. Speed Class 4 cards are MORE than fast enough for even FMV playback, the killer is seek latency, which isn't even a consideration for speed class ratings"

[nimble pond]

That's the one I use but I still have to test with elemental gearbolt to see if I still have slowdown issues

[nimble pond]

No, its not that simple, but again, I'm not very technical, so if you want the technical "whys" in detail, you'd have to ask someone like fpgazumspass or rama on the xstation discord, etc

[sinful bloom]

maybe it IS my kingstons messing up reading data on my xstation

[serene nebula]

always get class a2 sd card

wait

a2

[fluid raft]

Is there any Dual Ram core build merged with the updated framework?

[lusty coral]

I don't think there is. Dual ram for the PSX isn't really used.

Even if you have a dual ram mister setup

I think (I could be wrong). Dual ram just helps out with the audio which is not noticeable anyway

[spring elk]

GigaCHD 😉

[nimble pond]

I have the last build, from January of this year, but its obviously missing a lot of updates and discontinued. If you still want it I could share it.

[fluid raft]

I have this one, thanks

[mortal oracle]

It’s think also arguably less accurate in another way (GPU speed? I can’t remember), based on something Robert said before

#1046940919607345272 message

And as to how noticeable it is: #general-banter message

[nimble pond]

Good read

If it ever bothers me with a particular game I can always switch cores

I hope the next popular fpga platform is dualram from the start to avoid these discrepancies

[hallow quartz]

I hope the next platform is capable enough to not need dual at all.

[serene nebula]

Dualram was always intended as a development crutch but as the de10 got pushed way further than anyone anticipated, some very clever people figured out how to utilize it to bypass limitations of the actual hardware.

So to answer your question. Some new method will be discovered in future hardware as programmers get clever pushing the hardware past expectations.

So if it’s not dual ram it could be something else lol

[coral minnow]

triple ram

[dense wharf]

connecting a PSX to your mister for fully accurate playstation gameplay

[somber steppe]

As a dualram owner myself I like to refer to it as "full ram" while I like to refer to the rabble with only one stick as "half ram".

[vestal thicket]

Mister next hopefully will just have one config that works for everything.

[tacit fox]

One config to rule them all

[cosmic tulip]

The mistest will be the bestest

[somber steppe]

Anybody here played digimon world 3 aka digimon world 2003?

[mortal oracle]

No

[coral minnow]

not much,maybe like an hour or two if that counts

it's one my list of games i want to play...eventually

[serene nebula]

Which is the best digimon on ps1

[dawn axle]

Pokémon Black and White on the Nintendo DS, actually

[spark ermine]

Digimon 3 plays more like a turn based rpg, the first is like an extremely convoluted tamagotchi rpg

You have to take your digimon to the bathroom in digimon 1 and if you don't, they'll evolve into a shit digimon

[serene nebula]

Are you trolling

[spark ermine]

Noo I'm not lol. Literally turns into this thing

[serene nebula]

This game kicks ass

That’s a little rat fink dude back there

[rapid garden]

your digimon will turn into a shitimon and you WILL curse god when it happens

[spark ermine]

He'll eat all the poop left behind though

[somber steppe]

According to my research world 3. But I only played 1 so far.

[serene nebula]

Are they trolling me about the poop digimon

[somber steppe]

What do you mean by trolling?

[serene nebula]

Making it up

To deceive me!

[somber steppe]

No, they exist.

Sukamon.

And it can become a bigger shit, numemon iirc.

[serene nebula]

I thought you were gonna do a joke like sukamon deez nuts

But no it’s real

https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Sukamon

[somber steppe]

In world 1 they eat the shit from your other digimon if you don't bring them to the toilet fast enough.

[coral minnow]

i have a love-hate relationship with digimon world 1

[somber steppe]

They remind me of the slimes in dragon quest.

[coral minnow]

it's the kind of game that become good with a guide. because explanations are vague at best, translation is spotty and a lot of mechanics not exactly explained

[somber steppe]

I'm replaying story cyber sleuth right now. I managed to preorder a digimon x godzilla and am extremely hyped for all things digimon right now.

[coral minnow]

i only ever played world 1, i had that one as a kid and played a bit of 3, after setting up a pal version with a ntsc patch

2 is a dungeon crawler said be pretty tedious to put it kindly

[somber steppe]

Yeah, from what I heard 1 is a very acquired taste and 3 is the best. Though only 1 actually adopts the vpet style digimon comes from.

[coral minnow]

have you ever looked at the vice mode for dw1?

mod*

[somber steppe]

I'm also raising these guys.

[somber steppe]

No what is that?

[coral minnow]

an overhaul mod that lets you change a lot of things including bug fixes, QoL stuff and higher difficulty if you want that

[somber steppe]

Sounds neat

[coral minnow]

the only unfortunate thing is, that the things you set are patched inti the game directly, it's not a settings menu ingame

but knowing that game, trying that would probably make it implode

also for dw3, i went with pal+ntsc patch because the pal version has extra endgame content

[somber steppe]

Good to know

I just read up on a meason hack for dw1. That seems like a prebaked version of vice.

The vice github actually linked to it.

[coral minnow]

i should get back into digimon, had a nostalgia trip half a year ago rewatching the old anime and purchasing some most likely inofficial merch

[somber steppe]

I'd recommend getting a dm20 if you don't already have one. They're cheap, available in English and have over 100 digimon to raise.

The ones in my picture are digimon colors. They're a bit pricy and you have to mod them to be English.

[coral minnow]

i'll have a look

[lyric pagoda]

When I try to load a PAL rom there is nothing but a black screen

do I need the PAL bios as well?

[chilly kraken]

did you get your bios files from update_all?

[lyric pagoda]

I got it manually

didnt know update_all downloads bios files

[chilly kraken]

there is a bios database

enable that

I think pal stuff is copy protected?

[lyric pagoda]

luckly I only want to play very obscure games

that dont have Libcrypt

[serene nebula]

Ohhh which ones

[lyric pagoda]

Hugo games

It was a somewhat popular IP in EU

the games never got NTSC version save for one

[serene nebula]

nice

[lyric pagoda]

also the PAL version of Team Buddies

cause that version has all the characters swearing

[deft sphinx]

Enabling the BIOS DB makes life a lot easier. Just press up when you run update all and enable it from the menu.

[mortal oracle]

TIL. I played the PAL version back in the day, but went for NTSC on the MiSTer

Good game, but not as fun without friends around to play split screen

[somber steppe]

No friends, huh?

[somber steppe]

I picked up the digimon world maeson hack. Not gonna play it right now since I wanna finish story first but it seems like a nice improvement for the original world.

[lyric pagoda]

PSX2CPU core seems to crash the mister when trying to launch it on higher resolutions

[chilly kraken]

Are you sure it’s crashing the mister and it’s just your display not knowing what to do with the signal? You can test by pressing menu, right, up, up, enter

If it take you back to the menu, then it didn’t crash

[spring elk]

The MiSTer Cheat Code

[tropic stratus]

in 90% of the cases this happened in the past for someone downloading the core from github and in reality they downloaded some 1 Kbyte html instead of the binary 😅

[proven seal]

@tropic stratus not sure if it's worth reporting, but i noticed some graphical oddities in Toaplan Shooting Battle 1. the three included games allows you to adjust the screen positioning, but there's some flickering/garbage graphics at the top and bottom of the screen when positioning it all the way up or down

the game does a lot of weird stuff with interlaced screen modes when it boots, so maybe it's related to that? i'm not sure

[mortal oracle]

I give it a few hours before someone confirms this behaviour on original hardware 😎

Followed by: MiSTer wins again!

[proven seal]

i recall trying the game on my psx via the xstation and don't remember it occuring there, but this was years ago. i would love to be wrong though lol

[tropic stratus]

repositioning the screen most times involves setting extreme video out configuration values that not always work fine.
This is completly useless for digital out so I never really cared

[serene nebula]

My favorite was someone reporting how the video was messed up on Ghost in the Shell and NOPE, that's exactly how it was on original hardware lmao

#1046940919607345272 message

MiSTer wins again!

[proven seal]

yes but i was referring to the in-game screen adjustment, not from the core menu/mister config

unless that's what you meant

[serene nebula]

@manic citrus sorry, I'm pinging you a lot lately but you're my "techie who knows everything" guy

The CHD parameters you gave, does that help in general or really only use for PSX high disc read speeds?

-c cdzs,cdfl -hs 9792

[manic citrus]

it probably helps in general. smaller hunk -> faster to decompress when required.

[tropic stratus]

yes, I was referring to the ingame one. Some games allow extreme setting up until a rollover of the internal registers. E.g. Starting usually from line 5, but allows to go up to 10 above, causing the output to start from -5 = 506, which the core currently cannot handle.
For HDMI this is pointless, as it doesn't care for that, it only uses the valid area anyway.
For CRT it might be helpful if your TV is really messing up the centering AND cannot adjust itself. As this is kind of niche usecase and I don't have a CRT and don't want one, I never worked on it.

[proven seal]

ah i see, this makes sense. thank you for the detailed explanation

honestly not a huge issue as the games are centered just fine on my crts ftmp

[tropic stratus]

yes, mostly it's more a case of: "if i set some weird value I wouldn't use anyway, it doesn't work"

[clear rock]

Had a recent moment like that on a Neo Geo game, a character looked like her fingers were not rendered right in the intro, tried finding a video of someone playing it on an actual arcade cabinet and not an emulator and yup, looked the same. I guess the devs missed that... or I am blind

[clear rock]

Wait, so I should be using these settings in chdman instead of the default? I just compressed like 300GB of PSX games about a month ago...

[tropic stratus]

it's not really important unless you want to use the fast CD loading modes

[manic citrus]

yeah, everything can keep up at 1x/2x I think. when you push to like 6x some games are going to struggle, but the smaller hunk size allows the read to return much faster and still be in the good range

[clear rock]

Would this make them compress at a noticably larger size?

[serene nebula]

I’m a large hunk size

[serene nebula]

Yes, files are slightly larger

[clear rock]

I see, I guess when I have the time I can re-test that to see what difference is any it makes in filesize. If it's not massive probably better to use that

... once I figure out where in the bat file I made to mass-compress images in folders I need to put those commands XD

[clear rock]

Struggle how? As in won't load as fast or will crash? Didn't even see any core with an option to go faster than 4x IIRC

I'm guessing I would need to replace " chdman createcd -i "%%i" -o "%%~dpi%%~ni.chd" " with " chdman createcd -c cdzs,cdfl -hs 9792 -i "%%i" -o "%%~dpi%%~ni.chd" " ? Or is that wrong?

[manic citrus]

the cdrom data won't return in the time the core expects it to. the psx core pauses to wait so it may result in stuttering. (or if you turn the pause when cd slow option, it may crash the game)

psx can go up to 8x

I think for other cdrom cores (megacd/pce/neo geo) the default are probably ok. saturn might have some sensitivity but that's still a bit in flux right now

[clear rock]

Yeah, some of the saturn games I will have to exclude because of that index 2 thing

Will also need to test just how big a difference in compression it makes

Roughly about 500 PSX games taking 300GB, on standard settings they compressed to around 150GB, and now I am likely going to need to compress the CD images for my other systems too as I am going to need the space soon for MSU-1 hacks

[opal carbon]

Iirc compression using the bigger block size was still around 50%.

[manic citrus]

if you're ok with just leaving the psx core at 1 or 2x cdrom speed the defaults should work fine

[lyric pagoda]

I just tested it, and yea it didnt crash

but still there was no image

the core worked fine on 1080p

[chilly kraken]

Are you using a custom video modeline? HDMI or analog out? to a tv, monitor? CRT?

[lyric pagoda]

HDMI to TV

set the resolution to 2560x1440@60

or Video Mode 14

[chilly kraken]

Oh I wonder if this is a silicon lottery issue. What happens if you do 12

Try 12 and 13

Actually, if it’s working in other cores, then maybe it’s not that. What vscale mode are you using?

[lyric pagoda]

every other core is working just fine I tested

Vscale is set to 0

[chilly kraken]

Does the normal psx core work?

[lyric pagoda]

yes

no issues on that one

its just the PSX2CPU

[mortal oracle]

Isn’t 1440p already technically out of spec for the DE10?

[lyric pagoda]

its the only resolution that makes the shaders look nice on my tv

[mortal oracle]

So that plus a core that’s probably pushing at the limits might be causing issues?

[lyric pagoda]

like in the end I dont really mind since its an extra core

but even the N64 80hz works just fine

[chilly kraken]

Very weird. I wonder if there are some scaler issues on the high resolution side

The psx turbo core never meets timings

It’s the latest one? From a couple of days ago?

[lyric pagoda]

oh I never really updated it tbh

where can I get the updated one?

[chilly kraken]

If you have update all, you can enable the alt core database and that will download the latest versions of all the turbo cores

(And put them in /_Other)

[lyric pagoda]

Ahh

I am learning new things about the mister

[chilly kraken]

Otherwise you can download it from here: https://github.com/ajgowans/alt-cores/blob/main/_Other/PSX2XCPU_20250814.rbf

Alt database is new

[lyric pagoda]

it runs fine now

I guess by not updating it caused the issue

Thank you

[chilly kraken]

Anytime

[serene nebula]

You’re welcome!

[abstract drift]

the 2560x1440 mode on mister uses pixel repetition so its really 1280x1440

relatively light

[woeful parcel]

Thanks for the link JesusFish. I didn’t know there was a turbo neogeo core. Sweet.

[chilly kraken]

It was a mistake :p

[manic citrus]

I feel like putting the neo geo turbo core in that repo is a very bad mistake

like the other cores are functional, that one is broken for everything but one specific game

[clear rock]

That explains the broken visuals I got when I tried it

[woeful parcel]

Which game works well with it?

[chilly kraken]

Metal slug 1

[chilly kraken]

I am regretting it

Maybe I’ll remove it and it can go back to the back alleys of obscurity

[manic citrus]

or at least name it something more obvious

the other 'turbo' cores you can probably use as your normal core for that system if you wanted. can't do that with NG

[mortal oracle]

NeoGeo_OnlyWorksForSomeGames.rbf

[chilly kraken]

you can. it works fine as long as you don't toggle turbo (I believe)

[serene nebula]

I think you were really kind in doing so but it shouldn’t be publicly available like that. The potential for causing headaches is greater than the meager almost useless benefit it provides.

If someone wants to play Metal Slug on turbo, either apply a patch or use a software emulator.

or ask here nicely and they’ll get the turbo core lol

🤷‍♂️

[deft sphinx]

If people aren't reading the readme, which is fair if they are just enabling it from update all, and it is causing more confusion than enjoyment, then I am fine with it being removed. Although brace yourself for potentially people appearing asking why it has disappeared from their SD card

[manic citrus]

do you think people that see 'turbo core' and then a 'turbo' menu setting are going to be selective about when they turn it on?

[chilly kraken]

Yeah, that’s a fair point. Although I suppose that means that they download the turbo core, believe it’s turbo, get all the warm fuzzy turbo feelings, but it’s just a placebo

[manic citrus]

"wow metal slug really is better!"

[chilly kraken]

I’m cured!

[opal carbon]

I wonder what percentage of people just play Metal Slug on the Neo Geo core. Probably higher than I think it is.

[deft sphinx]

We could move out and over to WIP DB, that is really a power user thing. Anyone who adds that to their .ini knows what they are getting themselves in for and/or is a masochist

[chilly kraken]

oh yeah, I suppose that’s true. We should probably be having this discussion in the neo geo thread. I also posted in the forums about it to get folks’ temperature

[deft sphinx]

Sounds good, happy with whatever seems most sensible. WIP DB may be good compromise. We chat elsewhere though

[clear rock]

NeoGeo_OnlyUseThisForMetalSlugGamesItBreaksEveryOtherNeoGeoGameYouHaveBeenWarned.rbf

[storm barn]

NeoGeo_OnlyUseThisForMetalSlugGamesItBreaksEveryOtherNeoGeoGameYouHaveBeenWarned&Knuckles.rbf

[alpine hinge]

i have a snac and a guncom 1, is it possible to enable crosshair on psx core? because on time crisis 1 is really pick where you point exactly, and having the crosshair would be a lot easier to play.

[opal carbon]

I don’t think SNAC can do crosshairs at all but someone who is more versed in this stuff might know better.

[lilac scaffold]

yeah SNAC is wired up straight to the core, so only if the game itself had a crosshair option
the one you can toggle in the OSD is for USB guns

[alpine hinge]

thanks for the info.

[opal carbon]

Do PSX light guns even “track” gun position in realtime? I thought a trigger pull just flashed a pattern on the screen that the gun could kind of understand its relative position to.

I know later guns used IR to track in realtime

@alpine hinge if you want a crosshair the good news is that you could get a guncon 3 and some emitters and use them with MiSTer. Even works on flat panels! https://www.laserbear.net/products/guncon3-ir-tower-replacements?_pos=1&_psq=guncon&_ss=e&_v=1.0

Works in the PSX core

You can also use a Wii mote but where’s the fun in that?

[lilac scaffold]

PSX can track the gun all the time yeah, SNES and megadrive did too

[clear rock]

Snes was just using IR sensors you put around your TV like the Wiimote did though right?

[lilac scaffold]

Nah it was a lightgun with ir connection back to console

GC3 works great with mister, gun4ir and retroshooter are meant to be even better

[lusty coral]

Er

Why do I remember using a sensor for both the Sega Menacer and Snes Super Scope 6

[lilac scaffold]

It's the connection for the gun to the console

[lusty coral]

Ah

[lilac scaffold]

Alternative to a cable rather than tracking

[lusty coral]

It's been a very long time since I used one

[lilac scaffold]

They can track all the time as it's a crt, the console knows what it's drawing and crt shows it with basically no delay.
So when it sees the beam pass the gun it knows it's pointing at the part of the screen it was drawing at the time

[serene nebula]

Yeah, you can see it on the Time Crisis calibration screen

[opal carbon]

TIL!

My next project after I feel like my PSX setup is dialed is getting my guncon 3 setup dialed.

[serene nebula]

So this is t SNAC buuut you can use a GunCon 3 over USB and turn on crosshairs in the core’s menu.

[serene nebula]

You probably already know this but when calibrating, don’t aim at the edges of your display, rather the edges of the 4x3 image.

[opal carbon]

That makes sense but I can’t remember if I was doing that or not last time so good to know!

[opal carbon]

Ran into a weird issue with the latest core. If I use a USB controller and have Fastboot turned on no games will boot. I can boot the core to the BIOS just fine but when I load a game the OSD displays the region but I just get a black screen.

If I disable fastboot games work fine. Tried the Reflex Adapt in X input mode and a Reflex CTRL (also in X-Input mode I believe).

Anyone seen this?

The same games load fine when using SNAC in either Fastboot on or off

Not using any unsafe settings or anything like that.

[serene nebula]

How long did you wait for

Give it like 30s

[opal carbon]

I’ll try again but it doesn’t take that long with SNAC or with Fastboot off

No activity light on the MiSTer either

Tried again: one minute in and it’s still a black screen

It’s not crashed though, the OSD fires up no problem

[serene nebula]

Weird

[opal carbon]

I am great at finding weird problems lol

I’ll poke around a bit more and file an issue. Need to figure out what mode my CTRL is in and maybe try some other controllers

[chilly kraken]

New Bob. I didn't see any scaler issues. Let me know if it's ok and I will do a PR for it. // @ruby sleet

[ruby sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/love-you-i-love-you-ily-that70s-show-ashton-kutcher-gif-2466163091627818440

[chilly kraken]

https://tenor.com/uvSiTMGAvon.gif

[lost coyote]

Is it possible to use a real memory card for SNAC on slot 1 and then use a virtual one for slot 2?

[tropic stratus]

yes, each slot is independent

(also the common way to copy between real and virtual in BIOS)

[opal carbon]

How do you actually tell the core to do this? Do you set controller slot 1 to SNAC, controller slot 2 to a non-SNAC controller type, then memory cards to virtual and mount something on slot 2 in the Core menu?

[shut escarp]

Yup

Or usb+autoloaded virtual card in slot one, SNAC on P2

[glossy geyser]

Pardon the ping but I'm confused about https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PSX_MiSTer/pull/318 as there's no source code changes. Was the fix to the scratchy audio literally just to rebuild the core with the fitters seed set to 15?

[chilly kraken]

yep, that was it

which reminds me. I need to check the current core for scratchy audio

[glossy geyser]

That wild! I'm new to the world of HDLs so it's all a bit foreign to me. Any idea where I should start looking for this CD audio problem https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PSX_MiSTer/issues/323?

[chilly kraken]

Oh man it stops on xpander?

My beloved

Um, this likely isn't related to seed issues. You can test [this core](#1046940919607345272 message) (which is likely to be the next release if Robert approves the PR I haven't yet made), but I doubt it will make a difference.

I guess the first question would be, are we sure this doesn't happen on real hardware? You can start ruling it out by testing it on an emulator, but the only way to know for sure is to test on the real deal. One of the fun things about this stuff is that the cores can be so accurate that they reproduce jank that was in the actual system

[glossy geyser]

Good point, I don't have a real PlayStation on me anymore unfortunately. The only other thing I can think to try is to rip my disc as a CUE/BIN and see if there's any difference compared to the CHD rip

I'll give that core a try asap

[chilly kraken]

I have it in bin/cue - I can take a look later tonight

[chilly kraken]

Tim found some scaler issues with the new build, so I’ll cook some new ones

[tropic stratus]

yes, best to check bin/cue before just to rule that out.
As it happens only with one song, is it the last song and last track?
I could imagine the "end of track" or "end of disc" responses of the CD controller not being 100% correct.

[chilly kraken]

yeah, I can confirm that my beloved xpander doesn't repeat. I'd be curious if real hardware does it (but considering duckstation does, I'd bet it does)

[glossy geyser]

Yes, I think you're right that some sort hardware signal is not being fired. From what I've observed it's only in game with the last tracks on Wipeout 3 and Wipeout 2097 yet if you play them in the PlayStation CD Player (with shuffle, repeat or program enabled so another track plays after) on Mister it's fine. I assume this is because the CD Player is using the CPU to count seconds remaining of track all the time which a game wouldn't necessarily do.

[tribal sorrel]

@tropic stratus @chilly kraken @glossy geyser FYI I have just tested this on hardware (PAL PSOne, Wipeout 3 SE physical disc) and Xpander repeats correctly

Interestingly as it’s a PSone, you can hear the cd mech seeking quite clearly when tracks restart and the sound it makes with the track with the issue is quite different and takes longer compared to when it restarts the others

[glossy geyser]

Maybe a quirk of the CD drive is that at the end of CD playback it resets the head and the game is expecting to see that happen? One way to tell would be to play xpander in the CD player and compare the sounds it makes to in game

[tribal sorrel]

Oh and confirmed it’s the same behaviour in Wipeout 3, Wipeout 3 SE, Wipeout 2097.

[tribal sorrel]

Yeah, using the BIOS cd player set to repeat single track, the seek sounds are different and the track restarts faster. More like the other tracks.

[glossy geyser]

What if CD Player isn't set to repeat/shuffle etc and it reaches the end of the CD? That might be how Wipeout is configuring the music to play and it instead reacts to an interrupt when the end of disc is reach like @tropic stratus suggested

Maybe you'll hear half of the seeking noises you do in game as the head seeks back to the beginning at a disc and stops spinning the disc at the CD drives firmware level?

[tribal sorrel]

It might also be to do with the library rev that particular game is using.

It does have the feel of the mech doing “seek to the start of the disc” followed by “seek to the last track” or similar

[glossy geyser]

Yeah and that takes about a second for the real hardware to do so maybe the problem isn't that the MiSTer core doesn't have the functionality but that it all happens so fast that the games main loop doesn't get a chance to react

[tribal sorrel]

Yes, this is what it sounds like in that scenario - you hear the return to start seek only.

[tropic stratus]

One could probably probe what happens in duckstation compared to the other tracks. Sorry, have currently no time for that. But best to add that information about last track to the github issue

[chilly kraken]

Here Comes a New Challenger!

Scaler looks good (again). Can someone test analog audio out on that one? I don't have a setup for that atm

[feral swift]

I'm happy to test if you still need someone to check it out by next weekend.

[opal carbon]

I could use a Saturn RGB cable on a IO Direct to test with a RT4K later today mostly likely. Any particular setup or activities I should test? I never use analog out on my setup.

[chilly kraken]

so it needs to be something with the stock 9.2 board (mister pi av, legacy pixels, misterfpga.co.uk - the one with the mezzanie) and it needs to be set to either RGB or ypbpr vga output. The issue was happening on the parasite eve intro and the metal gear solid menu. It will just be crackling sound. I can also set something up later tonight - I might have time

[glossy geyser]

It's definitely there and a regression from 20250710 but it is much more tolerable then when I first reported the problem. Feel free to @ me whenever you need a new build tested for that regression. I have a permanent RCA MiSTer setup so I should be able to test it within 48 hours of notification

[glossy geyser]

👆 Meant to reply to

[chilly kraken]

poop, the audio you mean?

[glossy geyser]

Yeah, it's passable if you want to make that a release. I have an ear out for any distortion at this point

[chilly kraken]

nope, let me get you the other build that passed (I haven’t checked it for scaler issues - I will DM you)

[glossy geyser]

I was unaware that builds could fail. Is PSX really that close to the logic unit count?

[chilly kraken]

Nevermind, can't DM you :p

try that one

[chilly kraken]

So Robert’s cores all use forbidden incantations that sometime make the mister scaler very angry. So to do a release you have to

• Find a build that meets timing
• Have that build not have any scaler issues
• Have the audio be ok in that build

[glossy geyser]

This ones much better

[chilly kraken]

now to look at scaler shit

#1046940919607345272 message if folks want to look at scaler shit

it usually manifests as veritcal lines across the screen

I don't see any on this mister pi but this one rarely has issues

[glossy geyser]

I suppose now knowing how much trial and error goes into these builds as it is that expressing my desire for system link support would be... well I'm sure we would all rather have that feature then not but simultaneously I assume it's a lot of work for something only a handful of games used?

[chilly kraken]

I don’t think it’s prohibitive. As with most things, it’s more about getting someone interested in implementing, rather than worrying about the build process

[digital zinc]

System link support will only come if someone else implements it https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=65205&sid=addf2ebba9db5df9ce6c5f40354b4e92#p65205

[glossy geyser]

I volunteer in that case but I'm a software engineer not a electrical one so I don't know what would be required on the FPGA/HDL side of things.

It's my understanding that the serial connector on a real PlayStation is just a RS-232 with a proprietary connector? I think ao486 already implements that and lets you open a serial connection to the MiSTers Linux terminal

[chilly kraken]

I am neither a software engineer, nor an electrical one. I am a valor theif who knows how to hit the compile button

all that say nooooo idea how to implement links cables :p

[chilly kraken]

Still need to look at scaler stuff on another mister but...maybe this one? If you would like to test scaler stuff, make sure you're hooked up to an hdmi display #1046940919607345272 message

[chilly kraken]

Nope, scaler issues on this other mister. Back to the building board

[manic citrus]

I wonder if it gets better if you OC the ram

[chilly kraken]

I should get you to build this since you dodge the scaler issues

[glossy geyser]

I have an idea of what I want the Linux application side to look like but no clue what it looks like to transfer data across ARM/FPGA bridge. With any luck it just appears as a socket file somewhere

[glossy geyser]

Done let me know if I missed anything.

[tropic stratus]

How do you know it seeks to the beginning?

[glossy geyser]

Good point, that is speculation on my part. Reworded

[silk gust]

Would it be possible to add "retro achievements" feature to the core?

[manic citrus]

no, not really

[chilly kraken]

man, getting 2 builds out of 20 that meet timing only for them both to have scaler issues is a real bummer way to start a monday

[manic citrus]

give me one of the ones with scaler issues

[abstract drift]

i dont really remember this being such an issue when the core was under development

[manic citrus]

it wasn't. Robert said it started being an issue at some point maybe early last year?

[abstract drift]

i wonder if its worth bisecting the changes on sys

[manic citrus]

it's really hard to do because of the random nature of the bug

like did you 'fix' it, or are you just getting lucky with the builds?

[abstract drift]

you might get lucky and see something fairly obvious like a step change on the build success rate

but yeah you also might not

[manic citrus]

oh never mind, I have one with the scaler issue. oh well, ram OC not helping so it's not that

man that's weird. the pattern of the corruption stays consistent even if you change resolutions

[abstract drift]

huh

wouldn't that imply they're at the input end somehow

can you see them in screenshots? thats pre-scaler right

[manic citrus]

they aren't there on analog out

oh interesting

they are in screenshots, which is 'not scaled' but comes from the scaler's framebuffer

[abstract drift]

huh

thats kinda weird you'd expect the sensitive part to be the output side

[chilly kraken]

zakk's brain worms are starting to vibrate

Also, they are not the same on every setup, zakk. I have a core that has no issues on my qmtech but does on my mister pi

just sprinkle a little metastability on the top as a treat

[lilac scaffold]

With an old gba core id get issues unless I enabled 2x resolution option in the core, and even then screenshots still showed it
#1046941428758102086 message

[tropic stratus]

input side of the scaler...as the scaler has only one port for the DDR3, I assume there is already a clock domain crossing on input side. Maybe something there?

the effect looks like every 4th pixel, so maybe the 128bit word the scaler writes to DDR3 has the first/last of that with wrong color

hmm, looks like a normal block ram with dual clocks, not really suspicious

to be 100% sure, we could observe avl_writedata for a specific avl_address in signaltap when looking at a static image.
When the issue shows and this differs, we would be sure it's the input side of the DDR3, which would limit it to less than 20% of the whole scaler code, making it much easier to find.

[chilly kraken]

This is still weird to me. ~100 means it met timing, but then the closer to 0 is the better fit?

also, lol 21 builds, one meets timing

[chilly kraken]

Waiting to hear back from Changling but seed 15 may be our winner

[mortal oracle]

Seed 15

[chilly kraken]

Ok, 👍 from @glossy geyser. If folks can bang on this one and see if you catch anything. I saw no scaler issues on either my mister pi or QMtech stack. It has the new bob and the latest framework. //@ruby sleet

[glossy geyser]

Is this interface somewhere in Quatus 17?

[lyric pagoda]

I checked it out and the new bob is phenomenal

now the games do not look bad when using it

[worldly hound]

Is it possible to have one memory card shared for multiple games?

[oak atlas]

Yes

I never set up folders for each game individually so they are all on 1 but just like any other memory card you can run out of space

But it’s easy to dupe the default memory card in the psx directory and make as many as you want

Just have to mount the right one for whatever game you boot

[worldly hound]

By this do you mean you don't have your games in separate folders?

or memory cards

[oak atlas]

Games

[worldly hound]

Oooooh

[worldly hound]

Is that the only way to have a single memory card?

[oak atlas]

Not sure

[manic citrus]

turn off automount memory card 1

[oak atlas]

I think you c an just keep one mounted and save different games

[manic citrus]

create a new memory card and mount it using 'mount memory card 1'

it remembers which one you mounted, so it will always be mounted from now on

(step 3: run out of space)

[spark ermine]

Step 4

[cosmic tulip]

Step 5 just load your mgs save and castlevania save in the bios and transfer save data to the mgs card

[polar ginkgo]

The new bob deinterlacing is great. Thanks for implementing

[chilly kraken]

This is just the spread sheet that design space explorer spits out

Ok, then I’ll do a PR

[scenic ledge]

Is new Bob still missing from N64?

[chilly kraken]

Yeah

[scenic ledge]

I guess that N64 is the last hi-res core then.

Maybe... Vectrex?

But that wouldn't be interlaced

(or shouldn't be)

[chilly kraken]

yeah. I have to work up the courage to dive into the N64 - it is a similar seed hell

[void scroll]

You could add SNES and Megadrive as there are a couple of 480i games in the library. I just don't know if it is worth it for 2 games.

[scenic ledge]

Did those use old Bob?

[void scroll]

No just plain old weave. Weave+soft filter works to get rid of combing.

[scenic ledge]

Ah, ok

[void scroll]

Afaik, the only cores that had old bob were psx and Saturn, now have the correct new bob. N64 never got it.

[chilly kraken]

oh nice

so it doesn't need to be updated?

[void scroll]

No, N64 has no Bob deinterlacing option, so nothing to update. New Bob would need to be added.

[chilly kraken]

praise the lord

[woeful parcel]

Will there be a new dual ram core with the updates?

[lusty coral]

I don't think there's much use in the dual ram core

I think it has slightly improved audio? But I don't think it's possible to hear the difference

[serene nebula]

Dual ram core has zero benefit for humans

It is impossible

[woeful parcel]

Darn. I need to justify my dual ram setup.

[lilac scaffold]

VF2 Saturn and Jag can help there

[lusty coral]

You don't need to mate. If someone has a mister setup using only HDMI. Dual ram is always a positive. Especially with how cheap ram is now.

I use the dual ram Saturn core myself.

[serene nebula]

Saturn and Jaguar are good options for that

Make sure to test your ram and have your best performing one in the primary slot.

[serene nebula]

Also this, I am a strong advocator of single ram, but I use dual myself and there’s really no negatives if you’re HDMI only. Ram has fortunately gotten cheaper so it’s a much easier thing to recommend.

[lusty coral]

Oh for sure. I don't think I'd have recommended a second ram stick if it wasn't for Taki's £20 shipped to my door ram.

[chilly kraken]

Also, not to be that guy, but if you want a dual ram PSX core, you can just build it - there is a separate build file for dual ram and the repo has all the latest changes

[serene nebula]

Is it easy to do so? Genuine question.

[mortal oracle]

Everyone cites the “improved audio” but not #1046940919607345272 message

Which makes people think “oh man, I have dual ram, I might as well get the extra accuracy”

[coral minnow]

but my snac port

[chilly kraken]

It's super easy to just download quartus, double click on on psx_dualram.qpf, and then hit build.

Finding a build that meets timing....that's harder

I have to be careful, if I share all the secrets people will start stealing my stolen valor

[lusty coral]

You can still use the Snac port with dual ram if that's what you meant.

[coral minnow]

then i must be mistaken, i though it was part of the I/O board thingie

[chilly kraken]

it is, but you can have an IO board with dual ram. the 9.2 boards support it, pork's io direct supports it, etc

[coral minnow]

huh.

in that case i should check what my mister pi has, for some reason i thought that was a general incompatibility

[chilly kraken]

will totally work with your mister pi

you just need to remove the L shaped mezzanine board

and put the ram there

the rest of the IO board will work - you just lose analog video and audio

[coral minnow]

dang

i use hdmi anyway, i don't think i will go looking around for a CRT. in that case i should order a second stick asap

[woeful parcel]

Would you mind building dual ram core please? I just have Windows 7 laptop and it says not supported on quartus.

[chilly kraken]

yeah, if you're just using HDMI, there is no reason (aside from cost) to not use dual ram

[chilly kraken]

yeah gimme a bit - I just can't promise I will have time to find a build that meets timings and doesn't have scaler issues

[woeful parcel]

Great. Thanks JesusFish.

[tropic stratus]

@chilly kraken how many builds have a consistent scaler issue with all/most DE10-Nano?
I think if it's really the input side of the scaler it should be possible to find, but if i need 10 builds to get the issue, it's too much trouble

Not sure I can include the signaltap easily in design space explorer...

[chilly kraken]

I built 60 builds for the current release. of those, 5 met timing. 4 of those had scaler issues

[tropic stratus]

that would be a high ratio...I can at least try it for the simple test to confirm it's input side of DDR3. If I get consistent "issues", maybe further down

[chilly kraken]

I had to test on multiple stacks. Some builds were fine on, for instance, a mister pi, but not on a de10. Others would be fine on a de10 but not the mister pi.

I'm not 100% sure the release build doesn't have issues, but it didn't have any on my stacks, and no one else complained so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[tropic stratus]

50% would be best to research it, so it doesn't sound that bad

[chilly kraken]

if there is anything I can do to help, let me know

[tropic stratus]

have to experiement myself first. If it works out, you might be able to support with getting either a good or a bad build if I can't get any.

Or are you familiar with signaltap?

[chilly kraken]

I did some signal tap stuff with paul on the snes core, but it was very hand-holdy so it's probably better if you do that stuff first because otherwise it will be double work (telling me how to do to it and then checking my work)

[tropic stratus]

it's basically to add 3 signals, then get a good and bad build

let me do the first and do screenshots

[chilly kraken]

sounds good

[tropic stratus]

can I use n64 as well? it builds faster

or what is your experience?

[chilly kraken]

I think N64 might be easier because we don't have to be as picky about builds

since none meet timing

but I dunno if that dirties the results at all

[tropic stratus]

for these tests timing closure is not important

so psx without timing closure would be perfectly fine. We don't want a release, just compare good scaler vs bad scaler behavior

[chilly kraken]

then it's a wash, whatever builds faster for you. I seem to remember them being similar

[manic citrus]

any idea if the saturn gets these scaler issues?

I'm just trying to figure out why these cores seem more prone, and the only thing I can think of is they probably use ddr3 more than other cores

[chilly kraken]

Saturn had a different scaler issue when the timing was bad once that I can recall. But no graphical corruption I don't think - it just flipped out when you had adjust=0 enabled

[tropic stratus]

great, so I built some n64 core without scaler issues and signaltap inside. Now lets see how many builds it takes to get one with issues

[manic citrus]

adding signaltap fixes the bug, ship it

[tropic stratus]

i wouldn't be surprised if watching the signals in question shifts timing so far that it never happens

that would also kind of prove it? 🙈

[chilly kraken]

this is like the double slit experiment

[tropic stratus]

i think my 13900k is finally degrading, multicore build crashed for the 3rd time. Only had that with the new GBA core before.
Will have to build with single core only...more like the design space explorer experience!

at least a good excuse for a new CPU. If only there would be faster ones available

[waxen elk]

I've been eyeing those AMD AI CPUs lately, sadly very pricey

[tropic stratus]

wonderful, second build has the scaler issue

[chilly kraken]

nice!

@woeful parcel I haven't forgotten about you

[woeful parcel]

Thanks! You’re awesome.

[frail storm]

I am also seeing scaler issues on my builds of the ao486 core (as I do tests for trying to find incompatibilities with Humply's latest developments on the core, he asked me to do so).
Are that kind of problems on the cores caused by them being too big? Is there a recipe to get proper builds?

[tropic stratus]

So when writing to DDR3, the data is still good:
upper image is with "scaler bug" as can be seen, lower without. Both write the same data to DDR3: a bunch of white pixels followed by red pixels. Upper image has some line in it, but this is not in the data.
What i probe here is the vbuf port in sysmem coming from ascal: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Template_MiSTer/blob/master/sys/sysmem.sv#L33-L42

Of course I was stupid and should have probed the read port as well to be sure the data is still good after coming out of the DDR3. Well then, maybe tomorrow.

if the issue is in the source image on screenshots, doesn't that prove already that issue happens before reading it back with the scaler?

[manic citrus]

yeah. main just directly pulls the screenshots out of ddr3

[tropic stratus]

then the issue must happen somewhere in sysmem.sv?

this is just weird, because the file wasn't changed for 4 years and the issue is much newer

[manic citrus]

you said you feel like it started around spring of last year, right?

[tropic stratus]

yes, i have never seen it with n64 core development, but constantly when doing releases afterwards

I didn't update the framework constantly during development, so most was with some old (early 2023), then i updated in december 2023

[manic citrus]

it started happening when you updated in december?

[tropic stratus]

I don't know anymore, that's when i updated my private dev repo. The official repo is starting april 2024

As i did quite a bit of test cores still after dec 2023, i assume that was still fine, but can't say for sure