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Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Fri 7 Sep 2018 22:37
by txcforever
Slowly but surely I really got the hang of the device. Especially after fixing the assembly mistake with the d-pad everything is almost perfect (the buttons are a bit too loud for my tastes but this is just nitpicking).

Anyway, I got almost every emulator running with no issues, from MAME to SNES but I am kinda stuck with the Dreamcast emulator. For some reason after the initial booting screen when you are sent to the bios to fix the time, only the d-pad works. I can move along the given settings, but not a single button seems to be working, not even the start/select combination to send me back to the main screen. I tried changing the input config via the Retropie setup, but for some reason a message appears saying that I don't have access to modify the controls of reincast.

I could probably just modify the .cfg file, but I'm not sure how the emulator reads Retrostone's controls.

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Sat 8 Sep 2018 11:59
by Peppuccio
Yes i know i did the same problem with Retropie on raspberry, i hpe this video will help you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHJGcABUG0Q&t=546s

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Sat 8 Sep 2018 12:36
by txcforever
I tried to do that through the retropie setup and that's where an error screen pops up telling me more or less that I had no rights to open the joyconfig (or something like that).

I will try doing it again after I reflash the OS again, now that I now how every emulator works I will do everything from scratch.

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Sun 9 Sep 2018 22:52
by Jackamikaz
I think somehow the retrorangepi team got the controls wrong.
Open config/dreamcast/mappings/controller_RetroStoneControle.cfg
And replace the content of the file with this :

Code: Select all

[emulator]
mapping_name = RetroStone Controle
btn_escape = 314

[dreamcast]
btn_a = 304
btn_b = 305
btn_c =
btn_d =
btn_x = 307
btn_y = 308
btn_z =
btn_start = 315
btn_dpad1_left =
btn_dpad1_right =
btn_dpad1_up =
btn_dpad1_down =
btn_dpad2_left =
btn_dpad2_right =
btn_dpad2_up =
btn_dpad2_down =
axis_x = 0
axis_y = 1
axis_trigger_left =
axis_trigger_right =

[compat]
btn_trigger_left = 310
btn_trigger_right = 311
axis_dpad1_x =
axis_dpad1_y =
axis_dpad2_x =
axis_dpad2_y =
axis_x_inverted = no
axis_y_inverted = no
axis_trigger_left_inverted =
axis_trigger_right_inverted =

Now the buttons should work. Note that I recently re-flashed my SD-card with the newest release of the OS (5/09 I think), before that I couldn't even start anything.
And if for some obscure reason it still doesn't work, maybe your buttons don't have the same numbers too. In that case go to the process I went through :
- Quit emulationstation, you'll be brought to the terminal.
- Type "evtest", enter
- choose "Retrostone Controle" (most likely 5)
- press the buttons on your console, note down the numbers and the buttons associated
- ctrl + C to exit the button testing
- open controller_RetroStoneControle.cfg and replace the numbers by the ones you found

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Tue 11 Sep 2018 23:19
by txcforever
Thanks for the reply man. It kinda worked, but needs a bit of tinkering. The first issue was that the .cfg you mentioned wasn't even there, so I had to create it from scratch. From there though I still had a bit of an issue. Dpad and the buttons seemed to work in the bios, but in game (tried Virtua Striker 2) Dpad wasn't working at all and also only two buttons seemed to do anything. But you gave me the foundations to fix the issue myself and hopefully play (decently) VS2 on the go :)

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Mon 17 Sep 2018 12:34
by RescueGamer
Hi guys,

I tried all you said on this post, but I can't pass the bios screen, since I'm not able to press the accept button once I set the date and time. I already tested the buttons codes, but are the same you writed on the cfg file, so should be ok.

The only thing I could missed is the cfg location, I didn't found a "config" folder, I only found this one "/opt/retropie/configs/dreamcast/mapping", I suppose is correct right? (I'm on the latest retrorangepi full build from september 5th)

The cfg didn't existed so I created myself also.

Any ideas?

EDIT: SOLVED!! I just renamed the cfg file from "controller_RetroStoneControle.cfg" to "controller_RetroStoneController.cfg", and also replaced the line "mapping_name = RetroStone Controle" by "mapping_name = RetroStone Controller", and it worked :)
Now I'm able to play, and it runs pretty well indeed. I already played Soul Calibur, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Grandia 2, but now I realized my memory cards get corrupted/deleted each time I exit the game. I need to test it again, but in Grandia 2 I saved the game (first time told me there was no space and card not formatted), when I enter the game again my saved game didn't appeared and told me againg about the space and format on the memory card. I will let you know if I solve it

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Mon 17 Sep 2018 19:36
by Jackamikaz
RescueGamer wrote: Mon 17 Sep 2018 12:34 Now I'm able to play, and it runs pretty well indeed. I already played Soul Calibur, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Grandia 2, but now I realized my memory cards get corrupted/deleted each time I exit the game. I need to test it again, but in Grandia 2 I saved the game (first time told me there was no space and card not formatted), when I enter the game again my saved game didn't appeared and told me againg about the space and format on the memory card. I will let you know if I solve it
I have some kind of issue like this too, I was able to play Sonic Adventure 2 once and then I couldn't because it wouldn't detect my memory cards. I didn't dig deeper though, nor tried to delete the VMUs.
However when I was stuck on the bios (before finding a solution with the controller config) I saw in several forums accross the internet problems being similar to ours. So the solution must be out there, hopefully it's not related to the retrostone.
I will let everyone know here if I find something when I have the courage to research again (took me several afternoon for the previous problem). Or hope that RescueGamer finds anything before ;)

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Mon 24 Sep 2018 09:22
by RescueGamer
I checked it for a few days. Deleting the vmu's files seems to work for the first time, the time you exit the emulator the vmu files crack again. I searched on the internet, and seems we should launch the bios and format the vmu files from there. But I don't know how to launch the bios, since I'm not able to open any configuration menu for this emulator, even when loading the game and pushing buttons (when the "push a button to configure letter" appears).

So, any ideas on here?

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Tue 25 Sep 2018 21:30
by RescueGamer
Sorry for the repost, but I just found the solution for saving!

You only need to format the vmu by the bios menu. But since there is no button mapping or emu menu to access the bios, you need to execute the dreamcast itself software reboot by pressing A+B+X+Y+START on the title screen of a game and it will open the bios, and from there access to the memory menu and delete all data from both vmu's. After that exit the emulator by pressing SELECT and open again the desired game, now you will be able to save data, and if you exit and open again the game, the save will still be there!

Happy to start my play to Grandia 2 on my RetroStone now, the ingame runs pretty smooth :)

Re: Dreamcast emulation. Stuck on bios

Posted: Thu 18 Oct 2018 08:24
by torofinance
Holy shxx that actually worked:)
A+B+X+Y+START and then erase the memory cards, start game again.
now if only I could start Shenmue 1 / 2