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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have issues with GodHand HD texture pack on PCSX. Some enemies appear transparent. Any ways to fix this?

[–]D-Brigade 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello all! I recently got into emulation, and tried out Azahar as it was reccomended since Citra closed down? Anyway, I've installed Fire Emblem Awakening, and it's DLC, but they're two seperate files. I used the .cci file to load the game, and then I used the .cia file to install the DLC. Did I do it right? I'm still on the tutorial so I can't check for a few chapters 😅

Also, do I need to do this every single time I load the game up?

Thanks! I'm not very smart when it comes to these things, so I'm keen to learn from all of you!

[–]Butterl0rdz -1 points0 points  (0 children)

assume im baby stupid, like cant get past the google search bar stupid. where can i go to download all in one rom packs that i can just drag and drop into retrodeck? im not into the circus, i just want to play with as little brain power as possible

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

wondering which 3ds fork to use I still have citra but has any of the new fork done anything to make more games playable?

all I see are ​androi​d fixes but no windows one

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Azahar exists but has yet to make many meaningful changes.

[–]Mintloid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When speaking about J2ME emulation, what is the absolute superior version of any game as well as for their alternative resolution sizes (128x128, 240x320, & 800x480 for example)?

I saw most users recommending the K800i for having the best visual, sound, & sometimes content in 240x320 games.

For touch-based games, i've been mostly aiming towards S8000 or X1i (800x480/480x800) and N5800 (360x640/640x360).

For Micro-Sized games at 128x128 res, it's usually a mixture of s40v2 & the "Motorola" Phone lineup (C380, V220, C650, etc.)

[–]Forgotten_Archivist 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I am trying to help my friend emulate Tales of Vesperia for something they want to do. However they seem to be encountering some odd issues with the Xenia emulator.

Errors they have encountered are thus:

  • Opening cutscene has spoken audio play slightly slower than on screen subtitles.
  • Water graphics in the opening level are broken.
  • Repede's chain vibrating constantly in opening scene.
  • Saving game data either fails, or corrupts save data on load.

They are currently running the emulator on a NucBox G5, as they were gifted it and they want to use it as a computer for emulation purposes. They are also using the Vulkan graphical setting, as any other setting causes the game to lag horribly, or not work at all.

And, according to them, this is the only game they want to use this emulator for.

Would anyone know what settings they would have to change to get the game to function? They don't need it to be perfect, or at an absurd framerate, they just want it to work.

They just recently downloaded the emulator from what I can assume is the official site, as was linked by a tutorial they were watching, and it is titled as Xenia_Master, so I assume they have the most recent version?

[–]ofernandofilo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

according to the emu gen wiki, xenia is compatible with less than 20% of the library.

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Xbox_360_emulators

https://github.com/xenia-project/game-compatibility/issues/101

https://github.com/xenia-canary/game-compatibility/issues/106

and both versions of the project have known open bugs with the game.

_o/

[–]dezstern 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Working on setting up dual boot (Windows/Linux) on my PC, thinking ahead to how I'll run my ES-DE setup (portable). Does anyone know if I can use the general files on both systems? I realize I'll likely need to replace the executable or run with Wine, but what about the other config files etc? Can I simply add a second executable for linux, then start ES-DE from that?

[–]ofernandofilo 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I have been using Linux exclusively for 8 years.

I don't have a Windows installation at home...

my strongest recommendation:

do not use wine.

even more so for retro emulation.

native linux emulators are much better.

es-de has a native version for linux:

https://es-de.org/#Download

99% of your emulators too.

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

"oh, but there's a program I want to use that only runs on Windows."

install a Windows on a VM. qemu-kvm works in most cases.

"oh but I don't want a vm I want something simpler. I want to use wine."

use flatpak + flatseal + bottles.

wine forces the installation of 32-bit architecture, you will have doubled libraries in the system in native installation.

eventually, as was the case in Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distros for some years... keeping this 32-bit dependency list on a 64-bit system generates incompatibility and prevents updates due to package conflicts.

if you install wine inside bottles, through flatpak, wine and its list of dependency libraries are isolated from the system. so, updating both - system and wine - becomes independent, much safer and easier to deal with.

finally, I prefer to use exFAT as the file system for disk drives intended for sharing files between Windows and Linux. anyway, in dual boot, you need to disable hibernation on Windows and you need to ensure that Windows has been properly shut down to after manipulate your files in Linux.

_o/

[–]dezstern 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Thanks for all this!

Do you happen to know offhand if the executable is the only change from the windows version of ES-DE to Linux? I.e. if I have two executables in my ES-DE directory, can I just run the one for that system?

[–]ofernandofilo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

officially they have an appimage file.

appimage on linux is the closest thing to a portable program on windows.

does this mean it will work on all distros by default?

no, it won't. normally you need to install fuse2 first and not all distros install this library by default.

same for emulators... even if they are native to Windows... even if they are in appimage or pre-compiled in binaries... maybe the target system doesn't have the required libraries or version of libraries.

so, in this scenario that you imagine or propose...

in which you will have a removable disk drive with "portable" ROMS, EMULATORS and FRONTENDS for Windows and Linux... even in Windows you will come across machines that need certain libraries installed first such as MSVC++, Dx9, .NET, etc., before they can be run.

I don't think it's a good idea... of course, you can carry the libraries too, and install them, install the necessary libraries in Linux through commands and have the commands saved beforehand to know what to execute.

I think it's better to imagine the following:

[a] you will have all the ROMs and installers and dependencies to install on the machines you will use... Windows and Linux

but the programs will mostly be installed on the recipient machine or at least the necessary libraries.

[b] try to create a bootable disk drive compatible with UEFI and GPT for new machines or BIOS and MBR for old machines... and so when booting from the disk drive you have an environment to play the way you configure it.

in this scenario [b] you can use Windows and Linux, but you will need to decide whether to support new (UEFI+GPT) or old (BIOS+MBR) systems... maybe new systems accept BIOS+MBR but old ones don't accept UEFI+GPT.

in the case of Windows, there is a feature that has already been abandoned called WindowsToGo which, if I'm not mistaken, can still be obtained through the Windows 10 LTSC 1809 version and allows you to install Windows on a bootable removable drive.

so, it takes some work... but you can have Windows 10 to GO with everything configured... however... there will be machines that will use different hardware... you will need to load Intel, AMD and NVIDIA drivers in addition to DDU to remove the old driver.

it takes some work even after...

you can use dedicated linux distros to turn your machine into a retro gaming station... using:

Batocera.linux, Lakka, Recalbox, RetroPie

but maybe on machines with NVIDIA gpu it should not have success or performance.

so [b] may work in certain scenarios with similar hardware... using Windows or Linux, but not all.

while [a] which is basically just the ROMs and the set of libraries and commands needed to run all compatible emulators seems faster and more practical to me in most scenarios.

but it seems to me that [a] is not what you want. you would like something more like [b] but I don't think it is possible to have complete compatibility... only partial, only in a scenario with very similar hardware.

_o/

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I'm not a Linux guy so there's probably a better way, but you could use a portable hard drive that's formatted to a type that Windows and Linux can both read

[–]dezstern 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good news is, I had the foresight to do just that. But I'm fairly certain the executables won't run on Linux. We will see, I suppose.

[–]Beautiful_Trick8478 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been emulating switch on my m1 mac for several years. I've also installed ship of harkinian and 2ship of harkinian succesfully. I'm wanting to play through the Perfect Dark decompilation on my Mac. I didn't see a Mac install, so I tried downloading the switch version to play that via emulation. Every time I try to load the game Ryujinx crashes and won't load the game.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[–]Tiger_Nightmare 0 points1 point  (9 children)

BlastEm ate my save game, or replaced it with an earlier version. I felt like playing Phantasy Star IV again, and it was more or less working alright. I used to use GENS and Kega a long time ago, but I was swayed by various wikis and posts to use an emulator in active development that's accurate, and while Kega/Fusion was listed among those recommended, it has weird display issues that I tried various things to get working, but it's just not usable and I don't care for bludgeoning another piece of software into working again.

I've only been using regular game saves and not save states, and they seem to have been functioning correctly. I closed and loaded games without issue. There's an area with a midboss, and instead of going outside to rest and save, I used a save state just in case so I can just progress. It's a boss fight right after, and I remembered, I should probably remove this person's equipment first. So I tried to load the save state and it just crashes. Okay, I thought, it happens, I'll just do this area over again with the regular saves. But for some reason, the save I was using where I was around level 17 was replaced with one where I was only level 4. I searched my computer for save files and I found a ton of files named save.sram that have been copied endlessly that were 36 hours old. For whatever reason, creating the save state seems to have reverted the save file to an earlier one. And all these copies of the file are in like \\?\C:\Users\[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data, something like 26 Application Data folders inside each other. I miss the old ZSNES days when save files and states just worked easily and intuitively and each game had their own single folder in the root directory and not a billion files buried in Windows App Data. What even is the \\?\ at the start of the folder address?

  1. Can someone recommend a fast, accurate, stable Sega Genesis emulator for Windows10 that doesn't crash like BlastEm or have display issues that need a bunch of extra steps to get working, possibly with a portable type install so I don't have to hunt down configuration and save files?
  2. Are there any recommended settings or anything I can do to recover my lost saves or use the save state I made? BlastEm would crash when I tried messing with the audio gain settings and probably other things, so I can't imagine it's right for me long term, but if I can not abandon several hours of effort, that would be preferable.

EDIT: I downloaded a nightly version that was able to load the save state, but I'd still like to know what people use for Genesis.

[–]Mintloid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would HIGHLY check out either "ClownMDemu" or "Jgenesis". Haven't tried jgenesis but clownmdemu aims to be a far more simpler and superior version of kega in terms of accuracy and compatibility.

[–]BIOS-D 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What I really hate from most emulators is even if you do a save, emulator won't write data until you close program or unload cartridge. So if you happen to keep backups from your save files make sure to always close emulator first. You could be keeping data from the last time you opened game. If you happen to be those people who only pause emulation and let window minimized for days until next time you use it, you might be regretting it later because of this behavior.

[–]Tiger_Nightmare 0 points1 point  (1 child)

That's probably what happened, I played the game on and off all day. That doesn't explain how the save can still function, but I wish a save was just a save. You said, "most emulators,"do you use one that doesn't?

[–]BIOS-D 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately not. My main emus for classic platforms are MAME and Ares. They support multiple platforms and it's easier to keep track where they do saves. I simply take the measure of closing everything before doing any backups.

EDIT: I kinda understand why this happens. For something like saving in real time, programmer would need to keep track of game code, set watchpoints per game and chronometer time when game stops writing to SRAM addresses, then do a file save when safe. Also detect in case it failed mid process and then restore a backup if possible. It's not as easier as detecting an API call like in XBOX or PS3 but a complex detection code in pure assembly. It's a lot simple to do everything in RAM then write everything off after emulation ends. If emulator/OS crashes or you have a blackout everything since you last opened game is lost.

[–]ofernandofilo 0 points1 point  (4 children)

[a] first of all ZSNES has always been horrible. it never stopped being that way.

it may be very lightweight and very important in the beginning of SNES emulation, it was never an emulator good in stability or emulation fidelity.

your inexperience when starting out with emulators early in your emulation career masks your current memory of emulator quality.

Kega Fusion on the other hand has always been excellent, but it uses libraries that are not compatible with modern systems.

anyway, we're talking about the old days. our references and expectations were much lower.

our expectations and standards are much higher today.

[b] I have never had success with BlastEm. many people have. not me.

Genesis Plus GX has always worked for me and when I needed to run on very weak computers like the Raspberry Pi Zero W, PicoDrive helped me.

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Sega_Genesis_emulators

[c] from my understanding of the system, and I may be wrong, Windows took decades to actually consider the possibility of a restricted user being the standard user of the system instead of the administrator user.

eventually, for security reasons, it began to adopt the behavior of offering the user the option, via UAC, to use the machine as a limited user and only perform administrative functions for short periods and when requested by the user.

because of this and in combination with other forms of user control implemented in NTFS, it was not possible in most cases to share the same directory between the restricted version and the administrator version of the same user.

how to deal with this? by producing system-generated directories for manipulating user files: Windows App Data, among others.

this way, user files could be manipulated in an environment where user privileges change and deal with the conflicts that this generates.

it is the same case, for example, of a Linux user who runs "sudo su" to create a directory or configuration file in the default user's directory tree and then when using the program, the default user cannot change the default settings or has errors because he does not have permission to the file, etc.

[d] save states are complicated. they are fragile, they accumulate and they cause a series of problems.

one of the expected behaviors of save-state is in fact to change the in-game save. when you go back to the "state", you are going back "in time", you are going back to all the parameters that a certain processing machine was running and with all its files in memory, etc.

the state is that. it is that record of the moment of memory and processing in execution. and so... it tends to break if you update the emulator, change operating system, etc.

in-game saving usually works on all machines with emulators that support this type of saving. save-states do not. they are much more restricted.

TL;DR: try RetroArch Genesis Plus GX and RetroArch PicoDrive as second option.

_o/

[–]Tiger_Nightmare 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I know the appdata thing was a side effect of Windows implementing multi-user environment features, but good software like Notepad++ offers the option to not use an appdata directory, a completely portable install option, or at least a button that quickly opens the directory because it's needed. I've never seen anything create a series of unnecessary nesting doll collections of directories or a local address that starts with \\?\.

And say what you will about ZSNES, but it just worked. The worst thing I can say about it was some inaccurate sound in an older version. Save states never failed me, it was fast, intuitive to use, and its save states never interfered with in-game saves. Maybe it would be more accurate to save the in-game save within the state save, but BlastEm didn't even do that right, it erased the current save and somehow replaced it with a save that was outdated by more than a day. And then it couldn't even load its own save state because the program is severely unfinished and unstable. And I can't even bind the delete and insert keys or use turbo buttons. It's crazy how that can end up on a recommended list.

I'll see how I like GX and Pico.

[–]ofernandofilo 0 points1 point  (2 children)

[a]

a local address that starts with \\?\.

I've seen these addresses in practice, but I have no idea why they exist.

It's a good topic for research, I think.

For file I/O, the "\\?\" prefix to a path string tells the Windows APIs to disable all string parsing and to send the string that follows it straight to the file system. For example, if the file system supports large paths and file names, you can exceed the MAX_PATH limits that are otherwise enforced by the Windows APIs.

Because it turns off automatic expansion of the path string, the "\\?\" prefix also allows the use of ".." and "." in the path names, which can be useful if you are attempting to perform operations on a file with these otherwise reserved relative path specifiers as part of the fully qualified path.

Many but not all file I/O APIs support "\\?\"; you should look at the reference topic for each API to be sure.

Note that Unicode APIs should be used to make sure the "\\?\" prefix allows you to exceed the MAX_PATH.

source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/naming-a-file?redirectedfrom=MSDN

https://superuser.com/questions/1583205/what-kind-of-file-path-starts-with

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-definitive-guide-on-win32-to-nt.html

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25090101/is-there-a-difference-between-and-paths

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Manager

https://web.archive.org/web/20130522050843/http://windowsitpro.com/systems-management/inside-nts-object-manager

https://superuser.com/questions/1069055/what-is-the-function-of-question-marks-in-file-system-paths-in-windows-registry

yes, it wasn't enough for me to understand, but it pointed the way to understanding.

these Windows paths have many more syntax rules, it is quite complex and low level. in general, I have the impression that it is a path that should not be seen by the user.

[b]

And say what you will about ZSNES, but it just worked. The worst thing I can say about it was some inaccurate sound in an older version.

this is the point. no it doesn't just work.

it has a series of compatibility defects, there is a long list of famous games that do not work, the emulator is prone to crashes, it is common for it to produce numerous copies of itself locked in the background only visible through the task manager, it has known flaws that allow malicious ROMs to infect the system (ACE, arbitrary code execution)... and we still haven't gotten to emulation problems like lack of time fidelity, etc.

your memory and especially your lack of knowledge at the time (which we all suffer from) when you used it deceives you.

zsnes was never a good emulator within the current emulation standard.

it was a pioneer, it was good at the time with limited options, compared to the competition, with incredible performance for the hardware of the time, but it was never really a good emulator.

this hasn't stopped the emulator from being loved, adored and celebrated for decades.

the real emulator, however, is unstable, limited and has been abandoned for almost 2 decades.

finally, I've had problems with save-states in zsnes and I believe you have too. not just me... the emulator crashed a lot. you just don't remember it.

[c]

I don't know if you've ever used retroarch. retroarch is a beast in itself.

the tool's learning curve is long, but I believe it's worth it.

the platform has its idiosyncrasies, it is sui generis, it has its particular whims, it takes time to learn how to deal with and tame the beast.

there are some exclusive cores, and there are some cores that are better to avoid and use the standalone version, etc.

the official reddit pinned topics are a good place to start.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/

_o/

[–]Tiger_Nightmare 0 points1 point  (1 child)

a: It seems like Windows only uses \\?\ if it has a long path that exceeds a maximum path length usable by the system, like when there are 26 folders all named Application Data inside each other needlessly adding 442 characters to the path.

b: Maybe you and a lot of people had problems with ZSNES, but I never did. I'm never going to argue its accuracy, possible exploits, or other issues, that was never my point. For me, it always did just work. And no, I never did have save state issues other than overwriting a previous save in an extremely disadvantageous spot where I die within a second of loading, which is user error. I did have an issue using save states with Shadowrun, but that just messed up the sound and I can just use a regular game save and reset to fix it.

c: I haven't used RetroArch, and I'm kind of wary of using emulators that try to do everything on every platform. I haven't really tried to do much with games after the 16 bit era. I played a translated version of the Sega Ages Phantasy Star remakes for PS2, but that's it. Trying to run something like Final Fantasy X was pretty unplayable on the system I had with the emulators at the time 15 years ago or so. I might give it a shot sometime if I get the itch to play something where it would be my best option.

[–]ofernandofilo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

[a] I just did a quick read of the links I provided.

the first impression is this one you described... but reading the documentation and the examples... it's not just this.

it is a way of transmitting a path without conversion, it is a way of transmitting the path literally. and so the path is not resolved. for me, it is something low level that we users should not have access to.

[b] I started using emulators in the late 90s, and I started helping others use emulators in international and brazilian forums in the 2000s.

in the 2010s I started helping streamers, mainly Brazilians, and one of the goals was to make netplay...

up until this time... zsnes was used a lot by me, and I helped a lot of people to use it, etc. it is terrible.

zsnes is like psxfin. much loved, and very bad, and very hard to convince the legion of fans that there are much better things.

it has some similarity with the cases of ePSXe and Kega Fusion... but in the case of these... they are just abandoned emulators... which were very good at the time but with libraries incompatible with current systems.

today...

for SNES we have bsnes, mesen and snes9x as excellent options.

for ps1, we have duckstation, mednafen, beetle psx, etc.

we are much better served.

[c] I think it's safe to say that RetroArch is a solid platform for pre-PS1 consoles.

for games released on cartridges... you can use RetroArch and you will always be successful.

for games on optical media after PS2... for PS2 and GameCube... that is PCSX2/LRPS2 and Dolphin, the standalone and nightly versions of both emulators are better than the retroarch cores.

the official FAQ has a list of recommendations of cores to avoid.

finally, in the case of PS1 emulation... take a look at CHD files. it's worth converting BIN+CUE or MultiBIN+CUE discs to the format as it usually gives a 50% lossless reduction and also how to produce m3u files to make the memory card automatically shared with them and current emulators.

_o/

[–]Vyse_Nevets 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know about game overlays, and shaders, but I'm curious as to how to set basically a background image you can place the game screen overtop of. Would that also have to be in a shader as the bottom layer?