NeoGensPlusGX on OG Xbox - Sega CD saves?

[derFunkenstein]

Hey guys,

 

I'm getting into emulation for at least optical disc-based systems that are very old like the SegaCD. I've got a soft-modded original Xbox with NeoGensPlusGX installed (latest 1.08) and I can't get it to save Sega CD games. Long story short, the BIOS formats both the console and the cart just fine, and Shining Force CD claims to save (using Genesis Plus GX core) but when I quit and go back, there's no save game. I see .brm and .srm files on the E drive so the files are getting created.

 

I'm using a BIN+CUE dump and everything with the game works fine including CDDA. It's just saving that's not working. I don't even know that I have any other Sega CD games to test saves with (I don't think any of my others have save functionality). I also tried the original disc. That creates a different folder on the E drive and a different set of save files, but the same result - no save.

 

Is this a bug in my setup? A bug in the emulator? Cart based games save fine (like Sonic 3 and Knuckles).

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

Edited September 21, 2017 by derFunkenstein

[Shannon]

Hmmm.. sounds like it might be a bug in the emulator. Can a save game in Shining Force CD be created fairly quickly for testing? If not could you send me the .brm and .srm files? I'll take a look at it. Should be fairly easy to fix. Eke made several changes to the CD handling code over time so it is possible the bram and sram loading got b0rked somewhere along the way.

[Shannon]

OK. I managed to fix the issue.. it was saving the SRAM and BRAM but not loading them. Probably due to an oversight when updating the cores. I also noticed a typo? That was causing CD games to fail on load. I'm not sure what type of image you were using. Maybe you selected one that didn't hit that little bug. Non the less both are fixed.

 

Later on when I get a chance I'll recompile and update the version and upload the fixed version to emuxtras.net

[derFunkenstein]

Dude, you're awesome. I didn't see your response until just now, but I totally could have done that. I can still if you need me to.

 

The specific image I was using is the Darkwater release. I have the game but never was able to make a proper image for some reason.

Edited September 22, 2017 by derFunkenstein

[Shannon]

Hey... no problem. I just know some of the RPG games can run you through tons of dialog before they actually do the save. So I just took a chance and luckily it did not take too long.

 

You can find the update here... http://www.emuxtras.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=4958 in the first post look for the NeoGensPlusGX_v1b09_XBE_only.zip attachment.

 

Yeah Darkwater releases are pretty decent. I'm glad I added support for them. Although I typically use REDUMP.

[derFunkenstein]

Ah, your release notes have the other thing that I noticed - that I had to pick the BIN file for some games (CDDA still worked, but picking the CUE file crashed the system from time to time).

 

I've downloaded and FTP'd it to my Xbox. I'll report back with results in a bit.

[derFunkenstein]

A quick test was good. I got to the first save point again (guessing that since I started the game and saw nothing when I quit last night, it erased my game again) and saved. Quit the emu and went back in and now the cart shows the data! Also I can load the CUE file (the files were showing in reverse alphabetical order before, where the CUE was listed first...now it's listed second in that folder) and the game started as expected.

 

So just confirming everything you wrote on EmuXtras - it passes my QA, anyway. I'll be playing a lot more Shining Force over the weekend now.

 

Thanks again for the response and quick turnaround. I know these are a "spare time" kind of thing for most emulation authors, so I really appreciate your contributions.

Edited September 23, 2017 by derFunkenstein

[Shannon]

You welcome. No problem.. yes "spare time" can be an issue from time to time. In the near future I may not have a whole lot of "spare time" to work on the emus... or I may end up having more than I need...

 

That filename switching thing is a glitch resulting from my altered sorting code.. something I need to get around to fixing because it can be confusing. Believe it or not the sorting code is rather extensive. It only affects games with duplicate names and different extensions (not common except with cd images). It can usually be worked around by using the filename filters but is hard to do with CD images unless you have all ".cue" files.

[Jess Ragan]

I've got an Xbox with a ton of emulators on it... maybe I should look into this.

 

By the way, anyone know how I can force pixel perfect displays with the emulators I've already got? MAMEdOX in particular is frustrating, because while you can choose point filtering, it screws up the pixel size, making them uneven. Final Burn Legends is pretty bad about this too.