Location of BIOS files

[captain_cutlery]

Hi Guys,

Whereabouts do you put your BIOS files? plus I am wondering if anyone knows the supported format for the PSX roms?

[deerwings]

Currently, the BIOS files need to be located under the appropriate core.

Formats that should work: .img .IMG .7z .7Z .pbp .PBP .cue .CUE .iso .ISO

I confirm that .pbp works (But only single-disc games work right now) as well as .iso.

Also you may need to update your es_systems.cfg file as per here: viewtopic.php?f=195&t=37661

*Edit - crashoverride is correct below, the emulator will tell you what file and where it needs to go.

[crashoverride]

Whereabouts do you put your BIOS files?

If using the reference image, a message will be displayed when using an emulator indicating where a BIOS file should be and what it should be named. The locations vary by emulator and reside in the /opt folder.

I am wondering if anyone knows the supported format for the PSX roms?

The default configuration expects .cue (and associated .bin) files.

[cplr]

Is this true for mGBA? I'm am unable to save a game's memory state to disk (like if you save your game in Pokemon for example), which I understand is the emulator not able to find the GBA BIOS. However, there is no message displayed that says anything about trying to find a missing file. I tried putting the bios in every mgba folder I could find, but alas none of this worked.

Any idea on GBA bios location? Maybe I have it named wrong (gba_bios.bin)?

[crashoverride]

I'm am unable to save a game's memory state to disk (like if you save your game in Pokemon for example), which I understand is the emulator not able to find the GBA BIOS.

The version of mGBA used in the reference image is here:
https://github.com/OtherCrashOverride/mgba-libretro-go2

It is a modified version of the libretro port that does not actually use libretro at all. It currently does not use any BIOS files either. Different images use different versions of mGBA so its very important to clarify which image you are using when reporting a problem. There is no known issue with save states for mGBA in the reference image at this time.

[cplr]

I'm am unable to save a game's memory state to disk (like if you save your game in Pokemon for example), which I understand is the emulator not able to find the GBA BIOS.

The version of mGBA used in the reference image is here:
https://github.com/OtherCrashOverride/mgba-libretro-go2

It is a modified version of the libretro port that does not actually use libretro at all. It currently does not use any BIOS files either. Different images use different versions of mGBA so its very important to clarify which image you are using when reporting a problem. There is no known issue with save states for mGBA in the reference image at this time.

Right, sorry for not providing more info. This is an issue on both stock and TheRA. I'm not talking about save states - indeed those work perfectly. I am talking about the battery saves, like when the game itself saves to the card. This typically creates a second file (not a .sav), usually with a file extension of .srm, etc.

These secondary files are not getting created with Stock or TheRA. According to mGBA forum, this happens when there is no BIOS, but I see how in the readme it does sound like it shouldn't need one.. hmm...

[crashoverride]

I am talking about the battery saves, like when the game itself saves to the card.

Can you post a step by step or a link to a video showing how to reproduce the issue?

[cplr]

I am talking about the battery saves, like when the game itself saves to the card.

Can you post a step by step or a link to a video showing how to reproduce the issue?

1. Load Stock or TheRA image
2. Run Pokémon - Leaf Green for GBA
3. Get far enough into the game where you can save
4. Press start to open the game's menu
5. Save game
6. Exit the emulator
7. Turn off the device
8. Mount SD card on linux
9. run

Code: Select all

find / -iname "*pokemon*"

results:
you see the .gba rom and also the auto save-state .sav file in the home directory. But there is no "battery save" file on the filesystem. There should be one.

[crashoverride]

3. Get far enough into the game where you can save

This is the part that needs to be explained. Is there a playthrough on youtube showing this?

[cplr]

You don't need a playthrough, you just need to start the game and it writes to the battery save before you even do anything.. but to confirm it's working you need to:

1. Start New Game
2. Name your character
3. When you are in your starting room press start, and choose save game.

Only takes a minute. But I might know what's going on here! I just download the desktop version of mGBA to test the behavior, and it's writing the battery save (indeed - without pointing it at a BIOS) as a ".sav" file. This is the same filename used for the automatic save states. So I think what's happening is that the auto save states are overwriting the battery saves!

In the case of Pokemon - LeafGreen for GBA, you can tell the difference by the file size. The battery saves are always going to be around 128KB in size - no matter what. And the emulator save states were around 500KB on the OGA (although for some reason, on the desktop version the emu save states are only 23KB - these vary in sizes as the method for serializing the game state differs between versions).

[crashoverride]

You don't need a playthrough, you just need to start the game and it writes to the battery save before you even do anything.. but to confirm it's working you need to:

I am not able to reproduce the issue. Using Pokemon - Leaf Green for GBA, I started the game. I named the character. I then exited (F1) and shutdown (power button). After restarting, I re-entered the game. I attempted to save the game again and it asked me to confirm since there was already a save. The correct name for character was also retained.

[cplr]

You don't need a playthrough, you just need to start the game and it writes to the battery save before you even do anything.. but to confirm it's working you need to:

I am not able to reproduce the issue. Using Pokemon - Leaf Green for GBA, I started the game. I named the character. I then exited (F1) and shutdown (power button). After restarting, I re-entered the game. I attempted to save the game again and it asked me to confirm since there was already a save. The correct name for character was also retained.

Did you delete the automatic save state that is saved by the stock firmware to confirm it's not using that, but is instead loading from the game "battery save"? If you notice in my original steps I do say you need to investigate the file system. You are skipping some steps here. I am guessing you experienced automatic loading of the emulator save state and not the battery save. I feel like we are having a failure to communicate.

The problem is that emulator save states are not always portable from device to device, emulator to emulator, etc. However battery saves are, as they are just a raw serialization of the internal game's flash. Which is different than the emulator save state - which is dependent not just on the emulator used, but even the build (like I said if you get the mGBA desktop build, a save state is only 23KB for this game, whereas it's about 500KB on the mGBA build for OGA, Stock firmware - same concept but it's saved to disk differently and is not compatible between emulator versions).

There should be two files on the filesystem. The battery save and the emulator save. There is only one with Stock firmware, and I believe it is because the emulator save state is overwriting the battery save state because it has the same filename - which they shouldn't.

[crashoverride]

I feel like we are having a failure to communicate.

I misunderstood. I though it was an issue report: game saves are incomplete. Instead, its a feature request: create a separate SRAM save file.

[cplr]

Right, SRAM. Maybe if I used the right terminology it would have been clearer .